This latest book in Stephen Chambers’ series on Gallipoli covers the last concerted offensive by the British, Anzac and Indian Army forces on the peninsula in that ill-fated campaign of 1915. Like so many others in the fighting, it is a tale of opportunities missed through a series of errors and omissions, some predictable, some a matter of both the fog and the fortunes of war. A significant factor in the failure was, of course, the truly heroic, fiercely aggressive defence of the Turkish defenders.
It makes tragic reading – not so much the failure of the offensive, for that happens frequently in warfare. At Gallipoli the failures have a peculiarly poignant narrative, which has captured popular imagination. Who cannot be moved by the fate of so many wounded who were incinerated by the fires that broke out in the scrubland – such a characteristic of the countryside there? The tales of heroism in impossible conditions, often undertaken with a very strong likelihood of death or maiming, are one of the notable features of the whole campaign; but here they are particularly plentiful.
This latest book enables those of us who come after to understand, as best we can, what went wrong and how it went wrong. To appreciate the issues facing both sides, it is even more than usually important to understand the ground in addition to all the other contributory factors – misdirected artillery, the late delivery of orders, failures in communications, the setting of impossible start times, the jumbling up of units in the confusion of battle or in moving through difficult, often unknown, country.
An understanding of the campaign, with all its twists and turns, of optimism dashed by outcome, is best made with a personal visit and to see for oneself: to appreciate the difficulties of moving through the country to start line positions; of maintaining control amongst the attacking (and then defending) units; to comprehend how hard it was for higher command to have an adequate appreciation of what precisely was happening at the front line; to see why there were such problems with supply and reinforcements; to view the difficulties faced by the artillery and the support shelling by the navy.
This volume guides the visitor to the key points in a series of, sometimes quite challenging, walks and tours; and provides a commentary that helps to make sense of it all. The heroism of individuals and units is, as usual, covered in the author’s own effective style.