Source H suggests that poor planning and Winston Churchill were responsible for what went wrong at Gallipoli. Is there enough evidence in Sources D to I to support this interpretation? Use the sources and your knowledge to explain your answer.

University Degree Architecture, Building and Planning

Sam Arnold

To investigate the statement above I will have to test it against my own knowledge and against the other sources. I will test all the sources for their reliability and also see whether they agree with and/or contradict source H. Their validity will also have to be evaluated. I will also have to consider my own background knowledge and make a decision as to whether the source is supported by what I already know. There are also the factors of the Turkish defence, the difficult terrain and the tactics employed by the officers in the offensive.

Source H was written recently by an historian and states that the campaign at Gallipoli has become well remembered, partly “due to the involvement of Winston Churchill”. It also states that “Gallipoli was a vain hope” and that it “stands out as an example of how not to conduct war”. Source D supports the view that the planning was one reason, but puts more blame on the role of the officers. A captain who fought at Gallipoli wrote it and he points out that “attacks were ordered rather lightheartedly”. He also comments that the whole thing “seemed very amateur”. This is a trustworthy source as someone who was there wrote it and I also know from my own knowledge that attacks were often carried out poorly, probably due to the planning. The source does not put any blame onto Churchill, but certainly implies that the attacks were planned poorly and so as a result were carried out poorly.

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Source E is similar to D as it strongly supports the view that the planning was to blame for what went wrong at Gallipoli. The source contains the views of two British soldiers in Gallipoli at the time. One of the soldiers says that landings were made, either with huge losses or only for the soldiers to wait around on the beach all day, when it would have been better if they had pushed on. It seems that the two soldiers felt that the lack of leadership and lack lustre orders were to blame, and Winston Churchill’s role was not mentioned. The source can be trusted as the soldiers were there at the time and wrote their views after the campaign, with the advantage of being able to look back and consider all the reasons. I know that the planning ahead that the allies did was very poor from my own knowledge, and so this also backs up the reliability of the source.

Source G does not put as much blame on the lack of planning or even the carrying out of the campaign, but concentrates on the fact that the whole offensive was doomed to fail from the start. It was written by an historian in 1965 and states that, although the lack of men and supplies were “allegedly” to blame for the failure it failed “rather from lack of room”. He suggests that any more troops would have merely congested the peninsula and that the campaign could never have been won. In saying that the campaign was doomed to fail from the start he implies that Churchill’s entire plan of getting to Germany through the Dardanelles was ill planned in itself. Churchill is certainly given blame in this source, although not directly. The source appears to be trustworthy as it was written by an historian, with no apparent motive for giving a biased view. I know from my own knowledge that the peninsula was quite narrow, but from what I already know I can say quite confidently that I believe the campaign could have succeeded and the terrain was just a very important factor amongst a list of factors, not the deciding factor. So this source backs up both sources, with more blame going to Churchill and his poor plan in the first place.

One source that really only blames the terrain is source I. It is a map of the Gallipoli peninsula and shows the routes of the allied expeditionary forces. It appears to be making the point that the allies made little progress in the campaign, probably due to the terrain. I am not told where the source is from or by whom it has been created and as it is a map I cannot really comment on how reliable it is. Source F is similar, as it is also a map of the region, but it also shows the positioning of the Turkish defensive forts and mines. It is also accompanied by a quote from the then British Government Minister, Lloyd George. It reads that “Expeditions which are decided upon and organised with insufficient care generally end disastrously.” It seems likely that this statement is directed at Churchill and is also underlining the lack of planning that went into the campaign. This is just an opinion, but is trustworthy, as Lloyd George was a respected politician but slightly biased, as Churchill was an opponent of his.

In conclusion I have to say that there is enough evidence to partially support the statement that poor planning and Winston Churchill were responsible for what went wrong at Gallipoli. I have mainly based my conclusion on sources D and E, as they were first hand accounts of the events at Gallipoli and they both fit with my own knowledge. Both sources put blame on the planning, but not on Winston Churchill. Source G, an historian, puts a large lump of the blame onto saying the whole thing was doomed from the start and Churchill’s plan was poorly conceived. I do not agree that the campaign was never going to succeed, and so, as a result, I believe there is little evidence to put blame onto Churchill.

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