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The landing at Suvla Bay was an amphibious landing made at Suvla on the Aegean coast of Gallipoli peninsula in the Ottoman Empire as part of the August Offensive, the final British attempt to break the deadlock of the Battle of Gallipoli. The landing, which commenced on the night of 6 August 1915, was intended to support a breakout from the Anzac sector, five miles (8 km) to the south. Despite facing only light opposition, the landing at Suvla was mismanaged from the outset and quickly reached the same stalemate conditions that prevailed on the Anzac and Helles fronts. On 15 August, after a week of indecision and inactivity, the British commander at Suvla, Lieutenant-General Sir Frederick Stopford was dismissed. His performance in command was one of the most incompetent feats of generalship of the First World War. == Prelude == On 7 June 1915, the Dardanelles Committee met in London and, under the guidance of Lord Kitchener, decided to reinforce the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force of General Sir Ian Hamilton with three New Army divisions. Two more Territorial Army divisions were allocated later in the month, giving Hamilton the numbers required to reinvigorate the campaign. A long-standing plan to break out of the Anzac bridgehead was adopted; it had first been proposed on 30 May by the commander of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, Lieutenant-General William Birdwood. However, just as the original landing site at Helles in April had insufficient space to land all the troops available, and so a secondary landing was to be made north of Gaba Tepe, now in July there was insufficient room to accommodate all the new troops within the congested Anzac perimeter, nor was there room to manoeuvre them in battle, and so a new landing at Suvla was planned which would link up with the forces at Anzac. The Suvla landing was to be made by the newly formed British IX Corps, initially comprising two brigades of the 10th (Irish) Division and the entire 11th (Northern) Division. Command of IX Corps was given to Lieutenant-General Sir Frederick Stopford. British military historian J.F.C. Fuller said of Stopford that he had "no conception of what generalship meant" and indeed he was appointed not on his experience (he had seen little combat and had never commanded men in battle) or his energy and enthusiasm (he was aged 61 and had retired in 1909) but because of his position on the list of seniority. Hamilton had requested either Lieutenant-General Julian Byng or Lieutenant-General Henry Rawlinson, both experienced Western Front corps commanders, but both were junior to Lieutenant-General Sir Bryan Mahon, commander of the 10th Division and so, by a process of elimination, Stopford was selected. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「Landing at Suvla Bay」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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