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Murdoch at Gallipoli
Jason Askew
(see more by this artist)
This is a sketch for a painting that I intend doing of Keith Murdoch,Rupert Murdochs father,at Gallipoli.
Keith Murdoch,an Australian journalist,made his name when he broke the Gallipoli story in the newspapers,highlighting the ineptitude,lack of comprehension, and and dilettantism of Ian Hamilton and the British high command at Gallipoli.
Murdoch was also very critical of the needless slaughter of allied soldiers in pointless and ill conceived assaults,he was critical of the lack of adequate artillery ammunition (which sometimes meant that only five shells could be fired in support of an infantry attack on the Turkish trenches,and he also was highly critical of the virtually non-existent and inadequate medical services that were provided for the thousands of allied wounded.
Keith Murdoch's Gallipoli reports caused such an outcry, that The British government were obliged to withdraw from the Gallipoli peninsula.
This was also the first time that both government and the military were held to account by the Media.
In that sense-Murdoch won a victory for free speech, transparency, personal liberty,and the cause of the common man,as opposed to the authoritarianism , arrogance,and control-freak policies of Government.
Winston Churchill,First Sea Lord,(and the architect of the Gallipoli Expedition),was forced to resign his position in the Government as a result of Murdochs reports on the actual situation at Gallipoli.
Churchill then volunteered to command an infantry battalion on the western front to assuage his sense of personal guilt and responsibility for the huge casualties suffered at Gallipoli.
It is perhaps interesting to note that Churchill then commanded a battalion of the Royal Scots on the Western front,and Deneys Rietz, the CO of an Irish battalion in the trenches alongside the Royal Scots-noted that Churchill attempted to flood the german trenches,but unfortunately only succeeded in flooding out his own trenches.
(Deneys Rietz is the famous South African author of "Commando"- his memoirs of fighting against the British in the Boer war)
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| drawing,29 by 42 inches |
$450.00 |
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