Mr. Churchill wished to renew the attempt at once. Perhaps he thought that English people are given to exaggerate the loss of a battleship. After all, the loss of even three battleships is far surpassed by the loss of lives and calculable wealth in one day’s ordinary fighting in France, and the objective in the Dardanelles was at least as vital.[74] Lord Fisher and Sir Arthur Wilson agreed that the action should be continued, and the _London_ and _Prince of Wales_, in addition to the _Queen_ and _Implacable_, were actually sent to reinforce. The French also sent an old battleship (the _Henri IV._) to replace the _Bouvet_. At first Admiral de Robeck shared this view. It was suspected at the Admiralty that the ammunition in the forts was running short, and, at a much later date, Enver Pasha is reported to have said: “If the English had only had the courage to rush more ships through the Dardanelles, they could have got to Constantinople; but their delay enabled us thoroughly to fortify the Peninsula, and in six weeks’ time we had taken down there over 200 Austrian Skoda guns.”[75] [Sidenote: PURELY NAVAL ACTION ABANDONED] That delay of six weeks was fatal, but the navy was not to blame. On March 22 Admiral de Robeck and Admiral Wemyss consulted with Sir Ian Hamilton (who on the very day before the engagement had arrived at Tenedos to take command of the land forces) and with General Birdwood; and as their decision to await the concentration of the army was accepted by Lord Fisher and the other Admiralty advisers, Mr. Churchill reluctantly yielded. General Birdwood, it is true, wished to land at once, even with such troops as were at hand. Sir Ian “thought there was a good deal to be said for it,” and as to the fleet, he urged the Admiral to keep on hammering the forts. But his orders from Lord Kitchener were “not to land if he could avoid it,” and in any case to await the arrival of the 29th Division.[76] And where was the 29th Division? On March 23 its first transport was just reaching Malta, where nearly all the officers attended a special performance of _Faust_.[77] CHAPTER IV THE PREPARATION [Sidenote: SIR IAN’S APPOINTMENT] As was mentioned, Sir Ian Hamilton reached Tenedos on March 17, the day before the naval engagement. The appointment to command the military forces had come to him unexpectedly but five days earlier, and on March 13 he started from London. He had received only slight and vague instructions from Lord Kitchener, but on certain limitations the Secretary for War insisted, and all of them strongly influenced Sir Ian’s subsequent action. If possible a landing was to be avoided; none was to be attempted until the fleet had made every effort to penetrate the Straits and had failed; if a landing became unavoidable, none should be made until the full force available had assembled; and no adventurous operations were to be undertaken on the Asiatic side. All these instructions were followed.[78]