Under the prevailing influence of “Westerners” upon French and British strategy, these probable advantages were either disregarded or dismissed, and to dwell upon them now is a useless speculation. The hopes suggested by the conception in 1915 have faded like a dream. The dominant minds in our Alliance either failed to imagine their significance, or were incapable of supplying the power required for their realisation while at the same time pressing forward the proposed offensive in France. The international situation of Europe, and indeed of the world, is now changed, and the strategic map has been completely altered. Early belligerents have disappeared from the field, and new belligerents have entered the shifting scene. Already, in 1918, the Dardanelles Expedition has passed into history, and may be counted among the ghosts which history tries in vain to summon up. It is as an episode of a vanished past that I have attempted to represent it--a tragic episode enacted in the space of eleven months, but marked by every attribute of noble tragedy, whether we consider the grandeur of theme and personality, or the sympathy aroused by the spectacle of heroic figures struggling against the unconscious adversity of fate and the malign influences of hostile or deceptive power. In treatment, I have made no attempt to rival my friend John Masefield’s _Gallipoli_--that excellent piece of work, at once so accurate and so brilliantly illuminated by poetic vision. Mine has been the humbler task of simply recording the events as they occurred, with such detail as seemed essential to complete the history, or was accessible to myself. In this endeavour, I have trusted partly to the books and documents mentioned below, partly to information generously supplied to me by many of the principal actors upon the scene; also to my own notes, writings, and memory, especially with regard to the nature of the country and the events of which I was a witness. Accuracy and justice have been my only aims, but in a work involving so much detail and so many controverted questions mistakes in accuracy and justice are scarcely to be avoided. I know the confusion of mind and the distorted vision so frequent in all great crises of war, and I know from long experience how ignorant may be the criticism applied to any soldier from the Commander-in-Chief down to the private with a rifle.