actically
forced us into the policy of maintaining a large force about Salonika.
But H.M. Government were placed in a difficult position in the matter,
seeing that their pet project (or at all events the pet project of the
pre-Coalition Government), that of attacking the Dardanelles, had so
completely failed.

One could not altogether escape from the impression at the time that,
in the determined attitude which our friends over the water adopted on
this point, they were at least to some small extent actuated by
anxiety to maroon General Sarrail, who had been sent off in command of
the French troops already despatched, and also to keep him quiet by
investing him with the supreme command in this new theatre of war--as
was later arranged. Why the strong political support enjoyed in
certain French quarters by this prominent, and in the opening days of
the war highly successful, soldier should have been taken so
seriously, it was hard for anybody on our side of the Straits of Dover
to understand. One wonders whether M. Clemenceau might not have been
somewhat less discomposed on the subject had he been at the head of
affairs. But the attitude adopted on the point became extremely
inconvenient at a later date when, after an offensive on a large scale
undertaken on the Salonika front had miscarried completely, owing
largely, if not entirely, to a lamentable lack of co-ordination
between the various contingents engaged, a change in the chief command
did not instantly follow. Unsatisfactory as was the policy of
interning large bodies of British and French troops that were badly
wanted at the decisive point, in a sort of cul-de-sac in the Near
East, it was made all the more unsatisfactory by the way the military
situation was dealt with locally for more than a year and a half.

In view of certain criticisms of the General Staff to which the lack
of information concerning the Gallipoli Peninsula when it was needed
in 1915 has given rise, it is worth mentioning that at my suggestion
General Joffre sent one of his trusted staff-officers over from
Chantilly in November 1915 to put up with us for a few days,
particularly in connection with Macedonian problems. This
representative of the French General Staff was astonished to find that
we possessed numbers of detailed military reports concerning that part
of the world, with full information as to railways and communications,
and he was most complimentary on the subject. "Your England