What happened when the Australian and New Zeland troops landed at Gallipoli at world war 1?

Question

Thank you for asking that question and yes you are right all the other answers were realy not essay material and i needed that kind so thats why i am asking again

Answer 1

Hello Kelly, you have asked this before. You had 5 answers then, none of them were essay material (although substantially correct). I can see the reason for asking again if you had in the meantime thought of a better way of putting the question, or were looking for answers in a different format (eg 'long' or 'short'). But I can't see any sense in asking the same question twice. Or in answering it. Unless you give me a better reason.

OK, now with clarification I'm happy to oblige. To start with you need to understand why they landed at Gallipoli at all - this explains some things that happened later. At the start of World War 1 Turkey sided with the Germans. The British figured that Turkey might surrender quickly if they could get some of the British Battleships into the Straits of Marmara and threaten to destroy Istanbul. The Straits of Marmara are a very thin and long stretch of seawater (resembling a river more than anything else) that connects the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. Istanbul was the ancient capital of Turkey that was about half way along the Straits of Marmara. (A map helps here...)

It was a reasonable plan, The Turks had nothing to compete with the British Battleships. If Turkey surrendered, the way would then be open to send supplies and troops to help the Russians, on the north coast of the Black Sea. The Russians were fighting Germany, but they needed help.

So the British warships entered the narrow Straits of Marmara, and were immediately under fire from guns all along the shore, and collided with mines laid in the water. After losing a couple of ships the British 'gave up', supposedly at the same time as the Turks ran out of shells to fire at them. The British ships withdrew, and the Turks were now alerted to the danger to Istanbul.

The British then decided to land troops on the sea-ward side of the Gallipoli peninsula, cross over the narrow peninsula and take control of the western shore of the Straits of Marmara, and then send the ships in again, knowing that at least one side of the Straits were in friendly hands.

The preparations took so long however that the Turks worked out what was planned, and moved their own troops onto the Gallipoli Peninsula in order to resist any attempt by the British to come ashore there. The Turkish General in charge of the troops in that area was Kemal Attaturk, shortly thereafter the founder of the modern state of Turkey, who became known as the 'Father of the Nation'. In those days though he was just a brilliant soldier.

The British and French landed at the tip of the peninsula, and the Australians (part of the British Empire) were to be landed about half way up the peninsula. The intention was that the Australians would quickly cross over to the other side of the penisula (about 4 miles), cutting off the Turks to the south who would then be 'finished off' by the advancing British and French.

The instructions given to the Australian troops before they landed was to get off the beach, climb the hills behind the beach and go as quickly as possible to the other side of the peninsula, cutting the main road that ran down the east side of the peninsula.

Because of the effect of the wind and tide, the Australians were landed a little north of the intended spot, and instead of having relatively small hills to climb, they were immediately confronted with a set of high steep ridges. There were scattered Turkish troops in the area who fired on the Australians as they were landing on the beaches. Within a few hours the Australians had climbed the first ridge behind the beach, but they were overlooked on the left by a tall mountain. A few Australians got far enough inland to actually see the Straits of Marmara, but the Turks (who were now arriving by their thousands from camps in the area) held the Australians on that first ridge.

Contrary to some other comments, there were very few machine guns at Gallipoli on that first day, and no artillery. The fighting was all by rifle fire, and hand to hand. The death toll on both sides was horrific. Nearly all of the Australian front line was overlooked by the Turks on the mountain to the left. Within a day the Australians had dug trenches for protection along the knife-edge ridge, as did the Turks - in many cases only a few feet away from the Australians. But getting from the Ridge back to the beach, and most of the beach itself was exposed to Turkish rifle fire, and many men including the Australian Commander, and Simpson leading his donkey (carrying wounded) were killed on this journey.

Further south the British and French made little progress after their landing. So there were two 'pockets' of allied troops on the Gallipoli Penisuala, both surrounded by thousands (eventually tens of thousands) of Turks.

The Australians at Gallipoli (who had little previous experience of wars) distinguished themselves by the energy in getting up those hills and ridges in the first place, and in holding on to them against massive attacks by the Turks over the next few days. The Australians proved to be ingenious in digging trenches and tunnels (there were a great many miners who had worked in goldfields and coalfieds in Australia - hence the term 'digger' for soldier came into use), and in fighting in the trenches (their own and the ones belonging to the Turks). Most surprising though (to their commanders and to the men themselves) was their bravery and sense of humour - and eventually their respect for their enemy.

Initially the Australians coming across dead bodies hit by rifle fire thought the dead men had been tortured, so horrific were the wounds. Credit to them, they soon realized that what they were seeing was the effect of modern high speed bullets that often tumbled in flight. After the first few days of fighting the Australians and Turks agreed on a truce to claim the dead bodies lying all around and to bury them. In this period the Australians came to appreciate that the Turks were not that different to themselves, brave men defending their homeland, as bravely as Australians would have done if the tables had been turned.

The Australians continually tried to get beyond that first ridge, by attacking over the top, and by digging straight through it to the other side. But despite some successes, particularly on the southern end of their area where the ridge was lower, they were always overlooked by that mountain on the left.

Consequently a plan was devised to capture that mountain by landing even more troops (British this time) to the north of the ANZAC area where the Turks weren't expecting them, and have them attack the mountain from the north side. Meantime the Australians were expected to attack the mountain from the south side (to stop the Turks leaving the ANZAC area and give the British a chance to get to the top of the mountain). The Australian diversionary attacks (at a place called the Nek) were carried out with great losses, and with no point, as the British had on arrival set up camp on the beaches and gone nowhere near the mountain. A small Australian force that was to assist the British on the mountain got lost and arrived too late.

As others have said, the only brilliant success (on the allied side) of the campaign was the withdrawal, that was carried out without the Turks suspecting a thing. When the Turks entered the Australian trenches and camps the day after the Australians left they noticed food left on the tables, and assumed that the Australians must have left in a hurry (no time to finish their dinner). But in fact the Australians had cooked and left meals for the Turks - their final act of friendship to their respected enemy.

Just a final note, the Australian in charge of that group that got lost on the mountain was criticised (by some) at the time. But he was soon promoted and in France (where the Australians went next) became one of Australia's most successful Generals, and eventually commander of the entire Australian army. In August 1918 he designed and directed the attack that (arguably) began the destruction of the German army. That man was John Monash, after whom the University in Melbourne was named. Like a lot of Australian soldiers (who were all volunteers in World War 1) he was not a professional soldier, but an engineer, and he went back to his regular job after the war.

Some rough facts: 8000 Australian dead at Gallipoli in 9 months. After they moved to France they would lose that many men in battles lasting only a single day or night. Of the 240,000 men who served in the army, 60,000 died. One in four. Like the Canadians and the Scots, the British had used the Australians wherever the fighting was fiercest, because they were among the best. Australia learnt during that war never to trust anyone else in charge of their army, and developed an attitude that saw that it was a commanders duty to do everything possible to ease the burden of the troops, and to protect them from unecessary danger.

Answer 2

their British generals marched them into entrenched machine guns, and cannons.

so they all died.