Chapter 86 – Ellis
Many of the details included in this chapter are taken from The Uncensored Dardanelles , by Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett (published in 1928, three years before he died at age 50). The referenced events of late September and early October 1915 are covered on pages 247-252. Some of the key details included from Ashmead-Bartlett’s perspective, from this source include:
p. 244 – Ashmead-Bartlett described the visits to General Headquarters as being “like visits to tombs of the dead” (9 September)
p. 247 – 28 September – Ashmead-Bartlett visited General Headquarters and discussed censorship with Colonel Tyrell (Chief of Intelligence - p. 238). Tyrell then left to see the Chief-of-Staff, General Braithwaite, and returned to call Ashmead-Bartlett in. The discussion between Ashmead-Bartlett and Braithwaite is as recorded, with agreement being reached that Ashmead-Bartlett should leave “as soon as he could conveniently get away”. His reflection “Never have I known such a collection…disaster in English history” is quoted verbatim.
p. 248 – Ashmead-Bartlett had a conversation with two junior officers that they should expected to leave soon as he was now free to say what he liked.
p. 248-9 – He recounts how, when saying goodbye to Admiral de Robeck and his Chief of
Staff Commodore Keyes, he was able to confirm the accusations that General Headquarters had been making against the Navy, that warships’ shelling amongst the Gurkhas on the heights of Sari Bair had been the reason the August offensive had failed.
p. 250 – 3 October – On departure, Ashmead-Bartlett reflects “It was with feelings of regret that I gazed on Mudros Bay for the last time. How many tragic events have happened since I first entered its waters in the early days of April this year?” He notes that the journey down the Mediterranean was uneventful, except for the excitement of zig-zagging to dodge enemy submarines.
p. 251 – Ashmead-Bartlett arrived home in London on 10 October 1915. His assessment of confusion and different opinions in Cabinet and the War Office is quoted almost directly. He states his sole objective was to “press for the withdrawal of the Expedition”
Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett published a book Despatches from the Dardanelles in 1915. This is a consolidated collection of the despatches he was able to send home to the Newspaper Proprietors’ Association after censorship.
In the biography of Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett, Mythmaker – The Englishman Who Sparked Australia’s Gallipoli Legend , Fred and Elizabeth Brenchley record that at around this time, while advocating for evacuation of Gallipoli, he started to plan a lecture tour and planned to sell the Gallipoli films if he could obtain agreement from the War Office. The lecture tour of late 1915 and early 1916 proved lucrative, and included a visit to Australia and New Zealand (p. 180-181, 188-205).
Winston Churchill wrote an essay Painting as a Pastime in 1948. Following is an extract where he describes his experiences after the failure of the Dardanelles campaign:
“I shall now relate my personal experience. When I left the Admiralty at the end of May, 1915, I still remained a member of the Cabinet and of the War Council. In this position I knew everything and could do nothing. The change from the intense executive activities of each day's work at the Admiralty to the narrowly measured duties of a counsellor left me gasping. Like a sea-beast fished up from the depths, or a diver too suddenly hoisted, my veins threatened to burst from the fall in pressure. I had great anxiety and no means of relieving it; I had vehement convictions and small power to give effect to them. I had to watch the unhappy casting-away of great opportunities, and the feeble execution of plans which I had launched and in which I heartily believed. I had long hours of utterly unwonted leisure in which to contemplate the frightful unfolding of the War. At a moment when every fibre of my being was inflamed to action, I was forced to remain a spectator of the tragedy, placed cruelly in a front seat. And then it was that the Muse of Painting came to my rescue…”
Churchill’s essay can be viewed at the following location:
Following this, Churchill found solace in oil painting, then took an officer’s commission on the Western Front.