Major-General Sir Chas. Caldwell, K.C.B., was Director of Military Operations at the War Office during the whole period of the inception, incubation and execution of the Dardanelles adventure, and in an article in the “Nineteenth Century” for March, 1919, he completely disposes of the criticisms of Mr. G. A. Schreiner in his book “From Berlin to Bagdad,” and of those of Mr. H. Morgenthau, the late United States Ambassador at Constantinople, in his recent book, “The Secrets of the Bosphorus.” Both these works convey the impression that the general attack by the Fleet upon the Defences of the Narrows on March 18th, 1915, very nearly succeeded. This verdict is not justified by the facts as certified by Sir C. Caldwell. He proves incontestably that, even in the very unlikely case of indirect bombardment really effecting its object in putting the batteries out of action, there would still be the movable armament of the Turks left to worry and defeat the mine-sweepers, and there would still be the drifting mines and possibly the torpedoes fired from the shore to imperil the battleships. When peace did come it occupied the British Admiral a very long time to sweep up the mines. The damaging effect of Naval Bombardment was over-estimated--the extent to which the enemy’s movable armament would interfere with mine-sweeping was not realised, and the extent and efficiency of the minefields were unknown and unheeded. Sir Charles Caldwell says: “The whole thing was a mistake, quite apart from the disastrous influence which the premature and unsuccessful operation exerted over the subsequent land campaign.” It is also most true what Sir C. Caldwell says that “the idea at the back of the sailors’ minds (who so reluctantly assented to the _political_ desire of getting possession of the Straits) was that it was an experiment which could always be instantly stopped if the undertaking were to be found too difficult.” But alas! “_the view of the War Council came to be that they could not now abandon the adventure._” * * * * * Marshal Liman von Sanders, who had charge of the defence of the Dardanelles, said: “The attack on the Straits by the Navy alone I don’t think could ever have succeeded. I proposed to flood the Straits broadcast with mines, and it was my view that these were the main defences of the Dardanelles, and that the function of the guns of the forts was simply to protect the minefields from interference.”