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To: C19fan
"For example, during just one day in 1916 at the Battle of the Somme the British lost 21,000 men"

I also remember the Aussies didn't do to well when they went over the top in the face of Turkish machine guns at Gallipoli. That debacle almost ruined Churchill's career.

4 posted on 09/11/2015 7:07:49 AM PDT by circlecity
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To: circlecity
"That debacle almost ruined Churchill's career."

Except Churchill is unfairly blamed. True, he was the big proponent of Gallipoli. But his version was meant to be a naval attack on Istanbul which probably would have succeeded if Churchill had total control over the operations. Which he didn't.

I'm reading William Manchester's three volume bio of Churchill. Manchester, a WWII Marine, wrote that Churchill's original plan probably would have worked. Istanbul was weakly defended. A direct assault on the capital would have forced the Turks to skedaddle and might have knocked them out of the war.

A preliminary assault up the peninsula had succeeded well. But because of army objections and the assault force lost a few ships people above Churchill shelved the naval assault. The army brass settled on trying the army landings but took their time. The peninsula was weakly defended when the operation began. But by the time the brass decided to land troops the peninsula had been reinforced. Hence the debacle from which Churchill has always taken all the blame.

In reality, Churchill was the only original thinker in the British armed forces and also realized the future of tanks. He saw the stalemate in the trenches and thought of a way to change things.

If Churchill had been given his head in Gallipoli, the Turks very probably would have been knocked out of the war, and the Allies added more countries to fight with them against an isolated Germany.

32 posted on 09/11/2015 9:57:05 AM PDT by driftless2
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