The Cowardice of Churchill

The Cowardice of Churchill

Part One

In 1914, as the war in Europe drove to a deadly stalemate on the fields of France and Belgium, the British command began to look for a solution to the slaughter and useless sacrifice of tens of thousands of men; as they were sent with empty rifles to defeat machine guns and rifle fire with bayonets. Obviously, this was not a solution, and with the home fronts beginning to ask questions as to whether the war was actually worth fighting as the cost was so high, both in men, munitions and currency, something had to be done.

The political head of the Royal Navy, a forty-year-old Winston Churchill claimed to have discovered an answer that he claimed could win the war.

Churchill had eyes for the Dardanelles, a narrow 38 miles straight, cutting continental Europe from Asia near north west Turkey.The plan, he assured British High Command was simple, a huge troop movement up the narrow straight, with naval support from British and French destroyers followed by a swift rush to retake Constantinople.

To his superiors, Churchill promised every success, while in private, he confessed to colleagues and friends “the price to be paid in taking Gallipoli would no doubt be heavy", a noted change in expectations of outcomes, kept private from the public both in England, but more importantly, in the ANZAC (Australian / New Zealand Army Corps) nations from which Churchill would draw the edge of the spear of campaign forces.The Gallipoli campaign opened on February 29, 1915, and from the beginning met with calamity after calamity.

British destroyers sent in ahead of troops to soften up Turkish defenses were immediately sunk or heavily damaged by sea mines, only to be withdrawn as a limping force no longer capable of warfare. This did not dissuade Churchill, who even upon his field commander's recommendation to withdraw gave instructions for the invasion to begin in full. Mine sweepers were sent in to disarm and render Turkish sea mines inoperable, but these brave sailors faired little better than the giant destroyers sent in before them, with many being damaged or destroyed by the very sea mines they were trying to render inert, while others were critically damaged or sunk by accurate and relentless artillery fire.

Finally, the decision was made to send in ground troops, even with the sea based portion of the campaign having been rendered a total failure in regards to securing any of its stated goals. In the pre-dawn hours of 25th April 1915, ANZAC, British and French troops were loaded into landing craft for the initial ground assault. The failure of the navy to render the artillery and machine gun fire useless on Gallipoli beach was about to become a disaster.

Troops trained and prepared to assault soft level beaches watched as their landing craft were driven vastly off course by this same artillery and machine gun fire until they were heavily bunched and more than a mile away from their designated targeted landing places. This bunching led not only to units and companies becoming heavily intermingled, making regrouping extremely difficult, the troops now faced an arduous climb up sheer cliff faces and steep hills of loose rock shale; all while under withering mortar, artillery cannon and small arms fire from the now highly advantageous higher ground of the Turkish forces.

Tales from the opening days of the campaign told home fronts of hundreds of men rushing the cliffs and shale hills, only to find that at the top, men found themselves in small groups of three to four, sometimes singular soldiers as their brothers lay dead or dying on the beaches below.

At this point, British High Command of Gallipoli campaign wired London asking for permission to undergo a full retreat and regroup / resupply of men and ammunition for a second landing under better conditions. The reply they received was scathing, there would be no retreat, there would be no reinforcements. Troops were to take the beach or die in the attempt.The British naval commander, Admiral Sackville Carden, suffered a nervous collapse and was replaced by Vice-Admiral John de Robeck.

In warfare, the Turkish soldiers; claimed by British leaders to be cowardly, likely to run at first sign of concentrated attack; proved to be anything but, fighting to the last man, prepared to take all risks the British, French and ANZACs themselves were prepared to undertake. They were a formidable fighting force, even before they were assisted by German commanders in the region to protect the strategically significant crossroads of Constantinople.

Churchill had, from the very beginning, proven himself of possessing a vast and disturbing lack of care for troops under his overall command, with little ability to see the greater cost in lives for a campaign with minimal chance of victory. This arrogance and dereliction of care would eventually lead to his 20 year journey through political wilderness, beginning in May of 1915 and fueled cries of "Remember the Dardanelles" from political opponents for decades to come. Churchill would answer these critics by claiming that he "Reveled in the disaster". In December, 1915, it was decided to begin the withdrawal of ANZAC troops from the Gallipoli peninsular, from which only a toe hold had been grafted at the cost of some one hundred and forty two thousand lives of French, British and ANZAC forces; all allied forces would eventually be evacuated by the end of 1916. The Constantinople road to allow access for Russian troops to pour into the European Theatre and encircle the German and Axis forces never eventuated.

Churchill's disastrous leadership, refusal to accept responsibility for the needless deaths when navy goals were failed or abandoned, and his general low opinion of the men who risked their lives in his service would lead to no surprises of his continuation of waging war against women and children during World War 2, also known as "The Bankers War". This will be addressed in part 2.

#Europe #Churchill #WW2 #Jews