Special Commissions (Dardanelles and Mesopotamia) Act 1916

Special Commissions (Dardanelles and Mesopotamia) Act 1916

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." [Anson, I, 400, op.cit ]

The terms of the Act required that at least one naval and one military officer from the retired lists should serve on each Commission.

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

Dardanelles 1916-19

"See Dardanelles Commission"

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

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.


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