Hamilton's Concept Of Operations And Planning example essay topic

"Lions led by donkeys". Can this criticism be applied fairly to the Allied leaders responsible for the Gallipoli Campaign Discuss. The Gallipoli Campaign is recorded in British history and through popular memory as a heroic disaster: a possibly war-winning scheme that ended in complete disarray. The horror of the First World War was encapsulated in this microcosm of the wider conflict. It shared much with the Western Front in terms of the discomfort of the trenches and the stalemate that came with them. But it also had the difficulties of the amphibious nature of the operation as well as the extremes of climate that the troops experienced.

The Leadership that sent the Allied troops to the Dardenelles has often been criticised for the foolhardiness of the operation, but as the British Official Historian stated: "There is little doubt today that the idea of forcing the straits... was one of the few great strategical concepts of the world war". So why now does the whole campaign receive criticism as strong as the following With the possible exception of the Crimean War, the Gallipoli expedition was the most poorly mounted and ineptly controlled operation in modern British military history. The answer lies within the quotation itself, specifically that it was "poorly mounted and ineptly controlled". In order to demonstrate this it will be necessary to consider several levels of the "leadership" involved with the operation. Initially the political-strategical decision making must be studied as the root to the operations problems.

The Naval and Army's planning must also be scrutinised as this fundamentally doomed the troops to failure. Finally the tactical leadership must be considered in light of the situation developing on the ground and how the Turks reacted to the amphibious landings. Before scrutinizing the expedition in any detail the background of the situation must be explained so that one can have some sort of perspective on the decisions that were made. By the end of 1914 a stalemate had developed in Europe. Already, after only three full months of fighting, there were almost one million Allied casualties and a trench system that stretched three hundred and fifty miles from the North Sea to the Swiss Alps. No obvious successes were apparent in this impasse; the Allies did not even seem to be wearing down the Germans in this attritional form of warfare.

Thus within the British higher command people were looking at some form of flanking manoeuvre. Churchill and Lloyd George were keen proponents of considering alternatives other than focusing entirely on the theatre of conflict in the West. However many of the British and French General Staff were wholly resolute on attacking the Germans head-on, quite understandably so for the over-run French. As for the British, with their traditional strength lying in their Naval and expeditionary forces, one is surprised that alternatives to a continental land war were not considered more readily. For example Lord Fisher, the First Sea Lord's proposition of a Naval led invasion into Northern Germany through the Baltic.

No such plans were given much credibility by the General Staff's overwhelming desire to fight a land war. Ultimately this opposition of the General Staff was soon tempered by events in Russia. The battles of Masuria n Lakes and Tannenberg, August 1914 crippled Russia's war-fighting ability in two successive blows by the Germans. In order for the Allies to keep Germany under pressure the war had to be fought on two fronts. Those in the West were determined to prolong Russia's war efforts for as long as possible. Therefore when the British received requests for assistance from The Grand Duke Nicholas, The Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Armies, they were taken seriously.

In effect what he suggested was a naval or military demonstration in order to place pressure on the Turks who were in turn placing pressure on the Russian Army in the Caucasus. The pivotal role that the Gallipoli operation could have had can clearly be seen from this summary by Sir William Robertson: The advantages to be derived from forcing the straits were perfectly obvious. Such a success would, as the advocates of the project said, serve to secure Egypt, to induce Italy and the Balkan states to come in on our side, and, if followed by the forcing of the Bosporus, would enable Russia to draw munitions from America and Western Europe, and to export her accumulated supplies of wheat. Although a most succinct appraisal of the situation ironically Robertson opposed the scheme. This was a characteristic of the Dardenelles operation in that many people in positions of authority could see the benefits that it could potentially bring yet still they would not take their focus from Western Europe. Thus a key facet to the campaign's failure was in British high command; throughout its implementation there was a constant need to plan based on compromise.

On a strategic level the disparity between the military commanders and the political leadership of the country was immediately apparent. The political hierarchy had a broader perspective of the international situation; they realised the potential that Turkey held in the Dardenelles' position and therefore coveted it. The Military command, predominantly the Army were solely focused on the job in hand. The Turks, however, were also aware of the British need to have influence in the area.

They were also aware that Russia and Greece were only too willing to join Britain in supporting any such operation as it would allow Turkish lands to be carved up as spoils of war. A result of which would be the Russian gain of much desired access to "warm-water" ports. Due to these pressures the Turks were pushed toward German influence at a very early stage of the war because of the perceived greater threat from the Allies. The military hierarchy had, as previously suggested, been totally focused on the forces deployed in France.

Kitchener was initially resolute that he had no forces which he could possibly send eastward. A result of this was an attempt to force the straits with a purely naval operation of a combined British and French fleet during February and March 1915, as a result of the Russian call for assistance. This was not the first attempt of the war to use a naval force to attack the area of the Straits. In November 1914 the Mediterranean Squadron of the Royal Navy bombarded the forts at Send-el-bahr and Kum Kale either side of the mouth of the Dardenelles. This twenty minute action did little to the Turks other than wake them to the prospect of further, perhaps more serious attempts to force the straits. The initial plan of 1915 to try and take the Straits by a progressive bombardment whilst steadily moving up the channel.

The over-riding reason was the political aim of the operation, in that its intention was to relieve pressure on Russian military forces. What also spurred the naval project forward was the success, albeit limited, of the previous year's bombardment. The Royal Navy did recognise the land based threat that the forts held however what they failed to realise that in order to prevent the guns being repaired and brought back into action the ground had to be held. The small parties of Marines that did actually go ashore during the operation, although not necessarily for this purpose, were inadequate.

It was more through the dogmatic insistence of Churchill and Admiral Fisher in the Admiralty on the operation that had it approved, rather than any sound military planning. In fact the Admiralty and General Staff had studied proposals for attacking Turkey through the Dardenelles in 1904, 1906, 1908 and 1911 and had concluded a naval force alone could not achieve the aim. Yet still the British hierarchy allowed the operation to continue because of its strategic importance. Any chance of real success for the later joint operations were severely limited by this "compromised" attempt at action.

By 23 March 1915, after a month of attempting the naval option both Admiral de Robeck and General Sir Ian Hamilton considered the plan to have failed. Under the command of Admiral Carden, de Robeck's predecessor and originator of the plan, the fleet had lost a third of its strength: six ships in all to mines and gun-battery fire. Hamilton had been dispatched by Kitchener to aid Carden with forces drawn from the Middle East. Fundamentally this decision had been arrived at too late and this phase of the operations mounted in the area were at an end.

Again this period of action in the Dardenelles had forewarned the Turks and their German advisory command under General Liman von Sanders. So the actual landings themselves were a part of larger picture of operations which had occurred in the area of the Dardenelles. Each British engagement had escalated the level of violence and each attempt to force the Dardenelles was only just rebuffed until a full scale landing force was required to achieve any significant success. Sir Ian Hamilton was given an "Army" to conduct the Gallipoli campaign, but this was very much an army in terms of paperwork rather than experience. It consisted of a mix and match of various units from throughout the Empire.

By far the most experienced was the 29th Division which consisted of various Regular units drawn from overseas postings. As a Division they had hardly operated at all, and the operation they were about to embark on was far from the usual garrisoning activities that they were used to conducting. After the 29th the only other unit with any real prior experience was the Royal Navy Division. This too had its flaws, in that it comprised of mainly fleet Marines who had predominantly served as auxiliaries to ships. This was apparent in their lack of heavy equipment; they were seriously lacking in any sort of artillery. Even at this stage one can see how the higher command back in England, with its preoccupation with the Western Front, severely hampered the efforts in the Eastern Mediterranean by the nature of the "experienced" troops it provided.

The remainder and the bulk of the force was made up of conscripted men. The Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZACS) were to prove their valour in the following action, but also to show their inadequate training and experience on the tactical level of command. Supplementing these forces was an Indian Brigade and a Territorial Division both of which lacked any indirect fire support. In all the lack of Artillery was to prove one of the decisive points in the forthcoming fighting.

The Turkish guns and snipers were to prove themselves deadly adversaries to the exposed troops, especially in the ANZAC areas. The lack of Allied fire support compounded the difficulty the men had in attacking high ground over exposed slopes. The inadequate fire support can also trace its origins to the strategic level planning. The Western front itself had scarcely adequate shells or artillery pieces and each gun averaged less than ten rounds per day, a hopeless amount during offensive operations. In terms of the Gallipoli offensive on paper the Divisions involved were supposed to have had a compliment of at least three hundred and six guns to support them; in reality they had one hundred and eighteen. Here again the influence of the Western front was to take its toll: the landings on the 25th April coincided with the 2nd Ypres offensive, the stock-piling of munitions for this had a knock on effect on the Gallipoli planning.

Thus the nature of the troops that were to conduct this operation and the manner in which they were prepared was to play a decisive role in the conduct of the operation. Flaws in the strategic planning were to have a noticeable effect during the later campaign. Flaws that could have been avoided had the operation been planned from the start as a decisive joint operation. Instead the intermittent efforts of the Royal Navy, who were clearly forced into action prematurely by political pressure in the need to support Russia and Churchill's insistence on action, warned the Turks of future attacks. Although fettered by the insufficient material support from his superiors, Hamilton's concept of operations and planning was actually quite successful in that Liman von Sanders could not pin-point where the main thrust of the landings was to arrive.

Even on the first day of the landings von Sanders concentrated his own efforts around Blair forty miles to the North of Cape Helles. However, events were to take a turn for the worse through accident and more significantly lack of command. A comparison of the events on the 25th of April show very different reactions by the ANZACS and British forces. In the case of the ANZACS mistakes on landing sites were to cripple their operation, for the Lancashire Regiment on W and V beaches of Cape Helles it was to save many lives. The reaction of the two different units shows the contrast between the experienced and inexperienced but also highlights the flaws of the command and control in each. The ANZAC forces were to land North of the main beaches in the area of Gaba Tepe, however, either through navigational error or the effect of currents they landed several miles further up the coast.

The effect of this was ultimately to stifle the Antipodeans' assault. Although they did make rapid inroads initially with little resistance they floundered under the counter-attack led by Mustafa Kemal the commander of the Turkish 19th Division. In reality Kemal had only a Regiment to hold the ANZACS within their perimeter. But the Australian and New Zealanders showed their lack of combat experience during these early vital stages. Instances of the ANZACS being delayed on seeing the Turks lie down made them hesitate enough for reinforcements to arrive under Kemal's control. The ANZACS had assumed that there was some sort of threat hence the Turks taking cover, in fact it was a deception plan devised by Kemal.

A ruse that would not have worked on the more battle hardened troops who would have been aware of the urgency to push on during this early phase. The ANZAC commanders were not resolute in their actions; the incorrect landing sites threw them off guard which led them to make fundamental errors that were to cause constant problems later. The ANZACS were aware that they had to push inland yet instead of adapting to the location in which they found themselves they tried to stick to the original plan. They attempted to march onto their original objectives, but the geography and enemy resistance were to hamper them. This inertia caused the ANZACS to fail to see that in the environment they found themselves domination of the high ground was paramount for success. By the time they realised this Mustafa Kemal had consolidated his positions even though throughout this phase of the battle he had be outnumbered by no less than three to one.

The 1st Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers were to assault the two central beaches of the main landing sites. These were named W and V and were to be the location of some of the bloodiest fighting of the first day. For the Lancashires relief for the troops caught in the thick of the fray came from a company who had landed incorrectly to the flank on the main position. The significant difference between these regular soldiers and the ANZACS was they used the mistake to their advantage and rolled up the flank of the enemy, thus relieving the troops on the beach. The resolute spirit of the Lancashires is reflected in their Regimental toast which originates from that day: "Six VC's before breakfast!" The result of the blood shed on these beaches and those immediately neighbouring them was that the original landing parties were a spent force.

They could not consolidate their gains. It is at this point that the planning and command structure's failings show the most. The concept of the landings was successful in that Liman von Sanders did not know were to concentrate his forces in order to repel the British. A diversionary landing by the French at Kum Kale across the Bosporus was a success and drew much of the Turkish forces to the Asiatic side of the Dardenelles. Equally the demonstration by the Royal Naval Division drew attention away from the landings around Cape Helles. However, it was through the resilience of the sub-units of the Turkish Army that the landings failed to achieve their desired effects.

The majority of the resistance that the British encountered came from platoon or company held positions which were well sited to counter an attack. The failing that the British experienced was not indecisiveness, as was the case with the ANZACS, but their inflexibility. These Regular units were well practised in the traditional British ordered form of fighting. However, this resulted in an inability to move away from the given plan in order to adapt to the situation on the ground. This was certainly the case at Cape Helles. Whilst three regiments were being massacred on the central axis of the landings the units on the flanks had taken their objectives.

Tragically they were either unaware or reluctant to do anything about the situation less than two miles march from their own positions. Hamilton was also at fault during this time. He had ensconced himself on HMS Queen Elizabeth during the battle. The ship itself had its own responsibilities during the landings in terms of providing fire support, and had inadequate signalling equipment for an amphibious force commander. So from the outset Hamilton had cut himself off from any direct intervention with the action on the ground.

At most he could steam up and down the coast, but this too was also constrained by the missions of the warship. Furthermore the two corps commanders, Hunter-Weston with the British at Cape Helles and Bird wood with the ANZACS at Gaba Tepe, were also afloat and they too had inadequate signalling equipment to the shore. Fundamentally those that were in command of the major areas of responsibility were not in any position to react to the situation on the ground. It was from this that the momentum of the Allied landings ground to a halt. Lack of experience and inertia at the lower levels of command and the Commander-in-Chief's inability to formulate any sort of informed picture of events on the ground caused the operation to flounder at this early, vital stage. Subsequent operations in the Dardenelles were equally unsuccessful.

By the end of May U-boats had sunk three British ships providing fire support. As a result HMS Queen Elizabeth was withdrawn with the rest of the Fleet supporting the operations causing the support for those on land to be weakened further still. The Sulva Bay landings during August 1915 were much more adequately equipped for instance they had powered barges capable of landing up to five hundred men. Yet the fundamental problems were still there: inertia from inexperience on the ground, and the distanced and non-contact ble senior commanders.

The latter were often so inured by their Western Front experiences during the Sulva Bay landings that they too readily dug in. This later phase of the Dardenelles campaign showed that the soldiers were far from defeated themselves. The diversionary attack by the ANZACS during the Sulva Bay landings were extremely costly in terms of casualties, however, the soldiers demonstrated their fighting spirit in that fifteen Victoria Crosses were awarded at the Battle of Lone Pine Ridge alone. Hamilton's replacement, Sir Charles Monro, was mocked by Churchill because his first recommendation on arrival in October 1915 was to withdraw. Churchill stated "He came, he saw, he capitulated".

However, Monro was a Western Front commander held in high regard. On inspecting the situation himself Kitchener agreed to Monro's plans. Even at this late stage of the Gallipoli campaign one can see the machinations of politics at work in the decision-making process. Huge pressure had been levied upon the British hierarchy to conduct this operation, yet its execution was half-hearted in terms of preparation at the strategic level and ineptly commanded at the tactical level. Again the British Official Historian puts this quite succinctly: Many reasons combined to frustrate an enterprise the success of which in 1915 would have altered the course of the war. But every reason will be found to spring from one fundamental cause - an utter lack of preparation before the campaign began.

This lack of preparation can be seen in the intermittent naval actions that did little material damage to the Turks but succeeded in warning them of further action. These were carried out with complete disregard to prior tactical planning that had taken place concerning the very same scenario. Nonetheless the pressure that was placed upon those in Government, particularly Churchill, for the operation to succeed caused sound tactical planning such as the need for surprise to be ignored. Hamilton's attempts were crippled from the outset due to the inadequate experience of the bulk of his forces, and the lack of necessary battle-winning artillery. His method of command was the underlying factor however in that it was indecisive and far too removed to affect the action on the ground. At lower levels this caused stagnation and stalemate on the battlefield.