So Dan Carlin spoke about Gallipoli in his superb podcast "A Blueprint for Armageddon" [1]. It's more complicated than you might think. Basically, Churchill re

So Dan Carlin spoke about Gallipoli in his superb podcast "A Blueprint for Armageddon" [1]. It's more complicated than you might think. Basically, Churchill recognized that the old battleships they had were, well, now useless. Given that, the idea was to use them to try and open up the Dardanelles because they were essentially zero cost to lose. The Admirals, who were quite attached to their ships, viewed this plan differently and rather than striking with no warning (damn the losses), went in and out and gave the Turks time to entrench themselves. The plan was basically never to land anywhere there, let alone Gallipoli. Now obviously the buck stops with Churchill being in charge of the Admiralty but there was a confluence of errors that produced that particular clusterfuck. [1] https://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-52-blueprint-for-armageddon-iii/ https://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-52-bluepr... (Part 3 of 6, starting at about 2:50:00)