International conference
Gallipoli: a ridge too far
- Introduction
- Program
- Abstracts and Speakers
Synopses of papers and speaker biographies (in program order)
Day 1 - Thursday 5 August 2010
The Hon Alan Griffin MP, Minister for Veterans’ Affairs
Alan Griffin, Member for Bruce (Victoria), was born in Melbourne in 1960 and educated at the Australian National University, Canberra. A member of the Australian Labor Party since 1979, he was elected to the House of Representatives in 1993. He was a member of the Opposition Shadow Ministry from October 1998 and served on numerous parliamentary committees and overseas delegations. He has a long-standing commitment to Australia’s veteran and ex-service community, having been Shadow Minister for Veterans’ Affairs since 2005. He has gained an insight into the unique experiences of veterans and ex-service personnel, and the issues that face them and their families, through his active engagement with veterans across Australia. He was appointed Minister for Veterans’ Affairs in December 2007 on the election of the Rudd Labor government. As Minister, he has visited the battlefields of the Western Front and has a keen interest in the history of the First World War. He has strongly supported efforts to recover and reinter missing Australian soldiers from the battlefields of Fromelles and he has initiated important commemorative activities to record the history of Australian soldiers of the Great War in France and Belgium.
Professor Robin Prior (University of Adelaide)
Keynote address
“The terrible ifs”: the Gallipoli August Offensive in context
Historians as varied as C.E.W. Bean, Winston Churchill and Robert Rhodes James have all glimpsed in the August offensive at Gallipoli the prospect of victory and the opportunity to shorten the Great War by two years. The supposed victory hung by small threads - Churchill's “terrible ifs”; if only Stopford had acted more decisively at Suvla Bay, if Chunuk Bair and Hill Q could have been reinforced and so on. This address will examine these ifs to see if they have substance, while at the same time looking at the prospects of the campaign overall to see what might have flowed from a victory.
Robin Prior is Visiting Professorial Fellow at the University of Adelaide. He was inaugural Head of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of New South Wales, Australian Defence Force Academy, where he taught for 22 years. A world authority on the history of the First World War, he specialises in the study of military operations, command, and technology. He is the author of numerous books and articles, including Churchill’s ‘World Crisis’ as History; and (with Trevor Wilson), Command on the Western Front: the military career of General Sir Henry Rawlinson 1914-1918 (1992), Passchendaele: the untold story (1996), The First World War (1999) and The Somme (2005). He is also a co-editor and contributor to The Oxford companion to Australian military history (1995, 2008) and has published chapters in numerous other books, including Hugh Cecil & Peter Liddle (eds), Facing Armageddon: the First World War experienced (1996), journal articles, and entries in The Oxford illustrated history of the First World War, the Encyclopaedia of 20th century Europe, the new Dictionary of national biography, and the Encyclopaedia of twentieth century Britain. Robin’s most recent book is his acclaimed Gallipoli: the end of the myth (published by Yale University Press and University of New South Wales Press in 2009). He is presently working on a book on Britain at war in 1940, funded by an Australian Research Council grant.
Dr Stephen Badsey (University of Wolverhampton)
Hindsight as foresight?: the August offensive and British Imperial grand strategy
‘Hindsight as foresight makes no sense’ (W.H. Auden). The August offensives at Gallipoli have been condemned in recent historiography as a futile waste of life, or at best as a tragic missed opportunity. Inevitably, modern historians have seen these events from the perspective of today’s separate nationalities, and especially from the perspective of the common soldiers on both sides. However, these were not the perspectives and preoccupations of the time. The decisions and events which led to the August offensives only take on clarity, and even a degree of inevitability, when viewed as part of a much wider picture. What happened on the Gallipoli ridges was first of all the product of a greater British Imperial identity, and strategic assumptions that stretched back for decades. It was also an integral part of global British (and indeed French) grand strategy, including above all a continuing attempt to avoid both a long, bloody war and a possible allied defeat. At the same time, what happened at Gallipoli in August was also the product of day-to-day political decisions and assumptions in London from April 1915 onwards, many of which were wrong in hindsight but appeared plausible or desirable at the time. Finally, the most difficult question to answer about Gallipoli is whether what was obvious with hindsight could or should have been acted upon at the time.
Stephen Badsey is Reader in Conflict Studies at the University of Wolverhampton, UK. Educated at Cambridge University, he has previously held positions at the Imperial War Museum, the BBC in London, and the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. An internationally accepted specialist on the history of military-media issues and on military doctrine, he has written or contributed to over eighty books and articles on military matters, including several on the First World War and on amphibious warfare. Among his recent books are Doctrine and reform in the British cavalry 1880–1918 (Ashgate, 2008) and The British army in battle and its image 1914–18 (Continuum, 2009). Further information may be found on his website: www.stephenbadsey.com
Mr Ashley Ekins (Australian War Memorial)
A ridge too far: the obstacles to allied victory
The costly failure of the August offensive has come to characterise the Gallipoli campaign. The poorly co-ordinated series of assaults failed to achieve the promised break-out from the northern allied positions and force a conclusive victory. All the attacking forces were halted with heavy losses, none of the vital objectives were seized, and the Turkish ground captured was negligible.
Popular accounts lay the blame for these failures on the actions or inactions of particular British commanders and the lacklustre performance of British soldiers. But there were multiple causes: deficiencies in the preparation and planning, the allocation of insufficient resources of men and materiel, logistical and intelligence lapses, and an underestimation of Turkish military capabilities, all contributed. Above all, allied commanders’ misconceptions about the terrain of the Gallipoli Peninsula hamstrung their planning and the chances of success. Many of their misunderstandings about the strategic and tactical advantages of the chosen objectives, and the feasibility of allied plans to capture and hold them, have been perpetuated in historical accounts to the present day.
This paper will examine whether the key objectives of the August offensive actually offered the opportunities for victory claimed by senior commanders and their staff; and whether the constraints imposed by the terrain, available forces, resources, and weapons systems negated any realistic opportunities for exploitation. These remain crucial questions for a proper understanding the Gallipoli campaign.
Ashley Ekins is Head of the Military History Section at the Australian War Memorial. A graduate of the University of Adelaide, he has worked as a military historian with the Memorial since 1989, specialising in the history of the First World War and the Vietnam War. He is the co-author (with the late Dr Ian McNeill) of two volumes of the The Official History of Australian Involvement in Southeast Asian Conflicts 1948-1975 dealing with the Australian Army in the Vietnam War: On the Offensive (2003), and Fighting to the Finish (forthcoming 2011). He has published widely on the role of Australian soldiers in the First World War and contributed chapters to a number of books, including most recently 1918 year of victory: the end of the Great War and the shaping of history (2010), a collection he compiled and edited from the Australian War Memorial’s international history conference in 2008. He has studied the Gallipoli campaign extensively and visited Gallipoli on some twenty occasions to explore the battlefields with Turkish, Australian and British historians. He researched and wrote the popular pocket Guide to the battlefields, cemeteries and memorials of the Gallipoli peninsula (fourth edition, 2008). Ashley is presently completing a comprehensive study of military discipline and punishment in the Australian army of the First World War.
Mr Peter Burness (Australian War Memorial)
By bomb and bayonet: the attacks from Lone Pine to the Nek
In August 1915 the British attempted to revitalise the stalled Gallipoli campaign and regain the initiative on the battlefield. A fresh offensive was launched from the ANZAC positions with a view of taking Chunuk Bair and Hill 971, crowning the heights of the Sari Bair Ridge. Little is remembered in Australia today of this time beyond the names of battles such as Lone Pine and the Nek. Indeed, Lone Pine is celebrated as a success. But these attacks, and the ones between them – at Pope’s Hill, Quinn’s Post, and German Officers’ Trench – were only intended to provide a diversion or give support to the main efforts on the heights. Yet at each place men charged into heavy machine-gun and rifle fire and their casualties were appalling.
Overall the August offensive achieved little. Despite numerous brave efforts and terrible losses, the results were limited and brought no strategic advantage. After this nothing more was possible and by December evacuations of the peninsula commenced. Today the tragedy of the August fighting is evident in a string of cemeteries from Lone Pine to Chunuk Bair.
By bomb and bayonet is an examination of the series of attacks from Lone Pine to the Nek, the futility of which epitomise the campaign.
Peter Burness is a senior historian at the Australian War Memorial where he has worked since 1973. Formerly Head of the Military Heraldry and Technology Section and more recently senior curator in the Exhibitions Section, he has been involved in numerous travelling, temporary, and permanent exhibitions. He has a special interest in the First World War and for the past 15 years has led the Memorial’s annual battlefield tours to the Western Front. Peter has published numerous articles on Australians in the Great War, the colonial period and other conflicts, as well as entries for the Oxford companion to Australian history, the Oxford companion to Australian military history, and more than 20 entries to the Australian dictionary of biography. More recently he wrote four of the volumes of the Department of Veterans’ Affairs Australians on the Western Front series and writes regularly for the Memorial’s journal Wartime. Peter is also the author of the The Nek: the tragic charge of the Light Horse at Gallipoli (1996).Recently he was curator of a series of First World War 90th anniversary exhibitions, and concept leader for Over the front: the Great War in the air. He is currently working on the redevelopment of the Hall of Valour and will shortly commence a range of projects culminating in the Gallipoli centenary.
Dr Peter Pedersen (Australian War Memorial)
“I thought I could command men”: Monash and the assault on Hill 971
Monash’s performance as commander of the Australian Corps in 1918 has justly earned him the accolade of Australia’s greatest general. His performance as commander of the 4th Brigade on Gallipoli in 1915 is often considered mediocre at best. Lying at the very heart of that assessment is Monash’s handling of his brigade’s advance on Hill 971 during the breakout from ANZAC on the night of 6 August. His alleged utterance, I thought I could command men, when the advance disintegrated, has been dredged up time and again as evidence of a breakdown under the stress of close combat. But was it? This paper examines the advance and its context. It also probes Monash’s role in the less well known but even bigger debacle on 8 August, when the 4th Brigade again tried for Hill 971, and in the mismanaged attacks on Hill 60 a fortnight later. The conclusion looks at how these experiences shaped Monash’s approach to the higher command that he exercised later on.
Peter Pedersen joined the Military History Section at the Australian War Memorial as a Senior Historian in 2008. He has written seven books on the First World War and contributions to several others, as well as numerous articles on campaigns from the Second World War, the Vietnam War, and battlefields and military and aviation museums worldwide. He has guided many tours to the Western Front and other battlefields in Europe and Asia, which included leading and organising the first British tour to Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam. A graduate of the Royal Military College, Duntroon, the Australian Command and Staff College, and the University of New South Wales, he commanded the 5th/7th Battalion, the Royal Australian Regiment, and was a political/strategic analyst in the Australian Office of National Assessments. Peter’s publications include Monash as a military commander (1985), Images of Gallipoli (1988), Hamel (2003), Fromelles (2004), Villers-Bretonneux (2004), The Anzacs: Gallipoli to the Western Front (Penguin, 2007; paperback edition, 2010) and Anzacs at War (2010). He is currently preparing a comprehensive guide to the ANZAC battlefields on the Western Front.
Dr John Tonkin-Covell (Massey University, New Zealand)
“From the uttermost ends of the earth”: the New Zealand battle for Chunuk Bair
This paper concerns the fight for the Chunuk Bair position by New Zealand and British infantry and New Zealand Mounted Rifles during the August offensive. It covers the battle as it was planned, the futility of that plan (and the implications), the actual battle that developed, and its abrupt end. The operational command and control of the New Zealand forces comes under consideration, and while Malone features in this, the unsung role of Meldrum also comes into play. A provisional answer is given to the question of what comes out of this battle, which this presenter contends was lost before the first New Zealand soldier began to move out of the ANZAC area.
John Tonkin-Covell is Senior Lecturer Strategic Studies at the New Zealand Army's Military Studies Institute. He is a defence civilian in the New Zealand Defence Force. He is also a Senior Teaching Fellow at Massey University's Centre for Defence Studies. He has been with the Military Studies Institute since 1994, and has been involved with the development of tertiary education within the NZ Army and NZDF. He teaches in the areas of strategic studies and military history. His doctoral thesis was on New Zealand’s intelligence organisations during the Second World War. He is writing a book on Chunuk Bair (to be published by Exisle Press). His other project is a book on the Republic of Fiji Military Forces from its beginnings to 2014 (to be published in 2015).
Mr Kenan Çelik OAM (formerly of Onsekiz Mart University, Çanakkale, Turkey)
“There will be no retreating” (Colonel Mustafa Kemal): Turkish soldiers’ reactions to the August offensive
In August 1915, Turkish soldiers on Gallipoli faced their toughest test of the entire campaign. British and allied forces, reinforced with five fresh divisions and reinforcements from the dominions, threw their combined strength into a massive series of assaults aimed at breaking the deadlock. The Turkish defenders eventually prevailed but the course and outcome of the August offensives left many questions unanswered. How did the headquarters of the Turkish 5th Army deployed on Gallipoli get wind of the planned allied attack before August? How much did Turkish commanders know or deduce about allied intentions? Did they anticipate the principal break out operation from the north of ANZAC? How did Turkish commanders, particularly Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, react to the allied offensive? What were the Turkish senior commanders’ overall impressions of the allied attacks and their impact on the Turkish forces? Was the Turkish victory in August decisive or merely another Pyrrhic victory which came at too great a cost for the defenders? Can we compare the relative leadership, bravery, and endurance of Turkish soldiers, especially their commanders, to the qualities of allied soldiers and commanders? Was American General George S. Patton right in his praise of the Turkish leadership in the August offensive? These and other important questions will be addressed in this paper, based on an examination of Turkish commanders’ accounts and Turkish operational sources over many years. The answers illuminate many aspects of Turkish soldiers’ experiences, which remained virtually unknown to allied troops on the other side of no man’s land.
Kenan Çelik is one of Turkey’s leading experts on the Gallipoli campaign. For over 25 years he has worked as a professional guide to the battlefields of the Gallipoli Peninsula and has acquired an exhaustive knowledge of the significant historical sites of the region. After completing his education in Turkey, Kenan studied under a Fulbright scholarship at Oregon State University in the USA. He was awarded an MA degree in English literature for his work on British Edwardian poet Rupert Brooke, who famously died en route to Gallipoli in 1915. Since retiring in 2001 from his position as a lecturer in English language and literature at Onsekiz Mart (“18th of March”) University in Çanakkale, Kenan has devoted himself full-time to guiding visitors over the Gallipoli battlefields and writing accounts of various aspects of the campaign. He has shared his knowledge of the battlefields and the events of 1915 with tens of thousands of people from all walks of life, guiding Australian and New Zealand back-packers and heads of state, prime ministers, presidents, and service chiefs from Britain, Commonwealth countries, and other nations. He has also been historical consultant to historians and researchers, and appeared in numerous documentary film and television programs. In 2000, Kenan was a visiting scholar at the Australian War Memorial. In that year he was also awarded an honorary Order of Australia, in recognition of his services to Australian history and Australian–Turkish relations.
Day 2 - Friday 6 August 2010
Professor Holger Afflerbach (University of Leeds)
“Only one per cent of our own strength”? The Turkish alliance and the defence of the Dardanelles from the perspective of the German headquarters
A high ranking German officer wrote in 1914: “Turkey has only one per cent of our own strength. Well! This is quite nothing!” This disdainful judgement was quite normal. German army officers did not give much credit to their Turkish brothers in arms. Only the few who were serving as commanders and advisers in the Ottoman army occasionally had different views. The direct German involvement at the Dardanelles operations included General Liman von Sanders, commander of the defences of the Straits, and some 100 German advisers and commanders. This paper examines whether the German leaders believed that the allied attack on the Dardanelles constituted a vital threat to Germany’s interests. It will explore the military as well as political responses they considered in reacting to this threat, evaluate the real importance of the German–Turkish alliance, and the significance of the defence of the Dardanelles within the overall German war strategy. A second aim is to show some of the structures of German–Turkish military and political cooperation, relating them to both strategic questions and attitudes between allies.
Holger Afflerbach is Professor and Chair of Central European History at the University of Leeds. He was awarded his PhD by the Heinrich-Heine-Universität in Düsseldorf, Germany. Before coming to Leeds, he taught at the Heinrich-Heine-University, was Alexander-von-Humboldt-research fellow in Austria and from 2002 to 2006 was Professor of Modern German History at Emory University in Atlanta, USA. Holger specialises in late nineteenth and twentieth century German history; international relations, especially from Bismarck to the First World War; military history, particularly both World Wars; and modern Austrian and Italian history. Among his publications are his biography of the Prussian War Minister and Chief of General Staff, Falkenhayn (Munich 1994, second edition 1996); his study of the Triple Alliance, entitled Der Dreibund. Europäische Grossmacht und Allianzpolitik vor dem ersten Weltkrieg (Vienna 2002); and a history of the Atlantic Ocean, Das entfesselte Meer (Munich, 2002). He also edited sources from the German Headquarters in the First World War: Kaiser Wilhelm II als Oberster Kriegsherr während des Ersten Weltkrieges—Quellen aus der militärischen Umgebung des Kaisers (Munich, 2005). His edited volume on the outbreak of the war, An improbable war? the outbreak of World War I and European political culture before 1914 (edited together with Professor David Stevenson of the London School of Economics), was published in 2007. His latest works are an edited volume, together with Professor Hew Strachan of Oxford University, on the history of surrender, How fighting ends: a history of surrender (OUP, forthcoming 2011); and his own book on the history of surrender. Holger has also published some 60 articles and essays and numerous reviews.
Mr Harvey Broadbent (Macquarie University)
“No room for any lapses in concentration” (General Esat Pasha, 11 August 1915): Ottoman commanders’ responses to the August offensive in the Anzac sector
The failure of the allied August offensive cannot be put down to bad planning and poor execution alone. The manner of the Turkish defence of the heights played its part though to date we know relatively little about the details of their defence planning and operations over and above the general movements. Recently accessed Ottoman military archival documents from 1915 and memoirs of Turkish commanders translated into English by the Macquarie University-Australian War Memorial research project (assisted by the Australian Research Council) are now providing such detail and greatly enhancing our understanding of the events of early August 1915 at Gallipoli. They illustrate Ottoman tactics and record their commanders’ concerns and reactions. They also help to answer such questions as how close to success Generals Godley and Birdwood actually came in the offensive; whether Generals von Sanders and Esat Pasha had an overall plan of defence; how important successful operations from Suvla Bay might have been in achieving a break-out from ANZAC; and whether control of the heights might actually have resulted in control of the Straits.
Harvey Broadbent is Senior Research Fellow in Modern History at Macquarie University, directing a research project centred on the Turkish military archives and the Gallipoli Campaign in partnership with the Australian War Memorial. He is the author of two books on the Gallipoli Campaign, Gallipoli, the fatal shore, an illustrated account (Penguin-Viking Books, Melbourne, 2005), and The boys who came home: Recollections of Gallipoli (ABC Books, 1990, 2nd edition 2000). Harvey was born and raised in Manchester, England and graduated with Honours in Near Eastern Studies from the University of Manchester in 1974, where his major study was Turkish language, history and culture. He reads and speaks Turkish fluently, has lived in Turkey from time to time, and visits the country professionally every year. For 22 years he worked as a TV and radio producer and executive producer for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, producing four documentaries about the Gallipoli Campaign and specialising in historical documentaries, especially about the Mediterranean and Australasian regions. Harvey continues to produce regular programs as a freelance producer.
Colonel Dr Frédéric Guelton (French Military Archives, Vincennes)
French–British relations during the August offensive: insights from the observations of a French liaison officer
At the time of the organisation of the French Corps expeditionnaire d’Orient on Gallipoli, Major de Bertier was appointed to the British staff as an agent de liaison (liaison officer). In this appointment, he was directly subordinate to the section d’Afrique of the French General Staff (EMA, Etat-major de l’Armée) under Colonel Hamelin. Between 11 April and 29 December 1915, in addition to his official reports, Major de Bertier sent 29 handwritten letters to Colonel Hamelin, amounting to some 250 pages, and 20 maps or sketches. These letters provide a direct, on the spot, unofficial and “human” perception of events in the Gallipoli campaign, as Major Bertier covered a wide field of issues, ranging from diplomacy to tactics and individual military behaviour. This presentation will first provide a general perspective on these letters to establish the context in which Major de Bertier operated and reported. It will then examine the way he described and interpreted the allied forces, from General Sir Ian Hamilton to the youngest officer or soldier. He described the harsh realities of the army, the multinational force, the high command, and war and death. The particular focus will be the August Offensive, planned in an “absolute silence, with which General Bailloud puts up impatiently” (letter no. 15, 29 July). Major de Bertier, in his personal opinions written between 9 and 10 August, at first speaks highly of the soldiers, is very severe in his judgement of the British command, and finally gives his own assessment as a former student at the École de guerre (War College).
Frédéric Guelton is Chief of the Department of the Land Army at the French Military Archives, Vincennes, and editor in chief of La revue historique des armées (The army historical review). Colonel Guelton also teaches the history of international relations at l’Institute d’etudes politiques (Institute of Political Studies) in Paris; military history at the military academy at Saint-Cyr ,where he is an associate professor; and he is a member of the advisory committee of the doctoral school of the University of Paris IV at the Sorbonne. He received his doctorate from the University of Paris I, with an honourable mention for his thesis on General Weygand in the inter-war period. Colonel Guelton has published eleven books as well as over 120 articles and individual chapters on many diverse aspects of military history, international relations and military command, especially during the First World War period.
Note: Unfortunately, Dr Guelton will be unable to attend the conference due to pressing personal circumstances. With his agreement, his paper will be delivered by Dr Elizabeth Greenhalgh who is an authority on French military forces and command in the First World War.
Dr Elizabeth Greenhalgh (University of New South Wales, ADFA)
Elizabeth Greenhalgh is a Research Fellow in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences in the University of New South Wales at the Australian Defence Force Academy. She has published a number of articles on the 1916 Battle of the Somme, as well as on wider questions regarding the Franco-British coalition in such journals as Historical Journal, International History Review, Journal of Contemporary History, Journal of Military History, and War in History. She is the author of Victory Through Coalition: Britain and France During the First World War (2005). Her study of the military command of Marshal Ferdinand Foch, the supreme allied commander in 1918, is due to be published by Cambridge University Press later this year. Currently she is working on two projects: a study of the French Army during the Great War, and an analysis of how the Allies won in 1918.
Squadron Leader Rana Chhina (Retd) (Centre for Armed Forces Historical Research, United Service Institution of India)
Their mercenary calling: the Indian army on Gallipoli
Units of the Indian army were an integral part of British Empire forces engaged throughout the Gallipoli campaign. Indian mountain gun batteries served in the ANZAC area from the Landing on 25 April and Australian official historian Charles Bean recorded their fine fighting qualities. During the August offensive, Indian soldiers were involved in operations with Australian, British and New Zealand units, notably during the multi-pronged assault on the Sari Bair ridge when troops of the Gurkha Rifles captured and briefly held Hill Q, the highest point attained by allied forces. Notwithstanding this contribution, India was still agitating for Dominion status when the war ended. The lack of a political identity served to rob Indian soldiers not just of an acknowledgement of their role, or of a commemoration of their sacrifice, but also of their place in history. This talk will examine who these soldiers were, what they did on Gallipoli and how this stood in the context of the larger backdrop of global events connected with the Great War, as well as political developments and their social impact in India. Drawing on official records, regimental war diaries, and private papers, it will aim to provide a belated acknowledgement of a forgotten legion, those Indian soldiers who contributed an extensive footnote to an event that became the cornerstone of the formation of an Australian national consciousness.
Rana Chhina served in the Indian Air Force as a helicopter pilot. A qualified flying instructor, he saw active service in operations on the Siachen Glacier, with the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) in Sri Lanka, and in counter-insurgency operations in Mizoram and Nagaland. A recipient of the prestigious MacGregor Medal for best military reconnaissance in 1986, he had the distinction of carrying out the highest landing in the world by a medium-lift class of helicopter. A keen military historian, he was responsible for organising the Indian Air Force archives at Air Headquarters. He is currently Secretary and Editor of the United Service Institution of India Centre for Armed Forces Historical Research, and Vice President of the Indian Military Historical Society in the UK. Squadron Leader Chhina’s main field of interest is colonial Indian military history. He is the author of five books, the latest of which is Medals and decorations of independent India, a study of India’s post-Independence military and civil honours and awards. His previous works include: The Indian Air Force memorial book, a consolidated account of battle casualties of the Indian Air Force from 1932to 1996; a monograph on the pre-independence gallantry award The Indian Distinguished Service Medal; The eagle strikes: the Royal Indian Air Force at war 1932–1950; and The Indian Army: an illustrated overview. In addition, he has edited a number of official war histories, the latest being For the honour of India: a history of Indian peacekeeping, by Lieutenant General Satish Nambiar. Rana Chhina is married, with two sons, and lives in New Delhi.
Mr Rhys Crawley (Australian National University)
Supplying the offensive: the role of allied logistics
Logistics is an important component of war. While logistic supremacy does not necessarily lead to success, it is clear that supplies, however insignificant they may appear, can and often do have a direct impact on the success (or failure) of a battle. The potential of an offensive to succeed, especially a prolonged one like the August offensive, therefore rests upon the logistical and administrative systems that support it. Given the dearth of studies into allied logistics on Gallipoli, this paper will provide a broad understanding of the complexities associated with supplying the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force during August 1915 – as well as an understanding of the problems faced, and an assessment of the level that the allies were successful, and whether the August offensive was a logistically viable operation of war.
Rhys Crawley is an historian with an honours degree in history from the University of Wollongong. In 2007 he was selected as an annual summer scholar at the Australian War Memorial, before commencing his PhD at the University of New South Wales (University College, Australian Defence Force Academy). His research is a re-evaluation of the plans, preparations, limitations, and potential of the August offensive. Rhys has recently taken up a position in the Strategic Defence Studies Centre at the Australian National University.
Dr Janda Gooding (Australian War Memorial)
Walking the ground: Gallipoli revisited
Charles Bean, Australia’s official war correspondent, accompanied Australian troops throughout the First World War from the landing on Gallipoli in 1915 to the armistice in Europe in late 1918. Central to his reporting of events was his commitment to create as “truthful” a record of Australia’s involvement in the war as possible. For him, truth would be found in detailed research of military events. But it would also be revealed through photographic images that recorded all aspects of the battlefield landscapes, and works of art that conveyed something of the drama and emotional intensity of the events that had become so familiar to Australians. In early 1919 he had an opportunity to revisit Gallipoli and take with him a talented Australian artist, George Lambert, and a highly experienced photographer, Hubert Wilkins, to make a visual record of the battlefields which would help Australians understand the disastrous campaign. This presentation will briefly outline the group’s work on Gallipoli in 1919 and focus on material related to incidents at the Nek in August 1915. In particular, the role of art, photography, and history in revealing the personal and tragic stories associated with the Gallipoli campaign will be discussed.
Janda Gooding is Head of the Photographs, Film, Sound and Multimedia section at the Australian War Memorial. She has previously been the Senior Curator of Art at the Memorial, and from 1979 to 2005 a curator at the Art Gallery of Western Australia. She is the author of eight books and winner of numerous awards, including the Gordon Darling Foundation Travel Grant 2007, a Yale Centre for British Art Visiting Fellowship 1998, and the Harold Wright and William Holmes Scholar at the British Museum 1991. Her most recent book, Gallipoli revisited: in the footsteps of Charles Bean and the Australian Historical Mission, traces the work of the principal participants of the Australian Historical Mission to Gallipoli in 1919.
Professor Robert O’Neill AO (former Chichele Professor of the History of War, University of Oxford)
Gallipoli: foreshadowing future conflicts
The Dardanelles operations of 1914–15 foreshadowed later conflicts in several significant ways: they pitted forces of the Christian West against those of the Moslem East; Western operations were founded on the illusion that the East would prove weak and crumble, allowing resolute invaders from afar to assert their will; and it was assumed that because Western sea power was the stronger, coastal bombardment and amphibious operations would be swiftly and economically effective.
The British Government underestimated the calibre of its enemy at the Dardanelles. It overestimated the effectiveness of its battle fleet and it had very little concept of operations once troops were landed on Turkish beaches. It failed to pay heed to the strategic consequences of its recent policies in that region to strengthen the very Turkish defences that it proceeded to attack. Hasty action led it to make enemies unnecessarily, and thereby weaken its position in the Middle East as a whole.
Nonetheless some important lessons were learned from the Dardanelles debacle, especially in the demanding techniques of amphibious warfare, that were to prove valuable in the Second World War. But other military undertakings more recently have shown all too little regard for the strength of determined indigenous defenders in the face of foreign attacks. It is time to re-examine our own military experience more rigorously, so that resources, when they have to be applied, can be used more effectively.
Robert O’Neill has a long and distinguished career and is presently Chairman of the International Academic Advisory Committee for the US Studies Centre at the University of Sydney. Professor O'Neill was the founding Head of the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at the Australian National University, 1971–1982, and subsequently Director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. From 1987 he was Chichele Professor of the History of War and a Fellow of All Souls College, University of Oxford, until he retired in September 2001. He was also Chairman of the Council of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, London, 1996–2001; Chairman of Trustees of the Imperial War Museum 1997–2001; a director of the International Peace Academy, New York, 1990–2001; Chairman of the Council of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) in Canberra, 2001–2005; and Deputy Chair of the Council of the Graduate School of Government at the University of Sydney, 2002–2005. His long list of publications includes the official history of Australia’s involvement in the Korean War, which was published in two volumes, Strategy and diplomacy (1981) and Combat operations (1985). He was also general editor of the re-issued twelve-volume series, The Official History of Australia in the War of 1914–1918 (University of Queensland Press in association with the Australian War Memorial, 1981–1989).
Robert O’Neill made the first of his several visits to the Gallipoli battlefields in 1963 and subsequently taught and analysed the Dardanelles campaign during the course of his distinguished career as an historian and strategic analyst. Among his many activities as Chichele Professor of the History of War at the University of Oxford, he taught a course on the Dardanelles campaign for fourteen years.
This conference was convened by the Australian War Memorial. The support of the Australian Government through the Department of Veterans’ Affairs is gratefully acknowledged.
