[An Old Marine]

Churchill's plan on Galipoli was actually excellent and the intelligence was not that bad. The execution however was terrible because amphibous doctrine was badly flawed. The Brits at the time were following the theory of beachhead consolidation and lost because of it. This mistake was repested by the Allies at Anzio 24 years later.

The US Marines, of that time (1940's), operated on a hyper aggressive attack approach to seize the opjective at the risk of higher causalities. The theory went that but all out relentless attack and accepting concurrent higher casualities you held the momentum and ended the action quickly. The more methodical approach favored by the British and US Army tended to result in lower initial casualities but frequently lead to lengthly, even bloodier stalemates.

And the evidence to support the Marines as being right is huge. Anzio was a bloody failure although we hung on. Executed in according to Marine doctrine Rome might have been seized within days and the entire year long Italian campaign might have been avoided. A similar arguement could be made about the Hedgerow campaign of Normandy.

[agere_contra]

Very impressive post. I hadn't heard this concept before (accept casualities now rather than bloody deadlock later) but it makes excellent sense.