Why Turkey Matters ('coz it's lo-fat?)

National Post (Canada) ^ | 7/11/2002 | N/A

[DTA]

I am not blaming Col. Mahmet Pasha at all. He was doing his job, and oportunity was too good to be true. My intention was to point how the Brits helped Kemal Pasha's promotion by deliberately sacrificing ANZAC troops.

[ccmay]

My intention was to point how the Brits helped Kemal Pasha's promotion by deliberately sacrificing ANZAC troops.

If they did so, it was entirely unintentionally. I doubt they even knew his name, much less had some grand plan to advance him into a position of power as their puppet.

Recall that at the time of Gallipoli, the British Expeditionary Force (my grandfather among them) were mired in the muddy trenches of France and Belgium, losing thousands of men for every hundred yards they advanced. Morale was failing. The Russians on the Eastern front had lost a million men, and the Turks were threatening to invade the Caucasus. Grand Duke Nicholas informed the British that he would have to withdraw, which would allow numerous German divisions to be transferred to the Western Front. Churchill and Kitchener came up with a flanking maneuver at Gallipoli that seemed to have a number of points in its favor:

• to draw the Turks away from Russia, keeping the Russian Army on the Eastern Front
• to control the Dardanelles Strait, and hence the Black Sea, allowing Russian grain to reach the West
• to employ the Royal Navy, which unlike the Army, had reserve power to spare
• to draw the Greeks and perhaps some of the Balkan nations in on the side of the Allies
• to enable an advance on Austria by way of the Danube

Had it succeeded, had the coordination between land and sea forces been better, had they forced the Dardanelles and proceeded on to Constantinople, it would now be considered a master stroke. This was admitted by the German commanders after the war; success in Asia Minor would have crippled them and shortened the war by years. But thanks to the dithering of the British high command, errors of execution by officers in the field, and the unexpected valor of the Turkish askari, Gallipoli has become a byword for foolish waste of life in war.

Never attribute to conspiracy that which can be explained by stupidity.