GALLIPOLI CAMPAIGN.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 3 April 1929, Page 9

GALLIPOLI CAMPAIGN.

WHY IT FAILED. WHAT Mil. W. M. HUGHES SAYS. Turning over the pages of Mr \\ . M. Hughes’s new book, one. encounters many passages ol enthralling interest (says a Press writer). None will holid the’ tense interest of Australia, mono than those deoiling with the GiaTipoli campaign in the light tend revelation of knowledge more complete than any historian has given us. “The GaUipo'd campaign failed because the civil Government of Great Britain had no definite plans for* carrying on the war; because there was no leadership; because each department was largely a law unto itself; because between the military and naval chiefs there was no co-ordination. “The Australian Government was informed, but was not consulted when its soldiers were sent to Gallipoli, nor when they were taken away. If the authorities* had folly explained the situation to the Australian Government *" January or February, there would have been little or no difficulty in making available troops—along with those of New Zealand) in sufficient numbers to have given the enterprise a reasonable chance of success. “Again, when it was decided to evacuate the Peninsula, the British Government communicated with the ’ \listenliau Government and asked il it wished to make any comments.

“No doubt there were many comments that I could have made, Hud, 1 felt strongly moved to make, but they were hnirdlv sui table lor telegraph transmission. “So we were silent. and lor six weeks* T went about with the appalling postseriu ‘Prepare for 40 per cent, casualties’ burnt into my very sou/!. How that “appalling postscript failed of fulfilment we were to learn with rrroat iov ?oon after it had boon written, but the dreadful, necessity of its anticipation and the impotence of Wtnrlian authority at (that stage, to avert it arc told by the War Prime Minister in nhuasom which —to repeat his own words —must burn into the very souls ot -the renders. CMhei .*}V~ ,-villm!/ post-scrips” wore a'tl too terribly fu.’filled during the red' years, and of these Mr Hughes has written with the freedom that'the passage of time has made possible, but which was not to be momentari’v considered then.