Churchill and the Dardanelles - Hardcover

Bell, Christopher M.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 019870254X ISBN 13: 9780198702542

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2017

Synopsis

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.

About this title

About the Author

Christopher M. Bell is Professor of History at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He has published widely on twentieth century naval history, and is the author of The Royal Navy, Seapower and Strategy Between the Wars and Churchill and Seapower and co-editor of Naval Mutinies of the Twentieth Century: An International Perspective and At the Crossroads Between War and Peace: The London Naval Conference of 1930.

Review

"This is quite simply the best naval history book that I have read this year. Christopher Bell may not have written the last word on this still very emotive subject, but I can't imagine that anyone will be able to produce a better, more equitably balanced and authoritative account of the Dardanelles operation than he has done. It is quite superb in virtually every way." -- Malcolm H. Murfett (Kingâs College, London), The International Journal of Maritime History

"Meticulously researched and readable account."--History of War

"Commendable."--Nigel Jones, BBC History

"Illuminating and fluent analysis of one of the most controversial and emotive episodes of the First World War."--Lawrence James, The Times

"This immaculate study of the First Lord of the Admiralty's disgrace and comeback is...likely to become the definitive work on the campaign, and Churchill's role in it. What gives the book its edge is not merely Bell's scholarship, which is rigorous, but its highly original analysis of the aftermath...Unlike most additions to the Churchill bibliography, it is truly valuable."--Simon Heffer, The Daily Telegraph

"This is both an excellent study of the campaign itself and a good account of how memory can be utterly twisted in both deliberate and unconscious ways."--Quill and Quire, starred review

"The blame-shifting, name-calling, and finger-pointing were not stilled by an exhaustive Dardanelles Commission inquiry and its 1919 report, but should now finally come to an end a century later with the publication of this well-researched, very well-written, but above all judiciously objective book by the distinguished naval historian Christopher M. Bell...This excellent book cuts through a century of pro- and anti-Churchill writing to reach remarkably balanced conclusions."--The Weekly Standard

"Bell's study should be the final word on the matter of Churchill's culpability for the failed campaign in the Eastern Mediterranean."--WinstonChurchill.org

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 019870254X
• ISBN 13: 9780198702542
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 458