Lord Herbert wrote on Apr 25^th, 2014 at 4:46pm:


You are hiding something, Walter.  There is no way 80 men could lay down a field of fire to subdue the thousands who landed.

Lord Herbert wrote on Apr 25^th, 2014 at 5:37pm:
I agree with you Herbert. The Australian High Command and pollies should have known what was about to happen. But they were such a bunch of colonial  balllickers at the time that it probably blinded them to the realities. Seeing all this royal boredom happening at the moment only makes me think that it's still alive.

Quote:


How funny is that!  Our ballikers (whatever that means) lot were meant to know that the Poms were ballickers!

Okay, I get it.

Aussie wrote on Apr 25^th, 2014 at 6:07pm:
So you think a group of people in charge that send the cream of our youth blindly into a massacre shouldn't be described as "balllickers" hmmmmm???

Source: United Kingdom Official War Archives:

The Gallipoli campaign

Mired in stalemate on the Western Front, the British war effort required new impetus in early 1915. An attack on the Glossary - opens new windowOttoman empire, which had entered the war on Germany's side on 29 October 1914, quickly emerged as the favoured option. Glossary - opens new windowWinston Churchill, the first lord of the Admiralty, championed the idea of an Anglo-French military operation to force the Glossary - opens new windowDardanelles (the strait separating European Turkey from Asia Minor), seize control of Glossary - opens new windowGallipoli and advance on the Ottoman capital, Glossary - opens new windowConstantinople.

This proposed diversionary expedition had a number of possible benefits. It re-affirmed Britain's support for one of its chief allies, Russia, by diverting Turkish troops from fighting in the Glossary - opens new windowCaucasus - support that was further illustrated by a secret agreement, signed on 20 March 1915, offering Glossary - opens new windowTsar Nicholas II the glittering prize of Constantinople. If successful, the campaign would also bring the Ottoman empire to its knees and encourage Balkan states such as Greece, Bulgaria and Romania to join the war on the Allied side.

Preparations for Dardanelles - opens new window

Churchill to Kitchener
on Gallipoli preparations



No swift victory
   

The British government was so confident of success, and so contemptuous of Turkish fighting abilities, that it did not envisage having to send any troops ashore on the Gallipoli peninsula. Such arrogance quickly proved misplaced.

Although the naval attack on the Dardanelles on 18 March 1915 was almost successful, the Anglo-French forces ran into an unexpected line of 20 Turkish mines and three battleships were sunk, causing a temporary retreat. Bad weather, combined with the growing desire to land troops on the peninsula, then ended any hopes of a swift victory by naval force alone.


Heavy fighting
   

After more than a month of preparations, British empire and French colonial troops under the overall command of Glossary - opens new windowSir Ian Hamilton landed on the southern tip of the Gallipoli peninsula at Glossary - opens new windowCape Helles and further north at Glossary - opens new windowGaba Tepe on 25 April 1915. Neither landing went to plan.

A navigational error meant that the Australian and New Zealand (Anzac) troops who undertook the Gaba Tepe landing were put ashore in the wrong place. Of the five separate landings at Cape Helles, three were largely unopposed. But the other two, at 'Glossary - opens new windowV Beach' and 'Glossary - opens new windowW Beach', witnessed heavy fighting. Of the 950 men from the Lancashire Fusiliers who landed at 'W Beach', 254 were killed and a further 283 wounded in securing a foothold on the peninsula.

Gallipoli war diary - opens new window

Landing at 'W Beach'
Transcript


Listen to account of 'V Beach' landing:
R B Gillett


Far from providing a rapid military victory over inferior opposition, the Gallipoli campaign quickly turned into another war of attrition, with its own system of trenches and stubborn defensive lines. With German military support, and under the inspired leadership of Glossary - opens new windowMustafa Kemal, Turkish troops ensured that the Allies remained stranded on the two beachheads on which they had initially landed.
A new series of landings at Glossary - opens new windowSuvla Bay on 6 August occasioned further bloody fighting but no breakthrough. Four months later, Glossary - opens new windowWilliam Robertson, the new Glossary - opens new windowChief of the Imperial General Staff and an avowed 'Glossary - opens new windowWesterner', ordered the total evacuation of the Gallipoli peninsula by Allied forces.



The great cost
   

The Gallipoli campaign ensured that the Western Front was given precedence over all other theatres of military operation for the rest of the war. Its failure prompted Churchill's resignation (November 15) and the creation in July 1916 of a parliamentary committee of enquiry into the expedition. Its findings - published a year later - criticised many of the assumptions and actions that had underpinned the campaign.

Dardanelles Commission report: conclusions (517k)
Transcript

Today there are 33 Commonwealth war cemeteries on the Gallipoli peninsula. Two further memorials record the names of the British and Commonwealth soldiers who died there with no known graves. In all, 28,000 Britons, 10,000 Frenchmen, 7,595 Australians, 2,431 New Zealanders and 1,500 Indians were killed in the Allied attempt to seize control of the peninsula. 
The proud Turkish victory, which kept a vital line of communication between Russia and its Western allies closed, came at an even greater cost. A total of 66,000 Turks lost their lives in the defence of Gallipoli; many Turkish army divisions had to rebuilt from scratch in 1916. 

red baron wrote on Apr 25^th, 2014 at 6:50pm:



Well, that was rather a Glossary presentation, but full of open windows.

Seriously though, it's a bare-bones British military account and ignores much that seems relevant to Australia today, not that you can fault it for that.

That is both true and false but there is obvious no intent to bust myths but rather than to muddy the waters and be controversial. I think the whole article is purposely cherry picking to form a controversy.

It is hardly worthwhile to go through and argue the detail but to give two illustrations from the two opening statements.

Lord Herbert wrote on Apr 25^th, 2014 at 3:56pm:


The landing was actual a success, the landing been to establish a beachhead.

Indeed I have read in histories that the landing at the wrong beach probably prevented a bloodbath and contributed to the success of establishing the beachhead.

Off the top of my head I can't remember exactly the number opposing the landing in the first minutes and hours, but 80 could be correct. Again I can't from the top of my head recall number but in the first hour they woulld have been reinforced by hundreds and before midday it would have been a thousand plus. Not insignificant given the terrain and the fog of battle.

But to use this number of initial 80 as some sort of evidence that the landing was only lightly opposed and should have succeeded is a nonsense.

Lord Herbert wrote on Apr 25^th, 2014 at 3:56pm:


Which is absolutely and categorically true.

Security and secrecy was non-existent. The turks knew of the assemble of the invasion fleet, strength ete etc. And just to make sure the Turks knew where they were going to land the Brits did their reccies from battle cruisers sailing up and down the Gallipoli coast.

And that was just the start.

You can explain it, understand it and maybe even forgive the incompetence but it was incompetent.

Lord Herbert wrote on Apr 25^th, 2014 at 5:37pm:

Well, whoever was at fault also, overnight, elevated teenage warrior boys into Greek heroes. An instant apotheosis not often recorded in a nation's history.

And thus, we have our great national myth... And a national psyche, which had incidentally evolved to elevate to godhood only the secular, now, once again, has its sense of the sacred reestablished... Crowned with its Irish sense of heroism - Glorious defeat.