If Mr. Churchill was chiefly responsible for undertaking the campaign, he was not responsible for the delay after March 18. "It never occurred to me," he states, "that we should not go on." Admiral de Robeck in his first despatches appeared to share this view. On March 26, however, he telegraphed: "The check on March 18 is not, in my opinion, decisive, but on March 22 I met General Hamilton and heard his views, and I now think that, to obtain important results and to achieve the object of the campaign, a combined operation will be essential." This despatch, Mr. Churchill says, "involved a complete change of plan and was a vital decision. I regretted it very much. I believed then, as I believe now, that we were separated by very little from complete success." He proposed that the Admiral should be directed to renew the attack; but the First Sea Lord did not agree, nor did Admiral Sir Arthur Wilson, nor Admiral Sir Henry Jackson. So it was decided to wait for the army, and some satire has been directed at Mr. Churchill and those other "acknowledged experts in the technicalities of amphibious warfare," Mr. Balfour and Mr. Asquith, who were inclined to share his views. The verdict of the Dardanelles Commission was that, "Had the attack been renewed within a day or two there is no reason to suppose that the proportion of casualties would have been less; and, if so, even had the second attack succeeded, a very weak force would have been left for subsequent naval operations." Once decided upon, it was highly essential that the combined operation should begin without further delay. But it was now found that the army transports had been loaded, so to speak, up-side-down, with guns and munitions buried under tents and supplies. Sending them back to Alexandria for reloading involved a six weeks' delay, though Lord Kitchener wired, "I think you had better know at once that I regard such postponement as far too long." The landing on the tip of the Gallipoli Peninsula, which was nearest the forts in the Straits and said to be the only feasible place, actually began on April 25, and was achieved under the guns of the fleet, and by almost unexampled feats of heroism by boats' crews and the first parties on shore.