Gallipoli

[Mugwump]

I'm doing a little pro bono work for a mate's research project into Australians' knowledge about Gallipoli, and so I'd like your help if you are interested. The question is : "what do you know about the Gallipoli campaign, without looking at Wikipedia or doing any specific research before you answer ?" (and resisting, if you can, the temptation we all have to appear more knowledgeable than we are - though if you really do know something, or think you know it, that's important too).

For the purpoes of the research "The Gallipoli campaign" refers to the period between 19 February and 20th December 1915.

Feel free to essay the usual evaluative opinions about who was right and who was wrong, the plucky Aussies, the bastard English etc if you wish, but in truth we're most interested in what Australians know of the factual course of what happened, and what facts resonate most strongly in the national memory.

A full history essay is ok if you know that much, but it'd be more helpful to us (and probably more interesting to anyone else reading the forum) if you could keep it to a paragraph or two at max. Thanks for anything you want to offer. cheers Mugwump

[stui magpie]

I'm happy to appear dumb.

At high school all we were taught was that the ANZACS landed on the turkish shore. The whys and wherefores for that decision wasn't something I recall being told.
That's not surprising, a lot of war back in the day was about capturing territory and not a lot of explanation was forthcoming.

I read something not long ago that suggested the Gallipoli campaign was some half assed idea that we would land troops on the beach at Turkey and trot unthreatened all the way through to Germany and make a new front. No one told the Turks they were supposed to be no more than speedbumps.

There was a number of conflicts both in the first and second world war that better define the Australian character than Gallipoli for mine. Climbing out of mud and running at guns on a suicide mission because the Poms told you to isn't that typical. Tobruk showed something as did several others.

At Gallipoli we showed mateship, sacrifice, inventiveness, determination and the propensity to bend over with arse in the air for the Poms. The last one faded through WW11.

So History buffs, feel free to tear me to shreds.

[Mugwump]

That's great Stui, many thanks. It's pretty much where i was til about six months ago, when he got me interested in it. Like all stories, there are lots of layers etc but i don't think we learnt much of that when i was at school in Melbourne in the sixties and seventies. Cheers

Ps "noone told the Turks they were supposed to be no more than speedbumps" is a phrase that should, i hope, find its way into this PhD thesis !

[Tannin]

The good news is that I could do you a full history essay (from memory) on most of the major or more significant WW2 campaigns and battles, certainly anything from the Napoleonic Wars, almost anything from the American Civil War, also the Hundred Years War and a randomish grab-bag of other historical conflicts, particularly those which were important from the point of view of the development of tactics and strategy and the interplay of these things with weapon development, and especially the interplay of all these things with social and economic change.

This is my particular interest: things like the massive changes in warfare between 1815 and 1915 (most of which really came to pass between 1861 and 1865, the rest being more-or-less inevitable consequences) - largely as a result of industrial production and modern breech-loading weapons. Or things like the interplay between the social, economic, and technological revolutions through the late Middle Ages and the ever-changing relative strength on the battlefield of armour, longbow, horse, and musket, not to mention the equally fascinating interplay between all of those things and the right of king, pope, parliament, or aristocrat to rule in any particular place. In short, I love history almost to the point of wallowing in it.

(OK, past that point.)


The bad news is that from all of these points of view, the Gallipoli campaign was a bit of a sideshow, and while I'd do OK if you asked about the Western Front, I've forgotten most of what I used to know about the Eastern Front and the October Revolution, and I've only ever been passingly familiar with Gallipoli. Still, I know enough to be able to reject one or two of the more common myths.

It wasn't Anzacs commanded by bastard British vs the Plucky Turks: there were more British killed there than Australians, which conveniently we like to forget, and plenty of French as well as I recall. Yep, the British weren't very competent, but generalship in 1915 was appalling across the board. Nobody told the generals on either side that the rules of war had changed forever in the 1860s (refer to Shiloh or Cold Harbor as examples) and changed further in 1870. WW1 generals did figure that out eventually - by 1915 the best of them were starting to organise themselves in the light of the lessons of 1870, which were mostly to do with modern logistics and the renewed importance of artillery superiority - but we didn't see really competent WW1-era generals until quite a lot later: it was 1917 and even 1918 before they got really good at it ... and just as they did, along came still newer disruptive technologies like aircraft and tanks and small unit combined arms doctrine to throw all they had learned out the window once again and provide a foretaste of the yet newer style of warfare which would be seen in full mega-scale from 1939-45.

Oh, but don't let that confuse the main issue: of course the English were bastards. Was there ever any doubt?

[HAL]

Anything else?

[Tannin]

[ronrat]

I know we basically sacrificed experience horsemen as cannon fodder. They shouldn't have landed where they did. That we lost a general, shot by a sniper. That we one our first VC there, Albert Jacka who eventually was Mayor of StKilda. That Trooper Billy Sing, a Chinese/Englishman from north Qld way was credited with hundreds of kills as a sniper. So much so that the Turks put their best people to kill him but failed. That attacks like The Nek would have brought court martials in WW11. That disease probably killed more than the Turks. That Australia lost a submarine in the Dardenelles. That the ANZACs didn't have much time for Churchill. That the French and English suffered casualties and heavily. The Lancashire Regiment won 6 VCs before breakfast. The Australians next to them won nothing. Simpson and his donkey(s) became legends. That Chanuk Bair is as sacred to Kiwis as say Lone Pine is to us.That Gallipolli ended the Ottoman empire and began the birth of the Turkish nation. That the failure of Gallipoli gave Australia a lot of military clout and led to such things as Monash taking over when all the British failures were highlighted in the war cabinet room. That if I see one more bogan running around headstones with an ANZAC beanie and a fanatic scarf I will spew.

[Mugwump]

^ thanks Tannin, yep, all true. The readiness of the Germans in 1914 was heavily due to the development of the Prussian General Staff under von Moltke during the 1850s. None of that is quite the story of Gallipoli, though it has some bearing, since the Turks were led by a German general and had a smattering of German officers. Not to take anything away from the courage and initiative of Turkish officers and soldiers, which played a significant part in their victory.

And yes, the Generals on both sides learnt as the war progressed. The "lions led by donkeys" caricature has some truth in it, but the picture you paint is pretty much how respected academic historians see it today.

On Gallipoli, ca 34000 Brtiish dead, 8700 Australian, 2700 NZ. The French dead - mostly African colonial - exceeded the Australian dead. turkish dead are less precisely recorded, but seem likely to number well over 100,000. None of that counts the wounded, many with broken and crippled lives afterward.

Thanks for the reply.

[David]

This is what I recall:

The Gallipoli campaign was an attempt by the Allies�I believe it was done at the request of (then high-ranking military officer) Winston Churchill�to take control of the Bosporus Strait, a narrow passage of water separating the Mediterranean from the Black Sea (so, presumably, an important naval route for the Ottoman Empire). It was decided that forces would be dropped at Gallipoli Beach, a small area of land on the peninsula on the (I think) south-eastern side of the strait in what we know nowadays as Turkey, and that they would fight to take and hold this land indefinitely. Most of the forces deployed for this mission were soldiers from Australia and New Zealand.

The battle between the Turks and the invaders was long and hard, and ended with the ANZACs thoroughly defeated and the mission called off. In the UK, the entire campaign was generally seen as the catastrophic failure it was, and Churchill was publicly humiliated. In Australia, however, tales (some true, some undoubtedly exaggerated) of the unusual bravery of our 'diggers' had been reaching our shores over the course of the campaign, and, despite the result, it formed an important part of the war folklore and local propaganda effort for the remainder of World War 1 and beyond. In 1915�I think while the campaign was actually still underway�ANZAC Day was instituted as a national holiday (ostensibly, to honour the sacrifice of the soldiers, but in reality, as a recruitment tool).

[Mugwump]

[Mugwump]

[David]

Cheers Mugwump. Yep, looking at a few of the posts above I can see I got some things wrong. But great exercise, thanks! We should do stuff like this more often.

[Morrigu]

I won't add anything of any historical merit or use Mugwump - I paid no heed during my schooling and have no interest in the historical musings of wars.

But having been to be Gallipoli and having stood amongst the graves of men lost too young and there were so so many on both sides I just felt sad and a little angry.

The terrain is inhospitable - and you find yourself trying to imagine what it must of been like for men with heavy packs trying to advance up these ridiculous hills where they were nothing but sitting ducks for target practice.

We went to the trenches that are still left - WTF - I don't know if this is true or not but there were lines and our Turkish friend explained these were the lines where "time out" was called and the opposing forces swapped tobacco for papers and retrieved their fallen.

We wandered around in a boat of the coast looking at the landing site and sorry but I think the poms fcked up big time and really gave the lads no chance.

We went to Lone Pine where my hubby viewed the plaques of his 3 lost relatives, the New Zealand memorial and the Turkish memorial.

When I think of Gallipoli I think of the tremendous waste of life - young men doing the bidding of old men with too much power and too much ego.

But I also think they went for the majority with the right intention to uphold our way of life , for our freedoms and to fight for their country - and for that I will always honour their ultimate sacrifice.

And when we stood in front of the Memorial at Anzac Cove and read the words of Ataturk - I couldn't help crying

"Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives�
You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours�
You, the mothers, who sent their sons from faraway countries wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace, after having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well."
Ataturk, 1934

There you go totally useless ..... I knew more about the campaign at the time of visiting ..., but it is only the feeling I had that remains fresh in my memory.

And there is something strangely cathartic about being able to visit the site of such loss as a result of war with the descendants of the other side and be able to be friends per se - and I think Ataturk must take credit for much of this.

Lest We Forget.

[Mugwump]

^ not useless at all, Morrigu, thanks. Whatever anyone can write, is valuable given the research project. And it was lovely that you were able to quote those incredibly moving words of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. The point of the research is to understand what is lodged in the Australian memory, so any input is valuable. That we all have different priorities and interests is part of that. As i said above, what I knew of Gallipoli six months ago is less than anyone has written above, despite an Australian education and living in the country more than half my life. Thanks

[Wokko]

One thing I remember is early on there were many opportunities for breakthroughs when the overwhelming landing force had the Turks out of ammo, supplies and men and desperately waiting for reinforcement and resupply. Rather than pushing on they dug in, gave the Turkish forces time and the as with any invasion if the enemy can start bringing in fresh troops to prepared positions then its in trouble.

Gallipoli is such a minor campaign and a failed one at that, I'm still surprised that it hold so much resonance as opposed to say Australians fighting on the Western Front.

I also remember hearing from a turkish based source that the auto firing rifles to cover retreat thing is more myth than fact, the Turks weren't fooled by it one little bit but we still like to tell the story in School history classes.