Ellis Ashmead Bartlett 1881 - 1931
Ellis Ashmead Bartlett , eldest son. Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett was the eldest son of Sir Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett (1849-1902). Born in 1881, he was educated at Marlborough College. In 1897, at the age of 17, he accompanied his father to Turkey as the guest of the Sultan and followed the Turkish army in its campaign against the Greeks. At one point the party was arrested by the Greeks as spies. Ashmead-Bartlett had begun studying to become a barrister when he left with his regiment for the South African War in February 1900. At the end of May he was taken ill, sent home and spent 7 months in hospital. By early in 1901 he was in Marseilles and Monte Carlo, supposedly for recuperation (A/3), and in May 1901 he returned to London to stay with his uncle and aunt, the Burdett-Coutts, and continued his legal studies. It was not until 1904 that he began his career as a war correspondent by covering the siege of the Russian port of Port Arthur by the Japanese, entering the city with the victors. His account, Port Arthur: the siege and capitulation (London 1906) was well received. For the next few years he mixed a full social life in London and the country and in Paris (as described in his diaries) with periods as a war correspondent and writer and a developing political career. As Reuters' special correspondent he accompanied the French army in Morocco (1907-08), the Spanish in Morocco (1909) and the Italians in Tripoli (1911). At home he fought the safe Labour seat of Normanton in Yorkshire for the Conservatives in January 1910 and the Liberal seat of Poplar in December 1910. He was then employed by the Daily Telegraph to be its correspondent in the Balkans and he covered the two Balkan wars of 1912-1913. At the outbreak of war in 1914 Ashmead-Bartlett returned from Bucharest to volunteer for his old regiment, but was turned down for medical reasons. He was selected by the National Press Association (Lord Burnham, proprietor of the Daily Telegraph, was the chairman) as the London Press representative on the Dardanelles Campaign, which began in March 1915. He was soon critical of the conduct of the campaign by the Allied commander Sir Ian Hamilton and the General Staff. Returning to London in June 1915 (having survived the sinking of the 'Majestic' on 26 May) he discussed the campaign with senior ministers and politicians (Asquith, Balfour, Carson, Bonar Law, Churchill, Kitchener) and presented a memorandum on the subject to the cabinet. Ashmead-Bartlett returned to the Dardanelles at the end of June, his equipment now including a movie camera which he used to make the only moving pictures of the campaign. Further disastrous landings and assaults in August and, in his view, the continued mismanagement of the campaign led him to make another attempt to influence the government, by sending a letter to the Prime Minister with Australian correspondent Keith Murdoch. Though the letter was seized by the military authorities, Murdoch wrote another version from memory, and this was delivered to Asquith via the Australian PM Fisher. Ashmead-Bartlett was dismissed as a war correspondent in the Dardanelles on 30 September 1915 (he had already unsuccessfully applied to the NPA to be relieved). Exactly how much effect his interventions had will probably remain unclear, but Ashmead-Bartlett might have been partly responsible for the withdrawal from Gallipoli in 1915 and the subsequent resignation of Churchill. The issue of Ashmead-Bartlett's role in the campaign continued to be raised well after it ended. He was invited to give evidence to the Dardanelles Commission in 1917 and the publication of his books, Ashmead Bartlett's Despatches from the Dardanelles (1916) and The Uncensored Dardanelles (1928), and those of Sir Ian Hamilton and others usually caused a flurry of articles and letters in the press. Even in 1933, after his death, his family were prompted to defend him in the Daily Telegraph following more allegations from Hamilton (E/30). (For an account of his involvement in the Dardanelles campaign and its aftermath, see K. Fewster, 'Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett and the Making of the Anzac Legend' in Journal of Australian Studies No.10, June 1982, pp.17-30) Ashmead-Bartlett claimed that the War Office persecuted him after his dismissal and in 1916 attempted to prevent him delivering a series of lectures on the Dardanelles campaign in England, the United States, Australia and New Zealand. Certainly he was never permitted to accompany British or Dominion troops again, and on his return to Britain he worked for the Daily Telegraph as one of the British Press group attached to the French Army at the headquarters of Marshal Joffre. In 1918 he sought a post as a correspondent with the American Army in France, but was rejected, apparently as a result of War Office objections. In 1919 Ashmead-Bartlett was again employed by the Daily Telegraph, reporting on events in Central Europe. He spent several months in Austria, Poland, Romania and Hungary, and was horrified by the threat of Bolshevism in the region. In Budapest he became directly involved in political intrigue during the Hungarian revolution, working with an anti-Bolshevik faction and lobbying British ministers on their behalf. Despite being based in Paris he re-entered British politics and was narrowly defeated by the Labour candidate in North Hammersmith in 1923, but won the seat in 1924. As an MP his main concern was foreign policy. In 1926 he was obliged to resign his seat because of bankruptcy. He returned to work as a special correspondent for the Daily Telegraph, reporting on, inter alia, the civil war in China in 1927, Soviet Russia in 1928, Palestine in 1929, and India in 1930. At the same time he continued to publish books based on his newspaper writings. He became ill while covering the Spanish Revolution and died at Lisbon on 4 May 1931. Publications: Port Arthur: the siege and capitulation (W. Blackwood & Sons: Edinburgh & London, 1906); The Immortals and the Channel Tunnel. A discussion in Valhalla (W. Blackwood & Sons: Edinburgh & London, 1907); Richard Langhorne. The romance of a Socialist (W. Blackwood & Sons: Edinburgh & London, 1908); The Passing of the Shereefian Empire (W. Blackwood & Sons: Edinburgh & London, 1910); in collaboration with Seabury Ashmead-Bartlett, With the Turks in Thrace (William Heinemann: London, 1913); Ashmead Bartlett's Despatches from the Dardanelles (George Newnes: London, 1916); Some of my Experiences in the Great War (George Newnes: London, 1918); The Tragedy of Central Europe (Thornton Butterworth: London, 1923); The Uncensored Dardanelles (Hutchinson & Co.: London, 1928); The Riddle of Russia (Cassell & Co.: London, 1929). Sir Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett's younger brother and Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett's uncle was Rt. Hon. William Lehman Ashmead Bartlett Burdett-Coutts (1851-1921). He married Angela, Baroness Burdett-Coutts (1823-1906), and assumed her surname. He was also an MP (Con, Westminster, 1885-1921).
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| Born: 1881 | Baptised:
| | Died: Lisbon, Portugal, , 4th May 1931 | Buried:
| | Family: Bartlett |
Timeline
| 1881 | Born (birth) | | 4th May 1931 | Died (death) Lisbon, Portugal |
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