I'm not in a position to comment on how faithfully the BBC adhered to
Martin Gilbert's views when putting together this documentary, but I
would echo Dave's comment that "It’s rarely that simple." Three minutes
is hardly enough time to resolve such a complex topic as the Dardanelles
and Gallipoli campaigns. And, as I've argued in my new book, it is
impossible to come up with a simple and straightforward verdict as to
who was to blame. Everyone made mistakes, including Churchill.
Unfortunately, he is also frequently blamed for things he wasn't really
responsible for. The comments by Silvester and Page in the documentary
do create a negative impression, but neither one witnessed first-hand
the decision-making process at the Admiralty or the War Council, and I
wouldn't place much weight on their testimony. I suspect it was the
BBC's decision to include them, not Sir Martin's.
Chris
On 2017-02-19 12:22 AM, Dave Turrell wrote:
Maybe it’s my generation, but I am having a huge problem getting past
the mental image of Jimmy Page standing on the beaches at Gallipoli
and ripping off one of his trademark solos.
In general, I tend to be cautious when it comes to “Super-hero
thwarted by dullards” historical narratives. It’s rarely that
simple. The Dardanelles campaign has been debated endlessly in the
past century, and I do not believe that the decisive blow has ever
been struck by either side.
I did watch the series in question, several years ago, and recall
being impressed by it. I have never been other than impressed by the
late Sir Martin’s work.
Dave
*From:*churchillchat@googlegroups.com
[mailto:churchillchat@googlegroups.com] *On Behalf Of *Grimsdyke
*Sent:* Saturday, February 18, 2017 9:48 PM
*To:* ChurchillChat <churchillchat@googlegroups.com>
*Subject:* [ChurchillChat] Churchill’s treatment at the hands of
‘Churchill Scholars’
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.
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