Dominic Sandbrook

Because even as they are having these meetings...

In mid-January, it becomes clear that actually this encirclement at Salakamish has actually worked out in the Russians' favour, not the Ottomans.

Enver has made a terrible mess of things.

Of his 100,000 men, about 80,000 of them are killed.

They die of frostbite or freezing to death or typhus or whatever.

The Russians then basically pile in to Western Armenia, Eastern Turkey.

And this is the point at which Enver and the Young Turk leadership say, well, it's not our fault that we lost this terrible battle.

It's actually the fault of fifth columnists and traitors within the Armenians.

Who stabbed us in the back.

Who stabbed us in the back.

And this is what sets the stage for the Armenian genocide, which begins just a few weeks later.

Now, meanwhile, in London, Churchill, of course, is oblivious to all this.

He doesn't care about any of this.

He is just thrilled that his pet scheme has got the go ahead.

And when he goes back to the Admiralty and says, it's on, let's do this, a lot of his colleagues are horrified.

Most obviously, the first Sea Lord.

So this is the senior naval officer, effectively, of the Admiralty.

He is Admiral Lord Fisher, Jackie Fisher, a great celebrity in 1910s Britain.

He had been the man in charge of the Navy before the war, and he'd been brought back from retirement in 1914.

He is a remarkable, remarkable character.