The Gallipoli campaign in the year 1915, involved an invasion by the British forces alongside the French forces into Dardanelles, the northwestern part of Turkey with the hope of taking control of the strait in the area. The naval operation failed miserably leading to heavy casualties in the process. A detailed exploration of the reasons why the amphibious assault went wrong can be ascertained when examined in the light of the Marine Corps philosophy as embodied in the MCDP-1manual. The Manual provides the philosophy which defines the U.S Marine Corps and acts as an authoritative document for indicating how the Marines fight and how they prepare to fight..
The United States Marine Corps is best known for conducting amphibious operations. Indeed, the attitude by Marine Corps as well as the spirit of these amphibious operations is what has been responsible for the major victories of the force and kept it effective so far. This is despite the negative attitude that amphibious operations attracted following the failure of the British in the Gallipoli campaign and the consequent feeling that the operation is impracticable when launched against well prepared defense. An examination of the amphibious doctrine as it has evolved from the First World War through the Gulf War to modern day is essential to lay bare the lesson employed by Marine Corps as learnt from British failures in the Gallipoli campaign of 1915. It is the case that the dismal showing of Britain at Gallipoli convinced military leaders and thinkers that amphibious operations could not have an impact against strong opposition. It therefore became the subject of study by the Marine Corps in the Quantico Schools over the 1920’s decade. One man who had the foresight planned and consequently gave the most potent tactic for the Marine Corps in the next several years till this day. In particular, the Marines published a documentary on amphibious research known as Tentative Landings Operations Manual which was adopted by both the Army as well as the Navy and contained all aspects of amphibious operations. Some of the aspects included survival on the beachhead, logistics, allocation of command responsibilities, ship-to-shore movements and use of landing aircraft. The amphibious assault has been employed by the Marine Corps throughout history with overwhelming success.As already stated; a number of things went awful for the British prompting a study by the Marine Corps. The things that went wrong may be explored in the context of War fighting and the various tactics now employed by the Marine Corps with much success.
Centers of Gravity and Critical Vulnerabilities
Centers of Gravity refer to the vital components or elements of the enemy that are essential to its survival and continued strength in battle. The Marine Corps target is usually to eliminate these Centers of Gravity as an attack on them brings to bear heavily on the enemies and has a debilitative effect on them. In the Gallipoli campaign, the Allied Forces and more so the British forces did not bother to identify and attack the Centers of Gravity of the Turkish forces such as their morale, capabilities and relationships between the elements of the enemy forces. On the converse, the British tended to attack the strengths of the enemy and thereby failed to subdue them. Lessons learnt by the Marine Corps and which has consequently informed their operation is the need to assess and locate the critical vulnerabilities of the enemy and then attack them so as to effectively enfeeble the enemy. In this way, the actions taken by the Corps have a destructive effect on their enemies.
Fog of War
Fog of war basically refers to the uncertainty associated with war whereby it is difficult to predict the action or move of the enemy. As such, virtually all decisions taken by a force in war are based on inaccurate, incomplete or contradicting information. In the Gallipoli campaign, the British failed on this dimension. They failed to appreciate or predict the action of the enemy, in this case Turkey. In particular, Turkey was well aware that an attack by the British was very likely and thereby improved their defense forces through reinforcement from Germany. Though the Allies forces were able to destroy the forts at the entrance in Dardanelles in the first few days, they were forced to sweep the area owing to the heavy mining of water before their fleet could take off. The uncertainty surrounding the heavy water mining was not within the knowledge of the British forces and they thus acted on inaccurate and incomplete information. As a result of the failure by the minesweepers to clear the area completely, three of the ships belonging to the Allied forces sank and two of them were severely damaged. Since half of the ten ships that had been deployed were already damaged, the Allied forces retreated and pulled out the remaining ships. It is equally noticeable that the same pullout was resisted by Winston Churchill who pressed for the continuation of the attack on the following day on the basis that the Turkish forces had run low on munitions. It later came out to be known that this was not the case and that Churchill was relying on inaccurate information and thus in the fog of war. To counter this uncertainty, the Marine Corps, calls for the making of sound decisions, the uncertainty as to the state of the enemy notwithstanding. They act on the supposition that even little actions in war do count, and count big. They also act with the knowledge that war involves an element of risk and that the greater the risk in war, the greater are the returns. The Marines also operate their amphibious assaults with the understanding that chance plays its role in war and that neither party has the ability to control the occurrence of events. These are some of the lessons that the Marine Corps have been able to learn from the failures by the British and those that they employ in their operations.
Physical, moral and mental forces
The physical, moral and mental forces are all essential for the effective functioning of an amphibious operation. The physical forces are men and material or equipment of war. As already mentioned, the Allied forces had some incompetent troops and inadequate equipment in the onslaught. The moral forces include factors such as the resolve by a nation going to war which is usually difficult to grasp. In this respect, Winston Churchill impressed upon his country to invade Turkey despite the earlier refusal of the nation. This indicates that the resolve by the nation was not firm and could have had an impact on the failure of the country in the war. On the other hand, the mental forces usually affect the ability of a force to outthink the enemy. Marine Corps note the difficulty of identification of the mental and moral forces but again reiterate that the same cannot be neglected in an amphibious assault.
Initiative and response
The Marine Corps act on the premise that all actions taken during war are predicated on the initiative to act and the response of a force to an action. Initiative plays a role in the sense that it is the way by which a force imposes its will on the enemy. Both the striking power of a force is inspired by initiative of the force as is, a good defense. A lesson learnt from the British failure in Gallipoli is that the eroding of the ability of a force to attack should initiate the launching of a defense. Further, it has now become apparent that defense and offense are not completely separate attitudes as they both contain the other.
Works Cited
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