The French Division and the 29th Division of British Regular soldiers were men who had been fully trained in time of peace, but the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps and the Royal Naval Division, who together made up more than half the army, were almost all men who had enlisted since the declaration of war, and had had not more than six months' active training. They were, however, the finest body of young men ever brought together in modern times. For physical beauty and nobility of bearing they surpassed any men I have ever seen; they walked and looked like the kings in old poems, and reminded me of the line in Shakespeare: "Baited like eagles having lately bathed." As their officers put it, "they were in the pink of condition and didn't care a damn for anybody." Most of these new and irregular formations were going into action for the first time, to receive their baptism of fire in "a feat of arms only possible to the flower of a very fine army." Having decided to use the army, the question how to use it was left to the Commanding General, whose task was to help the British fleet through the Narrows. Those who have criticised the operations to me, even those who know, or pretended to know the country and military matters (but who were, for the most part, the gulls or agents of German propaganda) raised, nearly always, one or both of the following alternatives to the attack used by Sir Ian Hamilton. They have asked: (1) Why did he not attack at or to the north of Bulair in the Gulf of Xeros, or (2) Why did he not attack along the Asiatic coast, instead of where he did, at Cape Helles and Anzac? Those who have asked these questions have always insisted to me that had he chosen either alternative his efforts must have been successful. It may be well to set down here the final and sufficient reasons against either folly. Firstly, then, the reasons against landing the army at or to the north of Bulair in the Gulf of Xeros. 1. The task demanded of the army was, to second the naval attack in the Straits, i.e., by seizing and occupying, if possible, the high ground in the Peninsula from which the Turkish guns molested the mine-sweepers. As this high ground commanded the Asiatic shore, its occupation by the British troops would have made possible the passage of the Straits. This and this alone was the task demanded of the army, no adventure upon Constantinople was designed or possible with the numbers of men available. How the army could have seconded the naval attack by landing three or four days' march from the Narrows within easy reach of the large Turkish armies in European Turkey is not clear. Nevertheless, our task was to land the army and all landing places had to be examined. Pass now to: