Last few nights, watched the 5 installments of Anzacs. I had no idea as a Yank, what the AIF went through. Clearly, in the film, Brit high command had no more regard for the Anzacs than they had for their own troops, squandering them as cannon fodder. Curiousity caused me to look further at online published statistics. It does look like the high command treated the Anzacs even worse than Tommy, roughly 13% deaths for the Brits and over 20 % for the Anzacs. Criminal. Unbelievably sad.

War is Hell.

And the whole idea was Winston Churchill's. The result got him kicked out of the war office I believe. By the time WW2 came along he seemed to have been forgiven.

I have little regard for Churchill and MacArthur for that matter.

Both had egos matched only by...well...their egos.

Lives get squandered.

"The soft underbelly of Europe" wasn't so soft.

"The soft underbelly of Europe" wasn't so soft.

Winston was conniving an invasion of Greece when Ike cut off all his aircraft.

You can add Montgomery to the massive ego list as well. His hare brained Operation Market Garden got a lot of good men killed.

"They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them."

Lest We Forget !

In WWII he was the worst, IMO.

In the movie, and history, Gen. Haig seemed to have never heard of the saying that if you keep doing something over and over and expect a different result, you are truly insane. I suppose we can take comfort from the fact of sheer body count, millions upon millions, the Russkies in the revolution and both wars take the cake. Allied leaders were stupid and hardheaded to a criminal degree, but the Russians were known to deliberately order "politically unreliable" units into suicide assaults. I guess the Russian peasant soldier feared his leaders and political officers far more than the enemy.

Well they're both did something right, you're not typing in German or Japanese. I don't know how you can monday morning quarterback Churchhill like that. He saved England. It was all he could do. England's back was against the wall. Also, McArther saved many lives in the Pacific by bypassing many islands that weren't that important. Surely you don't blame him for what happened in the Philippines, and he didn't just skip out of there, he was ordered to leave twice by the President.

I met Montgomery in person in the mid 1960's, as a pre-teen. Only for a few minutes, in the company of his grandson who I knew.

Even then I remember my gut telling me that he was altogether a bad person and should be avoided. I sensed a brooding malevolence, standoffish. Perhaps he had something against yanks like me.

In the fullness of time I have encountered descriptions of him and his actions during WWII (by others), which serve to reinforce and enlarge my earlier formed opinion of him.

Is this a series? Where is it?

In context of WW1 and "birth of the ANZACs", Churchill did nothing right but caused needless deaths for no gain. The Gallipoli/Dardenelles campaign had no strategic benefits. Churchill was in charge of the Royal Navy and choose the campaign so he could "get in on the action". Young guy, big ego, needlessly sacrificed the lifes of others. He was kicked out of the war office to prevent any further damage - he was a hinderence.

Glad to hear a Cousin Oz point of view. I got a high opinion of the Anzacs I met in SE Asia in '66. A very high opinion.

PA Bucktail, I stumbled on it on Youtube, sorry, I don't know how to link.

Here:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLh1usqLUofITA6LT7K6vAHpP94sYLuNn

That isn't really true. The Dardanelles Straits had very significant strategic value, as they determined access to the Black Sea, in order to support and supply Russia. As well, if the Dardanelles had been taken it was thought (not without good reason) that the Ottoman Empire might collapse.

What let down the British, French, African, ANZAC and other soldiers landed on and near Gallipoli was some poor planning, poor execution in the initial phases and the unexpectedly effective defence by the Turks. Quite a number of people were held to account for failure of the campaign.

Getting back to the miniseries, IIRC towards the end you see what happened later in the war, when the ANZACs were brought under Australian command at Corps level, and Monash (may he live on in our memories) developed and successfully applied combined arms assaults bringing together infantry, armour, air, and better coordinated artillery, as well as other things like better planning and comms, to contribute to turning the tide on the Western Front. The AEF turning up in the final months (and being trained by Australians before getting into it) also played a part in breaking the Central Powers.

You may enjoy watching 'Danger Close'.

Here's a very good doco about the battle depicted in "Danger Close", and it is well worth watching too:

tag

Just remember that that's the arguement they used to launch the campaign. I've got a book at home (somewhere in a box) that describes some of the lesser known information "behind the scenes". I can't recall all the details but essentially, if the initial take-over had worked, it would've been taking huge amount of resources (materials and lives) for the allies to try and defend and maintain occupation, giving it a net "deficit" gain and certainly not strategic. Churchill however convinced majority with his "pipe dream" - it was essentially a land battle that they could never win and never maintain.

I have a copy of my grandfathers Gallipoli diary. Sobering reading. Very matter of fact.

Just to elaborate a bit more. Planned occupation and control of the strait by the allies was a good idea, and would offer advantages, but just a pipe dream - just like saying it would have been strategically significant to control Hitler, it doesn't make sense because there is actually no valid strategy behind being able to do that.

The Brits never properly considered what occupation would mean and hence a strategy was never developed. If they had at least considered some of the planning aspects if would've become evident that this is not valid for consideration of developing a strategy. Everything going against this idea include: they would need to be able to maintain and defend occupation along the entire 30mile stretch of the strait including Constantinople; occupation in enemy territory leading to constant, heavy retaliation; no land support available from the allies - all supplies to come if from the ocean and having to constantly protect and defend the ports available.

The allies were already struggling on the Western front and it was hoped that this campaign would take the pressure off but it would've only created an additional drain on resources and troops. Negative overall net gain, no strategic value.

The decision to proceed was not strategic but a gamble and based on an unobtainable outcome. Churchill was a narcissist and keen to get a good victory under his belt, but also a gambler of the worst kind - 140,000 ally casualties at Gallipoli with half being British and Irish.

Some interesting comments here:
https://history.stackexchange.com/q...of-the-dardanelles-fiasco-in-world-war-i

My great uncle, Arthur Young, was a veteran of the Boer War and Gallipoli. He died in 1968 and I remember as a kid hearing him talk about NZ back when he was a kid. He had one of those large gramophone type horns for a hearing aid and would say, "speak up sonny, I can't hear ya".

He never mentioned anything about those two wars except on one occasion when he said that if they ever saw a Boer soldier, which was seldom, they would shoot above his head.

This is an interesting part account (typical, patriotic title aside) of the battle of Long Tan written by the NZ Listener a few years back.

https://www.noted.co.nz/currently/c...-a-massacre-of-anzac-soldiers-in-vietnam

I tend to agree with Dan__oZ's comments also being Gallipoli was just one campaign. Readers get a bit excited about a picture of British grinding Aussies as cannon fodder but most campaigns they were treated as fairly( or unfairly) as other soldiers. Worth noting that Australian service was volunteers only and the Australian government could over ride crown disciplinary measures, particularly death sentences for serious breaches. The Defence force Act of Australia held primacy, as well as public feeling you cant execute our guys performing voluntary service for another country. It was the australian feeling they were helping britain as a close cultural ally, not as vassals of a colony anymore. Death sentences were handed down but mostly commuted. We also had the highest attrition and AWOL rate and general insubordination charges and this was tolerated to a degree for the above reason, we made up for it being pretty good fighters when we were on duty Just to add some balance to the emotion gallipoli evokes... it wasnt the whole picture.

Ever think about publishing it? Your family could edit stuff considered too personal, but I bet it would be a great historical text with personal perspective.