Who was at fault with the Landing of the anzacs in the battle of Gallipoli?

Question

Was it the Anzacs that choose the wrong landing area, or were they under the command of the British navy?

Answer 1

Further to previous answers, perhaps some background would be helpful. In 1915, the Australians and New Zealanders were far more deferential to the UK than they were to become later (partly *** a result of screw-ups like Gallipoli). The ANZAC forces (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) did not represent a separate national or supre-national force with their own powers of command and decision - they were very much a 'Dominions' contingent of a larger British-led force. It's worth noting that the total Allied casualties in the Dardanelles from April 1915 to January 1916 were approximately as follows:

Australian 26,094
New Zealand 7,571
UK 119,696
France 27,004

Also, the Australian and New Zealand forces were at no time under the command of the British Royal Navy - they were under the ultimate Tactical Command (TACOM) of the British Army, in this case, the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force under Lieutenant-General Sir Ian Hamilton. Naval and land forces had entirely separate command chains. Indeed, one of the reasons for the failure of the campaign was the lack of co-ordination and cooperation between Navy and Army.

Given the relative position occupiedby the ANZAC contingents in the overall British war effort, it is clear that they actually had relatively limited powers of decision, particularly at the strategic and operational level. The majority of the mistakes were made by British senior officers. Perhaps the most significant error was the failure to force a naval passage through the Dardanelles in March 1915, when the Turkish opposition was limited in size and combat capability. Although the British Naval commanders understandably wished to avoid heavy losses to their vulnerable capital ships, the extent to which a strategic victory wass within reach is hard to exaggerate: there were very few Turkish troops on the Gallipoli Peninsula in March 1915, the forts defending the Narrows were damaged and their artillery was low on ammunition, and it should have been possible for the Anglo-French fleet to force a passage and overwhelme the Turkish defending forces through a combination of naval gunfire and landing parties of Marines and sailors. This would have obviated the necessity for a major land campaign in the Gallipoli Peninsula.

Following the failure of the naval attempts, the most basic error committed by the British and French Governments was to commit forces to a land campaign in the Dardanelles. Not only were the tactical conditions of the Western Front replicated at Gallipoli, but they were replicated in a theatre of operations distant from the Anglo-French base areas and which was difficult to supply, maintain and reinforce. Essentially, once the naval attempt had failed, surprise was lost, and the momentum of a land assault would be slowed simply by the very nature of the conditions of modern warfare, ie trench systems, barbed wire, machine gun and artillery fire, etc.

The landings at Suvla Bay in August 1915 probably represented the nadir of British tactical leadership in the campaign (although it was never high). Whereas the initial landings in April 1915 had at least been carried out with some degree of aggression, initiative and dash, those at Suvla Bay in August were sluggish, half-hearted and poorly co-ordinated.

Overall, the Dardanelles campaign failed because the initial degree of surprise and initiaitve were lost, and because, once the Turkish forces were alerted and deployed in strength, nothing short of a major campaign could shift them. Once that campaign began, the Allies were at a major disadvantage because of the difficulty in supplying their forces ashore. There was also a serious problem in that the three bridgeheads were vuolnerable to the point of being indefensible. The Allied lodgement was not sufficiently large for them to land the supplies, the force sand the heavy artillery that were needed for a sustained offensive campaign against the Turkish defences. Without a sufficiently large Army, backed by large amounts of heavy artillery with limitless munitions, there was no credible chance for the Allied forces to expand their logdgement in the way that the Anglo-American forces were to do in Normandy in July and August 1944.

The short answer is - no-one comes out of the Dardanelles campaign looking good. Except maybe the Turks, who showed they were courageous and determined, and that their relative backwardness compared to the Allies was not as much of a handicap as had been thought!

Answer 2

Being a part of the British Commonwealth at that time the Anzac's(Australia and New Zealand Army Corp), were under the direct control of the English Military. The question was not one of whether the landing area was incorrect rather than the practise of was in that time was not really relevant to the weapons of the era, to waste the Australian Light Horse in a trench was unforgivable, unfortunately for the Anzac's the English used them rather like cannon fodder. Standing up and walking toward an enemy with bayonets fixed while you are being faced with 30 machine gun posts would spell disaster no matter where you landed. As with all Naval invasions there is never a perfect landing spot, the easiest ones would be heavily defended and the less defended areas would have more natural defences, you only have to look at Normandy in WW2, not an ideal place to cross or land. But to answer your question, everything about Gallipoli was the fault of the English.

Answer 3

It was the Anzacs who chose the wrong landing but the British General Stopford messed everything up after that

Answer 4

Hmmm. Interesting.
'Twas Churchill's plan - he viewed the Turks as "the soft underbelly of Europe". He resigned his post as first lord of the admiralty when ciritcized for the lack of success of the landing. Nothing the Anzacs could have done would have overcame the inherent weaknesses of the plan. Courage was never the issue. Terrain, underestimation of the enemy, poor planning/supply/support combined. The Brits landed up the coast, stopped for tea thus never went in to the attack when the Turks could have been caught with their fez's down. The navy turned back after one ship was sunk by a mine - despite brass cannons only guarding Constantinople.
Answer? The Pommies.

Answer 5

neither the turks were better prepared it was a part of the strategy that went terribly wrong>>NZ and the navy were closely involved and the casualties were very heavy in 6 figures 1915 to us its known as the Dardanelles Campaign

Answer 6

The generals planning the attack. It is some time since I read the account but I gather they did not have sufficient intelligence about the state, postion and ability of the Turkish army and they picked the wrong beach

Answer 7

I don't know but it was probably the Brits, we were responsible for most military disasters in the past ie Battle of the Somme and the Charge of the Light Brigade

Answer 8

Well ,the whole idea was based on Churchill's interpretation of miltiary intelligence, suggesting that this was a 'soft under belly' of Europe. Of couse, Military Intelligence is an oxymoron!

Answer 9

The fault was in not moving inland fast enough. They allowed the turks to take up defensive positions where they could bombard the beaches.

Answer 10

Winston Churchill was mostly to blame being it was his insistence to attack the soft underbelly of Europe as he put it , Also the admiral in charge of the fleet misjudgement accounted for some of the blame