This is a study of Sir Ian Hamilton VCs command of the Gallipoli campaign. Appointed by Kitchener after the failure of the initial Allied naval offensive in the Dardanelles, Hamilton was to lead the ambitious amphibious landings that were intended to open the way to Constantinople. In the event, however, opportunities immediately after the landings were squandered and, in the face of unexpectedly effective Turkish resistance, soon stalled in attritional trench warfare like that on the Western Front. Hamilton has often been criticized for this failure and in many ways seen to typify the stereotype of a British general clinging to outdated Victorian thinking. Yet this fresh reappraisal, drawing on original archival research, shows that Hamilton did display some progressive ideas and a realization that warfare was rapidly changing. Like all generals of this period he faced the challenge of unprecedented technological and tactical revolution as well as the political and media battle. It is as a case study of command in these circumstances that Evan Mcgilvray's assessment of Hamilton will be most valued.

In Australia, Anzac Day, the anniversary of the first landings at Gallipoli, is one of the most important dates in the national calendar. Yet in Britain, the campaign is largely forgotten. The key to this contrast lies in the way in which the campaign's history has been recorded. To many Australians, the Anzac legend is a romantic war myth that proclaims the prowess of Australian participants in the campaign. It is an exercise in nation-building. In Britain, the campaign is also remembered in romantic terms, but the purpose here is to assuage the pain of defeat. Reconsidering Gallipoli broadens the debate over the cultural history of the First World War beyond the Western Front. The final chapter traces the influence of the early accounts on subsequent portrayals including Alan Moorehead's 1956 book, Bean's post 1965 rehabilitation, Peter Weir's 1981 film, and revisionist attacks on the legend.

This new book traces the disparities in the memory of Gallipoli that are evident in the countries that participated in the campaign. It explores the way in which history is written at the personal, local, professional, and national levels.

In early August 1915, after months of stalemate in the trenches on Gallipoli, British and Dominion troops launched a series of assaults in an all-out attempt to break the deadlock and achieve a decisive victory. The ‘August offensive’ resulted in heartbreaking failure and costly losses on both sides. Many of the sites of the bloody struggle became famous names: Lone Pine, the Nek, Chunuk Bair, Hill 60, Suvla Bay. Debate has continued to the present day over the strategy and planning, the real or illusory opportunities for success, and the causes of failure in what became the last throw of the dice for the Allies. Some argue that these costly attacks were a lost opportunity; others maintain that the outcomes were simply inevitable.This new book about the Gallipoli battles arises out of a major international conference at the Australian War Memorial in 2010 to mark the 95th anniversary of the Gallipoli campaign. The conference drew leading military historians from around the world to bring multi-national viewpoints to the many intriguing questions still debated about Gallipoli. Keynote speaker, Professor Robin Prior of the University of Adelaide, author of Gallipoli: the end of the myth (2009), led a range of international authorities from Australia, New Zealand, Britain, France, Germany, India and Turkey to present their most recent research findings. The result was significant: never before had such a range of views been presented, with fresh German and Turkish perspectives offered alongside those of British and Australasian historians. For the resulting book, the papers have been edited and the text has been augmented with soldiers’ letters and diary accounts, as well as a large number of photographs and maps.

Written by a leading authority and featuring new research from Turkish sources, Gallipoli: Command Under Fire details the great tragedy of the fighting at Gallipoli. Unique among World War I campaigns, the fighting at Gallipoli brought together a modern amphibious assault and multi-national combined operations. It took place on a landscape littered with classical and romantic sites – just across the Dardanelles from the ruins of Homer's Troy. The campaign became, perhaps, the greatest 'what if' of the war. The concept behind it was grand strategy of the highest order, had it been successful it might have led to conditions ending the war two years early on Allied terms. This could have avoided the bloodletting of 1916–18, saved Tsarist Russia from revolution and side stepped the disastrous Treaty of Versailles – in effect, altering the course of the entire 20th century. This study is the first to focus on operational and campaign-level decisions and actions, which drove the conduct of the campaign. It departs from emotive first-hand accounts and offers a broader perspective of the large scale military planning and maneuvering involved in this monstrous struggle on the shores of European Turkey.

One of the most famous battles in history, the WWI Gallipoli campaign began as a bold move by the British to capture Constantinople, but this definitive new history explains that from the initial landings--which ended with so much blood in the sea it could be seen from airplanes overhead--to the desperate attacks of early summer and the battle of attrition that followed, it was a tragic folly destined to fail from the start. Gallipoli forced the young Winston Churchill from office, established Turkey's iconic founder Mustafa Kemal (better known as "Ataturk"), and marked Australia's emergence as a nation in its own right. Drawing on unpublished eyewitness accounts by individuals from all ranks--not only from Britain, Australia and New Zealand, but from Turkey and France as well--Peter Hart weaves first-hand stories into a vivid narrative of the battle and its aftermath. Hart, a historian with the Imperial War Museum and a battlefield tour guide at Gallipoli, provides a vivid, boots-on-the-ground account that brilliantly evokes the confusion of war, the horrors of combat, and the grim courage of the soldiers. He provides an astute, unflinching assessment of the leaders as well. He shows that the British invasion was doomed from the start, but he places particular blame on General Sir Ian Hamilton, whose misplaced optimism, over-complicated plans, and unwillingness to recognize the gravity of the situation essentially turned likely failure into complete disaster. Capturing the sheer drama and bravery of the ferocious fighting, the chivalry demonstrated by individuals on both sides amid merciless wholesale slaughter, and the futility of the cause for which ordinary men fought with extraordinary courage and endurance--Gallipoli is a riveting account of a battle that continues to fascinate us close to a hundred years after the event.

The story of the highly controversial First World War campaign that nearly destroyed Churchill's reputation for good and of his decades-long battle to set the record straight--a battle which ultimately helped clear the way for Churchill's appointment as Prime Minister in Britain's "darkest hour."

The noted historian’s decisive and devastating history of the WWI Battle of Gallipoli “sets a new standard for assessing the Allied Dardanelles campaign" (Mustafa Aksakal, American Historical Review). The Gallipoli campaign of 1915–16 was an ill-fated Allied attempt to take control of the Dardanelles, secure a sea route to Russia, and create a Balkan alliance against the Central Powers. A failure in all respects, the operation ended in disaster, and the Allied forces suffered some 390,000 casualties. In this conclusive study, military historian Robin Prior assesses the many myths about Gallipoli and provides definitive answers to questions that have lingered about the operation. Prior proceeds step by step through the campaign, dealing with naval, military, and political matters and surveying the operations of all the armies involved: British, Anzac, French, Indian, and Turkish. Relying on primary documents, including war diaries and technical military sources, Prior evaluates the strategy, the commanders, and the performance of soldiers on the ground. His conclusions are powerful and unsettling: the naval campaign was not “almost” won, and the land action was not bedeviled by “minor misfortunes.” Instead, the badly conceived Gallipoli campaign was doomed from the start. And even had it been successful, the operation would not have shortened the war by a single day. Despite their bravery, the Allied troops who fell at Gallipoli died in vain. A Wall Street Journal Best Book of 2009

Shortly and formally the Battle of Gallipoli, also known as the Dardanelles Campaign, can be described as a failed amphibious operation launched by the Allies in a strategically important region of Turkey in 1915-1916. It was a battle very unusual for the First World War. It stood apart from the gruesome picture of bloody and ineffectual battles of the Western front, and resembled rather colonial wars of the preceding century.

This 2-volume book represents a personal account of the Gallipoli Campaign written from the perspective of a British Army officer. The Gallipoli Campaign was a military campaign in the First World War that took place on the Gallipoli peninsula February 1915 to January 1916. The Entente powers, Britain, France and Russia, sought to weaken the Ottoman Empire, one of the Central Powers, by taking control of the straits that provided a supply route to the Russian Empire. The Allies' attack on Ottoman forts at the entrance of the Dardanelles in February 1915 failed and was followed by an amphibious landing on the Gallipoli peninsula in April 1915 to capture the Ottoman capital of Constantinople. In January 1916, after eight months' fighting, with approximately 250,000 casualties on each side, the land campaign was abandoned and the invasion force withdrawn. It was a costly defeat for the Entente powers and for the sponsors, especially First Lord of the Admiralty (1911-1915), Winston Churchill. The campaign was considered a great Ottoman victory. Contents: The Start The Straits Egypt Clearing for Action The Landing Making Good Shells Two Corps or an Ally? Submarines A Decision and the Plan Bombs and Journalists A Victory and After K.'s Advice and the P.M.'s Envoy The Force – Real and Imaginary Sari Bair and Suvla Kavak Tepe Attack Collapses The Last Battle Misunderstandings The French Plan Loos and Salonika The Beginning of the End