Not Wholly in Vain
By LORD ATTLEE 0 all of us who took part in the Gallipoli campaign there remain very vivid memories. It stands out as an unforgettable experience. This is partly due to the fact that the episode had a completeness all its own as compared with the long drawn-out struggle on the Western Front, and partly due to the dramatic quality of a fight where the margin between success and failure was so narrow. Very often since those days I, have turned over in my mind those 'if onlys' which would have made all the difference. There was also, to amateur soldiers like myself, the fact that it was there we had our first experience of war with the men with whom for months we had trained. Even today, after forty years. some sudden view of a piece of landscape seen in a particular light or a smell from a bonfire or the buzzing of flies will bring back in all its vividness the sights and scenes of those days.
There have been many good books written on the campaign by participants, especially the admirable official history of Aspinal Oglander. It was, therefore, bold of Mr. Moorehead to essay to tell the story of this drama played out when he was a child.* He has, however, been remarkably successful, not only in his narrative of events, but especially in evoking the spirit of the time, for there was a particular spirit of high adventure present in the men who took part in what has well been called 'The Immortal Gamble.' He has given us very fully the background of discussion between the Westerners and the advocates of an eastern diversion, and between the chiefs of both services. He has been able to study Turkish sources of information and thus to learn what was going on in the minds *GALLIPou. By Alan Moorehead. (Hamish Hamilton, 21s.) of our enemies and on the other side of the hill. He is thus able to correct the facile conclusions of the Dardanelles Commission of 1917. Hence he is able to show from unimpeachable evidence how the naval attack would, if pressed, have succeeded and how, but for a series of mischances, the land attack would have resulted in victory. He thus vindicates Sir Roger Keyes and other fighting men, and not least Sir Winston Churchill, who was pursued for years by the calumny that he had wantonly thrown away valuable lives in an adventure doomed to failure, a view I never accepted.
1 must confess that I had never realised that, till quite a late period, Turkey might easily have been kept out of the war. Short-sighted foreign policy threw her , into the arms of Germany. One naturally wishes to pick out, if one can, the major errors which resulted in the failure of the campaign. It is easy to put the blame on the leaders in the field or on the troops, but it is clear that the real responsibility rested with the Government. One of the gravest responsibilities of a war-time government is to decide major points of strategy and particu- larly in what arena their forces are to be deployed. In the Second World War we had to decide to concentrate in Europe and North Africa. The Burma campaign was kept short of resources because priority for the fight against Germany was essential. The Burma campaign was forced upon us. But in the First World War there was no compulsion to go to the Dardanelles, but once this strategy had been decided upon, it should have been fully supported. It never was.
The second great responsibility of a government is the selection of the commanders for the various enterprises, and here, in my view, was the root failure of the Asquith Govern- ment. There is, of course, the excuse that, apart from Churchill, no one of them had given much consideration to military matters. They were a Party Government and brought in Lord Kitchener to buttress their authority. It is clear that they tended to lean too heavily upon him.
The choice of commanders for such an affair as the Gallipoli campaign was all-important. Youth and a vigorous offensive spirit were vital, but there seems to have been little attempt to pick a horse for the course. Admiral Carden, in charge of the Malta Dockyard, was in the area. No doubt he was a capable sailor, but not the man for the job. He broke down and had to be relieved. I imagine that if Admiral Beatty had been chosen he would have pushed it through, as would Roger Keyes if he had had the rank. What was needed was a ruthless commander who would not be deterred by the loss of a few old warships if the prize was worth winning. When a land attack was decided upon it was natural for Lord Kitchener to select his old friend and chief of staff of the South African War, Sir Ian Hamilton. He was a charming and accomplished soldier of sixty-two; but clearly dominated by his old chief.
I never thought that he had a fair deal, but one is bound to feel that he committed a grave error in failing to intervene in any decisive way in the battle for Helles and Anzac. He was content to make his plans and then to leave it to his subordinates to carry them out. His subordinate at Helles was Hunter Weston, who failed to exercise any influence on the fight. I remember that in 1914 there was a popular feeling that a general must keep right away from the battle lest he lose his sense of proportion. He must be remote, taking calm decisions. It arose, I think, from the story that in the South African' War Buller's failure sprang from his being too close to the fighting and too much affected by the sight of casualties. Whether this was the reason I do not know, but it seems to • have been Hamilton's practice.
The story of the Helles landings is a tragedy of lost oppor- tunities. Had there been adequate command Achi Baba would have been won. The failure at Anzac was primarily due to a mistake in the landing place. If one has been over the ground as I have the wonder is that the landing was made good at all, and one marvels at the quality of the Anzac men. What is astonishing is that after the Helles affair Hamilton made the same mistake at Suvla Bay and with less excuse, for he could not have had much faith in Stopford, yet he hesitated to interfere until too late. Here again a heavy responsibility rests on Kitchener, for instead of sending the men whom Hamilton wanted, such as Byng and Maude, and whom he made available a few months later, he sent an elderly man, solely because he was superior in rank to one of the divisional commanders. Mahon, while the commanders of the divisions and brigades were mostly of the same type, quite unfitted for an action which required boldness, youth and imagination. Hamilton acquiesced. He would surely have been wiser to have insisted on the men he wanted or to have entrusted the Suvla show to a general of experience such as Godley, whom Birdwood could have spared from Anzac. The troops at Suvla were unseasoned, it is true, but with the complete lack of leadership and direction they can hardly be blamed for the failure.
Another fatal mistake was that in the supposed interests of security the very ,minimum information was given and that only to the senior officers and at the last moment. I know that my own battalion's instruction was merely 'Follow the Warwicks,' yet these were the Lancashire men who stood with Allanson on the heights and saw the Narrows.
Looking back one can see that the Gallipoli show was the only imaginative strategic conception as an alternative to the wholesale butchery in which the Westerners believed. Its success might well have shortened the war, saved innumerable lives and had incalculable effects on the world. The Westerners were too strong. Kitchener, like Fisher, vacillated; and despite the valiant efforts of Roger Keyes the attempt was abandoned. One factor in the decision to evacuate was the onset of winter heralded by what we called the blizzard. I remember well that the morning after it started we received a large consignment of fly nets, a good illustration of the too-late policy which dogged the campaign. Evacuation was eventually, after much hesita- tion, decided upon. One notices here, as Moorehead points out, that Kitchener, who was subject to sudden flashes of intuition, said that we should effect the evacuation without loss, contrary to all the gloomy forebodings so freely expressed that we should lose twenty or forty thousand men. Personally I recall at Suvla never having any doubt that we should get away all right. It may have been intuition, but more likely the result of experience of how hard it was to tell what the enemy were doing. Anyway, I found the memory very useful when we were considering Dunkirk in 1940.
I think all old Gallipolitans will be grateful to Mr. Moore- head for writing this excellent book. It does not profess to be a complete account. For this one must go to the official history. He has, however, caught the spirit and given us the background of this tragic story. There used to be a phrase frequently used in reports of actions on the Western Front in the First World War, when hundreds of casualties had been incurred for gains of a few yards. It was, `Nevertheless many valuable lessons had been learned.' I think that by the Second World War some valuable lessons had been learned, as evidenced by the in- vasion of Normandy, and that the brave men who fell in the Peninsula did not wholly die in vain.
Previous page
