Gallipoli, Was the Concept Bad Or Was It Poor Execution?

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Constantine XI RE:Gallipoli, Was the Concept Bad Or Was It Poor Execution? 4/29/2005 1:03:43 AM

It was at four in the morning that detachments of ANZAC (Australia New Zealand Army Corps) landed on the beaches of Gallipoli on April 25th 1915. Before even landing ashore they were fired on by Turkish machineguns and when they did leap ashore it was so climb up steep cliffs to take the beach but little else. For an Australian like myself it is a proud moment to think of, it was the baptism of fire for the armed forces of our young nation. Nothing was lacking in the courage or endurance of the men on the ground. As those men stuggled up sheer cliff faces the bravery of them was remembered by their decendents, who also lament the shockingly poor execution of the actual commanders and planners of the campaign. Those ANZAC forces should have quietly and successfully made their way ashore and surprised the enemy defences. Instead the battle commanders had gotten things wrong, they landed the soldiers on the wrong beach and a heroic but tragic history was written. No one can blame Churchill for his judgement, one look at the map of Europe will show the common sense of such a target for assault. Churchill took the blame for the failure, yet he was not the man who decided how the campaign should be waged. In another crucial battle which was meant to redeem the failure of the initial landings plans were made for soldiers to storm the Turkish trenches after a heavy artillery barrage which would most likely have succeeded given their exposed position and primitive construction. This was known as the Battle of the Nek and it was also a failure. The reason being for this was again the fault of battlefield planners and commanders. The commanders didn't synchronise their watches, the Allied soldiers went over the top before the artillery barrage was due to begin and were slaughtered by the still intact Turkish guns. Watching the first two trenches of men die pointlessly, the next two lines followed their orders nonetheless and were slaughtered in vain. Certainly nothing was lacking in the courage of the men, and Chruchill's general strategy was a sound one. The operational blunders of battlefield commanders ensured thefailure of the campaign. Would A success at Gallipoli have made a difference? It would have been totally decisive. The Russian army still had good fighting spirit and with actual decent weaponary would be able to again press the Germans hard on a front which was not bogged down totally with trench warfare. This is not to mention the drive into central Europe from the south which could have been undertaken. The Germans and Austrians would not have had enough manpower to overcome a once more vigorous Russian enemy, maintain sufficient defences on the Westrn Front and also defeat an attack from the Balkans.

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Pars RE:Gallipoli was a bad choice for naval invasion 4/29/2005 11:40:40 AM

Gallipoli was a bad choice as this is exactly where Turkish army expected them to attack. 2 of the 5 Turkish armies concentrated at Istanbul general area to counter it. Turkish army also expexted a simultaneous Russian amphibious invasion somewhere close to Istanbul which never matearilised. Selanik was much better place as Greeks were pro-Ally. There was time to consiliate their power before Central armies had show up. Also Adana was an excellent landing place if the main objective was taking Turkey out. From Adana landing directly would be in position to cut the supply line of Ottoman Army facing Egypt and they would be close enough to support Russian advance in East Anatolia. So why was Gallipoli selected. First of all initially they were not planning a landing. Churchill and Navy thought that Navy could cross Dardanelles without the help of Army. That is ironic because British know exactly how well defended the Dardanelles starits are as their own engineers helped in peace time to build it. After their navy defeated with several lost battleship; politically they had to force a landing. As the Asian side of straits is much better place for amphibious landings they were waiting the main effort there. If not there they were expexting it on the neck of Peninsula. Because any success there would trap every other Turkish unit in the peninsula. That was why initially Gallipoli was lighly defended. Turkish army concentrated at the neck and Asia part. But allies had landed at the most worst location. At the tip of Peninsula and Anzac cove both places were very rough and hard to exploit an initial exploit. For that reason they were lightly defended. The failure had happened because allies highly underestimated the Turkish army because of its failure in Balkan Wars. They thought that only problem of the expedition is to land somewhere quickly. Then Turkish army would simply run. Most of the disasters in military history happened because of underestimation of enemy.

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timon_phocas RE:Gallipoli, Was the Concept Bad Or Was It Poor Execution? 4/30/2005 5:17:10 PM

generally, the concept was good. the execution was execrable, down to the selection of beaches

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Carl D. RE:Gallipoli, Was the Concept Bad Or Was It Poor Execution? 6/12/2005 8:59:28 AM

Their security was terrible as well. When they were staging in Egypt, they were openly known as the Constantiople Expeditionary Force.

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Carl S RE:Gallipoli, Was the Concept Bad Or Was It Poor Execution? 9/20/2005 8:12:41 AM

Gallipoli was used (probably still is) at the USMC officers Basic School as an example of how not to conduct a amphibious invasion. The Instructor spent two hours picking it apart. Security was mentioned above. the Btits failed in this & the Turks knew the essentials of the attack. When & where. Speed was refered to above as well. There were many delays in preparing for the attack, which risked security, and the actuall landings were done with little sense of urgency. Mass was not present. There were five different landing groups scattered out of mutually supporting range. Objective was not clear to the subordinate commanders. It is not even clear what the overall commander inteneded. Was the object to clear the west shore of the Bosporus so the navy could proceed to Istambul? Was the landing force to consolidate and attack to Istambul? Or was it to divert the Turks from a projected attack elsewhere? Each course required a different tactical action at the landing sites. Unity of command ws not present. It was not established if the naval commaders were subordinate to the landing force commaders, or if were the other way around. Neither were the command details clear for the landing force internally. Last the line of authority for the commander of the entire expedition properly defined. There were conflicts and lapses due to confusion over who was responsible over what. Proper rehersals were not done. (Training). Major lapses in planning would have been revealed if the landing force had had a organized plan for rehearsing, both collectively and in small units. The US Marines had learned that rehearsals are one of the top two or three critical items for an amphib landing. The Brits attempted one and botched it. Administration suffered from the lack of unity of command. Supply items were either not planned for, sent to the wrong location, not known to exist, or their location unknown. Written orders were poorly distributed before the landing, and as the plan was written and assembled old partial copies remained in circulation. I could go on but I need to get to work and its been 23 years since that lecture. You probably have the general idea by now.

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kane RE:it is a think that makes turk proud 9/22/2005 10:54:41 AM

atat�rk changed many things in good way while liman von sanders was changing everything in bad way.it is the result of bravery.turks fought aganist many nations troops(england,india,canada,new zealand,australia,france lost 250.000) we lost another 250.000.dont you think its butchery?

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PowerPointRanger Churchill 11/6/2005 12:37:06 PM

I think Carl has covered why it failed. I might only add that the terrain did not particularly suit invasion. If the intent was to occupy Turkey, it was a bad idea. If it was only to isolate Turkey and open access to Russia through the Dardanelles, I could see it as a good idea. Regardless, it was too large an operation considering that a naval invasion on this scale had not been attempted in living memory. Perhaps they should have tried something easier first, like a Turkish occupied island in the area.

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Pars RE:Churchill 11/6/2005 8:14:05 PM

There was only 2 island at the Aegean under Turkish control at the start of WW1. Both were invaded by English shortly before Dardanelles. They were not defended so it was pretty quick. Best place for allies to land was Iskenderun. Because when they capture that city they could also cut the only railway from Anatolia to Syria.

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Carl S RE:Churchill 11/7/2005 7:18:15 PM

But Iskenderun does not open a route to Russia. At least not directly. And a sucessfull landing is in part defined by the subsequent capture of Istanbul, which also cuts the Central Powers supply route to Syria.

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Pars RE:Churchill 11/8/2005 1:05:30 PM

I do not agree. Nearly 2/3 of Ottman Army was in the close area of Istanbul. More than that Ottoman leaders were expecting an attack against Dardenelles. On the other hand, there was only 1 Turkish division close to Iskenderun. And unlike Gallipoli, Iskenderun is on an open terrain. A surprise landing could easily take the city. And even if Gallipoli attack was successful; it would only give Allied navy the access to Marmara sea. But British, French and Russian (according to plan which would make an amphibious invasion from Black sea) units have to defeat 2/3 of entire Ottoman Empire which was stationed between Gallipoli and Istanbul. It would drain many divisons from other fronts which is not very clear if the Allies were ready to commit that much.

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Carl S RE:Gallipoli Objective 11/8/2005 8:12:45 PM

Ah, I see you are refrering to a different thing than I. Certainly Iskenderun may have been a easier operational objective. But it does not get you any closer to opening the sea route to Russia. Which was a critical stratigic objective.

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Pars RE:Gallipoli Objective 11/9/2005 12:11:34 PM

Yes, Gallipoli was more valuable strategic objective if Allies were ready to commit enough resources. But Allies had greatly underestimated Ottoman military strength largely due to Ottomans very bad performance at the Balkan Wars. In the result the sources committed to the objective was far below than needed. IMO; Gallipoli should only be considered as an objective in a Ottoman First Grand Strategy. And that would be a good Grand Strategy because as long as Bulgaria stayed neutral; Ottomans would be isolated from the rest of the Central powers.

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CJH RE:Gallipoli Objective 11/9/2005 8:32:33 PM

An Ottoman First Grand Strategy would have been an example of taking out the junior partner first which I have read is a good stratgy.

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Thomas RE:Gallipoli Objective 11/10/2005 6:07:33 AM

There is an interesting Danish sidelight to this: Admiral Fisher was brought out of retirement to plan an invasion on the Baltic coast of Germany. That would have meant forcing the straits of Denmark. Gallipoli was the easy option.

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culprit217 Gallipoli was disaster in all considerations 11/30/2005 4:06:22 PM

Churchill was a dreamer and filled with wild ideas. It is very sad this one particularly bad idea was given any thought of success by the Brits and the French. First, the thought of significantly resupplying the Russians was fruitless. Don't forget the allies were constantly low on everything themselves...especially shells and men. Second, Russia at the time was already falling apart. the Germans were not overly worried about the East and the Allies were coming with far too little and far too late considering the political and logistic problems involved in supporting Russia. Third, churchills memoirs reavle little of his disasterous gallipoli idea except to mention it was an idea born of frustration over the stangnat trench war of Flanders and the Somme...they simply had to try something even if it was wrong. The fact that such poor planning on the part of the allies and the limited support they initially gave the effort seems to belie their faith in the campaign. The pre-Dreadnaugh battleships dedicated to the support never did seriously threaten the Turks at any event. The worst part of the Gallipoli campaign is the abandonment of the troops to their circumstances. Once the thing was shown to be a disaster, military leadership returned its attention to the real war on the Eastern area of France and the poor Aussies and New Zealanders were pretty much left to rot on the beaches...though belatedly evacuated under terriffic fire, mainly due to humanitarian pressures back home. The military thinking of the day seems to have been..."Well, they failed their objectives, let them suffer for it." Thousands died uselessly for sheer craven stubborness and inter-compartment in-fighting and polticial "gotcha-ness". Gallipoli was pointless and totally unnecessary, and should be marked on Churchills grave stone... in my humble opinion.

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