In the Sydney Morning Herald, 14th April 2011, Ross Cameron wrote a piece in the Sydney Morning Herald in which he tried to defend Winston’s Churchill’s involvement in the Gallipoli campaign on the grounds that Russia was developing into a constitutional monarchy. Success in the venture, argued Cameron, might have allowed Russia to avoid the nightmare of Stalinism. His argument was a weak one, and this was correctly pointed out by Ms Heather Carr, a correspondent to the Herald letters page the following day.
However, Ms Carr then proceeded to attack Churchill, blaming him for the debacle of Gallipoli, suggesting that his opposition to withdrawal “surely had more to do with protecting his own status than the lives of the men who were required to serve at Gallipoli.”
I cannot allow this attack on the great man to go unchallenged. What follows is my letter to the Sydney Morning Herald in response to Ms Carr’s account. (At the time of posting this piece, I do not know if the Herald has accepted it for publication.)
To the editor:
Heather Carr’s rejection of Ross Cameron’s argument about the development of Tsarist Russia into a constitutional monarchy is well founded. However, her attack on Churchill is blinded by her emotional attachment to our brave Anzacs and an ignorance of the detail behind the planning and operation of the Dardanelles Campaign.
Churchill had always conceived of the campaign as a joint military-naval operation. In this he was supported by Lloyd George who argued for sending almost 100 000 troops to Gallipoli. Time was of the essence. For weeks Minister of War Lord Kitchener refused to send the 29th Division even though as early as February 1915, the War Council had voted for sending troops immediately. It was Kitchener’s vacillation which was the root cause of the failure of Gallipoli. Fearing to question such a revered figure, Prime Minister Asquith and his government abandoned any tactical initiative or surprise that was possible and the Turks had weeks to prepare their defences. 
The naval attack itself failed primarily because it was not properly executed. Churchill tried to pressure Admiral Carden and later Vice-Admiral John De Roebeck to maintain pressure but they refused. As Churchill told the Dardanelles Commission later: “German and Turkish officers have repeatedly stated that the naval attack would have succeeded if it had been persevered in… It is said that only three rounds a gun remained after 18th March for the heavy guns in the forts of the Narrows.”
By the time of the Gallipoli landings it was too late. Australians seem to enjoy attacking Churchill. Anger over our apparent desertion by Churchill in World War II should not colour our understanding of what happened in 1915. If there is a villain at all in the story, it is surely Kitchener, not Churchill.