By Peter Biles

In one of the biggest Gallipoli conferences to date, more than 70 attendees gathered at the Royal Air Force Club, 128 Piccadilly, on Saturday 2 November. The Gallipoli Association Chairman, Brigadier James Stopford gave the welcome address and said ways continued to be sought to engage with a wider and younger audience. He added that the Association remained relevant and there was still a great deal to learn from the Gallipoli campaign. Brig. Stopford thanked Tom Iredale, Stephen Chambers and Hester Huttenbach for putting the conference together.

The first speaker was Vice Admiral (Ret’d) Paul Bennett whose subject was ‘The Royal Navy today and the enduring lessons of Gallipoli.’ 

Paul Bennett retired from the Royal Navy in 2022 after a career lasting 36 years. He commanded at every rank, including as the Commander of the UK’s Amphibious Task Group. Reflecting on Gallipoli, he said the tension between political and military leadership was as live today as it was in 1914. ‘There will, and should always be, a constructive tension between the politicians and the Armed Forces….but right from the start, as Admiral Wemyss had described in his personal account of the Navy in the Dardanelles, there was incoherence’.  Paul Bennett added: ‘The reality is that it wasn’t joined up…there was a gap between Navy and Army in delivering combined operations… whilst it would be a stretch to conclude that the experiences of 1915 were a direct catalyst for the improvements that we see today, it was most definitely a stark experience from which many lessons were absorbed into the continued rapid deployment of Royal Navy capability’.

The next presentation was by Professor Peter Doyle who spoke on ‘Gallipoli 1915: the impact of terrain from forcing the Dardanelles to evacuating the beaches.’ Peter Doyle is Emeritus Professor of History at London South Bank University, and lectures on First World War trench warfare. He said the Gallipoli campaign, as fought by the Entente Powers in 1915, was ultimately controlled by two factors: the complexity of the terrain and the skill of its Ottoman defenders. Included was some fascinating analysis of the effect of geology. In conclusion, Peter Doyle said the failure to ‘take the high ground’ doomed the Allied campaign and intelligent defensive containment by the Ottomans defeated the Allies.

Guest speaker, Sophie Haworth, was invited to talk about the impact of her Gallipoli Association-funded visit with the Army cadets to the Peninsula in 2022. Sophie grew up in Portsmouth and spent a year living in New Zealand which strengthened her interest in the Gallipoli campaign. She thanked the GA for enabling her to visit the peninsula, igniting her passion for military history, leading her to enrol at King's College London, where she is currently reading War Studies.  

Lieutenant Colonel (Ret’d) Dr Richard Farrimond offered the conference new insight into the man who commanded the Anzacs at Gallipoli. Birdie: More than ‘Soul of Anzac’ Field Marshal Lord Birdwood of Anzac & Totnes. According to Richard Farrimond, Birdwood has received little attention from either British or Antipodean historians. Australian authors look at him as a British general, while the British see him as closely associated with the Australians. Farrimond said the events at Gallipoli in 1915 had been ‘The Watershed of Birdwood’s career.’ He also described Birdwood as ‘A Man Of Empire.’

For a third successive year at the conference, guests were treated to another of Arthur Meek’s ‘Voices of Gallipoli.’ The New Zealand playwright and screenwriter presented a verbatim account from an Anzac veteran who fought at Gallipoli. This year we heard the dramatic testimony of Henry Lewis, a 20-year-old apprentice motor mechanic from Wellington, who survived Gallipoli, but ended up deeply traumatised by his experience of hardship and fear.