"Revisiting the Dardanelles Disaster" Topic

"The Gallipoli campaign of 1915 was one of the great military disasters of the First World War. The initial plan was to send a flotilla of old warships through the Straits of the Dardanelles and into the sea of Marmora. Naval guns would demolish the Turkish fortresses on both sides of the straits, while minesweepers cleared a path for the ships. Once through the straits, they would blockade or bombard Constantinople, precipitating the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. When the naval operation stalled, an expeditionary force was sent to capture the Gallipoli peninsula. But the landings ended in stalemate, with allied troops confined to precarious beachheads, where conditions were as grim as those on the Western Front. 132,000 British, French, New Zealand, Australian and Indian troops were killed or injured before the campaign was called off.

A particularly controversial aspect of the affair was the part played by Winston Churchill. As First Lord of the Admiralty, he was a key figure in the genesis of the campaign and its most passionate advocate. When everything went wrong he made a convenient scapegoat, but the extent to which the blame should be laid on him has been a matter of dispute ever since…#
Main page

link

Amicalement
Armand

Fortunately for Churchill's military reputation, Admiral Cradock cannot be reached for comment.

B

Robert Rhodes James got it right- had Churchill died in 1939, he would have gone down as one of the greatest disasters in British history. Says a lot, really, for his accomplishments in subsequent years. It also illustrates how truly desperate things must have looked in 1940.

(smile)

Amicalement
Armand

Lol. Churchill 'Got Things Done'! Some ideas may have been 'mistakes' in hindsight.. and subject to 'changes of plan'…greatly altering the concept…for which 'Blamers' will always find fault.
Remember too, that His fortunes were affected by Gallipoli.

At the time, 'SOMETHING' was needed to attempt to ease the growing horror of static trench war… and a grand 'Raid' seemed to fit the bill. It did not work out that way. Nor did Dieppe, later….but SO many other 'leaders' have got into the same sort of mess… and in much more recent times!

However, He Tried. And in WW2, he managed to motivate a beaten U.K into continuing an impossible fight. Without Churchill, I suspect that the U.S would have written off the U.K. and things may well have turned out VERY differently.

Churchill, very definitely, was not infallible… but he was there… THE 'Man for the Time'!