I just reread The World Crisis Vol II that really gives a detailed "who shot John" account of the campaign. I imagine Churchill would have agreed with me when I assert if instead of John de Robeck being in command that David Farragut or Roger Keyes were in charge, there may have been a different outcome. De Robeck might be referred to a sobriquet later applied to President Eisenhower's chief of staff, Sherman Adams, the "abominable no-man."
Cheers, Larry la...@yourfinesthour.com On Saturday, February 18, 2017 at 8:48:01 PM UTC-6, Grimsdyke wrote: > > In general, bone fide Churchill scholars have been fairly consistent in > the way they handle his record, and what comes down to us is the image of a > fiercely pugnacious, infinitely creative man of genius, with an > incandescently brilliant mind who made both mistakes and their decided > opposite, but whose motives throughout were gallant, noble, magnanimous > ……and a host of other adjectives, none of which have any truck with > mean-spiritedness, littleness, or spite or malevolence, or any of those > characteristics that belong to lesser men. However, I have been puzzled > beyond words by the treatment of certain parts of his record at the hands > of some who had always seemed to be among the most discerning of ‘Churchill > Scholars’. > > > > A few years ago the BBC put out a 4-episode programme on Churchill which > was written and presented by Martin Gilbert: it is available on YouTube at > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVQg_ehSu6A > > > > From 21:39 to 24:39 on the first episode, he deals with Winston > Churchill's involvement with the Dardanelles campaign. These 3 minutes > seemed to me, as I’m sure they would seem to anybody with a sound reading > of the intricacies of that episode in World War I, a travesty consisting of > half-truths and deliberate omissions of crucial facts to achieve a result > that places the blame unfairly and almost slanderously on Churchill. > > > > We all know, of course, that serious researchers from Alan Moorhead to > Basil Liddell Hart and numerous other biographers have found that Churchill > had little to do with the failures of the campaign, and in fact had been > made the scapegoat of a debacle that owed everything to the blunders and > mismanagement of others (Kitchener and Fisher particularly, and of course > Asquith at a political level) and little, if at all, to any actual mistakes > on Churchill's part. In fact the origin of the idea wasn't actually his: it > was Hankey's first, and then enthusiastically taken up by a host of others > – including Fisher, Gray, Asquith, and even Kitchener, and later Lloyd > George with some initial misgivings. Subsequently, Churchill was exonerated > by the Dardanelles Commission, although that Commission was, “struck by the > atmosphere of vagueness and want of precision which seems to have > characterised the proceedings of the War Council”. > > > > Thus, Alan Moorehead: “*in 1925, when Roger Keyes was in command of the > Mediterranean fleet, he’s steamed through the Dardanelles and, according to > Aspinall, who was with him, he could hardly speak for emotion. ‘My God’, he > said at last, ‘it would have been even easier than I thought; we simply > couldn’t have failed…… And because we didn’t try, another million lives > were thrown away and the war went on for another 3 years.*’ > > > > Thus, Clement Attlee: “*in the whole of the First World War, there was > only one great strategic idea, and that was Winston’s*”. Attlee had been > a soldier at Gallipoli. > > > > Thus, Alastair Cook (from Keynote Speech, Churchill Society International > Conference, New Hampshire, 27 August 1988): “*Kitchener had seemed an > Eisenhower-Montgomery-Nimitz, all rolled into one. He wasn’t, but we > thought he was. We didn’t know then that his power was declining > drastically, or that he was more than anyone morally responsible for the > failure of the Dardanelles: he would not support the original expedition – > would not produce the manpower or the materiel. But as you may have > noticed, the deaths of a famous leader, especially by assassination, > confers a halo. Kitchener was drowned and he got the halo. Churchill got > the blame*.” > > > > However, all this (and countless other testimonials to the mistakes and > blunders made by other men, but not Churchill, and the difficulties ‘on the > ground’ caused by the fatal delays during that campaign) is seemingly > completely ignored by the writer and presenter, Martin Gilbert. The icing > on the cake is Gilbert’s inclusion of statements by AJ Silvester (principal > private secretary to Lloyd George....... as if he would be impartial!) > and Jimmy Page (British Army, Dardanelles 1915) and we hear them speak > words that have virtually no other purpose than to drive home the message > that it was Churchill’s vaulting ambition that made him not only careless > of lives, but completely bullheaded and arrogant, and that he bore > unmistakably the responsibility for the whole failure. > > > > As I say above, this is scarcely believable from such a man as Sir Martin > (Winston may well intone from the grave, “et tu Brute?”) — which makes me > ask myself if this is in fact the result of some ‘creative editing’ by the > BBC – who, with their traditional hostility to Churchill (which seems to > have begun with John Reith), may well have omitted several minutes of > counterbalancing argument and statement that might have been included in > the original footing by Sir Martin. I’d be grateful if anybody on this > forum can throw some light on this. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "ChurchillChat" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to churchillchat+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to churchillchat@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/churchillchat. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
