The Role Of Communication In Gallipoli

Are the outcomes of war determined by the commanding officers, or other outside factors? Aging generals and poor communication were large factors at Gallipoli and may have been the difference between victory and defeat in many cases. Another component of the war at the peninsula was the hostile terrain. Nasty cliffs and plants were the least of the worries for soldiers at the Gallipoli peninsula. Traditional, archaic generals, inefficient methods of dealing with wounded, and ruthless terrain would spell disaster for British, French, and Australian troops at the invasion of Gallipoli. With generals retired since the 1880’s, command was very aged and unprepared for World War One in 1915. The average age for officers at Gallipoli was well over
50. This created a small, psychological barrier between the infantry and the ones giving orders: “The last trip I had involved was the taking of donkeys...How am I going to land them?...do as you are told, little fool, and don’t ask stupid questions. ”(Van Emden 87)
Soldiers without helpful support could end up becoming confused or angry. Generals were recalled from extensive vacation as a supply of young, fresh officers ran thin: “These men were in their late 50’s and 60’s and had been enjoying cosy retirement...Yorkshire Dales...no longer suited for service abroad... scrub-covered Gallipoli peninsula.”(Van Emden 6) Traditional fighting tactics and poor physical condition meant officers in charge of the troops at Gallipoli were very unfit for service in battle. Without effective measures on how to treat the wounded, many men who succumbed to minor injuries on the battlefield bled out or became infected with diseases such as gangrene. Men who were wounded on the battlefield were transported out by ‘stretcher-bearers’, men whose job was to take injured men back to the beaches: “Those fortunate enough to be taken off the peninsula...tended to by medical orderlies and doctors who were worked to exhaustion.”(Van Emden 90) Once the wounded had reached the beach, they were loaded onto boats and taken out to a support ship, where men were simply laid on the deck of the ship, and prayed that that they would be looked at in time: “On board they had some 200 wounded...press forward with urgent surgery, even the most major kind.”(Van Emden 85) Most of the time, surgeons were very inexperienced and doctors were few in number: “There I found the surgeon to be...spent the last 20 years as a hospital anaesthetist and was completely lost with a scalpel.”(Van Emden 85) With doctors not knowing what to do with the injured soldiers, supplies of painkillers and bandages were wasted. But many men were not this fortunate, and were left in the trenches unnoticed and left for dead. Defective communication between headquarters and troops meant that in some cases, troops had to improvise.
In the heat of battle, without effective delivery from officers, soldiers would have no idea what to do, and many lives were wasted in the hiccup between command and the front lines. With ships out at sea providing artillery support to the soldiers on the ground, calculations and positions had to be exact, or the ships would be bombing their own men. “Eventually I found a battalion signaler...this pathetic little ‘flag-waggler’...the ship’s guns mercifully lifted their sights soon after.”(Van Emden 167) Radio and signaling were very crude on the battlefields of WW1. Morse code was the main source of communication, being sent by a number of different devices. ‘Begbie Lamps’ were large, kerosene lamps used to pass morse code by series of flashes, and were mostly used at night and between ships at sea. Flag-Signaling was used as well, but not as prevalently because of its complex interpretation and use. The biggest asset to the troops on the front lines was the ‘trench phone’ or telephone: “Telephones were placed in different units and connected by wires to the same switchboard. This allowed soldiers on different parts of the battlefield to communicate with each other, but the system could easily fail if the wires snapped or were broken by the enemy.”(BBC Schools WW1) It wasn’t uncommon for radio wires to be broken. Wires were usually strewn along the ground in haste to
be out of the firing line, so it was easy for a soldier walking at night or an artillery shell to disrupt radio connection. Wires were rarely buried because of the time and manpower needed. Without solid communication, the invasion of Gallipoli was doomed from the start.
The terrain of the peninsula alone was enough to beat down the spirits of soldiers even without enemy gunfire.
As soldiers landed from their boats, they were suddenly faced with sheer precipices up to 200 feet high, with only a few narrow trails leading up. This in itself was an incredible feat, but to add to the endeavor, waves of enemy gunfire ravaged through the ranks of British, French, and Australian troops that landed on these beaches. Nasty drop offs and ravines were rampant along the shore of Gallipoli: “I burst through the scrub and found myself on the edge of a steep ravine...landed like a sack of spuds...as I stopped, the earth I dislodged came tumbling after me.”(Van Emden 94) Troops had to be careful about their steps or could risk falling up to 80 feet into a steep valley. Inland, conditions only got worse with vile plants equipped with spines and snaking roots. Searing heat and dust were also a toil for soldiers in the trenches. When it did rain, because the few trees and shrubs had been rooted out due to artillery, the ground would turn to mud and slosh, making way for diseases like trench foot: “The weather affected the soldiers by the continued dampness...caused the injuries to become more infected as they didn’t have a dry environment to heal in.”(Trench Warfare) The rain combined with the chalky soil of the peninsula created hell on earth for the soldiers on the front lines. The harsh terrain of Gallipoli was a heavy factor in the results of the fighting
and the morale of the troops.
Today, modern warfare takes all factors into consideration when devising plans and tactics, therefore no lives are blatantly wasted. Military technology and schooling are constantly evolving and improving, so unfit leadership is a thing of the past. Battle planning takes exponentially longer than it did in World War 1, and plans are reviewed by a panel of experts for possible outcomes and strategies, not written up by a single person. With the invention of drones, and the evolution of globalization, unscouted areas of land are growing smaller every day. Drones allow us to see the enemy and the land they are inhabiting from thousands of miles away, in a bunker where the pilot is not at risk of danger. Soldiers and officers are always informed of the terrain they are being deployed into, so there are no surprises on the battlefield. Had there been better intelligence of the land, more advanced communication, and fewer inexperienced doctors, the battle for Gallipoli and WW1 as a whole could have been very different, without the needless sacrifice of life from both sides.