Remembering Gallipoli
Jules Crittenden has another great historical post up. Today Jules commemorates the battle of Gallipoli, which took place in 1915 and was a disaster for the British, and, more specifically, for Winston Churchill. Churchill, of course, was force to resign as First Lord of the Admiralty.
Jules highlights another aspect of this battle:
The deaths of thousands of diggers at Gallipoli became a galvanizing event that helped establish a sense of nationhood for Australia, which until recently had been a British colony. A controversial event in which some see Australia as the victim of imperial Britain and others as an early example of Australian spirit in the face of adversity and a willingness to act in the world, at a time when Australia’s security and economy were in large part linked to great powers elsewhere, as they are today.
Today, this small nation of 20 million on the other side of the world, with total air, land and sea forces of about 50,000, puts many nations to shame with its willingness to engage. Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iraq again. Timor and the Marshalls. As Foreign Minister Alexander Downer put it several years ago, Australia is not subject to the popular multinationalism of the lowest common denominator, but has stepped up to play its role.
Next follow some personal accounts of what happened at Gallipoli. Go to Jules’ place to read them, they’re fascinating. Also read the Wikipedia entry on this famous battle.
The battle of Gallipoli left huge marks in the psyches of, indeed, New Zealand and Australia, but also in the national psyche of Turkey. As the entry at Wikipedia explains:
In Turkey, the battle is seen as one of the finest and bravest moments in the history of the Turkish people – a final surge in the defense of the motherland as the centuries-old Ottoman Empire was crumbling; which laid the grounds for the Turkish War of Independence and the foundation of the new Turkish Republic eight years later, led by Atatürk, a commander in Gallipoli himself.
Also be sure to read Shaun’s post on, what the Australians call, Anzac Day.
Cross posted at my own blog.
13 Responses to “Remembering Gallipoli”
The Wiki does not note that while Churchill resigned as First Sea Lord as a result of Gallipoli…he then immediately volunteered and went to fight in the trenches on the Western Front.
That would be akin to Rumsfeld volunteering for active duty in Iraq after being fired by Bush. The Left had not invented the term “chickenhawk” at that time…but Churchill was easily immune from any such accusations.
Unlike most war leaders, Churchill never ordered troops to do something he wasn’t willing to do himself.
Churchill was preoccupied with Gallipoli for much of his life; as he seems to have felt it should have succeeded. This was the reason he advocated a Mediterranean invasion of Europe above an invasion from France in WWII. Roosevelt and the Americans understood Churchill’s desire to expitate Gallipoli, and so agreed to the invasion of Italy prior to Normandy.
Marlowe:
You cram an awful lot of history into the last graf of your comment, but you’re absolutely correct about the invasion of Italy. FDR was four square against it but Churchill simply wore him down.
And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda
Shaun said: “…but you’re absolutely correct about the invasion of Italy. FDR was four square against it but Churchill simply wore him down.”
Yes, and FDR was right…the invasion of Italy bogged down too. Fortunately, Normandy was in reserve.
Like some modern military adventures…which I shall not mention here…Gallipoli looked good on paper. But the devil was in the details.
George Sorwell: I love “The Pogues” version of that song. It was a mainstay on my old Walkman for years.
Gallipoli was a catastrophe for the same reason so many battles of WWI were catastrophes: bad planning, poor leadership by the generals, a failure to follow the battle plan, tons of errors in judgment and execution in the fog of war, with all these failures leading to the same bloody frontal assaults in the face of machine guns by lightly armed infantry. The Aussies proved themselves to be strong and brave, as they have always been and continue to be. All the arguments in the world can be made about willingness to engage, although you have to resist conflating WWI with other wars. But the lesson of Gallipoli is the same sad lesson of the rest of WWI: that millions of lives can be wasted for no tangible gain when brave and strong men follow nonsensical orders by clueless superiors, in a war that made no sense from the beginning.
Churchill- The only man to ever have a U.S. Navy warship named after him, that actually volunteered to fight against the United States, was a British mercenary in Cuba during the Spanish American war. He volunteered, he said, because; “He wanted to know what it was like to kill a man”.
As for the Australians, I have worked and lived in some damn difficult places under very dangerous threat. Every Male Australian I ever worked with in those places acted like complaining cry babies. The Australian women, on the other hand, were quite admirable. (strong and Brave? I never saw it)
Gallipoli- The British under estimated the Turks and over estimated themselves IMO.
The only thing I remember about it was that it was a damn good Mel Gibson movie.
White Agent said: “Churchill- The only man to ever have a U.S. Navy warship named after him, that actually volunteered to fight against the United States, was a British mercenary in Cuba during the Spanish American war.”
No, this is quite wrong. Churchill was in Cuba in 1895. The Spanish American War broke out in 1898. Churchill never fought against Americans.
Also, Churchill was not a “mercenary”. He was a recent graduate from Sandhurst, who was an observer with the Spanish forces fighting Cuban insurgents. The British liked this practice, as it allowed their officers to get experience in combat under fire at little cost to the Crown.
The allegation that Churchill fought against the Americans was invented in the late 1930s by isolationist politicians in the US, seeking to build pressure against Roosevelt’s decision to intervene in Europe against Hitler.
Churchill’s mother was, of course, American…and he had a life-long admiration for the United States.
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A few years ago I had the honor of being at Gallipoli on April 25th for the memorial service. I was extremely moved by the presence of thousands of Australians, New Zealanders and Brits and how involved emotionally they were about an event that happened almost 100 years ago.
But what almost crushed my heart was the following inscription of words by Ataturk on a momument on the hill overlooking the beach.
“Those heroes that shed their blood and
lost their lives…! You are now lying in
the soul of a friendly country, therefore
rest in peace. There is no differences between
the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they
lie side by side here in this country of ours…
You, the mothers who sent their sons from far away
countries wipe away your tears. Your sons are now
lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having
lost their lives on this land they have become
our sons as well.”
ATATURK, (1934).
I am still speechless over these words and what truth they convey.
Marlowe- Oh I see. Well, I fell for a republican nazi sympathizer lie. Quite possible, there are so many. However i do have a question; Whom was supporting the Cuban insurgents against the Spanish?
jdledell- Beautiful. Say something about Muslims does it not?
im so upset about this i have to cry