The Gallipoli Campaign

[Murph]

I am reading Castles of Steel by R. Massey and there are certain aspects of the Gallipoli campaign which puzzle me:

Why were the landing beaches chosen in the locations they were chosen?  Were there no beaches further up or better located that did not have as rough a terrain as the ones chosen?  Looking at a topographic map of the area, this was a terrible place to have attempted to land, and more importantly land widely dispersed forces!  

Were there no RN or Royal Army officers who had experience with the area, and could have been consulted before choosing the landing locations?  Looking at photographs of the terrain, you cannot pick a rougher place to land.

I have no way to judge if the forces deployed were actually adequate for the task, or if they needed more men and equipment to take the heights?

It does not appear that the commanders as a general rule were as competent as they should have been in terms of leading an amphibious operation of this nature.  They may have been perfectly competent leading troops in say the Palestine Campaign, but out of their depth leading an amphibious operation.   Was Ian Hamilton up to the task?  

It appears that the Naval assets were adequate, but the use of high velocity naval guns when howitzers were needed to disable/destroy the forts.  Another thing that causes me a little confusion, is the Royal Navy had shore raids down pat, as something that the RN made a habit of in the 18th, and 19th Century.  They had a battalion or two of Royal Marines, could they not have conducted raids on the Turkish forts to disable the guns at least in the initial stages before the Turks reinforced the area?

 

[sunday]

@Argus studied the campaign some years ago and wrote an alternative history novelette on the matter.

I've seen the Gallipoli peninsula from a ship, thirty years ago, and looked like a rugged, desolate piece of land.

[Argus]

Landing Beaches 
The operational context was about clearing the gun batteries on the Straits side of the peninsula, so the minesweepers could go in and sweep a channel for the fleet. Marching on Istanbul was not an objective. So looked at from that perspective do the landings chosen make more sense? The landing at ANZAC to isolate the foot of the peninsula while the Anglo-French sweep up from the toe.

Operational Intelligence 
Big surprise its complicated. Yes there were some pretty glaring holes in the intelligence picture, but its unwise to infer a general ignorance from that. While the staff didn't know what they didn't know. They did know plenty, and it was because they thought they knew what they were getting into that they landed where they did. Protecting Istanbul from an attack along this vector was a well established problem. The Gallipoli peninsula has archaeological layers of defensive works going back to the Trojan Wars, the latest layer was only laid down in 1912 or so, and some of the not so deep ones were put in by the British and French themselves, 50 odd years before. 

Landing an army at the root of the Peninsula then marching on Istanbul was the expected scenario, and the Turks had taken steps to oppose it - again look at the Turkish army dispositions prior to the landing, there were defences put in across the whole area, left over the Balkan wars and new. Landing up there did not look like an easy option, even if in retrospect it might well have been. 

Command...

out of time

[Murph]

That terrain is terrifying looking at it with an old infantryman's eye.  

[Argus]

If anything it was worse then, there's been a lot of erosion over the last 100 years. The exact nature of the terrain, particularly behind ANZAC were one of the blind spots in their picture. Plus of course no one really KNEW how a WWI pattern of warfare would lay upon such a landscape. 

The RN/RM did raid the forts very successfully, well before the landings. But its not actually the forts they were worried about by the time of the landings. The minesweepers were converted fishing trawlers, slow not very resilient and, as had been demonstrated quite clearly, horribly vulnerable to field artillery and small arms fire (ranges generally sub-2000m speeds below 15kph). The Turkish field arty and MG crews being mobile didn't give a damn about the forts and were bothered by the naval demolitions not at all.  

The commanders were a mixed bunch.
Hamilton was a good man, but not the right man. He'd been Kitchener's CoS for years and been very effective. He was intelligent, active and competent. His problem was a lack of command experience, he didn't know when to break the rules, with a staff/command team he had no choice in and who needed more intervention in more ways than he could see.  Hamilton had built a career on delegation, the peacetime British Army wasn't big on micromanagement. You didn't argue with the man doing the job or tie him down with unnecessary instructions -commanders intent, desired result, off you go son and get it done.  His own success was in being that guy for Kitchener, converting generalised intent into organised effective reality, and Kitchener left him alone to do it. So when he ended up in Command, he followed the same practice - alas he didn't have his own Hamilton as CoS and ring of known subordinate commanders. I'm rather sceptical if anyone could have pulled it off anyway,  but it someone who was a lot more hands on and prepared to teach people their jobs on the fly... with the toe of his boot if need be.
 

Hunter-Weston, I have noting good to say about Hunter Bunter, which is not to say he was incompetent, I just have a thing about the bastard. Anyway about the opposite to Hamilton in all the ways best calculated to f0ck things up. Happy to take the freedom Hamilton gave him but not up to using it properly, or developing the command climate to allow others to compensate. 

Both men would have done well enough on the Western Front and Hunter-Weston did, and Haig would have been so lucky to have a staff officer of Hamilton's competence. But as I said above, if it were possible and I'm not sure it was, then it would have taken other men to do it.  

[Murph]

Reading Castles of Steel, it appears that Winston Churchill wanted to "dial it back" a bit, but KItchener and Hamilton wanted to land troops and go full speed ahead.  But then Kitchener started waffling on sending the 29th Division since French was complaining, since HE wanted that division for France.  But when it came apart, Churchill took the fall and got sent to France.  Another thing I wonder is, as you stated above, if a "better" general could have salvaged something from this landing?  Allenby maybe?   But did the British Army at the time actually have any commanders who were capable of handling anything like this?  

It also seems that Hamilton took it in the neck after this, and was never really used where his talents could have been used to the best effect.  When you have the British Army of the date, and its methodical way of doing things, not being a "move fast" sort of Army, I am not sure if any commander could have fixed the massive cock up that the landings were in the end.

EDIT:

Wow, you are right Hunter-Weston was a callous brute who should never have been allowed to command troops.  Just got to his quote on casualties.  And I agree Hamilton might have done a great service to Haig on the Western Front as a CofS.  

[Argus]

And yet Hunter-Bunter did go on to have a useful career in France - maybe Gallipoli taught him some humanity... or perhaps to keep thoughts like that to himself. 

Seniority is a problem, Hamilton was too senior to play second fiddle naturally and after such a failure taking an inferior role would be a humiliation that wasn't really justified so... unemployed. Likewise in proposing an alternative to Hamilton, the only one who springs to mind is Smith-Dorrian. 
 

[Murph]

18 hours ago, Argus said:

And yet Hunter-Bunter did go on to have a useful career in France - maybe Gallipoli taught him some humanity... or perhaps to keep thoughts like that to himself. 

Seniority is a problem, Hamilton was too senior to play second fiddle naturally and after such a failure taking an inferior role would be a humiliation that wasn't really justified so... unemployed. Likewise in proposing an alternative to Hamilton, the only one who springs to mind is Smith-Dorrian. 
 

Smith-Dorrien could be a very good choice.

[Argus]

I forgot to mention Churchill was going to get ignored. You can almost count on any senior officer then doing almost doing the exact opposite of whatever WS Churchill might suggest as a matter of reflex. His reputation as 'military strategist,' whatever it may have been before or after, in 1915 sucked vacuum.  While his public/political reputation might have founded in the Dardanelles, in professional military circles he f0cked it in August-October '14, with poor old Kit Cradock paying the price of his folly on the 1st of November at Coronel.  By crucifying Troubridge over Goben/Breslau for political ends, and not only leaving Craddock hanging in the breeze, that wasn't his fault alone (looking sideways at you Sturdee), but the confused mess or orders leading up to that point... lets just say Churchill proved he had a Victorian Cavalry subaltern's perspective on operations and strategic command.  To sum up his orders to Craddock read like he was seeing things like a Boer War sweep and search against a blockhouse line - anyway contact with reality was tenuous.  

[Murph]

11 hours ago, Argus said:

I forgot to mention Churchill was going to get ignored. You can almost count on any senior officer then doing almost doing the exact opposite of whatever WS Churchill might suggest as a matter of reflex. His reputation as 'military strategist,' whatever it may have been before or after, in 1915 sucked vacuum.  While his public/political reputation might have founded in the Dardanelles, in professional military circles he f0cked it in August-October '14, with poor old Kit Cradock paying the price of his folly on the 1st of November at Coronel.  By crucifying Troubridge over Goben/Breslau for political ends, and not only leaving Craddock hanging in the breeze, that wasn't his fault alone (looking sideways at you Sturdee), but the confused mess or orders leading up to that point... lets just say Churchill proved he had a Victorian Cavalry subaltern's perspective on operations and strategic command.  To sum up his orders to Craddock read like he was seeing things like a Boer War sweep and search against a blockhouse line - anyway contact with reality was tenuous.  

I completely agree with you, no argument whatsoever.  The massive number of contradictory orders going out made Cradock suffer.  Also Troubridge should have been given an battle squadron command, he seemed a pretty competent naval officer of the period.  But I also blame Beatty/Jellico for not sending out their precious battlecruisers to Cradock when he needed them, also not letting him have the extra cruiser.  Winston never sat back and just allowed things to go, he had to be in the thick of it.  Look at WWII for equal problems.  But I also now blame the Admiralty and Room 40 for not passing on good info to Jellico at Jutland, and then giving him bad intel.  If he had known that Scheer was headed to Horns Reef, he could have cut off and destroyed the HSF.  Things are never simple in war, and having read Massie, I am not impressed with Beatty, who IMHO was vastly over-rated as a commander.  

[Argus]

I don't believe it was Beatty or Jellico holding back the Battle Cruisers, or shuffling poor old Defence from pillar to post. Rather Sturdee was playing a very odd game as CoS. It's not quite clear which side of the Dunning-Kruger curve he was on or if he had some other agenda, but given later events I suspect he was in well over his head.  Getting caught flat footed at Port Stanley was amazing incompetence, and I'm usually the last person to use a phrase like that.  I'll agree Beatty was not up to his job far less deserving of any high professional reputation - he wasn't a bad sea lord post war, but as a commander I can't think of any fleet commander who had more chances, made less of them and learned nothing from the process (apparently).
I'd suggest the Admiralty, as a system, just fell over in terms of staff work. What had worked in the age of sail and patronage did not work with professional naval officers and Morse code. For all the Board was supposed to be a staff system, and an integrated military and political staff at that, by 1914 it wasn't much more than a silo farm it seems to me.  Same with Room 40, they weren't responsible for how their product was used. 
I'm not so sure Jellico wasn't saved in some respects by that mix up. As in I'm not convinced he would have gone in for the kill if he'd had the opportunity and history would not have viewed that favourably.  This is no criticism of Jellico in my book, that guy had the weight of the world on his shoulders and had to think about tomorrow as well as today. So I could well understand him trading down the risk to settle for 'good enough' victory.  

[Murph]

True, Jellico was the man who could have "lost the war in one afternoon" after all.  So I have no issues or complaint with him.  I totally agree with your assessment of Beatty, I have not heard it put as well before.  And I agree on Sturdee, I, personally, think he was in over his head, and was best shuffled off to some backwater where nothing really exciting could happen, like Antarctic close patrol.....   It was criminal to shuffle HMS Defence back and forth like that, while leaving the commanders under the impression it was headed their way.  I blame the Admiralty for that one.  

I also think that the Admiralty was still in the age of sail, and had not made the mental adjustment to the new reality.  I also think they did not make the adjustment till almost to the end of the war.  Plus I think that they never really got a good mental handle on wireless communication and its limitations and advantages.

[Argus]

I'm starting to think the only place for Sturdee was Russia, as Flag Officer liaison for Lake Baikal with special responsibility for suppressing revolution... just to make sure he gets shot. That signal traffic about Defence was all him IIRC, trying to placate Churchill and his station commanders at the same time. Although in truth Defence would not have made enough of a difference to see Craddock clear. Monmouth was in her own fashion worse than Canopus, she'd had a 7 year commission on the China Station and not been refitted prior to be being recommissioned on the outbreak of war.  

If I could recommend a book 

https://www.amazon.com.au/Business-Great-Waters-John-Terraine/dp/1840222018

It's sort of the Anti-Massie, in some ways and the best single volume work on the subject I've found. Some parts of the Admiralty had a very good grasp on wireless and exploited it ruthlessness, while others, as you say, seemed never get the balance right.  

[R011]

I think thate fact the Admiralty was being run by a micromanaging enthusiastic amateur with a radio set was something of a challenge to the RN for the first months of the war.  Mind you, the same guy seems to have done a good job i getting the ships and resources the RN neded to be ready for war in the first place.

[Colin]

I have Keyes book. He claims to have reviewed the German/Turkish archives after the war and that based  on his review that on several occasions the Turks were completely exhausted and short of troops/supplies. The evacuation was a god send for them. Also that he felt that the forcing of the Straits was very doable. The initial attempt was hampered by a lack of mine sweepers, but later they had more than enough. The actual forts were not an issue as they could be pummelled, but harrasing fire from dug in field guns was the main threat to the minesweeping.

He wrote a fair bit about the submarine war there. Apparently the Dardanelles is a nasty place to take a WWI sub and currents were quite tricky. It was also the first time a deck gun had been mounted on a British sub as they wanted to interdict Turkish supply vessels and the Gun was useful for dealing with the smaller vessels.

Going by the book, the High Command waffled and there was a feeling the troops were to be more useful on the Western Front. The local commanders disagreed and felt another push and thrust by the RN would succeed, but they were overruled. The initial goal was to take out the Turkish fleet and knock the Turks out of the war with Istanbul under threat of bombardment as inducement. 

[Murph]

I have not read the Keyes book, but it sounds reasonable.  The former infantryman in me looks at that terrain and shudders.  

[Yama]

On 11/2/2022 at 9:07 AM, Argus said:

I forgot to mention Churchill was going to get ignored. You can almost count on any senior officer then doing almost doing the exact opposite of whatever WS Churchill might suggest as a matter of reflex. His reputation as 'military strategist,' whatever it may have been before or after, in 1915 sucked vacuum.  While his public/political reputation might have founded in the Dardanelles, in professional military circles he f0cked it in August-October '14, with poor old Kit Cradock paying the price of his folly on the 1st of November at Coronel.  By crucifying Troubridge over Goben/Breslau for political ends, and not only leaving Craddock hanging in the breeze, that wasn't his fault alone (looking sideways at you Sturdee), but the confused mess or orders leading up to that point... lets just say Churchill proved he had a Victorian Cavalry subaltern's perspective on operations and strategic command.  To sum up his orders to Craddock read like he was seeing things like a Boer War sweep and search against a blockhouse line - anyway contact with reality was tenuous.  

Churchill's insistence to interfere with the defence of Antwerp "to help" somehow stands out as a character moment. It was just an utterly bizarre thing to get involved in.

Re: Gallipoli, in general, I think that opposed amphibious landings just were sort of a new thing.  And there was no experience from which to draw from, and no equipment. The way landings had been done up until that point had usually been that the ships would anchor up, lower their boats and launches and men would row them to the shore, with expectation that the enemy would be somewhere else. Many large warships even carried small field guns to accompany 'away teams'. If enemy was present at the shoreline, boats would come back, and landing would be attempted somewhere else. Landing a large force opposed by a similarly large force was much different challenge and would not have been even attempted at days of yore.

Edited November 3, 2022 by Yama

[Colin]

It wasn't really opposed. In fact in several instances the army just sat on the beaches for a few days before attempting to take the heights. There was no prior amphibious training and poor leadership in the beginning by the Army.

[Colin]

The book I have is: The Naval Memoirs of Admiral of the Fleet Sir Roger Keyes, The Narrows Seas to the Dardanelles 1910-1915

Written 1934

[Murph]

14 hours ago, Colin said:

It wasn't really opposed. In fact in several instances the army just sat on the beaches for a few days before attempting to take the heights. There was no prior amphibious training and poor leadership in the beginning by the Army.

And that was the issue.  If they had gotten off the beaches and onto those hills perhaps Gallipoli would have been a great victory.

[Colin]

Some pictures

[Colin]

[Colin]

[Colin]

This is a good short read and pretty close to what I have read.

 

https://wavellroom.com/2021/04/16/gallipoli-its-all-about-logistics/

[DougRichards]

16 hours ago, Murph said:

And that was the issue.  If they had gotten off the beaches and onto those hills perhaps Gallipoli would have been a great victory.

The RN reputed had chances to land parties of Royals very early on and blow up many of the forts and batteries before the campaign had even started, but the opportunity was missed.

Of course, let us not compare the Dardenelles campaign with Greece 1941, or Crete shall we, lest a certain Winston spin in his grave too much.