A joint conference between the Gallipoli Association and The Western Front Association.
Speakers:
- Sir Hew Strachan: “The strategic consequences of the Gallipoli campaign”
- Dr. Andrea McKenzie: “Canadian Nurses: from Lemnos to the Western Front”
- Professor Gary Sheffield: “Gallipoli, the Western Front, and the development of modern warfare”
- Dr. Adam Prime: “The Indian Army experience in 1915 on Gallipoli and the Western Front”
- Clive Harris and Michael Keegan: “From the Dardanelles to the Dover Patrol, Roger Keyes at Gallipoli and on the Western Front”
We reserve the right to amend the program if circumstances require.
Registration will be from 9.15am in the Foyer. The Conference will run from 10.00 – 17.00.
The cost of the conference is £60, which includes a working lunch, with teas and coffee during the breaks
Following the joint conference, there will be an optional three course Gala dinner at the RAF Club at 19.00 at a cost of £65 per head excluding wine and drinks. Cash bar from 17.30. Dinner is an optional extra.
Download a booking form at the Gallipoli Association website.
Speakers
Sir Hew Strachan: “The strategic consequences of the Gallipoli campaign”
British accounts of Gallipoli end with the ‘successful’ evacuation of the peninsula. This was an Entente defeat. Moreover, only months later the Ottomans inflicted a second blow at Kut al-Amara. This talk will consider the strategic implications of the outcome of the Dardanelles campaign; how both defeat and victory are measured; and the implications for Britainʼs – and the Ententeʼs – use of maritime strategy for the remainder of the war.
Sir Hew Strachan, CVO, DL, FRSE, FRHistS, FBA is Patron of The Western Front Association and Professor of International Relations at the University of St Andrews. Widely recognized as the foremost authority on the First World War of his generation, he previously held the Chichele Professorship of the History of War at Oxford (2000-2015). Knighted in 2013 for services to the Ministry of Defence, Sir Hew authored the acclaimed The First World War: Volume 1: To Arms and created the award-winning television documentary series The First World War. He received the Pritzker Literature Award for Lifetime Achievement in Military Writing (2016) and serves on the Chief of Defence Staffʼs strategic advisory panel. A Fellow of the British Academy and trustee of the Imperial War Museum, his scholarship has transformed military historiography through global, multi-dimensional approaches to understanding warfare.
Professor Gary Sheffield: “Gallipoli, the Western Front, and the development of modern warfare”
In this talk Gary Sheffield argues that trench warfare developed in parallel in France and at the Dardanelles, but some factors made fighting at Gallipoli even more challenging than on the Western Front. The talk concludes by placing the campaigns of 1915 in both theatres into the broader context of the development of warfare during the Great War.
Professor Gary Sheffield is the Honorary President of The Western Front Association and visiting Professor in Defence Studies at King’s College London. A graduate of the University of Leeds and Kingʼs College London, he is a specialist on Britain in the two world wars and is a prominent “revisionist” historian of the First World War. Sheffield has authored numerous acclaimed books, including “Forgotten Victory” and “The Chief: Douglas Haig and the British Army”.
Dr Andrea McKenzie: “Canadian Nurses: From Lemnos to the Western Front”
In August 1915, a small band of Canadian Army Medical Corps nurses arrived on the small Greek Island of Lemnos to help the wounded and ill soldiers from Gallipoli. Conditions on Lemnos were dire: little water, scanty food, and no medical supplies in heat that soared to over 100 degrees F. Yet they were badly needed. NS Mabel Clint, temporarily posted to an Australian hospital, wrote of her patients, “Some were dying, some found dead.” For five months, the Canadians would fight the conditions and an indifferent administration to try to save their soldier-patientsʼ lives. After the evacuation of the Peninsula, many of the 70 Canadian nursing sisters would return to France, where they nursed through the battles of the Western Front, including the 1918 retreat. Despite bombing raids and shelling, the Canadian Bluebirds battled for the lives of the many wounded and gassed soldiers that flooded their casualty clearing stations and hospitals. In this talk, I use the nursesʼ own words and photographs to better illuminate First World War Canadian nursing sistersʼ experiences from Gallipoli to the Western Front.
Dr Andrea McKenzie is an associate professor at York University, Toronto. Her specialist areas include womenʼs war narratives and the Great War. She is the editor of “War-Torn Exchanges: The Lives and Letters of Nursing Sisters Laura Holland and Mildred Forbes, 1915-19” and of “L.M. Montgomery and War.” She has published numerous articles about Canadian nursesʼ experiences during the Great War as well as lecturing extensively both in Canada and internationally.
Dr Adam Prime: “The Indian Army experience in 1915 on Gallipoli and the Western Front”
1915 was a significant but difficult year for the sepoys of the Indian Army. They found themselves fighting on multiple fronts, far away from their homeland, in conditions far removed from those they were used to. This talk looks at the sepoysʼ experience on both the Western Front and Gallipoli, comparing them. Comparing their experiences of not just large scale set piece battles, against an enemy equipped to the same level, but of harsh weather conditions, alien cultures, foreign peoples and languages too. Whilst also facing religious and dietary privations, the like of which they would not have faced even on campaign in India and the North West Frontier.
Dr Adam Prime is an independent military historian and author who graduated from the University of Leicester in 2018 with a PhD from the School of History, Politics and International Relations. His PhD thesis is a study of the Indian Armyʼs British Officer Corps between 1861 and 1921. Between 2016 and 2021, Adam worked at the University of Salford as a lecturer in military and international history. He has previously published on the Indian Army officer corps in the late Victorian period and the defence of the Suez Canal in the early stages of the First World War. A popular and engaging speaker, his speciality is shining light on fascinating but little known - and under-researched - aspects of the history of the Indian Army in the Great War. He currently sits on the WFA national Executive Committee.
Clive Harris and Michael Keegan: “From the Dardanelles to the Dover Patrol, Roger Keyes at Gallipoli and on the Western Front”
This joint presentation by Clive Harris and Michael Keegan will be an illustrated discussion in front of the audience, with time for questions afterwards. A bit less formal than a traditional power-point presentation, between them, they will cover Roger Keyes incredible life, including how his actions during the Boxer Rebellion made his reputation prior to Gallipoli, the experiences and lessons he learnt during the Gallipoli campaign, leading onto his command of the Dover Patrol, relationship with Sir Douglas Haig and the Zeebrugge Raid to cover the Western Front. They will conclude with discussing how these often-non-conventional warfare operations lead to his time at Combined Operations to present the view that he should be regarded as the founding father of todayʼs special forces.
Clive Harris (pictured above right) is a military historian who, after a career in the Royal Signals and Hertfordshire Constabulary, has become a leading battlefield guide, specializing in Gallipoli. He is the author of several books on wartime London, including “Walking the London Blitz,” and has contributed to numerous television history programs. A badged member of the Guild of Battlefield Guides, he holds a Masterʼs degree in Great War Studies and is a Freeman of the City of London.
Michael Keegan is a PhD research student at the Department of War Studies, Kingʼs College London, where his research focuses on the career of Admiral of the Fleet Sir Roger Keyes. Prior to his academic pursuits, he had a distinguished 40-year career in business, holding executive positions at companies including Fujitsu, MasterCard, and NatWest Bank. He has also served as a Crown Representative for the Cabinet Office, seconded to the Ministry of Defence, and is currently writing a comprehensive biography of Roger Keyes.
Courage without Glory – Gallipoli and the Western Front in 1915
Saturday 1 November 2025
Cost is £60, which includes a working lunch, with teas and coffee during the breaks.
Download a booking form at the Gallipoli Association website.