The view from Hunter-Weston Hill inland towards Achi Baba, Helles, #Gallipoli.

A Lancashire Fusiliers cap badge on W Beach, Lancashire Landing, Cape Helles, #Gallipoli. (N.B. It was photographed there, not found there, as someone once accused me of faking. We don't keep in touch.)

"Heldenmütige Verteidigung der Dardanellen," the Heroic Defence of the Dardanelles.

Ian Hamilton blamed Frederick Stopford for the failure at #Suvla, #Gallipoli. Stopford had been the Lieutenant of the Tower of London, a sinecure post offered to the old and unfit for anything else. Hamilton is pictured here at the end of his tenure as Lieutenant of the Tower of London.

No-one seems to know the origin of the saying that "journalism is the first rough draft of history" but journalists have certainly helped frame our understanding of our past.

American journalists George Schreiner & Raymond Swing witnessed the Anglo-French naval attempt to force the #Dardanelles on 18th March 1915. I'll discuss their take on the campaign in my talk to @gallipoliassoc.bsky.social on 25th March. Image: "Shells bursting at Kilitbahir." AWM P04411.056.

Some men wanted Charles Bean sent home during his time in Egypt. But what he did at Gallipoli turned that around. How and why I'll discuss in my talk to the @gallipoliassoc.bsky.social on 25th March: Gallipoli Through Journalists' Eyes. Image: 'Sydney Mail' (New South Wales), 21st October 1914.

Absolutely fuck this racist shit too.

When Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett met the British Prime Minister to discuss #Gallipoli he gave an account, "which was not altogether agreeable." That's British official-speak for disaster. I'll be covering this in my talk to @gallipoliassoc.bsky.social on 25th March.

One book I've looked at while researching my talk on #Gallipoli and journalists is Dr. John Bourne's "Who's Who In World War One." This on John Masefield: "He had no qualifications and so looked for employment in an occupation where qualifications were not required, journalism."

The earliest reference I can find to the use of the expression "No Man's Land" was the name given to a place of execution in 'The Ipswich Journal' on 24th July 1790.

The Army just deleted without explanation its page about the 442nd “GO FOR BROKE” infantry regiment—the Japanese American WW2 unit that is the most decorated in US military history. Archive is here: web.archive.org/web/20250304... Page was here: www.army.mil/asianpacific... Disgusting.

My talk to @gallipoliassoc.bsky.social on 25th March will cover the Army's attitude towards war correspondents. Kitchener wanted none anywhere near the war zone but later appointed Col Ernest Swinton (right) as an "Eye Witness" on the Western Front. Did his writings tell us anything?

Disgraceful. Shameful. taskandpurpose.com/news/arlingt...

"We have a certain number of ships which we can spare for these operations, ships which we could lose without jeopardising our naval superiority. This — coupled with the fact that the enemy are not a brainy folk — makes the #Dardanelles effort possible." Fred T. Jane, 13th March 1915.

"I was filled with a great contempt for everything and everybody civil, more especially for politicians and war correspondents and war correspondents in khaki. The only men who counted were the men who took the trenches or died in taking them." Edmund Candler, Mesopotamia, 13th March 1916.

Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett and Henry Nevinson, the two most prominent British war correspondents at #Gallipoli, both wrote books about the campaign. One mentioned the other; the other didn't reciprocate. Learn more in my talk to @gallipoliassoc.bsky.social on 25th March.

🗺️ Ottoman Map of the Hijaz Railway, 1901 #OldMap #Map #Railway

Dipping into the vaults again this time its the denouement of the Battle of Waterloo. What a battle: so much slaughter in just one small area. What a place to visit. Relive the horror with us one more time. Please share! Thanks chums! open.spotify.com/episode/5osr...

#WW2 Chasselay, France, June 20th, 1940. A Panzer IV is opening fire. The target: a group of POW. They are Tirailleurs Senegalais, African Colonial Infantry in the French Army. This is the most documented massacre made by the German Army during the Battle of France. A thread 🧵

11 Mar 1942 // Light cruiser HMS Naiad was torpedoed by German submarine U.565 south of Crete and sank with the loss of 82 of her crew. (Imperial War Museum images: HMS Naiad photographed in 1940, A 447; and some of Naiad's survivors on the deck of HMS Jervis, A 8388) #RoyalNavy #WW2 #NavalHistory

I accompanied my father-in-law to Normandy in 2014 for the 70th anniversary D-Day commemorations. This Maple Leaf lapel badge was one of many handed out by some Canadian officials who helped make sure we were able to attend one event at that time. Thank you, #Canada.

My talk to @gallipoliassoc.bsky.social on 25th March will cover depictions of Turks prior to the Great War. Robert Gibbs' famous painting of the 'Thin Red Line' at Balaklava is a good example. But there are no Turks shown... Exactly.

Alfred Gardiner on Lord Northcliffe: "Does the temper of the moment demand the immolation of France, then he is the fiercest of Francophobes... Does the mood change and Germany become the object of national suspicion, then who [is] so ready to throw faggots on the flame."

The two most prominent British war correspondents at #Gallipoli were Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett and Henry Nevinson. But only one of their books was cited as a source in the official British history of the campaign. Find out why in my talk for the @gallipoliassoc.bsky.social on 25th March.

I'm giving a talk, "Gallipoli Through Journalists' Eyes," for the @gallipoliassoc.bsky.social on 25th March. It'll be prefaced with evidence of some attitudes towards the Turks. This from an English businessman, John Gadsby, who called in at Çanakkale in the 1840s.

Not for the first time someone stated as fact that Attlee organised the #Gallipoli evacuation. When asked for the source, this came back: "I read it somewhere in pre-internet days..." Attlee failed to mention it in his autobiography. Funny, that.

Some photographs found at #Suvla, #Gallipoli were published on 23rd January 1916. [1] [1] 'The People,' 23rd January 1916.

The story of the Battle for Lake Tanganyika is one of the lectures at the Not the Western Front Conference. The British shipped 2 gunboats to the lake. the conference is on Saturday 25th Oct in Wakefield Yorkshire. goslingpress.co.uk/not-the-west... @peterhart.bsky.social @edwardburke.bsky.social

"After The Evacuation," a cartoon published in 'The Bystander' on 19th January 1916. #Gallipoli

On 9th January 1916 L/Cpl. Frank Parkin, 1st Battalion King's Own Scottish Borderers, fell between a lighter and the ship that was to have taken him away from the peninsula. He was never seen again. Commemorated on the Helles Memorial. #Gallipoli

Leading Trimmer Septimus Mason, RNR, HMS St. George, was “killed by falling debris” from the mine explosion on W Beach, #Helles, #Gallipoli on 9th January 1916. He is buried in Lancashire Landing Cemetery.

Pte. Richard Porter, 7th Battalion North Staffordshire Regiment, was killed at #Helles, #Gallipoli on 7th January 1916. He joined up to avoid prosecution for his part in a beer-fuelled street fight the previous July. That was not his first brush with the law.

Flight Commander Hans Ackworth Busk, No. 2 Wing, Royal Naval Air Service, was killed in action, probably shot down Hans-Joachim Buddecke, at #Gallipoli on 6th January 1916.

Vice-Admiral Sackville Carden, R.N., to Churchill, 5th January 1915. "I do not consider Dardanelles can be rushed. "They might be forced by extended operations with large number of ships." That “might” did some heavy lifting there.

#Anzac Cove, #Gallipoli, in 'The Sphere,' 1st January 1916.

#Anzac Cove & Ari Burnu Cemetery, 1st January 2025. #Gallipoli Images courtesy of Burak Yetimoğlu.

23rd December 1915: it was made an offence for anyone to buy any convalescent serviceman in Britain a drink. Merry Christmas from DORA.

"The Window of a Scarborough Antique Dealer's Shattered While a Portrait of the British Secretary of State for War [Kitchener] Remains Unhurt.” [1] [1] 'The Sketch,' 23rd December 1914.

The German High Seas Fleet shelled Scarborough, Whitby and the Hartlepools, 16th December 1914. Image: damage to Scarborough lighthouse, 'The Illustrated War News,' 23rd December 1914.

"Shrapnel was dropping like hailstones over cargo boats, everybody found it advisable to get under cover. One shell, bursting near the Medomsley, blew a piece of burst shell down through the hatches of No. 3 hold." Capt. George Rutherford, SS Medomsley, 16th December 1912, #Dardanelles

Thanks, Facebook. Thanks a bunch for losing all the work scheduled for the rest of this year.

“Transport Nearing Jerusalem,” [1] 10th December 1917 by James McBey. [1] 'The Sphere,' 2nd November 1918.

"I had a gallon stone jar full of water outside my dug-out, and that also turned into ice and burst the jar." Tpr. Allan Nancarrow, 11th Australian Light Horse, 4th December 1915. www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=...

“In #Gallipoli: Turkish Prisoners Taken by the Australians at Gaba Tepe.” [1] [1] 'The Graphic,' 4th December 1915.

Interesting to read that #Gallipoli VC, Pte. John Hamilton, 3rd Bn, AIF, visited #Nottingham in December 1915, meeting a friend on Long Row, toured the Raleigh factory and others, while convalescent in England. But odd that there was no mention of this in the local press.

British understatement... "A few scouts advance first and reach the line of the enemy's wire entanglements, where they are very soon put out of action in full view of the leading detachments waiting in the trenches. This does not tend to heighten the moral of these detachments."

How useful and relevant was the training given to the men before landing at #Gallipoli?

#Gallipoli, Hell and Confusion...

"Alive With Death," the first volume of the new #Gallipoli history, is available here.