Item 01: Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett diary, 1915-1917 - Page 51
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[Page 51]
as he would wish his own to be censored under similar circumstances. This was highly satisfactory and I must say that Maxwell kept his bargain all through. Sir Ian Hamilton told me that he would have me informed when any event of importance was going to take place, so that I could be in a position to see it. He added that there would be nothing doing for two or three days.
Sunday May 2nd
I again went on shore and called at the Headquarters of the 29th Division, where I met General Hunter-Weston, who commanded it. He told me that he had previously known. I again went ashore and went over the positions afresh. It is as well at this point to take stock of the position in which the Expedition now found itself. At Anzac the further advance was obviously out of the question for the Australians and New Zealand Corps had as much as they could do to hold on to the ground they had already won. At Cape Helles the 29th Division had lost nearly half its strength in winning the beaches, and the only other troops we had available at this time were the weak naval division, which had also suffered severely, and the French Division, which had met with considerable losses in repulsing the Turkish counter attacks made during the three nights following the landing. We had not gained a single decisive point and it seemed to me that already the Expedition had failed in the sense in which it was started. Namely, it had failed as a minor operation of war, and if there should be any hope of carrying it through successfully, it would have to be by the employment of a very large number of troops, which could be ill-spared from the Western Front.