f British
Officers or the good name of the British Rank and File. K. tells
Callwell I should be given the opportunity of making a reply. Not having
read it himself he has not yet grasped the fact that he also should have
been given the opportunity of making a reply to the aspersions upon his
selections. As for me, by the time my answer can get home and can be
printed and circulated the slanders will have had over a month's start
in England and very likely two months' start in Australia, where all who
read them will naturally conclude their statements must have been tested
before ever they were published in that impressive form.

Here we see an irresponsible statement by an ignorant man and I
instinctively feel as if it were being used as one more weapon to force
Asquith's hand and to ruin our last chance. I only hope it may not prove
another case of, "Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth!"

Certain aspects of this affair trouble my understanding. The covering
note (dated 25th September) which encloses the letter to the Prime
Minister of Australia (dated 23rd September) is addressed by Mr. Murdoch
to Mr. Asquith by name. In that covering note Mr. Murdoch says, "I write
with diffidence, and only at Mr. Lloyd George's request." Within three
days (so great the urgency or pressure) Mr. Asquith causes--as he,
President of the Committee of Imperial Defence, alone can cause--the
covering note as well as the seven or eight thousand words of the letter
to be printed and circulated round the big wigs of Politics, as well as
(to judge by the co-incident hardening of the tone of this mail's
papers) some of the Editors. Not one word to me as to Mr. Murdoch's
qualifications or as to the truth or falsity of his statements, until
these last have been a week in circulation. Then, I receive; first, a
cable saying unofficial reports had come in censuring my General Staff
and that I had better, therefore, let Braithwaite go; secondly, a cable
asking me whether the absurd story of my having ordered my own soldiers
to be shot "without mercy " is well-founded; thirdly, a bad last, the
libellous letter itself.

Yet Mr. Asquith did know the paper contained _some_ falsehoods. He _may_
have attached weight to Mr. Murdoch's tale of the feelings of French
soldiers at Helles (although he never found time to go there): he _may_
have believed Mr. Murdoch when he says that Sir John Maxwell "has a poor
brain for his big position"; that "ou