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From: "Steve Morse" <>
Subject: Gallipoli - some facts
Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 12:15:20 -0000


Hello Each
Killed at Gallipoli- (approx)
British - 25,000
French - 13,000
ANZAC - 9,500
majority of landings were unopposed - usually some 60 or 70 Turks and maybe a couple of machine guns.
The British and ANZAC troops were in Military terms of poor quality. By that I mean they had not been given proper training.
The Plan was indeed an ill considered one.
1. The Germans as in WW2 had to be beaten on the main front - The Western front.
2. They could not have picked a worse battlefield if they had tried.
3. The Commander was a poet (I need say no more)
4. When he was replaced by Monro a real officer - Monro said (to the effect) 'You have got to be joking, we are pulling out.
Unlike the film which some seem to think is fact - The Aussie troops were not 6 foot specimens from the outback. They were the normal everyday wimps from cities.
It was in Military terms a totally pointless exercise and it could be argued Churchill should have been shot not sacked. There is nothing worse than a politician who thinks he is a General.
The New Zealanders where led by a drunkard who on the way to one attack stopped for breakfast.
The squaddies did their best under impossible conditions.
90 years on instead of trying to score points, why don't we -
Honour the men who fought.
Make sure we do our best to make sure it never happens again.
One man said of the rest area - It is called a rest area because the front line get most of the bullets and we get the rest !. There was no safe place on Gallipoli.
A little known fact about wars (tongue in cheek:))
You win by killing more of the enemy than you lose yourself.
Lets all agree - Gallipoli was a pointless and futile exercise and all the men who had to put up with the horrors there were heroes.
We should be fighting to stop the road being widened and removing the landing beaches and not each other.

Regards
Steve
Born in Derbyshire and sent to Coventry

all things DRING -
www.dring.org.uk

Great War- Ypres Salient
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People ask me what my religion is.
I tell them, 'My religion is kindness'

A politician is a man who gives your life for his country


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