Naval operations in the Dardanelles Campaign
Encyclopedia
The naval operations in the Dardanelles Campaign of the First World War
were mainly carried out by the Royal Navy
with substantial support from the French
and minor contributions from Russia
and Australia
. The Dardanelles Campaign began as a purely naval operation. When that failed to overcome Ottoman defences, an invasion of the Gallipoli
peninsula
was launched in which naval forces were heavily involved. Throughout the campaign, attempts were made by submarine
s to pass through the Dardanelles
and disrupt Ottoman Empire
shipping in the Sea of Marmara
.
s constructed for the Ottoman Empire which were still in British shipyards. In response, Germany made a gift of two ships, the battlecruiser
and the light cruiser
, as replacements. While still operated by their German crews, these ships, renamed Yavuz Sultan Selim and Midilli respectively, became the backbone of the Ottoman navy. Through possession of the Yavuz Sultan Selim, the Ottoman Empire controlled the most powerful ship in the Black Sea
in 1914.
and Sevastopol
were bombarded, a minelayer and gunboat were sunk. The real aim of the attack—putting the Russian Black Sea fleet out of commission—was not accomplished. Russia declared war on the Ottoman Empire on 2 November, and the British followed suit on 6 November. An unsuccessful Ottoman attack
on Russia through the Caucasus Mountains
was launched in December (Battle of Sarikamish), leading the Russians to call for aid from Britain in January 1915.
Winston Churchill
, then First Lord of the Admiralty, had entertained plans of capturing the Dardanelles as early as September 1914. In a new year review submitted to the prime minister, Herbert Asquith, he had outlined two possible new fronts against the Germans, intended to break the stalemate and accompanying enormous loss of life which had rapidly set in on the western front. The first possibility, which was then his favoured option, was an invasion of Schleswig-Holstein
by sea, allowing Denmark to join the allies and give Russia a supply route via the Baltic sea. The other was an attack on the Dardanelles, which again would give Russia a supply route and might encourage Bulgaria
and Romania
to join the allied side. The Russian plea for assistance, coupled with a perception of the Ottoman Empire as a weak enemy ("the sick man of Europe
"), made the prospect of a campaign in the Dardanelles seem appealing.
Matters were complicated for Churchill by the choice of First Sea Lord
, who was the most senior admiral in charge of running the navy. Churchill had appointed Prince Louis of Battenberg in 1912. He was obliged to replace Battenberg because of public feeling against Germans— Battenberg had become a British citizen when he joined the navy at the age of 14, but he spoke with a German accent. His choice was to recall the 73-year-old admiral John Fisher, who had retired as First Sea Lord in 1910. Fisher was regarded as brilliant, but somewhat in decline from advancing age. More immediately a problem for Churchill, he was a forceful personality accustomed to directing the Admiralty himself, and being supported in his decisions by the political First Lord rather than taking orders from him.
Fisher was appointed at the end of October 1914 and favoured a new campaign in northern Europe, which perhaps reflected the navy's traditional concern of controlling Channel waters. He reluctantly agreed to advance the plan for a naval action in the Dardanelles, but afterwards maintained that he had never supported it, and had always believed a naval action would have to be accompanied by a land force. Churchill and Fisher continually quarreled throughout the campaign, and Fisher finally resigned on 15 May 1915 after repeated threats to do so. Fisher wrote about Churchill: "He is always convincing me". Fisher's relationship with Churchill had always been complex and his abrupt resignation was no exception. Fisher's resignation, on top of poor progress in the campaign, precipitated the fall of the government and Churchill's replacement as First Lord, so neither man gained control of the Admiralty. Ironically, although they could not agree, both respected the other and would not have wished that outcome.
On 11 January, at Churchill's request, the commander of the Royal Navy's Mediterranean Squadron, Vice Admiral
S.H. Carden proposed a plan for forcing the Dardanelles using battleship
s, submarine
s and minesweeper
s. On January 13, the British War Council approved the plan, and Carden was supplied with additional pre-dreadnought
battleships, the battleship and the battlecruiser . France supplied a squadron which included four pre-dreadnought battleships, while Russia provided the light cruiser .
The operation was originally intended to be purely naval due to a lack of available troops and the independence of Lord of the admiralty Winston Churchill
but, by early February, it was decided that more regular infantry was needed. Contingents of Royal Marines
were to be supplemented by the last unallocated regular division
, the British 29th Division
. It was dispatched to Egypt, to join Australian and New Zealand
troops
which were already undergoing training. At the outset of the operation, the expected role of the infantry was to be the occupation of Istanbul
; the taking of the straits was to be accomplished by the Entente
naval forces.
had been made by Britain against the Ottoman Empire.
The intention of the attack was to test the fortifications and measure the Ottoman response. The results were deceptively encouraging. In a 20-minute bombardment, a single shell struck the magazine of the fort at Sedd el Bahr
at the tip of the Gallipoli peninsula, displacing (but not destroying) 10 guns and killing 86 Ottoman soldiers. Total casualties during the attack were 150, of which 40 were German. The most significant consequence was that the attention of the Ottomans was drawn to strengthening their defences, and they set about expanding the mine field.
The Dardanelles were defended by a system of fortified and mobile artillery
arranged as the "Outer", "Intermediate" and "Inner" defences. While the outer defences lay at the entrance to the straits and would prove vulnerable to bombardment and raiding, the inner defences covered the Narrows, the narrowest point of the straits near Çanakkale. Beyond the inner defences, the straits were virtually undefended. However, the foundation of the straits defences were a series of 10 minefields, laid across the straits near the Narrows and containing a total of 370 mine
s.
What was to become the Battle of Gallipoli
, a 10-month battle of attrition, began at 07:30 on 19 February 1915. Two destroyer
s were sent in to probe the straits. The first shot was fired from Kumkale by the Orhaniye Tepe battery's 240 mm (9.4 in) Krupp
guns at 07:58. The battleships and moved in to engage the forts and the first British shot of the campaign proper was fired at 09:51 by Cornwallis. The day's bombardment lacked the spectacular results of the 3 November test.
Another attempt was made on 25 February. This time the Ottomans evacuated the outer defences and the fleet entered the straits to engage the intermediate defences. Demolition parties of Royal Marines raided the Sedd el Bahr and Kum Kale forts, meeting little opposition. On 1 March, four battleships bombarded the intermediate defences.
Little progress was made clearing the minefields. The minesweepers, commanded by Carden's chief of staff, Roger Keyes, were merely un-armoured trawlers manned by their civilian crews who were unwilling to work while under fire. The strong current in the straits further hampered the sweeping process. This lack of progress by the fleet strengthened the Ottoman resolve which had wavered at the start of the offensive. On 4 March, raids on the outer defences were resisted, leaving 23 British marines dead.
Queen Elizabeth was called on to engage the inner defences, at first from the Aegean
coast near Gaba Tepe, firing across the peninsula, and later from within the straits. On the night of 13 March, the cruiser
led six minesweepers in an attempt to clear the mines. Four of the trawlers were hit and Amethyst was badly damaged with 19 stokers killed from a single hit.
On 15 March, the admiralty informed Carden that they agreed to his plan for a further all out attack by daylight, with the minesweepers operating under the direct protection of the entire fleet. Carden was taken ill the same day, and had to be replaced by Rear Admiral
John de Robeck
. A gunnery officer noted in his diary that de Robeck had already expressed misgivings with the likelihood of being able to silence the Ottoman guns by bombardment, and that this view was widely held on board the ship.
Nusret laid a line of mines in Eren Köy Bay, a wide bay along the Asian shore just inside the entrance to the straits. The Ottomans had noticed the British ships turned to starboard into the bay when withdrawing. The new line of between 20 and 26 mines ran parallel to the shore, were moored at 15 ft (4.6 m) and spaced about 100 yd (91.4 m) apart. The clear water meant that the mines could have been seen through the water by spotter planes.
The British plan for 18 March was to silence the defences guarding the first five minefields, they would be cleared overnight by the minesweepers. The next day the remaining defences around the Narrows would be defeated and the last five minefields would be cleared. The operation went ahead without the British or French becoming aware of the recent additions to the Ottoman minefields.
The battleships were arranged in three lines, two British and one French, with supporting ships on the flanks and two ships in reserve.
The first British line opened fire from Eren Köy Bay around 11:00. Shortly after noon, de Robeck ordered the French line to pass through and close on the Narrows forts. The Ottoman fire began to take its toll with Gaulois, Suffren, Agamemnon and Inflexible all suffering hits. While the naval fire had not destroyed the Ottoman batteries, it had succeeded in temporarily reducing their fire. By 13:25, the Ottoman defences were mostly silent so de Robeck decided to withdraw the French line and bring forward the second British line as well as Swiftsure and Majestic.
At 13:54, Bouvet—having made a turn to starboard into Eren Köy Bay—struck a mine, capsized and sank within a couple of minutes, killing 600 men. The initial British reaction was that a shell had struck her magazine or she had been torpedo
ed. Most reports state that they remained unaware of the minefield; however, mines in the string had been spotted earlier that morning, and their sighting relayed to Admiral de Robeck. Civilian trawlers acting as minesweepers in front of line "A" discovered and destroyed three mines in an area thought to be clear, before the civilian crews withdrew under fire. This information was not passed on to de Robeck.
The British pressed on with the attack. Around 16:00, Inflexible began to withdraw and struck a mine near where Bouvet went down, killing 30 men. The battlecruiser remained afloat and eventually beached on the island of Bozcaada (Tenedos
).
Irresistible was the next to be mined. As she began to drift helplessly, the crew were taken off. De Robeck told Ocean to take Irresistible under tow but the water was deemed too shallow to make an approach. Finally at 18:05, Ocean struck a mine which jammed the steering gear leaving her likewise helpless. The abandoned battleships were still floating when the British withdrew. A destroyer commanded by Commodore Roger Keyes returned later to attempt either to tow away or sink the stricken vessels but despite searching for four hours, there was no sign of them. Keyes reported:
By contrast, Commander Isham Worsley Gibson wrote:
so that if the naval attack had resumed, the Allies would have met little opposition from the guns. Moreover, the crews of the sunken battleships had replaced the civilians on the trawler minesweepers, making them much more willing to keep sweeping under fire, and the fleet had several modern destroyers fitted with 1.5 in (3.8 cm) minesweeping hawsers that could have handled the task with ease. The U.S. Ambassador to Istanbul, Henry Morgenthau
, reported that Istanbul expected to be attacked and that the Ottomans felt they could only hold out for a few hours if the attack had resumed on the 19th. Further, he thought that Turkey itself might well disintegrate as a state once the capital fell.
The main mine fields at the narrows, over 10 layers deep, were still fully intact. Furthermore, they were very well protected by the smaller shore guns that had not seen any action on 18 March. These and other defenses further in the strait had not exhausted their ammunition and resources yet. It was not a given that one more push by the fleet would have resulted in passage to Marmara Sea.
Churchill had anticipated losses and considered them a necessary tactical price. In June 1915, he discussed the campaign with the war correspondent Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett
, who had returned to London to deliver uncensored reports. Ashmead-Bartlett was incensed at the loss of ships and lives but Churchill responded: That is not the point! They ought to have gone on. What did it matter if more ships were lost? The ships were old and useless. To place the losses into perspective, the Navy ordered 600 new ships during the period Admiral Fisher was First Sea Lord, approximately corresponding with the length of the Dardanelles campaign.
De Robeck was reported to be distraught from the losses. He wrote on 18 March: "After losing so many ships I shall obviously find myself superseded tomorrow morning". He had been in charge of a fleet that had suffered the most serious loss to the Royal Navy since Trafalgar
and felt that losing further ships was the worst thing a sailor could do. On 23 March, he telegraphed the admiralty that it would be necessary to have the support of land forces before proceeding. He later told the Dardanelles Commission
investigating the campaign that his main reason for changing his mind was concern for what might happen in the event of success: that the fleet might find itself at İstanbul or on the Marmara sea fighting an enemy which did not simply surrender as the plan presupposed, without any troops available to secure captured territory.
With the failure of the naval assault, the idea that land forces could advance around the backs of the Dardanelles forts and capture Istanbul gained support as an alternative. On 25 April, the Gallipoli Campaign was launched. Significant naval forces were devoted to support of that operation.
Keyes remained a firm supporter of naval action, and on 23 September submitted a further proposal to pass through the Dardanelles to de Robeck. De Robeck disliked the plan, but nonetheless passed it to the Admiralty. Risk to ships had increased since March, due to the presence of German submarines in the Mediterranean and the Sea of Marmara, where the British ships would be inviting targets if the plan succeeded. On the other hand, minesweeping was now better equipped and some of the ships had nets or mine bumpers which it was hoped would improve their chances against mines. The Ottoman Empire now had better supply routes from Germany whereas demands on the navy for more ships to support the attempt had to be added to continuing commitments of ships for the land action, and the ongoing campaign at Salonica attempting to support Serbia. Kitchener made a proposal to take the Isthmus of Bulair using 40,000 men, thereby allowing British ships in the Marmara Sea to be resupplied across land from the Gulf of Xeros. Admiralty opinion was that another naval attack could not be mounted without support of land forces attacking the Dardanelles forts, which was deemed impractical for lack of troops. Kitchener visited the area to inspect the positions and talk to the commanders concerned, before reporting back advising a withdrawal. The War Committee, faced with a choice either of an uncertain new campaign to break the existing stalemate, or complete withdrawal, recommended on 23 November that all troops should be withdrawn.
The British cabinet as a whole was less keen to abandon the campaign, because of political repercussions of a failure and damaging consequences for Russia. De Robeck had been temporarily replaced by Admiral Rosslyn Wemyss
in November 1915 for reasons of ill health. In contrast to De Robeck, Wemyss was a supporter of further action and considerably more optimistic of chances of success. Whereas de Robeck estimated losses at 12 battleships, Wemyss considered it likely to lose no more than three. It was suggested that abandoning the action at Salonica, where the troops involved never managed to aid Serbia and did little fighting, could provide the reinforcements, but this was vetoed by the French. Wemyss continued a campaign promoting the chances of success. He had been present when de Robeck assumed command from Carden and was more senior, but had been commanding the base at Mudros whereas de Robeck was with the fleet. Churchill had preferentially chosen de Robeck. On 7 December, it was decided by Cabinet to abandon the campaign.
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The British submarine attacks had commenced in 1914, before the campaign proper had started. On 13 December, the British submarine had entered the straits, avoiding five lines of mines, and torpedo
ed the antiquated Ottoman battleship , built in 1874, which was anchored as a floating fort in Sari Sighlar Bay, south of Çanakkale. Mesudiye capsized in 10 minutes, trapping many of the 673-man crew. However, lying in shoal water, the hull remained above the surface so most men were rescued by cutting holes in the hull. Thirty-seven men were killed.
The sinking was a triumph for the Royal Navy. The captain of B11, Lieutenant-Commander Norman Holbrook
, was awarded the Victoria Cross
—the first Royal Navy VC of the war—and all 12 other crew members received awards. Coupled with the naval bombardment of the outer defences on 3 November, this success encouraged the British to pursue the campaign.
The first French submarine operation preceded the start of the campaign as well. On 15 January 1915, the French submarine negotiated the Narrows, passing all 10 lines of mines, before running aground at Nagara Point. Various accounts claim she was either mined, sunk by shellfire or scuttled, leaving 14 crew dead and 13 prisoners of war.
On 17 April, the British submarine attempted to pass through the straits but, having dived too deep, was caught in a current and ran aground near Kepez Point, the southern tip of Sarı Sıĝlar Bay, directly under the guns of the Dardanos battery. Seven of the crew were killed, and the remainder were captured. The beached E15 was a valuable prize for the Ottomans and the British went to great lengths to deny it from them, finally managing to sink it after numerous attempts.
The first submarine to succeed in passing through the straits was the Australian , which got through on the night of 24/25 April. The army began landing soldiers at Cape Helles and Anzac Cove on the peninsula at dawn on the 25th. Although AE2 sank one Ottoman cruiser, the submarine under the command of Lieutenant-Commander Stoker, was thwarted by defective torpedoes in several other attempts to sink promising targets. On 29 April, in Artaki Bay near Panderma, the AE2 was sighted and hit by the Ottoman torpedo boat
Sultanhisar. Abandoning ship, the crew became POWs. The wreck was found in 1997, and in 2007, the Turkish and Australian governments began studies to determine the feasibility of raising and preserving the submarine.
The second submarine through the straits had more luck than AE2. On 27 April, , commanded by Lieutenant-Commander Edward Boyle
, entered the Sea of Marmara and went on a three-week rampage that was one of the most successful actions achieved by the Allies in the entire campaign. While the quantity and value of the shipping sunk was relatively minor, the effect on Ottoman communications and morale was significant. On his return, Boyle was immediately awarded the Victoria Cross. Boyle and E14 made a number of tours of the Marmara. His third tour began on 21 July, when he passed through the straits despite the Ottomans having installed an anti-submarine net
near the Narrows.
Another British submarine to have a successful cruise of the Marmara was , commanded by Lieutenant-Commander Martin Nasmith
, who was awarded the VC and promoted to Commander
for his achievements. He sank or disabled 11 ships, including three on 24 May at the port of Rodosto on the Thracian
shore. On 8 August, during a subsequent tour of the Marmara, E11 torpedoed the Ottoman battleship Barbaros Hayreddin
.
A number of demolition missions were performed by men or parties landed from submarines. On 8 September, First Lieutenant
H.V. Lyon from swam ashore near Küçükçekmece (Thrace) to blow up a railway bridge. The bridge was destroyed but Lyon failed to return. Attempts were also made to disrupt the railways running close to the water along the Gulf of İzmit, on the Asian shore of the sea. On the night of 20 August, Lieutenant
D'Oyly Hughes from E11 swam ashore and blew up a section of the railway line, earning the Distinguished Service Order
for his efforts. On 17 July, bombarded the railway line and then damaged two trains that were forced to halt.
French attempts to enter the Sea of Marmara continued. Following the success of HMAS AE2 and HMS E14, the French submarine attempted the passage on 1 May, but she struck a mine and was lost with all hands. The next attempt was made by on 27 July. However, Mariotte failed to negotiate the anti-submarine net
that E14 had eluded and was forced to the surface. After being shelled from the shore batteries, Mariotte was scuttled. On 4 September, the same net caught E7 as it attempted to commence another tour.
The first French submarine to enter the Sea of Marmara was . However, it was forced to turn back and, on 30 October, when attempting to pass back through the straits, ran aground beneath a fort and was captured intact. The crew of 25 were taken prisoner and documents detailing planned Allied operations were discovered. This included a scheduled rendezvous with on 6 November. The rendezvous was kept by the German U-boat
which torpedoed and sank E20 killing all but nine of the crew. Turquoise was salvaged and incorporated (but not commissioned
) into the Ottoman Navy as the Onbasi Müstecip, named after the gunner who had forced the French commander to surrender.
The Allied submarine campaign in the Sea of Marmara was the one significant offensive success of the Battle of Gallipoli
. Between April 1915 and January 1916, nine British submarines sank two battleships (albeit obsolete) and one destroyer, five gunboat
s, nine troop transports, seven supply ships, 35 steamers and 188 assorted smaller vessels at a cost of total of eight Allied submarines which were sunk in the strait or in the Sea of Marmara
. The Ottomans were forced to abandon the Marmara as a transport route.
In 1993, a coal mining operation revealed the wreck of the German submarine near the Kemerburgaz coast. After carrying out missions in Black Sea
, on its way back, UB-46 hit a mine near Karaburun and sank with all hands. It is now on display at Besiktas Naval Museum in Istanbul.
had been established on 12 March under the command of General Sir Ian Hamilton and comprised some 70,000 soldiers. At a conference on 22 March, four days after the failed attempt by the navy, it was decided to use the infantry to seize the Gallipoli peninsula and capture the forts, clearing the way for the navy to pass through into the Sea of Marmara. Preparations for the landing took a month, giving the Ottoman defenders ample time to reinforce.
The British planners still underestimated the ability of the Ottomans and, at the outset, it was expected that the invasion would be over swiftly. A British force—landing at Cape Helles—would advance 6 mi (9.7 km) on the first day, and on the second would seize the Kilitbahir plateau, overlooking the Narrows. As it happened, in eight months of fighting, the British never advanced much more than 5 mi (8 km), and their first day objectives of Krithia
and the hill Achi Baba
remained out of reach.
The Gallipoli landings were the largest amphibious
operation of the war. The initial landings were made at Cape Helles by the British 29th Division
and at Gaba Tepe by the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. In the latter case, the landing miscarried and the troops went ashore too far north at a place now known as Anzac Cove
. In both landings, the covering force went ashore from warships with the exception of V Beach at Helles where the was used as an improvised landing craft for 2,000 men.
In the landing at Anzac Cove
, the first wave went ashore from the boats of three Formidable-class battleship
s; , and . The second wave went ashore from seven destroyers. In support were HMS Triumph, Majestic and the cruiser as well as the seaplane carrier and the kite
-balloon
ship, from which a tethered balloon was trailed to provide artillery spotting.
The landing at Cape Helles
was spread over five beaches with the main ones being V and W Beaches at the tip of the peninsula. While the landing at Anzac was planned as a surprise without a preliminary bombardment, the Helles landing was made after the beaches and forts were bombarded by the warships. The landing at S Beach inside the straits was made from the battleship Cornwallis and was virtually unopposed. The W Beach force came from the cruiser and the battleship which also carried the troops bound for X Beach. The cruiser and battleship supported the X Beach landing as well as a small landing to the north on the Aegean coast at Y Beach, later abandoned.
The role of the navy was to support the landing, using naval guns instead of field artillery
, of which there was a severe shortage in 1915. However, with a few spectacular exceptions, the performance of naval guns on land targets was inadequate, particularly against entrenched positions. The guns lacked elevation and so fired on a flat trajectory
which, coupled with the inherently unstable gun platform, resulted in reduced accuracy.
The battleship's guns did prove effective against exposed lines of troops. On 27 April, during the first Ottoman counter-attack at Anzac, the Ottoman 57th Regiment attacked down the seaward slope of Battleship Hill within view of Queen Elizabeth which fired a salvo of six 15 in (381 mm) shells, halting the attack completely. On 28 April, near the old Y Beach landing, Queen Elizabeth sighted a party of about 100 Turks. One 15 in (381 mm) shrapnel shell containing 24,000 pellets was fired at short range and wiped out the entire party. For the rest of the campaign, the Turks were very wary of moving within view of battleships.
Also on 27 April, a kite-balloon ship had spotted a Ottoman transport ship moving near the Narrows. Queen Elizabeth, stationed off Gaba Tepe, had fired across the peninsula, at a range of over 10 mi (8.7 nmi; 16.1 km), and sank the transport with her third shot. For much of the campaign, the Ottomans transported troops via rail, though other supplies continued to be transported by ship on the Sea of Marmara and Dardanelles.
It quickly became evident that the battle for Gallipoli would not be a swift or easy operation. At Helles, which was initially the main battlefield, a series of costly battles only managed to edge the front line closer to Krithia. Through the early battles, the Royal Navy continued to provide support via bombardments. However, in May three battleships were torpedoed: Goliath in Morto Bay
on 12 May; Triumph off Anzac on 25 May; and Majestic off W Beach on 27 May. Goliath was sunk by the Ottoman torpedo boat Muavenet-i Milliye
while the other two were sunk by . Following these losses, the permanent battleship support was withdrawn with the valuable Queen Elizabeth recalled by the Admiralty
as soon as the news of the loss of Goliath arrived. In place of the battleships, naval artillery support was provided by cruisers, destroyers and purpose-built monitors which were designed for coastal bombardment.
Once the navy became wary of the submarine threat, losses ceased. With the exception of the continued activity of Allied submarines in the Dardanelles and Sea of Marmara, the only significant naval loss after May was the Laforey-class destroyer
which ran aground off Sulva during a gale on 31 October and was wrecked. The destruction of the stranded ship was accelerated by Ottoman gunfire.
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
were mainly carried out by the Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
with substantial support from the French
French Third Republic
The French Third Republic was the republican government of France from 1870, when the Second French Empire collapsed due to the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, to 1940, when France was overrun by Nazi Germany during World War II, resulting in the German and Italian occupations of France...
and minor contributions from Russia
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
and Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
. The Dardanelles Campaign began as a purely naval operation. When that failed to overcome Ottoman defences, an invasion of the Gallipoli
Gallipoli
The Gallipoli peninsula is located in Turkish Thrace , the European part of Turkey, with the Aegean Sea to the west and the Dardanelles straits to the east. Gallipoli derives its name from the Greek "Καλλίπολις" , meaning "Beautiful City"...
peninsula
Peninsula
A peninsula is a piece of land that is bordered by water on three sides but connected to mainland. In many Germanic and Celtic languages and also in Baltic, Slavic and Hungarian, peninsulas are called "half-islands"....
was launched in which naval forces were heavily involved. Throughout the campaign, attempts were made by submarine
Submarine
A submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation below the surface of the water. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability...
s to pass through the Dardanelles
Dardanelles
The Dardanelles , formerly known as the Hellespont, is a narrow strait in northwestern Turkey connecting the Aegean Sea to the Sea of Marmara. It is one of the Turkish Straits, along with its counterpart the Bosphorus. It is located at approximately...
and disrupt Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
shipping in the Sea of Marmara
Sea of Marmara
The Sea of Marmara , also known as the Sea of Marmora or the Marmara Sea, and in the context of classical antiquity as the Propontis , is the inland sea that connects the Black Sea to the Aegean Sea, thus separating Turkey's Asian and European parts. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Black...
.
Prelude
At the outbreak of the First World War, the Ottoman Empire was an unaligned power. While Britain had a long history of interest in the region, Germany had been most active in cultivating a relationship with the Ottomans. At the outbreak of war, the British confiscated two battleshipBattleship
A battleship is a large armored warship with a main battery consisting of heavy caliber guns. Battleships were larger, better armed and armored than cruisers and destroyers. As the largest armed ships in a fleet, battleships were used to attain command of the sea and represented the apex of a...
s constructed for the Ottoman Empire which were still in British shipyards. In response, Germany made a gift of two ships, the battlecruiser
Battlecruiser
Battlecruisers were large capital ships built in the first half of the 20th century. They were developed in the first decade of the century as the successor to the armoured cruiser, but their evolution was more closely linked to that of the dreadnought battleship...
and the light cruiser
Light cruiser
A light cruiser is a type of small- or medium-sized warship. The term is a shortening of the phrase "light armored cruiser", describing a small ship that carried armor in the same way as an armored cruiser: a protective belt and deck...
, as replacements. While still operated by their German crews, these ships, renamed Yavuz Sultan Selim and Midilli respectively, became the backbone of the Ottoman navy. Through possession of the Yavuz Sultan Selim, the Ottoman Empire controlled the most powerful ship in the Black Sea
Black Sea
The Black Sea is bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and the Aegean seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects that sea to the Aegean...
in 1914.
Closure of the Dardanelles
In October 1914, the Ottomans closed the Dardanelles to Allied shipping. This followed an incident on 27 September, when the British Dardanelles squadron had seized an Ottoman torpedo boat. The actual decision to close the strait seems to have been taken by German military advisors stationed in the Dardanelles without reference to the Ottoman government. On 28 October, the Ottoman fleet, led by Goeben, began raiding Russian assets in the Black Sea. OdessaOdessa
Odessa or Odesa is the administrative center of the Odessa Oblast located in southern Ukraine. The city is a major seaport located on the northwest shore of the Black Sea and the fourth largest city in Ukraine with a population of 1,029,000 .The predecessor of Odessa, a small Tatar settlement,...
and Sevastopol
Sevastopol
Sevastopol is a city on rights of administrative division of Ukraine, located on the Black Sea coast of the Crimea peninsula. It has a population of 342,451 . Sevastopol is the second largest port in Ukraine, after the Port of Odessa....
were bombarded, a minelayer and gunboat were sunk. The real aim of the attack—putting the Russian Black Sea fleet out of commission—was not accomplished. Russia declared war on the Ottoman Empire on 2 November, and the British followed suit on 6 November. An unsuccessful Ottoman attack
Caucasus Campaign
The Caucasus Campaign comprised armed conflicts between the Ottoman Empire and the Russian Empire, later including Azerbaijan, Armenia, Central Caspian Dictatorship and the UK as part of the Middle Eastern theatre or alternatively named as part of the Caucasus Campaign during World War I...
on Russia through the Caucasus Mountains
Caucasus Mountains
The Caucasus Mountains is a mountain system in Eurasia between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea in the Caucasus region .The Caucasus Mountains includes:* the Greater Caucasus Mountain Range and* the Lesser Caucasus Mountains....
was launched in December (Battle of Sarikamish), leading the Russians to call for aid from Britain in January 1915.
Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
, then First Lord of the Admiralty, had entertained plans of capturing the Dardanelles as early as September 1914. In a new year review submitted to the prime minister, Herbert Asquith, he had outlined two possible new fronts against the Germans, intended to break the stalemate and accompanying enormous loss of life which had rapidly set in on the western front. The first possibility, which was then his favoured option, was an invasion of Schleswig-Holstein
Schleswig-Holstein
Schleswig-Holstein is the northernmost of the sixteen states of Germany, comprising most of the historical duchy of Holstein and the southern part of the former Duchy of Schleswig...
by sea, allowing Denmark to join the allies and give Russia a supply route via the Baltic sea. The other was an attack on the Dardanelles, which again would give Russia a supply route and might encourage Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
and Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
to join the allied side. The Russian plea for assistance, coupled with a perception of the Ottoman Empire as a weak enemy ("the sick man of Europe
Sick man of Europe
"Sick man of Europe" is a nickname that has been used to describe a European country experiencing a time of economic difficulty and/or impoverishment...
"), made the prospect of a campaign in the Dardanelles seem appealing.
Divided responsibilities
First Sea Lord
The First Sea Lord is the professional head of the Royal Navy and the whole Naval Service; it was formerly known as First Naval Lord. He also holds the title of Chief of Naval Staff, and is known by the abbreviations 1SL/CNS...
, who was the most senior admiral in charge of running the navy. Churchill had appointed Prince Louis of Battenberg in 1912. He was obliged to replace Battenberg because of public feeling against Germans— Battenberg had become a British citizen when he joined the navy at the age of 14, but he spoke with a German accent. His choice was to recall the 73-year-old admiral John Fisher, who had retired as First Sea Lord in 1910. Fisher was regarded as brilliant, but somewhat in decline from advancing age. More immediately a problem for Churchill, he was a forceful personality accustomed to directing the Admiralty himself, and being supported in his decisions by the political First Lord rather than taking orders from him.
Fisher was appointed at the end of October 1914 and favoured a new campaign in northern Europe, which perhaps reflected the navy's traditional concern of controlling Channel waters. He reluctantly agreed to advance the plan for a naval action in the Dardanelles, but afterwards maintained that he had never supported it, and had always believed a naval action would have to be accompanied by a land force. Churchill and Fisher continually quarreled throughout the campaign, and Fisher finally resigned on 15 May 1915 after repeated threats to do so. Fisher wrote about Churchill: "He is always convincing me". Fisher's relationship with Churchill had always been complex and his abrupt resignation was no exception. Fisher's resignation, on top of poor progress in the campaign, precipitated the fall of the government and Churchill's replacement as First Lord, so neither man gained control of the Admiralty. Ironically, although they could not agree, both respected the other and would not have wished that outcome.
On 11 January, at Churchill's request, the commander of the Royal Navy's Mediterranean Squadron, Vice Admiral
Vice Admiral
Vice admiral is a senior naval rank of a three-star flag officer, which is equivalent to lieutenant general in the other uniformed services. A vice admiral is typically senior to a rear admiral and junior to an admiral...
S.H. Carden proposed a plan for forcing the Dardanelles using battleship
Battleship
A battleship is a large armored warship with a main battery consisting of heavy caliber guns. Battleships were larger, better armed and armored than cruisers and destroyers. As the largest armed ships in a fleet, battleships were used to attain command of the sea and represented the apex of a...
s, submarine
Submarine
A submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation below the surface of the water. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability...
s and minesweeper
Minesweeper (ship)
A minesweeper is a small naval warship designed to counter the threat posed by naval mines. Minesweepers generally detect then neutralize mines in advance of other naval operations.-History:...
s. On January 13, the British War Council approved the plan, and Carden was supplied with additional pre-dreadnought
Pre-dreadnought
Pre-dreadnought battleship is the general term for all of the types of sea-going battleships built between the mid-1890s and 1905. Pre-dreadnoughts replaced the ironclad warships of the 1870s and 1880s...
battleships, the battleship and the battlecruiser . France supplied a squadron which included four pre-dreadnought battleships, while Russia provided the light cruiser .
The operation was originally intended to be purely naval due to a lack of available troops and the independence of Lord of the admiralty Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
but, by early February, it was decided that more regular infantry was needed. Contingents of Royal Marines
Royal Marines
The Corps of Her Majesty's Royal Marines, commonly just referred to as the Royal Marines , are the marine corps and amphibious infantry of the United Kingdom and, along with the Royal Navy and Royal Fleet Auxiliary, form the Naval Service...
were to be supplemented by the last unallocated regular division
Division (military)
A division is a large military unit or formation usually consisting of between 10,000 and 20,000 soldiers. In most armies, a division is composed of several regiments or brigades, and in turn several divisions typically make up a corps...
, the British 29th Division
British 29th Division
The British 29th Division, known as the Incomparable Division, was a First World War regular army infantry division formed in early 1915 by combining various units that had been acting as garrisons about the British Empire. Under the command of Major General Aylmer Hunter-Weston, the division...
. It was dispatched to Egypt, to join Australian and New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
troops
Australian and New Zealand Army Corps
The Australian and New Zealand Army Corps was a First World War army corps of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force that was formed in Egypt in 1915 and operated during the Battle of Gallipoli. General William Birdwood commanded the corps, which comprised troops from the First Australian Imperial...
which were already undergoing training. At the outset of the operation, the expected role of the infantry was to be the occupation of Istanbul
Istanbul
Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...
; the taking of the straits was to be accomplished by the Entente
Triple Entente
The Triple Entente was the name given to the alliance among Britain, France and Russia after the signing of the Anglo-Russian Entente in 1907....
naval forces.
Forcing the straits
On 3 November 1914, Churchill ordered the first British attack on the Dardanelles following the opening of hostilities between Ottoman and Russian empires. The British attack was carried out by battlecruisers of Carden's Mediterranean Squadron, and , as well as the obsolete French battleships and . This attack actually took place before a formal declaration of warDeclaration of war
A declaration of war is a formal act by which one nation goes to war against another. The declaration is a performative speech act by an authorized party of a national government in order to create a state of war between two or more states.The legality of who is competent to declare war varies...
had been made by Britain against the Ottoman Empire.
The intention of the attack was to test the fortifications and measure the Ottoman response. The results were deceptively encouraging. In a 20-minute bombardment, a single shell struck the magazine of the fort at Sedd el Bahr
Sedd el Bahr
Sedd el Bahr is a village at Cape Helles on the Gallipoli peninsula in Turkey. The village lies east of the cape, on the shore of the Dardanelles...
at the tip of the Gallipoli peninsula, displacing (but not destroying) 10 guns and killing 86 Ottoman soldiers. Total casualties during the attack were 150, of which 40 were German. The most significant consequence was that the attention of the Ottomans was drawn to strengthening their defences, and they set about expanding the mine field.
Artillery
Originally applied to any group of infantry primarily armed with projectile weapons, artillery has over time become limited in meaning to refer only to those engines of war that operate by projection of munitions far beyond the range of effect of personal weapons...
arranged as the "Outer", "Intermediate" and "Inner" defences. While the outer defences lay at the entrance to the straits and would prove vulnerable to bombardment and raiding, the inner defences covered the Narrows, the narrowest point of the straits near Çanakkale. Beyond the inner defences, the straits were virtually undefended. However, the foundation of the straits defences were a series of 10 minefields, laid across the straits near the Narrows and containing a total of 370 mine
Naval mine
A naval mine is a self-contained explosive device placed in water to destroy surface ships or submarines. Unlike depth charges, mines are deposited and left to wait until they are triggered by the approach of, or contact with, an enemy vessel...
s.
What was to become the Battle of Gallipoli
Battle of Gallipoli
The Gallipoli Campaign, also known as the Dardanelles Campaign or the Battle of Gallipoli, took place at the peninsula of Gallipoli in the Ottoman Empire between 25 April 1915 and 9 January 1916, during the First World War...
, a 10-month battle of attrition, began at 07:30 on 19 February 1915. Two destroyer
Destroyer
In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast and maneuverable yet long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy or battle group and defend them against smaller, powerful, short-range attackers. Destroyers, originally called torpedo-boat destroyers in 1892, evolved from...
s were sent in to probe the straits. The first shot was fired from Kumkale by the Orhaniye Tepe battery's 240 mm (9.4 in) Krupp
Krupp
The Krupp family , a prominent 400-year-old German dynasty from Essen, have become famous for their steel production and for their manufacture of ammunition and armaments. The family business, known as Friedrich Krupp AG Hoesch-Krupp, was the largest company in Europe at the beginning of the 20th...
guns at 07:58. The battleships and moved in to engage the forts and the first British shot of the campaign proper was fired at 09:51 by Cornwallis. The day's bombardment lacked the spectacular results of the 3 November test.
Little progress was made clearing the minefields. The minesweepers, commanded by Carden's chief of staff, Roger Keyes, were merely un-armoured trawlers manned by their civilian crews who were unwilling to work while under fire. The strong current in the straits further hampered the sweeping process. This lack of progress by the fleet strengthened the Ottoman resolve which had wavered at the start of the offensive. On 4 March, raids on the outer defences were resisted, leaving 23 British marines dead.
Queen Elizabeth was called on to engage the inner defences, at first from the Aegean
Aegean Sea
The Aegean Sea[p] is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea located between the southern Balkan and Anatolian peninsulas, i.e., between the mainlands of Greece and Turkey. In the north, it is connected to the Marmara Sea and Black Sea by the Dardanelles and Bosporus...
coast near Gaba Tepe, firing across the peninsula, and later from within the straits. On the night of 13 March, the cruiser
Cruiser
A cruiser is a type of warship. The term has been in use for several hundreds of years, and has had different meanings throughout this period...
led six minesweepers in an attempt to clear the mines. Four of the trawlers were hit and Amethyst was badly damaged with 19 stokers killed from a single hit.
On 15 March, the admiralty informed Carden that they agreed to his plan for a further all out attack by daylight, with the minesweepers operating under the direct protection of the entire fleet. Carden was taken ill the same day, and had to be replaced by Rear Admiral
Rear Admiral
Rear admiral is a naval commissioned officer rank above that of a commodore and captain, and below that of a vice admiral. It is generally regarded as the lowest of the "admiral" ranks, which are also sometimes referred to as "flag officers" or "flag ranks"...
John de Robeck
John de Robeck
Admiral of the Fleet Sir John Michael de Robeck, 1st Baronet GCB, GCMG, GCVO was an admiral in the British Royal Navy who commanded the Allied naval force in the Dardanelles during World War I....
. A gunnery officer noted in his diary that de Robeck had already expressed misgivings with the likelihood of being able to silence the Ottoman guns by bombardment, and that this view was widely held on board the ship.
The Battle of March 18
The event that decided the battle took place on the night of 8 March when the Ottoman minelayerMinelayer
Minelaying is the act of deploying explosive mines. Historically this has been carried out by ships, submarines and aircraft. Additionally, since World War I the term minelayer refers specifically to a naval ship used for deploying naval mines...
Nusret laid a line of mines in Eren Köy Bay, a wide bay along the Asian shore just inside the entrance to the straits. The Ottomans had noticed the British ships turned to starboard into the bay when withdrawing. The new line of between 20 and 26 mines ran parallel to the shore, were moored at 15 ft (4.6 m) and spaced about 100 yd (91.4 m) apart. The clear water meant that the mines could have been seen through the water by spotter planes.
The British plan for 18 March was to silence the defences guarding the first five minefields, they would be cleared overnight by the minesweepers. The next day the remaining defences around the Narrows would be defeated and the last five minefields would be cleared. The operation went ahead without the British or French becoming aware of the recent additions to the Ottoman minefields.
The battleships were arranged in three lines, two British and one French, with supporting ships on the flanks and two ships in reserve.
| Line A | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| French Line B | bgcolor=#cecece| | bgcolor=#ee9999| | bgcolor=#cecece| | |
| British Line B | ||||
| Supporting ships | ||||
| Reserve |
The first British line opened fire from Eren Köy Bay around 11:00. Shortly after noon, de Robeck ordered the French line to pass through and close on the Narrows forts. The Ottoman fire began to take its toll with Gaulois, Suffren, Agamemnon and Inflexible all suffering hits. While the naval fire had not destroyed the Ottoman batteries, it had succeeded in temporarily reducing their fire. By 13:25, the Ottoman defences were mostly silent so de Robeck decided to withdraw the French line and bring forward the second British line as well as Swiftsure and Majestic.
At 13:54, Bouvet—having made a turn to starboard into Eren Köy Bay—struck a mine, capsized and sank within a couple of minutes, killing 600 men. The initial British reaction was that a shell had struck her magazine or she had been torpedo
Torpedo
The modern torpedo is a self-propelled missile weapon with an explosive warhead, launched above or below the water surface, propelled underwater towards a target, and designed to detonate either on contact with it or in proximity to it.The term torpedo was originally employed for...
ed. Most reports state that they remained unaware of the minefield; however, mines in the string had been spotted earlier that morning, and their sighting relayed to Admiral de Robeck. Civilian trawlers acting as minesweepers in front of line "A" discovered and destroyed three mines in an area thought to be clear, before the civilian crews withdrew under fire. This information was not passed on to de Robeck.
Tenedos
Tenedos or Bozcaada or Bozdja-Ada is a small island in the Aegean Sea, part of the Bozcaada district of Çanakkale province in Turkey. , Tenedos has a population of about 2,354. The main industries are tourism, wine production and fishing...
).
Irresistible was the next to be mined. As she began to drift helplessly, the crew were taken off. De Robeck told Ocean to take Irresistible under tow but the water was deemed too shallow to make an approach. Finally at 18:05, Ocean struck a mine which jammed the steering gear leaving her likewise helpless. The abandoned battleships were still floating when the British withdrew. A destroyer commanded by Commodore Roger Keyes returned later to attempt either to tow away or sink the stricken vessels but despite searching for four hours, there was no sign of them. Keyes reported:
By contrast, Commander Isham Worsley Gibson wrote:
Aftermath
18 March was a significant victory for the Ottoman Empire. Nevertheless, there were calls amongst the British, particularly from Churchill, to press on with the naval attack. De Robeck advised on 20 March that he was reorganising his minesweepers, suggesting he intended to resume the attack, and Churchill responded that he was sending four replacement ships. With the exception of Inflexible, the ships that were lost or damaged were old, ill-equipped for modern naval combat and had been chosen for the expedition precisely because they were expendable. The Ottoman forts had nearly exhausted their ammunitionAmmunition
Ammunition is a generic term derived from the French language la munition which embraced all material used for war , but which in time came to refer specifically to gunpowder and artillery. The collective term for all types of ammunition is munitions...
so that if the naval attack had resumed, the Allies would have met little opposition from the guns. Moreover, the crews of the sunken battleships had replaced the civilians on the trawler minesweepers, making them much more willing to keep sweeping under fire, and the fleet had several modern destroyers fitted with 1.5 in (3.8 cm) minesweeping hawsers that could have handled the task with ease. The U.S. Ambassador to Istanbul, Henry Morgenthau
Henry Morgenthau
Henry Morgenthau may refer to:* Henry Morgenthau, Sr. , United States diplomat* Henry Morgenthau, Jr. , United States Secretary of the Treasury* Henry Morgenthau, III , author and television producer...
, reported that Istanbul expected to be attacked and that the Ottomans felt they could only hold out for a few hours if the attack had resumed on the 19th. Further, he thought that Turkey itself might well disintegrate as a state once the capital fell.
The main mine fields at the narrows, over 10 layers deep, were still fully intact. Furthermore, they were very well protected by the smaller shore guns that had not seen any action on 18 March. These and other defenses further in the strait had not exhausted their ammunition and resources yet. It was not a given that one more push by the fleet would have resulted in passage to Marmara Sea.
Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett
Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett was a British war correspondent during the First World War. Through his reporting of the Battle of Gallipoli, Ashmead-Bartlett was instrumental in the birth of the Anzac legend which still dominates military history in Australia and New Zealand...
, who had returned to London to deliver uncensored reports. Ashmead-Bartlett was incensed at the loss of ships and lives but Churchill responded: That is not the point! They ought to have gone on. What did it matter if more ships were lost? The ships were old and useless. To place the losses into perspective, the Navy ordered 600 new ships during the period Admiral Fisher was First Sea Lord, approximately corresponding with the length of the Dardanelles campaign.
De Robeck was reported to be distraught from the losses. He wrote on 18 March: "After losing so many ships I shall obviously find myself superseded tomorrow morning". He had been in charge of a fleet that had suffered the most serious loss to the Royal Navy since Trafalgar
Battle of Trafalgar
The Battle of Trafalgar was a sea battle fought between the British Royal Navy and the combined fleets of the French Navy and Spanish Navy, during the War of the Third Coalition of the Napoleonic Wars ....
and felt that losing further ships was the worst thing a sailor could do. On 23 March, he telegraphed the admiralty that it would be necessary to have the support of land forces before proceeding. He later told the Dardanelles Commission
Dardanelles Commission
The Dardanelles Commission was an investigation into the disastrous 1915 Dardanelles Campaign. It was set up under the Special Commissions Act 1916....
investigating the campaign that his main reason for changing his mind was concern for what might happen in the event of success: that the fleet might find itself at İstanbul or on the Marmara sea fighting an enemy which did not simply surrender as the plan presupposed, without any troops available to secure captured territory.
With the failure of the naval assault, the idea that land forces could advance around the backs of the Dardanelles forts and capture Istanbul gained support as an alternative. On 25 April, the Gallipoli Campaign was launched. Significant naval forces were devoted to support of that operation.
Further attempts
Following the unsuccessful results of the land campaign up to May, De Robeck suggested that it might be desirable to again attempt a naval attack. Churchill supported this idea, at least as far as restarting attempts to clear mines, but this was opposed by Fisher and other members of the Admiralty Board. Aside from difficulties in the Dardanelles, they were concerned at the prospect that more ships might have to be diverted away from the Grand Fleet in the North Sea. This disagreement contributed to the final resignation of Fisher, followed by the need for Asquith to seek coalition partners to shore up his government and the consequential dismissal of Churchill also. Further naval attacks were shelved.Keyes remained a firm supporter of naval action, and on 23 September submitted a further proposal to pass through the Dardanelles to de Robeck. De Robeck disliked the plan, but nonetheless passed it to the Admiralty. Risk to ships had increased since March, due to the presence of German submarines in the Mediterranean and the Sea of Marmara, where the British ships would be inviting targets if the plan succeeded. On the other hand, minesweeping was now better equipped and some of the ships had nets or mine bumpers which it was hoped would improve their chances against mines. The Ottoman Empire now had better supply routes from Germany whereas demands on the navy for more ships to support the attempt had to be added to continuing commitments of ships for the land action, and the ongoing campaign at Salonica attempting to support Serbia. Kitchener made a proposal to take the Isthmus of Bulair using 40,000 men, thereby allowing British ships in the Marmara Sea to be resupplied across land from the Gulf of Xeros. Admiralty opinion was that another naval attack could not be mounted without support of land forces attacking the Dardanelles forts, which was deemed impractical for lack of troops. Kitchener visited the area to inspect the positions and talk to the commanders concerned, before reporting back advising a withdrawal. The War Committee, faced with a choice either of an uncertain new campaign to break the existing stalemate, or complete withdrawal, recommended on 23 November that all troops should be withdrawn.
The British cabinet as a whole was less keen to abandon the campaign, because of political repercussions of a failure and damaging consequences for Russia. De Robeck had been temporarily replaced by Admiral Rosslyn Wemyss
Rosslyn Erskine-Wemyss, 1st Baron Wester Wemyss
Admiral of the Fleet Rosslyn Erskine Wemyss, 1st Baron Wester Wemyss GCB, CMG, MVO , known as Sir Rosslyn Wemyss between 1916 and 1919, was a British naval commander...
in November 1915 for reasons of ill health. In contrast to De Robeck, Wemyss was a supporter of further action and considerably more optimistic of chances of success. Whereas de Robeck estimated losses at 12 battleships, Wemyss considered it likely to lose no more than three. It was suggested that abandoning the action at Salonica, where the troops involved never managed to aid Serbia and did little fighting, could provide the reinforcements, but this was vetoed by the French. Wemyss continued a campaign promoting the chances of success. He had been present when de Robeck assumed command from Carden and was more senior, but had been commanding the base at Mudros whereas de Robeck was with the fleet. Churchill had preferentially chosen de Robeck. On 7 December, it was decided by Cabinet to abandon the campaign.
Submarine operations
Torpedo
The modern torpedo is a self-propelled missile weapon with an explosive warhead, launched above or below the water surface, propelled underwater towards a target, and designed to detonate either on contact with it or in proximity to it.The term torpedo was originally employed for...
ed the antiquated Ottoman battleship , built in 1874, which was anchored as a floating fort in Sari Sighlar Bay, south of Çanakkale. Mesudiye capsized in 10 minutes, trapping many of the 673-man crew. However, lying in shoal water, the hull remained above the surface so most men were rescued by cutting holes in the hull. Thirty-seven men were killed.
The sinking was a triumph for the Royal Navy. The captain of B11, Lieutenant-Commander Norman Holbrook
Norman Douglas Holbrook
Commander Norman Douglas Holbrook VC was an English recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces...
, was awarded the Victoria Cross
Victoria Cross
The Victoria Cross is the highest military decoration awarded for valour "in the face of the enemy" to members of the armed forces of various Commonwealth countries, and previous British Empire territories....
—the first Royal Navy VC of the war—and all 12 other crew members received awards. Coupled with the naval bombardment of the outer defences on 3 November, this success encouraged the British to pursue the campaign.
The first French submarine operation preceded the start of the campaign as well. On 15 January 1915, the French submarine negotiated the Narrows, passing all 10 lines of mines, before running aground at Nagara Point. Various accounts claim she was either mined, sunk by shellfire or scuttled, leaving 14 crew dead and 13 prisoners of war.
On 17 April, the British submarine attempted to pass through the straits but, having dived too deep, was caught in a current and ran aground near Kepez Point, the southern tip of Sarı Sıĝlar Bay, directly under the guns of the Dardanos battery. Seven of the crew were killed, and the remainder were captured. The beached E15 was a valuable prize for the Ottomans and the British went to great lengths to deny it from them, finally managing to sink it after numerous attempts.
The first submarine to succeed in passing through the straits was the Australian , which got through on the night of 24/25 April. The army began landing soldiers at Cape Helles and Anzac Cove on the peninsula at dawn on the 25th. Although AE2 sank one Ottoman cruiser, the submarine under the command of Lieutenant-Commander Stoker, was thwarted by defective torpedoes in several other attempts to sink promising targets. On 29 April, in Artaki Bay near Panderma, the AE2 was sighted and hit by the Ottoman torpedo boat
Torpedo boat
A torpedo boat is a relatively small and fast naval vessel designed to carry torpedoes into battle. The first designs rammed enemy ships with explosive spar torpedoes, and later designs launched self-propelled Whitehead torpedoes. They were created to counter battleships and other large, slow and...
Sultanhisar. Abandoning ship, the crew became POWs. The wreck was found in 1997, and in 2007, the Turkish and Australian governments began studies to determine the feasibility of raising and preserving the submarine.
The second submarine through the straits had more luck than AE2. On 27 April, , commanded by Lieutenant-Commander Edward Boyle
Edward Courtney Boyle
Rear Admiral Edward Courtney Boyle VC was an English recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces....
, entered the Sea of Marmara and went on a three-week rampage that was one of the most successful actions achieved by the Allies in the entire campaign. While the quantity and value of the shipping sunk was relatively minor, the effect on Ottoman communications and morale was significant. On his return, Boyle was immediately awarded the Victoria Cross. Boyle and E14 made a number of tours of the Marmara. His third tour began on 21 July, when he passed through the straits despite the Ottomans having installed an anti-submarine net
Anti-submarine net
An anti-submarine net is a device placed across the mouth of a harbour or a strait for protection against submarines.-Examples of anti-submarine nets:*Lake Macquarie anti-submarine boom*Indicator net*Naval operations in the Dardanelles Campaign...
near the Narrows.
Martin Eric Nasmith
Admiral Sir Martin Eric Dunbar-Nasmith VC, KCB, KCMG, RN , was an English recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces...
, who was awarded the VC and promoted to Commander
Commander
Commander is a naval rank which is also sometimes used as a military title depending on the individual customs of a given military service. Commander is also used as a rank or title in some organizations outside of the armed forces, particularly in police and law enforcement.-Commander as a naval...
for his achievements. He sank or disabled 11 ships, including three on 24 May at the port of Rodosto on the Thracian
Thrace
Thrace is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. As a geographical concept, Thrace designates a region bounded by the Balkan Mountains on the north, Rhodope Mountains and the Aegean Sea on the south, and by the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara on the east...
shore. On 8 August, during a subsequent tour of the Marmara, E11 torpedoed the Ottoman battleship Barbaros Hayreddin
SMS Kurfürst Friedrich Wilhelm
SMS Kurfürst Friedrich Wilhelm"SMS" stands for "Seiner Majestät Schiff", or "His Majesty's Ship" in German. was one of the first ocean-going battleshipsAt the time she was laid down, the German navy referred to the ship as an "armored ship" , instead of "battleship" , see Gröner, p13. of the German...
.
A number of demolition missions were performed by men or parties landed from submarines. On 8 September, First Lieutenant
First Lieutenant
First lieutenant is a military rank and, in some forces, an appointment.The rank of lieutenant has different meanings in different military formations , but the majority of cases it is common for it to be sub-divided into a senior and junior rank...
H.V. Lyon from swam ashore near Küçükçekmece (Thrace) to blow up a railway bridge. The bridge was destroyed but Lyon failed to return. Attempts were also made to disrupt the railways running close to the water along the Gulf of İzmit, on the Asian shore of the sea. On the night of 20 August, Lieutenant
Lieutenant
A lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer in many nations' armed forces. Typically, the rank of lieutenant in naval usage, while still a junior officer rank, is senior to the army rank...
D'Oyly Hughes from E11 swam ashore and blew up a section of the railway line, earning the Distinguished Service Order
Distinguished Service Order
The Distinguished Service Order is a military decoration of the United Kingdom, and formerly of other parts of the British Commonwealth and Empire, awarded for meritorious or distinguished service by officers of the armed forces during wartime, typically in actual combat.Instituted on 6 September...
for his efforts. On 17 July, bombarded the railway line and then damaged two trains that were forced to halt.
French attempts to enter the Sea of Marmara continued. Following the success of HMAS AE2 and HMS E14, the French submarine attempted the passage on 1 May, but she struck a mine and was lost with all hands. The next attempt was made by on 27 July. However, Mariotte failed to negotiate the anti-submarine net
Anti-submarine net
An anti-submarine net is a device placed across the mouth of a harbour or a strait for protection against submarines.-Examples of anti-submarine nets:*Lake Macquarie anti-submarine boom*Indicator net*Naval operations in the Dardanelles Campaign...
that E14 had eluded and was forced to the surface. After being shelled from the shore batteries, Mariotte was scuttled. On 4 September, the same net caught E7 as it attempted to commence another tour.
The first French submarine to enter the Sea of Marmara was . However, it was forced to turn back and, on 30 October, when attempting to pass back through the straits, ran aground beneath a fort and was captured intact. The crew of 25 were taken prisoner and documents detailing planned Allied operations were discovered. This included a scheduled rendezvous with on 6 November. The rendezvous was kept by the German U-boat
U-boat
U-boat is the anglicized version of the German word U-Boot , itself an abbreviation of Unterseeboot , and refers to military submarines operated by Germany, particularly in World War I and World War II...
which torpedoed and sank E20 killing all but nine of the crew. Turquoise was salvaged and incorporated (but not commissioned
Ship commissioning
Ship commissioning is the act or ceremony of placing a ship in active service, and may be regarded as a particular application of the general concepts and practices of project commissioning. The term is most commonly applied to the placing of a warship in active duty with its country's military...
) into the Ottoman Navy as the Onbasi Müstecip, named after the gunner who had forced the French commander to surrender.
The Allied submarine campaign in the Sea of Marmara was the one significant offensive success of the Battle of Gallipoli
Battle of Gallipoli
The Gallipoli Campaign, also known as the Dardanelles Campaign or the Battle of Gallipoli, took place at the peninsula of Gallipoli in the Ottoman Empire between 25 April 1915 and 9 January 1916, during the First World War...
. Between April 1915 and January 1916, nine British submarines sank two battleships (albeit obsolete) and one destroyer, five gunboat
Gunboat
A gunboat is a naval watercraft designed for the express purpose of carrying one or more guns to bombard coastal targets, as opposed to those military craft designed for naval warfare, or for ferrying troops or supplies.-History:...
s, nine troop transports, seven supply ships, 35 steamers and 188 assorted smaller vessels at a cost of total of eight Allied submarines which were sunk in the strait or in the Sea of Marmara
Sea of Marmara
The Sea of Marmara , also known as the Sea of Marmora or the Marmara Sea, and in the context of classical antiquity as the Propontis , is the inland sea that connects the Black Sea to the Aegean Sea, thus separating Turkey's Asian and European parts. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Black...
. The Ottomans were forced to abandon the Marmara as a transport route.
In 1993, a coal mining operation revealed the wreck of the German submarine near the Kemerburgaz coast. After carrying out missions in Black Sea
Black Sea
The Black Sea is bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and the Aegean seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects that sea to the Aegean...
, on its way back, UB-46 hit a mine near Karaburun and sank with all hands. It is now on display at Besiktas Naval Museum in Istanbul.
Supporting the army
The Mediterranean Expeditionary ForceMediterranean Expeditionary Force
The Mediterranean Expeditionary Force was part of the British Army during World War I, that commanded all Allied forces at Gallipoli and Salonika. This included the initial naval operation to force the straits of the Dardanelles. Its headquarters was formed in March 1915...
had been established on 12 March under the command of General Sir Ian Hamilton and comprised some 70,000 soldiers. At a conference on 22 March, four days after the failed attempt by the navy, it was decided to use the infantry to seize the Gallipoli peninsula and capture the forts, clearing the way for the navy to pass through into the Sea of Marmara. Preparations for the landing took a month, giving the Ottoman defenders ample time to reinforce.
The British planners still underestimated the ability of the Ottomans and, at the outset, it was expected that the invasion would be over swiftly. A British force—landing at Cape Helles—would advance 6 mi (9.7 km) on the first day, and on the second would seize the Kilitbahir plateau, overlooking the Narrows. As it happened, in eight months of fighting, the British never advanced much more than 5 mi (8 km), and their first day objectives of Krithia
Krithia
Krithia is a small Turkish village in the Eceabat District ofÇanakkale Province, Turkey, about 4 miles from the tip of the Gelibolu Peninsula....
and the hill Achi Baba
Achi Baba
Achi Baba is a height dominating the Gallipoli Peninsula in Turkey.Achi Baba was the main position of the Ottoman Turkish defenses in 1915 during the World War I Gallipoli campaign.-References:...
remained out of reach.
The Gallipoli landings were the largest amphibious
Amphibious warfare
Amphibious warfare is the use of naval firepower, logistics and strategy to project military power ashore. In previous eras it stood as the primary method of delivering troops to non-contiguous enemy-held terrain...
operation of the war. The initial landings were made at Cape Helles by the British 29th Division
British 29th Division
The British 29th Division, known as the Incomparable Division, was a First World War regular army infantry division formed in early 1915 by combining various units that had been acting as garrisons about the British Empire. Under the command of Major General Aylmer Hunter-Weston, the division...
and at Gaba Tepe by the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. In the latter case, the landing miscarried and the troops went ashore too far north at a place now known as Anzac Cove
Anzac Cove
Anzac Cove is a small cove on the Gallipoli peninsula in Turkey. It became famous as the site of World War I landing of the ANZAC on April 25, 1915. The cove is a mere long, bounded by the headlands of Ari Burnu to the north and Little Ari Burnu, known as Hell Spit, to the south...
. In both landings, the covering force went ashore from warships with the exception of V Beach at Helles where the was used as an improvised landing craft for 2,000 men.
Landing at Anzac Cove
The landing at Anzac Cove was part of the amphibious invasion of the Gallipoli Peninsula by Australian and New Zealand forces on 25 April 1915. The landing, north of Gaba Tepe on the Aegean coast of the Peninsula, was made by soldiers of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps and was the first...
, the first wave went ashore from the boats of three Formidable-class battleship
Formidable class battleship
The Royal Navy's Formidable class battleships was an eight-ship class of pre-dreadnoughts designed by Sir William White and built in the late 1890s...
s; , and . The second wave went ashore from seven destroyers. In support were HMS Triumph, Majestic and the cruiser as well as the seaplane carrier and the kite
Kite
A kite is a tethered aircraft. The necessary lift that makes the kite wing fly is generated when air flows over and under the kite's wing, producing low pressure above the wing and high pressure below it. This deflection also generates horizontal drag along the direction of the wind...
-balloon
Balloon
A balloon is an inflatable flexible bag filled with a gas, such as helium, hydrogen, nitrous oxide, oxygen, or air. Modern balloons can be made from materials such as rubber, latex, polychloroprene, or a nylon fabric, while some early balloons were made of dried animal bladders, such as the pig...
ship, from which a tethered balloon was trailed to provide artillery spotting.
The landing at Cape Helles
Landing at Cape Helles
The landing at Cape Helles was part of the amphibious invasion of the Gallipoli peninsula by British and French forces on April 25, 1915 during the First World War. Helles, at the foot of the peninsula, was the main landing area. With the support of the guns of the Royal Navy, a British division...
was spread over five beaches with the main ones being V and W Beaches at the tip of the peninsula. While the landing at Anzac was planned as a surprise without a preliminary bombardment, the Helles landing was made after the beaches and forts were bombarded by the warships. The landing at S Beach inside the straits was made from the battleship Cornwallis and was virtually unopposed. The W Beach force came from the cruiser and the battleship which also carried the troops bound for X Beach. The cruiser and battleship supported the X Beach landing as well as a small landing to the north on the Aegean coast at Y Beach, later abandoned.
The role of the navy was to support the landing, using naval guns instead of field artillery
Artillery
Originally applied to any group of infantry primarily armed with projectile weapons, artillery has over time become limited in meaning to refer only to those engines of war that operate by projection of munitions far beyond the range of effect of personal weapons...
, of which there was a severe shortage in 1915. However, with a few spectacular exceptions, the performance of naval guns on land targets was inadequate, particularly against entrenched positions. The guns lacked elevation and so fired on a flat trajectory
Trajectory
A trajectory is the path that a moving object follows through space as a function of time. The object might be a projectile or a satellite, for example. It thus includes the meaning of orbit—the path of a planet, an asteroid or a comet as it travels around a central mass...
which, coupled with the inherently unstable gun platform, resulted in reduced accuracy.
The battleship's guns did prove effective against exposed lines of troops. On 27 April, during the first Ottoman counter-attack at Anzac, the Ottoman 57th Regiment attacked down the seaward slope of Battleship Hill within view of Queen Elizabeth which fired a salvo of six 15 in (381 mm) shells, halting the attack completely. On 28 April, near the old Y Beach landing, Queen Elizabeth sighted a party of about 100 Turks. One 15 in (381 mm) shrapnel shell containing 24,000 pellets was fired at short range and wiped out the entire party. For the rest of the campaign, the Turks were very wary of moving within view of battleships.
It quickly became evident that the battle for Gallipoli would not be a swift or easy operation. At Helles, which was initially the main battlefield, a series of costly battles only managed to edge the front line closer to Krithia. Through the early battles, the Royal Navy continued to provide support via bombardments. However, in May three battleships were torpedoed: Goliath in Morto Bay
Morto Bay
Morto bay is an inlet on the South West tip of Cape Helles on the Gallipoli Peninsula. Cape Helles was the main landing area for the Gallipoli invasion and HMS Ocean was lost in Morto Bay after failing to save HMS Irresistible....
on 12 May; Triumph off Anzac on 25 May; and Majestic off W Beach on 27 May. Goliath was sunk by the Ottoman torpedo boat Muavenet-i Milliye
Muavenet-i Milliye
Muavenet-i Milliye or Muâvenet-i Millîye was a destroyer built for the Ottoman Navy prior to World War I. The ship is most notable for sinking the British pre-dreadnought battleship during the Dardanelles Campaign in World War I.- Naming :...
while the other two were sunk by . Following these losses, the permanent battleship support was withdrawn with the valuable Queen Elizabeth recalled by the Admiralty
Admiralty
The Admiralty was formerly the authority in the Kingdom of England, and later in the United Kingdom, responsible for the command of the Royal Navy...
as soon as the news of the loss of Goliath arrived. In place of the battleships, naval artillery support was provided by cruisers, destroyers and purpose-built monitors which were designed for coastal bombardment.
Once the navy became wary of the submarine threat, losses ceased. With the exception of the continued activity of Allied submarines in the Dardanelles and Sea of Marmara, the only significant naval loss after May was the Laforey-class destroyer
Laforey class destroyer (1913)
The Laforey class was a class of 22 torpedo boat destroyers of the Royal Navy, twenty of which were built under the Naval Programme of 1912 - 1913 and a further two under the War Emergency Programme of 1914. As such they were the last pre-war British destroyer design. All served during World War I...
which ran aground off Sulva during a gale on 31 October and was wrecked. The destruction of the stranded ship was accelerated by Ottoman gunfire.
See also
- Pursuit of Goeben and BreslauPursuit of Goeben and BreslauThe pursuit of Goeben and Breslau was a naval action that occurred in the Mediterranean Sea at the outbreak of the First World War when elements of the British Mediterranean Fleet attempted to intercept the German Mittelmeerdivision comprising the battlecruiser and the light cruiser...
- List of Allied warships that served at Gallipoli
External links
- War in the Mediterranean - 1915 includes naval operations in the Dardanelles Campaign
- Feature-length drama about the mystery of Sandringham Company, which disappeared in action at Gallipoli in 1915 (accessed Aug 2007)
- Ottoman Naval History, extensive source of Ottoman Naval History