Gallipoli: Command under Fire

Unique among World War I campaigns, the fighting at Gallipoli brought together a modern amphibious assault and multi-national combined operations. It took place on a landscape littered with classical and romantic sites - just across the Dardanelles from the ruins of Homer's Troy. The campaign became, perhaps, the greatest 'what if' of the war. The concept behind it was grand strategy of the highest order, had it been successful it might have led to conditions ending the war two years early on Allied terms. This could have avoided the bloodletting of 1916-18, saved Tsarist Russia from revolution and side stepped the disastrous Treaty of Versailles - in effect, altering the course of the entire 20th century.

This book is the first to focus on operational and campaign level decisions and actions, which drove the conduct of the campaign. It departs from emotive first-hand accounts and offers a broader perspective of the large scale military planning and maneuvring involved in this monstrous struggle on the shores of European Turkey.

Dr Edward J. Erickson is an Associate Professor of Military History at the Command and Staff College, Marine Corps University in Quantico, Virginia. He served in the US Regular Army, reaching the rank of lieutenant colonel in the field artillery during the course of which he served in the Persian Gulf War of 1991, as well as in Sarajevo in 1995, and in the invasion of Iraq in 2003 with the Fourth Infantry Division as General Odierno's political advisor. He is the recipient of two Bronze Star medals, the Legion of Merit and numerous other military awards. He has master's degrees from Colgate University and Saint Lawrence University as well as a Doctorate in History from the University of Leeds in the UK. Dr Erickson is widely recognized as one of the foremost specialists on the Ottoman Army during World War I. The author lives in Triangle, VA.