Churchill’s disaster – Gallipoli | Hacker News Reader

Churchill’s disaster – Gallipoli

ericmargolis.com

41 pointsdaddy_drank44 comments

In New Zealand and Australia, the landings at Gallipoli are commemorated with a national holiday (ANZAC day, 25 April). I've always found it ironic that what is probably our most important holiday is a commemoration of one of Britain's greatest blunders.

The meaning of the holiday is not so clear cut. In general its merely honouring the armed services, and remembering the fallen.

To others it straddles the line between anti and pro war (some decrying the glorification of pointless losses, others emphasising understanding those losses should help prevent them occurring again).

>emphasising understanding those losses should help prevent them occurring again

Here is something that always puzzled me. In WWII they sent almost all their troops to fight again in Europe (and North Africa) for a Britain led by Churchill. This time, however, they had good reason not to and should have instead be fighting the Japanese in the Pacific which was a real threat to them.

If it weren't for ANZAC they would have sent all their troops to Europe again, leaving none to fight the Japanese in Papua New Guinea.

First defeat of Japanese troops in the Pacific was by Australian troops. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Milne_Bay

It's ironic your username is 'spectre', because that's exactly what Gallipoli and the ANZAC legend casts over modern Australia. Don't take my word for it, read James Brown's "Anzac's Long Shadow" to see how the mythologising of one tiny theatre of war continues to shape our country: http://www.blackincbooks.com/books/anzacs-long-shadow

I prefer commemorating the endurance of imperial stupidity to glorifying victories. In that respect I think Australia and New Zealand get it right.

Lest we forget.

As a nation born from the labour of convicts and the slaughter of aboriginals, we're pretty consistently a result of Britain's blunders! Criminals and colonialism!

Canada day doesn't conmomerate Ypres, but Canadians are still quite proud that we were cannon fodder for the British.

I guess those celebrating are those who weren't left behind.

Not really. We're far more proud of the Battle of Vimy, which we actually won.

Just a few weeks ago Vimy Ridge Day popped up in my calendar as a Canadian holiday - I asked around and although everybody knew of Vimy Ridge nobody in my group of contacts realized it was an 'official day'. This was in Toronto.

Likely due to the day not being a recognized holiday.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vimy_Ridge_Day

Sure, we're more proud of a victory. But Gallipoli (the topic) was a loss where the Brits used colonists as cannon fodder.

Ypres, then, fits rather nicely. Including the couple of pages in grade 10 history class about how nobly we bled.

A war were neither side had any redeeming quality.

Interestingly, just found out the Australians were at Ypres as well alongside Canadians (and, in many of the battles, along with many other colonial troops: India, New Zealand, and South Africa).

Just a random fact.

ANZAC day is a commemoration to those that died. Don't confuse commemoration with a party/celebratory sense, the event is usually pretty stern.

Well it was. It's been hijacked by patriots and nationalists over the last 30-40 years. It's also been propaganised through a national school curriculum for the last 20 years. It's at the point where criticism of anything to do with ANZAC Day is treated with contempt and outrage.

I've never been in the armed forces and I don't agree with war, but I think Anzac Day is the most important public holiday.

At every dawn service I'm overwhelmed by the number of young families who clearly have suffered their own loss.

For me Anzac day isn't even remotely about nationalism or patriotism, it's about love, families, bravery, sadness.

I don't think you need to criticise Anzac Day, you just need to see it from the personal perspective of those people who are remembering lost friends and loved ones.

> For me Anzac day isn't even remotely about nationalism or patriotism, it's about love, families, bravery, sadness.

That what ANZAC day should be about. It should be about the rememberance of the family thinking about their sons, brothers, fathers on the front line.

I am an Australian living in Germany. Every year when ANZAC day comes around, I also try to imagine how the local German families felt when their love ones go to war. In general, the people from the war generation that attended the war were brainwashed into action. For the Germans who can see through the hatred, they are just humans.

As an Australian living in the UK I had always assumed that all countries had a day of remembrance for the sacrifices, futility and horrors of war.

I was quite surprised when a German colleague saw the wearing of red poppies around November 11 as unusual and something he could not grok.

I'm well aware of the nature of, and reason for the ANZAC day commemorations. The irony was that an event that served to define New Zealand and Australia's national identities, is also one of British Empires greatest failures.

I don't think that it's ironic that Gallipoli and WW1 in general is what led to Australia and New Zealand starting to view themselves as distinct from the "Home Country" - our experiences in WW1 made it very clear that England didn't consider us colonials to be English, even if we still did at the time.

It's estimated that between 1/4 and a 1/3 of the ANZACs were born in the "Mother Country", so their rejection as being not-British was probably a contributing factor to the passing of the Nationality Act of 1920.

Yet, when WWII came around... (see my other reply on this thread)

Define our identities? There's hardly anyone (relatively speaking, by comparison to say the US's independence day) outside of Australia/New Zealand that even know about Galipoli.

I think you're confusing external identity (how other countries see us) with national identity (how we see ourselves). Gallipoli was hugely influential in defining how New Zealanders and Australians thought of themselves and their nation. It was our coming of age, the moment when we started to see ourselves as nations rather than colonies.

(Of course, that description is a little bit exaggerated: I'm sure reality was much fuzzier and messier. But that just proves the point that Gallipoli has become our national myth. It defines us now, even if it didn't really define us then.)

If you read the actual histories, including Churchill's own accounts and biographies of Churchill, your conclusion might differ from Eric Margolis'. Churchill came up with the daring plan, sure, but the execution and implementation were botched pretty much across the board by the military commanders responsible for carrying it out. They were largely unwilling to commit to the venture with the necessary speed, focus, and commitment necessary to see it through. They kept dragging their feet, ignoring Churchill's urgings to speed up and deal with minesweeping while they still could. Basically the result was a true disaster but it really wasn't Churchill's. Churchill was the only believer in the plan, basically. So the plan was doomed. Go read the histories.

An interesting add-on here from Dan Carlin's Hardcore History podcast: The initial plan to force the strait involved risking a large number of out-dated ships, judged by Churchill and co. to be expendable in the context of their utility in the war. However the admiralty, who included a number of men who had served on said ships, shared an emotional attachment to the old-war-dog fleet which they had earned their stars and stripes on. Thus they were unwilling to fully commit the necessary expenditure for the plan to work (microcosm of why the greater plan failed).

A good example of ineptitude in war. Churchill was no saint, and I couldn't get to OP's article (hug of death?), but history is always viewed through a lens and is mostly op-ed pieces.

They also put the troops on the wrong beach.

The author's snipe at the United States (relative to Russia and China) is both jarring, for being woefully out of place in an essay on a WWI engagement, and unwarranted. None of these three major powers has fought another major state for at least 4 decades. The Russians have been fighting disorganized "natives" in places like Georgia, Chechnya, and Ukraine, and rarely openly. Before that, they fought "natives" in Afghanistan… and lost. The PLA has mostly been oppressing ethnic minorities within China's expanded imperial borders (Uighurs, Tibetans, Tiananmen) since it fought "natives" in its own Vietnam War in 1979. Its last combat with a major state was 1962 (India). Meanwhile the Unites States has also been fighting small states (Iraq, Afghanistan), proxy wars, and minor actions since its last major war against "natives" in Vietnam… which they lost.

Not one of these powers has fought an open war against another major state or combination of states in over 5 decades, and the Indians, militarily, probably shouldn't have counted in 1962, either. Realistically there is no one currently serving in any of these services who participated in an open war against a significant power.

That this is destabilizing would have been a fair point. That the world's major powers are probably all feeling somewhat insecure about their own military capabilities (or ought to be) is worrying and worth some analysis. The kind of error made by Churchill and the French at Gallipoli will be made again. But I do not pretend to know who will make it next. There are a lot of inexperienced commanders running around out there, and a lot of major powers that have not been tested within living memory. Singling out the United States while exalting the Russians and Chinese seems overtly political and is out of place in a historical essay without substantial modern analysis to justify the analogy.

What I like about Gallipoli is how these days it serves as a national memorial for three nations - Australia, New Zealand, and Turkey - and how forgiving the Turkish are and were of people who had come as invaders.

For those not familiar... Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was the commander at Gallipoli and later founder of the Turkish republic. During the initial invasion, he famously told one of his units: "Men, I am not ordering you to attack. I am ordering you to die. In the time that it takes us to die, other forces and commanders can come and take our place." Later, after the war, he commemorated the memorial for Australia, New Zealand, and Turkey with what I still think is the most moving thing ever said about war:

    Heroes who shed their blood and lost their lives! You are 
    now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest 
    in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and  
    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.

Tragic that in the same year we commemorate the centennial, we (New Zealand) and Australia are committing forces to Iraq at the behest of the current pseudo-imperial power, the United States.

yes and today a certain PM claimed they were "sons of ANZAC" which formally puts these two PMs in the position of the bumbling british aristocrats who caused so much death

Not Churchill's only disaster: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Sidney_Street

There's a reason people in the UK paid no attention whatsoever to Churchill during the 1920s and '30s. It wasn't that they disagreed with his increasingly-urgent warnings about Hitler -- it's that the only man issuing them was a "known idiot".

There is a difference between being a scapegoat and being at fault. Churchill was the former with respect to Gallipoli; his actual plan was simply not followed.

"It was a beautiful plan on paper!"

-- every terrible manager ever.

Sure, but in a military operation there's no substitute for planning and coordination, and execution. The plan will always need to change, and you can find a dozen generals with famous quotes that will back that up. But the solution after the plan breaks down isn't no plan, it's the next plan.

Only at the most tactical level can you get by with just your wits and the gear you have with you, everything else needs good planning of some sort.

Warplans require that resources be allocated. If you come up with a plan that requires S3 and AWS and your company gives you a Dell Server attached to the local cable internet, you too may become a scapegoat for a failed plan.

History really distorts things. This story is always portrayed as a failure, and the soldiers as "fought with honor and gallantry". They were invading another country and killed hundreds of thousands of people. We wouldn't say ISIS fighters "died for no good purpose" or are "brave soldiers".

everyone who dies in any war is remembered as someone who fought with honor for the motherland, by their own.

The ISIS people regard their dead as heroes even today, they don't need 50 years.

It's pretty significant that this battle also served as the pre-cursor to the current, secular republic of Turkey.

It is very significant.

Exactly. This battle ended islam as a political entity, and ended the war between muslims and the west that had existed for a millenium by that point. It was an event that would be comparable to nuking Mecca would be today.

Having read more history books than I should have, I have much respect for Churchill and English people.

Singapore, Dunkirk, Dieppe...

The Allies performed terribly for most of the war, and only seemed to hang on until Hitler defeated himself.

The perfect combination of British time, Russian blood, and American weapons helped, as well.

You're thinking WWII.

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