Tag Archives: Ian Hamilton

25 April 1915: The bloodbath begins

At 4.30 this morning the first ANZAC troops began landing at Z Beach on the Gallipoli Peninsula. They were not strongly opposed, as von Sanders’s strategy was to keep a light screen around the coast until it was clear where … Continue reading

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24 April 1915

The 23rd and 24th April were days of matchless beauty, and the glistening splendour of the sea and sky was a picture such as can only be found in the Aegean, and there only in days of early spring. To … Continue reading

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Gallipoli: the beginning of the end

Today, 25 March 1915, Field Marshal Otto Liman von Sanders left Constantinople for Gallipoli to take command of the Turkish forces at the Dardanelles. He was not a brilliant Prussian general, but many consider him first-rate. Upon arriving, he said … Continue reading

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22 March 1915

Today, a Monday, Admiral de Robeck, Commander-in-Chief of the British-French fleet at the Dardanelles, and his second-in-command Admiral Wemyss, arrived at Lemnos on their flagship the Queen Elizabeth for a conference with Sir Ian Hamilton, Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force. … Continue reading

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18 March 1915

Just after dawn today, the first ten battleships of de Robeck’s Anglo-French fleet moved off from Tenedos for what it was hoped would be the decisive attack on the Dardanelles, leading to forcing the Narrows on the 19th. De Robeck … Continue reading

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10 March 1915

Today, Wednesday 10 March, a War Council meeting was held at which Kitchener announced that he would now send his last Regular Army division, the 29th, comprising about 15,000 men, to the Mediterranean to join the forces being despatched from … Continue reading

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The Scott syndrome

Two days ago, I happened to hear on Radio 3 Sarah Walker’s introduction to her ‘Choice’ on Essential Classics, which was Vaughan Williams’s Sinfonia Antartica (sic). As I recall it now, she said that the composer was commissioned to write the … Continue reading

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