ism. What is the inspiration which presently some are going to feel amongst us, for instance, when later on we shall have the remembrance and the coming day of St. George: The game's afoot; Follow your spirit: and, upon, this charge, I will not take up more of your time, lest by any chance I should diminish by the slightest degree our recollection of the fine address which we have had this evening; but in giving the thanks of this meeting to Mr. Bangs I wish to tell him this-and I give it to him in the spirit of the English poet who, when addressing America, said Gigantic daughter of the West, We drink to thee across the flood; We know thee most, we love thee best, Sir, I have the honour and pleasure of extending to you the thanks of the Empire Club of Canada. (Loud applause and cheers) GALLIPOLI AN ADDRESS DELIVERED BY BRIGADIER-GENERAL Before the Empire Club of Canada, Toronto, BRIGADIER-GENERAL MITCHELL, who presided, in introducing the speaker, said: My Lord Bishop and Gentlemen, I have great pleasure in introducing to you to-day Brigadier-General Davey. He was one of the real padres in the war. (Applause) General Davey had the distinction of having served on a number of fronts at various times during the progress of the war, in Gallipoli-on which he is going to speak to-day-in Egypt, in France, and in Belgium. I am particularly pleased to have the honour of sitting beside him, because he was what we used to call the "boss" padre in the second army in 1918; and the second army as you know was my own old army. We cannot just estimate how much we loved our old leader "Plum"-Sir Herbert Plummer. I am sure that General Davey, if he had the time, would speak to you about the second army and the fifth army in which he also served, but he is going to devote his attention to-day to Gallipoli, and I am sure, of that particular campaign, he will be able to tell you many things of interest which I know you will all be glad to hear. I have great pleasure in introducing to you General Davey. (Applause) BRIGADIER-GENERAL J. PENRY DAVEY, C. M. G. Mr. Chairman, and Gentlemen,-May I express very briefly my pleasure and my satisfaction at the honour conferred upon me in inviting me to speak at the EMPIRE CLUB. I am glad to hear the secretary announce that next week you are going to pay a dollar and a quarter. (Laughter) I hope you will get your seventy-five cents' worth to-day. I also realize, of course, that one who holds the rank of Brigadier-General can't expect to occupy the same amount of attention as one who holds the rank of Major-General. Well, Gentlemen, I have a duty this afternoon and it is to talk about the Dardanelles. It is a big subject, so big that I shall be unable to deal adequately with it in the time allotted to me. I want to say at the outset that I have often heard the Dardanelles campaign spoken of as a big mistake. Our critics, Gentlemen, were the armchair critics at home. As a matter of fact those gentlemen have conducted tactics and won battles that were never won on any battle-field. (Laughter) Generally speaking some of the great critics at home were usually responsible for some of the huge blunders and huge mistakes that were made. Many mistakes made during the whole of the war have been made in imagination by the mere on-looker. The Dardanelles campaign, however, was not the great mistake that many of you have been led to believe. I want you to remember our position at the time; remember that Russia was then helping us; remember she was making her approach on Austria; remember that the Turkish army was the flower of the European armies on that part of the continent. It was a very, very courageous army. The Turks were never a mean foe, or a mean enemy. Their courage has never been doubted as fighters. It has been declared that there have never been greater fighters in the world. We knew that to be true; so it was necessary to hold the great Turkish army at some point, to prevent the Austrians from having their help, and to compel them to demand help from their German allies. The result was that Germany had to send troops to help the Austrians, which, of course, had the desired effect of decreasing the Hun's strength on the French frontier. You will remember that, at that time, things in France were very, very different to what they were later on. Our boys were up against an enemy who was always numerically superior to themselves. If they, the enemy, could have had these added forces and thus brought all their power to bear on our boys in France, I have no hesitation in saying—and I hope you will permit me as a mere padre to express an opinion on grand tactics-I have no hesitation in saying that the Germans would have made a far greater bulge in our line in France and Flanders than they did later on, and perhaps have put a different complexion on the ending of the war. But we held the Turkish army, and held them well, for eight months, from the 25th of April, 1915, until the 8th of January, 1916, when the final evacuation took place. As regards the campaign: It did not take us a long time to realize that we could not take possession of the peninsula by a frontal attack, and it was therefore decided to land on the extreme point of the peninsula of Gallipoli. Now you want to look at these maps. (Maps shown) These yellow parts indicate the full extent of the occupied territory, and this part, right at the point known as Helles, is where our troops landed in August, 1915. Preparatory to our landing certain engagements had taken place by our naval forces, and it was intended, if possible, to go through the Narrows and into the Sea of Marmora and shell Constantinople itself. That was found to be not only impracticable but impossible; of course they made an awful mess of some of the forts, and there was one huge fort which they blew to smithereens. In fact the place was simply bristling with forts. Having found it impossible to make their way there, it was finally decided to land troops on the extreme point of the peninsula. That has been criticised. I have read criticism from all parts of our great Empire, and it is a great old Empire. (Applause) It has been criticised as being a stupid thing to do, a foolish thing. In my estimation the criticism is an unwarranted one, a stupid one. Supposing we had not landed troops here-remember, Gentlemen, the whole point was to enable our troops to use the Narrows to get into the Sea of Marmora. As I have already said, it was decided to land troops on the extreme point of the peninsula, and half way up, the reason of course being to clear the Narrows. It was then decided that the landing should take place on the morning of April 25th, 1915. Preparatory to landing, the troops were collected in Tenedos on the Island of Lemnos, and were kept waiting, some for a week, some for a fortnight prior to landingAustralians, New Zealanders, the 29th Division, the East Anglian Division, the East Lancashire Division and the Royal Naval Division. Just a word about the troops of the 29th Division. These troops, Gentlemen, have made a name for themselves at Gallipoli, a name that will be undying as long as British History lasts. (Applause) To them was given the most difficult operation, and that was to land in Helles. As I have said, with these troops we had the Royal Naval Division. That Division, Gentlemen, was composed merely of boys, public school boys. As a matter of fact at one time, after we had been in the peninsula for some months, it was requested that all boys under nineteen years of age should be sent home. We found it was impossible to send home all the boys under nineteen years of age in that Division, because the great majority were under nineteen. And when you remember the great work they did, we can raise our hats to these gallant youths, these public school boys of the Naval Division. (Applause) Well, it was determined to land on the 25th of April. They left late in the evening of the 24th along with the Australians and a portion of the South Wales Borderers. I should say that, preparatory to landing, a reconnaissance had to be made of the whole peninsula. It was found that it was a very difficult place to land. The landing had to be made on a beach from three hundred to four hundred yards long and not more than from thirty to sixty yards wide. As a matter of fact all the beaches were very narrow. Well, they came on the morning of the 25th, and it was arranged that the South |