Item 02: Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett articles on the Gallipoli campaign, 1915 - Page 103

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[Page 103]

Gallipoli. At this hour we occupy very little more ground than we did the day after the landing, not one of the enemy's main positions has fallen and our army has suffered nearly fifty thousand casualties in killed wounded and missing. Our frontal attacks against prepared positions held by a most determined and skilled trench fighter- as the Turk has always proved himself to be - have from time to time gained ground but our local successes have never been commensurate with the losses entailed. Having once landed at Helles and Anzac Sir Ian Hamilton has never yet up to this hour had enough men at his disposal for any great strategic move which might take the enemy in flank and turn the positions or else enable us to get astride of the peninsula and cut all his communications with Thrace thus leaving him only a sea route invested by our submarines or the doubtful passage from Chanak to Kilid Bahr for supplying his armies on the peninsula with food ammunition and munitions of all kinds.

On the face of it it would appear therefore as if we had achieved nothing up to date and that our heavy losses are not even in a measure balanced by any approximate gains. But this is not correct and would be a very unfair way of regarding the campaign up to date. Modern warfare has been discribed as a process of attrition applying to both men and munitions. Which means that an enemy can only be beaten by gradually wearing him down and exhausting his resources in men and munitions. Throughout the last four months the Turks have been subjected to a prolonged and sustained hammering almost without a parallel. We do not know the exact number of their losses but that they have been enormous has been proved beyond a doubt

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