Chapter 68 – Ellis

Many of the details included in this chapter are taken from Uncensored Dardanelles , by Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett. The referenced events of Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett’s visit to London in June 1915 are covered on pages 120-132. Some of the key details included from this source include:

pp. 94-95 – Ashmead-Bartlett quote “The first and foremost maxim of war…invariably leads to failure.”

pp. 121-123 – Ashmead-Bartlett dined with Winston Churchill and his mother Lady Randolph Churchill on the evening of 10 June 1915. During dinner, Winston sat quietly looking depressed, then launched into a monologue about the Dardanelles, addressed to his mother. Ashmead-Bartlett concludes that Winston Churchill is obsessed and forgets the facts. After dinner the ladies left and Winston Churchill accused Ashmead-Bartlett of “having come home to run down the Expedition.”

pp. 123-125 – After dinner Ashmead-Bartlett walked with Churchill to Admiralty House where he was staying temporarily and the two discussed the Dardanelles campaign until 3:00am. Details of Churchill’s quotes and obsessive views are taken from this account.

pp. 124-125 – on 11June Ashmead-Bartlett met with the British Prime Minister Asquith and lunched with Lady Hamilton (Ian Hamilton’s wife).

pp. 129-132 – on 12 June Ashmead-Bartlett met with Lord Kitchener.

p. 132 – Churchill quote to Ashmead-Bartlett was actually on 12 June: “We are all working for a common end. If Constantinople is taken there is enough glory for all.”

Some additional details are taken from Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett’s diary for 10 June 1915 (p. 94-95), including the quote from Winston Churchill: “Bartlett, you have come home to run down the expedition! You wish to spread gossip and ridicule so you can make a story of it” and a statement that Ashmead-Bartlett cared not for Churchill’s reputation, only for his country, despite Churchill’s self importance. He describes how Churchill gulped brandy from the bottle and how the crews of the warships were mostly old reservists whose duty it was to die. He includes the assessment “Winston seemed incabable of realising…”  He stayed in the Carlton Hotel (p. 97)

Winston Churchill published a novel Savrola in 1915. The novel was a consolidated version of a serial he had published in Macmillan’s Magazine in 1897. The novel is set in the fictitious African nation of Laurania, situated on the fringe of the Mediterranean Sea with a large harbour frontage. In the novel, a military coup is suppressed when naval warships force their way past forts and fire on the city. Savrola is the name of the hero of the story who rises to political prominence.