two thoughts on Gallipoli

I see that The Rest Is History has recently done a series on what happened at Gallipoli in 1915, which as it happens is one of my obsessions. This isn’t a post about that campaign as such, but about two related things. ~ 1 ~ The assault on Gallipoli was, of course and infamously, Winston Churchill’s idea. Its abject failure cost him his place as First Lord of the Admiralty and probably should have ended his political career. (Though if it had….) Andrew Roberts, in his biography of Churchill, treats this episode rather curiously. Churchill’s determination to pursue the invasion of Turkey through the Dardanelles, a plan which was based wholly — not partly, not largely, but altogether — on the assumption that when faced with the sight of British and French warships the Turks would run away, was strongly opposed by several members of the War Cabinet, but through sheer obnoxiousness Churchill finally got his way. When the invasion began to fall apart, as it did almost immediately,…