Cast anchor at Tenedos at 3 p.m., 17th March, 1915, having entered the harbour at the very same instant as le général d'Amade.
Hurried over at once to a meeting aboard that lovely sea monster, H.M.S. _Queen Elizabeth_.
Admiral de Robeck, Commodore Roger Keyes, Admiral Guépratte, cmdg. French Fleet, General d'Amade, General Braithwaite, Admiral Wemyss, Captain Pollen, Myself.
De Robeck greeted me in the friendliest fashion. He is a fine looking man with great charm of manner. After a word or two to d'Amade and being introduced to Wemyss, Guépratte and Keyes, we sat down round a table and the Admiral began. His chief worry lies in the clever way the enemy are now handling their mobile artillery. He can silence the big fortress ordnance, but the howitzers and field guns fire from concealed positions and make the clearing of the minefields something of a V.C. sort of job for the smaller craft. Even when the Fleet gets through, these moveable guns will make it very nasty for store ships or transports which follow. The mine-sweepers are slow and bad with worn out engines. Some of the civilian masters and crews of the trawlers have to consider wives and kids as well as V.C.s. The problem of getting the Fleet through or of getting submarines through is a problem of clearing away the mines. With a more powerfully engined type of mine-sweeper and regular naval commanders and crews to man them, the business would be easy. But as things actually stand there is real cause for anxiety as to mines.
The Peninsula itself is being fortified and many Turks work every night on trenches, redoubts and entanglements. Not one single living soul has been seen, since the engagement of our Marines at the end of February, although each morning brings forth fresh evidences of nocturnal activity, in patches of freshly turned up soil. All landing places are now commanded by lines of trenches and are ranged by field guns and howitzers, which, thus far, cannot be located as our naval seaplanes are too heavy to rise out of rifle range. There has been a muddle about these seaplanes. Nominally they possess very powerful Sunbeam engines; actually the d----d things can barely rise off the water. The naval guns do not seem able to knock the Turkish Infantry out of their deep trenches although they can silence their fire for awhile. This was proved at that last landing by Marines. The Turkish searchlights are both fixed and mobile. They are of the latest pattern and are run by skilled observers. He gave us, in fact, to understand that German thoroughness and forethought have gripped the old go-as-you-please Turk and are making him march to the _Parade-schritt_.