12 Charleville Circus
Sydenham SE
June 20 1915
My dear Mother
We were glad to hear from your letter to Jack last week that you really intend coming up here on your way to Eastbourne and will probably be with us a fortnight hence. I hope it will be the lovely weather we are having today and that you will be able to give us several days. I suppose Aunt Lottie is not making a very long visit. Next weekend Betty and I will be down at Addlestone. We shall go down in time for lunch on Saturday but shall have to leave room after tea on Sunday for Betty to get back to Highgate in good time.
We are wondering if Cyril has really started yet for the Dardanelles. What an experience it will be for him especially who has never been out of England at all. Poor old boy, I do hope will come through all right. We may have rather more to put up with on his account from the distance and difficulty in getting news, but perhaps he may have rather less than more than if he had gone to France. I hope it may be a really successful operation. How delighted they will all be if it is and they really do win their way through. They are evidently sending out their more heavy artillery; a brother of a girl I was talking to yesterday at the tennis club is in the Royal Garrison Artillery and is just going out. Now that affairs on the Russian frontier are so terribly critical, one hopes all the more that we shall get through. Gamin in the “Observer” today has an interesting article mainly on Russia. He thinks it is touch and go now whether Lemberg falls, compares the situation there to that of Paris in September and says that the Germans are now more confident than they have been since that month. However though he takes the situation very seriously, he does not think their hopes of completely crushing Russia before Britain is ready are really justified, as he thinks even if Lemberg falls there are strong defences behind which will prevent the cutting of the Russian line at least until we are ready with great stores of ammunition to help them. Jack and I think of going to hear that inveterate optimist Hilaire Belloc on Tuesday and shall see what he has to say on the Eastern situation. I wonder what are the powers to be asked for in Parliament for the making of munitions, foreshadowed by Bonar Law in his speech at Shrewsbury yesterday.
George’s letter was very interesting. It sounds as if the CS Rifles were at the extreme southern end of our line where it meets the French and that the line has been lately lengthened. We are sending off a parcel to him tomorrow - various eatables chiefly. I will write to Cyril directly we hear that he is on his way; at present we have no address.
Now I must write to May I think and then a few other letters if possible. Much love.
Your affectionate daughter
Kathleen
