Testimony of the Witnesses

“I am confident of success, but . . . baffled by the obstinacy of Turkish resistance.”

These words were spoken by British Gen. Sir Ian Hamilton during the Gallipoli Campaign.

While the Gallipoli operation was brilliantly conceived, it was very poorly planned and badly executed. One important reason for the poor planning and execution was Anglo-French contempt for the enemy.

The Turks had done poorly in recent wars with Italy and a coalition of Balkan powers (1911-1913), losing badly and being forced to cede vast territories. But these wars had given the army a solid cadre of veteran officers and troops. And the disasters also sparked a major reform of organization, training, and tactics. In addition, the Turks sacked most of their older commanders, so that going into the World War their generals were on average were in their 40s, rather than 50s and 60s, as was the case with British and French commanders.

At the time, the British credited their defeat largely to the influence of “German advisors” on the Turkish Army. But the German military mission to the Turks had hardly arrived before the Ottomans entered the war, and had little influence on the Gallipoli operation. In fact, the primary role of Generalleutnant Otto Liman von Sanders, the chief German advisor was negative; on the eve of the landings he insisted on positioning nearly a third of the available Turkish forces in the wrong area.

After the campaign, Hamilton would inform a Parliamentary commission, “I did not know, to tell you the truth, that they were nearly as good as they turned out to be.” That is, the Allies violated one of the oldest rules of war, “Never underestimate the enemy.”

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