the top of those discouraging
experiences, our army thrown ashore on the Gallipoli Peninsula had,
after suffering very heavy losses, straightway been brought to a
standstill. As regards the Fleet's efforts against the Straits, I
gathered at the time (from Fitzgerald, I think) that in taking an
optimistic view of the project when it was under discussion by the War
Council, Lord K. had been a good deal influenced by recollections of
the bombardment of Alexandria, at which he had been present. The Chief
always claimed to have been led astray by Mr. Churchill concerning the
potentialities of the _Queen Elizabeth_, and had, I should say, come
to the conclusion that the judgement of the then First Lord, with whom
he had been so closely associated for nine months, was not quite
infallible. He cannot but have been aware that his Cabinet colleagues
no longer reposed the implicit trust in his own judgement that they
had accorded him at the outset. All through the summer of 1915 he grew
more and more disposed to listen to the views of the General Staff as
regards questions affecting the general conduct of the war, and, after
Sir A. Murray became C.I.G.S. in October, that institution was almost
occupying its proper position in the consultative sense. It did not
recover its proper position in the executive sense, however, until
Lord K. arranged that Sir W. Robertson should take up charge at the
end of the year.

The question of the _Queen Elizabeth_ cropped up in somewhat acute
form two or three weeks after my conversation with Sir E. Grey which
has been mentioned above. Lord Fisher had, as I knew from himself,
been getting decidedly jumpy about the enemy U-boats, which were
known to be approaching the Aegean, and about the middle of May he
raised the question of fetching away the "_Lizzie_," as Sir I.
Hamilton's troops used to call her, lest evil should befall this, the
most powerful ship in commission at the time. Lord Fisher has referred
to this matter in his book _Memories_. He speaks of great tension
between Lord K. and himself over the business, and he mentions an
interview at the Admiralty at which, according to him, Lord K. got up
from the table and left when he (Lord Fisher) announced that he would
resign unless the battleship was ordered out of that forthwith. Now
there may have been more than one interview at the Admiralty, but I
was present at the conference when the matter was settled, and my
recollection of what occur