Gallipoli

[PhilB]

Please re-direct me if these questions have appeared before. (As I suspect they have!)

Should the Gallipoli plan, as envisaged by WSC and before the admirals and generals got to work, have succeeded or was it fatally flawed from its inception?

Had it succeeded, would it have brought the benefits foreseen by WSC?

Would the release of British troops from Gallipoli, Palestine and Mesopotamia have made a significant difference on the Western Front?

[TD60]

QUOTE (Phil_B @ Apr 24 2007, 06:13 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Please re-direct me if these questions have appeared before. (As I suspect they have!)

Should the Gallipoli plan, as envisaged by WSC and before the admirals and generals got to work, have succeeded or was it fatally flawed from its inception?

Had it succeeded, would it have brought the benefits foreseen by WSC?

Would the release of British troops from Gallipoli, Palestine and Mesopotamia have made a significant difference on the Western Front?

My post will not help .

I have the same questions in mind. In which circumstances Gallippoli could have been a success ?

Imagine the battles of august gave the whole peninsula to the british armies.

A military success, certainly.

And then what ? which real advantage for the allies ?

- The possibility to intercept any ship between black sea and egean sea. Really interesting ?

[BeppoSapone]

And then what ? which real advantage for the allies ?

- The possibility to intercept any ship between black sea and egean sea. Really interesting ?

Access to Russia via an ice free port?

[TD60]

Access to Russia via an ice free port?

The Gallipoli conquest did not give that access

or you need to take some other big places as constantinople/istanbul on both sides of the straits.

Galllipoli is quite small regarding all the places you need to conqueer before to be the master

of those straits.

Maybe this could be possible during the very first weeks of the battle but after some weeks this plan was really a dream.

REgards

[Guest Bill Woerlee]

Phil

G'day mate

I suppose your real question is about the nature of the Russian war effort rather than anything relating to the Western Front.

At this time, regardless of the defeat at Tannenburg, the Russian army was still a potent force and good enough to have Austria on the ropes. It was the action of Russia that weakened the famous "Right Flank" of von Kluck and essentially gave France the ability to knock Germany out of any further strategic gains and indeed halt its western expansion, full stop.

So would the Allies have been able to supply Russia with enough material and technical personnel to knock Austria out of the war in 1915?

To answer that you need to examine the nature of the troops, training, and logistics infrastructure. The rail system was already creaking to overload at that point in time. Countering that is Russian resilience - they were used to dealing with decrepid systems and making them work - they expected little else. Nothing wrong with the Russian soldiers. They were as good and brave as any and well led, could perform miracles.

I have a sneaking suspicion that had the Russians been supplied by the allies in September and October 1914 with sufficient quantities of war material to allow the Russians the ability to rebuild their depleted armies, the war would have been nearly over bar the shouting in 1915 and Adolph would still be an unemployable 2nd rate artist going from doss house to doss house bludging a fag off his mates while Stalin would be serving time as an armed robber.

So in terms of world history, a lot was riding on the forcing of the Dardanelles.

The reason for the Dardanelles was to take Constantinople and thus knock Turkey out of the war. Everyone thought the Turks only needed a gentle nudge and it would collapse since the state was effete and corrupt. So whether Turkey allowed shipping of war material to Russia or not was not a matter of any great consequence. The RN would show Johnny Turk what for and they would haul up the white flag and surrender. So while the battleships forced their way up the straights to bombard Constntinople, the British submarines would be the harbingers of bigger things to come and thus hasten the surrender. This hubris was based upon an unhealthy disrespect of the Turkish regime and blatant racism.

This hubris cost the RN dearly - it clearly demonstrated the limits of its reach. Prior to that the myth of the gunboat settling a dispute kept the RN in the forefront as a peacemaking force. The myth was blown away by the straits. The Turks could defy the RN and suffer very few consequences regardless of how much the Admirals might fulminate. 18 March 1915 signalled the end of the RN's dominance as a force with global reach. Hubris in the end led to an overstretching of ability until it failed. The RN lost its lustre and became just another navy and respected accordingly.

The invasion failure was not anything to do with the idea itself but the fact that no one had done anything like this before in history. The British wrote the rule book for Corps size amphibious assault on hostile shores. It was a learning process. By the time the Brits and Yanks were landing at Sicilly, they got it right. That was an evolution of 28 years. It was perfectd a year later with Normandy.

So we have to put all these things in context.

Cheers

Bill

[montbrehain]

In simple words, I reckon it was a stupid place to land ! hemmed in on both sides by water the Turks only had to throw a defensive line across the peninsula (which they did) and that was that. I often wonder what would have happened if the landing had been made on the Turkish mainland itself ? "MO"

[PhilB]

Bill:- Your answers would be Yes, Yes and ? then?

MO:- The plan could have worked without invading the penensula if the naval operation had been successful. But could it ever have been successful? Phil B

[ian turner]

But I thought that for the naval operations to be successful, the Dardenelles needed to be secured (both sides). The attempted naval bombardment in the previous months had not been sucessful in silencing the protecting artillery (especially mobile field artillery).

But had the landings been more successful I seriously wonder whether an advance all the way to Constantinople would ever have been possible? One of the underestimations was the strength of resolve of a nation figting to protect its homeland.

Ian

[MartinWills]

I think one of the problems with the campaign was that it actually started before it was conceived. The bombardment of the forts in November 1914 alerted the Turks to what might happen.

Further Naval attempts did little more than prepare the Turks for what was to come and spies in Mena camp will also have underlined what to expect.

I believe IIRC that it was Napoleon who said "The question is who shall have Constantinople" Yes it was key to the concept of the campaign. It would have provided a back road into Russia and provide a ready route to help supply the Russian forces whilst releasing the overproduction of the grain producing Russian hinterland. Would the opening up of the Black Sea have, as some suggest, offered an opening to race up the Danube with a fleet of gunboats and threaten Austir/Hungary's rear?

Taking the narrows from the sea was always a gamble but I believe a well fought naval campaign could have opened the way for the forts & batteries to be taken out of the equation with the aid of some landing forces. Would battleships off the Golden Horn have terrified Turkey into submission. Who knows? All I can say is that the torpedoes fired at a vessel moored in Constantinople by one submarine that penetrated the narrows (E. 11) created mayhem.

There is much debate over the effectiveness of the April landings and the mayhem at Suvla bay in August. Did the Anzacs land in the wrong place and did this scupper the campaign. Did we simply not have enough forces. Was Suvla bay simply a race to occupy the hills?

Much current thinking centres around the assault on Chunuk Bair and it's surroundings. The 4th Australian brigade should have played a major part in this assault but got lost on the way there and ended up dug in at the head of Australia Valley. Perhaps this was truly the point at which the Gallipoli Campaign was lost.

There are too many what if's to know what could or should have happened. Notwithstanding the "what if" debates I still believe that the Gallipoli campaign, the "immortal gamble" was a gamble worth taking.

If you think it was entirely to no avail and absolutely futile you should consider if it was the start of the learning curve that facilitated the allied amphibious landings of the Second World War.

[centurion]

Something everybody is missing is that the Turkish forts were down to less than half an hours ammunition when the naval attack was called off (mainly at the insistance of the French admiral involved) and may of their guns had been silenced (their emplacements had no overhead cover and casualties were horrendous, it says something for Turkish fortitude that they were still firing at all). Had the attack continued a little longer it would probably have succeeded.

The arrival of an Allied battlefleet off the Golden Horn might have given the Turkish government pause for thought. At that stage they were begining to doubt the wisdom of having embarked on the whole venture anyway but the success in defending Gallipoli stiffened their resolve. If their capital was under immediate threat terms might well have been sought. With Turkey out of the War significant Russian and British resources would have been freed to deal with Germany and Austro Hungary. At the same time Germany would have been denied access to some key alloying material needed in the production of specialised steels used in some forms of armour plate and shell casings.

WSC had envisioned a mainly naval campaign - it was the land campaign that was the mistake and even that might have succeeded had it not been for the exceptional incompetence of the British commander.

[Malcolm]

I think ' centurion ' has summed it all up quite nicely IMHO.

Aye

Malcolm

[MartinWills]

I'm not convinced that the forts were on their last legs - it's a topic still being researched in the Turkish archives. There was also the considerable problem of the mobile batteries. I would also be loathe to label Hamilton as "incompetent". He may not have been the ideal choice and his style may not have helped but there were many who would have done much worse. The failure of the campaign has, I think blackened his character and ability far more than is deserved. The way in which he managed to reign in and conceal some of the worse failings of other commanders under his leadership reflects well upon him. If he was guilty he was probably most guilty of being too much of a gentleman.

It is interesting to reflect that the threat against Constantinople triggered the transfer of power that made Ankara the capital that it is today.

[TD60]

I agree that the idea to keep the straits was a good target to win the war.

However after missing the naval attacks and few weeks of grounnd fights in the peninsula

did the plan has any chance to succeed ?

It was the clear that the turkish army will not collapse completly and

it was quite easy for a determined army to block the invaders in the peninsula.

Then if the whole peninsula (but not the straits, out of range) was kept by allies armies which advantage ?

Regards

[rcrawley]

Even if the navy had sailed through in march, then what? The presence of the navy off constantinople would immediately scare the Turkish into surrendering? We must remember that there were large amounts of troops garrisoning istanbul. And even if Constantinople fell, would Germany automatically run around screaming? Could it have had an impact on the western front?

Then we need to think about opening up routes to Russia. What could this have achieved? Its not like the British could afford to supply the Russians, they were having a hard enough time supplying their own troops - as was seen later at Gallipoli where shell supply was incredibly poor; and we can also think about the shell crisis and the effect this had on Asquith's govt.

It just seems that the campaign, even if the peninsula had been captured, the forts and mines destroyed, the fleet sails through the dardanelles, sits off constantinople...then what?

For more on this, there is a great 'What if' article by Nigel Steel in the current issue of Wartime.

I hope this brings some more discussion to these type of questions.

[PhilB]

Much current thinking centres around the assault on Chunuk Bair and it's surroundings. The 4th Australian brigade should have played a major part in this assault but got lost on the way there and ended up dug in at the head of Australia Valley. Perhaps this was truly the point at which the Gallipoli Campaign was lost.

The Aussies lost us the Gallipoli campaign? Now that`s what I call revisionism! And brave too! I take it you`re not planning holidays in Oz then Martin? Phil B

[Guest nobelius]

There was certainly no hope of taking Gallipoli once the breakout from Anzac had been thwarted.

His detractors have perpetually documented Monash getting lost on the way to Chunuk Bair. Had he made it, there is no certainty that the other components of the delicately balanced plan would have worked. All Anzac actions were meant to be a diversion for the major landing at Suvla. They were closely inter-dependent & were designed to divert Turkish resources from what should have been literally a walkover. The major problem was that Stopford did not occupy the high ground whilst it was vacant. Attaturk realised that he could deploy his troops to contain the southern and central incursions and THEN move his survivors & reinforcements north and still contain the new landing.

Had the navies actually forced the Dardanelles, there would have been no extensive land operations. Constantinople could not be defended against the naval guns, in fact evacuation of the city had been commenced by the time of the March sinkings.

Why is Gallipoli always considered a loss BECAUSE of the numbers of allied troops deployed there. No consideration seems to be given to the fact that equivalent numbers of Ottoman troops, and German assets, were not available for other theatres. There is no argument that all allied troops would otherwise have been transferred to the Western Front.

Vern

[infantry]

Dear All,

You can find most of the answers from Ed Erickson's brilliant article.

Regards

Edward J. Erickson, “Strength Against Weakness: Ottoman Military Effectiveness at Gallipoli, 1915”, The Journal of Military History, vol.65, October 2001, 981-1011

[PhilB]

Care to summarize for those who don`t have it to hand? Phil B

[infantry]

Phil,

Send me you e-mail address. I can send a copy of it.

Regards