Special Commissions (Dardanelles and Mesopotamia) Act 1916
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The Special Commissions (Dardanelles and Mesopotamia) Act 1916 was set up to investigate the World War I operations in the Dardanelles Campaign and the Mesopotamian campaign.
Following the disasters in Mesopotamia and the Dardanelles in 1916, the recently ousted British Prime Minister, H. H. Asquith, demanded a select committee to inquire into the relevant military campaigns. Instead the new Government appointed a statutory Special Commission, because a Government may…prefer to…appoint…an outside element...less likely to be influenced by party bias.[1]
The terms of the Act required that at least one naval and one military officer from the retired lists should serve on each Commission.
[edit] Mesopotamia 1916-17
The Commission of Inquiry's remit was to inquire into the origins, inception and conduct of operations of war in Mesopotamia.
The following were appointed
- Lord George Hamilton; (Chairman)
- Earl of Donoughmore
- Lord Hugh Cecil
- Archibald Williamson, 1st Baron Forres
- J. Hodge
- J.C. Wedgwood
- Admiral Cyprian Bridge, (retired Naval)
- General Rt. Hon. Sir Neville Gerald Lyttelton
The Commission The commission summonded over 100 witnesses. It was highly critical of many individuals and the administrative arrangements.
- William Babtie, responsible for medical provision on the Mesopotamia front, was heavily criticised
[edit] Dardanelles 1916-19
The following were appointed
- William Pickford, 1st Baron Sterndale; Chairman
- Evelyn Baring, 1st Earl of Cromer; (d. 29 Jan 1917)
- Andrew Fisher;
- Thomas Mackenzie;
- Frederick Cawley, 1st Baron Cawley;
- James Avon Clyde, Lord Clyde;
- Stephen Lucius Gwynn
- Walter Francis Roch;
- Admiral Sir William Henry May
- William Nicholson, 1st Baron Nicholson
[edit] References
- 'Appendix 1', Office-Holders in Modern Britain: Volume 10: Officials of Royal Commissions of Inquiry 1870-1939 (1995), pp. 85-8. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=16611. Date accessed: 12 August 2007.
- ^ Anson, I, 400, op.cit
