Line of Fire (27/41) : Gallipoli "1915"
For educational purposes
The story of the ill-starred Allied campaign in the Dardanelles, that was supposed to knock Turkey out of World War One.
It was the brain-child of Winston Churchill, who convinced Allied High Command that an attack at Gallipoli would also open up vital supply lines to Russia and establish a third front against Austria-Hungary .
Gallipoli has become a by-word for the bravery and sacrifice of the ANZACS - the Australian and New Zealand troops who fought and died during the ten month campaign that saw an estimated 36,000 Commonwealth troops lose their lives before the ignominious Allied withdrawal in January 1916.
It was not only Turkish shot and shell at infamous places such Anzac Cove and Suvla Bay that claimed so many lives, but also those other traditional hidden enemies of the soldier - sickness and disease.
The story of the ill-starred Allied campaign in the Dardanelles, that was supposed to knock Turkey out of World War One.
It was the brain-child of Winston Churchill, who convinced Allied High Command that an attack at Gallipoli would also open up vital supply lines to Russia and establish a third front against Austria-Hungary .
Gallipoli has become a by-word for the bravery and sacrifice of the ANZACS - the Australian and New Zealand troops who fought and died during the ten month campaign that saw an estimated 36,000 Commonwealth troops lose their lives before the ignominious Allied withdrawal in January 1916.
It was not only Turkish shot and shell at infamous places such Anzac Cove and Suvla Bay that claimed so many lives, but also those other traditional hidden enemies of the soldier - sickness and disease.
Transcript
00:00Gallipoli, like the Somme and Passchendaele, has come to symbolize the waste and futility
00:08of the fighting during the Great War.
00:12The infamous campaign, which was largely the brainchild of Winston Churchill, was intended
00:17to force Turkey from the war, and open up supply lines to Russia.
00:22But in these aims, it failed, and at what a cost.
00:27During the nine-month campaign, 46,000 Allied troops lost their lives.
00:42This then, was Gallipoli, the tactical masterstroke that became a tragic and bloody sideshow.
01:27The Straits of the Dardanelles, which separate Europe from Asia, are one of the world's
01:41most strategically important waterways.
01:44The Straits link the waters of the Mediterranean with the Sea of Marmara, on whose northern
01:49shores sits the city of Istanbul, which in 1914 was called Constantinople and was the
01:56capital of the Ottoman Empire.
01:59From Istanbul, the narrow Bosphorus Straits link the Sea of Marmara to the Black Sea,
02:05thus offering potential supply routes to Russia through its Black Sea ports of Odessa and
02:10Sevastopol.
02:14In 1915, the Dardanelles became the scene of one of the most ambitious and controversial
02:19campaigns of the First World War, as British Empire and French soldiers and sailors took
02:26part in the first major amphibious operation in modern warfare.
02:31It was a costly and bloody failure, and the Gallipoli Campaign became Turkey's outstanding
02:37victory of the First World War.
02:45The Dardanelles Straits are guarded on the west by the rugged Gallipoli Peninsula, which
02:49extends from Bulaire in the north for 47 miles to Cape Hellas and the historic fortress of
02:55Sed el Bar.
02:58Three miles across at Bulaire, its narrowest point, and 12 miles at its broadest at Kilid
03:03Bar, the peninsula is a natural fortress, made of chalk and sandstone hills separated
03:09by deep ravines carved out by the winter rains.
03:14There are few beaches suitable for military landings, and they are all overlooked by steep
03:19chalk cliffs or the dominating slopes of the coastal ranges.
03:28Dividing the Gallipoli Peninsula from Asiatic Turkey run the swift southward-flowing waters
03:34of the Dardanelles Straits.
03:37These flow for 35 miles until they reach the Aegean Sea at Cape Hellas.
03:42Averaging two miles across, the straits reach their narrowest point of just under one mile
03:48at the narrows that separate the fortifications at Kilid Bar and Çanak.
03:58Britain and her allies, France and Russia, all had designs on Turkish possessions.
04:05Britain wanted to guarantee the security of the Suez Canal, and also secure control of
04:09the newly discovered oil fields in the Persian Gulf.
04:13France wanted to increase its influence in Syria and the Lebanon, while Russia wanted
04:18to annex Constantinople, take control of the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles, and gain sea
04:23access to the Mediterranean.
04:28In late 1914, Britain and France were desperately looking for a way to break the growing stalemate
04:33of trench warfare, which was frustrating attempts to drive the Germans back on the Western Front.
04:40In January 1915, they received a plea from Russia, which was fighting Turkey in the Caucasus,
04:48for an operation that would divert Turkish attention.
04:53In response, the British cabinet agreed to the proposal from the young, enthusiastic
04:58Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, that obsolete pre-dreadnought class battleships,
05:04which could not be used as part of the British Grand Fleet, should be used to break through
05:08the Dardanelles Straits.
05:11The naval offensive was really put together as a way of circumventing the bloodletting
05:16that was taking place on the Western Front.
05:19If Constantinople could be taken, then the Allies could knock away the soft underbelly
05:23of the German Axis power, and hopefully win the war more quickly.
05:28An attack in the eastern Mediterranean would divert attention from the Western Front, and
05:35would also divert the Austro-Hungarian alliance from the gigantic battles which were taking
05:41place on the Russian Front.
05:44Although previous military studies had suggested that a purely naval operation could not work
05:49without land operations to secure control of the Gallipoli Peninsula, Churchill gained
05:54the support of Lord Kitchener, Secretary of State for War, and pushed through his scheme.
06:01Kitchener saw the need to secure the straits once the fleet had passed through, to ensure
06:06that supplies to the fleet could be maintained.
06:11Despite the intense opposition of the British Army in France, he ordered the 29th British
06:16Division to stand by for the Dardanelles Campaign, along with the two divisions of the Australian
06:22and New Zealand Army Corps that were training in Egypt.
06:27Churchill committed the Royal Naval Division, made up of surplus naval ratings and Royal
06:31Marines, while the French offered both a naval squadron and a French Corps of 18,000 colonial
06:37troops, and units of the French Foreign Legion.
06:42On the 10th of March, Kitchener appointed General Sir Ian Hamilton to command this 75,000
06:48strong force.
06:51It's difficult for me to assess Sir Ian Hamilton today, because we have to look at him through
06:55the prism of the failure of Gallipoli.
07:00But we've got to remember that the Hamilton of the spring of 1915 was regarded by his
07:04contemporaries in a very different light.
07:07He was one of the leading intellectual soldiers of the British Army.
07:11He had an immense amount of active service, and Hamilton was an obvious choice.
07:17He was also available.
07:19Hamilton was actually the best man they had.
07:23Hamilton's problem was that he was sent out by Kitchener, not knowing what the aim was,
07:31and really he was given a second, third, fourth eleven.
07:36The cream had gone to the Western Front.
07:39What was left was anything that could be cobbled together, and in every respect, it was a raw
07:48amateur outfit.
07:53Preliminary Royal Naval bombardments in November 1914, on the outer fords guarding the entrance
07:58to the Straits at Cape Helles, alerted Turkey to the possibility of an Allied attack in
08:03the Dardanelles, and frantic improvements were made to coastal defences.
08:09The bombardments were resumed in February, and on the 18th of March 1915, 16 battleships
08:15of the Anglo-French navies attempted to steam through the Straits.
08:20It was a complete disaster.
08:24The British fishing trawlers, which had been converted for use as minesweepers, were not
08:29powerful enough to cope with the strong currents, and they missed a single row of 20 mines that
08:34had been laid in Erencuyu Bay.
08:38Consequently three battleships, two British and one French, were sunk, and three more
08:43were crippled.
08:45The fleet withdrew, not knowing that the Turkish guns protecting the Straits had fired off
08:50almost all of their heavy ammunition.
08:55Both Admiral de Robeck, who commanded the operation, and Hamilton, who was an observer
09:00on his battleship, quickly became convinced of the futility of a purely naval operation.
09:08After the disastrous naval attack, Admiral de Robeck actually lost his nerve.
09:16He was heard to say, I suppose this will be the end of me.
09:20And although his chief of staff, the fiery Commodore Roger Keyes, was all for pressing
09:27on the next day, de Robeck faltered.
09:33Had the battleships got through to Constantinople, it was quite clear from the reports at the
09:38time, there was an enormous panic among the Turkish government in Constantinople.
09:45And even today, contemporary Turkish historians believe that the government would have surrendered.
09:55Despite Churchill's protests, the men on the spot decided upon a land operation to seize
10:00the peninsula in order to allow the navy to get through.
10:04They were supported in this by Kitchener and by the First Sea Lord, Fischer.
10:10Hamilton planned that the main landings would be made on a series of beaches around the
10:14southern tip of the peninsula at Cape Helles, while Lieutenant General Birdwood's Anzac
10:20Corps would land at Zed Beach, north of the Gabatepe promontory, and advance across the
10:25Midos Plain to the western shore of the Narrows, and cut off any reinforcements reaching the
10:31beaches to the south.
10:34To achieve surprise, the Royal Naval Division would pretend to land at Boulaire, at the
10:39northern end of the peninsula, while the French would land at Kumkale, near the site of Homer's
10:45Troy on the Asiatic shore.
10:51It was an ambitious plan, cobbled together in five weeks of frantic preparation.
10:57Ships and stores were gathered from all over the Mediterranean, and every seaport was full
11:02of rumours of the proposed invasion.
11:07The transports carrying the soldiers of Hamilton's Mediterranean Expeditionary Force assembled
11:12in Mudros Harbour, on the island of Lemnos.
11:18Meanwhile, the Turkish forces also made preparations to defend the peninsula.
11:30The German General Limon von Sanders was given command of the Turkish forces on the peninsula,
11:36and he anticipated that the landings would be made on the Asiatic shore, or at Boulaire.
11:44The Turkish defenders, if you take a picture of them, look like a rag or taglani, unshaven,
11:53untoothed looking, poorly dressed. But actually, if you scrape away at the surface, what you've
11:57got there is somebody that's fighting for his homeland, who's well equipped. Although
12:03the Turks lacked artillery pieces, the rest of their equipment was at least adequate for
12:08the job. They had good defensive positions, they were highly motivated, they were well
12:13organised and well commanded by the Germans. So what you actually have is quite a formidable
12:19enemy for the Allies to try and overcome.
12:26After a number of delays, the landings finally took place on the 25th of April, 1915. Hamilton's
12:33plan succeeded brilliantly in gaining tactical surprise, and totally deceived Limon von Sanders,
12:39who had placed only two of his six divisions on the peninsula.
12:48The first landings took place at 5am at Z-Beach, north of Gabatepe. The plan was for the three
12:55infantry brigades of Major General W.T. Bridges' 1st Australian Division to conduct a silent
13:02landing before dawn, to seize the high ground of Chunuk Bear in the north. They were then
13:07to establish themselves in an arc extending from this point to Gabatepe in the south.
13:14The following Australian brigades would pass through this force, across the Midos Plain,
13:19and seize the low hill of Maltepe. Behind them, Major General Sir Alexander Godley's
13:25New Zealand and Australian Division would be landed as a reserve. Nothing went according
13:32to plan. The Australians found themselves on the wrong beach, a mile too far to the
13:39north. This would become infamous as Anzac Cove.
13:48Instead of the Midos Plain, they were confronted with a mad tangle of broken ridges and ravines.
13:54It was one of the least defended pieces of coastline, yet the small number of Turkish
13:58defenders resisted fiercely before being driven inland.
14:05Even though there was tremendous individual initiative shown, the 1st Australian Brigade
14:10Commander Assure decided that because he had been landed too far to the north, he would
14:16change the plan. And so he sent the next brigade to land to the south.
14:24To the low ground, instead of where it was supposed to go, towards Canak Bay at the high
14:29ground. And so right from the outset, the critical piece of ground that you needed to
14:36have, to guarantee success, was lacking in soldiers.
14:47The 35-year-old Colonel Mustafa Kemal, commanding the Turkish Reserve Division, heard reports
14:53of a landing at Gabatepe, and disregarding orders, immediately set forth with his leading
14:58regiment and ordered the other two regiments to follow on as quickly as possible. He reached
15:04the heights of Çanak Bay at mid-morning and immediately counter-attacked down the slopes
15:09towards Anzac Cove.
15:13Because of the Australian change of plan, Kemal attacked at the weakest part of the
15:17Anzac line. It was also the most critical, because the series of crests climbing up the
15:23ridge to Çanak Bay dominated the landing beaches.
15:32The disorganized brigades of the Australian Division found themselves caught out by an
15:37enemy they thought had retreated. Throughout the day, the Australians and the Reserve New
15:43Zealand Brigade were thrown in to stabilize the beachhead, which had gained about a thousand
15:48yards of ground inland on a frontage of just over two miles.
15:54All through the day, Kemal's regiments launched a series of counter-attacks, and Turkish snipers
16:00picked off anyone who stood up to see what was going on.
16:06By nightfall, the critical heights were in Turkish hands, and both Anzac and Turk were
16:12intermingled along the ridge that had become the front line.
16:18Hamilton ordered the Anzacs to dig in and hold on until relieved by the advance of his
16:23forces in the south.
16:26One man's initiative, one man's change of plan, and despite the enthusiasm and the willingness
16:34of the troops, Anzac became a grim battle to hang on by the fingernails.
16:43Ashmeet Bartlett, the official war correspondent with Hamilton's force, wrote an account that
16:48gave a glorious picture of Anzac's success. It spoke of citizen soldiers who could be
16:54totally cavalier and ill-disciplined out of the line, but natural soldiers in battle.
16:59The reality ashore on Anzac Day was rather different.
17:06The Anzac corps was potentially very good. We're talking about magnificent raw material
17:12here. But the officers did not know their business. They'd simply not been in uniform
17:17long enough. The same was true of the non-commissioned officers. So what would tend to happen is
17:23that the Anzacs, at least initially, could break down very quickly into a disorganised
17:29mob. Individually, very brave men.
17:33It would take the trial and error of the Gallipoli campaign to begin to mould it into the professional
17:38fighting force that would confirm the Anzac reputation on the Western Front.
17:45In Australia and New Zealand, the public accepted Bartlett's dispatches as proof of the accomplishments
17:51of their boys. And so mythic deeds were cemented as fact, and the Anzac legend was born.
17:58The landings by Major General Hunter Weston's 29th British Division, which landed at V,
18:08W, X, Y and S beaches, were almost completely unopposed. However, at W beach, the small
18:15band of Turkish defenders held their fire until the Lancashire Fusiliers reached the
18:20water's edge, and then let loose a thunderous volley. The three Turkish platoons, numbering
18:27only 150 men, inflicted over 500 casualties on the Allied attackers.
18:35Gradually though, the Lancashires gained control, and edged inland, earning six Victoria Crosses
18:41as they did so.
18:46Matters were worse at V beach, where the converted merchant steamer River Clyde was successfully
18:52beached just below the battered fortress walls of Said El Bar.
18:58The problem with the River Clyde is that it is an experiment with getting troops ashore
19:03in an armoured landing craft. And this is the first time it's been tried. And we get
19:10it wrong. The exit points are too small. We can only get single columns of troops off
19:16the River Clyde. Instead of being able to open the doors and having the infantry rush
19:20out en masse, a la 1944, they come ashore in dribs and drabs. And it's a very easy business
19:27for Turkish defenders, the Turkish machine gunners, because they know where the troops
19:31are going to emerge from the River Clyde, they machine gun them in very, very large
19:35numbers indeed. The extraordinary thing is that the British troops continue to pour forth
19:40from the River Clyde, even though they're aware that it's virtually certain death.
19:48The Munster Fusiliers and the Hampshires were shot to pieces by the outnumbered but determined
19:55Turks as they ran down the ramps and tried to reach the shore. The Royal Dublin Fusiliers
20:04suffered the same fate as they tried to land in ship's cutters.
20:12The British attempting to land at V&W beaches faced determined opposition, well-sighted
20:21defences, wire both below the water and on the beach itself, and machine guns on the
20:30cliffs at either end of both beaches, which could fire along the beach in enfilade, which
20:38is desperate for troops making a linear advance. They were also handicapped by the fact that
20:45they were using landing techniques which were Napoleonic.
20:51By nightfall, the bridgehead at W beach was being expanded, but opportunities had been
20:57lost. The force at Y beach had been evacuated, despite having sent patrols into Krithia,
21:04and despite the prospect of seizing Hunter Western's tactical objective of Achi Barbar,
21:09the low hill that dominated the open plateau to the south.
21:20By late April, Hamilton found that he had his force ashore, but had not yet gained the
21:25planned first day objectives. The Anzac Corps was hemmed into an impossible piece of ground,
21:33disorganised and unable to break out. The best prospects were in the south at Hellas,
21:40but here the low hill of Achi Barbar had to be captured before it was possible for the
21:44British and French forces to advance up the peninsula. More worrying still was the bulk
21:51of the Kilid Bar plateau that stood behind Achi Barbar and presented an even more serious
21:56obstacle to the invading force.
22:04In late April and early May 1915, Hunter Western mounted a series of badly coordinated frontal
22:10attacks using all available forces, at the Turkish positions in front of Achi Barbar.
22:18Some ground was gained, but a lack of artillery and determined Turkish defence threw back
22:23each attack. Turkish losses were also heavy, as they in turn mounted equally badly organised
22:30counter attacks. With both sides exhausted and short of men and ammunition, the position
22:37soon degenerated into the appalling stalemate of trench warfare.
22:45Hunter Western attacked again on the 4th of June, but after an early success, the Turks
22:53counterattacked and drove the Allies back to where they had begun.
23:02Hunter Western showed his lack of experience and inability to coordinate an effective battle.
23:10And you see this series of ill-coordinated frontal attacks in daylight, which simply
23:20meant men were killed to no purpose. And after doing it once, you would expect that he would
23:29have learnt from that experience, but he didn't. He did the same thing time after time after
23:36time.
23:39Hunter Western was a man that was very green. He was learning on the job. And yes, of course
23:44he makes mistakes, but he is under-resourced, he's lacking information, he's lacking all
23:49of the real requirements that a commander should have at his disposal if he is to make
23:55success of a battle.
24:00The Anzac Corps perimeter was also in a state of siege. Liman von Sanders was ordered to
24:06drive the invaders into the sea, and on the 19th of May, the Turks launched a massive
24:11attack all along the Anzac line. They were met with withering fire that left Turkish
24:18dead covering Loman's land.
24:26In the summer heat, conditions became impossible in both front lines. Flies fed on the dead,
24:33and men gagged and vomited at the smell. On the 24th of May, an armistice was held to
24:40bury the dead, but there were simply too many. At best, bodies were tumbled into shell holes
24:47or gullies, and covered with a thin coating of earth.
24:54By mid-summer 1915, Hamilton realised that his forces at Helles and at Anzac were all
25:02but spent. He referred sadly in his diaries to the beautiful battalions of April, all
25:09gone, all wasted. He knew that a deadlock had set in.
25:14The British had actually gone to this operation without any clear thought about what would
25:19happen if it actually did degenerate into attritional trench warfare, and the logistic
25:25apparatus simply wasn't in place to sustain this operation.
25:33Hamilton was critically short of all the resources needed to mount a major land campaign. He
25:38lacked heavy artillery, and for periods his field guns were limited to two rounds per
25:43day.
25:48Small arms ammunition was also in short supply, and there were no hand grenades, of which
25:53the Turks had a plentiful supply. There were no field telephones, and no signal cable,
26:01barbed wire, corrugated iron, or building supplies.
26:07It's quite easy for the British to supply themselves on the Western Front. In Flanders
26:12or in the Somme, they are 24 hours away from the factories that produce the shells. Of
26:18course in Gallipoli, they're at least two weeks away, and so you've got this very long
26:22journey to get the resources where they're required in the Mediterranean.
26:28The haste in mounting the operation now showed in the collapse of the administrative arrangements.
26:35The medical evacuation plan broke down during the landing, and there was a lack of supplies
26:39and resources needed to deal with a growing number of dysentery cases, caused by inadequate
26:45water supplies and lack of fresh food.
26:50Churchill paid for the debacle at Gallipoli when he was removed from the Admiralty in
26:55May 1915. The War Council was reconstituted as the Dardanelles Committee by the British
27:02Government, and Hamilton was offered both supplies of ammunition and five newly raised
27:07British divisions.
27:15The front at Hellas was deadlocked, but reconnaissance at Anzac suggested a way to mount a new offensive.
27:26At Anzac, the New Zealand Mounted Rifles of Godley's New Zealand and Australian Division
27:31held the northern flank and a series of outposts along the beach at Fisherman's Hut.
27:38Reconnaissance patrols reported that the foothills leading up to the high ground of Chunuk Bear
27:42were weakly defended. It was felt that it might be possible to make a night approach
27:48and to seize the coastal hill range of Sari Bear, which was centred on Chunuk Bear.
27:55By doing a night attack through the foothills, up onto the high ground, and seizing the high
28:02ground, it would outflank the Turkish defences, and then having outflanked the Turkish defences,
28:09they could advance across to the narrows and achieve the original objective of the landing.
28:17To continue their advance across Chunuk Bear to the other side of the peninsula, the eastern
28:22side, would of course also have the advantage of cutting the lines of communication coming
28:27south to the Turkish troops around Cape Hellas.
28:31Chunuk Bear was a place that the Turks had to hold, and it was there that Birdwood and
28:37his Anzac officers decided that they could fight a decisive battle with the Turks.
28:46Birdwood's Anzac Corps were given the key role. It would be mounted in early August,
28:51at the same time as a new amphibious landing north of Anzac at Suvla Bay, using the three
28:57British divisions organised into nine corps under Lieutenant General Stodford, on what
29:02was his first operational command.
29:06The Suvla landings have gone down in mythology as a landing that was designed to assist the
29:14Anzac Corps seize the high ground of Chunuk Bear. That wasn't their purpose at all. The
29:20purpose of the Suvla landings was to seize a winter base for operations. Quite clearly,
29:27the Gallipoli campaign was not going to be over in a week or month. There was going to
29:33be this long, deliberate campaign, and with the winter approaching, it was essential to
29:39get a deep water harbour. And so, almost as an afterthought, it was decided that in conjunction
29:51with the Anzac breakout to seize the high ground, there would be the Suvla landing to
29:58achieve a winter base, and then, once that was done, to assist the Anzacs where they
30:06could.
30:08At Anzac, Birdwood's planning was faulty from the beginning. The critical feature was Chunuk
30:15Bear, and experience showed that only veteran troops could handle the conditions faced on
30:20the perimeter. However, Birdwood used the 1st Australian Division, together with an
30:27additional light horse brigade acting as infantry, to mount a series of feints along
30:31the Anzac front line at the Neck, Quinn's Post, and at Lone Pine. The feint at Lone
30:39Pine was mounted on the evening of the 6th of August.
30:43This attack succeeded, but at an horrific cost. There were more than 2,000 Australian
30:48casualties. The Turks had actually dug themselves into underground bunkers. There were heavy
30:53logs on top, and the Australians had to literally tear the roofs of these bunkers, and a lot
30:59of the fighting was actually conducted underground. A bloody battle, but a victory.
31:06The other feints failed.
31:09This included the desperate suicidal attack of the Australian light horse at the Neck,
31:15which, unlike the account given in the film Gallipoli, was not failed, not because of
31:22the stupidity of purple-faced, red-tabbed, monocle-wearing, buck-teethed British staff
31:28officers, but of the failure of the Australian staff to synchronise their watches with the
31:35guns of the fleet and with the artillery supporting them. They were seven minutes out, and when
31:40the barrage stopped, there was a pregnant pause of seven minutes, in which the Turks
31:48could be seen, 50 yards away, putting machine guns onto their parapet, and the attacks too
31:56went in. They were ordered to go ahead, in cold blood, and they were slaughtered.
32:04375 of the 600 attackers became casualties.
32:12The principal attacks on Chunuk Bair were carried out by Godley's Australian and New
32:19Zealand Division, reinforced by the 13th British Division and the 29th Indian Brigade.
32:27The New Zealand Mounted Rifles Brigade and the 40th British Infantry Brigade seized the
32:34foothills in a series of brilliant, carefully coordinated night attacks with rifle and bayonet.
32:42This was followed by the advance of two columns. The left assaulting column, commanded by Major
32:48General Cox of the 29th Indian Brigade, and including Brigadier John Monash's 4th Australian
32:54Brigade, was ordered to seize the high point of Koja Chemen Tepe, which was also known
33:00as Point 971. Overton's patrols had reported that the sheer cliff face made such an attempt
33:07impossible, but Birdwood persisted. The attempt failed, with Australians being sniped to a
33:15standstill in the foothills, and the 29th Indian Brigade slowly making their way forward
33:21up the slopes to Hill Q, which linked Point 971 with Chunuk Bair.
33:28The right assaulting column consisted of the New Zealand Infantry Brigade and a Brigadier
33:33Earl Johnston. It passed through the New Zealand mountains and made its way up the slopes on
33:39the night of the 6th and 7th of August. Daylight found it on Rhododendron Ridge, missing one
33:45of its battalions, but with the crest of Chunuk Bair less than 600 yards above it.
33:52Had they but known it, the crest of Chunuk Bair was all but deserted. There was a platoon
34:00of Turks there, and a German staff officer arrived there at the same time, looked down,
34:08saw this advancing column, got this platoon to start firing, and the exhausted soldiers
34:14who had been climbing all night went to ground. The brigade commander, instead of pushing
34:22the New Zealanders on, decided to wait until the rest of his brigade was up there, so that
34:30by mid-morning, when he finally attacks, Turkish reinforcements have arrived, lining the crest
34:38of the hill, and the attack is shot to pieces. The following night, the 8th of August, Johnston
34:46renewed the attack on Chunuk Bair, with the Wellington Infantry Battalion, commanded by
34:52Lieutenant Colonel Malone, and two British battalions. The Wellingtons seized the heights,
34:59which apart from a machine gun post, had been abandoned because of the British artillery
35:03fire. And for the first time since some of the soldiers on the 25th of April, they can
35:11see the narrows, they've got the high ground, they've outflanked the Anzac perimeter, the
35:17door is ajar, it's potentially open. All it needed was support. And for 36 hours, the
35:28New Zealand brigades hold Chunuk Bair. They're driven off the actual crest itself, but that
35:36becomes no man's land. Turks on one side, New Zealanders on the other, anyone who stands
35:41on the top is dead. The New Zealanders held and consolidated their position, and if it
35:49had been properly reinforced, this bridgehead could have been extended. On the 9th of August,
35:57Lieutenant Colonel Allenson's six Gurkhas, who had been clinging to the slopes of Hill
36:05Q during the night, attacked and gained a position on the crest. Had the planned attack
36:11from the New Zealand lines on Chunuk Bair been made at the same time, a critical breakthrough
36:16might have been achieved. Allenson's Gurkhas briefly saw the narrows as they drove off
36:23the Turkish defenders. But before they could consolidate their position, British artillery
36:28and naval fire, which also caused serious casualties to the New Zealand defenders on
36:32Chunuk Bair, drove them off. The Gurkhas broke and ran. Success or failure now depended on
36:41capitalising on the New Zealand success. Now the flaws in Birdwood's planning were starkly
36:49revealed. On the night of the 9th and 10th of August, two raw British battalions relieved
36:59the exhausted New Zealanders. They had spent the night wending their way up the slopes,
37:04and when they finally arrived at the New Zealand trenches, they lay down and went to sleep.
37:12If that attack was to succeed, it should have been backed up by hard, tough troops, possibly
37:20the regulars of the 29th Division, but it was unfair to everybody to put newly arrived
37:27soldiers, ignorant of conditions, untrained for anything except trench warfare on the
37:34Western Front, and totally new to being under fire.
37:42At first light the following morning, Mustafa Kemal, who had been placed in charge of the
37:48battle at Sari Bair, counter-attacked with five regiments of Turkish infantry. It was
37:53all that was available. There was no resistance from the two British battalions, which simply
37:59melted away. Only the machine guns on Rhododendron Ridge stopped the British line from being
38:05driven back to the beaches. It marked the failure of the August Offensive, and once
38:11again it was the critical intervention of Mustafa Kemal that determined Turkish success.
38:19Kemal was absolutely crucial in the defeat of the attack at Cunic Bair. Once again he
38:24shows his great flexibility, he shows his great leadership skills, he shows the way
38:30in which commanders should always take an opportunity and exploit it to the full. By
38:36this time he had gained some experience in fighting in the conditions that he found himself,
38:41and he knew how far he could push his troops, he knew what motivated them, and he knew because
38:47they had already tasted success, that they wanted to taste more success, they wanted
38:51to push the invaders back into the sea, and he gave them every opportunity to do that.
39:01At Suvla, a successful landing was carried out on the night of the 6th and 7th of August
39:06by the 10th and 11th Divisions of Stobford's IX Corps. At dawn on the 7th of August, there
39:13were 20,000 British troops ashore, facing perhaps some 1,500 scattered Turkish defenders.
39:21Lehmann von Sanders immediately ordered every available Turkish reinforcement to meet this
39:28new threat. Stobford had no faith in Hamilton's plan, and his divisional commanders shared
39:37his misgivings. There was little coordination, and the landing degenerated into chaos. No
39:45water was available for the troops, and few knew what they were there to do.
39:51The Suvla landings were paradoxically relatively successful at first, where you see the British
39:58landing on the beaches and then throwing out their flanks to give them some protection,
40:03but what we see after that is a total breakdown of command and control. We see paralysis,
40:09we see stagnation.
40:11The Australians up on the high ground, fighting for their lives, could see people, thousands
40:18of people, milling around on the beaches at Suvla, only three, four miles away. Bathing
40:24parades, drill parades, football matches.
40:28Stobford, the commander of IX Corps, was obsessed during the planning stage with Turkish opposition.
40:35He was convinced that the heights beyond Suvla would be held by the Turks, and was very reluctant
40:41to push his men on, up to the heights, without artillery support. In fact, the heights were
40:48not held by the Turks. They were up for grabs.
40:54Only when prodded by Hamilton's headquarters was an advance made, but by then it was too
41:00late. The opportunity to seize the high ground had gone, and the raw British forces, as raw
41:07as the Anzacs had been on the 25th of April, did not show the same initiative.
41:1220,000 men versus 1,500 Turks. Had they been coordinated, sent forward, they could have
41:24seized the high ground and achieved their objectives. They weren't. And finally, when
41:32they were sent forward, they were cut to pieces.
41:40The failure to seize Çanakkale prompted one final attempt to advance at Suvla on the 21st
41:46of August. That, too, failed, as did Anzac attempts to seize Hill 60, a minor feature
41:54at the junction of the Suvla and Anzac forces.
42:01After the failure of the August offensives, Gallipoli became a dreadful anti-climax. The
42:09Dardanelles Committee had lost faith in Hamilton, and General Sir Charles Munro, who had commanded
42:14the 3rd British Army in France, replaced him. He was directed to assess the military situation
42:21at Gallipoli, and was shocked by what he found. No one who has stood on the beaches at Anzac
42:27or Suvla, or who has looked towards Achi Barbar and the ominous bulk of the Kilidbar Plateau,
42:33could be surprised by his recommendation that the force should be withdrawn.
42:45Kitchener came to the peninsula in November and agreed with Munro's recommendation. In
42:53the same month, Churchill was sacked from the reconstituted war committee, and he left
42:58the government. It seemed that his political career, which, like the Gallipoli campaign,
43:03had once been so full of promise, was at an end.
43:11There was an enormous frustration by the soldiers and the unit-level commanders on Gallipoli,
43:18because time and time again they felt there was something that was there for the winning,
43:23if only the whole thing was put together properly and run properly, because they knew that as
43:29soldiers they couldn't have given anything more. And so, yes, there was a feeling that
43:37the higher command had let them down, both on the peninsula itself, in terms of their
43:44own core commanders, but also of Hamilton's staff.
43:52Birdwood now commanded the forces at Gallipoli, and his staff, under his brilliant principal
43:57staff officer, the Australian Brigadier General C. B. B. White, planned and coordinated an
44:02evacuation first from Suvla and Anzac Cove in December 1915, and then from Hellas in
44:09January 1916. It was conducted in total secrecy, with hardly a man being lost, to the stupefaction
44:18of the unsuspecting Turks and their German officers, who were lost in professional admiration.
44:33The Gallipoli campaign was a terrible strategic defeat for the Allies. It had promised much
44:39but was never given the planning, attention and resources that an enterprise of that magnitude
44:44needed or deserved. It destroyed the reputations of its principal architects, Churchill, Kitchener
44:51and Hamilton. Yet in only five short weeks, Hamilton had planned and carried out the greatest
44:59amphibious landing in history to that time. He achieved complete tactical surprise, but
45:06his hodgepodge army did not have the necessary skills to support him once they were ashore.
45:13It is doubtful that any army in the world would have done better, given their circumstances.
45:23The campaign in the Dardanelles and Gallipoli destroyed the cream of the Turkish army, which
45:31was never the same again. They put their best troops in at Gallipoli and they won, but at
45:37a terrible price. We lost a lot of ships, we lost a lot of very good men. We learnt
45:46a lot of lessons, I think, from it. We must remember that Gallipoli was a learning
45:53experience, a learning experience about amphibious warfare, about what was required to fight
45:59in new First World War conditions, because we see, just like on the Western Front, the
46:03strength of the defence over the offence. And also a lot of the divisions that were
46:08so carelessly, some would suggest, thrown into the battle at Gallipoli came out, yes,
46:14having suffered considerable casualties, but actually they had been moulded into fighting
46:19units that could do very well later on. The Gallipoli campaign was a costly military
46:27strategic and human experiment on the part of the British Empire. At the end of the campaign,
46:3646,000 Allied soldiers were dead. Of 120,000 British casualties, 26,000 had been killed.
46:43More than 10,000 Australian and New Zealand troops would also never see their homeland
46:55again. Although no one can be sure, it is believed that 220,000 Turkish troops became
47:04casualties as they defended their country, with a very high proportion being killed.
47:13Gallipoli had been a disastrous bloodbath. Gallipoli had to be tried, but there was not
47:24the resources to mount these campaigns effortlessly, and in the end, you had to beat the Germans
47:33where they were, in France and Flanders.
48:13Thank you for watching.