Lord Kitchener's actions and attitude in connection with two particular matters evoked a good deal of criticism in various quarters at the time, and much has been said and written about them. One of those matters was the munitions question, the other was the Dardanelles undertaking; both of those subjects are, however, discussed in special later chapters, and no reference will therefore be made to them in this one, except incidentally. I have, moreover, no recollection of ever having been brought into contact with the Secretary of State in connection with those projects for combined naval and military operations on the Flanders coast which received considerable attention in the winter of 1914-15, although, as will be mentioned in Chapter VI., aware of what was under review. That Flanders coast scheme constituted, it may be observed, a question of the general strategical conduct of the war; it was, in fact, a question of "operations." The first time that I went into any problem coming properly under that heading with the Secretary of State was when a plan of landing troops at or near Alexandretta was on the tapis in December 1914. There was a good deal to be said for such an enterprise at that particular juncture. Military opinion invariably favours active in preference to passive defence, so long as active defence can be regarded as reasonably feasible and the troops needed for the purpose are available. The Turks were mustering for an attack upon Egypt across the Isthmus of Sinai at that time. It was an axiom in our military policy that the Nile delta must be rendered secure against such efforts. There was something decidedly attractive about employing the troops--or a portion of them--who must in any case be charged with the protection of Egypt, actively against the enemy's line of communications instead of their hanging about, a stationary force, on the Suez Canal awaiting the onset of the Osmanli. Right through the war, the region about the Gulf of Iskanderun was one of prime strategical importance, seeing that Entente forces planted down in those parts automatically threatened, if they did not actually sever, the Ottoman communications between Anatolia and the theatres of war in Palestine and in Mesopotamia. But at dates subsequent to the winter of 1914-15 the enemy had fully realized that this was the case, was in a position to provide against the eventuality, and had taken steps accordingly.