Dominic Sandbrook

And they don't.

And the reason they don't, it's partly because there's Churchill there who's a force of nature, who's basically clearly going to have a massive tantrum if they don't continue with his scheme.

It's partly because they've already lost lives and ships.

So it's that classic thing of, you know, pouring...

Good money after bad, you know, you have to justify the initial investment the initial sacrifice and the only way to do that is to keep you know Throwing resources down the sink as it were But also Lord Kitchener raises the point about the jihad that you mentioned earlier.

He says we cannot afford to

To lose to an Asian Muslim power.

Because the authority of our empire is based on the perception of our superiority.

Quote, the effect of a defeat in the Orient would be very serious.

A really good analogy is Vietnam.

You know, a humiliation or a defeat here would be so catastrophic for America's image abroad that we just have to keep pouring and pouring men and hoping that something will change.

And so the war council makes the fateful decision that they will double down.

They will send in the fleet for another go.

But first, they will prepare the ground.

They decide, we will send a small expeditionary force to the European side of the Straits.

We will land troops on the Gallipoli Peninsula,

And it should be a very easy job to take the peninsula and to knock out all the Ottoman forts and batteries along that side of the coastline.

And then we can send our ships through.

It will be dead easy and nothing could possibly go wrong.

But could it?