The great assault of the second week in August, extending from Lone Pine to Kiretch Tepe Sirt, and having the mountain height of Chunuk Bair as the centre of its line, must be described as a failure. It failed of its objects--the objects of the whole military campaign--to open the Straits for the fleet, to secure the possession of Constantinople, to hold all the Balkan States steady for our Alliance, to complete the blockade of the Central Powers by land and sea, to divert any possible threat towards Egypt, or towards the Persian Gulf, and so to hasten the termination of the war. The aim of this fine strategical conception was not accomplished, and the causes of failure have been suggested in the narrative of the three preceding chapters. Incidents and accidents contributed--the gallant but hopeless attempt to cross the Nek in face of the Chessboard redoubt, the gallant but unsuccessful attempts to hold the summits at Chunuk Bair and “Hill Q,” the error of Baldwin’s brigade, the confusion of the landing inside Suvla Bay, the separation of the units in the 10th Division, the immobility of the 11th Division on August 7 and 8, the breakdown of the water supply through want of receptacles, the unwitting recall of a battalion from Scimitar Hill on the evening of Sunday the 8th, and the apparent failure of the Higher Command at Suvla to realise the vital necessity of speed and energy, no matter at what cost, during the four critical days from the morning of the 7th to the evening of the 10th. But at the back of all these causes of failure lay the ultimate reason that many of the troops employed, especially at Suvla, were not strong or experienced enough for the difficult task of attacking an enemy posted in the most favourable positions for defence, over an unknown, complicated, and deserted country, and in unaccustomed conditions of intense heat and insatiable thirst. Few in the New Army or Territorial Divisions were acquainted with the realities of war; few had been exposed to its sudden and overwhelming perils. They had neither the traditions, nor the veteran experience, nor the disciplined self-confidence of the Regular Army. They had neither the physique, nor the adventurous spirit, nor the intense national bond of the Anzacs. What they might have done under more decisive or youthful or inspiring leadership we can judge only from their subsequent rapid improvement even upon the Peninsula, and from their excellent service in later campaigns--such service as was performed in Palestine by these Territorial Divisions. But in August 1915 their leadership was not conspicuously decisive, youthful, or inspiring. And so it came about that General Stopford suffered the worst fate which can befall a commanding officer in the field. [Sidenote: GAINS AND FAILURES]