Prime Minister
[First words not recorded].
… so you see Kemal Atatürk as a President. He was, in fact, one of the greatest generals and on the ‘plane, I was reminding some of our people that General Atatürk, later President Atatürk, was very much like some of our own famous generals—one called Wellington who won a famous battle at Waterloo and then went on to be Prime Minister—and of course, as we know, in the last War, General Eisenhower, who then went on to be President of the United States. But, of course, President Atatürk, I suppose was one of the early great generals and of course, it was partly his brilliance on the peninsula of Gallipoli that held the day and then he was very generous and magnaminous in victory and later, when President, said to those who came to visit the scene as a memorial that they had left their sons there and they were buried there and beautifully looked after but that Turkey regarded them as her sons now and they were all friends now and it is very remarkable that we are staunch allies now and in NATO together have kept the peace for forty years and we must continue to be staunch allies. [end p1]
Question (Gerry Foley)
Prime Minister, does your attendance at Gallipoli have added significance, given the recent campaign in the Falklands? Is that particularly relevant today?
Prime Minister
I think, when we had the campaign in the Falklands, we had learned something from the Battle of Gallipoli. In the Falklands it was almost in miniature what one had in Gallipoli. Our coming was well-known in the Falklands; we sent the task force from eight thousand miles away—they knew it was coming. They had to gain a bridgehead on the island of the Falklands and they did and then they remembered from Gallipoli that it is not enough to establish a bridgehead, you must comparatively quickly go forward if you are to take the territory—and they did. I think that the military tactics at Gallipoli have been analysed again and again by the tacticians so that they should learn those lessons.
I think what our generation tends to forget is that that battle was probably the first one where, from the viewpoint of those landing, you required a complete combined operation, an amphibious landing, with communications from sea to shore absolutely synchronised and they were not—and some air cover. So really, it would have required supreme planning because of the nature of the operation, even had we been familiar in those days with combined operations. Bearing in mind it was the first such battle, clearly [end p2] the planning was not sufficient and although the concept was brilliant—as it frequently was from Winston Churchill—the planning was not good and the fact was that Turkey had, as we all know, very valiant fighters, valiant soldiers, and a supreme general and I think we would say the courage on both sides was remarkable and gave each side a tremendous respect for the other.