Gallipoli

Key Takeaways The organizational chaos: Supplies were loaded onto ships in England with no consideration for unloading sequence. Ammunition was buried under tents; rations were packed with artillery shells. The labeling disaster: Crates were mislabeled, unlabeled, or labeled in ways incomprehensible to receiving units. Soldiers searching for rifle ammunition found medical supplies; those seeking food found spare parts. The beach breakdown: Gallipoli's beaches became choked with supplies that couldn't be sorted, stored, or distributed. Desperately needed items sat feet from men who died for lack of them. The systemic lesson: Gallipoli's logistics failure wasn't individual incompetence—it was the predictable result of a system where no one was responsible for the whole supply chain. The Campaign That Couldn’t Feed Itself In early 1915, Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, championed a daring strategy: force the Dardanelles strait with naval power, capture Constantinople, knock the Ottoman Empire out of the war, and open a supply route to Russia. It was bold, imaginative, and potentially war-winning. ...