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

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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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