Gallipoli is the reason Britain managed to survive WW2

Gallipoli is a massive battle of the first world war that the British and the Anzac (Australia and New Zealand Allied Command) forces lost, in a fiasco, (that lasted more than seven months and massive casualties on both sides) that was planned by Winston Churchill (young, clean and sober) who blamed himself for each and every Allied death on the Turkish Gallipoli beaches.

Older, stone drunk and miserable, he guided England through the terrors of WW2 and the London bombings. His overwhelming guilt kept him vigilant (even when so drunk he could barely navigate. Elanor Roosevelt called him "That drunken shriveled little dwarf" and claimed he was, while a guest in the White house, was so drunk he groped serving girls and tried to light a soggy cigar in the bathtub). Even his stellar performance in WW2 did not allow him to forgive himself for the guilt of his obvious incompetence 27 years earlier.

Guilt is a crappy means to run ones moral compass, and a horrible criteria with which to qualify one for excellence. But it works.