Loading summary
Transcript60 lines
- [00:00]
A
All right, ladies, when you've done the work, we want your hydration to do the same. Introducing new Gatorade lower sugar, now with no artificial flavors, sweeteners or colors, and 75% less sugar and all the electrolytes of regular Gatorade now available nationwide.
- [00:18]
B
What is it like to live through a global economic shock? Everyone alive who's listening to this anyway will have lived through something, whether it's the 1970s, whether it's the economic shock caused by Covid, whether it's 1956 and the Suez Canal crisis. But it's a relevant question at the forefront of many of our minds, because right now, Peter, we are living through an economic shock almost like no other. Certainly like no other I can remember.
- [00:47]
C
I think in my lifetime, afwa, I've been through three major global shifts of power and dislocations. One was the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Second was 9 11, and the aftermath and what we've seen in Iran after Israel and the United States launched attacks on 28th February this year, 2026, the kinds of things that have gone through the system have been completely epic in scale. A lot of that has been to do with the closing of the Strait of Hormuz, where tankers carry not just lng, liquefied natural gas and oil have been stopped or prevented from passing through, but also carrying things like ammonia and fertilizer and helium. And those kinds of shocks have produced waves that have gone the whole way around the world, are in the process of transforming the course of the 21st century. Afwa.
- [01:36]
B
And the obvious question is, is this similar to previous economic shocks that we have lived through before? And what can we learn from those shocks? And of course, on legacy, that's what we specialize in, looking at events from the past and working out what. What their legacy for contemporary life and experience is, what we can learn, how we can be more equipped to deal with what we're living through now. So what better way than to look at four major economic shocks from history that did have a legacy that I think will have some patterns that sound to all of you listening very familiar.
- [02:10]
C
We're going to be talking about the suez crisis of 1956, the great Gulf crisis of 1973, the COVID shock. But we're going to start by going back to the First World War. And one of the things I'm most interested in is not just about remembering that the World War was in fact a world war and didn't just happen on the killing fields of Flanders, but also to understand how the economic shockwaves ripple out from single events. And we can sometimes forget that until we're suddenly back in the crisis as we are here in Hornbus. Everything is always connected to each other. So I'm going to enjoy talking about this with you, Afua. And like you said, as a historian, reminding people that it's worth studying history to learn from some of the mistakes might be one of the reasons we're ending up in this situation where your mortgage is going to become more expensive. People are not going to have CAT scans, they're going to have struggle with getting their high tech as well as filling up their car. These things are reasonably predictable if you understand the patterns of history.
- [03:03]
B
And as a journalist, you can't tell the story about those shortages for CAT scans or energy prices without understanding the history, what it teaches us, and how it gives us perspective on where we are right now.
- [03:16]
A
Foreign.
- [03:25]
B
Hello and welcome to a new episode of Legacy. I'm AFWA Hersh.
- [03:30]
C
And I'm Peter Frankopan.
- [03:31]
B
And this is Legacy, the show that explores the lives, events and ideas that have shaped our world and asks whether they have the reputations they truly deserve.
- [03:47]
C
This is the first in a four part series on great global economic shocks. 1915 and the Dardanelles.
- [03:57]
B
Thanks for listening to Legacy. Sign up to Legacy plus to enjoy bonus content, early access, fewer ads, Q&As and more. If you enjoy listening to us, please show your support by going to Legacy T supportingcast FM and becoming one of our subscribers.
- [04:16]
C
Okay, Afro, are you a big fan of the First World War? Is it your favorite World War?
- [04:20]
B
I mean, fan and favorite strange words to use for something that's traumatic even to learn about. But yes, it was drilled into me as a child. I learned to recite the great poets of the First World War. You know, I wore my poppies on Remembrance Day like everyone else. And I think, you know, if you live in the uk, it's just part of your memory, even though you weren't alive. Because every village and town has its war memorial and the sense that this whole generation was lost. So it definitely occupies a big space in my imagination. And of course, as someone with Ghanaian heritage, a lot of my work has been understanding the role of the world. I mean, it was called the World War for a reason. But as you said, Peter, sometimes we only think about the killing fields in Flanders. But this was a war that had huge global consequences for people who often aren't centered in the storytelling.
- [05:09]
C
That's, I think, one of the things we're going to talk about. Another one that was always a surprise to me growing up was how the death of one man, Franz Ferdinand, on the streets of Sarajevo could have these incredible impacts. The fact the whole world is dragged into military action, to economic compression, to revolutions, not just in Russia, but in China, et cetera. Beyond two these things to trace back to single events, they seem to me to reflect a degree of vulnerability and fragility in global systems. So that's something I want to understand too. How small impact, small events can have, these big shocks. But I guess a starting point is to recenter the world of the war that starts in 1914 away just for western and even Eastern Europe. I definitely want to do a series, by the way, on Russia in the early 20th century. Also we should do one on the implications of the war in Africa, Asia, the Americas. There's lots of scope. Please let us know if you'd like us to do that and if so, in which order. But we don't spend a great deal of time thinking about the First World War in the Eastern Mediterranean at what used to be called the Near East.
- [06:15]
B
And that's surprising given one of the most seismic consequences of the First World War was the reconfiguration of that entire region which helped create the state of Israel and carve other states out of what had been the Ottoman Empire. And even though that's such a big part of this story, we're actually not going to focus on that today. Instead we're going to look at a specific case within that context and that is the shock of 1915. So let's start by understanding what that context was. Peter, the Ottoman Empire, why it was important and what its dismantling was beginning to mean.
- [06:51]
C
The Ottoman Empire is one of the great empires in history and it's very poorly understood outside the Turkish speaking world, I guess for several reasons. One is that in Western Europe, the Ottoman Empire gets the reputation of being the sick man of Europe. So that's ever a great incentive to study it. Second, it's a Muslim empire and that challenges ideas about how western Europeans and Europeans think about their history. There's very much. Another that's reflected through into things like should Turkey be allowed to join the European Union today? Also Turkey is one of the first tri continental empires. I mean, the Romans did it too with territories in Asia, Africa and Europe. But the Ottomans do something similar. So in the 1500s they have territories in Africa and what's now Egypt, right the way across the Middle east and into Europe too. Reaching through what's now Bosnia, deep into the Balkans. But by the beginning of the 20th century, things are looking less rosy. Now, I should say that in the context of the fact that the Ottomans are in power for 700 years, they help hold things together, which suggests they did do a lot of things really quite well. Lots of reasons why things start to go wrong for them. An economic model, we're going to talk about that. Social change, the fact that the number of cities in the Ottoman world doesn't rise and their populations doesn't rise too. Adoption of technologies, there's a whole bunch in there. But one of the things that starts to really hurt the empire is the fact it, it starts to shed its peripheries. So in 1830, Greece becomes independent. Algeria and other states in North Africa break away too. Also in the 19th century, in the case of some of those becoming subject to France, Egypt, effectively in 1882, becomes a semi autonomous, gets detached, and then at the beginning of the 20th century, states in the Balkans as well too. And that challenges the integrity of the Ottoman Empire. But above all, I mean, for example, the Balkan wars means that Turkey loses about 80% of its European territories in just a matter of months. But it produces this catalogue of other effects. It produces mass migration of people from Turkish provinces in Europe to Anatolia. That's very unsettling. But also that puts pressure on housing, that puts pressure on food supply, and that means that things start to get dropped, tricky. Populations start to move. The tax base gets thinner. There are fewer people able to pay taxes. The state therefore gets weaker too. Manpower starts to shift. So it affects the way in which the government in Constantinople, as the capital city is called, we know it today as Istanbul. It gets its name formally changed in the 1920s, but it means that the Ottoman Empire starts to look like an empire in transition, trying to work out what its purpose actually really is.
- [09:36]
B
So, Peter, I know practically nothing about the Balkan wars of 1912-1913, apart from what I've learned researching for this podcast. It was just nowhere on my radar. And, you know, when you learn about the First World War as a student, it's kind of there, lurking in the shadows, but it's never really in the forefront. And, you know, it occurred to me, researching for this, that you can't actually understand, well, contemporary Europe without understanding how the Balkan wars and then the break up the Ottoman Empire shaped that part of Europe. Why were the Balkan wars so catastrophic and why has it been so forgotten in the kind of most visible narrative about early 20th century history?
- [10:19]
C
Yes, those are great questions. Catastrophic. It depends who for. I mean, the Ottomans, again, because we, I think, Orientalize a lot. And we. We. We think of ourselves as being exceptional. We forget the Ottomans are colonizers. So those territories that the Ottomans expand over the course of European states in southeastern Europe, and often why there's some alignment between people on the eastern side of Europe, as there is with people in lots of parts of Africa, for example, is that they feel that they are people whose histories were taken from them by being occupied. So in the 19th century, Greece, in 1821, starts a series of wars of independence that take about the best part of a decade. But other states, too, Serbia, Bulgaria, throw off what they see as the Turkish yoke of decisions being made from outside administration, laws, culture, and some of these things. There are similar conversations in Turkey today as there are in Britain, of people saying, but the Turks were great liberalizers. They were very good at cultural inclusivity. They were very happy to export nice, good ideas about art, about drinking tea, about coffee, things like that. But for the southeastern side of Europe, the Ottoman Empire represented something that dictated and shaped literary cultures and political structures, and taxes being sent off to cities far, far away. So in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a lot of these states start to flex their muscles to become independent, too. And they're supported often by, ironically, by European colonizing powers like Britain, who think that chipping away at the Ottoman world is probably quite a good thing. The Ottomans, like I said, don't have a great reputation in Western scholarship, unfortunately, because there is a lot that's interesting to study. But I think one of the reasons is that we only think about European history in the terms of the Western side. So most people listening to podcasts like this can't really tell me too much about Poland's great cultural or political achievements. What was the battle of 1066, if you're Czech or Bulgarian? But these are much more recent questions in these parts of the world, in Southeast Europe. So Poland, they're wars of liberation, they're wars of independence, and it's a way of pushing back to take control for yourselves, and that makes a change. So, like I said, they're supported by Western Europeans. It's German families that become kings in Bulgaria and in Greece, too. And that creates a whole other layer of complications, because why are Western Europeans now lending aristocratic families to come and run these countries? So there's a lot, I think, that you'll find in parallel conversations, but because these are colonized countries within the continent of Europe, they're sort of pushed into the darkness and the shadows and not really spoken about much.
- [12:58]
B
So if this independence for these Balkan states damaged the Ottoman Empire, the opening of the suez Canal in 1869, which we're going to look at in much more detail in the next episode, has a huge impact too, because until the Suez Canal was open, there was this huge reliance on overland routes between Europe and Asia, especially from Western European nations wanting to reach their colonies in Africa and Asia, and having to do so over land and through the eastern Mediterranean. And that enriched ports that were controlled by the Ottoman Empire, like Aleppo and Syria, which created crucial revenue streams for them. But now, with the opening of Suez Canal, shipping and the profits associated with it are flowing through a corridor that's dominated by Europe, by European shipping firms, by insurers and financiers. And even though the Suez Canal is physically owned by Egypt, the Suez Canal Company is owned by Britain and France. And that is really a metaphor for the difference between the physical location and where the actual profit and wealth is flowing. And this doesn't just have an impact on Egypt, it has an impact on the, the whole Ottoman system.
- [14:10]
C
Peter yeah, that's right. And I think that model of how things can shift because of new infrastructure projects is something we should always be mindful of, that reorientation about places that have been blossoming and flourishing and suddenly they are redundant because they're in the wrong place. In the case of Egypt, it's made worse that their ruler or the khedive, has been busy borrowing money left, right and center to embellish and to improve, particularly Cairo, but also his province in Egypt. So irrigation work, railways to modernize and connect. And, you know, that's good reason to invest in those too, making the streets of Cairo more beautiful, building palaces, a big army and so on. And you know, lots of people at the time are thinking that Cairo is being turned into a catch up city like Paris. The problem is all of that costs money. And those financiers who don't behave any differently in the 19th century, to those who brought the global financial system to its knees in the early part of the 21st century, always have their eye on what can happen if things go wrong and if there's a default. And when that happens in Egypt, a commission is set up called the Ottoman Public debt administration in 1881 that basically puts the economy of Egypt out of the Ottoman Empire, essentially at the direction of European banks and therefore their political masters. That's something quite similar, by the way, happens in China, we should definitely do an episode on that too, where the so called century of humiliation is a lot to do about what's seen as capitalist Western muscles breaking the back and breaking the body of a proud state. So the British realize that Suez is a lifeline, as you said, to their colonies in Africa and Asia. It cuts down the journey time, but also it gives you the opportunity to be able to manipulate people and economies as you want. And there's no one better to do that to than to another empire. The thing is that the Turks are not just standing by watching this. There's a lot of pushback amongst young, smart Turks who want to save their
- [16:08]
B
state, as is so often the case when there is fragmentation, disruption and disillusionment. It's a young generation who rise up. And in 1908, the Young Turk Revolution started, sees power shift to the Committee of Union and Progress, the cup, an elite, secretive political network that really starts to ferment change in the region.
- [16:31]
C
PETER and there are lots of key figures, Talat Pasha, Cemal Pasha, but also Enver Pasha is probably the most famous, the most important. He's the Minister of War. Enver is, he's young, he's charismatic, but he's also seen as being reckless. So one contemporary describes him as being a man of boundless confidence, but very limited judgment. And Enver Pasha looks at the world around him and he sees that the French aren't really there for him, that the British are not just manipulating by taking control of the Suez Canal, but are taking the sides of states in the Balkan Wars. They've allied with Russia, which is the Ottoman Empire's traditional rival. But he looks at Germany for inspiration. Germany has unified in 1871. He sees massive investment in industrialization. He sees a new army being built, he sees ships, dreadnoughts, he sees cities blossoming, he sees industry booming. And he thinks, right, this is the model for which the Turks should adopt. And so that's something that isn't shared by everybody in the Young Turk movement. But the idea that Turkey needs to reform, it needs to get over its lethargy and to wake up to a new century is something that's really important. And Germany is not just a model, it's also a willing partner, because the Germans too are keen to improve their own links through to the Middle east, to challenge Western European empires, the French, the British and the Russians too, by breaking out into their spheres of influence.
- [17:55]
B
Is this where the Young Turks come from? Because it's entered popular language and I think as a phrase, it conjures ideas of a younger generation who want change, have big aspirations, are willing to rip up the status quo, but also may have a slightly tenuous grasp of reality. And in this case, these Young Turks have a vision for industrialization, modernization, hence this alliance with Germany. But they also slightly overestimate Ottoman capabilities. And actually, until this, I never actually really thought about the idea of the Young Turks as a kind of phenomenon that people still use and how it has its basis. All the ingredients are there at this moment in history.
- [18:37]
C
And the Young Turk idea, I mean, it's a good point. Afwa, it's very controversial still in Turkey was at the time and still is today because on the one hand, it's all very well trying to set an agenda to modernize, but how you do that, you've got to have the right results. And there's a lot of discussion in the historiography today about whether what the Young Turks did actually weakened Turkey rather than made it stronger. But there was a reason why Enva was busy looking towards other models and the country he looked to above all was to Germany. So we come back to the break. We're going to see how these alliances bear very dangerous fruit.
- [19:22]
D
Hi, this is Farnoosh Tarabi from SO Money with Farnoosh Tarabi. And today I want to talk to you about Boost Bubble Quick Money tips. Stop paying a carrier tax. If your phone bill feels trapped in a pricey plan, this is your sign to unlock savings. Boost Mobile helps you reset your spending. With the $25 Unlimited Forever Plan. You can bring your own phone, pay $25 and get unlimited wireless forever. And that simple switch can unlock up to $600 in savings a year. That's money you could put towards paying down debt, investing or something that actually brings you joy. Those savings are based on average annual single line payment of AT&T, Verizon and T Mobile customers, compared to 12 months on the Boost Mobile Unlimited plan as of January 2026. For full offer details, visit boostmobile.com.
- [20:17]
A
You do it all. So why not get all the electrolytes hydrate better than water with new Gatorade Lower sugar now with no artificial flavors, sweeteners or colors and 75% less sugar than regular Gatorade. New to the fridge, all the Gatorade electrolytes you love. Gatorade lowers sugar. Is it in you? Now available nationwide.
- [20:53]
B
1914 the Great War begins. We know it as the First World War, but of course it wasn't clear at the time that there would be another one. The Ottomans sign A secret treaty with Germany just days after the war begins. And in this treaty they commit to join the war if Russia attacks. And even within the Ottoman government, this was such a controversial agreement that knowledge of the treaty was was kept limited to only the inner circle.
- [21:22]
C
And some of the Ottoman leadership want to stay out of it and stay neutral. Some, though, see this as a great opportunity. And Grand Vizier Saeed Halim Pasha originally says he wants to be cautious. And this is a reflection of the fact that not everybody is thinking the same thing. But in the summer of 1914, the two German warships, the Goeben and the Breslau, reached Constantinople and they all then normally transferred to the Ottoman navy. Their commander, Admiral Souchon, takes effective control and decides that the key thing for the Ottomans to do is to expose the economic vulnerability of Russia. So the German army in the east is facing off against the Tsarist forces. But he recognizes if you can close the straits, you cripple Russian exports and supply lines. And again, that geography of Russia is absolutely critical. Russia has only warm water ports in the Black Sea. Its ports in the Arctic, Murmansk, Archangel and so on, are underdeveloped. They're incredibly cold in the winter. Obviously the ports on the Pacific are thousands of miles away. So that lifeline of getting goods, services, people through the Bosphorus or through the Dardanelles is absolutely crucial. So the Germans try to strangle Russia's economy this way to put pressure on them. The straits don't get closed, afwa, they get slowly shut.
- [22:43]
B
That's right. After entering the war in October 1914, the Ottomans start mining operations in the Dardanelles. They reinforce fortifications and they first restrict navigation but then halt it altogether. And this is a very deliberate ploy to stage closure. So there isn't this big single shock announcement, but a gradual strangling of the ability to traverse these straits. Why did they decide to do it that way, Peter?
- [23:14]
C
The same way. I mean, as you're saying, the residents of what's happening in the Strait of Hormuz, you couldn't make it up. I mean, it's the same process of Iran choosing to restrict traffic through mining, through fortifications, through threats, because you can then apply your hands to the windpipe of those in your local region. And in fact, in Iran's case, it doesn't have to be a rival. It could be someone who just happens to be an ally of your great rival. So Gulf states need to be able to get not just goods out, energy and so on, but also they need to get food in. About 70% of all the food coming into UAE comes by ship through the strait, too. And if you can scare people or target their ships, then you've got huge ability. And you don't have to do that by blowing things up. Putting mines in the water concentrates people's decision making, too. And in fact, as we're seeing absolutely at the moment, live here today in Hornbuz is that you can also allow some ships to get through. And so we're seeing at the moment tankers. If they're willing to pay a $2 million premium, they could get through, particularly if they're flagged by ships that Iran has good dealings with, like China or India, for example. So the reason to do it is that you don't need to use hail and brimstone. Sometimes threats and small modifications can make a difference too. So as you said, AFWA mobile batteries are put there to reinforce key points, hundreds of naval mines. What's effective is not that you blow up ships, it's that the risk of taking a ship through is so high they don't even try. So people like Winston Churchill, who is First Lord of the Admiralty at the time, recognizes that this is a problem and that he needs to solve it to try to keep Russia in the war.
- [24:55]
B
Yes. Churchill has clocked early on that this war will not be won in France alone. And by late 1914, the Western Front is completely deadlocked. So Churchill is thinking about where Britain can find a decisive indirect blow that will have great results and create a sense of moving forward towards some kind of victory. So this is Churchill's logic at this point. Knock the Ottoman Empire out of the war, reopen the straits, restore supply to Russia, and potentially bring the Balkan states into the war by opening up this region. So initially, Churchill conceives this as a naval only operation. And that, of course, plays to Britain's strengths as a maritime nation. The Royal Navy being the strongest fleet in the world at that point. And also the fact that the Ottomans are relatively weak militarily and have only old battleships that they can use. So Churchill is thinking about where he can have disproportionate advantage, where Britain can play to its strengths and where they can achieve results that will really compensate for the lack of progress on other fronts.
- [26:08]
C
And it's key, I mentioned that the war water ports of Russia are important. That's where everything gets exported from productive Russians. So grain exports, but also things going the other direction, machinery, ammunition and so on. And so the restriction on this narrow stretch of water, this choke point has immediate impacts. Grain exports from Russia collapse. Ships start to gather like they're gathering in the Straits of Hormuz or off the streets of Hormuz, waiting for an opportunity to go through. And then the economy of Russia starts to atrophy in the same way that we've seen some. Those projections for lots of Gulf states is that suddenly your balance of payments goes down, your ability to export, import, the foreign exchange reserves get depleted. Sean McMeeken, a scholar of Russia and Turkish affairs for the 20th century, reckons that Russia loses about 90% of its access to maritime trade routes. So things get so bad that grain starts to rot in Russian ports. So warehouses are filled, their capacity crops are left unsold, and that hits state finances hard. So the whole process of shutting this narrow waterway is absolutely critical. So perhaps it's not surprising, Afra, that people are trying to think about how to break that standoff.
- [27:24]
B
By late 1914, the British Admiralty is exploring a naval assault that can break through, reach Constantinople and reopen the route. And this is one of the most ambitious and one of the most risky plans of the whole war. And, of course, wherever there's ambition and risk. Unsurprisingly, we find Churchill at the heart of the story, never afraid of a gamble, and he believed that a naval attack could succeed without major land forces. He saw it as a way to break the stalemate on the Western Front. And because it was risky and ambitious, it was far from the subject of consensus. And among Churchill's peers and superiors, naval officers were worried about mines, which, given that these are very narrow waters, increases their chances of being hit. Military planners doubted the feasibility of this whole vision. And the French were keen to support Russia. But if the latter lost, then German forces would turn against France. So it carried particular risk for them.
- [28:23]
C
Yeah. With all of this, you know, again, it's not just about the straits. It is not just about Russia's economy. I mean, grain prices, because it's all sitting in warehouses in the Black Sea, you can't get out. It means that grain prices in the rest of Europe go up. But that's bad because there are already hundreds of thousands of men in uniform who are not working in the field. So productivity is being strained as well. On top of that, you've got to reconfigure global shipping routes. There are ships that are in the wrong place in the wrong time. You've got insurance costs that goes up, not just because of war, but because of landmines in the water. So you've got Consequences all the way around the Mediterranean and even, even beyond. And so that closing of the straits is not just a regional thing, it's a systemic impact on the global economies. Now from the point of view of the Ottoman world, it's a no brainer. You've got to keep the straits closed, not just to block the Russians, but you've got to keep Constantinople blocked from allied attacks. And also Russia has had a long history of thinking its destiny is to recover or capture, I should say, the city of Constantinople too. And those straits, the challenges, afraid it's about geography. They're very, very narrow. The narrow stretch at Kilibahir or at Chanakale on the Asian side, it's about 1.2km, so it's just over a thousand meters. It's really nothing. And although that's a bit wider than the Bosphorus, it's narrow enough to be tightly controlled by shore based artillery. And that, that means that any ship, if you're able to knock out these defenses, means that the road to Constantinople is open too. And again we see all of this happening in Hormuz 2, where artillery units by and fortifications are being knocked out by the air by the United States in particular. But if you can't control the waterways, you know, you don't need to have lots of things to go wrong to be able to push ships onto mines or to blow them up. And so to clear it out, it's very hard to do unless you commit proper resources to it too.
- [30:14]
B
This all sounds so familiar. This big, ambitious, in this case naval, but in today's world it's an aerial assault that tries to avoid putting troops on the ground, but achieves maximum impact by this assault on this narrow strip of water. And of course it's really important to understand that for the Ottoman perspective, these straits are on the one hand their leverage, but probably more importantly, this is about self defense. If the Allies break through the Dardanelles, the Ottoman Empire is wide open, Constantinople is vulnerable. The whole empire could collapse. And so keeping them closed is not just a tactic, it's existential. And that explains the intensity at this point of the Ottomans defensive preparations. And of course Britain with its maritime supremacy is underestimating how much of a fight to the death this is for the Ottomans and how much they are willing to go all out to defend the Dardanelles.
- [31:13]
C
Well, that's wildly optimistic on what should or could happen. So the efforts begin on March 18th in 1915 and they end in disaster. Several allied ships get sunk or they get crippled. By mines, and then the Allies decide to escalate. So a month later, there are landings on the Gallipoli Peninsula at the end of April 1915, and forces from Britain and France. But a bubble from Australia and New Zealand, the Anzac forces come to show huge heroism, being sent in to go and try and force, force their way up the ridges. This campaign becomes an amphibious operation unprecedented in scale. But as you said, afwa, the preparations have been hugely intensive. They've been. One of the key commanders is a man called Mustafa Kemal, who's better known as Ataturk and is seen as the father of the Turkish nation. He's anticipated landing zones, he's moved quickly, and he tells his troops, I'm not ordering you to attack, I'm ordering you to die. That idea that you're fighting, fighting to defend your country is something that gives defenders, whether it's in Iran or Ukraine, a huge amount of resilience. But the challenge, afwa, is about topography and geography. Talk me through why this is so hard for Allied troops to make an impression.
- [32:25]
B
Well, there's a reason why Churchill sold this as a naval attack, because landing troops on the ground here is a challenge for so many reasons. There's a ridge system in the topography, so. So that the beaches are overlooked by these high points where observers who are defending the land can see every movement from the incoming troops and direct fire with precision. So there's a real imbalance in the ability to conduct surveillance and prepare for movements of troops and artillery. And as Ataturk recognizes immediately, whoever controls these heights is able to control the battle. That's not all either. There are very few viable landing sites here. The ones that do exist, like Anzac Cove, so called because it's where these Australian, New Zealand troops were landed, are actually hemmed in by very steep slopes and narrow strips of land. So troops coming ashore at these landing sites have almost no room to deploy. That makes them easy targets for Ottoman machine guns, which are positioned above Ottoman these heights. And then on top of that, the peninsula is cut by deep gullies, ridges and scrub. So this means that the units who have landed are quickly disoriented, their maps are unreliable, it's difficult for them to coordinate among themselves. And so what looked to people like Churchill on paper, making these plans quite manageable, becomes very, very chaotic on the ground. And then finally, the Dardanelles have these very strong shifting currents. So even the naval operations, which are supposed to be the easier part of this offensive, are really complicated. It's difficult to conduct mine clearing. It's difficult to land with accuracy. And then you add that to the coastal geography and the Allies are often completely off target, so they're not even where they're supposed to be, further compounding confusion and delay. And you can just imagine, Peter, in an era before modern communications, what complete havoc this must have caused. And again, it sounds so familiar. This idea of kind of looking on the map and moving things around and thinking that you can easily take control of this piece of land can bear no resemblance to the actual challenge on the ground, both because of the geography, but also because of how invested the Ottomans are in defending their terrain.
- [34:45]
C
And you get that in the extraordinary Peter Weir film Gallipoli, where the chaos on the ground, lack of communication, the being sent up ridges where you're heavily fortified by the Ottomans with machine guns. And that death toll is absolutely catastrophic. Probably 100,000 on each side, casualties more than double that. Both the Allies of the Ottomans, constant shelling and it becomes one of the bloodiest of the whole war outside the Western Front. And apart from the fact that the campaign fails, the outcomes are pretty stark. So the straits remain closed. That hasn't been achieved by the Allies. Constantinople isn't put under pressure. Again, that doesn't work. The Ottomans stay in the war, but the consequences don't just end there. Russia stays cut off, contributing to an internal crisis that has leads to the spiral of revolution and violence in Russia too. It damages Churchill's career, he resigns from the Admiralty. But it also is the making of Ataturk, who comes out as a national hero as a result. It does have, I guess, some silver lining. The ANZAC feeling of the sacrifices made by Australians and New Zealanders for Britain, for causes thousands of miles away from home, I think has a huge resonance and impact today in the bravery of young men from Australia and New Zealand. Calls to fight in these insane campaigns, I think is incredibly resonant today in the 21st century as well.
- [36:14]
B
This might also be why we still eat ANZAC biscuits, because as far as I could find out in my research, the reason why ANZAC biscuits, we call them biscuits in the uk, if you're listening in the us, you might call them cookies became a staple was because they were so beloved by these ANZAC troops who played such a big role in these battles in the First World War. So my local coffee shop sells ANZAC biscuits and I remember when I first tried to work out what they were and why they were called that, and basically they're these kind of like long life cookies that don't have any eggs. So they Keep for a long time. It's basically rolled oats and golden syrup. It's like an ANZAC version of a flapjack, what we call flapjacks in the uk. You know, as I'm saying this, I'm realizing how many different names there are for basically sugary treats. We say flapjacks. But in the us, flapjacks are something more like pancakes, I think, and we call them biscuits and they call them cookies. But anyway, if you've ever eaten an Anzac biscuit cookie treat, you might be invoking this campaign in the Dardanelles without even knowing it.
- [37:17]
C
After the break. Afwa, we're going to come back to look at some of the outcomes of the closure, not just during the First World War, but some of the consequences up to more recent times too.
- [37:36]
A
Okay, I have to tell you, I
- [37:38]
C
was just looking on ebay, where I go for all kinds of things I love. And there it was, that hologram trading card. One of the rarest. The last one I needed for my set.
- [37:46]
A
Shiny like the designer handbag of my dreams. One of a kind. Ebay had it. And now everyone's asking, ooh, where'd you get your windshield wipers? Ebay has all the parts that fit my car. No more annoying, just beautiful. Millions of finds, each with a story.
- [38:04]
B
EBay, things people love. In the last part, we talked about the effect on Russia of the closure of the Straits of Dardanelle and how it cuts Russia off from its main export artery, having absolutely cataclysmic impacts on Russian trade. 90% of its seaborn and trade routes disrupted. And this leads to chronic inflation in Russia. Food chaos because of these grain surpluses in ports, shortages in the cities where people are going hungry. Now, this is not an episode about the causes of the Russian Revolution, but you can really see how this extreme privation in 1914 in Russia, only three years before what ends up becoming the Bolshevik Revolution that successfully overturns the Russian state, has its seeds here. And it's really, really important for understanding the long lasting effects throughout Europe and Russia of this failed offensive in Gallipoli and outside of Russia. The closure of the straits, which Churchill and his forces have failed to undo, is causing deepening economic instability and undermining the war effort. It's fueling public anger at a time when the British establishment needs people to rally around the cause. And it's playing a role in unrest way beyond Russia as well.
- [39:38]
C
Peter well, so we get the revolution. I mean, there are lots of causes, as you mentioned afterward, but food shortage and a compressed tsarist economic model is one. But at the end of this all in 1917, Russia essentially spirals into two revolutions. 1918, it leaves the war with a terrible treaty at Prest Litovsk that withdraws when we get towards the end of 1918. It's one of those funny stories of First World War that the Allies manage to lose almost every single battle and yet they end up winning the war. And one of the first questions is about what happens not just to the Straits but to Constantinople itself. There've been discussions about that since pretty much the war had started, about who should take control of this key strategic choke point and key political, military, economic powerhouse of the imperial capital. So after the war ends and the Ottomans are defeated alongside the Germans and the Austrians, the Allies enter Constantinople. In November 1918, British, French and Italians divide up the city. They leave the Ottoman government in place, but under Allied supervision. And the British High Commissioner, Sir Horace Rumbold, says that effectively Constantinople is now in Allied hands. We're in that world. We just talked about the beginning afwa, about new states being created, about mandates of the British not having new colonies but having new places that they would be running. But the question of the Straits is a key discussion point in all of the post war settlements too. So the British and the Allies have promised, in 1915, in a secret agreement, they promised to hand Constantinople over to Russia. That's now changed because Russia has disintegrated, now being led by a Soviet bloc led by Vladimir Lenin. And so that puts Russia in a tricky place because Lenin on the one hand, doesn't believe in imperialism, doesn't believe in tsarist expansionism, but still wants access to the Mediterranean. So Lenin does what he often does, he denounces with the right hand, but then wants to be involved with the left. But the new USSR has no obvious leverage. And because the Russians are out of the picture, the Soviet Union is out of the picture. The British AFWA see an opportunity.
- [41:45]
B
They do. Britain sees the opportunity to control Constantinople itself, to control the Straits regime and to secure imperial communications which are of course crucial to control of its empire. And one British memorandum this time notes that the aim is to ensure free passage and unlimited access. This is a theme that will play out in later crises like Suez, where Britain is always thinking about how it can protect its access to its colonies and how it can continue to maintain this dominance on the world stage by controlling key strategic locations and comms around them.
- [42:23]
C
Well, you've got that with Hormuz too. You know, it's no surprise that Trump in his second presidency, essentially has taken control of the Panama Canal, another choke point. And a lot of the discussion about the future of Hormuz is to stop Iran having the ability to do what it's doing at the moment of either closing the strait or selectively allowing some ships through. So those post war settlements are about trying to make sure that pressure is taken away or put another way, that the winners are able to dictate the terms that protect their own interests too. So the Treaty of Sevres, which is the initial settlement for the eastern Mediterranean and the Ottoman Empire, the Straits, are placed under an international commission. There's demilitarization of the waterways. No single power, including Turkey, is allowed to control them. This is an attempt to create a neutral choke point. But that change is because Turkey itself, as it starts to emerge after the Ottoman world, Alder Ataturk becomes more strident, more deterministic, rejects the terms of the treaty of Sevres II. And then in 1922, Afra, there's a new crisis, the Canak Crisis. Just quickly explain what that is.
- [43:27]
B
This happens when Turkish nationalist forces under Mustafa Kemal Ataturk advance towards these neutral zones in the Dardanelles, these zones under international control that they've never actually accepted and which are in reality, even though it sounds like a kind of international coalition, really controlled by British and Allied troops after the First World War. So this becomes a standoff between this new Turkish nationalist movement and this old imperial order that's taking advantage of its victory in the First World War. And when Britain faces the prospect of another war to defend the Straits, it's really confronted with its own war weariness.
- [44:06]
C
KITA well, Lloyd George takes a hard line. He's the prime minister. But crucial allies hesitate. France and Italy, they're already withdrawing from Anatolia. They refuse to provide military support. The British dominions, especially Canada, make clear that they won't automatically get involved too. And it exposes the limits of British power and also imperial cohesion. So there's a climb down and a reset. It leads directly to the Armistice of Bundaya in October 1922, which recognizes Turkish control over Eastern Thrace. The European provinces that Turkey holds today still paves the way for the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923, and that it just marks the reconfiguration even of what's been settled after the First World War. So there's a climb down and war gets avoided through negotiation. It leads directly to an Armistice in October 1922, which basically recognizes Turkish control over lots of the things that the Allies had said they were going to fight for. So the whole thing ends up with the Treaty of Lausanne that gets signed in 1923 as a new settlement for the East Mediterranean. A total cock up. It set back all those allied plans and aspirations and shows that the Allies are not able to get through to create a settlement that they want. But I'm interested enough for just to end off by thinking about how important the Dardanelles, the Bosporus and that choke point is in today's world. Because the story doesn't end just with the 1920s.
- [45:31]
B
Well, I think what I find so interesting about the Treaty of Lausanne is that it's one of these earlier moments because we'll talk about Suez and the kind of end of British aggressive imperialism. But this is an earlier point in which the idea of Britain controlling a kind of quote unquote international coalition that preserves the European colonial status quo doesn't work. You know, the Treaty of Lausanne recognizes the sovereignty of the new Turkish Republic. And it's all also recognizing that Britain is limited in its ability to reconfigure the world according to its own design. And I think the symbolism of that and of Britain being confronted with its limits and of course Britain's allies not being up for this new imperialistic adventure is really an omen of things to come later in the 20th century. And it's such an important redistribution of power because by Turkey having control of the Straits, it allows Turkey to become a great power. It now is still today one of the most important energy corridors in the world. Roughly 3.5 million barrels of oil per day transit the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles. And this includes crude petroleum products from the great oil producing states of Central Asia, from Russia, but also from Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan. Your world, Peter, because I know you're a big superstar. Are there much of it moves from black seaports like Novorossiysk to Mediterranean markets. And Turkey is able, partly through this settlement, to emerge as a state which really does have leverage and has grown to become a significant player on the world stage. A legacy which we still see absolutely today.
- [47:08]
C
That's exactly right. I mean, Turkey is a NATO member with huge influence in the Black Sea, East Mediterranean, Middle East, Europe and so on. And the Straits are part of that because there's the choke point that it still controls. Now those discussions around the control of the Bosphorus go on and are renegotiated with the Treaty of Montreux in 1936, which is still in place. That guarantees free passage for civilian shipping in Peacetime, but it gives Turkey the right to restrict access to military vessels, especially during wartime. And in fact, since the the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russian military vessels have been stopped from passing through. And it gives Turkey leverage, as you said afwa. It could choose to limit the tonnage, it could choose to stop oil getting through at any point it wants. And that that provides Turkey a seat at the top table of being able to negotiate seriously with Russia, with Central Asian states, with the caucuses as well as elsewhere too. That that rise of Turkey in the 21st century has a lot to do with the simple fact of geography because the Bosphorus is not just a strategic location, it's a physically difficult place to get through. Aufworth.
- [48:18]
B
I wonder if listening to this Peter, and speaking as we are in 2026, I feel as if Donald Trump, Pete Hegseth and their friends maybe don't study these lessons from history, but we do. So what can we offer today from the lesson of the box Bosphorus and the Dardanelles? And what would Churchill if he were alive today, having to still dwell on the really serious, really expensive mistakes he made, not just in economic terms, but in the cost of human life, all those allied forces, hundreds of thousands who died in these flawed military operations. What wisdom would he share if he were to see the flawed planning and lack of strategic calculation in my opinion anyway, that's going on in designing and operating these military actions in Iran today?
- [49:09]
C
Well, we did a long series on Churchill and I think one of the things, I'm not a Churchill specialist, but he clearly learned from the miscalculation of risk. That's one of the reasons he resigned and also the flawed execution of a plan that looked good on paper. As you mentioned, AFWA sounds great and actually if you are overoptimistic and you don't plan properly, that's a key takeaway. I think that the Pete Hegseth and the US military machine, which is extraordinary in its capabilities to not realize what the consequences would be not just of single bodies of water or choke points, of how cheap and easy it is to restrict access, it's what are those long range consequences. So the straits there, like the Strait of Hormuz, is not just about a regional impact, it's about these global rings that, that spread out. One of the things I think about history is to understand how these dots all connect. How global contractions of energy supply, food supply, the ability to inflict damage by choking are a reason why we think about these things quite Deeply. So I think that the takeaway from this one is pay attention to not what the map looks like, but to what the realities are. The Bosphorus is only about 700 meters wide. It has sharp turns, strong currents, heavy urban traffic. And if you can stop things from moving, then it doesn't take much for things to go wrong. That's one of the things that all these episodes have in common, actually, that small amounts of interventions have these astonishing implications. So study your history, think about legacies, and try to work out that you should spend as much time as you possibly can planning and thinking for what might go wrong, rather than for just assuming things are going to go right.
- [50:54]
B
My big takeaway, I think, and I totally agree with all that, but my big takeaway, I think, is the kind of psychology of the actors involved. And this, for me, feels very resonant, that, you know, Iran has been preparing for an attack for decades. It's kind of ready with this guerrilla warfare mindset of being under siege, being willing to fight for the death, and that Trump and his ilk are kind of breezing in, having already done something similar in Nigeria and Venezuela, that they can just go in, reconfigure things, and go back out again. And it feels something similar with the Ottoman Empire. Even though they ultimately lost in the First World War, they were willing to fight to the death. They had everything to lose. And it showed in the way they showed up in defending the Dardanelles. And I think sometimes there is this inability to really connect with the mindset of another power, another people, to understand their cultural and attitude, what they're fighting for, their relationship with the battle. They're very different from these US Operations that are calculated to kind of open one day and close another day so that they don't affect the markets overnight. You know, this idea that you can kind of manage global prices while also having your cake and eating it militarily. And these are two very incompatible worldviews. And you can see how the inability to understand your adversary can lead to really catastrophic loss of life. So I feel like that's a lesson that could really be learned from the legacy of the Dardanelles.
- [52:26]
C
Look, there's so much to talk about. I mean, just as you say that, Afwa, I'm not sure. I think they're two different things. Getting things wrong and overestimating your hand of cards and underestimating those of your rival. That's one thing. Realizing that the markets do get affected, that these. These impacts have hundreds of billions of dollars worth resting on them. It seems to me that if you are going to get involved, you might want to be paying attention to what happens to people's mortgages, how likely they are to be able to pay for their petrol and their food. That doesn't seem the most foolish thing to be doing. But on the other hand, it is always worth having a Plan B. I think that's the bit that is the challenge. And with Gallipoli, Plan B meant sending young men to their deaths. And Plan B in the case of Hormuz, means just keep on hitting again and again and again in the assumption that Iran will settle and fold. And it may well be that that happens. May well be by the time you're listening to this, the white flag has been raised and Iran just says it can't take any more. But my guess will be that it's going to take a long time for that to happen, because when your country's under attack, not surprisingly, most people choose that the right thing to do is to try to fight. But anyway, that's enough about the economic shock of 1915. I hope you're going to come back to listen to us for our next episode, but thank you for listening to us on Legacy.
- [53:40]
B
To dive deeper and support the show, sign up to Legacy plus, you'll get to enjoy bonus episodes, early access, fewer ads, Q&As and more. It's so important to us that you become a true member of the Legacy Club. So please go to Legacy supportingcast FM and sign up.
- [53:57]
C
And don't forget, you can watch all of our episodes on Spotify and YouTube too. For everything else, including our substack and updates on TikTok and Instagram, just check out the show notes or search Legacy Podcast. I'm Peter Frankerpen.
- [54:10]
B
I'm Afra Hash, and we'll see you on the next episode of Legacy.
- [54:33]
E
Hi, this is Pablo Torre from Pablo Torre finds out and today I want to talk to you about Boost Mobile because we spend a lot of time analyzing inefficiencies in sports, overvalued contracts, money tied up in the wrong places, and so on. But those inefficiencies aren't just on a roster. Sometimes they're in your own monthly expenses. Boost Mobile says switching to their $25 unlimited forever plan can unlock up to $600 in savings a year. That's. That's $25 a month for unlimited data, talk and text when you bring your own phone. If that money is trapped in a pricey phone bill, it might be worth a SECOND LOOK Visit boostmobile.com to learn more. After 30 gigabytes, customers may experience slower speeds. Customers pay $25 per month as long as they remain active on the Boost Mobile Unlimited Plan Savings claim based on a January 2026 Boost Mobile survey of 1,000Americans with single line unlimited plans, comparing average annual payments of major carriers to 12 months on the Boost Mobile Unlimited Plan. For full offer details, visit boostmobile. Com.