Letters received by Field Marshal Lord William Birdwood, 3 January 1917 – 14 December 1917 - Part 11

14- 5- 17 - HMS Lord Nelson 
My dear General
It is needless to tell you how pleased I was to get your 
letter soon after Anzac day - I often thought of you on
this day itself, and the wonderful way in which your
lads forced their way up their hills and hung on to
Them, I often wonder what would have happened if we
had only had a few more Thousand men & had been
able to reach the top of that 900 foot hill from where,
if we could have held it, you could have commanded
the  Turks line of communication & have spotted us on to
the Forts While  they some ships pushed up the straights & attacked
them from inside? However it is no good speculating now,
and after all our sacrifices were not in vain. A Russian
public speaker addressing a committee of workmen against
making a premature peace said, they must remember what
they owed to us “ how many Gallant English British & French 
soldiers lay buried for our sakes in Gallipoli”.
I have been a good deal on the move of late, have visited
Athens and Corfu amongst other places _ Athens is much
as usual, you would not think there was a blockade on,
Affairs are still most unsatisfactory in Greece and so far
we have all been pulling different ways _ I believe they

are making an effort now to co-operate better but 
it seems to me they have got the wrong people out here to 
do it - At Corfu We had a conference of Admirals to try 
and improve the escort & patrol services in the 
Mediterranean, I put forward some proposals which 
were accepted by the Conference, but so far I do not 
know how they have been received at home - 
At ' Salonica', from where I am writing this, we are 
attacking on the whole front which extends for about 200 
miles. The Principal British Attack is between Lake Doiran 
and the Vardar, as it is an extremely difficult job as it is 
all very mountainous & our men are not accustomed to hill 
fighting , so far we have been partially successful, but have 
lost a good many men, on the Struma, the right flank 
of which I am supporting with my monitor & blister cruisers, 
we are holding our own, but the fever season is beginning 
& I am afraid we shall have a lot of men down with it 
before long - on the other side of the Vardar & round Monistir 
The French, Italians, Russians & Serbs & Greeks are continually 
attacking but are making very little head way - Monistir 
is still being bombarded - I suppose an attack on all 
part of some General plan, otherwise I dont see what 
Good They are unless the Russians & Romanians are 
going to make a good push when the Thaw sets in 

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However like you in France we are killing off Bulgars & 
Bosches - at the Dardanelles they have mounted some 
by guns & are trying to bombard me out of the straits 
Mines are of course being laid every where - after I had 
arrived at Corfu they laid a line of mines to catch me 
on my way back, but fortunately I got wind of these 
& so came back another way - The Germans sent a 
very strong bombing squadron out here & they have been doing 
a lot of damage to the Hospitals & dumps at & round Salonica 
As the army machines were weak & not numerous I got 
Milne to let me form a combined "Army & Navy" Squadron 
fighters & bombers and they have been very successful 
& have broken up the Eurwigs Squadron- 
I am now collecting up all the Generalist Troops from 
all the Aegean Islands, We hope in the course of the next 
few weeks to make the Greek army up to 50 or 60-000 
Good, bad, & indifferent - We follow your movements 
in France very closely and quite hope to see the 
Germans out of France this Summer- I think it is 
wonderful the way we turn them out of their trenches 
& dug outs and I can only hope that our losses 
will continue to be small in comparison with

those of the Germans - How you must all be looking 
forward to the Summer after the dreadfully long 
cold muddy winter - I Presented some decorations & 
medals to our French allies yesterday for good 
service during the Dardanelles operation, I suppose it is our 
Admiralties way of doing things but it struck me as 
rather a long time after the event- 
I hope you will write to me again when you find time 
I am always tremendously interested in all your doings 
on the Western front. 
with every good wish, and please give my kindest 
remembrances to any of my old friends and 
wishing that success & good luck will follow the Anzacs 
wherever they go  
Yours very Sincerely 
Cecil F Thursby 

DONATED RECORDS LIST 
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3rd Series

General Headquarters, 
Mesopotamian  Expeditionary Force. 
16th May, 1917. 

My dear General 
Many thanks for you kind letter of congratulations 
for which I am most grateful. 
Everything has gone most smoothly out here and we have 
been very lucky, whilst I cannot tell you how splendid the 
troops have been. As a result of five months incessant 
fighting our men care nothing for the Turks and go slap at 
them whenever they see them even across the most open 
ground. Only the day before yesterday a squadron of 
cavalry was held up at a small village, so the Squadron 
Commander placed his machine guns in position and carried 
the village by a mounted charge. I only mention this as 
typical of the splendid spirits of the troops. the fierce 
fighting in the Hai salient, the passages of the Tigris and 
Dialah, and the final storming of Sannaiyat were in 
particular fine pieces of work on their part, and I feel 
sure that if the Turk pays us any more attention he will 
receive an equally warm welcome as he got before. 
The weather here is already intensely hot, and having 
accomplished all that we set out to do we are busy settling 
down to summer camps, where I trust the troops will get a 
much needed rest and where I hope that we shall make them 
as comfortable as possible. 
Personally i look forward to a busy summer. Present 
and future operations, Arab tribesmen all round, extended 
lines of communication, the exploiting of local supplies, 
new railways, proximity of the Russians, political questions, 
the

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the reorganisation  of the civil and military administration 
of Baghdad, and a hundred other items will give one plenty 
to do. 
Our movements must have been particularly interesting 
to you with your accurate and recent knowledge of the 
country. 
You are quite right in saying that the railway workshops 
here were good. Indeed everything we found was 
done on a magnificent scale and evidently the Germans 
meant to stay. We did not get any rolling stock to speak 
of here, but when we got into Samarrah we got a good deal 
there, and though some of it was damaged most of it is 
repairable. 
We watch with interest your fine progress on the 
Western front and are hoping daily to hear of further 
successes there. 
Yrs sincerely 
F.S. Maude 
Maude 

To: 
Lieut.-Gen. Sir W.R. Birdwood, K.C.S.I., K.C.M.G., C.B., C.I.E.,D.S.O. 
Commanding 1st Anzac Corps, 
British Army in the Field, 
F R AN C E.

May 16. 1917. 
My dear General, 
I can hardly tell 
you how much I appreciate 
your kindness in writing 
to congratulate me on 
my new appointment, 
and how grateful I am 
for this new token of your 
friendship which I have 
always valued so highly. 
It is of course a promotion, 
but nevertheless a great

personal calamity ! It is 
a mistake for a diplomat, 
who is a bird of passage, 
to get deeply attached to 
a country and to his friends 
in that country, and I am 
now paying the penalty for 
having made that mistake. 
All my best friends, those 
for whom I care most, are 
here or at the British 
front in France; with the 
latter I have kept in constant 
touch, and it breaks my 
heart to have to part with 
them and break these 
connections. Also, I have tried, 
in the discharge of my  
duty, to depart from the 
conventional and antiquated 
methods of diplomacy, and 
to come in close touch not 
merely with officialdom, 
but with public bodies in 
and outside London, with 
the press etc. And I must 
admit with deep regret 
that after my departure 
there will be no one here to 
pick up the threads that 
will have to be broken. The 
situation in Russia is far 
from stable, and in my  
modest opinion my

Government are making a  
mistake in sending our 
Ambassador who will find 
his "trappings" rather an 
embarrassment than a source 
of authority. They had a  
"provisional" representative 
 - a much more suitable position, 
and they ought to have stuck 
to it. The news comes today  
that the Foreign Minister 
has resigned, and this leaves 
me with a faint flicker of 
hope that the Ambassador 
will not come after all, 
and my appointment will 
be cancelled for the time being.

The idea of going to Berne 
doesnt appeal to me in 
the least. it is a boche-ridden 
centre of international 
intrigue, and diplomacy is 
in my opinion incompatible 
with intrigue, with anything 
that isn't absolutely sincere 
and straightforward. There 
is only one post I would 
have accepted with comparative 
satisfaction, and that is 
Washington, where there is 
much useful and far - 
reaching work to be done, 
and where I would have 
been absolutely "at home", as