Lord Kitchener sent for me early one morning, and on my presenting myself, told me that Lord Fisher was insisting upon recalling the _Queen Elizabeth_ owing to enemy submarines, that Mr. Churchill was in two minds but leant towards keeping her where she was, that he (Lord K.) objected to her removal, and that I was to accompany him to a meeting at the Admiralty a little later in connection with the affair. "They've rammed that ship down my throat," said he in effect. "Churchill told me in the first place that she would knock all the Dardanelles batteries into smithereens, firing from goodness knows where. He afterwards told me that she would make everything all right for the troops as they landed, and after they landed. And now, without 'with your leave or by your leave,' old Fisher says he won't let her stop out there." He seemed to be quite as much concerned about the way he had been treated in the matter, as influenced by any great alarm at the prospect of the ship leaving the vicinity of the Dardanelles. Finally, he asked me what I thought myself. Now, there could be no question as to the _Queen Elizabeth_ being a most powerful ship of war; but the fact was that she had been a regular nuisance. Mr. Churchill had somehow persuaded himself, and what was worse, he had managed to persuade Lord Kitchener as well as Mr. Asquith and others, that she would just about settle the Dardanelles business off her own bat. I had, as it happened (and as will be mentioned in the next chapter), expressed doubts to him six months earlier when the idea of operations in this quarter was first mooted, as to the efficacy of gun-fire from warships in assisting troops on shore or when trying to get ashore. Nothing which had happened since had furnished any reason for altering that view. No battleship depending upon flat trajectory guns could ever play a role of paramount importance during fighting ashore, except in quite abnormal circumstances. The whole thing was a delusion. Ships of war, and particularly such a vessel as the _Queen Elizabeth_, did undoubtedly provide moral support to an army operating on land close to the coast, and their aid was by no means to be despised; but their potentialities under such conditions were apt to be greatly overestimated, and had, in fact, been greatly overestimated by the War Council. My reply to the Chief, therefore, was to the effect that it was of secondary importance from the soldier's point of view whether this particular battleship stopped or cleared out, and that, seeing the risks which she obviously was running, it seemed to me a mistake to contest the point. We discussed the matter briefly, and Lord K. gave me to understand that, although he must put up some sort of fight as he had already raised objections, he would make no real stand about it at the coming pow-wow.