Cultural Arrogance and Blind Faith: The Strategic Origins of the Dardanelles Campaign
Abstract
The British Government under Prime Minister H. H. Asquith failed to seek, and its military leaders failed to offer, substantive professional military advice on the practicalities of conducting a large scale, multi-national, joint campaign in the Dardanelles in 1915. This led to the prosecution of a military campaign founded on wishful thinking and questionable assumptions and unguided by a thorough military appreciation of the situation. This paper explores whether such advice, when set against the strategic objectives of the campaign, would ultimately have led to the cancellation of the campaign. It concludes that the Asquith government drifted into a campaign, propelled by fear of lost prestige but buoyed by an overriding sense of cultural superiority and a deep-rooted belief in the historical infallibility of the Royal Navy, which ultimately contributed greatly to its own political demise. This monograph also considers where the responsibility lies. The burden of blame and responsibility has too often been aimed at individuals. The standard historiography of the campaign tends to portray it as the brainchild of Winston Churchill, then the First Lord of the Admiralty, foist upon a supine British War Council and resulting, through poor operational execution by the theatre commander, General Sir Ian Hamilton, in an unalloyed disaster. Whilst both these individuals bear their share of responsibility for the failure it is the opinion of this author that this is too narrow and simplistic an explanation. Instead, the root causes of failure are to be found in the personalities and actions of the key players in and around the War Council and in the structures and methods employed by the government in the higher direction of the war. All of these factors were symptomatic of a collective, psychological failure on the part of the government to come to terms with the scope, scale, and requirements of a war unparalleled in extent, nature, and complexity.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- May 21, 2015
- Accession Number
- AD1001707
Entities
People
- Dermott P. Monteith
Organizations
- United States Army Command and General Staff College