Gallipoli - Softcover

Moorehead, Alan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0450016935 ISBN 13: 9780450016936

Publisher: New English Library Ltd, 1974

Synopsis

Alan Moorehead was born in Australia and served as a war correspondent in the Second World War. His many acclaimed works of history and military history include The White Nile and African Trilogy. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. More than ninety years on, the Gallipoli campaign of 1915-16 is still famous as perhaps the most disastrous, horrific and pointless campaign of the entire First World War. Masterminded by Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, following Turkey's entry into the war on the German side, its aim was to capture the Gallipoli peninsula in western Turkey, allowing the Allies to take control of the eastern Mediterranean. But the campaign went wrong from the start. Ignorant of the terrain, and hopelessly underestimating the Turkish army, the Allies found themselves entrenched on the hillsides for long agonising months, through the burning summer and bitter winter, in appalling, dysentery-ridden conditions. By the time they withdrew in January 1916, the death toll stood at 21,000 British troops, 11,000 Australian and New Zealand, and 87,000 Turkish. First published in 1956, when it won the first Duff Cooper Prize, Alan Moorehead's book is still the definitive work on the campaign. Vivid, analytical and highly readable, with compelling character sketches of the main players, it brings the complex operation to life, showing how and why it went so wrong.

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An epic of gallantry and folly -- the whole story of the most controversial campaign of modern times.

The Allied campaign against Gallipoli began in 1915 when the Turks went into World War I on Germany's side. Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty in the British War Cabinet, conceived the plan of smashing through the Dardanelles with a fleet of old battleships and reopening the straits to Russian shipping.

For years the Turks had been beaten in every battle they fought, and the project stood a reasonable chance of success.

But what happened in the next nine months was a nightmare of lost opportunities, confused planning, and military incompetence.

ONE OF THE MOST STAGGERING STORIES OF WAR EVER TOLD

About this edition

• Publisher: New English Library Ltd
• Publication date: 1974
• ISBN 10: 0450016935
• ISBN 13: 9780450016936
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 352