Abstract
Gallipoli continues to be a cause célèbre for those seeking to assign blame for this ill-fated military campaign fought against the Ottoman Empire from April to December 1915. Variously blamed are weak generals, poor planning and preparation—and even inadequate topographical mapping. Intended to assist the Allied naval fleet in breaking through the Dardanelles Straits, thereby threatening the Ottoman Capital of Constantinople (and, it was hoped, forcing the Ottomans out of the war), the military campaign was certainly hastily conceived and under-resourced. Commencing on 25 April 1915 as an amphibious landing, the campaign soon degenerated into a desperate struggle, as the Allies attempted in vain to break out of tightly constrained beachheads. This study investigates the role of terrain in the warfare of the ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) Sector, from initial landings in April, to attempted breakout in August. At ANZAC, an ‘unfortunate accident of geography’ brought, dry, mostly fine-grained Pliocene sediments to the coast. An upland area created by the North Anatolian Fault System, the fine sediments were (and are) quickly weathered and eroded to form topographically complex gullied surfaces. This would be the almost hopeless battleground of the Australians and New Zealanders in April–December 1915. With the Ottomans holding a firm grip on the ridge top, the ANZAC troops were constrained to a small, deeply dissected and mostly waterless sector of the scarp slope of the Sari Bair Plateau and ridge system. The war here would be hard fought and bloody, with geology having a major impact on its outcome; the withdrawal of ANZAC troops in December 1915.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Anon (2012) Military water supply, think defence: 4 March 2012 http://www.thinkdefence.co.uk/2012/03/military-water-supply/DOI 19.01.13. Accessed March 2012
Aspinall-Oglander CF (1929) History of the great war: military operations Gallipoli, volume 1. Inception of the campaign to May 1915. Heinemann Ltd, London
Aspinall-Oglander CF (1932) History of the great war: military operations Gallipoli, volume 2. May 1915 to the evacuation. Heinemann Ltd, London
Beeby-Thomson A (1924) Emergency water supplies for military, agricultural and colonial purposes. Crosby Lockwood and Son, London
Branagan D (1987) The Australian mining corps in World War I. Bull Proc Aust Inst Min Metall 292:40–44
Callwell CE (1924) The Dardanelles. Constable and Company Ltd, London
Carlyon L (2003) Gallipoli. Bantam, London
Chasseaud P, Doyle P (2004) Grasping Gallipoli: terrain, maps and failure in the Dardanelles. Spellmount Ltd, Staplehurst
Crawley R (2014) Climax at Gallipoli. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman
Doyle P (2008) Six VCs before breakfast, terrain and the Gallipoli Landings 1915. In: Nathanail CP, Abrahart RJ, Bradshaw RP (eds) Military geography and geology: history and technology. Land Quality Press, Nottingham
Doyle P (2011) Battle story: Gallipoli, 1915. The History Press, Stroud
Doyle P, Bennett MR (1999) Military geography: the influence of terrain on the outcome of the Gallipoli Campaign, 1915. Geogr J 165:12–36
Doyle P, Bennett MR (2002) Terrain and the Gallipoli Campaign, 1915. In: Doyle P, Bennett MR (eds) Fields of battle, terrain in military history. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht
Hamilton I (1920) Gallipoli diary. Arnold, London
Nevinson HW (1920) The Dardanelles Campaign. Nisbet & Co Ltd, London
Palka EJ, Galgano FA (2005) Military Geography from Peace to War. McGraw-Hill, New York
Prior R (2009) Gallipoli, the end of the myth. Yale University Press, New Haven
Rhodes James R (1965) Gallipoli. Batsford, London
Stanley P (2005) Quinn’s Post: Anzac, Gallipoli. Allen & Unwin, Melbourne
Ternek Z, Erentöz C, Pamir HN, Akyürek B (1987) 1:500,000 Ölçekli Türkiye Jeoloji Haritasi (Explanatory Text of the Geological Map of Turkey). Maden Tetkik ve Arama Genel Müdürlügü Vayinlarindan, Istanbul
Travers T (2001) Gallipoli 1915. Tempus, Stroud
Waite F (1921) The New Zealanders at Gallipoli. Whitcombe & Tombs, Auckland
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this paper
Cite this paper
Doyle, P. (2016). An Unfortunate Accident of Geography: Badlands and the ANZAC Sector, Gallipoli, April–December 1915. In: McDonald, E., Bullard, T. (eds) Military Geosciences and Desert Warfare. Advances in Military Geosciences. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-3429-4_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-3429-4_1
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4939-3427-0
Online ISBN: 978-1-4939-3429-4
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)