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Phil Andrade
London
UK
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Posts: 6369
Joined: 2004
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Gallipoli
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Yes, these sectors were horrific.
The battles were compressed into tiny areas, made more startling by the precipitous cliffs and valleys.
Quinn's Post, The Daisy Patch, The Chessboard, Lone Pine, and of course, The Nek.....for the British troops, there was also Gully Ravine, which rapidly became a putrid obscenity on account of thousands of unburied dead.
There are so many other names to be cited.
Regards, Phil
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"Egad, sir, I do not know whether you will die on the gallows or of the pox!"
"That will depend, my Lord, on whether I embrace your principles or your mistress."
Earl of Sandwich and John Wilkes
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Lightning
Glasgow
UK
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Posts: 1040
Joined: 2005
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Gallipoli
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Hi Phil,
'The Nek' brings up many emotions, perhaps fuelled by the evocative (but inaccurate) portrayal in Peter Weir's 'Gallipoli', where the Australian troops are told to press on and be massacred by some monstrous English officer, all whilst the British forces at Suvla Bay were allegedly sitting about drinking cups of tea. I'm not sure the disdain supposedly held by some British officers to our Commonwealth brethern ever stretched that far. I certainly hope not, anyway.
It was a tragic engagement, with lives thrown away for absolutely no gain. It was also largely a balls-up by the making of the ANZAC commanders, and one for which the Light Horse and others paid dearly.
I was also wondering that as the campaign was to directly benefit the link between the western members of the Entente and the Russians, why we didn't see direct Russian participation in this campaign. They surely had the manpower and we surely had the firepower to blast them through to wherever they were needed.
Cheers,
Colin
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"There is no course open to us but to fight it out. Every position must be held to the last man: there must be no retirement. With our backs to the wall and believing in the justice of our cause, each one of us must fight to the end."
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Phil Andrade
London
UK
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Posts: 6369
Joined: 2004
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Gallipoli
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Colin,
You make an interesting comment regarding failure of the Russians to get involved directly in the Gallipoli fighting .
I suppose it’s largely attributable to the extreme pressure that was being exerted by the German Offensive that was launched at Gorlice Tarnov.
In four or five months of intense battle, between May and September 1915, a million Russians were killed or wounded , and another million were captured. Warsaw fell to the Germans in August, and Russian Poland was effectively lost to the Tsar. One could say that the Russians had their hands full elsewhere.
There was also Balkan jealousy about the prospect of occupation of Constantinople. The Greeks, I daresay, were anxious that the Russians should not hog the show, and I wonder if the Entente preferred to keep the Russians at arms length in order to placate erstwhile allies in the Balkans. In the event, Bulgaria joined the Central Powers, and this might well have been attributable to the failure of the Dardanelles campaign.
Greece joined the Allied camp, but there was always a sense of fragility and duplicity in that arrangement .
I still adhere to the view, though, that Russian home front morale would have been so bolstered by the prize of Constantinople as to keep Imperial Russia alive, and this would have incalculable consequence for the outcome of the war and for the history of the World in the generations to come.
Regards, Phil
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"Egad, sir, I do not know whether you will die on the gallows or of the pox!"
"That will depend, my Lord, on whether I embrace your principles or your mistress."
Earl of Sandwich and John Wilkes
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