Is there sufficient evidence in sources A to F to explain why the Gallipoli campaign failed? Use all the sources and own knowledge from your studies to help you explain your answer.

Authors Avatar

Is there sufficient evidence in sources A to F to explain why the Gallipoli campaign failed? Use all the sources and own knowledge from your studies to help you explain your answer.

        Gallipoli is in Turkey, near the Dardanelle’s. The campaign was started on March 18th 1915. It was started to try and knock Turkey out of the war, because they had just signed an agreement with Germany and were now attacking Russia. There were many other reasons why this campaign was started, however each aim had failed as the campaign itself failed. The campaigned failed because the plan was too ambitious and it lacked organisation. An example of the poor organisation is that there wasn’t any co-operation between the naval and the armed forces, therefore it campaign would start in confusion and chaos.  However in this answer I’m not just explaining why the campaign failed I’m analysing the sources to see whether there is enough evidence to show why the campaign failed.

        A general summary of source A is that it’s a cartoon of two Anzac soldiers, drawn by an Australian artist in 1916. The evidence that agrees with the reasons why the campaign failed are that the soldiers were ill-equipped, disorganised, battered, lack of hope, ordinary men (working class), and heroic. The source shows that the soldiers are heroic as they are still smiling even though there seems to be no hope of the campaign ever succeeding. The source shows that the soldiers were disorganised and ill-equipped because it shows them wearing battered uniform. This gives the impression of them being ill-equipped because the soldiers were only sent with a summer uniform and as the battle continued into the winter the soldiers became ill and many died from hypothermia, this because the Turkish winters are freezing cold. Also the source shows that the men didn’t have adequate medical supplies as the men look battered and they have cuts and bruises on them. They didn’t have adequate medical supplies and for many men it seemed that as soon as you became injured you didn’t fight again, also many of the soldiers in the trenches had to fight after being in there for days and days. The evidence that disagrees with the reasons why the campaign failed is that the source doesn’t show the bad conditions and also it may give a false impression of the moral of the soldiers because it was written in 1916 so therefore it could be used as propaganda and as it’s a cartoon it would be exaggerated. Also the moral of the soldiers wouldn’t be very high as many would have died and many would be ill, so therefore it would mean that the soldiers would be depressed. As well as giving a false view of the moral the source doesn’t give any views on the fighting itself and doesn’t say if there was any success or progress, there was some progress as the soldiers managed to dig in against the Turks and stay in those positions for 8 months.

Join now!

        A general summary of source B is that it’s like a diary extract and explains a few conditions and the lack of communications.  The evidence that agrees with the reasons why the campaign failed, are that the Turkish sited their trenches very well and were prepared for trench warfare. This was because a German general who had been fighting over in the western front had trained them. Also it says how the soldiers were kept to long in the trenches and so were tried and worn down when fighting. There was organisation to the attacks and there wasn’t any ...

This is a preview of the whole essay