Follow the links to these documents, then return to this page for our question section.

• Extracts from text of Churchill’s speech on resigning from the Government, House of Commons, 15 November 1915.
• Extract from letter from Churchill to Bonar Law (leader of the Conservative Party), 21 May 1915, justifying his role as First Lord of the Admiralty.
• Memorandum for Cabinet by Churchill defending his Dardanelles policy, 15 August 1915.
• Information sent to Rear-Admiral John de Robeck (formerly Naval Commander at the Dardanelles) by the Naval Intelligence Division, 1917.

Questions

1. Compare the justification of his role given in Churchill’s speech to the House of Commons with the version he gives in his letter to Bonar Law.
2. Compare the tone of the House of Commons speech and the letter to Bonar Law.
3. According to Churchill’s memorandum, why was the plan for a purely naval attack dropped?
4. Why, by the time of the memorandum, was the situation in the Dardanelles so serious?
5. According to the memorandum, a) why might the Turks have difficulty maintaining such a large army in the Dardanelles? b) why could the British fleet in the Dardanelles safely be reduced?
6. To what extent does the letter to Admiral de Robeck support or challenge Churchill’s analysis of the situation at the Dardanelles?
7. What questions should a historian ask of the letter to de Robeck in order to assess it as evidence of the situation in the Dardanelles?
8. To what extent do these documents support Churchill’s claim that the Dardanelles campaign was not “a civilian plan foisted by a political amateur upon reluctant officers and experts”?