Name: Gallipoli
ISBN: 9781846681592

Peter Hart

"First published in Great Britain in 2011 by Profile Books"--T.p. verso.

Gallipoli

Bryan Alexander

This is a splendid history of the World War One Gallipoli campaign (1915).

I read this as part of my ongoing WWI obsession, and timed to the centenary, as the campaign began one hundred years to the week I started working through Hart's account. I wasn't confident of my Gallipoli knowledge, so this helped fill me in.

The book is chronologically organized, straightforwardly taking the reader from the first conception of an Allied descent on the heart of the Ottoman empire through the key military phases (naval attack, April landings, the major battles on Helles, the Suvla operation, stasis, evacuation) and into post-war mythologizing. Every event is laid it in very clear detail. Excerpts from participants' writing (journals, letters, books, etc) freight every chapter with excellent personal perspectives and lived experience.

I appreciated the way Hart avoids two centrisms. The book isn't all about the ANZACs, not does it dwell exclusively on the British experience. Instead Hart gives ample time to the Turkish side, from strategic considerations down to personal recollections. Indeed, Hart repeatedly praises the Turks for skill, resilience, organization, and heroism. And the French are very well treated (often weirdly underplayed in English-language histories of WWI).

Hart's style is excellent: thoughtful, clear, often passionate. He can offer mordant, even acerbic remarks without breaking stride:
Friday 4 June 1915 was a beautiful, almost idyllic summer's day when every prospect pleased and only man was vile. (240)

[The summer ANZAC breakout plan] demanded feats of endurance from the assaulting columns... which would have made Hannibal think twice; it asked raw troops to perform like veterans and sickly veterans to put their illnesses behind them; it required leadership from incompetents; it sought to create diversions by attacks that bitter experience had already shown were bound to fail. And worst of all it assumed, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that the Turks would fight badly. (283)

Maps: I'm a stickler for maps, and Gallipoli does much better than most. Nearly every action gets a good map, and almost every event described in the text can be located cartographically. I wish the third Helles battle had a map, and was frustrated at not being able to find some battlefield details, but was otherwise very pleased.

Recommended for anyone who appreciates well-written history, and for any WWI reader.

Gallipoli

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