To what extent was the involvement of Winston Churchill during the Essay

To what extent was the involvement of Winston Churchill during the invasion of Gallipoli ultimately responsible for its failure - Essay Example obsolete and not much use for a battle against the High Seas Fleet, the operation would make no difference to the numerical superiority of the Royal Navy. The failure of its execution nearly destroyed his political career, and tarnished his reputation in the eyes of many contemporaries. For Great Britain, June 1940 was turning into one of the worst months of its modern history. After the swift fall of Belgium, Holland and France via the German Blitzkrieg, the British found themselves completely alone in confronting what seemed to be the invincible war machine of the Third Reich. Many asked themselves at this time whether Winston Churchill, who had only been Prime Minister for a few weeks, was the right person to lead the nation at such a difficult time. In his favour he had his unbreakable faith in victory and unmatched political experience. Nevertheless, there were those who remembered his stubbornness and adventurous character during the First World War, and were convinced that he had led the United Kingdom to spectacular failure at Gallipoli: but was Churchill truly to blame for that defeat? In the Autumn of 1914, barely three months after the beginning of the First World War, the land war had reached a stalemate on the Western Front.1 On the Eastern Front there were signs that the Germans would eventually defeat Russia, especially after Turkey blocked off supplies from Britain and France. After the First Battles of the Marne and Ypres, the Schlieffen Plan, which was supposed to open the route to Paris in the same way that it had been achieved in 1870, had failed.2 In its place there was the beginning of a war of attrition which promised to be long and difficult, and which used up all the resources of the combatants. Its symbol was to be trench warfare in which thousands of men would die for each disputed inch of ground. Bloody attrition in which the battles would end with hardly any change to the position of the Front. The various High Commands