Post by lordroel on Jan 18, 2017 15:39:00 GMT
What If the Allies Had Won At Gallipoli?
What happened in Gallipoli in reality
In 1915, the Allies were in a tenuous position. German troops had occupied almost all of Belgium, advanced deep into France before finally being halted at the Battle of the Marne in September 1914, and inflicted disproportionate defeats on the Russian war machine, and advanced deep into Poland. British and French battles to try to reclaim the initiative in the west bogged down into trench warfare, while the corrupt and inefficient Russian Empire was only taking half-hearted steps fix their position. However, Russia's big problem was the difficulty in supply from their Allies. The only year-round port they owned was in the Black Sea, which was now closed off thanks to the Ottoman Empire's entry into the war on the side of Germany.
British First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill proposed a daring plan: land an amphibious force at the Dardanelles, march to Constantinople, and not only open a trade route to their beleaguered ally, but also to force the Ottoman's out of the war, possibly leading to a collapse of the German and Austrian position in Europe.
Plans were drawn up, but the original plan to just use the Royal Navy and French fleet, mostly battleships and minesweepers to allow the fleets to simply sail to Constantinople were delayed and a major landing force was added as well. This was to counter one of the biggest foreseen problems: mobile Ottoman artillery batteries couldn't be destroyed by bombardment, but could attack the minesweepers. So if an infantry force could, at the very least, pin down or destroy the artillery, then the battleships could destroy the fortresses to allow the army to pass.
Allied troops landed on six different beaches on the Gallipoli peninsula on April 25. Fierce fighting erupted on some of the beaches, with bridgeheads only being secured after heavy casualties. On other beaches, however, there was no Turkish resistance and bridgeheads were established quite easily and with no losses. Yet the Allied commanders at those places made little effort to advance inland. This strange and inexplicable lassitude allowed Turkish reinforcements to arrive, some under the command of General Mustafa Kemal, later the founder of the Republic of Turkey. These troops were able to seal off the Allied bridgeheads after further heavy fighting and prevent any movement inland.
Map of the landings on the Gallipoli peninsula
Then followed endless months of brutal trench warfare, equal to if not worse than the nightmare already unfolding on the Western Front in France and Flanders. Both sides suffered heavy casualties in an endless cycle of attack and counterattack, with the front scarcely moving more than a few yards in either direction. Some of Britain's finest regiments, including the Lancashire Fusiliers, the South Wales Borderers, and the Royal Scots, left their blood on the beaches and hills of Gallipoli. The Australian and New Zealand troops of the ANZAC Corps fought magnificently, earning a legendary place in military history at an enormous cost in casualties. Tens of thousands of French troops, whose involvement has been strangely overlooked by historians, also struggled and died in the Gallipoli trenches. Sikhs and Gurkhas from the Indian Raj played their part in the campaign. But nothing could break the solid Turkish lines.
A massive offensive in August, however, caught the Ottomans off guard. While the troops at the tip of the peninsula hurled themselves against the Turkish lines, a landing was made in Suvla Bay, north of the bridgehead, which came ashore against virtually no Turkish resistance. The troops at Suvla Bay were in a perfect position to outflank the Turkish defenders and collapse their entire position. For a brief moment, the prospect of an Allied victory in Gallipoli that would open the way to Constantinople suddenly seemed possible again. But the British commander at Suvla Bay, General Frederick Stopford, proved to be the very model of an absolutely inept and incompetent general. After landing, he made virtually no effort to advance inland. Turkish troops under General Kemal soon arrived and sealed off the bridgehead, just as had happened on the original landing sites in April.
The following months followed the same routine of trench warfare, boredom mixed with terror on an hourly basis. In the fall, the decision was made to evacuate the Allied forces from the peninsula. As already mentioned, the evacuation was well-planned and well-executed, the only operation of the entire campaign that was not an utter fiasco. The Allied forces left behind nearly 45,000 dead comrades, while nearly 100,000 Allied soldiers were wounded. As for the Ottomans, 250,000 of their men fell, dead or wounded, in defense of their capital city.
What if the Allies had won in Gallipoli
But what would happen if the Allies had won at Gallipoli. With a Turkish surrender, it is entirely possible that Bulgaria, Romania, and Greece would have cast their lot with the Allies before the end of 1915. Serbia, which historically was crushed by a combined German, Austro-Hungarian and Bulgarian invasion in late 1915, might have been kept in the war. Combined with a British and French expeditionary force, this would have constituted a powerful third front in the war against the Central Powers. A fourth, the Italian Front, was also about to open.
Putting all these factors together - more manpower available to the British and French on the Western Front and the Russians on the Eastern Front, the entry of the Balkan powers on the Allied side in 1915, the easy shipment of war material through the Dardanelles to Russia - it is easy to imagine that Germany and Austria-Hungary could have been brought to their knees in the middle of 1916, rather than late 1918.
Think of the momentous consequences of this. If the war ended more than two years before it did historically, many millions of people who died during the conflict would have still been alive in 1918. Into this number we should include the million or so Armenians who were ruthlessly slaughtered by the Ottomans in the wake of the Allied failure at Gallipoli. Saving all these lives would not only have been a miracle from any humanitarian point of view, but consider how many potential scientists, statesmen, engineers, poets, artists, and composers died in the trenches of the war. What might they have contributed to human knowledge and culture had they survived?
If the war had ended in 1916, Russia will quite possibly avoid the Russian Revolution and the Russian Civil War. This would not only mean that a Romanov Tsar might have still been on the throne of Russia today, but it would mean that Russia would have avoided the nightmare of Soviet Communism. Thanks to the "butterfly effect", which always must be considered when we ask ourselves serious alternate history questions, we can assume that Nazism would never have arisen in Germany, since it would not have had Russian communism to use as a bogeyman, nor would Maoism have arisen in China, since it would have not had the Soviet Union to serve as an inspiration. There would have been no Holocaust and no Cultural Revolution, sparing yet more millions of lives. As with the war itself, this would not only have been good in and of itself, but we have to stop and ask how many geniuses who would have lived to fulfill their potential were lost in those nightmarish massacres.
Gallipoli was the only major opportunity for an Allied victory in the First World War before the actual victory was achieved in late 1918 (and that only with the help of the United States). None of the French offensives on the Western Front in 1914 or 1915 were going to break the German line. Neither was the British offensive on the Somme in 1916. In 1917, both the French (at the Aisne) and the British (at Passchensdaele) launched massive attacks against the German lines and were thrown back yet again, suffering such heavy casualties that the French army mutinied and refused to fight further. Throughout the war, the Russians and the Italians proved so inept that they presented no serious threat to the Germans. If the Allies were going to win the war earlier than they actually did, Gallipoli had been the place to do it.
Articles was posted on The Blog of Jeffrey Evan Brooks and was called: What If the Allies Had Won At Gallipoli?
What happened in Gallipoli in reality
In 1915, the Allies were in a tenuous position. German troops had occupied almost all of Belgium, advanced deep into France before finally being halted at the Battle of the Marne in September 1914, and inflicted disproportionate defeats on the Russian war machine, and advanced deep into Poland. British and French battles to try to reclaim the initiative in the west bogged down into trench warfare, while the corrupt and inefficient Russian Empire was only taking half-hearted steps fix their position. However, Russia's big problem was the difficulty in supply from their Allies. The only year-round port they owned was in the Black Sea, which was now closed off thanks to the Ottoman Empire's entry into the war on the side of Germany.
British First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill proposed a daring plan: land an amphibious force at the Dardanelles, march to Constantinople, and not only open a trade route to their beleaguered ally, but also to force the Ottoman's out of the war, possibly leading to a collapse of the German and Austrian position in Europe.
Plans were drawn up, but the original plan to just use the Royal Navy and French fleet, mostly battleships and minesweepers to allow the fleets to simply sail to Constantinople were delayed and a major landing force was added as well. This was to counter one of the biggest foreseen problems: mobile Ottoman artillery batteries couldn't be destroyed by bombardment, but could attack the minesweepers. So if an infantry force could, at the very least, pin down or destroy the artillery, then the battleships could destroy the fortresses to allow the army to pass.
Allied troops landed on six different beaches on the Gallipoli peninsula on April 25. Fierce fighting erupted on some of the beaches, with bridgeheads only being secured after heavy casualties. On other beaches, however, there was no Turkish resistance and bridgeheads were established quite easily and with no losses. Yet the Allied commanders at those places made little effort to advance inland. This strange and inexplicable lassitude allowed Turkish reinforcements to arrive, some under the command of General Mustafa Kemal, later the founder of the Republic of Turkey. These troops were able to seal off the Allied bridgeheads after further heavy fighting and prevent any movement inland.
Map of the landings on the Gallipoli peninsula
Then followed endless months of brutal trench warfare, equal to if not worse than the nightmare already unfolding on the Western Front in France and Flanders. Both sides suffered heavy casualties in an endless cycle of attack and counterattack, with the front scarcely moving more than a few yards in either direction. Some of Britain's finest regiments, including the Lancashire Fusiliers, the South Wales Borderers, and the Royal Scots, left their blood on the beaches and hills of Gallipoli. The Australian and New Zealand troops of the ANZAC Corps fought magnificently, earning a legendary place in military history at an enormous cost in casualties. Tens of thousands of French troops, whose involvement has been strangely overlooked by historians, also struggled and died in the Gallipoli trenches. Sikhs and Gurkhas from the Indian Raj played their part in the campaign. But nothing could break the solid Turkish lines.
A massive offensive in August, however, caught the Ottomans off guard. While the troops at the tip of the peninsula hurled themselves against the Turkish lines, a landing was made in Suvla Bay, north of the bridgehead, which came ashore against virtually no Turkish resistance. The troops at Suvla Bay were in a perfect position to outflank the Turkish defenders and collapse their entire position. For a brief moment, the prospect of an Allied victory in Gallipoli that would open the way to Constantinople suddenly seemed possible again. But the British commander at Suvla Bay, General Frederick Stopford, proved to be the very model of an absolutely inept and incompetent general. After landing, he made virtually no effort to advance inland. Turkish troops under General Kemal soon arrived and sealed off the bridgehead, just as had happened on the original landing sites in April.
The following months followed the same routine of trench warfare, boredom mixed with terror on an hourly basis. In the fall, the decision was made to evacuate the Allied forces from the peninsula. As already mentioned, the evacuation was well-planned and well-executed, the only operation of the entire campaign that was not an utter fiasco. The Allied forces left behind nearly 45,000 dead comrades, while nearly 100,000 Allied soldiers were wounded. As for the Ottomans, 250,000 of their men fell, dead or wounded, in defense of their capital city.
What if the Allies had won in Gallipoli
But what would happen if the Allies had won at Gallipoli. With a Turkish surrender, it is entirely possible that Bulgaria, Romania, and Greece would have cast their lot with the Allies before the end of 1915. Serbia, which historically was crushed by a combined German, Austro-Hungarian and Bulgarian invasion in late 1915, might have been kept in the war. Combined with a British and French expeditionary force, this would have constituted a powerful third front in the war against the Central Powers. A fourth, the Italian Front, was also about to open.
Putting all these factors together - more manpower available to the British and French on the Western Front and the Russians on the Eastern Front, the entry of the Balkan powers on the Allied side in 1915, the easy shipment of war material through the Dardanelles to Russia - it is easy to imagine that Germany and Austria-Hungary could have been brought to their knees in the middle of 1916, rather than late 1918.
Think of the momentous consequences of this. If the war ended more than two years before it did historically, many millions of people who died during the conflict would have still been alive in 1918. Into this number we should include the million or so Armenians who were ruthlessly slaughtered by the Ottomans in the wake of the Allied failure at Gallipoli. Saving all these lives would not only have been a miracle from any humanitarian point of view, but consider how many potential scientists, statesmen, engineers, poets, artists, and composers died in the trenches of the war. What might they have contributed to human knowledge and culture had they survived?
If the war had ended in 1916, Russia will quite possibly avoid the Russian Revolution and the Russian Civil War. This would not only mean that a Romanov Tsar might have still been on the throne of Russia today, but it would mean that Russia would have avoided the nightmare of Soviet Communism. Thanks to the "butterfly effect", which always must be considered when we ask ourselves serious alternate history questions, we can assume that Nazism would never have arisen in Germany, since it would not have had Russian communism to use as a bogeyman, nor would Maoism have arisen in China, since it would have not had the Soviet Union to serve as an inspiration. There would have been no Holocaust and no Cultural Revolution, sparing yet more millions of lives. As with the war itself, this would not only have been good in and of itself, but we have to stop and ask how many geniuses who would have lived to fulfill their potential were lost in those nightmarish massacres.
Gallipoli was the only major opportunity for an Allied victory in the First World War before the actual victory was achieved in late 1918 (and that only with the help of the United States). None of the French offensives on the Western Front in 1914 or 1915 were going to break the German line. Neither was the British offensive on the Somme in 1916. In 1917, both the French (at the Aisne) and the British (at Passchensdaele) launched massive attacks against the German lines and were thrown back yet again, suffering such heavy casualties that the French army mutinied and refused to fight further. Throughout the war, the Russians and the Italians proved so inept that they presented no serious threat to the Germans. If the Allies were going to win the war earlier than they actually did, Gallipoli had been the place to do it.
Articles was posted on The Blog of Jeffrey Evan Brooks and was called: What If the Allies Had Won At Gallipoli?