That mad world of blood, death and fire

And another anniversary from the First World War: one hundred years ago today Allied forces landed on the Gallipoli Peninsula in an attempt to secure the Dardanelles from the Turks and open up a supply line to the Russians.

Gallipoli was the brainchild of Winston Churchill, who maintained the belief that the Mediterranean was the “soft underbelly” throughout both world wars. His “second front” was going to change everything, in 1915 and 1942.

Churchill, you understand, was an imperialist to his spinal fluid. In the First War, he had his eye on gaining territory from the tottering Ottoman Empire (and ensuring the sea lanes to India). In the Second, he was intent on maintaining the integrity of those territories the Brits had acquired in the First.

In fairness, Gallipoli was also an attempt to make a breakthrough anywhere, because nothing was happening on the Western Front except a daily mortality rate that no nation could sustain for long. Especially one that still had a volunteer military.

So they cobbled together land and sea forces and headed for the Straits. Their first attempt, a naval attack, foundered on Turkish mines. But it did alert the Ottomans that something was on the way. So they resorted to landing troops on beaches of Suvla Bay that faced German-trained Turks holding the high ground. The Allies—including large forces from Australia and New Zealand—effectively never got off the beaches. Not in nine months of fighting.

Conditions were appalling; casualties ditto. The troops were never properly supplied (arguments back in London about which front should be fully supported), except with bad commanders. When they evacuated on 7 December, they left behind 46,000 dead, with total casualties more than half of the force of 450,000 who served.  

So 25 April is commemorated in the Antipodes as ANZAC day, with a mixture of pride and bitterness, at being imperial catspaws. The song “And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda”, written by Scottish folk songwriter Eric Bogle in 1971, captures this, so I’ll leave you with the cover by The Pogues, which is as raw as a trench.