[Sidenote: THE CAMPAIGN SUGGESTED] These measures, however, did not satisfy Mr. Churchill. At a meeting of the War Council on November 25, he returned to his idea of striking at the Gallipoli Peninsula, if only as a feint. Lord Kitchener considered the moment had not yet arrived, and regarded a suggestion to collect transport in Egypt for 40,000 men as unnecessary at present. In his own words, Mr. Churchill “put the project on one side, and thought no more of it for the time,” although horse-boats continued to be sent to Alexandria “in case the War Office should, at a later stage, wish to undertake a joint naval and military operation in the Eastern Mediterranean.”[8] On January 2, 1915, a telegram from our Ambassador at Petrograd completely altered the situation. Russia, hard pressed in the Caucasus, called for a demonstration against the Turks in some other quarter. Certainly, at that moment, Russia had little margin of force. She was gasping from the effort to resist Hindenburg’s frontal attack upon Warsaw across the Bzura, and the contest had barely turned in her favour during Christmas week. In the Caucasus the situation had become serious, since Enver, by clever strategy, attempted to strike at Kars round the rear of a Russian army which then appeared to threaten an advance upon Erzeroum. On the day upon which the telegram was sent, the worst danger had already been averted, for in the neighbourhood of Sarikamish the Russians had destroyed Enver’s 9th Corps, and seriously defeated the 10th and 11th. But this fortunate and unexpected result was probably still unknown in Petrograd when our Ambassador telegraphed his appeal. On the following day (January 3, 1915) an answer, drafted in the War Office, but sent through the Foreign Office, was returned, promising a demonstration against the Turks, but fearing that it would be unlikely to effect any serious withdrawal of Turkish troops in the Caucasus. Sir Edward Grey considered that “when our Ally appealed for assistance we were bound to do what we could.” But Lord Kitchener was far from hopeful. He informed Mr. Churchill that the only place where a demonstration might have some effect in stopping reinforcements going East would be the Dardanelles. But he thought we could not do much to help the Russians in the Caucasus; “we had no troops to land anywhere”; “we should not be ready for anything big for some months.”[9]