Gallipoli Read Free

General Lüfti Güvenc, of the Historical Branch of the Turkish General Staff, who gave me the
fullest access to official archives in Ankara, and to Colonel Sükrü Sirer, who prepared many maps and accompanied me over the battlefield itself: to Major T. R. Molloy of the British
Embassy in Ankara, who translated Mustafa Kemal’s war diaries for me: to Brigadier-General Cecil Aspinall-Oglander and Captain Basil Liddell Hart, who, in reading through the text, have saved
me from much error: to General Hamilton’s literary executor, Mrs. Mary Shield, who has allowed me to make use of the General’s private papers: and to my wife, who has worked with me on
the book in all its stages.
    Among the many others who have most kindly helped me with their reminiscences and their advice are Sir Harold Nicolson, Lord Hankey, Field-Marshal Sir John Harding, Field-Marshal Sir William
Slim, Lady Violet Bonham-Carter, Mr. H. A. J. Lamb, Mrs. Helen Hugo, Lieut.-General Lord Freyberg, V.C., and Major Tasman Millington. I am also most grateful for the help I have received from the
Admiralty, the War Office, the Imperial War Museum, the staffs of the London Library, and the British Embassy in Ankara.
    A large library exists on the subject of the Gallipoli campaign, and while I cannot pretend to have read it all I must acknowledge here my especial indebtedness to Brigadier-General
Aspinall-Oglander’s official history, Sir Winston Churchill’s
World Crisis
, Sir Ian Hamilton’s
Gallipoli Diary
, and the memoirs of Admiral of the Fleet Lord
Keyes.
    The spelling of Turkish names has presented difficulties which I have been unable to resolve. Gallipoli, for example, is to the Turks Gelibolu, and Chanak is more correctly spelt Çanak.
Other places have changed their names since the campaign, notably Constantinople which is now Istanbul. However, since this book is written in English, it seemed best to adopt the names which are
most familiar to English-speaking readers, and so in general I have followed the spelling used in the British military maps of the time.
    ALAN MOOREHEAD

CHAPTER ONE
    ‘
Essentially the great question remains: Who will hold Constantinople?
’—NAPOLEON
    E VEN as late as August 1914 it was by no means certain that Turkey would come into the first world war on the German side. There was no need for her
to go to war, nobody seriously threatened her, and in fact at that time it was the policy of the Allies and the Central Powers alike to keep her neutral if they could. Certainly the country was in
no condition to fight. In the five years that had elapsed since the Young Turks had first come to power the Ottoman Empire had very largely disintegrated: Bulgaria was independent, Salonika, Crete
and the Ægean islands had gone to Greece, Italy had seized Tripoli and the Dodecanese, and Britain had formally proclaimed the protectorate of Egypt and the annexation of Cyprus.
    Since the previous year the German Military Mission had made great improvements in the Turkish army, but the long series of defeats in the Balkan wars had done enormous harm. At many places the
soldiers had gone unpaid for months, and morale had sunk almost to the point of mutiny. Except in a few
corps d’élite
they were ragged, hungry and short of nearly every kind
of weapon required for a modern war. The fleet too was hopelessly out of date, and the garrison at the Dardanelles was far too weak, its guns too obsolete, to stand a chance against a determined
attack from any one of the great powers.
    Politically the situation was chaotic. The Young Turks with their Committee of Union and Progress had begun well enough when they had deposed the Sultan in 1909, and their democratic ideas had
had the support of all liberal-minded and progressive people everywhere. But five years of wars and internal troubleshad been too much for them. The ramshackle government of
the empire had run down too far to be revived in another and a better way, and