Page 346 - Le Operazioni Interforze e Multinazionali nella Storia Militare - ACTA Tomo I

346 XXXIX Congresso della CommIssIone InternazIonale dI storIa mIlItare • CIHm

each service that their methods were superior. Both services competed and compared
systems without really understanding the other.
The impact of these cultures came to a head in the command system in place through-
out the Gallipoli campaign. According to the British naval strategist and historian, Sir
Julian Corbett, the Continental Powers believed that the answer to command in joint op-
erations was to make the admiral subordinate to the general. British practice, however,
since the failed amphibious assault at Rochefort in 1757, had been to have two co-equal
commanders. ‘The danger of possible friction’, wrote Corbett, ‘came to be regarded
as small compared with the danger of a single [commander] making mistakes through
24
unfamiliarity with the limitations of the service to which he does not belong’. As such,
General Hamilton, in command of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force (MEF), and
Vice-Admiral de Robeck, commanding the Eastern Mediterranean Squadron (EMS),
shared equal responsibility for the planning and conduct of the Gallipoli campaign.
There were, therefore, two operational commanders, and neither had responsibility over
the other.
This command system, which relied on the personalities of the commanders to func-
tion properly, broke down during the Gallipoli campaign. Aside from not having the
authority to overrule or direct the other service, neither Hamilton nor de Robeck felt
it his place to inform the other what they wanted from the other service. To both men,
25
the other service was outside their realm of expertise, and therefore best left alone. As
Hamilton poetically penned, ‘If a sailor on land is a fish out of water, a soldier at sea is
26
like a game cock in a duckpond’. Similarly, de Robeck did not like to interfere with
military matters. His chief of staff, Commodore Roger Keyes, informed his wife that de
Robeck ‘is very diffident about putting his views to the general in anything to do with
land operations’.
27
Throughout the entire campaign, neither operational commander suggested action or
encroached on the other’s command. As such, there was no true unity of command, and
28
no coordinated direction towards a common goal at Gallipoli. Rather than promoting
‘jointness’, where both services should have cooperated in the planning and direction
of the campaign, this system with these commanders, saw the services planning and
executing military operations separately. This situation filtered down through the staff
of each service and into the ranks.
There was one more complicating factor at play. This was a British campaign, and
as such, the British assumed responsibility for the conduct of operations. But it was also
a combined operation, and alliances had to be carefully managed. The French accepted
that the Corps Expéditionnaire d’Orient – under General Albert d’Amade (and later gen-
erals Henri Gouraud, from May, and Maurice Bailloud, from 30 June) – and the French

24 Julian S. Corbett, Principles of Maritime Strategy, Dover Publications, New York, 2004, p. 306.
25 ‘The Naval memoirs of Admiral J.H. Godfrey’, Vol. 8, IWM: Godfrey Papers, 74/96/1, p. 24.
26 Ian S.M. Hamilton, Gallipoli Diary, Vol. 2, Edward Arnold, London, 1920, p. 125.
27 Letter, Keyes to wife, 2 July 1915, British Library: Keyes Papers, Add. 82393.
28 Sherman Miles, ‘Notes on the Dardanelles Campaign of 1915: part 1’, The Coast Artillery Journal, Vol. 61,
No. 6, December 1924, p. 515.