Why did the British Empire result in losing The Battle of Gallipoli?
The frustrations of WWI had taken a toll on the two sides who were both victory hungry to show who had authority to the world, over everyone else. However the French and British allies were more abiding for a win and rushed to attack the Gallipoli Peninsula. Before the British and its allies decided on a ground attack they planned to take over the Dardanelles, the excess point to Constantinople in hope to break the stalemate. But as this plan failed, it is said that the next agenda to target was a land attack at the Gallipoli Peninsula which was one of the only sensible solutions that the leaders of the British Empire were pushing forward. This plan was devised because the Turks were pushing further in towards Russian territory, the Russian allies “Britain” were called for backup. It encouraged Winston Churchill’s suggestions of a ground attack on the Turks. It seemed like a witty idea at the time as the tension of the Turks invaded further increased. A historian a suggests that "Churchill's idea was simple. Creating another front would force the Germans to split their army still further as they would need to support the badly rated Turkish Army".
There were many reasons for the British Empires loss over the Turks at the battle of Gallipoli. Christopher Pugsley argues that "never before experienced, and training and training and preparation had been inadequate" telling us that the organisation wasn't thoroughly thought through leading up to the battle. Firstly, the inadequate training of the soldiers who didn't know what they were doing half the time. The bad weather conditions changing the route of their success and destination. Thirdly, the lack of resources to support them going on at a coherent pace as they started, as surviving became harder. Finally, the lack of planning that was put into the procedure of capturing the Turkish territory of the Dardanelles for importing ammunition into Russia through the Black Sea. Soldiers from the Cairo training base in Egypt were called in for duty to attack the Gallipoli Peninsula on the 25th of April 1915. The British Empire had soldiers from France, India, Newfoundland, New Zealand and Australia (ANZACS). These soldiers had no idea of the journey that lay ahead of them. They were high spirited and excited to be involved in an important event that would go down in history. Soldiers were training to go fight in the Western Front and when the call for the change was made the soldiers didn't think much of it, except it was going to harder and more realistically life changing than ever experience by these men. For Most of these young soldiers they had never been in a War like condition- though they trained in the desert where the heat scorched on their skins and their daily exercises with mounted rifles, artillery guns and engineers helped them become efficient in their units; what the faced from the 25th of April onward was on a whole new level. The soldiers were used to “Daily exercises” this meant that if something were to not go to plan it would have put the soldiers of their set goal. This is exactly what happened as compromises had to be made as the landing and seizing the objective land at Gallipoli was minimized. There were only a certain number of beaches available for landing due to the rugged terrain of the shores and the bad weather conditions of the strong currents added to the logistical problems that the troops were already facing. This added to the already tensed commanders and officers of the troops as they were now jittery of exactly where they were and what needed to be done from there on. The expeditionary lack of organisation lead to misplaced landings and completely changed the plans of the battle. Leaving unsettling feeling and worry to death and defeat. The plan failed due to the lack of planning and disorganization of the officers. They had planned to attack but didn't realize that there could be factors affecting their plans such as strong currents which landed them in the wrong place. They had only one plan and when things didn't go according to plan, everything started to fall apart. It is speculated that the error of the unintentional landing destinations were the result of many number of factors such as strong ocean currents, faulty navigation by naval officers who were in charge of the ships, miscalculations on the part of the British and delays in the communication of changes of orders. So, to say what had caused the error is unconscionable. In some ways the biggest reason for the loss of the British Empire in The Battle of Gallipoli would have to that the Turkish “Fifth Army Troops” were better trained, precise and motivated. The naval attack was the event that notified the Turks of the threat and woke them up defensively to be ready if something was to happen. But you can argue that the Turks were planning was ahead in the future in case the British Empire would decide on a surprise attack, though the this occurred before “Britain formally declared war on the Ottoman Empire”. The Turks knew that the threat would still lie. So, the bombardment confirmed the doubt and this lead to further planning on the protection of their territory. They did this by setting up defense posts of where they expected the most threat which lead the soldiers exactly to them. Unlike the British Empire the Fifth army had advantage of training in the battle location they got the feel of how it was going to be as they became familiar with the area and it’s conditions. The Turkish troops had more motivation to defeat the British allies because they had a strong reason to fight for and it was to ensure the safety of their homeland and it’s people. At the same time a historian from the documentary WW1 Gallipoli Campaign says that "British territorial of trained ill-equipped they were not yet an army something more had to be added", telling us that the soldiers were fighting odds that were against them. The defeat of the ANZAC’s at the Gallipoli remained solely on the fact that the Turks were prepared for the attack. Some might even say that they were better prepared than its enemies. The British and its allies rushed into a decision which lead to many casualties and was disaster as a whole which demoralized soldiers as whole causing the defeat at Gallipoli. They didn't take any initiative in preparing an strong attack instead just an attack that lead to defeat. The whole reason behind the attack on the Gallipoli Peninsula was to break the stalemate at the Western front but somehow due to the lack of organisation and resources another battle came to a stalemate. The stalemate at the Western Front was supposed to be learned from not recreated at another region. Unfortunately this is exactly, what happened as lives were lost for 9 long months just lead to defeat. |
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