Gallipoli Campaign

[LeEnfield]

Like many ideas it was a good one, but the devil was in the planning. Secrecy did not come into it and it was talk of London and probably many other places so know doubt that they knew it was coming.
The General they put in charge looked for a top team to help in the planning and that was all turned down as every one was looking at the Western front to make their names and get that place in the history books. The team that he selected was eventually put together to organise the with drawl from there. When they with drew the Turkish forts were down to their last few rounds of artillery shells and it could have been that one more push would have done it, but we will never know.
So many other silly little things went wrong like synchronising the time of every ones watches. there was not a standard time to set a watch by and many of the officers watches differed by more than half an hour, so attacks were going in before the artillery barrage and silly things like that.
Like many of these battles hind sight is wonderful thing, but Churchill took the blame for it all resigned from government, put on a uniform and went and fought in the trenches on the western front, not a thing you would see todays politicians doing

 

[mmarsh]

Like many ideas it was a good one, but the devil was in the planning. Secrecy did not come into it and it was talk of London and probably many other places so know doubt that they knew it was coming.
The General they put in charge looked for a top team to help in the planning and that was all turned down as every one was looking at the Western front to make their names and get that place in the history books. The team that he selected was eventually put together to organise the with drawl from there. When they with drew the Turkish forts were down to their last few rounds of artillery shells and it could have been that one more push would have done it, but we will never know.
So many other silly little things went wrong like synchronising the time of every ones watches. there was not a standard time to set a watch by and many of the officers watches differed by more than half an hour, so attacks were going in before the artillery barrage and silly things like that.
Like many of these battles hind sight is wonderful thing, but Churchill took the blame for it all resigned from government, put on a uniform and went and fought in the trenches on the western front, not a thing you would see todays politicians doing

He didn't stay on the front very long (a few months), but your overall point
is well stated. Churchill was a man who clearly lead from the front.

 

[Botak]

I always wanted to join the 10th Light Horse, since I saw the Peter Weir film 'Gallipoli' as a kid... as a movie it makes a bit free with some facts, but it was still pretty inspirational.

For some of the guys who've asked what the battlefield is like, I was lucky enough to go there for ANZAC Day 2007. For those who asked about the topo? Gents, the topo can only be described as ****ing brutal.

The going up the man-made path from Anzac Cove past Shell Green and the turnoff to Monash Valley up to Lone Pine was a good brisk warm-up... I saw a large number of the civvies that were there pausing several times on the way up to catch their breath- this is on a comparatively smooth path, cut into the hillside...

Not even a fraction as tough as actually taking the ridge head on, which had a steeper gradient, undulating flora which in patches would constitute both open and closed county and more knife edges than the home shopping network. This would've been negotiated in the dark, wearing full kit, under fire with no unit cohesion. The ground that was covered successfully in the early hours of 25 April 1915 has been written about so many times, it's almost a cliche to say it but it's true - when you see it you wonder "How the holy snapping Duckshit did those blokes even attempt to do this?"

The climb up the sealed road from Lone Pine to the Turkish Memorial, the Nek and Chunuk Bair is equally eye-opening, both for more views of the terrain, and the small memorials for different parts of the battlefield along the way and in the heat of the day I don't mind admitting it's a fair workout.

The Nek is just plain heartbraking. I **** you not, you could almost throw a stone from the area where the Australian lines were up to a small marble setting/obelisk where the Turkish lines apparently were. And it's narrow. It's narrow enough that you wouldn't play Cricket/baseball perpendicular to the edge of the ridge on the Suvla Bay side for fear of losing your ball if the keeper/catcher didn't take it cleanly.

The drop off you'd lose your ball from? As much as it's blatantly bloody obvious how it would've been a no-hope slaughter without the supporting NZ attack from the rear, it's actually kind of believable too to see how a very small portion of men the third wave of the 10th that went over the top managed to scarper home... it's sheer, and in terms of dead ground, you'd have to be a hell of a gunner to nail a fleeing soldier who'd gotten onto it. Having said that, one misstep once you were there and that'd be it for you... it was a long way down, and you've got a hell of a view of Suvla.

Chunuk Bair would've been a nightmare. Once the sections of "closed country" (read scrub forest) were quickly annihiliated by Turkish guns, trying to get decent cover would've been like a less than secret drunken romp with the RSM's ugly daughter - initially unnerving, unimaginably terrible and ultimately lethal. I hate to descend to flippant sarcasm, but looking over the ground on that ridgetop really is just one of those awful brick-to-the-face type things that's better experienced than described.

The rub of it is, the terrain at Anzac Cove is very sobering and in my quite possibly limited opinion, extremely tough. In his battle history of the US Marines, Colonel Joseph H Alexander USMC (Retd) protests that Gallipoli was unfairly hung over the heads of amphibious warfare advocates for 25+ years afterwards, and have to say I only partially agree that it was unfair to do so. I can't speak for the rest of the Peninsula, but at the risk of causing a shitfight in this thread, I think under the same circumstances not even the USMC or RMLI of 1915 could've taken those ridges, regardless of Naval support (Indeed the RND was one of the British Divisions actually used in the campaign and they were at the ANZAC area - they got just as badly shat on as we, the Kiwi's or the French did).

 

[Botak]

Like many ideas it was a good one, but the devil was in the planning. Secrecy did not come into it and it was talk of London and probably many other places so know doubt that they knew it was coming.
The General they put in charge looked for a top team to help in the planning and that was all turned down as every one was looking at the Western front to make their names and get that place in the history books. The team that he selected was eventually put together to organise the with drawl from there. When they with drew the Turkish forts were down to their last few rounds of artillery shells and it could have been that one more push would have done it, but we will never know.
So many other silly little things went wrong like synchronising the time of every ones watches. there was not a standard time to set a watch by and many of the officers watches differed by more than half an hour, so attacks were going in before the artillery barrage and silly things like that.
Like many of these battles hind sight is wonderful thing, but Churchill took the blame for it all resigned from government, put on a uniform and went and fought in the trenches on the western front, not a thing you would see todays politicians doing

I actually think it's a bit unfair to lay it all on Churchill... an equal share of the blame sits with Hamilton. He consistently underrated the strength he'd need to do the job, something that was exacerbated as the battle went on and got away from him. Typical British 'Donkey General' that didn't receive nearly the bollocking post-war that he deserved, while other British 'Donkey Generals' who hadn't done nearly as badly and weren't nearly as inept received far more criticism.