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Churchill and the Dardanelles

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In 1915, Winston Churchill's political career was nearly destroyed when the Allied fleet failed to force a passage through the Straits of the Dardanelles. For over a century, Churchill has been both praised and condemned for his role in launching this highly controversial naval campaign. For some, the Dardanelles offensive was a brilliant concept that might have dramatically shortened the First World War. To many others, however, Churchill was a reckless amateur who drove his unwilling and misinformed colleagues into a venture that was doomed to fail.
Churchill and the Dardanelles, based on exhaustive archival research, provides a detailed and authoritative account of the Gallipoli campaign's origins and execution, stripping away the layers of myth that have long surrounded these dramatic events, and showing that no simple verdict is either possible or fair. Naval historian Christopher M. Bell untangles Churchill's complicated relationship with the dynamic First Sea Lord, Admiral Jacky Fisher, and reveals for the first time the behind-the-scenes machinations that led to Churchill's removal from office as First Lord of the Admiralty - including Fisher's covert campaign to undermine support for the Dardanelles operation, and the leaks by figures in high places that fueled a bitter press campaign to drive Churchill from power.
Attention is also given to Churchill's reaction to the results of the Dardanelles offensive in the years that followed: as Bell shows, Churchill spent a good deal of time trying to refute his critics and convince the wider public that the campaign had in fact nearly succeeded. These efforts were so successful that they transformed how the Dardanelles offensive was regarded in popular memory and ensured that is legacy did not stand in the way of Churchill becoming Prime Minister in May 1940. Now, with the aid of archival research, Christopher M. Bell presents a fresh account of how this transformation came to pass.

464 pages, Hardcover

First published May 23, 2017

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About the author

Christopher M. Bell

7 books7 followers
Christopher M. Bell is Professor of History at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. In addition to numerous articles on naval history, he is the author of Churchill and the Dardanelles (Oxford University Press, 2017), Churchill and Sea Power (Oxford University Press, 2012) and The Royal Navy, Seapower and Strategy between the Wars (Stanford University Press, 2000), and co-editor of Naval Mutinies of the Twentieth Century: An International Perspective (2003) and At the Crossroads Between Peace and War: The London Naval Conference of 1930 (2014).

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Profile Image for Bevan Lewis.
113 reviews25 followers
April 9, 2017
My grandfather fought for New Zealand in World War 2 in the Mediterranean theatre. As I began to learn about the conflict (largely from a wonderful National Radio series tracing World War 2 events fifty years earlier broadcast each week) I gained an impression of Churchill’s role as a God like figure who had inspired Britain into a heroic fight alone against Nazi tyranny. I was therefore surprised when asking my grandfather about Churchill to learn that he was a pommy toff who callously sent New Zealanders into dangerous situations (e.g. Greece, Crete) with little hope of survival. Yet my grandfather’s brother waxed lyrical about the wonderful British Army and the genius of Churchill. This was a vivid representation of the division inspired by Churchill.
The division is unsurprising. In politics it seems that only the mediocre enjoy a lack of vitriol - although this is usually because they are forgotten altogether. Names like Alex Douglas-Home, Ramsay MacDonald and most of the Presidents of the USA in the late nineteenth century don’t arouse passions or overburden bookshelves with biographies. By contrast those who take bold action inevitably excite controversy. Not all in society benefit from dramatic changes - Margaret Thatcher, Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan have left their names in the history books for the scale of transformation during their time in power, and a legacy of debate as their legacy lives on. Clement Attlee must be one of the few transformative leaders who has largely avoided vitriol, although Churchill’s comments about his mediocrity perhaps rate a mention (or are they an explanation?).
Winston Churchill could scarcely have avoided controversy. His forceful and dynamic style, desire for action and attainment of high office at two of the most critical points in the history of the twentieth century in and of themselves made this likely. However his extraordinary awareness of his historic legacy, and literary contributions to his legend took this to another level. The number of archives and academic organisations dedicated to ongoing study of his career as well as the sheer volume of written material about him surely must only be exceeded by Hitler (and possibly Stalin).
Christopher M. Bell is a naval historian who has already written a well received history of Churchill’s naval strategy in World War II, Churchill & Sea Power. In this book he backtracks to the important events early in World War I which were to have such a profound impact on Churchill’s career. The view that Churchill’s legacy (certainly not a legend) could be adjudged ambivalent looking back in 1939 is well justified by an examination of the events of 1915 and their aftermath. The Dardanelles put a blot on Churchill’s reputation which lasted for years, and highlights just how extraordinary his rise to power in 1940 was. Bell’s combination of an understanding of naval strategy and his attention to the politics is a valuable combination. War is a multi-layered as well as multi-theatred beast, especially a complex expansive war such as the Great War. It is insufficient in looking at Churchill’s part in the Dardanelles to look at the military history alone, or equally only at machinations in Whitehall. The strategic imperatives, the competing demands for action and the resource constraints all play their role in the decision making process.
The most recent work focussing on the Dardanelles, Tom Curran’s The Grand Deception: Churchill and the Dardanelles unapologetically took the line that Churchill was a dangerous amateur who overruled his subordinates and was obsessed with conquering the Dardanelles by naval action alone. In his conclusion he even claims that without Churchill’s actions, Kitchener and the Admiralty might have planned a successful joint operation for the middle of 1915 and successfully taken Gallipoli.
In contrast with Curran’s work, Churchill and the Dardanelles provides a sophisticated history of Churchill’s involvement in the campaign. Carefully analysing the evidence Bell does not let Churchill off the hook for his faults, however provides a much more nuanced view of the campaign. He casts doubt on the school of thought that the campaign was really one of the great strategic conceptions of the war, whilst also demolishing most of the claims that Churchill concealed the reservations of the Admiralty and pushed through a foolish plan by force of personality.
The two sides of the controversy - the amateur strategist who concealed opposition to his plan, or the man with a brilliant idea to overcome the stalemate on the western front let down by poor execution - both have problems when it comes to proving them methodologically. The former line was actually developed during World War I based on gossip, selectively leaked information (including from Lord Fisher who was a cunning if erratic political ‘player’) and whose political motivation saw no issues with slandering Churchill without an evidential basis. Curran and others since have propagated the same view since through selectively using or misreading evidence, and failing to critically analyse self serving testimony at the Dardanelles Commission which reviewed the campaign in 1916/17. The latter line depends largely on the legend Churchill and his supporters developed after the war, particularly in the influential series of books The World Crisis, 1911-1918 by Churchill which not only shaped interpretation of the campaign but also provided one of the few sources of contemporary documents until the 1960s.
The main issue with Churchill’s interpretation is that the Straits were not about to become passable even if the forts did run out of ammunition, and that he ignores the problem of mobile guns, howitzers and minefields which had not been suppressed. Bell comments that “his unwillingness to acknowledge the many obstacles to a successful resumption of the naval offensive suggests there was a strong element of self-delusion at work.” Additionally the strategic benefits were based on a pretty jaundiced view of the Ottomans as a ‘sick man’ ready to collapse from Revolution at any minute. This was a widely held view however.
I think the core aspect of Churchill's character is that at heart he was a man of action. “You can’t make omelets without breaking eggs” applies - those who are dynamic and refuse to accept the status quo will always court controversy and take risks, dealing with the unknowable future. It is easy in hindsight to argue the risk was too great, but comparing the losses on the western front with those at the Dardanelles and Gallipoli and taking into account the potential benefits of victory, it is difficult to argue that the whole campaign was completely futile. As Bell clearly points out, Churchill certainly didn’t overrule his advisers and a full (albeit flawed) plan was worked out by the Admiralty. What is much more notable is the lack of strategic direction from the Prime Minister Asquith, poor decision making processes and Kitchener’s non-consultative style. Churchill was certainly forceful and over optimistic. I found this quote illuminating: ‘You know what Winston is’, remarked Herbert Creedy, the Permanent Under-Secretary at the War Office. ‘At a conference he talks everyone else into a jelly and then goes away saying that everyone agreed with him.’ The leading British politicians and Admiralty figures certainly would need their competence questioned however if this deterred them from properly critiquing his plans and priorities. The evidence of other proposed operations such as Borkum indicates that in fact they could critique and oppose Churchill. In the case of the Dardanelles to varying extents they did support the operation.
The evidence of late 1914 and early 1915 also doesn’t support the characterisation of Churchill as an ‘Easterner’. He was only attracted to the Dardanelles operation because the initial stakes were low. Peter Hart in Gallipoli makes the mistake of believing that Churchill was an easterner, “sucked into the fatal trap of thinking that their project was all-important”. In fact Bell shows that the operation did not leave Admiral Jellicoe exposed in the North Sea, nor did it leave Sir John French denuded. Churchill also continued to recognise the importance of the North Sea. In fact as hindsight shows the operations in 1915 on the western front were futile. The idea of devoting resources outside of the western front was not fundamentally flawed. Bell does show though that the difficulties at the Dardanelles were underestimated (more at the professional naval level) and most importantly the escalation was not foreseen, planned adequately or coordinated effectively. Churchill played a part, but only a part, in these inadequacies.
Perhaps though the most important thing to be said about Churchill was that he had the determination and self assurance to overcome the grave doubts about his competence and judgement that existed in 1915 (rightly or wrongly) and the strength of character to position himself for high office again in 1940 in a role that has to be seen as critical to Britain prosecuting the war, standing alone following Dunkirk. If this were to be his only legacy, it would be a powerful one.
Profile Image for Alex.
238 reviews61 followers
September 13, 2022
Did Churchill conceive a brilliant plan that was only marred by poor execution? Or was it a flawed design foisted upon politicians by a deluded man with unparalleled powers of persuasion? Some of both? Neither?

Finding the answer is Bell's sole focus, and he is both persistent and thorough. You can picture him sitting at a library table day after day for months on end pouring over the archives, piecing together who said what. While the outcome of the event is an unquestioned failure, it's difficult to write much in a review about what Bell uncovers as to the causes of that failure without divulging spoilers. I'll therefore limit it to this: I went into this book with preconceptions. Some were validated, others overturned, and in all, I learned much. Is that not a measure of a book's success?

The book can be neatly divided into five acts.

The opening act reads as a great Who Dunnit. It throws us right into the action—planning the campaign and carrying it out—and lays out the various possibilities as to who was responsible for what transpired (Was it Colonel Mustard in the Billiard Room with a knife? Or Miss Scarlett in the Dining Room with with a candlestick?) The fast start is welcomed. Bell heeds that old bit of wisdom which is to never start a funeral with logistics.

Act II is the soap opera which immediately followed the endeavor. It's a drama dripping with egotism, hyper-emotionalism, overreactions, and petty bickering to the point of nausea as politicians fight to clear their own record at the expense of others, chiefly Churchill.

Then comes the Parliamentary investigation, which is ostensibly an inquiry into the operation but is in reality Churchill's tribunal.

Act IV. Swords are laid down and pens taken up. Many of those involved write their versions of the history in an attempt to shape—and even craft—the narrative through a series of articles and memoirs. Of these, Churchill's are of course most well-known, being published as The World Crisis.

Finally, Act V, the Conclusion. This is one of the book's strengths. It's an absolutely fantastic synthesis of the whole ordeal. The Dardanelles was not merely a naval campaign. It was inescapably bound up with politics on the one side and military (i.e. army landing at Gallipoli) on the other, and it's all such a densely wooded forest that it's easy to get lost. Bell's concluding chapter plucks you up and sets you on higher ground where you can take in the panoramic view.

This division into five acts would be evident to any reader, but it isn't explicitly done by Bell. It is admittedly a bit of legwork I did on my own to manufacture a more enthralling environment while reading. The writing isn't dry per se, but it is rather vanilla. Bell repeats a formula which is something like, 'There were three reasons for this... First... Second... Finally...,' and it's all stitched together by a heavy use of 'furthermores' and 'moreovers'. But you must remember the book's purpose. It is not intended to sit in the front window of Waterstones with mass popular appeal to a general audience. It takes up a single narrow issue. It’s aimed at those with prior knowledge of Churchill, and who have an interest in what really happened with the Dardanelles Affair. If that is you, you'll enjoy Bell's work.
Profile Image for Deanna Foster.
Author 9 books11 followers
August 24, 2017
Bell’s “Churchill and the Dardanelles” is a brilliant work of history and an absolute pleasure to read. He has masterfully woven exhaustive history with a readable narrative that will appease both experts in the field and the general public looking for a great history book. His use of primary sources leaves little room to dispute what he has presented. But he gives the readers more than just a telling of the facts. He brings Churchill to life in a way that makes him relatable. There are dashes of humour, and I laughed out loud a few times while reading it.

One of the strengths of the work is that it is not trying to simplify the events and give a black or white verdict of the campaign. Churchill is shown in his triumph and fall; there are times when you are cheering for him, others when you are frustrated with him. An avid Churchill scholar, Bell is able to put aside his fandom for Winston to provide the best unbiased account. It would be exceedingly difficult for anyone to dispute this research.

This book has proven that Bell is not only a great historian, but also a great author. In the last chapter, as he is starting to draw his conclusions about what really happened, he states that “other than … military and naval historians, it seems that barely anyone has noticed.” With the release of this enjoyable read, I believe many more people will now notice
Author 5 books5 followers
April 28, 2017
I have to say that this book transformed my thinking about Churchill's role in the Gallipoli Campaign. I have read an enormous amount about it, and have taken a team of ten people to do a battlefield tour, so I thought I knew and understood what went on. This book gripped me with it's detail and insight. Anyone who wants to understand Churchill should read it. Anyone who thinks they know about Gallipoli should read it. Thank you Christoper Bell for such an interesting and stimulating read
Profile Image for Nick Pengelley.
Author 12 books25 followers
March 20, 2018
Hard to believe this is not the final word on the subject of who did (or did not do) what in respect of the Gallipoli campaign. The idea was brilliantly conceived but suffered appallingly in the execution. Regardless of your point of view (if you have one), Christopher Bell has produced a work of outspend scholarship, eminently readable - we all know what happened, but can't resist turning the pages anyway.
78 reviews
April 3, 2020
Christopher M Bell’s day-by-day narrative of Churchill’s role in the disaster known as Gallipoli is a fact filled intriguing story with lots of personalities playing important and influential roles. Starting with Churchill’s early days as First Lord of the Admiralty through the Gallipoli campaign, a subsequent official inquiry and the post-Gallipoli memoirs and histories, Bell gives, in my estimation, a balanced view of how decisions were or weren’t made and how blame was attributed. He also describes how Churchill tried to save his legacy and how history has viewed this disaster over the past 100 years. It is a very readable history and focuses on the personalities and processes used to make war-time decisions.
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