A lot of men would have been ruined after a disaster like Gallipoli. But Churchill was so determined to work his way back he volunteered to fight on the front lines during WWI.
“...But Churchill was so determined to work his way back he volunteered to fight on the front lines during WWI.”
Winston Churchill did not expect to work his way back. He went to a unit on the Western Front as a LtCol, and said later he expected to be killed in action.
As a member of Britain’s Cabinet, Churchill was the first to suggest an attack on the Dardanelles in high government councils. After months of severe casualties and stalemate on the Western Front, the British were desperate for some bit of success, anywhere: government officials and senior military officers found the notion of a strike at the Turks appealing, and immediately caught “victory disease,” eagerly speculating (fantasizing) about the strategic advantage to be gained by knocking the Ottoman Turks out of the war - before the first steps of detailed planning were taken.
The first attack was purely naval - bombardment of shore defenses at the southeast end of the straits, to be followed by a fleet sailing to the docks of Constantinople. It was anticipated the Turkish government would throw in the towel.
The worst luck plagued the Allies - including a naval minefield laid in the narrower stretches of the straits by courageous Turkish units the night before the first attack. Major warships were lost, in a hurry.
The most severe tactical/technical limitation turned out to be the poor performance of naval guns against fortifications on shore: high angle fire was essential, but naval rifles were capable only of low-angle, direct line-of-sight fire - and the guns of warships were the only heavy firepower the Allies could bring into action. Fire directors could barely make out their targets ashore; after the first salvoes, dust clouds rose and obscured targets more fully. Sparse feedback on mission success caused the Allies to lose the sole chance they had; only after the war did they learn that the first bombardments knocked out a large percentage of Turkish defenses.
The Allies hesitated. During the lull, the Turks - ably led by their own officers, and well advised by German liaison officers - scrambled to repair fortifications and build more.
All this happened before any Allied troops landed.
When Allied assault forces did hit the beaches, they were poorly supported by intelligence on local terrain and on the Central Powers forces opposing them. Ship/shore coordination was spotty, and friendly fire hit Allied formations. Breaches in the Turkish defenses went unrecognized and unexploited; the Allies were never able to force their way through the lines nor go around them. Th effort was abandoned and the assault units were evacuated early in 1916.
The British government fell (for other reasons as well as the failure at Gallipoli) and Winston Churchill became the scapegoat.