Great Britain, in its dual capacity of guardian of the sea-routes of the world and the greatest Mohammedan Power, has seldom been in a more critical position. Germany and Turkey acting in combination could approach the Suez Canal through Asia Minor, the Red Sea through Arabia and the Persian Gulf through Mesopotamia. Enemy successes in these three directions could hardly fail to have an adverse influence on Mohammedan opinion and, under such conditions, India itself would not be safe. The foundations of the British Empire were endangered, threatened by forces both open and insidious; a British policy, framed by men who understood their business, was the only Allied policy which could properly meet the case. The British statesmen then in office faced this grave situation with steady eyes, and reached a conclusion which, at the time, was widely criticized, but, to their credit, they persisted in it. The fiat went forth from Downing Street, and on the experts of Whitehall devolved the task of evolving a strategy in harmony with policy. Experts, of any kind, are good servants but bad masters; they are prone to pessimism when called to work outside their special spheres, and are, as a rule, indifferent prophets; like the Spaniards, they often seem wiser than they are. Expert and official opinion on both sides of Whitehall was opposed to the expedition to the Dardanelles. The North Sea drew the Navy like a magnet, there it was felt the decisive battle would be fought, and the desire of islanders was natural to make security doubly sure. Mr. Winston Churchill devoted all the resources of his forceful and energetic personality to Eastern Naval preparations, he had both courage and imagination, and brushed aside the protests of officials within his jurisdiction, but these were not the only obstacles--sometimes he must have wondered whether a chasm had not replaced the thoroughfare which separates the Admiralty from the War Office. In the latter building, an old machine, under new and inexperienced direction, was creaking uneasily, barely able to stand the strain caused by the war in France. To the War Office staff, it seemed as if Pelion had been piled on Ossa, when they were asked to co-operate with the Navy in a distant expedition, whose scope and nature brought into strong relief their mental and material unpreparedness. Refuge was sought in procrastination, difficulties were exaggerated, the many human cogs of a complex machine groaned in the throes of a new and unwelcome effort.