on has to be shouldered by me just like all the other
results of this new Balkan adventure; the withdrawal of the Irish and
the French for Salonika leaves no margin of rest for what's left.

Inspected also the West Riding Field Company of Royal Engineers under
Major Bayley, and the West Lancashire Field Ambulance.

A long letter from Maxwell putting his point of view about the 51st and
53rd Sikhs. Were we both sealed-pattern Saints we'd be bound to fall
foul of one another working under so perverse a system. He has written
me very nicely; nothing could be nicer. I have replied by return:--

* * * * *

"Yours of 24th just received. As to the wires about the 51st and 53rd
between myself and the War Office, and your remarks thereon, we stand so
much on one platform, and are faced so much by the same difficulties,
that I think it ought to be fairly easy for us to come to an
understanding in most conceivable circumstances, as indeed our
co-operation up to date has shown.

"If Egypt goes, then I shall not last very long. If I am wiped out, I
think it will be the preface to trouble in Egypt.[13]

"As to myself I am 60,000 below strength. I had a cable from the War
Office a day or two ago expressing naive astonishment at this figure. I
replied that the figure was accurate and that there was nothing new
about it as it only denoted the accumulation of a state of things which
had been continuously reported since the very first day when we started
off from England minus the ten per cent. margin of excess given to every
unit going across to France. This is the essential cause of our repeated
failure to make that last little push which just differentiates partial
from conclusive success. In every case this has been so. Had I been able
to throw in my ten per cent. margin on the third day after landing,
there is no doubt in the world we would have got right up on to Achi
Baba. Afterwards, each engagement we fought, although our total numbers
may have been largely increased, the old formations were always at half
strength or something less. However, I won't bother you about this as
your time is too precious to enter into 'might-have-beens' and so is
mine.

"Meantime, my line is very, very thin, and the men are getting entirely
worn out. In the midst of this I am called upon to send away two
Divisions, the French and the Irish, to ---- you know where. I have done
so without a murmur, although it puts