Gallipoli: Great Battles Series - Hardcover

Macleod, Jenny

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 019964487X ISBN 13: 9780199644872

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2015

Synopsis

The British-led Mediterranean Expeditionary Force that attacked the Ottoman Empire at Gallipoli in 1915 was a multi-national affair, including Australian, New Zealand, Irish, French, and Indian soldiers. Ultimately a failure, the campaign ended with the withdrawal of the Allied forces after less than nine months and the unexpected victory of the Ottoman armies and their German allies.

In Britain, the campaign led to the removal of Churchill from his post as First Lord of the Admiralty and the abandonment of the plan to attack Germany via its 'soft underbelly' in the East. Thereafter, it was largely forgotten on a national level, commemorated only in specific localities linked to the campaign. In post-war Turkey, by contrast, the memory of Gallipoli played an important role in the formation of a Turkish national identity, celebrating both the ordinary soldier and the genius of the republic's first president, Mustafa Kemal. The campaign served a similarly important formative role in both Australia and New Zealand, where it is commemorated annually on Anzac Day. For the southern Irish, meanwhile, the bitter memory of service for the King in a botched campaign was forgotten for decades.

Shaped initially by the imperatives of war-time, and the needs of the grief-stricken and the bereft, the memory of Gallipoli has been re-made time and again over the last century. For the Turks an inspirational victory, for many on the Allied side a glorious and romantic defeat, for others still an episode best forgotten, 'Gallipoli' has meant different things to different people, serving by turns as an occasion of sincere and heartfelt sorrow, an opportunity for separatist and feminist protest, and a formative influence in the forging of national identities.

About this title

About the Author:

Jenny Macleod is a Lecturer in 20th Century History at the University of Hull, having previously worked at the University of Edinburgh and King's College, London. A graduate of Edinburgh and Pembroke College, Cambridge. she is the co-founder of the International Society for First World War Studies and an associate editor of its journal, First World War Studies.

Review:

"Jenny MacLeod takes on a complex and difficult task: not only to describe the events of the Gallipoli campaign itself, but to explore five very different (and constantly changing) legacies or memories of those events. Despite this complexity, Gallipoli is a remarkably clear, readable work, and one which would be invaluable not only to a historian of memory or of World War I, but also to professors seeking an excellent study of the history of memory to assign to graduate students, or indeed to any person who desires to understand this "great battle" in its complexity and its immense importance."--H-Net

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 019964487X
• ISBN 13: 9780199644872
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 256