Gibson and de Leval prepared reports of the whole matter, and I sent them by the next courier to our Embassy at London. But somehow that very day the news got into Holland and shocked the world. Richards, of the C. R. B., just back from The Hague, said that they had already heard of it there and were filled with horror. And even the Germans, who seemed always to do a deed and to consider its effect afterward, knew that they had another Louvain, another _Lusitania_, for which to answer before the bar of civilization. The lives of the three others remaining, of the five condemned to death, were ultimately spared, as I had told Villalobar they would be. The King of Spain and the President of the United States made representations at Berlin in behalf of the Countess de Belleville and Madame Thuiliez, and their sentences were commuted to imprisonment, as was that of Louis Severin, the Brussels druggist. The storm of universal loathing and reprobation for the deed was too much even for the Germans. * * * * * In an earlier chapter we have read of the beginning of the attempt to cross the Dardanelles and to capture the Peninsula of Gallipoli. After great losses and terrible suffering had been endured in these attempts, it was decided in December, 1915, by the British war authorities that further sacrifices were not justified. Preparations were accordingly made to abandon the enterprise. How these plans were carried out is told in the chapter following. GALLIPOLI ABANDONED GENERAL SIR CHARLES C. MONRO On October 20, 1915, in London, I received instructions to proceed as soon as possible to the Near East and take over the command of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force. [Sidenote: General Monro's orders on arrival.] My duty on arrival was in broad outline: (a) To report on the military situation on the Gallipoli Peninsula. (b) To express an opinion whether on purely military grounds the Peninsula should be evacuated or another attempt made to carry it. (c) The number of troops that would be required-- (1) To carry the Peninsula. (2) To keep the strait open, and (3) To take Constantinople. [Sidenote: Military defects in positions occupied.] The positions occupied by our troops presented a military situation unique in history. The mere fringe of the coast line had been secured. The beaches and piers upon which they depended for all requirements in personnel and material were exposed to registered and observed artillery fire. Our intrenchments were dominated almost throughout by the Turks. The possible artillery positions were insufficient and defective. The force, in short, held a line possessing every possible military defect. The position was without depth, the communications were insecure and dependent on the weather.