Gallipoli 19: Anzac Day; Perpetuating The Myth

In 1916, when the British government set up the Dardanelles Commission, they turned first to the most important member of the Secret Elite, Viscount Alfred Milner. Prime Minister Asquith and conservative leader, Bonar Law, both asked him to be its chairman, [1]  but Milner turned the offer down in favour of more immediate work with Lord Robert Cecil at the Foreign Office. [2] Anyone could supervise a whitewash. Alfred Milner’s influence want well beyond that of a commission chairman and he could ensure the conclusion without the need for his personal involvement. They turned to another friend and associate of the Secret Elite, Evelyn Baring, Lord Cromer, who accepted the position knowing full well that ‘it will kill me’. [3] And kill him it did. He died in January 1917 and was replaced by Sir William Pickford.

Others volunteered willingly. The position of Secretary to the Commission was taken by barrister Edward Grimwood Mears, who agreed to the post provided he was awarded a knighthood. [4] He had previously served on the Bryce Committee which falsified reports and generated volumes of lies about the extent of German atrocities in Belgium. [5] The British Establishment trusted Mears as a reliable placeman. Maurice Hankey, Cabinet Secretary and inner-circle member of the Secret Elite [6] ‘organised’ the evidence which politicians presented to the Commission. He rehearsed Lord Fisher’s evidence, and coached Sir Edward Grey, Herbert Asquith and Lord Haldane. [7] Asquith insisted that War Council minutes be withheld and thus managed to cover up his own support for the campaign. Churchill and Sir Ian Hamilton collaborated on their evidence and planned to blame the disaster on Lord Kitchener. [8] Unfortunately for them, that strategy sank in the cold North Sea when Kitchener was drowned off the coast of Orkney in 1916, and was henceforth confirmed for all time as a great national hero; an untouchable.

Churchill informed the Commission that Vice-Admiral Sackville-Carden’s telegram (in which he set out a ‘plan’ for a naval attack) was the most crucial document of all, [9] but there is no acknowledgement in the Commission’s findings that Churchill had duped Carden into producing a ‘plan’ or had lied when telling him that his ‘plan’ had the overwhelming support of ‘people in high authority.’ [10] Every senior member of the Admiralty had advised Churchill that a naval attack on its own would fail, but he made no reference to that and scapegoated the ineffective Carden. General Hamilton conveniently added that the only instructions he had received from Kitchener before his departure was that ‘we soldiers were clearly to understand that we were string number two. The sailors said they could force the Dardanelles on their own, and we were not to chip in unless the Admiral definitely chucked up the sponge.’ [11]

Criticisms in the Commission’s interim report in March 1917 were ‘muted and smudged’. The War Council should have sought more advice from naval experts; the expedition had not succeeded but ‘certain important political advantages’ had been secured. In the final report, delayed until the peace of 1919, criticism was again polite, bland and vague. ‘The authorities in London had not grasped the true nature of the conflict’ and ‘the plan for the August offensive was impractical.’ [12] Stopford received a mild reprimand. Major-General De Lisle suggested that politicians were trying to pin the blame on the soldiers. The Commission ostensibly investigated the campaign’s failings, but effectively suppressed criticism, concealed the truth and neither wholly blamed nor vindicated those involved.

Far more important than covering up individual culpability, the greatest fear of the London cabal was that, should the report come close to the truth, it would irrevocably damage imperial unity. Gallipoli had served to lock Australia more firmly into the British Imperial embrace. Before the final report was published, Hamilton warned Churchill that it had the potential to break up the Empire if it ‘does anything to shatter the belief still confidently clung to in the Antipodes, that the expedition was worth while, and that ‘the Boys’ did die to a great end and were so handled as to be able to sell their lives very dearly. …If the people of Australia and New Zealand feel their sacrifices went for nothing, then never expect them again to have any sort of truck with our superior direction in preparations for future wars.’ [13] This was the crux of the matter, even in 1919. The truth would threaten the unity of the Empire, run contrary to the Anzac mythology and expose the lies that official histories were presenting as fact. Prior to the final report, Hamilton wrote again to Churchill that the Commission’s chairman, Sir William Pickford, should be warned about the imperial issues at stake. He, Churchill, should ‘put all his weight on the side of toning down any reflections which may have been made.’ [14] In other words, it had to be a whitewash. The warning was heeded. The following year, Pickford was raised to the peerage as Baron Sterndale. It was ever thus for those who served the Secret Elite.

The truth about Gallipoli was buried and pliant historians have ensured that it stayed that way for nearly a century.

Surely a whitewash was impossible given that the Dardanelles Commission included Andrew Fisher, former Australian Prime Minister and then High Commissioner in London? But he too had bought into the big lie and made no attempt to question or refute its conclusions.

According to historian Les Carlyon, the Australian government did not welcome an inquiry into the disaster because ‘the Anzac legend had taken hold and Australia didn’t want officialdom spoiling the poetry.’ [15] The ‘poetry’, the ‘heroic-romantic’ myth, was created in the first instance by writers such as Charles Bean, Henry Nevison and John Masefield who glorified the Anzac sacrifice within the myth of Gallipoli. [16] Masefield’s effusive cover-up stated, ‘I began to consider the Dardanelles Campaign, not as a tragedy, nor a mistake, but as a great human effort, which came more than once, very near to triumph …That the effort failed is not against it; much that is most splendid in military history failed, many great things and noble men have failed. …This failure is the second grand event of the war; the first was Belgium’s answer to the German ultimatum.’ [17] Of Suvla Bay, where thousands died from thirst and dehydration, Masefield made the astonishing assertion: ‘The water supply of that far battlefield, indifferent as it was, at the best, was a triumph of resolve and skill unequalled yet in war.’ [18] This British apologist and purveyor of nauseating historical misrepresentation was rewarded with gushing praise from Lord Esher, member of the Secret Elite’s inner-core, together with a Doctorate of Literature by Oxford University, the Order of Merit by King George V and the prestigious post of Poet Laureate.

The British, French and Anzac troops who perished at Gallipoli are portrayed by mainstream historians as heroes who died fighting to protect democracy and freedom, not as ordinary young men duped by a great lie. Barely mentioned are the quarter million dead or maimed Ottoman soldiers who defended Gallipoli and the sovereignty and freedom of their homeland against aggressive, foreign invaders. The myths and lies that saturate the Gallipoli campaign are particularly prevalent in the Antipodes. ‘No-one could pass through the Australian education system without becoming aware of Gallipoli, but few students realise that the Anzacs were the invaders. Even after all these years, the Anzac legend, like all legends, is highly selective in what it presents as history.’ [19] And it is a well preserved and repeatedly inaccurate account that is force-fed to these impressionable youngsters.

Commemoration should respectfully educate people about what really happened at Gallipoli, but strategic analyst and former Australian Defence Force officer James Brown writes angrily about a cycle of jingoistic commemoration rather than quiet contemplation, with individuals, groups and organisations cashing in on Anzac Day. ‘A century after the war to end all wars, Anzac is being bottled, stamped and sold. …the Anzac industry has gone into hyperdrive. …What started as a simple ceremony is now an enormous commercial enterprise. …Australians are racing to outdo one another with bigger, better, grander and more intricate forms of remembrance.’ Even the Australian War Memorial has devised an official “Anzac Centenary Merchandising Plan” to capitalise on “the spirit.”’ [20] The myth has been rebranded to mask the pain of the awful reality of Gallipoli. The emaciated, dehydrated victims have been turned into the bronzed heroes of Greek mythology.

A number of Australian historians remain deeply concerned about the relentless militarisation of Australian history, and how the commemoration of Gallipoli has been conflated with a mythology of white Australia’s creation and the ‘manly character’ of its citizens. That mythology is submerging the terrible truth about why so many were sacrificed and has become so powerful and pervasive that to challenge it risks the charge of inexcusable disrespect for the dead. ‘To be accused of being “anti-Anzac” in Australia today is to be charged with the most grievous offence.’ [21] A few brave historians have dared to voice their deep disquiet.

Professors Marilyn Lake and Henry Reynolds believe that Australian history has been ‘thoroughly militarised’, and their aim is ‘to encourage a more critical and truthful public debate about the uses of the Anzac myth.’ Dissent, they say, is rarely tolerated and ‘to write about what’s wrong with Anzac today is to court the charge of treason.’ Anzac Day has ‘long since ceased to be a day of solemn remembrance and become a festive event, celebrated by backpackers wrapped in flags, playing rock music, drinking beer and proclaiming their national identity on the distant shores of Turkey.’ [22] Their forefathers were duped into volunteering a century before at a cost they never foresaw. It is clear that many of those young Australians who travel en-masse to the shores of Gallipoli every April have also been duped. Should there not be a moral outrage against these obscene celebrations; a moral outrage that these young people have been so misled by the Gallipoli myth that the irony of guzzling beer on the shores where their forefathers died from thirst and dehydration is lost on them.?

Professor Lake revealed that after a radio broadcast, she was subjected to personal abuse and accusations of disloyalty. Harvey Broadbent, another Australian historian who questions the myth, has also been subject to similar comments by some fellow Gallipoli historians that ‘has come uncomfortably close to abuse.’ Like us, Broadbent proposes that ‘it was the intention of the British and French governments of 1915 to ensure that the Dardanelles and the Gallipoli Campaign would not succeed and that it was conceived and conducted as a ruse to keep the Russians in the war and thus the continuation of the Eastern Front.’ [23] Exactly. Their aim was to keep Russia in the war but out of Constantinople. And they succeeded, but at a terrible cost.

The heroic-romantic myth, so integral to the cult of remembrance, has survived, perpetuated by compliant historians and politicians. As James Brown has written, Gallipoli and the Anzac sacrifice, is like a magic cloak which ‘can be draped over a speech or policy to render it unimpeachable, significant and enduring.’ [24] Norman Mailer pointed out that ‘Myths are tonic to a nation’s heart. Once abused, however, they are poisonous.’

Gallipoli was a lie within the lie that was the First World War, and peddling commemoration mythology as truth is an insult to the memory of those brave young men who were sacrificed on the merciless shores of a foreign country. The Australian government is outspending Britain on commemoration of the First World War by more than 200 per cent, and commemorating the Anzac centenary might cost as much as two-thirds of a billion dollars. Just as in Britain, the Government of Australia seeks to be the the guardian of public memory, choreographing commemoration into celebration. [25] Nothing attracts politicians more than being photographed, wrapped in the national flag, outbidding each other in their public display of patriotism.

These hypocrites ritually condemn war while their rhetoric gestures in the opposite direction. [26] The War Memorial in Sydney’s Hyde Park proudly exhorts, ‘Let Silent Contemplation Be Your Offering’, yet the deafening prattle of political expediency mocks the valiant dead with empty words and lies. Don’t be fooled.

Those young men died at Gallipoli not for ‘freedom’ or ‘civilisation’, but for the imperial dreams of the wealthy manipulators who controlled the British Empire. They died horribly, deceived, expendable, and in the eyes of the power-brokers, the detritus of strategic necessity.

Please remember that when you remember them.

[1] Milner Papers, Bonar Law to Milner, 25 July 1916.
[2] A M Gollin, Proconsul in Politics, pp. 350-1.
[3] Roger Owen, Lord Cromer: Victorian Imperialist, Edwardian Proconsul, pp. 388-9.
[4] Jenny Macleod, Reconsidering Gallipoli, p. 27.
[5] see previous blog;  The Bryce Report…Whatever Happened To the Evidence? 10 September 2014.
[6] Carroll Quigley, The Anglo-American Establishment, p. 313.
[7]  Stephen Roskill, Hankey, p. 294.
[8] Macleod, Reconsidering Gallipoli, pp. 28-9.
[9] Martin Gilbert, Winston S Churchill, p. 248.
[10] Alan Moorehead, Gallipoli, p. 40.
[11] Martin Gilbert, Winston S Churchill, p. 347.
[12] L A Carlyon, Gallipoli  p. 646.
[13] Macleod, Reconsidering Gallipoli, p. 33. [14] Ibid. [15] L A Carlyon, Gallipoli, pp. 645-7.
[16] Macleod, Reconsidering Gallipoli, p. 4.
[17] John Masefield, Gallipoli p. 2.
[18] Ibid.
[19] Kevin Fewster, Vecihi Bagram, Hatice Bagram, Gallipoli, The Turkish Story, pp. 10-11.
[20] James Brown, Anzac’s long Shadow, The Cost of Our National Obsession, pp. 17-20. [21] Marilyn Lake and Henry Reynolds, What’s Wrong with Anzac? The Militarisation of Australian History, p. xxi.
[22] Ibid., pp. vii-viii.
[23] Harvey Broadbent, Gallipoli, One Great Deception? http://www.abc.net.au/news/2009-04-24/30630
[24] James Brown, Anzac’s Long Shadow, p 29.
[25] Ibid., pp. 19-22.
[26] Lake and Reynolds, What’s Wrong With Anzac?, p. 8.

Gallipoli 18: Keith Murdoch And The Great Witch-Hunt

Popular wisdom and official histories would have us believe that Sir Ian Hamilton’s career and the Dardanelles offensive were brought to an end by an unknown junior Australian journalist, Keith Murdoch. [1] In Australia, his role has been given iconic status amongst the myths surrounding Gallipoli, but as we have detailed in the previous blog, the decision to remove Hamilton had already been taken on the recommendation of Maurice Hankey, aided and abetted by Major Guy Dawnay. The intervention of Keith Murdoch did play a vitally important role in that it deflected attention away from Hankey and the Secret Elite, making it appear that the truth about the Gallipoli disaster was suddenly exposed by a tenacious journalist. As Alan Moorehead observed in his masterly history, Murdoch’s ‘entry into the explosive scene is one of the oddest incidents in the Gallipoli campaign.’ [2]

So who was Keith Murdoch and how was he able to gain access to the heart of the British Establishment? A Son of the Manse, his father was a Scottish Presbyterian Minister who had emigrated to Melbourne in 1884. Murdoch sought a career in journalism but was handicapped by a serious speech defect. He went to London in 1908 in an attempt to break into Fleet Street and have his impediment cured, but unlike any other young aspirant newspaperman he had ‘ a sheaf of introductions’ from the Australian Prime Minister, Alfred Deakin. [3] One year earlier, Deakin had attended the Colonial Conference in London and was befriended by Alfred Milner with whom he formed a close bond. [4] Milner was the acknowledged leader of the Secret Elite and the most influential spokesman on Imperial affairs. Given his own journalistic connections, Alfred Milner would have been a natural contact to advance the young Murdoch’s career. On his return to Australia in November 1909, Keith Murdoch became Commonwealth parliamentary reporter for the Sydney Evening Sun and was soon in close contact with Deakin’s successor as Prime Minister, Andrew Fisher, and other leading Labour Party Ministers. He helped found the Australian Journalists’ Association (AJA) in 1910 and was totally sympathetic to the developing ideas of Milner and his Round Table associates. [5]

Murdoch had sought the position of Australian Press War Correspondent but was beaten into second place in the AJA election by Charles Bean who later became the official Australian War Historian. Disappointed by this failure, Murdoch sought new horizons, and was ‘told privately’ that a job associated with The Times in London was his if he wanted it. [6] The 29 year-old, left Melbourne again on 13 July 1915 to become editor of the United Cable Service at The Times offices in London.

Official accounts relate that he was asked by the Australian government to break his journey at Egypt in order to enquire into complaints about delays in soldiers’ mail. It was odd that for such a unremarkable task, Murdoch carried letters of introduction from both the Australian Prime Minister (Andrew Fisher) and Minister of Defence (George Pearce). The Prime Minister’s letter specifically stated that ‘Mr. Murdoch is also undertaking certain enquires for the Government of the Commonwealth in the Mediterranean theatre of war.’ [7] How peculiar. A journalist had been asked to conduct an investigation on behalf of his government rather than his employers. There were many Australians at Gallipoli who could have undertaken such a mundane inquiry, which begs the question of Murdoch’s real purpose. What was he sent out to do? What were his private instructions from the Australian government?

On arriving at Cairo in mid- August, he wrote to Sir Ian Hamilton and was duly given permission to visit  Gallipoli and speak to the Australian troops. Hamilton somewhat gullibly wrote in his diary that Murdoch ‘seems a sensible man’ [8] but wondered why his duty to Australia could be better executed with a pen than with a rifle. [9] Keith Murdoch spent four days there and met Charles Bean and two other Australian Journalists. Given that there were at least three other independent Australian journalists already there, why was Murdoch given his rather bizarre task of investigating mail? More pertinent to all that followed, he held confidential meetings with Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett, the British war correspondent. According to Murdoch’s biographer, Desmond Zwar, Ashmead-Bartlett was disgusted by Hamilton’s handling of the campaign and asked Murdoch if he would take a sealed letter addressed to Prime Minister Asquith and post it when he arrived in London. [10] Ashmead-Bartlett, on the other hand, related a different story. According to his recollections, Murdoch, fearful of the impact on Australian morale of a winter campaign, ‘begged’ him to write a letter to the authorities which he would carry uncensored to London. Ashmead-Barlett coached Murdoch on what to say when he reached England, ‘but he wants something definite under my own signature.’ [11] Why did Murdoch need a signed statement, and what had any of this to do with the mail?

On 8 September Ashmead-Bartlett agreed to write a letter to Asquith informing him of the true state of affairs at Gallipoli. Men had been sacrificed in impossible conditions. No adequate steps had been taken to keep them supplied with water. ‘In consequence many of these unfortunate volunteers went three days in very hot weather on one bottle of water, and yet were expected to advance carrying heavy loads, and to storm strong positions.’ Within four weeks, nearly fifty thousand men were killed, wounded or missing. The Army was in a deplorable condition and the men thoroughly dispirited. ‘The muddles and mismanagement beat anything that has ever occurred in our military history… At present the Army is incapable of a further offensive… I am convinced the troops could be withdrawn under cover of the warships without much loss… We have not yet gained a single acre of ground of any strategical value.’ [12] This was not news to the British Cabinet or War Office, for Hankey and Dawnay had already revealed the full extent of the disaster.

When Murdoch reached Marseilles he was met by a British intelligence officer with an escort of British troops and French gendarmes and ordered to hand over Ashmead-Bartlett’s letter. [13] It has been suggested that another journalist, Henry Nevison, was eaves-dropping during their private conversation and betrayed them to the authorities, but to this day no convincing explanation has been forthcoming as to how British Intelligence learned of the letter. Murdoch arrived in London on 21 September, made his way directly to the offices of  The Times, and began typing up a report for his own Prime Minster which was highly critical of Sir Ian Hamilton. [14] His first contact just happened to be The Times editor, Geoffrey Dawson, a man at the inner-core of the Secret Elite. [15] According to the Australian historian, Les Carlyon, Murdoch ‘might just as well have been walking around with the sign ‘Pawn’ on his back. Powerful men who wanted Britain out of the Dardanelles, would push him all around the board’. [16] While Carlyon is correct about the powerful men behind the scenes, was Murdoch simply an unwitting pawn or had he already bought into their witch-hunt against Hamilton?

Over the following days Keith Murdoch met with numerous individuals who had been responsible for initiating the Gallipoli disaster including Asquith, Sir Edward Grey, Lord Kitchener, Sir Edward Carson and Winston Churchill.

In an accompanying letter to Asquith, Murdoch criticised Hamilton and the General Staff for ‘disastrous underestimations and stubbornly resisting in the face of hopeless schemes’ and ‘gross wrongdoings’. [17] No mention was made of Hamilton being starved of the men and munitions needed to successfully undertake the campaign or the countless requests that Kitchener studiously ignored. Without checking the accuracy of Murdoch’s accusations, or giving Hamilton a chance to respond, Asquith had them printed on Committee of Imperial Defence stationary and distributed to the Cabinet. [18] Consider the implications. Members of the Cabinet were formally issued with Murdoch’s unsubstantiated report to his own Prime Minister in Australia, as if it was an official British Government document. Was this not fraud?

Murdoch may well have played the role of willing pawn in the Secret Elite’s grand game, but one fact remains irrefutable. From 1915 onwards he was intimately connected to the most powerful men in the British Empire; men who valued his contribution and whose values he shared.

Meantime, Ashmead-Bartlett had been ordered home by General Hamilton, and on his arrival in London immediately met with Lord Northcliffe, another powerful figure closely associated with the Secret Elite. [19]  ‘The snowball was now gathering momentum.’ [20] The witch-hunt continued. He told Ashmead-Bartlett  that a great responsibility rested on his shoulders to inform the government, and the country, of the true state of affairs at Gallipoli.  [21]

On 11 October 1915 Bulgaria entered the war on the side of the Central Powers, and a direct route was opened between Germany and Turkey. It was time to get out. Three days later in the House of Lords, Lord Alfred Milner gave his blessing to a withdrawal from Gallipoli: ‘To speak quite frankly, I should have thought that whatever evils had resulted from the disastrous developments in the Balkans there was at least this advantage, that it might have given us an opportunity which may never recur of withdrawing from an enterprise the successful completion of which is now hopeless.’ [22] Milner had spoken. That very night the Dardanelles Committee decided to recall General Hamilton because ‘he had lost the confidence of his troops,’ [23] Hands were reaching down to push him under the water [24] and ’Kitchener was asked to do the drowning.'[25]

On 17 October the chief scapegoat boarded HMS Chatham to begin the long journey home. He was replaced by General Sir Charles Monro who almost immediately recommended evacuation. When Hamilton returned to England he received a very cold reception and people ‘cut’ him and his wife in the street. [26] The Secret Elite made a spectacular gesture in recalling Hamilton and ensuring through their pawns, Murdoch and Ashamed Bartlett, that his career was over. He was dubbed the man responsible for the disaster; responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of men. In truth, no one could have succeeded at Gallipoli under the conditions that Kitchener and the rest of the cabal imposed. But remember, the plan was set to fail. Constantinople could not be given to the Russians.

In the event, the nightmare was not yet over. Kitchener went in person to Gallipoli in early November and saw for the first time the impossibility of the task. He advised General Birdwood that ‘quietly and secretly’ a scheme should be devised to withdraw the allied forces. [27] On 23 November the War Committee officially decided to evacuate the whole peninsula on military grounds. Three days later the troops, who were still without winter kit, were faced with hurricane force winds and the heaviest rainfall and blizzards to hit the Dardanelles in forty years. Sentries froze to death still clutching their rifles, and five thousand men suffered frostbite. Flood water filled the Allied trenches carrying the rotting corpses of pack horses and Turkish soldiers washed out from their shallow graves. Two hundred British troops drowned. ‘Survivors could think of nothing but getting away from that accursed place.’ [28] On 12 December the men at Suvla and Anzac were told for the first time that they were being taken off. By 9 January the last man stepped safely onto a boat at Helles.

Questions remain unanswered about how the withdrawal was completed without a single casualty.

[1] Denis Winter, Haig’s Command, A Reassessment, p. 291.
[2] Alan Moorehead, Gallipoli, p. 305.
[3] http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/murdoch-sir-keith-arthur-7693%5D
[4] A M Gollin, Proconsul in Politics, pp. 136-7.
[5] The Round Table was the name given to Milner’s organisation which promoted imperial ideals and aimed to influence the Dominions and other territories.
[6] Desmond Zwar, In Search of Keith Murdoch, p. 20.
[7] Ibid., p. 22.
[8] Sir Ian Hamilton, Gallipoli Diary Vol. II, 2 September, 1915.
[9] Zwar, In Search of Keith Murdoch, p. 25.
[10] Ibid., p. 28.
[11] Ellis Ashmead-Barlett, The Uncensored Dardanelles, p. 239.
[12] Ibid., pp. 240-243.
[13] Moorehead, Gallipoli, p. 309.
[14] Travers, Gallipoli, p. 274.
[15] Carroll Quigley, The Anglo-American Establishment, p. 312.
[16] Carlyon, Gallipoli, p. 599.
[17] Harvey Broadbent, Gallipoli, The Fatal Shore, p. 246.
[18] Carlyon, Gallipoli, p. 496.
[19] Gerry Docherty and Jim Macgregor, Hidden History, The Secret Origins of the First World War, pp. 146-7.
[20] Zwar, In Search of Keith Murdoch, pp. 40-41.
[21] Ellis Ashmead-Barlett, The Uncensored Dardanelles, pp. 254-5.
[22] Hansard, House of Lords Debate 14 October 1915 vol 19 cc1045-62.
[23] Travers, Gallipoli, p. 275.
[24] Carlyon, Gallipoli, p. 502.
[25] Ibid., p. 503.
[26] Ibid., 504.
[27] Ibid., p. 619.
[28] Moorehead, Gallipoli, p. 327.

Gallipoli 16: Who Lives For England Sleeps With God

 

The Allies managed to land 30,000 men on the Gallipoli Peninsula, but suffered 20,000 casualties in the effort. They held a foothold, but were unable to push forward more than one mile. Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett, a journalist embedded with the British military noted; ‘At Anzac any further advance is out of the question, for the Australians and New Zealanders have as much as they can do to hold on to what they have won. No army has ever found itself dumped in a more impossible or ludicrous position, shut in on all sides by hills, and having no point from which it can debouch for an attack, except by climbing up them’. At Helles, the 29th Division had lost half its number, and Bartlett’s conclusion was that ‘we are barely holding our own on the Peninsula, there is absolutely no question of an advance…’[1]

These men suffered. Arrangements for evacuating the wounded, especially at Anzac Cove, were brutal. They were ‘rowed in small boats in a rising sea from ship to ship, suffering terribly, until they found a ship which could accommodate them. There were isolated cases were the masters of merchant ships refused to accept wounded men, and one lighter with several hundred wounded was found at 3 am on April 26th drifting in the ugly swell, having been turned away by seven transports.’ Conditions were execrable. Denied hospital accommodation, the maimed, wounded and dying lay on filthy decks. Latrines were choked and there were no arrangements for feeding or bedding on the 700 mile journey to Egypt. Inexplicably, a well-equipped hospital ship, the Hindoo, lay unused off Helles. [2] Make no mistake, these horrors were the direct consequence of the decisions taken by men in London who cared nothing for the suffering.

By 29 April food, water and ammunition were running low, and the initial impetus had spent itself. ‘As the days dragged by and the heat of the sun increased, the position became as stalemated as it was in the trenches of France and Flanders.’ [3] Despite this, General Hamilton put an unwarranted gloss on his reports to Kitchener, informing him that ‘all continues to go well.’ Absurd though it was, he didn’t want to sound like a ‘malcontent’. [4]

Denied the basics to survive this hell, without enough water, ammunition, protective cover or military leadership, the only consolation on offer was the Word of God. An Anzac awaiting transfer to Gallipoli from Egypt wrote home on 5 May, that the Padre had entered the recreation tent to say a few words. Like many from the Oxford dominated Church of England his comfort was cold. There was ‘nothing necessarily terrible in death’, he informed them, and ‘who lives for England sleeps with God.’ What impact did such nonsense have on morale? These brave lads were writing what might have been their last letter home while a chaplain spouted forth the propaganda of Christian justification juxtaposed with Imperial loyalty. They were to ‘march forward in one glorious body, the Captain of which is Christ’. With stunning insensitivity, he assured them that in death, ‘the rooms of His mansion are being filled, that is all.’ [5] One part of his analogy was correct. The rooms of ‘Christ’s mansion’ filled to overflowing.

By 30 April the Turks had 75 battalions at Gallipoli to Hamilton’s 53. [6] After less than one week, Gallipoli could at best be described as a stalemate. Every capable strategist had repeatedly said that only a joint military and naval operation could succeed. Commodore Roger Keyes, Admiral de Robek’s Chief of Staff, felt strongly that the navy should help the exhausted army by making another attempt to break through the Narrows. Keyes had resolved the minesweeping problem by adapting destroyers for the purpose and replacement battleships had arrived.

De Robek asked London to approve a joint operation, but permission was not forthcoming. Indeed, on 12 May the First Sea Lord, Admiral Fisher, ordered the Queen Elizabeth back to home waters. There would be no joint operation. He wanted to end the Dardanelles expedition immediately and, two days later at the War Council, he resigned. [7] Churchill’s future hung in the balance. On 17 May, in the prime minister’s room in the House of Commons, a confrontation between Asquith and Churchill marked the end of his career as First Lord of the Admiralty. [8] On 25 May a new coalition government was formed. Churchill was replaced by Lord Balfour, former conservative prime minister, and member of the inner core of the Secret Elite. [9] Names changed, but the secret cabal’s control of policy remained unaffected.

Hamilton quickly found himself in difficulty. On 17 May, he noted in his diary, ‘On the one hand, there are at present on the Peninsula as many troops as the available space and water supply can accommodate. On the other hand, to break through the strong opposition on my front will require more troops. I am, therefore, in a quandary, because although more troops are wanted there is, at present, no room for them.’ He had two distinct requirements: ’(1) that my force is kept up to strength, (2) that I have a decent allowance of gun ammunition, especially of high explosives.’ Hamilton wanted 50,000 men to maintain his formations, and the shortage of munitions, rectified. [10] Three weeks later he was promised three divisions, but by then, ten new Turkish divisions under German supervision were in place. [11] Long before the sweltering heat of mid-summer, Hamilton realised that lack of drinking water was critical.

Fighting continued throughout the summer. As the death toll rapidly mounted, the incompetence, stupidity and inhumanity of the senior officers beggared belief. Ashmead-Barlett wrote, ‘We carry on at this hopeless game, ignoring all the strategical possibilities… by persisting in these murderous frontal attacks on impregnable positions, losing tens of thousands of our best and bravest men without achieving any result or carrying us any nearer to our goal.’ [12] Orders issued to the 29th Division were seldom intelligible, and frequently had to be changed, modified or ignored. The fate of the fallen was horrendous.

Thousands of British soldiers were left to perish between the lines after attacks had failed, tormented by the intense heat, flies, and thirst, until death came as a merciful relief. The Turks regularly agreed a temporary armistice to collect wounded men, and actually asked for one at Hellles, but British commanders refused. Nothing could have been more demoralising for the ordinary soldier than knowing that hundreds of his brothers-in-arms lay mutilated and unattended only a few yards away in the baking heat, suffering the agonies of the damned in a long, lingering death . [13]

Casualties were of no importance to Hunter-Weston provided the objective was met, [14] but he sacrificed the lives of thousands in the 29th Division without meeting any objective. Under his command, the equivalent of three British divisions were lost in front of Achi Baba without a single salient position being won. [15] His over-optimistic reports played an important part in misleading Sir Ian Hamilton. [16] Hunter-Weston developed dysentery in July 1915 and was promptly ordered home, abandoning thousands of his men whom he left in a much worse condition.

John Hargrave, who served at Gallipoli with the Royal Army Medical Corps described the appalling physical state of the troops just ten days before the allied offensive in August. Shortly after their arrival at Lemnos the newcomers developed dysentery so severe, that some died. They ‘were already an army of sick men’ and instead of becoming acclimatised they were steadily devitalised. [17] They visibly struggled. Many were still unwell as a consequence of recent cholera inoculations. The suffocating heat, the rapid dehydration, the alien foliation which stank in their nostrils, diarrhoea, disorientation, fatigue and heatstroke broke the healthiest of heroes. Could no-one see this? Even on Imbros, where troops had been disembarked in preparation for the attack, water was so scarce that armed guards had to be detailed for water-carts. Instead of training for the assault, they spent hours rushing to the latrines ‘dozens of times a day’. [18]

Yet the attack went ahead. Despite their wretched condition, troops were ‘packed like herrings in the beetles and destroyers, silent and listless’ [19] Many had been on their feet since early dawn on 5 August, sweltering under heavy uniforms completely inappropriate for the climate. That evening men stood crushed together on the decks of the transports, some for as long as seventeen hours. It was ‘difficult to move an arm or leg. Limbs stiffened, went numb, began to ache and tingle with pins and needles. [20] Conditions were akin to eighteenth century slave-ships. Worse perhaps. On embarkation, each man had a pint and a half in his water bottle and was solemnly warned not to drink it until absolutely necessary. It was utterly surreal. These troops were condemned to debilitating medical deterioration, depressed, desperate to relieve their bowels, tormented by unquenchable thirst and disorientated in their lethargy and confusion. Confidence and esprit de corps oozed away. They should have been sent into hospital, not battle.

The great Allied offensive began at Helles on the afternoon of 6 August with a naval bombardment. Once again, a terrible slaughter ensued. Desperate hand to hand fighting followed the brutally effective Turkish machine gun-fire and the communication trenches were choked with dead and wounded. The 88th Brigade lost nearly two-thirds of its officers and men. The following morning, 7 August, three brigades of VIII Corps lost nearly 3,500 officers and men, and gained nothing. [21]

That same morning an amphibious landing of 20,000 sick and debilitated soldiers took place at Suvla Bay. Hamilton had asked for experienced corps commanders to lead the attack, like Sir Henry Rawlinson, battled hardened on the Western front, but Kitchener saddled him ‘with the most abject collection of generals ever congregated in one spot’. [22] Command of the IXth. Corps was given to the most abject of them all, 61 year old Lieutenant-General Sir Frederick Stopford. He had been retired for five years, barely seen active service and had never commanded troops in battle. [23] Physically, Stopford was so feeble and unwell that he was unable to lift his own dispatch case into the train when he set off for Gallipoli, yet he was sent to a climate which taxed the fittest of men. Despite the fact that Hamilton knew Stopford’s limitations, he gave him free rein to plan and control the Suvla operations; ‘ it was like giving a blank, signed cheque to a bankrupt.’ [24] During the landings, Stopford remained aboard HMS Jonquil and slept on deck. No officer was sent ashore to assess the situation. His chain of command broke down completely. [25]

What many historians have failed to record is that the most deadly factor at Suvla Bay was not Turkish machine -guns but an absolute failure to protect the Allied forces from dehydration. Some men emptied their water-bottles before or soon after landing. [26] Only 2 of 5 lighters carrying water arrived on 7 August and both grounded on a sandbank, too far for the water to be piped to the shore. ‘No water was available for use from them until the morning of the 8th.’ [27] Effectively these soldiers were left to survive on one and a half pints of water over two days or more.

Hargrave described the harrowing scenes on the beach where he found ‘little groups of lost men wandering about, dragging the butts of their rifles in the sand, their blistered lips foolishly open, their eyes burnt out like dead cinders. They drifted slowly up and down the gully, sometimes as many as half a dozen in a bunch, [ asking ] always the same question… “Any water?” Other thirst-maddened men wandered up and down the beaches, at times fighting each other in their search for water. Sadly many were reduced to drinking their own urine [ 28 ] which was by then concentrated with salts and waste products of metabolism which added to the chronic problem of dehydration. It was like a scene from a Zombie movie, but these were men, strong men, sacrificed without care.

The numbers who died of dehydration at Suvla Bay remain a mystery. Hundreds? Thousands? We will never know, for the establishment had a vested interest in suppressing the truth. Imagine the public outrage if it was discovered that much loved soldiers had died, not from wounds, but from dehydration in the searing 100 degree temperature, or from the dysentery which wracked their exhausted carcasses? Died because the military high command failed to provide the basics for survival. On 5 August, Hamilton had informed Kitchener of the ‘sickness of the Australians, indeed, all the troops here’ [29 ] but his concern did not matter. On 12 August Kitchener responded to the news that the operation had ground to a halt by urging Hamilton to ‘ ginger up’ the men. Lost in the unreal world of ruling-class England, Kitchener urged greater ‘energy and dash’ from sick and dyings soldiers. Like any decent human-being, Hamilton was sickened by this response. [30 ]

[1] Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett, The Uncensored Dardanelles, p. 81.
[2] Robert Rhodes James, Gallipoli, p. 136.
[3] John Hargrave, The Suvla Bay landing, p. 41.
[4] L A Carlyon, Gallipoli, pp. 279-80.
[5] PatsyAdam-Smith, The Anzacs, p. 73.
[6] L A Carlyon, Gallipoli, p. 281.
[7] Baron John Arbuthnot Fisher, Memories and Records, Vol. 1. p. 77.
[8] Martin Gilbert, Winston S Churchill, pp. 448-9.
[9] Carroll Quigley, The Anglo-American Establishment, p. 312.
[10] Sir Ian Hamilton, Gallipoli Diary, Vol. 1, 17 May, 1915 http://www.gutenberg.org/files/19317/19317-h/19317-h.htm#Page_127
[11] Hargrave, The Suvla Bay Landing, p. 43.
[12] Ashmead-Bartlett, The Uncensored Dardanelles, p. 81.
[13] Ibid., pp 163-4.
[14] Carlyon, Gallipoli, p. 120.
[15] Ashmead-Bartlett, The Uncensored Dardanelles, pp.162-3.
[16] Robert Rhodes James, Gallipoli, p. 210.
[17] Hargrave, The Suvla Bay Landing, p. 66.
[18] Rhys Crawley, Climax at Gallipoli, The Failure of the August Offensive, p. 58.
[19] Sir Ian Hamilton, Gallipoli Diaries, Vol II, 6 August, p. 53.
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[20] Hargrave, The Suvla Bay Landing, pp. 75-76.
[21] James, Gallipoli, p. 262.
[22] Laffin, The Agony of Gallipoli, p. 153.
[23] Michael Hickey, Gallipoli, p. 240.
[24] Laffin, The Agony of Gallipoli, p. 154.
[25] James, Gallipoli, p. 279.
[26] Hargreaves, The Suvla Bay Landings, p. 115.
[27] Ibid., p. 131.
[28] Hickey, Gallipoli, p. 273.
[29] Sir Ian Hamilton, Gallipoli Diary, Vol. II, p. 51.
https://archive.org/stream/gallipolidiary02hamiuoft#page/n7/mode/2up
[30] Sir Ian Hamilton, Gallipoli Diary, Vol. II, p. 95.
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Gallipoli 15: What Do I Care About Casualties?

The docks at Alexandria were crammed with vessels of every type from Ocean liners to Thames tugs. Emptying and repacking badly loaded ships went on round the clock. Ensconced in the Metropole Hotel, General Hamilton and his staff considered their options, and decided to take the southern part of the Gallipoli Peninsula in a coup de main. That is, an attack that relies on speed and surprise to attain its objectives. It was a sick joke. The element of ‘surprise’ had long gone. The Turks had been given five weeks warning and gifted a considerable amount of detailed information on Hamilton’s plan through unrestricted articles in the Egyptian Gazette. [1] Instructed by their German advisors, they trained, practised and created stronger and deeper positions with new banks of barbed wire, freshly dug trenches and underwater obstacles at possible landing sights. With every day’s delay the difficulty of the task and the impregnability of the peninsula increased. The military force should have been sent out and made ready before the naval attack began, but it had been ‘hopelessly botched up from the start and was bound to fail’. [2] Remember that phrase; bound to fail.

Serving under Hamilton as divisional commanders were Lieutenant-General Sir William Birdwood, an English officer who had overseen Anzac training alongside the pyramids in Egypt, Hunter-Weston of the 29th Division and Sir Archibald Paris of the Royal Naval Division. All three disliked Hamilton’s scheme, and Birdwood’s chief-of-staff, Brigadier-General Harold Walker, was absolutely ‘appalled’ by it. His military instincts were first class. General d’Amade, the man who divulged Gallipoli plans to the press, was Divisional commander of the 20,000 French troops. Before leaving Alexandria for Lemnos on 8 April, Hamilton wrote to Kitchener that his commanders could now see all the difficulties with ‘extraordinary perspicacity’ and ‘would each apparently a thousand times sooner do anything else except what we are going to do.’ He later added, ‘The truth is, every one of these fellows agrees in his heart … that the landing is impossible.’ [3] Despite this, Hamilton and his divisional commanders proceeded as instructed. It was ‘impossible’, but they did not insist it should be cancelled. Nor did Kitchener. As ever, what good sense these men possessed lost out to their obsequious obedience to the ruling class masters. And, as ever, tens of thousands of young men were sacrificed to the will of the elite.

By 20 April more than 200 ships were crammed into Mudros harbour, waiting to take the troops to Gallipoli in a multi-pronged attack. Many of the troops advanced in transport ships to within 3 kilometres of the peninsula. Then, in complete silence and total darkness, they descended wooden ladders into rowing boats, roped together in chains of four. Each chain was towed by a launch to within fifty to a hundred metres of the shore, cast off, and rowed by naval ratings as close to the beach as possible. The first heavily laden troops were timed to land just as dawn broke.

British troops were destined for five different beaches, labelled through S to X, around the toe of the peninsula at Helles. Additionally at V Beach an old coal boat, the SS River Clyde, which had been adapted to carry 2,000 troops in her hold, ran straight up onto the beach in front of the old fort at Sedd-el-Bahr. The modern day Trojan horse had been modified to disgorge troops rapidly through sally-ports cut in the hull. Some 25 kilometres further along the western shore at Z Beach near Ari Burnu, the Anzacs would land from rowing boats. Across the Dardanelles, at Besika Bay and Kum Kale, the French division would make a diversionary feint in an attempt to confuse the Turks. As the days passed on Lemnos, the majority of the invading force lived on the transport vessels, but constantly trained ashore or rehearsed rapid, silent transfers down the sides of the ships into rowing boats. The landing was scheduled for 23 April when the moon would wane leaving a pitch black night, but bad weather delayed it.

Between 23 and 24 April, 62,442 troops were transported to the Gallipoli Peninsula on 67 transport ships supported by an armada of warships, destroyers, and associated smaller craft. On V Beach at Helles at 06.22 on 25 April, the River Clyde nosed in and grounded herself. The sally-port doors swung open and the first men from the Munster Fusiliers and the Hampshire Regiment ran out into concentrated gunfire. ‘In seconds the gangways were blocked with dead and wounded whose blood stained red the water around the ship.’ [4] The beach, about 300 metres long and 8 metres wide, was strongly defended with three lines of wire entanglement running across the grass banks. Machine guns and pom-poms were concealed within the walls of the old fort and on the steep cliffs just to the west of it. Turkish infantry commanded the entire beach from the front and both sides. A few of what Hamilton referred to as ‘the forlorn hope’ from the River Clyde made it to the shore and found shelter under a small ridge, but as men kept running from the ship the Turks kept killing them. About 1,000 stayed aboard, safe but impotent until darkness fell. British battleships bombarded the shore defences, but achieved little.

The first to come in on tows at V Beach were the Dublin Fusiliers commanded by Brigadier-General Napier. Officers on the River Clyde screamed at him to go back, but Napier carried on and he and his staff died before they reached the shore. ‘The beach was the scene of sustained butchery, and only forty or fifty men managed to get to the low cliffs and dig themselves in.’ [5] ‘Few survived the first minute. Most did not even leave the boats, which drifted helplessly away with every man in them killed.’ [6] Air Commodore Samson flew over V Beach that morning and later reported that the calm blue sea was ‘absolutely red with blood’ for a distance of some fifty yards from the shore. In a scene reminiscent of the Western Front, bodies lay entangled in the impenetrable wire.

A small group of Lancashire Fusiliers reached the the grass ridge. Some died on the barbed wire entanglements, but others managed to ‘hack and tear’ a passage. Unable to fire their sand-blocked rifles, they fixed bayonets, charged up to a Turkish trench, and drove some defenders off. Six fusiliers were later awarded the Victoria Cross for their gallantry on the beach that morning; the very beach which the Marines had walked over in perfect safety two months previously. [7] When the 29th Division was counting its dead in the thousands, someone made a remark to Hunter-Weston about the causalities. ‘Casualties?’ he snapped, ‘What do I care for casualties?’ [8] All three brigade commanders at Cape Helles died in action, and the two colonels who replaced them were killed instantly. With no senior officer or tactical headquarters onshore, the men struggled through bewildering chaos.

General Hamilton had ordered a landing at an isolated spot four miles along the coast at Y Beach to attack the Turks from the rear and 2,000 men from the Plymouth Battalion and the King’s Own Scottish Borderers landed unopposed. Their orders were to march across the tip of the peninsula, attack the defending forces and join up with the main force at Helles. Without a shot being fired, they climbed a 200 foot cliff, and stopped. The troops were ordered to brew tea and rest. They could have headed south at will and encircled the enemy position at Sedd-el-Bahr and Teke-Burnu, where, less than an hour’s march away, their comrades were being slaughtered. Two Colonels headed the main force at Y Beach but were unsure which of them was in charge. Neither had been given clear instructions and understood they were to stay there until troops from the southern landings joined them. Throughout the day they requested information and instructions from Hunter-Weston, but received none. Neither Colonel felt that he could take matters into his own hands.

Passing Y Beach on the Queen Elizabeth, General Hamilton saw the British troops  ‘quite peacefully reposing…probably smoking’, [9] but declined to pour more troops through that undefended beach without Hunter-Weston’s consent. When he eventually replied, Hunter-Weston refused. For eleven undisturbed hours these troops sat on the cliffs at Y Beach without digging in. The Turks arrived in force and by the following morning there were over 700 casualties. The navy evacuated the survivors, [10] without the permission of an incensed General Hamilton. He was shocked to witness ‘loose groups’ of ‘aimless dawdlers’ on the shore and could not understand why, having dug themselves in, they had failed to establish a bridgehead. [11 ] Incredibly, they had not been ordered to ‘dig themselves in’ and suffered the consequence

W Beach was a death trap of land mines, sea mines and wire entanglements concealed under the surface. Further entanglements stretched along the length of the beach close to the water’s edge. Machine guns were concealed in holes cut in the cliff face, with pom-poms and more machine guns further back. When the 1st Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers reached the shore, a terrible fusillade broke out. ‘Some were caught by the barbed wire under the sea, others, passing over their comrades bodies, hurled themselves on the wire stretching along the foreshore and literally hacked their way through. A long line of men fell at this point under the enemy’s withering rifle and machine-gun fire as if cut down by a scythe.’ [12] Some Lancashires clawed their way to the higher ground and were able to fire on the Turks. Their resistance weakened, but not before the fusiliers suffered 553 casualties out of the 950 who had landed. Survivors bravely struggled to give what help they could to the wounded, ‘many of whom were lying helpless under the weight of of other wounded and dead on top of them.’ [13]

Further north at Z Beach, the Anzacs faced similar horrors. In the darkness an uncharted current had swept the boats about a mile north of the intended landing-place, and some of the attackers faced steep cliffs rather than the low sandbanks they had expected. Most were put ashore at a small cove south of Ari Burnu, which would later be known as Anzac Cove. Heavy Turkish rifle and machine gun fire broke out as the boats carrying the first wave of 15,000 troops were about thirty yards from the shore. Some died as they sat, others drowned under the weight of their packs when they slipped in the water and couldn’t recover. [14] ‘The humped shapes of dead men moved sluggishly in the wash of the surf, the blood in the water round them beginning to show pink as the sky lightened.’ Out on the transport ships ‘the second wave was standing ready to go in, waiting to swing down into the little boats as soon as the dead and wounded had been lifted from them.’ [15]

Men had to drag and claw their way up steep cliffs under remorseless fire, their dead and wounded mates hanging suspended from bushes. ‘Yet through the bewilderment of the beach and up and over the nearby cliffs, the movement forward did not stop.’ Small groups of Australians penetrated inland for a mile or more, but most of the others were still pinned to the beach. By mid afternoon 12,000 troops were ashore. They faced a defensive force of only 4,000, but the Turks held the heights and the Anzacs were unable to break through in any numbers. As more and more waves of men landed in the face of heavy fire, the beach became ‘a crowded shambles, so littered with lines of wounded that it was difficult to pick a way to the sea.’ [16] It appeared that against all the odds the Anzacs might break through, but Turkish troops held in reserve poured into the heights above and pushed them back. Birdwood went ashore that evening and held a meeting with two divisional generals who urged an immediate evacuation. When a message to this effect reached Hamilton in the middle of the night, he refused permission to withdraw, and urged them to ‘dig, dig, dig, until you are safe.’ [17]

Over 2,000 Anzacs were killed that day, with many more wounded. The two hospital ships provided to cover all the landings and were immediately overwhelmed. When wounded men were eventually taken off the beaches, it was to filthy and overcrowded ships with insufficient doctors or medical orderlies. They then faced a voyage of six or seven hundred miles without adequate treatment. ‘The wounded suffered dreadful privations and many who might have survived succumbed to the effects of gangrene or suppurating wounds before they got to a proper hospital in Egypt.’ [18] ‘That “baptism of fire”, as the men called it, was to set the pattern for the for the next eight months: the Turkish army would always look down from the heights onto the attackers below.’ [19]

The disastrous attack on the Gallipoli peninsula began as predicted. Youthful expectation was sacrificed without compunction or care. What did Hunter-Weston care about casualties? Nothing. What did the Secret Elite care about the terrible losses? That was never their concern. The truth of the matter, which has never been honestly addressed, is that the attack was ordered in the expectation of certain defeat. In reality, the thousands slain on that first day alone died, not for civilisation or justice, but for the Machiavellian plans of rich and powerful men at the heart of the British Empire.

[1] Sir Ian Hamilton, Gallipoli Diary, vol. 1, 31 March, 1915 http://www.gutenberg.org/files/19317/19317-h/19317-h.htm#Page_127, ]
[2] John Hargrave, The Suvla Bay Landing, pp. 39-40.
[3] L A Carlyon, Gallipoli, pp. 119-122.
[4] John Laffin, The Agony of Gallipoli, p. 55.
[5] Ibid., p. 56.
[6] Robin Prior, Gallipoli, The End of The Myth, p. 101.
[7] Alan Moorehead, Gallipoli, pp. 142-3.
[8] Carlyon, Gallipoli, p. 120.
[9] Hamilton, Gallipoli Diary, vol. 1, 25 April, 1915. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/19317/19317-h/19317-h.htm#Page_127 ]
[10] Moorehead, Gallipoli, pp. 145-148.
[11] Hamilton, Gallipoli Diary, vol. 1, 26 April, 1915 http://www.gutenberg.org/files/19317/19317-h/19317-h.htm#Page_127
[12] Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett, The Uncensored Dardanelles, pp.65-66.
[13] Laffin, The Agony, pp. 53-54.
[14] Prior, Gallipoli, p. 114.
[15] Kit Denton, Gallipoli, One Long Grave, pp. 28-29.
[16] Ibid., pp. 31-33.
[17] Tim Travers, Gallipoli, p. 101.
[18] Peter Hart, Gallipoli, pp.104-5.
[19] Patsy Adam-Smith, The Anzacs, p. 70.

Gallipoli 14: Orchestrated Chaos

On 17 March 1915, just five days after his surprise appointment, General Sir Ian Hamilton landed at Lemnos. At first light the following morning, the day appointed for the big naval attack, he inspected the shore facilities at Mudros and found them ‘gravely wanting’. The Royal Navy cruiser Phaeton took him along the west coast of the Gallipoli peninsula to make a preliminary reconnaissance of possible landing sights. With the element of surprise gone, the Turks had been ‘furiously digging in’ [1] and every part of the coastline even remotely suitable for amphibious landings had been fortified by trenches and barbed wire. [2] Later that day Hamilton had a ringside seat on Phaeton’s bridge and observed the naval disaster unfold. He informed Kitchener by telegraph that Vice-Admiral de Robek was willing to ‘have another go’, but he personally considered it unlikely that the Dardanelles could be forced by battleships alone. A combined attack was essential, with a ‘deliberate and progressive military operation carried out at full strength’ to open a passage for the Navy. Kitchener replied that he should go ahead. [3]

This then was the situation on 21 March. Despite his losses, the naval commander believed that the Fleet could still break through the Dardanelles without help from the army, while the military commander was convinced that it could not. On 22 March De Robeck sailed the Queen Elizabeth to Lemnos for a conference with Hamilton. Much to the General’s surprise, the Vice-Admiral had changed his mind and agreed that the fleet could not prevail without military support. ‘There was no discussion’ Hamilton reported, ‘and we at once turned our faces to the land scheme.’ [4] De Robeck informed the Admiralty that he now considered a combined operation essential, but he could do nothing until the military force, scattered across the Mediterranean, was ready for action. [5]

Australian historian, Robin Prior explained that following the abortive naval operation, the War Council never reconvened to consider a military landing, which was approved by default. ‘There was no discussion, no plan, and no political authorisation’, and ‘this was in fact a worse situation than preceded the naval operation.’ [6] It certainly was, but Professor Prior, like many of his fellow academics, failed to appreciate that major decisions about Gallipoli were made, not by the War Council, but by a secret cabal. Churchill, Kitchener, Balfour, Grey, Hankey, Asquith, Haldane and others closely linked to the Secret Elite held regular meetings to decide the course of action. It would have been impossible otherwise to set the Gallipoli campaign up to fail. What mattered was that the Czar and Sazonov believed that they were trying to take Constantinople and the Straits for Russia. The crucial decisions were taken before the War Council met. Naval and military ‘advisers’ kept their counsel; their attendance was cursory.

The chaos which plagued the naval attack, overwhelmed the military operation. It was just as Churchill, Kitchener and Balfour intended. They had ‘buried’ the vast quantity of up-to-date intelligence which would have greatly assisted the commanders in the field. As General Hamilton noted in exasperation, ‘the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus might be in the moon for all the military information I have got to go upon…’. [7] Lack of detailed information was not the only problem. The late Robert Rhodes James wrote; ‘Never, in fact, was a gallant army so miserably mishandled by its chiefs as were the British and Dominion soldiers on Gallipoli. Never was a higher price paid for such a complete misunderstanding of a strategical situation.’ [8] Absolutely, but he never questioned why those ‘chiefs’ were chosen in the first place. They had selected second or third rate senior officers, not because outstanding men were unavailable, but because lack of ability and incompetence was exactly what was required to ensure failure.

Disheartened by the naval fiasco, the topography and the defences on the peninsula, General Hamilton crossed to Egypt on 24 March. His impossible task was to prepare a disparate force of mainly untried and untested recruits to take on the most difficult military operation in the field of warfare; landing an army from the sea in the face of an entrenched and well armed enemy. All the evidence of history demonstrated the advantage which defenders enjoyed unless the assault was accompanied by overwhelming force supported by an adequate artillery bombardment. [9] Hamilton had neither. He was additionally handicapped by the absence of his personal and logistics staff who had not even left England. [10]

It went from bad to worse. The Allied forces were scattered in confusion over much of the Mediterranean, and some Battalion commanders could not trace their companies. Such was the lack of preparation that even the simplest questions could not be answered. ‘Was there drinking water on Gallipoli? What roads existed? Were troops expected to fight in trenches or the open? What sort of weapons were required? What was the depth of water off the beaches? Were there strong currents? What sort of boats were needed to get the men, the guns and stores ashore? What casualties were to be expected, and how were they to be transferred to the hospital ships? [11]

Hamilton’s spirits sank under the pressure of ridiculous expectation. His diary entry for 5 April revealed a near broken man;

‘Time presses: K. prods us from the rear: the Admiral from the front. To their eyes we seem to be dallying amidst the fleshpots of Egypt whereas, really, we are struggling like drowning mariners in a sea of chaos; chaos in the offices; chaos on the ships; chaos in the camps; chaos along the wharves;’ [12]

Hamilton’s administrative staff did not arrive in Egypt until 11 April. In Alexandria they began their task in a dilapidated former-brothel without drainage, light or water. [13] A period of hectic improvisation began. Men were sent into the bazaars of Alexandria and Cairo to buy skins, oil drums, kerosene tins – anything that would hold water. There was also a shortage of guns, ammunition, aircraft and men. Hamilton later wrote that the War Office had sent them into battle with ‘museum pieces’. [14] In theory the British Divisions should have had 304 guns, but had only 118. Ammunition supplies were minimal. There were no periscopes for trench fighting, no hand grenades or trench mortars. Material to build piers and jetties was non-existent. In the absence of maps, staff officers scoured the shops for guide-books. Hamilton sent a series of messages to Kitchener asking for reinforcements, artillery and shells, but was met either with terse refusals or no reply at all. [15] He noted in his diary: ‘Special craft are being built back home for possible landings on the Baltic coast. Each lighter can carry 500 men and has bullet-proof bulwarks. They call them ‘beetles’. Landing from these would be child’s play. … I’ve asked K for the beetles myself.’ He was curtly refused. [16] While the shiny new flat-bottomed, bullet and shrapnel proof amphibious landing craft remained unused in Britain, many of his troops were to be slaughtered at Helles in open, wooden cutters.

Hamilton’s divisional commanders were far from enthusiastic. A surprise attack was clearly impossible. One officer stated, ‘To land would be difficult enough if surprise were possible but hazardous in the extreme under present conditions.’ [17] Secrecy was non-existent. The Egyptian press reported the arrivals of Allied forces and their proposed destination. [18] General d’Amade, commander of the French contingent, gave an interview in which he discussed the invasion plans at great length. [19] Indeed, he presented the enemy with a blueprint for the landings. [20] Allied activity in Egypt was closely observed by Turkish and German agents who were able to ‘deliver a complete Allied order of battle to the head of intelligence in Constantinople by the middle of March.’ [21] Sixty-five days elapsed between the first naval attack and the amphibious landings on 25 April during which time the Turkish defences were transformed. It was strategically, a ridiculous state of affairs.

The Greek government had suggested that 200,000 men would be required, and in January Kitchener had estimated 150,000, [22] but Hamilton could only count on half that number. They included 18,000 well-trained regulars (the 29th Division), 34,100 physically fit but raw Anzac troops, a ragbag Naval division of 11,000, and a French division of 20,000. Many of these soldiers had barely completed basic training and collectively they had never worked together. Most of the senior commanders were inexperienced and their staff had little practical knowledge of the appalling problems that would face them on a daily basis. ‘This was a disaster waiting to happen.’ [23] Marshall Joffre, the French C-in-C, was profoundly opposed to the whole operation and initially refused to provide troops, but political expediency forced his hand. [24] A French army officer, Colonel Maucorps, who had spent years in Turkey also opposed the attack, but like everyone with intimate knowledge of the subject, his protests were dismissed and his intelligence reports ignored. [25]

After much dithering, Kitchener had finally agreed to release the 29th Division. Its commander, Major-General F Shaw, had served with distinction at Mons and was considered a highly competent and ‘impressively professional soldier.’ Two days before embarkation, when continuity was all-important, Kitchener inexplicably replaced Shaw with Major-General Hunter-Weston. The man was a snobbish boor. He refused to travel in the ship he was allocated because it lacked first class accommodation, and demanded to be transferred to the luxury liner Andania. [26] Major-General Shaw suffered the same fate as Admiral Limpus. A highly competent and knowledgeable officer was rejected in favour of the laughing-stock of the British Army. [27] It was as if the esprit de corps of the 29th Division had been neutered. Spectacularly incompetent, Hunter-Weston was considered one of the most brutal commanders of the First World War. [28]

Preparations blundered on. Ships arrived from Britain without specific destinations. [29] Supplies were packed in the wrong order and chaos ensued. [30] Hamilton had no choice but to order some supply ships back 700 miles to Egypt to be unloaded and properly repacked. [31] Reorganisation of the equipment took more than a month, and partly explains why the Army was unable to land on Gallipoli soon after the naval disaster of 18 March. The blame for most of this chaos rested with Graeme Thomson, Director of Transport at the Admiralty. Churchill had personally appointed Thomson despite protests by senior officers. Admiral Oliver stated that Thomson knew all about the City but nothing of warfare. Had the far abler Vice-Admiral Slade been given the job, as recommended by admiralty insiders, ‘the transports for the Dardanelles would have been properly loaded and arrived in the proper order.’ [32] Yet again, an incompetent was deliberately appointed over a man fitted for the task.

The long delays made it impossible for Hamilton to co-ordinate a joint attack. While there was only one Turkish division based on Gallipoli during the naval assault, General Liman Von Sanders, the German military advisor in Turkey, increased the defensive strength to six divisions over the following months. [33] The Peninsula might have been taken by a combined operation in March, but the failure of the naval bombardments only served to warn the Turks that the Dardanelles had become a pressing target for the allies. Consequently, they reinforced the defences and held the upper hand. Confusion reigned supreme about the future roles of the army and navy. [34] In the end, the Navy was confined to a subsidiary supporting role, and a combined operation, the only approach which might have succeeded, [35] never materialised.

As widely advertised across the western mediterranean, a horror-show was on its way to Gallipoli.

[1] Harvey Broadbent, The Fatal Shore, p. 38.
[2] Dan Van Der Vat, The Dardanelles Disaster
[3] Robin Prior, Gallipoli, The End of The Myth, p. 68.
[4] Alan Moorehead, Gallipoli, p. 88.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Prior, Gallipoli, The End of The Myth, p. 68.
[7] Sir Ian Hamilton, Gallipoli Diary, vol. 1, 15 March, 1915 http://www.gutenberg.org/files/19317/19317-h/19317-h.htm#Page_127,
[8] Robert Rhodes James, Gallipoli, p. 21.
[9] Ellis Ashmead Bartlett, The Uncensored Dardanelles, pp. 39-40.
[10] Michael Hickey, Gallipoli, p. 77.
[11] Prior, Gallipoli, p. 242.
[12] Hamilton, Gallipoli Diary, vol. 1, 5 April 1915 http://www.gutenberg.org/files/19317/19317-h/19317-h.htm#Page_127,
[13] James, Gallipoli, p. 80.
[14] J. Laffin, The Agony of Gallipoli, p. 258-9.
[15] James, Gallipoli, p. 79.
[16] L.A. Carlyon, Gallipoli, p. 105.
[17] Moorehead, Gallipoli, pp. 117-118.
[18] Arthur J. Marder, From Dreadnought to Scapa Flow, vol 11, p. 258.
[19] Robert Rhodes James, Gallipoli, p. 79.
[20] Laffin, The Agony of Gallipoli, p. 40.
[21] Hickey, Gallipoli, p. 87.
[22] Marder, From Dreadnought to Scapa Flow, Vol. 11, p. 212.
[23] Peter Hart, Gallipoli, p. 56.
[24] Laffin, The Agony, p. 35.
[25] Edmond Delage, The Tragedy of the Dardanelles, p. 109.
[26] Hickey, Gallipoli, pp. 57-58.
[27] Denis Winter, Haig’s Command, p. 140.
[28] Prior, Gallipoli, p. 80.
[29] Laffin, The Agony, p. 31.
[30] Martin Gilbert, Winston S Churchill, vol 111, p. 297.
[31] Moorehead, Gallipoli, p. 90.
[32] Marder, From Dreadnought to Scapa Flow, Vol. 11, p. 238.
[33] Laffin, The Agony, p. 44.
[34] Tim Travers, Gallipoli, p. 38.
[35] Dan Van Der Vat, The Dardanelles Disaster, p. 136.

Gallipoli 13: Turkey! Where’s Turkey?

If the Admiralty’s planning for the seaborne attack had been poor, the organisation for the military campaign was shambolic. As Les Carlyon put it so succinctly, ’Instead of being planned for months in London, down to the last artillery shell and the last bandage, this venture was being cobbled up on the spot, and only after another enterprise, the naval attack, had failed.’ [1] The only operation of similar stature that could be compared with this lay thirty years ahead on the beaches of Normandy, and the planning for that amphibious landing took not three weeks, but nearly two years. [2] Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett, British war correspondent at Gallipoli, wrote that no country other than Great Britain would have attacked the Dardanelles without months of reflection and preparation by a highly trained general staff composed of the best brains of the army. He added, ‘Never have I known such a collection of unsuitable people to whom to entrust a great campaign, the lives of their countrymen, and the safety of the Empire. Their muddles, mismanagement, and ignorance of the strategy and tactics of modern war brought about the greatest disaster in English history.’ [3] Ashmead-Barlett had, of course, no inkling that the chaos was orchestrated; no idea that third rate commanders had been deliberately chosen to ensure that the campaign would not succeed.

Military leadership was barely functional. [4] The War Council had considered neither tactics nor logistics for an amphibious assault on the peninsula, and until 12 March 1915 had not even chosen a commander. General Sir Ian Hamilton, like Vice-Admiral Carden before him, was selected while eminently more suitable senior officers were overlooked. The genial Scot, then in the twilight of his career, had been Kitchener’s chief of staff during the last months of the Boer War. He was hamstrung by his long-subservient relationship [5] and never once did he challenge Kitchener’s authority. Hamilton was scared of him and the depth of his fear can be gauged from a comment he made in his diary about requesting more troops, ‘Really, it is like going up to a tiger and asking for a small slice of venison.’ Hamilton’s trepidation was based on his experience in South Africa where he witnessed Kitchener’s response to an officer’s appeal for reinforcements by removing half his troops. [6]

Hamilton later recalled how stunned he was when he first learned of his appointment. ‘Opening the door I bade him good morning and walked up to his desk where he went on writing like a graven image. After a moment he looked up and said in a matter of fact tone, ‘We are sending a military force to support the fleet now in the Dardanelles and you are to have command. At that moment K wished me to bow, leave the room and make a start … But my knowledge of the Dardanelles was nil, of the Turk nil, of the strength of my forces next to nil. … K, went on writing. At last he looked up again with, “Well?”’ [7] It is patently clear that Kitchener treated his Boer War subordinate with contempt.

Hamilton was told he would be leaving next day with his staff. ‘The politics of the war, especially those concerning Russia, were driving everything and time was of the essence’, [8] but neither Kitchener nor anyone else had any clear idea about what Hamilton was to do. General Callwell, Director of Military Operations, was brought into the office to give a cursory briefing. He advised that the Greek General Staff had recently studied the possibility of an amphibious landing on the Gallipoli peninsula and estimated that 150,000 men were essential if it was to stand any chance of success. Kitchener dismissed this as nonsense, telling Hamilton that half that number would do him handsomely. [9] Strange indeed, because just two days earlier at a War Council meeting Kitchener himself had stated that a force of 130,000 would be required. [10] Admiral Jacky Fisher, who correctly forecast disaster, had insisted that it would need 200,000 men. [11] Initially, only 75,000 were sent. That might have been enough men ‘for garrison duty around Constantinople and for raiding parties on the way there, but Hamilton didn’t have the numbers to make opposed landings against six Turkish divisions.’ [12] The number of men actually sent in the first instance was predicated on the fleet getting through to Constantinople, not on the numbers required for a successful amphibious attack after the navy had failed.

Kitchener was surely aware that 75,000 men would not be enough, but he assured Hamilton that if a British submarine ‘popped up’ opposite the town of Gallipoli and waved a Union Jack, ‘the whole Turkish garrison on the peninsula will take to their heels…’ [13] How typical of the arrogance and inbred racism of the British imperialist. Like the deferential schoolboy anxious not to provoke the wrath of an authoritarian headmaster, Hamilton didn’t ask for more men lest he upset Kitchener. [14]

He wasn’t the only officer taken aback by the proposed campaign. General Wolfe Murray, Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS), and General Archibald Murray, (Depute CIGS) were then called into Kitchener’s office, together with Major-General Braithwaite who had been appointed as Hamilton’s Chief-of-Staff against his wishes. [15] Incredibly, none of these Staff Officers had heard of the Gallipoli scheme and ‘the Murray’s were so taken aback that neither of them ventured to comment.’ [16] They had been kept entirely in the dark. The plan was so secret that even the Chief of the Imperial General Staff had not been party to it. Why? How could such a major strategic development come as a surprise to officers at that level? Quite reasonably, Braithwaite ‘begged’ that the expedition be given a contingent of up-to-date aeroplanes, experienced pilots and observers, but Kitchener turned on him, ‘Not one!’ The spotter planes that were provided were old and so heavy that ‘the damned things could barely rise off the water’ and out of rifle range. [17]

Look at the common factors here. Just as Churchill had placed an old subservient Admiral in charge of an ageing fleet, so Kitchener appointed a similarly pliable General to take command of the military force. Both were inadequate and unfit for the task. Nothing that was valued was put at risk so they were instructed to operate with insufficient men and decrepit equipment. Once again, experienced officers who disagreed, said nothing.

Next morning, General Hamilton returned to the War Office for his final and only briefing. Kitchener had penned three different sets of instructions, none of which helped Hamilton understand the enemy, the politics or the country. He was left to his own devices. Thirteen officers had been hurriedly assembled to serve on his staff. Only one had seen active service in the war and one or two, according to Hamilton, had hastily put on a uniform for the first time in their lives with ‘Leggings awry, spurs upside down, belts over shoulder straps!’ He knew none of them. [18]

Hamilton sought up-to-date information about Gallipoli and the Turks from Military Intelligence but all he was given were two small tourist guidebooks on western Turkey, an out of date and inaccurate map that was not intended for military use, and a 1905 textbook on the Turkish Army. The Intelligence officers were unable to assist with any information on weather patterns in the region, and nobody had given thought to the sea currents that would cause such problems during the landings. Nobody could say how many enemy troops were on the peninsula, or name the Turkish and German commanders. [19] It was literally unbelievable.

It was also untrue. In fact, inside the Foreign Office, the War Office and the Admiralty, there were volumes of up-to-the-minute intelligence on Gallipoli and Constantinople gathered from missions, ambassadors and military and naval sources. Between 1911 and 1914, successive military attaches at Constantinople, and vice consuls posted to the Dardanelles at Chanak, had sent detailed intelligence reports on the Dardanelles defences to the War Office. These were never disclosed to Hamilton or his staff. Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Cunliffe-Owen, the British military attache at Constantinople had conducted a detailed survey of the Dardanelles and Gallipoli and on 6 September 1914, sent these highly accurate reports and assessments to General Callwell, Director of Military Operations at the War Office. [20] They included information on gun sites, minefields and the topography of the peninsula. Hamilton was clearly desperate for facts and figures about Gallipoli and the Dardanelles, yet General Callwell withheld the vital information he had received from Cunliffe-Owen. Here was the most senior officer who had studied the Dardanelles in the intelligence department before the outbreak of war, [21] had received Cunliffe-Owen’s reports, had access to all of the information gathered from a range of military personnel stationed in Constantinople and the Dardanelles, yet kept it from Hamilton. [22] Why did the War Office leave Hamilton to cull his facts from tourist guides and outdated maps? Why did General Callwell remain silent? There can be no rational reason other than he was ordered to. His silence would otherwise have equated to treason.

Had the War Office tried to furbish Hamilton with expert advice and local knowledge, Admiral Limpus’s reports would have been brought from the Admiralty; Ambassador Mallet could have advised him in person. Had they wanted him to have the benefit of detailed military intelligence, Cunliffe-Owen would have been included among his staff officers. He was one of very few who had seen Gallipoli on the ground. Why was his wealth of knowledge and experience unwelcome?

Before Hamilton set off for the eastern Mediterranean on 13 March, on HMS Foresight, he went to say goodbye to his former chief, but Kitchener did not even wish him good luck. [23] Hamilton was equipped with little more than enthusiasm and wishful thinking. No attempt had been made to co-ordinate intelligence about the defences at Gallipoli, not even at strategic level, and he had been given no indication of Government policy, priorities or plans. [24] According to the principles laid down in Field Service Regulations, he should have been given an outline plan of the operations he had been tasked to undertake. This was the clear responsibility of General Wolfe Murray, the CIGS, and General Callwell, Director of Military Intelligence, but no plan was produced and all detailed up-to-date intelligence was withheld.

Ian Hamilton was chosen to command the operation for the following reasons: (1) He was considered incapable of performing the task. (2) He knew nothing of Gallipoli or its defences. (3) He would never challenge Kitchener’s orders, no matter how outrageous. (4) Like Admiral Carden, he made the perfect patsy when the Gallipoli campaign failed. It has been suggested that, from the outset, Hamilton was the victim of gross dereliction of duty on the part of the General Staff, [25] but it went much deeper than that. Make no mistake, this was no act of stupidity, dereliction of duty, or a ‘cock-up’. Hamilton did not appreciate it, but without a combined operation with the navy and at least 150,000 well equipped troops, he could never succeed. He was not appointed to succeed. Consider this; ‘At a moment’s notice he had been given an impossible task to perform, and somehow or other he must perform it. It wasn’t bricks without straw – it was bricks without clay, straw, kiln, hod, or anything else.’ [26]

[1] L.A. Carlyon, Gallipoli, p. 72.
[2] Alan Moorehead, Gallipoli, p. 116.
[3] Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett, The Uncensored Dardanelles, p. 14 and pp. 247-8.
[4] Robin Prior, Gallipoli, p. 67.
[5] Peter Hart, Gallipoli, p. 63.
[6] J. Laffin, The Agony of Gallipoli, p. 43.
[7] Ibid., p. 33.
[8] Harvey Broadbent, Gallipoli, The Fatal Shore, p. 37.
[9] Laffin, The Agony, p. 34.
[10] Carlyon, Gallipoli, p. 60.
[11] Ibid., p. 54.
[12] Carlyon, Gallipoli, p. 86.
[13] Laffin, The Agony, p. 34.
[14] Carlyon, Gallipoli, p. 87.
[15] Laffin, The Agony, p. 35.
[16] Sir Ian Hamilton, Gallipoli Diary, Vol 1, Chapter 1, 14 March 1915. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/19317/19317-h/19317-h.ht
[17] John North, Gallipoli, The Fading Vision, p. 247.
[18] Moorehead, Gallipoli, pp. 82-83.
[19] Laffin, The Agony, p. 35.
[20] Michael Hickey, Gallipoli, p. 28.
[21] T.R. Moreman, Callwell, Sir Charles Stewart, 1859-1928, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2008.
[22] Laffin, The Agony, pp. 12-13.
[23] Moorehead, Gallipoli, p. 83.
[24] Laffin, The Agony, p. 30.
[25] Hickey, Gallipoli, p. 68.
[26] John Hargrave, The Suvla Bay Landing, p. 29.

Gallipoli 12: The Best Laid Plans O’ Mice And Men

The Dardanelles were heavily defended. The Turks had placed 370 mines across the Straits in ten lines and an eleventh line of 26 mines parallel to the shore, a mile or so off the coast at Eren Keui Bay. Rather than providing powerful Royal Navy minesweepers as Admiral Carden had requested, the Admiralty had supplied unarmed fishing trawlers manned by volunteers and commanded by a naval officer with no experience of minesweeping. [1] The trawlers, with their sweeps down, could barely make 3 knots against the strong 5-6 knot current which ran through the Dardanelles. They faced serious problems, especially at night, when picked out by powerful searchlights and exposed to gunfire from mobile howitzers and field guns. It was a vicious circle. The make-shift minesweepers could not do their job until the guns had been silenced, and the battleships could not get near enough to silence the guns until the mines were cleared. [2] The bombardments of 19-25 February had achieved little. Indeed, they ‘destroyed all hope of surprise, and were directly responsible for strengthening the enemy’s defences and increasing his power to resist a military landing.’ [3]

Meantime, on the political front, the pressure from Russia was raised another notch. Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey warned that they were asking for control of the Straits and wanted an immediate answer. Richard Haldane, former War Secretary and member of the War Council, stated that unless Britain made an explicit offer, Germany would seize the opportunity to conclude a peace with Russia. [4] Russian Foreign Secretary Sazonov had already said that the time for moderation had passed. Czar Nicholas agreed, informing the French ambassador that his people were making terrible sacrifices without reward and consequently they would only be satisfied once Constantinople became part of his empire. [6] Sazonov piled more pressure on the Allies by threatening to resign. He made it clear that he would immediately be replaced by Count Sergei Witte, a pro-German sympathiser who would likely seal a treaty with Germany. [7] The Russians continued to turn the screw, and the absolutely crucial  need to stop them from wavering dictated the War Council’s decisions. [5] The Czar’s advisors knew that a naval assault would fail. Kitchener’s hand was forced. Something more had to be done to convince Russia that Britain was serious.

Responding to the pressure, on 10 March Kitchener decided that he would indeed send the 29th Division to Gallipoli. It would join the Anzac Corps of 34,100 men currently sitting in Egypt, and a French Division of 20,000. He had changed his mind yet again. The Anzacs were not to do it on their own. After three weeks of this ‘shilly-shallying’ the Division was finally allowed to sail for Gallipoli, [8] but the delay had momentous consequences. Churchill would later write, ‘Without 29th Division, the army could do nothing. They were the professionals who mattered, the sole regular division whose movements and arrival governed everything.’ [9] Yes indeed, the opportunity had gone, but if one person was to be blamed for not pushing for a joint attack, it was himself. An official Ottoman account related that up to 25 February ‘it would have been possible to effect a landing at any point on the Peninsula and the capture of the Straits would have been comparatively easy’. [10] But the opportunity had been completely blown by the Naval bombardment of the forts when they attacked the Dardanelles without sufficient men on the ground to take and hold them. The naval attack had been counter productive. It only served to warn the Turks that an invasion was coming, giving them ample time to strengthen their defences.

The War Council intervened. General Birdwood had been sent out on 23 February ‘to assess the situation’. His response was no different from that of the senior naval officers. The navy could not successfully force the Dardanelles. Large numbers of men were required. It had to be a combined operation. [11] Birdwood’s advice, like that of everyone else who proffered the same opinion, was ignored. No-one in authority was prepared to publicly admit that the naval bombardment was hopeless. Poor Carden continued to do his best, but that could never be good enough. On 11 March a further naval incursion came under heavy fire and the minesweepers turned tail and fled. It was a ridiculous state of affairs. You could no more expect fishermen to successfully man minesweepers than you could expect naval ratings to land a catch on the North Sea.

That same day Kitchener informed the War Office that he was sending General Sir Ian Hamilton to prepare a Mediterranean Expeditionary Force. Within twenty-four hours of his totally unexpected promotion and without requisite briefing or planning, Hamilton found himself speeding across France to Marseilles on a special train, then by the fast cruiser, Phaeton, to the eastern Mediterranean. He arrived at the island of Tenedos on 17 March to find Vice-Admiral Carden collapsed with exhaustion and anxiety. It was no surprise. In fairness to Carden, he was never fitted for the post which should have been given to the exceptionally competent, Admiral Limpus, head of the former Naval Mission to Turkey. No man knew more about the Dardanelles and its minefield defences. [12] Eliminating them was key to safe passage through the Straits. Whatever his faults, Carden knew this and felt completely undermined by the Admiralty’s refusal to provide custom-built minesweepers. Fishing trawlers were not up to the task. Overall they made 17 attempts to sweep the mines, but only reached the main minefield twice. Out of a total of almost 400 mines, two were cleared. [13] Words cannot capture the enormity of that failure, but the volunteer fishermen were not to blame.

On his arrival General Hamilton was surprised to find the Gallipoli shore-line so well defended, but his initial shock was as nothing compared to what he witnessed the following day. On 18 March the serious business of invading the Dardanelles began. With fine clear skies and a calm sea, the main attacking force of battleships and battle-cruisers entered the Dardanelles in three divisions arranged four abreast. Cruisers, destroyers and the trawlers, which were now crewed by the Royal Navy, followed on. The front division, line ‘A’, comprised four British battleships, including the dreadnought Queen Elizabeth, with two others flanking the line. One mile astern came line ‘B’ with four French battleships. Bringing up the rear in line ‘C’ , another four British battleships. Again, the second and third lines were flanked by additional warships. [14] They went in with all guns blazing. It was a tremendous spectacle of naval might.

The plan of action was to knock out the forts at the Narrows and the batteries protecting the minefields. Minesweepers would follow that night to clear a channel. Next morning at first light, the Fleet was to destroy any remaining forts at close range while the last of the mines were swept. All being well, the Fleet was scheduled to reach the Sea of Marmara within two days. [15] It all sounded so straightforward but, as Robert Burns so rightly said, ‘the best laid plans o’ mice and men gang aft agley.’ [16] De Robek was aware of the problems faced by the trawlers, and the fact that the minefields remained intact. Yet he didn’t use his full force to protect the fleet. Eight powerful destroyers which could have easily been fitted with sweeps remained idle that fateful day while the officers sat on board playing cards. [17]

The battle began at 11.30 am and grew in intensity as one line of ships after another steamed in and opened fire on the forts. An hour later, about six miles inside the Straits, many of the shore batteries maintained their barrage. The French battleship Gaulois was holed below the waterline and had to be beached. HMS Inflexible was forced to retire to extinguish fires and repair damage. Lord Nelson, Agamemnon, Charlemagne and Albion were hit, but carried on firing. The French battleship Bouvet struck a mine, heeled over and vanished with most of her crew. A second mine crippled Inflexible and she began listing. Irrestible and Suffren were badly damaged. Ocean suffered an internal explosion and sank several hours later. The trawlers were urged on to sweep ahead, but ran into a rain of howitzer shells and even though they were manned by sailors, they fled in disorder. Three battleships had been sunk with the loss of over 700 men, and three crippled. It was a rout. The fleet had not even reached the Narrows when the attack was called off. On the Turkish side, two 14-inch guns and several smaller ones had been put out of action, but none of those guarding the minefield was damaged. The minefield itself was untouched. [18] It was, as so many had predicted, a disaster.

Throughout the campaign, warships never again ventured into the Straits. The major task for the navy would henceforth be to ferry soldiers to the beaches. Maurice Hankey told General Haig that the operation had been run ‘like an American cinema show’ in that every step had been widely advertised long before it was carried out. [19] Of course it was. And it was so blatant that we have to believe this was their intention; to completely remove any possibility of surprise. Why would any military strategist do that, unless … well unless they did not want to succeed.

The Naval operation had been set up to fail and it had. In five short weeks it would be the army’s turn.

[1] John Laffin, The Agony of Gallipoli, p. 27.
[2] Alan Moorehead, Gallipoli, pp. 56-57.
[3] Laffin, The Agony, p. 3.
[4] Martin Gilbert, Winston S Churchill, vol. III, p. 321.
[5] Harvey Broadbent, The Fatal Shore, p. 28.
[6] Ronald P Bobroff, Roads to Glory, Late Imperial Russia and the Straits, pp. 126-131.
[7] Sean McMeekin, The Russian Origins of The First World War, pp. 130-131.
[8] Arthur J Marder, From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow, vol II, pp. 235-6.
[9] Winston S Churchill, The World Crisis, 1915, p. 214.
[10] Stephen Roskill, Hankey, vol I, p. 156.
[11] Nigel Steel and Peter Hart, Defeat at Gallipoli, pp. 16-17.
[12] Moorehead, Gallipoli, p. 60.
[13] Prior, Gallipoli, p. 53.
[14] L A Carlyon, Gallipoli, p. 50.
[15] C Aspinal-Oglander, Roger Keyes, p. 136.
[16] Robert Burns, To A Mouse.
[17] Travers, Gallipoli, p. 29.
[18] Arthur J Marder, From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow, vol II, p. 247.
[19] Ibid., p. 248.