Page 345 - Le Operazioni Interforze e Multinazionali nella Storia Militare - ACTA Tomo I

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replaced Churchill as First Lord in May 1915, but it remained far from perfect. 17
Given an absence of meetings, and a reluctance of experts to contradict the heads of
their department, the War Council was, to all intents and purposes, run by Kitchener and
Churchill. The Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Lieutenant-General Sir James Wolfe
Murray, who attended council meetings as the senior military expert, never expressed
18
his opinion because ‘Kitchener was the War Office spokesman’. Similarly, Admiral
Sir John (Jackie) Fisher, the First Sea Lord and most senior naval officer, recalled that
19
the politicians spoke at meetings and the experts remained ‘almost invariably mute’. It
was this body, with its lack of expert advice and debate that determined the direction of
20
the British war effort, including the Gallipoli campaign. And it was these departmental
heads, with their strong grip on their own departments, and a reluctance to confer with
their experts, who possessed strategic control and direction of the Gallipoli campaign.
Outside of the War Council (or Dardanelles Committee as it became) meetings, there
was very little inter-departmental consultation. There were no inter-departmental con-
21
ferences, and no joint planning committee like that established after the war. According
to Admiral John Godfrey, who as a lieutenant served at the Dardanelles, ‘Naval leaders
felt no need to consult the generals on how to conduct the Naval war, and it would not
have occurred to the War Office to turn to the Admiralty for advice on how to wage their
land campaigns’. It was not that the service representatives in London did not want to
22
meet, but that ‘they unconsciously saw no need to cross Whitehall’. Being broken into
separate land and sea wars, however, meant that ‘jointness’ was lacking at the strategic
level of war. Britain, therefore, was incapable of providing adequate strategic guidance
on joint operations. This lack of guidance had a direct bearing on the conduct and com-
mand of the Gallipoli campaign at the operational level of war.

Operational command
As a general rule, the army and navy worked well together throughout the Gallipoli
campaign. Both services functioned in accord with the Manual of Combined Naval and
Military Operations (1913), which stressed the importance of cooperation for the com-
23
mon good. Naval and military staffs helped each other and personal relationships were
close. Yet, beneath this personal courtesy was professional frustration, the belief within
17 In June, following the resignation of Admiral Fisher and Churchill’s replacement as First Lord of the
Admiralty, the War Council was renamed the Dardanelles Committee. The Gallipoli campaign was never its
sole focus, but given the joint nature of the theatre, it remained a high priority.
18 Evidence of Lieutenant-General Sir James Wolfe Murray to the Dardanelles Commission, 10 October 1916,
TNA: CAB 19/33, p. 167
19 John A. Fisher, Memories, Hodder and Stroughton, London, 1919, p. 61.
20 Evidence of Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Maurice Hankey to the Dardanelles Commission, 19 September 1916,
TNA: CAB 19/33, p. 26.
21 Arthur Marder, ‘The Influence of History on Sea Power: The Royal Navy and the Lessons of 1914-1918’,
Pacific Historical Review, Vol. 41, 1972, pp. 418-419.
22 ‘The naval memoirs of Admiral J.H. Godfrey’, Vol. 8, Imperial War Museum (herein IWM): Godfrey Papers,
74/96/1, pp. 23-24.
23 War Office, Manual of Combined Naval and Military Operations, H.M. Stationary Office, London, 1913, p. 9.