Today begins the centennial of a disastrous campaign for the Allied forces which was another demonstration of British arrogance via the over-rated Winston Churchill. Despite hundreds of thousands of deaths, a couple good things came from this. The campaign is considered vital to the formation of Australian and New Zealand identity. Meanwhile, the Turkish commander Kemal used his success to become the future president of what is now modern-day Turkey.
So why the accusation of arrogance? The Allied defeat was fueled by their racism followed by poor intelligence. World War I did lead to the Ottoman Empire’s demise but it didn’t mean its army was going to fold faster than a cheap card table. The Allies were trying to take Istanbul eventually and nothing motivates a nation like that level of threat. Sure Washington, DC isn’t receiving much love these days yet I bet America could galvanize quickly to protect our agreed-upon national treasures.
I first learned about the campaign as a kid in the early Eighties through a movie with the same title. It was also known for this lesser known Aussie actor named Mel Gibson. I think HBO carried the film due to Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior being popular. It has some ANZAC biases, more Brits actually died (by a factor of four, translation…Irish, colonial and lower-class conscripts), followed by the French. Still I have doubt the officer corps were primarily the upper-class Brits.
Currently the conflict continues to be a cautionary lesson the West keeps forgetting as it is receiving the comparison treatment to Iraq, another dumb invasion Australia was pulled into by a previous Liberal government; note, in Australia, the Liberal party is the Center-Right Wing and Labour is the Center-Left.
The Germans did provide significant assistance to the Turks in the form of weapons, in particular, but also leadership as a German general, Liman von Sanders, was one of the key commanders. This thing very nearly worked. The Brits had an opportunity on the first day of the landings to seize the heights above the beaches, which would have been critical. They actually had troops reach the top of the heights but their officers had been killed in the landing and, lacking any orders or the arrival of supporting troops those men retreated back to the beach, where the entire Entente force ended up being pinned down. It was a more near run thing than most think, though after that first day it was largely hopeless and they should never have stayed as long as they did.