Customer Reviews

Gallipoli: The End of the Myth

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As an introduction to the subject, Prior's book has much to recommend it, though it suffers, as do most accounts in English, from a lack of original Turkish sources. Prior's main thesis is that, even if it had been successful, the Gallipoli Campaign would not have shortened the war by so much as one day. While detailing the well-known defects of the higher command (and with a reappraisal of the subsequent performance of Hunter-Weston), there is a somewhat inevitable feeling that the material is skewed, if only slightly, to support the conclusion. The so-called 'Drift to the Dardanelles' is examined, as is Churchill's role, but this was covered in far greater detail in Geoffrey Miller's 'Straits: British Policy Towards the Ottoman Empire and the Origins of the Dardanelles Campaign' (which, strangely, does not appear in the bibliography) and there is little new here. Nevertheless, Prior's book is recommended as a solid overview of the Campaign but is hardly 'The Final Story'

I purchased this book after reading strong reviews in WSJ.

For professional military professionals, this book is very good. Outstanding analysis.

However, it is very technical, and is would not be recommended for those people who are only slightly familiar with the larger story.

I had some background knowledge on this topic due to prior readings on WWI but I wanted a book which focused exclusively on the topic. Robin Prior appears to have done extensive research on the topic and his approach is scholarly and a bit dry. Apparently much of the writing on Gallipoli has had elements of romanticizing what turned out to be bad strategic and tactical decisionmaking which resulted in a huge loss of life. For someone interested in the facts and his interpretation of them, I think this is a book worth reading.

Unlike the other reviewers, I did not find this book dry or overly technical. In fact, I enjoyed it very much.

The book contains many maps. I just wish the person responsible for the maps would have read what Prof. Prior was writing, since there are many instances of places being named in the text but not appearing on the maps.

Despite this, the book still rates five stars.

This is yet another history of a worn-out subject. The author brings nothing new to the table in terms of history but attempts to give it edge by providing lots of subjective opinion about the campaign. The opinion is that the campaign was doomed to failure and that the lives lost were for nothing. The author seems blisfully unaware of the 90 odd years of study the preceeded his book and seems to think that his opinions are somehow new or original. Nothing could be further from the truth.

As one of those histories of familiar subjects that are written every ten years (like studies of Waterloo, studies of Custer's Last Stand, biographies of Washington, biographies of Lincoln...) the book is reasonable. The author tries to be fair even though its clear that he reached his conclusions at the start. If someone wants an introductory book on the campaign, this will work. But there is no particular lasting value to be found here and no new discoveries.

As other reviewers have stated, this book provides a good strategic, and at times, tactical overview of the costly failure of the Allies at Gallipoli.
I have to agree with the author's central thesis; that even if the campaign ultimately proved to be successful, and knocked Turkey out of the war, it would have had little, or no impact upon the main theatre of war, the Western Front. Victory, or defeat, was going to be determined there, and only there. Any other theatre was indeed a sideshow. If the German Army was not defeated in the field, in France and Flanders, the Allies would not be victorious.
The author's writing style, to me, is very dry and academic, and not very compelling. I much prefer Alan Moorehead's dated (1956), but well- written account "Gallipoli" to this version.