Winston Churchill and the Ghosts of Gallipoli
On the cliffs of Gallipoli, a prepared opponent and tough terrain led to a costly defeat for the Allies- and it was one that a future wartime Prime Minister would never forget
In February 1915 Allied generals needed a breakthrough away from the stalemate of the Western Front. Any hopes of a swift victory in France and Belgium had faded by Christmas 1914, and the new year brought fresh pressure.
One of the most senior members of the armed forces during this time was Winston Churchill who was Lord of the Admiralty. 25 years before he became known as Britain’s wartime Prime Minister, Churchill became the leading figure of an unmitigated military disaster.
The chance to change the course of the war was identified as an attack on the Ottoman Empire. Churchill devised a plan to send the navy through the narrow 38-mile stretch between Europe and Asia called the Dardanelles. The fleet would capture Constantinople (now Istanbul) and secure a key stronghold for the allies.
Before he could send the fleet, Churchill needed to make sure this corner of Turkey was safe to pass. The first stage of the attack would be an assault on the Gallipoli Peninsula, to the north of the Dardanelles. Now the lead advocate of the plan, Churchill requested 50,000 soldiers from the War Office to attack the peninsula. He did not receive this number of soldiers, but commenced the attack regardless- arguably the first of many mistakes from Churchill.
The naval attack had some initial success, but undetected mines destroyed and damaged half a dozen ships. The next mistake was a month-long delay until a major infantry attack was carried out. This got underway on April 25, giving the Ottoman forces the chance to prepare.
British, French, Australian, and New Zealand troops attacked the beach but were held back by artillery and machine gun fire. The waters ran red with the blood of soldiers cut to pieces on the Turkish sand, and the bloodshed didn’t stop there.
Gallipoli was a catastrophe for the Allies. What had been a plan to avoid a repeat of the stalemate on the Western Front had turned into exactly that. Thousands of Allied soldiers died on the beaches of Gallipoli in the efforts to get a foothold on the peninsula. Sickness riddled soldiers and men fell to illness if the guns spared them. In total, 46,000 Allied soldiers died and 65,000 Turks, with 250,000 casualties in total on both sides.
After a year of stalemate, the Allies pulled the plug on the campaign and evacuated the remaining soldiers. The Ottoman Empire was seen as a failing state during the war, and was described as ‘The Sick Man of Europe’. It was supposed to be a swift and decisive military victory, but it was one the Allied leadership got badly wrong. Deservedly so or not, Churchill was made the scapegoat.
In January 1916 the last of the Allied soldiers were brought home, by which time Churchill had been demoted to a a lesser cabinet position. He ended up on the Western Front until under the David Lloyd George-led coalition government he became munitions minister in 1917. Even after the war, the ghost of Gallipoli hung over him.
Heckled about the campaign whilst running for parliament in 1923, Churchill put on a brave front., with his response being: “The Dardanelles might have saved millions of lives. Don’t imagine I am running away from the Dardanelles. I glory in it.” I dare say the families of the hundreds and thousands of Allied troops who were made casualties on the peninsula were too thrilled by this statement, but there we are.
Gallipoli joined the catalogue of Allied mistakes in the First World War. the tactic of running toward machine guns hadn’t worked on the Western Front, and why generals thought it would be a success against a force entrenched in familiar conditions is a mystery that may have been lost to history.
Churchill went on to be the passionate speaker of Britain during the rise of Hitler and was there at the end of it all to agree with the Leader of the Soviet Union Joseph Stalin and US President Harry Truman as to what was to be done with the world after the war. Yet the ghosts of Gallipoli hung over him, regardless how how much of a stiff upper lip he gave towards the subject.
