“Dear Mr Asquith,
I hope you will excuse the liberty I am taking in writing to you but I have the chance of sending this letter through by hand and I consider it absolutely necessary that you should know the true state of affairs out here. Our last great effort to achieve some definite success against the Turks was the most ghastly and costly fiasco in our history since the Battle of Bannockburn. Personally I never thought the scheme decided on by Headquarters ever had the slightest chance of succeeding and all efforts now to make out that it only just failed owing to the failure of the 9th Corps to seize the Anafarta Hills bare no relation to the real truth. The operations did for a time make headway in an absolutely impossible country more than any general had a right to expect owing to the superlative gallantry of the Colonial Troops and the self-sacrificing manner in which they threw away their lives against positions which should never have been attacked. The main idea was to cut off the southern portion of the Turkish Army by getting astride of the Peninsula from Suvla Bay. Therefore the whole weight of the attack should have been concentrated on this objective, instead of which the main attack with the best troops was delivered against the side of the Turkish position which is a series of impossible mountains and valleys covered with dense scrub. The Staff seem to have carefully searched for the most difficult points and then threw away thousands of lives in trying to take them by frontal attacks. A few Gourkas obtained a lodgment on Chunuk Bair but were immediately driven off by the Turkish counter attacks and the main objective Koja Chemen Tepe was never approached. The 9th Corps miserably mishandled having failed to take the Anafarta Hills is now accused of being alone responsible for the ultimate failure of the operations. The failure of the 9th Corps was due not so much to the employment of new and untried troops as to bad staff work. The generals had but a vague idea of the nature of the ground in their front and no adequate steps were taken to keep the troops supplied with water. In consequence many of these unfortunate volunteers went three days in very hot weather on one bottle of water and were yet expected to advance carrying heavy loads and to storm strong positions. The Turks having been given ample time to bring up strong reinforcements to Anafarta, where they entrenched themselves in up to their necks, were again assaulted in a direct frontal attack on August 21st. The movement never had the slightest chance of succeeding and led to another bloody fiasco in which the unfortunate 29th Division who were brought up especially from Helles, and the 2nd Mounted Division (Yeomanry) were the chief suffers. As the result of all this fighting our casualties since August 6th now total nearly fifty thousand killed wounded and missing.”
This letter, unlike many others, has not been censored. Letters were censored to prevent disclosure of the location of various military groups, even to families. Letters were also censored in case the enemy intercepted the mail and many were worried of the impact that the news could have on people at home. Forbidden subjects were either ripped out of letters or simply scribbled out and there were up to 375000 letters that were censored each day. One technique of censorship was the field postcard. A field card was a printed card that gave soldiers a number of multiple choice options which they could cross out if they weren’t relevant. They were not allowed to write messages on them otherwise they would be destroyed. Another way of censorship was the honour envelope. These required the sender to sign a declaration to say that they hadn’t disclosed any forbidden information. As this letter was not censored this clearly reveals that there was a fault somewhere in the mail processing which may have allowed few letters through without being checked or censored. This letter was an attempt to expose the conditions at the front to someone of a higher ranking, Mr Asquith, who could do something about it.
I hope you will excuse the liberty I am taking in writing to you but I have the chance of sending this letter through by hand and I consider it absolutely necessary that you should know the true state of affairs out here. Our last great effort to achieve some definite success against the Turks was the most ghastly and costly fiasco in our history since the Battle of Bannockburn. Personally I never thought the scheme decided on by Headquarters ever had the slightest chance of succeeding and all efforts now to make out that it only just failed owing to the failure of the 9th Corps to seize the Anafarta Hills bare no relation to the real truth. The operations did for a time make headway in an absolutely impossible country more than any general had a right to expect owing to the superlative gallantry of the Colonial Troops and the self-sacrificing manner in which they threw away their lives against positions which should never have been attacked. The main idea was to cut off the southern portion of the Turkish Army by getting astride of the Peninsula from Suvla Bay. Therefore the whole weight of the attack should have been concentrated on this objective, instead of which the main attack with the best troops was delivered against the side of the Turkish position which is a series of impossible mountains and valleys covered with dense scrub. The Staff seem to have carefully searched for the most difficult points and then threw away thousands of lives in trying to take them by frontal attacks. A few Gourkas obtained a lodgment on Chunuk Bair but were immediately driven off by the Turkish counter attacks and the main objective Koja Chemen Tepe was never approached. The 9th Corps miserably mishandled having failed to take the Anafarta Hills is now accused of being alone responsible for the ultimate failure of the operations. The failure of the 9th Corps was due not so much to the employment of new and untried troops as to bad staff work. The generals had but a vague idea of the nature of the ground in their front and no adequate steps were taken to keep the troops supplied with water. In consequence many of these unfortunate volunteers went three days in very hot weather on one bottle of water and were yet expected to advance carrying heavy loads and to storm strong positions. The Turks having been given ample time to bring up strong reinforcements to Anafarta, where they entrenched themselves in up to their necks, were again assaulted in a direct frontal attack on August 21st. The movement never had the slightest chance of succeeding and led to another bloody fiasco in which the unfortunate 29th Division who were brought up especially from Helles, and the 2nd Mounted Division (Yeomanry) were the chief suffers. As the result of all this fighting our casualties since August 6th now total nearly fifty thousand killed wounded and missing.”
This letter, unlike many others, has not been censored. Letters were censored to prevent disclosure of the location of various military groups, even to families. Letters were also censored in case the enemy intercepted the mail and many were worried of the impact that the news could have on people at home. Forbidden subjects were either ripped out of letters or simply scribbled out and there were up to 375000 letters that were censored each day. One technique of censorship was the field postcard. A field card was a printed card that gave soldiers a number of multiple choice options which they could cross out if they weren’t relevant. They were not allowed to write messages on them otherwise they would be destroyed. Another way of censorship was the honour envelope. These required the sender to sign a declaration to say that they hadn’t disclosed any forbidden information. As this letter was not censored this clearly reveals that there was a fault somewhere in the mail processing which may have allowed few letters through without being checked or censored. This letter was an attempt to expose the conditions at the front to someone of a higher ranking, Mr Asquith, who could do something about it.