Kermal Ataturk Was A Bolshevik Sympathizer

[Anomalocaris]

I would like to hear how exactly Churchills disaster at Gallipoli was responsible for its decline in power. There are many causes not least its loss in industrial preeminence to the USA and Germany. To a single failed campaign...not so much. Also please explain how the failed campaign in Gallipoli is a major cause of misery in the Middle East today .

Uh, no. Gallipoli was merely the compounding of an earlier, even greater and more far reaching error Churchill had already made out of staggering shortsightedness, idiotic high-handedness, criminal carelessness, and brutal ignorance. Churchill turned a turkey that was fence sitting and somewhat more favorably inclined towards the allies than the central powers into an inveterate enemy, directly robbed the ally side of the ability to greatly strengthen the Russian army by 1915, and to help stabilize Russian economy whose near collapse would lead to Russia's exit from the war.

Traditionally ottoman turkey had favored the British side since the Crimea war in 1850s. Turkey has placed large orders of dreadnaughts and other arms from British firms, relied on British form for modernization, and relied on Britain to keep Russian power in Check. However Britain had become increasingly dismissive of the value of a Turkish alliance since the Entent with France, and had done nothing to counter the assiduous German attempts to win over turkey in the lead up to the war.

Nonetheless at the start of the war, ottoman turkey still had 2 battleships in British yards, finished and paid for by popular subscription fromTurkish school children, and already manned by Turkish crew. Turkish court was divided between those who favored allied side, and those the central side. But the side favoring the allies seem to have the upper hand. There was near consensus that Turkey did not have the luxury of sitting it out and staying neutral. Turkey must sooner or latter declare for one side to the other, and it seemed more likely turkey was going to declare for the allies.

For the allied side Britain and France had an surplus of munition manufacturing capacity relative to forces the central powers can deploy to the west, but a shortage of man power and agricultural production capacity. Russia had a deficit of munition manufacturing capacity, but a surplus of manpower and agricultural production. If the war was not decided by an early clash, then it was clear to everyone the best chance for the allies for a relatively short war was to gain access to Russia's black se ports in order to supply Russia using western allies' surplus munition capacity, while taking advantage of Russia's manpower. Russia's surplus agricultural capacity would then be exportable through Black Sea ports, keeping Russian economy afloat and able to afford repaying allied credit extended for the munition.

Having turkey, favorably disposed towards the allies, to actually come over to the ally side would therefore be a war winning strategy.

But war winning strategies do not survive encountered with Winston Churchill's pet ideas and his pet vision of himself as a transcendental great strategic thinker. Churchill is so adept at talking up his own pet ideas that has no relation to reality, that one British general, named Smith, took to chanting "My name is Smith" whenever Churchill is present. When asked why he was doing so, he relied "if I keep listening to Churchill, I would become convinced my name is Brown".

In this spirit and using this kind of pursuasiveness Churchill convinced the British cabinet that the value of the two Turkish battleships in British yards was greater than the value of turkey herself, and it was permissible to simply seize the two Turkish battleships in Britain without compensation even though turkey was neutral. Germany immediately seized and capitalized on the opportunity created by the huge public resentment Churchill's action created in turkey, and offered the German battlecruiser goeben, otherwise trapped in the Mediterranean, to turkey as compensation for Churchill's perfidy.

This act above all brought turkey into the war on German side, instead of allied side.

Churchill's blunder resulted in the war being longer and much more costly and draining to the British empire than it needed to be, Russia being effectively cut off from world market as well as large scale allied resupply, and contributed mightily to the circumstances of Bolshevik revolution. It created the situation whereby American power was called to resolve an European problem, rather than victor in the European struggle, Britain, being able to extend its influence through its victory. It resulted in the replacement of Ottoman Turkish authority in Middle East with capricious, inattentive, and short lived League of Nations mandates that passed with the area divided along unnatural lines drawn on the map without concern for allegiances. It resulted in the opportunity to insert an unnatural Israel into the midst of an Arab world.

perhaps you can just resort to telling me to 'educate myself' in lieu of not being able to assert your position

Perhaps you can educate yourself instead of assuming those whose time might be better used than in educating you lack the ability to assert their position.