“Why? I will give the reasons in the words of a gallant young Australian killed shortly after he wrote me as follows from the front in France: ‘I often compare the two situations: out here and on those wild romantic shores of the Ægean; I compare them and I find that the Peninsula war stands quite alone and apart, an ineffaceable memory.’ “Bearing in mind that I am limited to a few lines I propose to think out nothing new, but to repeat now what was jotted down about a sample of the 42nd Division at the time (the 4th June, 1915), in my post of command, shared that day with two enormous tarantulas— “On the right the French rushed the ‘Haricot’—so long a thorn in their flesh; next to them the Anson lads stormed another big Turkish redoubt in a slap-dash style reminding me of the best work of the old Regular Army; but the boldest and most brilliant exploit of the lot was the charge made by the Manchester Brigade in the centre who wrested two lines of trenches from the Turks; and then, carrying right on to the lower slopes of Achi Baba, had _nothing_ between them and its summit but the clear, unentrenched hillside. They lay there—the line of our brave lads, plainly visible to a pair of good glasses—there they actually lay! We wanted, so it seemed, but a reserve to advance in their support and carry them right up to the top. We said—and yet could hardly believe our own words—‘We are through!’ “Alas, too previous that remark. Everything began to go wrong. First the French were shelled and bombed out of the ‘Haricot’; next the right of the Naval Division became uncovered and they had to give way, losing many times more men in the yielding than in the capture of their ground. Then came the turn of the Manchesters, left in the lurch, with their right flank hanging in the air. By all the laws of war they ought to have tumbled back anyhow, but by the laws of the Manchesters they hung on and declared they could do so for ever.... [Signature: Ian Hamilton] GENERAL, “LIEUTENANT OF THE TOWER OF LONDON.” _1st September, 1919._ * * * * * The foregoing words were written by the Commander-in-Chief under whom the 42nd (East Lancashire) Division went into action for the first time of its existence. It is nearly a year now since Sir Ian Hamilton wrote them; this will give the reader some idea of the gigantic task those who have collected the material for, and the writer of, this book have had.