(no subject)

On 7 December 1915 the British Government decided to evacuate [most of Gallipoli] but to stand firm in Helles at the toe of the peninsula. Anxieties about losing face before the Muslim world had to be squared with military realism... After a quarter of a million casualties in eight months, it was time to cut and run.

Complete secrecy was now vital: careless talk could cost thousands of lives. In cabinet in London on 24 November, a fearful Lord Curzon had painted the nightmare of a retreat being shelled to shambles, with awful political repercussions. The fact that Lord Milner and Lord Ribblesdale had loudly debated “Evacuation of the Peninsula” in the House of Lords in October and November accidentally misdirected the Turks and Germans. They could not credit such stupidity and carelessness among intelligent people, so supposed the debate was just propaganda.

Nicholas Rankin, Churchill's Wizards