at battles have been fought
before--concentrating for a great offensive. So there will very soon be
a third battle of Ypres, and I expect I shall be present on the occasion
myself. It should be very exciting. In the two former battles we were on
the defensive; this time we shall be on the offensive. And I must
say--pessimistic as I am on all Western offensives--this idea holds
forth a faint ray of hope of success. I have always held that there is
only one way in which the war can be won in the West--by a flanking
offensive in the North. This is not entirely the type of flanking
movement I would myself recommend, but it is an attempt at the idea--and
that is something. It may prove a semi-fiasco like the awful tragedies
of Neuve Chapelle, Loos, the Somme, and Arras; but it might possibly
turn out a success. Then it would be simply a case of _veni, vidi,
vici_!"

That memorandum is particularly interesting in view of the events which
followed, and the story which this narrative will tell. I always held
very strong-views on the conduct of the war. I was not one of those who
looked upon this great bid for world power on the part, of the German
Empire as purely a campaign on the Western Front, all other campaigns in
other corners of the globe being mere "side shows." I was always a firm
and consistent supporter of the "East End" school of strategy. I looked
upon the war as a _World War_ and, since the decisive Battle of the
Marne in September, 1914, when the German hopes of complete and crushing
victory in the West were shattered (which decision was still more
finally confirmed at First Ypres), as primarily a south-eastern war. I
held with that great statesman and strategist, Mr. Winston Churchill,
that Constantinople was "the great strategic nerve-centre of the world
war." I realized that a deadlock had been reached on the Western Front,
and that nothing was to be hoped from any frontal attack there; and I
also realized that Germany held Constantinople and the Dardanelles--the
gateway to the East. And the trend of German foreign policy and German
strategy convinced me that it was in the Near East that the menace to
our Empire lay. There was our most vulnerable part; while Germany held
that gateway, the glamour of the East, with its possibilities of
victories like those of Alexander, and an empire like that one which was
the great Napoleon's early dream, would always be a great temptation to
German strategists. I therefore a