(b) An army advancing from Kum Kale along the Asiatic shore would be forced to draw its supplies from overseas. As it advanced, its communications could be cut with great ease at any point by the hordes of armed Turks in Asia Minor. (c) The Turkish armies in Asia Minor would have attacked it in the right and rear, those from Bulair and Rodosto would have ferried over and attacked it in front, the guns in Gallipoli would have shelled its left, and the task made impracticable. Some of those who raised these alternatives raised a third; when the first two had been disposed of, they asked, "Even if the army could not have landed at Bulair or on the Asian coast, why did it land where it did land, on those suicidal beaches?" The answer to this criticism is as follows: It landed on those beaches because there were no others on the Peninsula, because the only landing places at which troops could be got ashore with any prospect of success however slight were just those three or four small beaches near Cape Helles, at the southwest end of the Peninsula, and the one rather longer beach to the north of Gaba or Kaba Tepe. All these beaches were seen to be strongly defended, with barbed wire entanglements on the shore and under the water, with sea and land mines, with strongly entrenched riflemen, many machine guns, and an ample artillery. In addition, the beaches close to Cape Helles were within range of big guns mounted near Troy on the Asian shore, and the beach near Gaba Tepe was ranged by the guns in the olive groves to the south and on the hills to the north of it. A strong Turkish army held the Peninsula, and very powerful reserves were at Bulair, all well supplied (chiefly by boat from the Asian shore) with food and munitions. German officers had organised the defence of the Peninsula with great professional skill. They had made it a fortress of great strength, differing from all other fortresses in this, that besides being almost impregnable it was almost unapproachable. But our army had its task to do, there was no other means of doing it, and our men had to do what they could. Any one trying to land, to besiege that fortress, had to do so by boat or lighter under every gun in the Turkish army. The Turks and the Germans knew, better than we, what few and narrow landing places were possible to our men, they had more than two months of time in which to make those landing places fatal to any enemy within a mile of them, yet our men came from three thousand miles away, passed that mile of massacre, landed and held on with all their guns, stores, animals and appliances, in spite of the Turk and his ally, who outnumbered them at every point.