So the episode of the Dardanelles Expedition, equal in splendour of conception, heroism, and tragedy, came to an end. During the eight and a half months of its continuance upon the Peninsula itself, the land forces, including the Royal Naval Division, but not counting the Navy or the French (whose losses are not published), suffered the following loss: +--------------------+---------+---------+----------+ | Killed. | Wounded.| Missing.| Total. | +--------------------+---------+---------+----------+ |Officers 1,745 | 3,143 | 353 | 5,241 | |Other ranks 26,455 | 74,952 | 10,901 | 112,308 | | ------ | ------ | ------ | ------- | | Totals 28,200 | 78,095 | 11,254 | 117,549 | +--------------------+---------+---------+----------+ A large proportion of the missing must be counted as killed. The number of sick admitted to hospital between April 25 and December 11, 1915, was 96,683, of whom also a considerable proportion died. If we may take about one-quarter of the missing as killed, and about one-twentieth of the sick as having died, the total of lives lost amounts to about 36,000. The total losses of the Turks have been variously estimated between 400,000 and 500,000, but those estimates are conjectural. [Sidenote: MILITARY CAUSES OF THE FAILURE] The causes of our failure have been, as I hope, reasonably signified in the preceding account of the campaign. They may be summarised in relation either to the movements on the spot, or to the attitude of the home Government. On the spot, we failed chiefly owing to the premature naval attacks, which gave the enemy warning of our intention, and owing to the design of forcing the Straits with the Navy alone, which might indeed have been temporarily successful if persisted in, but in the end would have given us only a dubious advantage; for a fleet penetrating to the Sea of Marmora would have remained dangerously isolated so long as both sides of the Straits were strongly held by the enemy. The second initial error was the delay in concentrating the military forces for the land attack--a delay chiefly due to the retention of the 29th Division in England, and to the necessity of returning the transports from Mudros to Alexandria for the rearrangement of the military stores and munitions. As to the actual operations on land, it might be argued, in the light of wisdom after the event, that the first landing had better have been made by a combined force at Suvla Bay and on the Ocean Beach at Anzac, though, in that case, larger numbers than those allotted to the Expedition at the beginning must have been demanded. Again, with regard to the failure of the August operations, it might now be maintained that the forces at Anzac were dissipated by the assaults at Lone Pine and the Nek, and by the over-elaborate subdivision of the attacking forces upon our left. Even in spite of the natural intricacy of the ground, a concentration of all available