Source B which was written by a soldier who fought at Gallipoli describes the lack of leadership and control. ‘Attacks were ordered rather light heartedly … It all seemed very amateur… The men on the spot were not listened to.’ Source B is particularly useful because the author is able to give us an eye- witness account of what actually happened at Gallipoli.
Source C describes the failure of the landings and also the leadership. ‘None of us had been given any instructions from the generals’, this quote also corroborates source B. The source also suggests that the lack of communication between forces at different beaches also resulted in the failure of the landings. ‘On 25 April S force did nothing all day… the force at V beach was wiped out… what a waste just because there was no news.’
Source D gives an overview of why the Gallipoli campaign failed suggesting that lack of men, supplies and room were partly to blame. ‘Twice it failed allegedly from lack of men and supplies.’ The quote ‘it failed rather from lack of room’ also supports Source F, the map of the Gallipoli peninsula where we can clearly see the narrow route in which the soldiers tried to break through. However the provenance of this particular source is questionable. The source was written by a British historian in 1965, 50 years after the Gallipoli campaign; the fact that the author is British could also suggest that there is a possibility that he is bias towards Britain’s role in the Gallipoli campaign.
Source E was also written sometime after the war; in 2001 and points out several important factors of the failure of the Gallipoli campaign. Firstly, Winston Churchill’s role in the campaign, ‘His errors of judgement’. Secondly, the fact that ‘the British vastly underestimated their task’ and also due to ‘poorly trained troops and applying poorly trained tactics. I know from my own knowledge that this judgement is correct from watching the watching the Time Watch documentary on Gallipoli, many of the soldiers were far too young and inexperienced.
Source F supports the quotations in Source D relating to the lack of space. ‘Gallipoli, far from being an easy back door into Germany, was a narrow, tight crack’. However, the source does not tell us the problems which arose along the Dardanelles; one of these problems was that the Turks placed mines along the water so when ships past over them they were blown up and the ships were sunk. The narrow distance between the shores also meant that soldiers in open topped rowing boats were picked off easily and this accounted for a lot of unnecessary deaths.
Source G - Gallipoli (Feature film, 1981) portrays the soldiers as arrogant and cocky which we know from Source A and B was not the case. The film did not show the terrible conditions of Gallipoli that the soldiers had to live in. The provenance of this source is also doubtful as it was filmed 65 years after Gallipoli and also because it is a film; which are usually for entertainment purposes rather that factual information.
In conclusion I do not think there is sufficient evidence in sources A-G to explain why the Gallipoli campaign failed. Although there is a wide range of causes discussed in the sources there is not enough information regarding certain aspects. For example, the conditions at Gallipoli; such as the lack of water and disease. The landscape of the Gallipoli peninsula - from a geographical perspective the Turks had an advantage right from the beginning due to their positioning on the cliffs. The tactics, for instance the barbed wire underneath the water which resulted in many soldiers dying as they left their boats. And also the lack of co-ordination between the naval and armed forces which resulted in widespread confusion and chaos. With such information I would be able to gain a better perspective of why the Gallipoli campaign failed.
