Britain’s armed forces and amphibious operations in peace and war 1919–1939: A Gallipoli Curse?

ABSTRACT

Gallipoli left a lasting impression upon both the countries that participated and many that did not. It has been argued that the campaign negatively influenced Britain’s interwar amphibious preparations. Instead, this article will show that Britain’s armed forces were largely unaffected by such memories, and maintained their relative global standing in theory, equipment and training exercises for landing operations. The paper also highlights the role of amphibious warfare in fighting the many ‘little wars of Empire’ during the period.

KEYWORDS:

• Gallipoli
• amphibious operations
• naval fleets
• military operations
• imperial policing
• peacetime

Disclosure statement

The author is grateful to Professor Richard Overy, Dr Laura Rowe and Dr David Morgan-Owen for reading and commenting on earlier versions of this article. Thanks are also owed to the two anonymous reviewers and their helpful feedback.

Notes

¹ C.M. Bell, Churchill and the Dardanelles (Oxford: Oxford UP 2017), 304–56; J. Kiszely, Anatomy of a Campaign: The British Fiasco in Norway, 1940 (Cambridge: Cambridge UP 2017), 287–8; D. MacGregor, ‘The Use, Misuse, and Non-Use of History: The Royal Navy and the Operational Lessons of the First World War’, Journal of Military History 56/4 (1992), 609–16.

² G. Ellison, The Perils of Amateur Strategy (London: Longman 1926), xxi-23.

³ B. Liddell Hart, When Britain Goes to War (London: Faber and Faber 1935), 239–55; B. Liddell Hart, The Liddell Hart Memoirs Vol. 1 (London: Cassell 1965), 281–306.

⁴ A.J. Marder, From the Dardanelles to Oran: Studies of the Royal Navy in War and Peace 1915–1940 (London: Oxford UP 1974), 52; J. Thompson, The Royal Marines: From Sea Soldiers to a Special Force (London: Pan 2001), 227; A. Whitehouse, Amphibious Operations (London: Frederick Muller 1963), 178–81.

⁵ B. Fergusson, The Watery Maze (London: Collins 1961), 35.

⁶ K. Clifford, Amphibious Warfare Development in Britain and America from 1920–1940 (NY: Edgewood 1983); G. Till, ‘Hitting the Beach: The Amphibious Experience’, in eds. J. Bourne, P. Liddle, and I. Whitehead, The Great World War 1914–45: 1. Lightning Strikes Twice (London: HarperCollins 2000); G. Till, ‘Amphibious Warfare and the British’, in T. Farrell, M.J. Grove, G. Till, Amphibious Operations: A Collection of Papers (Camberley: SCSI 1997), 16–9.

⁷ MacGregor, ‘Use, Misuse and Non-Use’, 603–16.

⁸ R. Harding, ‘Amphibious Warfare 1930–1939’, in ed. R. Harding, The Royal Navy, 1930–2000 Innovation and Defence (London: Frank Cass 2005), 42–64; J. Moretz, Thinking Wisely, Planning Boldly: The Higher Education and Training of Royal Navy Officers, 1919–39 (Solihull: Helion 2014), 326; I. Speller, ‘In the Shadow of Gallipoli? Amphibious Warfare in the Inter-War Period’, in ed. J. Macleod, Gallipoli: Making History (London: Routledge, 2004).

⁹ B.B. Schofield, British Sea Power (London: Batsford 1967), 199–200; Fergusson, Watery Maze, 37.

¹⁰ Marder, Dardanelles to Oran, 52.

¹¹ R. Brooks, The Royal Marines: 1664 to the Present (London: Constable 2002), 252–4.

¹² MacGregor, ‘Use, Misuse and Non-Use’, 607.

¹³ Kew, UK, The National Archives (TNA), War Office (WO) 106/64, Plans, intelligence reports, and staff exercises for landing on the Anatolian Coast, 1920.

¹⁴ A.J. Marder, ‘The Influence of History on Sea Power: The Royal Navy and the Lessons of 1914–1918’, Pacific Historical Review 41/4 (1972), 439; C.M. Bell, ‘The King’s English and the Security of the Empire: Class, Social Mobility, and Democratization in the British Naval Officer Corps, 1918–1939’, Journal of British Studies 48/3 (2009), 699.

¹⁵ Greenwich, UK, National Maritime Museum (NMM), Troubridge (TRO) 401/5, Staff College Scheme 33, 19 Feb. 1925; T. Travers, Gallipoli 1915 (Stroud: History Press 2009).

¹⁶ D.W. Lloyd, Battlefield Tourism: Pilgrimage and the Commemoration of the Great War in Britain, Australia and Canada 1919–1939 (Oxford: Berg 1998), 97–99.

¹⁷ Marder, Dardanelles to Oran, 34.

¹⁸ Bell, Churchill and the Dardanelles, 304–56.

¹⁹ H.P. Willmott, The Last Century of Sea Power: From Port Arthur to Chanak, 1894–1922 (Bloomington: Indiana UP 2009), 276; J. Macleod, Reconsidering Gallipoli (Manchester: Manchester UP 2004), 27–88; Ellison, Perils of Amateur Strategy, 96–134.

²⁰ Schofield, British Sea Power, 199–200; Fergusson, Watery Maze, 37.

²¹ See: J. Ferris, ‘Treasury Control, The Ten Year Rule and British Service Policies, 1919–1924’, Historical Journal 30/4 (1987), 860–7; D. Edgerton, Warfare State: Britain 1920–1970 (Cambridge: Cambridge UP 2006), 16–36; C.M. Bell, Churchill and Sea Power (Oxford: Oxford UP 2013), 88–105.

²² A.R. Millett, ‘Assault from the Sea: The Development of Amphibious Warfare between the Wars: the American, British and Japanese Experiences’, in eds. W. Murray and A.R. Millett Military Innovation in the Interwar Period (Cambridge: Cambridge UP 1996), 59–62; Harding, ‘Amphibious Warfare’, 45.

²³ Marder, Dardanelles to Oran, 52.

²⁴ R.A. Beaumont, Joint Military Operations (London: Greenwood 1993), 77.

²⁵ J.E. Alvarez, ‘Between Gallipoli and D-Day: Alhucemas 1925’, Journal of Military History 63/1 (1999), 86.

²⁶ TNA, Admiralty (ADM) 203/73, Memoranda outlining requirements for new landing craft, 1926; TNA, ADM 1/9331, Report on using the Fleming Lifeboat as a landing craft, 1926.

²⁷ TNA, ADM 137/2498, Report by Rear Admiral H. Kelly during the Chanak Crisis, 10 Mar. 1922.

²⁸ TNA, ADM 116/2086, Memorandum signed by the Director of Training and Staff Division, and Director of Planning, Jan. 1922.

²⁹ NMM, TRO 401/5, Appendix documents to a lecture by Commander J.C. Leach, Oct. 1930.

³⁰ Harding, ‘Amphibious Warfare’, 52.

³¹ TNA, ADM 203/73, Landing craft committee proposals, 1924; TNA, ADM 203/61, Paper by Captain E. Unwin relating to 1921 Combined Operations Manual, Oct. 1921.

³² TNA, Ministry of Defence (DEFE) 2/708, Manual of Combined Operations, 1931.

³³ TNA, DEFE 2/781, Lecture by Captain A.U. Willis on Combined Operations, 26 Nov. 1930.

³⁴ Till, ‘Amphibious Warfare and the British’, 18.

³⁵ H. Lunde, Hitler’s Pre-Emptive War: The Battle for Norway 1940 (Newbury: Casemate 2010), 411; Kiszely, Anatomy of a Campaign, 254–70.

³⁶ Not to be confused with the later US Navy ‘LCM (2)’.

³⁷ Fergusson, Watery Maze, 37; Millett, ‘Assault from the Sea’, 59–62.

³⁸ C.L. Symonds, Operation Neptune: The Allied Invasion of Europe and the D-Day Landings, (Oxford: Oxford UP 2014), 78–80.

³⁹ Harding, ‘Amphibious Warfare’.

⁴⁰ R.G. O’Connor, ‘The U.S. Marines in the 20 Century: Amphibious Warfare and Doctrinal Debates’, Military Affairs 38/3 (1974), 99.

⁴¹ America also experimented with landing tractors after landing craft. See: G.F. Hoffmann, ‘The Marine Corps’ First Experience with an Amphibious Tank’, 67–71, in eds. G.F. Hoffmann and D.A. Starry, Camp Colt to Desert Storm: The History of U.S. Armored Forces (Lexington: Kentucky UP 2013).

⁴² P. Neushul, ‘Andrew Jackson Higgins and the Mass Production of World War II Landing Craft’, Louisiana History 39/2 (1998), 138–40.

⁴³ L.E.H. Maund, Assault from the Sea (London: Methuen 1949), 11.

⁴⁴ J.D. Ladd, Assault from the Sea 1939–1945, (Newton Abbot: David & Charles 1976), 35; Brooks, Royal Marines, 253.

⁴⁵ Ladd, Assault from the Sea, 170–73.

⁴⁶ Symonds, Operation Neptune, 78.

⁴⁷ Maund, Assault from the Sea, 41–8.

⁴⁸ M. Hastings, Overlord, (London: Pan 1999), 412.

⁴⁹ C.E. Callwell, Military Operations and Maritime Preponderance: Their Relation and Interdependence (London: Blackwood 1905), 436; E.S. May, Principles and Problems of Imperial Defence (London: Sonnenschein 1903), 131.

⁵⁰ Maund, Assault from the Sea, 5.

⁵¹ Neushul, ‘Andrew Jackson Higgins’, 137.

⁵² TNA, WO 33/569, Combined Naval and Military Operations Manual, 1911.

⁵³ TNA, WO 33/644, Combined Naval and Military Operations Manual, 1913.

⁵⁴ TNA, DEFE 2/708, Revisions to the Manual for Combined Operations, 1920, TNA, ADM 116/2086; Manual for Combined Operations, 1925.

⁵⁵ TNA DEFE 2/708, Manual for Combined Operations, 1931.

⁵⁶ Moretz, Thinking Wisely, 317–25.

⁵⁷ J. Isely and P. Crowl, US Marines and Amphibious Warfare (Princeton, Princeton UP, 1951), 31–2; O’Connor, ‘U.S. Marines in the 20 Century’, 100.

⁵⁸ S.P. Rosen, ‘New Ways of War: Understanding Military Innovation’, International Security 13/1 (1988), 163.

⁵⁹ Fergusson, Watery Maze, 37; T.C. Gillespie, S.M. Lesher, P.D. Miner, and B.P. Cyr, ‘Composite Warfare and The Amphibians’, Marine Corps University paper, Quantico, 23 Mar. 1992, 9.

⁶⁰ D.J. Ulbrich, ‘The Long Lose “Tentative Manual for Defense of Advanced Base” (1936)’, Journal of Military History 71/3 (2007), 892.

⁶¹ Rosen, ‘New Ways of War’, 162.

⁶² TNA, ADM 116/3674, Director of Training and Staff Development to Admiralty, 14 Apr. 1932.

⁶³ Harding, ‘Amphibious Warfare’, 55–7.

⁶⁴ TNA, ADM 116/3674, HM Signal School Portsmouth to Admiralty, 13 Dec. 1933; TNA, ADM 116/3674, Commander in Chief Home Fleet to Admiralty, 27 Oct. 1934.

⁶⁵ J. Maiolo, Cry Havoc: The Arms Race and the Second World War 1931–1941 (London: John Murray 2010), 52–4.

⁶⁶ R.J. Overy, The Bombing War: Europe 1939–1945 (London: Penguin 2014), 21–55; Bell, Churchill and Sea Power, 142–3.

⁶⁷ TNA, ADM 116/3125, Rear-Admiral Richmond to Admiralty, 13 Apr. 1925.

⁶⁸ S. Ball, The Bitter Sea: The Brutal World War II Fight For the Mediterranean (London: Harper Press 2010), 3–15; B. Millman, Ill-Made Alliance: Anglo-Turkish Relations 1934–1940 (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s UP 1998), 11–23; R.J. Overy, The Origins of the Second World War (London: Longman 1987), 18.

⁶⁹ S.W. Roskill, History of the Second World War: The War at Sea. Vol.1 (London: HMSO 1954), 12.

⁷⁰ S.W. Roskill, Naval Policy Between the Wars: Vol.1 (London: Walker 1968), 359.

⁷¹ TNA, ADM 1/8664/134, ‘Function and Training of Royal Marines’, 1924.

⁷² M. Everett, ‘The Future of the Royal Marines’, RUSI Journal 71/484 (1926), 698.

⁷³ TNA, ADM 1/8709/102, War Diary of the 12th Royal Marine Battalion, 1927; Beaumont, Joint Military Operations, 72; Roskill, Naval Policy Between the Wars, 142.

⁷⁴ TNA, AIR 2/1830, Memorandum entitled ‘The Naval Side of Combined Operations and the Necessity for its Development in Peace’, 22 Feb. 1936.

⁷⁵ Maund, Assault from the Sea, 8.

⁷⁶ Fergusson, Watery Maze, 38–41; Maund, Assault from the Sea, 3–21.

⁷⁷ Maund, Assault from the Sea, 5.

⁷⁸ Beaumont, Joint Military Operations, 72.

⁷⁹ Liddell Hart, Britain Goes to War, 239–55; Liddell Hart, Liddell Hart Memoirs, 281–306.

⁸⁰ E.g. TNA, ADM 203/84, Memoranda for the combined exercise at Salsette Island, 1924; TNA, ADM 203/74, Memoranda for the combined exercise at Kasid Beach, Dec. 1925.

⁸¹ TNA, ADM 203/74, Report on the combined exercise at Kasid Beach, Dec. 1925; Maund, Assault from the Sea, 2.

⁸² TNA, ADM 203/89, Plans and reports for a combined exercise in Moray Firth, 1928.

⁸³ Roskill, Naval Policy Between the Wars, 539.

⁸⁴ Moretz, Thinking Wisely, 265–72.

⁸⁵ TNA, ADM 116/3674, Reports on Combined Operations HQ Ship, 1931–1937.

⁸⁶ TNA, ADM 203/61, Memorandum accompanying the revised 1921 Manual for Combined Operations, 1922.

⁸⁷ TNA, ADM 116/2086, Major-General W.H. Anderson to the War Office, 7 Jan. 1920.

⁸⁸ A. Clayton, ‘Deceptive Might: Imperial Defence and Security 1900–1968’, in eds. J.M. Brown and W.R. Louis, The Twentieth Century: Oxford History of the British Empire (Oxford: Oxford UP 2001), 284.

⁸⁹ Bell, ‘The King’s English’, 699.

⁹⁰ London, UK, King’s College London’s Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives (KCLMA), Catalogue ID 1238, Cambridge Course for Naval Officers and notes by L.A. Humphreys, 1922.

⁹¹ H. Richmond, Amphibious Warfare in British History, (Exeter: Paternoster Press 1941), 28–9.

⁹² NMM, Arthur Peters papers (PET) 7, Lecture entitled ‘The Army Point of View, May 1930.

⁹³ B. Bond, British Military Policy between the Two World Wars (Oxford: Clarendon 1980), 37.

⁹⁴ TNA, Air Ministry (AIR) 10/5533, Manual for Combined Naval, Military and Air Operations, 1925.

⁹⁵ KCLMA, Catalogue ID 1114, Imperial Defence College lecture by Captain G. Dickens, 1929.

⁹⁶ Hansard, 15 Mar. 1923, vol.161, cc.1829–75; R. Hyam, ‘The British Empire in the Edwardian Era’, in eds. J. Brown and W.R. Louis, The Twentieth Century: Oxford History of the British Empire (Oxford: Oxford UP 1999), 48.

⁹⁷ Hansard, 17 Feb. 1937, vol.320, c.1280.

⁹⁸ TNA, ADM 203/61, Memorandum by Major-General W.H. Anderson, 17 Feb. 1922.

⁹⁹ Willmott, Last Century of Sea Power, 278.

¹⁰⁰ TNA, ADM 116/2086, Major-General W.H. Anderson to the War Office, 7 Jan. 1920.

¹⁰¹ C.M. Bell, The Royal Navy: Sea-power and Strategy between the Wars, (Basingstoke: Macmillan 2000), 60–77.

¹⁰² TNA, ADM 116/3125, War Memoranda issued to Royal Navy Station commanders, Aug. 1924; TNA, ADM 116/3118, War Memoranda issued to Royal Navy Station commanders, Nov. 1932.

¹⁰³ TNA, ADM 116/3125, Rear-Admiral H. Richmond to Admiralty, 13 Apr. 1925.

¹⁰⁴ E.g. Portsmouth, UK, National Museum of the Royal Navy (NMRN), 1994/253/1 Journal of Douglas Poole, 25 June 1924.

¹⁰⁵ C.M. Bell, ‘“How Are We Going to Make War?” Admiral Sir Herbert Richmond and British Far Eastern War Plans’, Journal of Strategic Studies 20/3 (1997), 123–41; A. Boyd, The Royal Navy in Eastern Waters: Linchpin of Victory (Barnsley: Seaforth 2017), 4–29; Harding, ‘Amphibious Warfare’, 47–9.

¹⁰⁶ TNA, WO 106/91, Plans for operations in a war against Japan, 25 Oct. 1928.

¹⁰⁷ TNA, WO 106/5256, Military Intelligence Report on the defences of Dairen, 1926.

¹⁰⁸ TNA, DEFE 2/781, Lecture by Captain A.U. Willis on the Organisation of Combined Operations, 26 Nov. 1930.

¹⁰⁹ TNA, DEFE 2/708, Manual for Combined Operations, 1925; TNA, ADM 116/2086, Captain E. Eltham to Admiralty, 23 Feb. 1920.

¹¹⁰ TNA, DEFE 2/781, Lecture by Captain C.E. Douglas-Pennant on Combined Operations, May 1938.

¹¹¹ A. Clayton, The British Empire as a Superpower 1919–1939 (Basingstoke 1986), 212–27; D. Redford and P.D. Grove, The Royal Navy: A History Since 1900 (London: Tauris 2014), 109–11; Harding, ‘Amphibious Warfare’, 46; Speller, ‘In the Shadow of Gallipoli?’.

¹¹² Clayton, ‘Deceptive Might’, 291.

¹¹³ Hansard, 12 Nov. 1930, vol.244, c.1689.

¹¹⁴ London, UK, Imperial War Museum, PC699, Photographs of King’s African Rifles landing near Dar es Salaam.

¹¹⁵ Hansard, 21 Mar. 1932, vol.263, c.687; Clayton, The British Empire, 290.

¹¹⁶ TNA, ADM 116/2502, China Station correspondence, 1926–1927.

¹¹⁷ J.D. Ladd, The Royal Marines 1919–1980 (London: HarperCollins 1980), 22.

¹¹⁸ TNA, ADM 116/2262, Memorandum by Commander Maxwell-Scott, 2 Dec. 1924.

¹¹⁹ TNA, ADM 116/2502, Plans for a raid in Bias Bay, 3 Aug. 1927.

¹²⁰ TNA, ADM 116/2502, Report by Captain MacKinnon, 1 Sept. 1927.

¹²¹ TNA, ADM 116/2502, Report by Captain R. Eliot, 4 Sept. 1927.

¹²² E.g. NMRN, 1991/101/67, Journal of Midshipman L.C.S. Sheppard, 1927; TNA, ADM 1/8683/140, Reports by Lieutenant C.M. Faure, June 1925.

¹²³ TNA, ADM 137/2498, Reports by Rear Admiral H. Kelly, 1922–1923.

¹²⁴ Clayton, ‘Deceptive Might’; R. Bickers, ‘Ordering Shanghai: Policing a treaty port, 1854–1900’, in eds. D. Killingray, M. Lincoln, and N. Rigby, Maritime Empires: British Imperial Maritime Trade in the Nineteenth Century (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer 2004), 174–94.

¹²⁵ Lloyd, Battlefield Tourism, 97.

¹²⁶ R. Keyes, Amphibious Warfare and Combined Operations, (Cambridge: Cambridge UP 1943), 86.

Additional information

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Matthew Heaslip

Matthew Heaslip is Lecturer in Naval History at the University of Portsmouth, where he teaches on the MA in Naval History course. Previously, he was a part of the Centre for Maritime Historical Studies at the University of Exeter, where he worked on his PhD examining the Royal Navy in East Asia during the 1920s.