Gallipoli - Great Battles of the Great War DVD
Author : Tyne Tees Television
Format : Region 0 PAL
Run time: 56 mins

The Last Crusade. This programme details the opening phase of the Gallipoli conflict. It was an audacious scheme, which, had it succeeded would have enabled the allies to capture Constantinople. This would have guaranteed control of the Bosphorous, which in turn guaranteed access to the Black Sea. This programme concludes with the disastrous naval engagement of 18th March. One, which meant that from that time forward, the Gallipoli campaign would be a combined operation with the army committed to a landing on the peninsula. On the 25th April 1915 allied soldiers were landed on the Gallipoli Peninsula. It was the first time that an amphibious landing had been attempted on this scale. Such an ambitious attack was fraught with danger, as the assaulting troops quickly discovered. The Australian and New Zealand troops landed at a place that has become a legend in the national consciousness of those two countries - ANZAC. Further south at Cape Helles the elite troops of the British 29th. regular division were put ashore with mixed results. At 'V' and 'W' beaches the Turks were waiting. The result was carnage. This programme goes on to detail that fateful day and the subsequent nine month campaign as the allies strove to maintain their tenuous hold on the peninsula. The final irony of the Gallipoli campaign came with the decision to evacuate nearly 100,000 troops. The irony being that after nine months of desperate fighting and 50,000 dead, the men were evacuated without loss.