Book Review - Gallipoli by Peter Hart

Gallipoli
Peter Hart
2011
Profile Books

review first posted at www.boomerangbooks.com.au

Here in Australia we are more used to seeing books on Gallipoli presenting a much more Anzac-centric focus on the Dardenelles campaign of 1915. It comes as a surprise to some to learn that the Australian and New Zealand troops were just one part of the multi-national Mediterranean Task Force and greatly outnumbered by British troops. Also making up the force were French, Indian and even troops from New Foundland (although the latter do not get a mention from Hart).

It is also not as well appreciated as it should be in Australia that the landing on April 25th, 1915 at Gaba Tepe, which later became known as Anzac Cove, was just one of a number of landings on the Gallipoli peninsula, both real and diversionary. Anzac Cove was also far from the worst of the landings - that dubious honour is held by the British landing further down the peninsula at V Beach.

Something that really struck me in this account was just what a great job the Turks did, particularly in the confusion of that first day. The invaders were often held up by far fewer numbers of troops who admittedly held the high ground yet were not that well equipped. The fire discipline of some of those units lead some of the attackers to believe that they were facing machine guns when the few Turkish machine guns were not brought into the line later in the day, depending on where the need was believed greatest. At one point a British advance was held up by the sight of a line of Turkish troops, laying on the ground ahead of them. If only they had realised that the Turks were out of ammunition and only had the bayonets left to fight with.

Hart is far more condemnatory of British planning and conduct of the campaign than is often the case with British researchers and authors. He also condemns aspects of the Anzac landing, while still paying the compliment of how remarkable was the grimly determined Australian and New Zealand grasp on their toehold.

It was also interesting to read some accounts by British seaman that shed some light on a significant aspect that greatly increased the confusion of the Anzac landing.

While this book does not flow or read as well as say, Les Carlyon's Gallipoli, it is far from the dry read that you might expect from a professional historian. For anyone with an interest in the larger picture of the Gallipoli campaign, this title is definitely worth a look.

Research - exciting but terrifying

I am giving serious thought to returning to university from the second half of this year to undertake a Masters by Research.

It was one of the profs from the uni who put the idea into my head several months ago. At first I thought she meant returning to do the Masters in Creative Writing by course work. But my last lot of studies did roughly half the syllabus for that, only leaving what I thought was boring stuff still to be done. But no, she meant doing it by research.

Research is one of those things that I have a love-hate relationship with. If it is something interesting, I love getting buried in research, finding out ever so many fascinating and useful or even useless things. But then the research itself can take over from what I was originally intending. "Gosh, that's fascinating - I'll go read a bit more about that." Before you know it, you have wandered entirely away from where you were supposed to be going. Fascinating, interesting and entertaining, but far from a good use of my time if I am supposed to be doing something quite specific.

At present, my research project is going to be centreing on the Battle of Fromelles from World War 1. This first engagement of Australia troops on the Western Front in July, 1916, was practically forgotten until quite recent years. Yet in many respects, it was a far bigger disaster than the Gallipoli landings that every Australian schoolchild knows about. Fifteen months on from the original landings at Gallipoli, what did this combination of survivors from the Dardenelles and new recruits, think about going into action in France only days after their arrival at the front? Were they thinking about nationhood and all the rest of the mythology that has grown up around the Anzacs?

There is a staggering wealth of original material in the archives of the Australian War Memorial, that fortunately I live quite close to. The prospect of all the reading I have to do in histories, biographies, diaries, letters and more that faces me, is quite daunting.

The anticipated project would result in a large research paper that addresses my research question and a large piece of creative writing that further addresses the subject.

For now I have to focus on determining exactly what my precise research question will be as part of my research proposal. Already the reading in support of that is proving a combination of fascinating, thought provoking and challenging. And that is just fine tuning the actual point to be researched.

With all that in my head, I suspect that marching in this year's Anzac Day remembrances will be particularly poignant for me.