Gallipoli: A ridge too far.

• Author: McGibbon, Ian
• Position: Book review

GALLIPOLI: A ridge too far

Editor: Ashley Ekins

Published by: Exisle Publishing Ltd, Wollombi, 2013, 336pp, $49.99.

THE NEK: A Gallipoli Tragedy

Author: Peter Burness

Published by: Exisle Publishing Ltd, Wollombi, 2013, 167pp, $34.99.

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In less two years we will commemorate the 100th anniversary of the ill-fated Gallipoli campaign. That this costly struggle remains a focus of attention in Australia and New Zealand owes much to the central place it occupies in the development of a sense of national identity in both countries. The same applies to their adversary --Turkey. But there is enduring interest too in the campaign itself, not only because of the exotic nature of the battlefield but also because of the inevitable 'what if' questions that raise the possibility of a different outcome to the eventual admission of defeat and evacuation of the invading forces. What mistakes were made that led to the Allies being hemmed into two beachheads, at Cape Helles and Anzac, in the first place? Could anything have been done to overcome this predicament?

Of all the events during the eight months fight at Anzac, the August offensive provides the most fertile grounds for debate. Designed to seize the Sari Bair range that dominated the battlefield at Anzac--Hills 971 and Qand Chunuk Bait--the offensive was supposed to break the logjam that prevented movement forward by the Allied forces to the south at Cape Helles and at Anzac. This would open the way to Allied domination of the forts that closed the narrows of the Dardanelles Strait to the Allied fleets waiting to head through to Constantinople (Istanbul). In accordance with a complex plan troops would advance up valleys to the north of the Anzac beachhead to seize the heights, while diversionary attacks would be mounted elsewhere, including at key points like Lone Pine, The Nek and Quinn's Post. Meanwhile British forces would make another landing, at Suvla Bay, to the north of Anzac.

This supreme effort to break the stalemate that existed on the two Gallipoli battlefronts never came close to success, despite the epic achievement by the New Zealanders in seizing and holding for two days the heights at Chunuk Bair. Fanciful claims that New Zealanders briefly held the fate of the First World War in their hands as they perceived the distant strait ignore the fact that Chunuk Bair was not the key point--it was dominated by the higher Hill 971 to the north. In...