CHAPTER 24

The Minefields

The whole fourteen-mile length of the Straits from the entrance at Cape Helles up to the Narrows at Chanak was within range of different types of Turkish artillery; indeed, there was no point in this stretch of water where a hostile vessel could not be hit by direct fire. The defense was constructed in three layers. The entrance was guarded by the outer forts, old, crenellated masonry structures, built on the white cliffs of the northern or European side. The massive fort of Sedd el Bahr, built in the seventeenth century against the Venetians, housed a mixed group of guns: two 11-inch, four 10-inch, and four 6-inch guns, with ranges up to 8,000 yards; this seemed ample, as the distance across the mouth of the Straits was only 4,000 yards. Nearby, around the point, the Cape Helles fort contained two 9.4-inch guns, which could reach out to 10,000 yards. Across the Straits, on the low green banks of the southern or Asian side, the Kum Kale fort housed two 11-inch, four 10-inch, one 8-inch, and two 6-inch guns. Another fort on the Asian shore contained two 9.4-inch guns. In sum, a total of sixteen heavy and seven medium-range guns defended the entrance to the Dardanelles. Inside the entrance where the Straits widen to four and a half miles, the Turks had established an intermediate defense consisting of medium guns, mostly 6-inch, situated in five permanent batteries, one on the European side, the other four on the Asian side. After the Allied bombardment in November 1914, the Germans and Turks made additions to this intermediate defense, bringing in eight mobile 6-inch howitzer batteries of four guns each. The number of searchlight batteries covering the minefields was increased to eight.

The ultimate defense of the Dardanelles lay at the Narrows, fourteen miles upstream from the entrance. Here, where Leander supposedly swam and where Xerxes built his bridge of boats, the channel is less than a mile across. The Narrows were protected by two massive ancient fortresses, at Kilid Bahr on the European shore and Chanak Kale on the Asian. In front of each of these old citadels, just above the beach, fortifications with heavy earth parapets had recently been constructed. Here, the Turks had mounted seventy-two guns of differing ranges and calibers, ranging from 14-inch and 11-inch down to 9.2-inch. Although less than a score of these guns were of modern design and ammunition was limited, they posed a formidable obstacle. And more ominous even than the guns were the minefields laid just below the Narrows, between Kephez and Chanak. Here, 324 mines were arranged in ten lines, ninety yards apart.

To overwhelm these defenses, the Admiralty collected warships from around the world. Admiral Carden was given the new superdreadnought Queen Elizabeth with eight 15-inch guns, the battle cruiser Inflexible with eight 12-inch guns, and twelve British and four French predreadnought battleships carrying a total of fifty-six 12-inch and eight 10-inch guns. Eight of the old battleships—Cornwallis, Irresistible, Ocean, Albion, Canopus, Vengeance, Majestic, and Prince George—were scheduled for scrapping within fifteen months, but meanwhile their old 12-inch guns were to wear themselves out bombarding old Turkish forts at the Dardanelles. The Admiralty also had added Triumph and Swiftsure, the odd pair of 10-inch-gun battleships originally built for Chile, now—with Spee eliminated—free to return from the Far East. The four French battleships—Suffren, Bouvet, Gaulois, and Charlemagne—were contemporaries of the British predreadnoughts and similarly armed. Carden also had four light cruisers, fifteen British and four French destroyers, and four British and four French submarines. Lowliest, and at this time of unrecognized significance, were twenty-one British and fourteen French fishing trawlers converted into minesweepers. Two battalions of Royal Marines were assigned to serve as a temporary landing force, not to be put ashore against entrenched opposition or a superior force. Carden’s deputy was Rear Admiral John de Robeck, who was happy to be transferred from the dull assignment of commanding old cruisers patrolling against unlikely German raiders off Cape Finisterre, and Carden’s Chief of Staff was the indefatigable Roger Keyes, shifted from command of the long-range submarines based at Harwich on the North Sea. In 1906 and 1907, Keyes had served as naval attaché at Constantinople and often had hired a steamer in order to study the Dardanelles forts through his telescope. Now he was to serve under the three British admirals who, in sequence, commanded the fleet at the Dardanelles from January 1915 to January 1916.

Carden’s rear bases were Malta and Alexandria, but his advance base was established at Mudros on the Greek island of Lemnos, sixty miles southwest of the Dardanelles. Mudros was an immense natural harbor, two or three miles across and thirty to forty-five feet deep, capable of sheltering hun-dreds of vessels. Greece was not at war, but the Anglophile Prime Minister, Eleuthérios Venizélos, permitted the Allies to use the island as a base against Greece’s age-old enemy, Turkey. When Rear Admiral Rosslyn Wester Wemyss arrived on February 22 to serve as base commander at Mudros, the sleepy Aegean village was not remotely prepared to become a major naval or military base. It contained only a church and seventy or eighty small houses of stone, timber, or mud, inhabited by fishermen who also grew olives and grapes. The harbor had only a single small wooden pier. There were no materials for constructing larger piers, no facilities for loading or unload-ing ships, no shore accommodations, and not enough fresh water. When, on March 4, 5,000 Australian troops arrived from Egypt, they were forced to remain aboard their ships from where they looked out on the brilliant blue water of the harbor and, beyond, a landscape of dry grass, small gnarled trees, and bare, windswept hills.

Carden’s attack on the outer forts began in radiant sunshine on the morning of February 19. The sea was calm and there was no breath of wind when Carden’s flagship, the battle cruiser Inflexible, and five British and four French predreadnought battleships anchored in transparent blue water and began a slow, deliberate, long-range bombardment of the forts, 12,000 yards away. The Turks, their guns out of range, remained silent. At 2:00 p.m., Carden closed to 6,000 yards, where his battleships’ secondary armament opened heavy fire. Still, the Turkish guns did not reply. But at 4:45 p.m., when Carden sent Vengeance, Cornwallis, and Suffren in closer still—to 3,000 and 4,000 yards—the Turkish forts on both sides of the straits erupted into a hot cannonade, showing that they had not been destroyed at all. Then, with daylight fading and some of the forts shrouded in smoke and dust, Carden ordered a cease-fire. His deputy, Rear Admiral de Robeck in Vengeance, requested permission to prolong the attack, but Carden refused. The results of the bombardment were inconclusive. The Allied ships had fired 139 12-inch shells. The forts had been hit many times, but the Turkish guns had continued to fire back. Ultimately, the sailors learned that it was not sufficient simply to hit the forts with heavy shells; the only way to put a gun permanently out of action was to achieve a direct hit on the gun. The artillerymen serving the guns were equally hard to hit; under bombardment, they simply retreated into shelters and waited. In this respect, the day’s events had supplied a useful lesson: to be effective, it was not actually necessary to destroy individual Turkish guns with direct hits. The ships could dominate the battle simply by keeping enemy gun crews away from their guns; then the battleships could move in ever closer and eventually would be able to pulverize forts, guns, and gunners at point-blank range.

Unfortunately, the fleet had no immediate opportunity to apply this new knowledge. That night the weather changed; over the next five days, gale winds whipped up the sea and heavy rain brought lightning and thunder, changing to sleet and snow. These conditions affected available light and because Carden could not afford to waste ammunition without good visibility, the fleet retreated to Mudros. Carden signaled London on February 24, “I do not intend to commence in bad weather leaving result undecided as from experience on first day I am convinced given favorable weather conditions that the reduction of the forts at the entrance can be completed in one day.”

On February 25, the storm moved away and the bombardment of the outer forts resumed. Queen Elizabeth, Agamemnon, Irresistible, and Gaulois anchored 12,000 yards from their targets and commenced deliberate fire. Queen Elizabeth fired eighteen 15-inch shells, one by one, into a fort at Cape Helles; two of these scored direct hits and destroyed two guns. Irresistible fired thirty-five 12-inch shells into the other Helles fort and destroyed another two guns. Agamemnon adopted a casual attitude and was punished for it. When the ship anchored, her second in command, responsible for the vessel’s smart appearance, ordered men over the disengaged port side to paint the hull. The battleship was too close, however, and a Cape Helles fort fired fifty-six shells, hitting Agamemnon seven times, killing three men and wounding seven, before the ship could weigh anchor and move. At 2:00 p.m., Admiral de Robeck led the ships into the mouth of the Straits and engaged the forts at close range. The Turkish guns fell silent and, in the smoke and dense clouds of dust, it seemed the guns and forts must have been destroyed. By 4:00 p.m., they appeared to be deserted. (The Turkish and German gunners had been temporarily evacuated.) At the end of this day, the French commander, Vice Admiral Emile Guépratte, posted himself in a prominent position on the bridge of his flagship, Suffren, and led his squadron past Inflexible with the French band playing “God Save the King” and “Tipperary.” The British sailors cheered and their ships’ bands responded with the “Marseillaise.”

The following day, the twenty-sixth, the battleships put Royal Marine landing parties ashore to cover navy demolition squads—typically fifty marines covering thirty sailors—which went through the forts at Helles and Kum Kale blowing up the abandoned guns with explosive charges. In the deserted forts of Sedd el Bahr and Kum Kale, nineteen heavy guns were transformed into scrap. In nearby gun emplacements, a dozen Krupp heavy howitzers were destroyed. One group of Irresistible marines got as far as Krithia, a village set at the foot of a hill called Achi Baba that dominated the the lower peninsula; ironically, this was the only time in the Gallipoli campaign that British troops would get as far as Krithia, four miles north of Sedd el Bahr. The cost of these land operations was nine men killed or wounded. By March 4, however, resistance was stiffening. Turkish soldiers, returning in greater strength, drove British marines and sailors from Kum Kale and Cape Helles, killing twenty-two men and wounding twenty-seven. Nevertheless, during these landings, fifty Turkish guns of significant caliber had been destroyed.

News that a combination of naval gunfire and demolition parties had overwhelmed the old stone forts and the guns commanding the entrance to the Dardanelles pleased the Admiralty and the Cabinet. The First Lord found himself surrounded by smiling faces and impressed by “the number of persons who now were in favor of the Dardanelles operations and claimed to have contributed to their initiation.” To Jellicoe, Churchill wrote, “Our affairs in the Dardanelles are prospering, though we have not yet cracked the nut.” On March 2, Carden informed the Admiralty that, if good weather continued, he hoped to be through to the Sea of Marmara in two weeks. At its March 10 meeting, the War Council discussed what to do after the fall of Constantinople.

The fall of the outer Dardanelles forts also impressed the neutrals. Italy, thinking of joining the Entente, was encouraged to do so more quickly. The repercussions were especially significant in the Balkans. If the British fleet was about to appear before Constantinople, and the Ottoman empire was then to collapse, none of the Balkan states wished to be absent from the feast of spoils. The Bulgarians leaned toward the Allies. On March 1, the Greek government offered three divisions—and hinted at four or five—for an attack on the Gallipoli peninsula. The Turks were pessimistic. Across from Constantinople on the Asian side of the Bosporus, two special trains stood ready on an hour’s notice to carry the sultan, his harem, and his court to refuge in the depths of Asia Minor. Inside the city, the German ambassador worried that his embassy, a huge yellow building situated on a prominent hill, would become a primary target for Allied naval guns, and began depositing his personal baggage for safekeeping at the American embassy. Far away, in anticipation that Russian wheat would soon be flowing out through the Bosporus and the Dardanelles, the price of wheat fell on the Chicago Exchange. In Berlin, Admiral von Tirpitz noted that “the capsizing of one little state may fatally affect the whole course of the war. The forcing of the Dardanelles would be a severe blow to us. . . . We have no trumps left.”

In London, Carden’s apparent victory strengthened the conviction of the Admiralty and the War Council that the Straits could be forced by the navy alone. If, with only trifling losses, a few hundred marines and bluejackets could take almost undisputed possession of the forts on both sides of the entrance, then Lord Kitchener’s plan seemed wise: soldiers need not be used to assist the fleet at the Dardanelles—although once the ships had broken through, the army would be needed to occupy Constantinople. On the scene, however, Admiral Carden had begun to discover more immediate ways in which ground troops could be useful. Fire control officers in ground observation stations ashore would enable the ships to direct their fire more accurately on the forts at the Narrows. The howitzer and field batteries lining both sides of the Straits could be located and more easily disposed of by attack from the ground. And, as the fleet progressed, soldiers could move in and take possession of the peninsula to prevent the Turks from returning. With these considerations in mind, Carden asked General Sir John Maxwell, commanding British forces in Egypt, to provide 10,000 men to be landed on the tip of the peninsula now that the outer forts had been destroyed. The answer to Carden came not from Maxwell but from the War Office in London, which sternly declared that ground troops at this stage were not an essential part of the naval operation. Indeed, Kitchener warned General Sir William Birdwood, commander of the Anzac forces, of the riskiness of placing a small force on the Gallipoli peninsula where the Turks were believed to have 40,000 men. The troops already in camp at Lemnos, Kitchener decreed, were to remain on that island until the fleet had battered the inner forts into submission; thereupon, the field marshal conceded, it might be necessary to put a few men ashore at the Bulair neck of Gallipoli to prevent supplies from reaching isolated Turkish troops on the peninsula. Carden could not argue. A few weeks before, he had told the Admiralty and the War Council that the Straits could be forced by the fleet alone. Now he had to do it.

Ironically, even as Carden’s success prompted men in London to self-congratulation and spurred Balkan governments to reexamine their diplomatic alignments, the naval assault on the Dardanelles was beginning to falter. The Allied fleet now was very large, totaling ninety warships with 814 guns, including a hundred guns of the heaviest caliber. Nevertheless, from March 1 onward, the progress of Admiral Carden’s attack became progressively slower. The outer forts had been silenced and ships now could freely enter the mouth of the Straits. The next stage was to proceed up the waterway, eliminating the batteries on either side, most prominently the heavy guns in the forts at the Narrows—at Chanak on the Asian side and Kilid Bahr on Gallipoli. To achieve this, Carden meant to use the tactics that had worked on the outer forts: first, long-range bombardment; then, as the Turkish guns fell silent, closer engagement to overwhelm them with shellfire. Unfortunately, local geography, which had favored Carden in his attack on the outer forts, now favored the Turks. In attacking the outer forts, the bombarding ships had been able to use a wide expanse of the Aegean Sea to maneuver while concentrating their fire on the small land area of the forts. Now the geographic advantage was reversed: the intermediate and Narrows defenses could be attacked only from inside the narrow passageway and, as the ships moved into this confined space, they could be subjected to artillery fire from every ridge and gully up and down the shores of both sides of the Straits.

On February 26, the bombardment of the inner forts began. The old battleships steamed past the silent, ruined outer forts and, firing at long range, did little damage to the Narrows forts. The forts, firing back, caused no harm to the fleet. The warships were, however, hit repeatedly by the mobile howitzer batteries positioned along both coasts. These howitzers could not hope to cripple, let alone sink, any of the battleships but a howitzer shell striking an old ship was harassing and disconcerting, and the battleships did their best to locate and eliminate these adversaries. The difficulty in this was quickly apparent: when the Turkish field batteries opened fire, the ships tried desperately to locate them, but the guns were so well concealed that they rarely succeeded. In addition, the howitzers shifted position from day to day. On those occasions when naval gunfire did become accurate, the Turkish and German gunners simply retired into their caves or shelters until the bombardment was over and then, emerging, used oxen to pull their guns to another hidden position in the scrub. A few hours later the guns reopened fire.

Queen Elizabeth, prohibited by the Admiralty from entering the Straits, tried something different. On March 5, the dreadnought anchored off the Aegean coast of Gallipoli and fired her heavy guns over the peninsula at the Narrows forts. The arrival of 15-inch shells from this unexpected angle confused the Turks, as their protection was designed against fire from vessels coming up the Straits. But, without accurate spotting, the shells hit nothing significant. At the same time, the anchored battleship was hit seventeen times by one small field gun; one shell wrecked the ship’s bakery. Next day, Queen Elizabeth returned to continue her bombardment, but the Turks had brought up a heavy, mobile 6-inch howitzer, which proceeded to hit the dreadnought three times on the hull below the waterline, though without penetrating her armor. The ship changed position again, but it was obvious that Queen Elizabeth would not hit anything unless she entered the Straits and subjected the forts to direct fire. Already, some in the fleet were beginning to doubt that naval gunfire would work in any form. “We could not go on expending ammunition on these futile bombardments,” said Keyes. “We had also to consider the wear and tear on the guns which had only a limited life.”

Carden, meanwhile, was beginning to grapple with the acute problem that would determine the success or failure of the whole naval offensive: how to deal with the Turkish minefields. The lower half of the fourteen-mile passage up to the Narrows was free of mines; Carden’s minesweepers had established this. Beyond that point, however, eight big minefields, skillfully laid and commanded by many guns, stretched across the navigable waterway. No reasonable admiral would take valuable ships through these waters until a channel through the minefields had been swept.

The Admiralty had been aware that the Turks had mined the Dardanelles and had provided Carden with a force of makeshift minesweepers. This flotilla consisted of twenty-one small North Sea fishing trawlers, newly equipped with minesweeping gear, protected by steel plating against rifle bullets and splinters, and manned by their regular peacetime crews of fishermen, now designated as naval reserve ratings. The vessels were so underpowered that, operating at a sweeping speed of 4 to 6 knots, they could make no more than 2 or 3 knots going upstream against the current in the Straits. The draft of the trawlers was greater than the depth of the mines from the surface; thus if the trawlers passed over the minefields, they stood a chance of being blown up. This knowledge had depressed the morale of the crews, but they had accepted the danger and were ready to go ahead and sweep—until the first time they came under intense artillery fire from the shore.

The howitzer fire, which could be disconcerting for the battleships, was a far more serious matter for the slow, unarmed minesweepers. Before they began their work, the trawler crews expected that the fleet would have located and silenced the mobile howitzers. But the invisible guns hidden in the gullies were impossible to find. British admirals now found themselves in a new and difficult position; their advance was being delayed by the clever interlocking of a mutually supportive system of defense. The forts, the mobile howitzers, and the minefields all depended on one another: the minefields blocked the passage of the Straits; the mobile howitzers prevented the sweeping of the minefields; the forts and their larger guns protected the mobile howitzers by keeping the battleships at a distance. The result was a stalemate. As early as March 3, Rear Admiral de Robeck, commanding the forward assault forces, stated his opinion that the Straits could not be forced unless one shore or another was occupied by Allied troops.

To lessen the danger to his minesweepers, Carden decided to send the trawlers in to work at night when darkness might hide them from the Turkish artillerymen on shore. But the Turks and their German advisers had thought of this, and five powerful searchlight batteries had been established to cover the minefields. When the first attempt to sweep was made on the night of March 1, seven trawlers went in escorted by the light cruiser Amethyst and four destroyers. The sweepers extended their sweeps and began moving upstream against the current. They had reached a point a mile and a half below the minefields when the small vessels were suddenly illuminated by four searchlights and subjected to the concentrated fire of ten gun batteries, six on the northern shore and four on the southern. The trawlers quickly retreated and the light cruiser and destroyers exchanged fire with the batteries for forty-five minutes. Trying to hit the guns, the destroyers had nothing to aim at except the black gaps between the blinding searchlights. They had little chance of hitting anything and eventually gave up. None of the sweepers was hit.

On the following night, March 2, the sweepers came in under a bright moon and, nearing the minefields, were met by a hail of fire. Again, no vessel was hit, but again they retreated. The experience was repeated on March 3. As before, the trawlers heading upstream with their sweeping gear extended were too slow to make real headway against the powerful current. Nearly motionless, they were lit up by the searchlights and became helpless targets at close range for dozens of enemy guns. The night ended with the trawlers fleeing down the Straits with shells splashing around them. On March 6, the minesweepers returned, this time accompanied by two battleships and Amethyst to suppress the shore batteries. Once the sweepers came into the glare of the searchlights, the three warships fired repeatedly but hit nothing. When the enemy opened fire on the sweepers, the vessels retreated, unscathed.

The civilian trawler crews were as brave as fishermen anywhere, but they had no experience under fire. They were barely able to make progress against the powerful current, illuminated by searchlights at night, even more conspicuous by day, working under constant fire from scores of guns ashore: it was not surprising that their morale sagged and eventually broke. Their officers told Keyes that the men “recognised sweeping risks and did not mind being blown up but they hated gunfire and . . . were not supposed to sweep under fire and had not joined for that.” Exasperated, Keyes himself took charge of the sweeping force. He asked Carden to request Admiralty permission to offer the trawler crews a financial bonus to persevere. The Admiralty replied that the admiral could offer anything he liked. Keyes also suggested that young officers from the fleet be asked to volunteer for service in the sweepers to stiffen the crews. Carden agreed to this, but London did not approve until the twelfth.

On the night of March 10, the minesweeping flotilla made a seventh attempt, using a different approach. Theretofore, trawlers with sweeps out had been unable to make significant progress up into the current. This time they would sweep coming down. Seven trawlers—there was not room for more moving abreast in the Straits—were to steam up against the current through the minefields and past Kephez Point. There, they were to turn around, extend their sweeps, and come down with the current, sweeping as they came. Keyes, aboard the battleship Canopus following behind, reported what happened: “When we got into the Straits, we found five powerful searchlights operating. Canopus opened fire. The lights kept going out, but only for a few minutes and it seemed impossible to put them out of action. We were fired at from all directions. One saw stabs of light from the hills in the direction of the six-inch batteries covering the minefields on both sides of the Straits, followed by the whine of shells, the bursting of shrapnel, and the scream of heavy projectiles which threw up fountains of water. The fire was very wild and Canopus was not hit, but for all the good we did towards dowsing the searchlights we might as well have been firing at the moon.”

Even so, the seven trawlers steamed in single line over the minefields, turned, and some began to extend their sweeps. By then, however, the crews were so agitated that four of the seven did not put out their equipment. One pair of trawlers collected mines and exploded two; one trawler struck a mine and blew up, but the crew was rescued. The explosion, however, seemed to awaken the whole area. The Straits were bathed in the glare of searchlights and every gun on shore poured fire on the little ships. Two more trawlers were smothered by 6-inch howitzer shells and the effort was canceled, The remaining trawlers withdrew. One trawler had been sunk and all of the others were damaged, but somehow only two men had been wounded. The following night, Keyes tried again. The trawlers went in alone without battleship support, hoping to surprise the Turks. The result was another fiasco. “The less said about that night the better,” Keyes wrote. “To put it briefly, the sweepers turned tail and fled as soon as they were fired upon. I was furious and told the officers . . . that it did not matter if we lost all seven sweepers, there were twenty-eight more, and the mines had got to be swept up. How could they talk about being stopped by heavy fire if they were not hit?”

From London the next day, Churchill, worried, signaled the admiral:

“Your original instructions laid stress on caution and deliberate methods and we approve highly the skill and patience with which you have advanced hitherto without loss. The results to be gained are, however, great enough to justify loss of ships and men if success cannot be obtained without. . . . We do not wish to hurry you and urge you beyond your judgement but we recognize clearly that at a certain period in your operations you will have to press hard for a decision and we desire to know whether you consider that point has now been reached.” Carden received this message on the twelfth and replied on the thirteenth. He “fully concurred” that the time had come for “vigorous sustained action. . . . A final attempt [to clear the minefield],” he told the First Lord, “is to be made tonight.”

That night, March 13, the minesweepers, some of them with crews that included navy volunteers, made a determined effort. The battleship Cornwallis went first and pounded the searchlights and minefield batteries for an hour. At 2:00 a.m., Amethyst and four destroyers followed and fired for another hour. Then, at 3:00 a.m., seven trawlers appeared, steaming ahead in single line. Again, their intention was to proceed up through the minefields, turn around, put out their sweeps, and sweep mines as they came down with the current. On this occasion, the Turks saw them coming and illuminated their early path with two powerful searchlights. Then, once the minesweepers had reached the middle of the minefield, the searchlights suddenly went out and “a minute later,” Keyes said, “they all flashed on again.” This was a signal: a storm of shells burst around the trawlers. The little ships pressed forward to their turning point and swung around. The fire intensified and the men working on deck amid shell bursts and flying shrapnel, columns of spray and blinding searchlight beams, attempted to put out their sweeps. Two trawlers had their sweeping gear entirely shot away. On one boat, the captain and every man on deck were killed. One trawler rammed another and the two, locked together, drifted down over the minefields, the target of concentrated fire. Astonishingly, none of the trawlers was sunk and two actually swept up several mines. The heaviest casualties that night were inflicted on Amethyst, waiting at the edge of the minefield to cover their retreat. The light cruiser was hit in her steering gear and, for twenty minutes, lay out of control in the Straits, a perfect target. During this time, a large shell exploded in her crowded mess deck, killing twenty-four men and wounding thirty-six; the remains were so fragmented they had to be collected in sacks.

This was Carden’s last attempt to sweep the minefields at night. Thereafter, he decided, he would reverse his tactics. Rather than attempting to sweep the minefields before the fleet silenced the Turkish guns, and using darkness as cover, the admiral decided that he must destroy or suppress the guns in the forts and along the shore by heavy naval gunfire before the mines could be swept. This operation—first, bombardment by the massed artillery of the whole fleet; then, the sweeping of the mines—could be done only in daylight. Just as Carden reached this conclusion, the beleaguered admiral received a sharp prod from an impatient First Lord:

I do not understand why minesweepers should be interfered with by firing which causes no casualties. Two or three hundred casualties would be a moderate price to pay for sweeping up as far as the Narrows. I highly approve your proposal to obtain volunteers from the fleet for minesweeping. This work has to be done whatever the loss of life and small craft and the sooner it is done the better. . . . We have information that the Turkish forts are short of ammunition. . . . German officers have appealed to Germany for more. . . . [They have] seriously considered [sending] a German or Austrian submarine. . . . All this makes clear that operation should now be pressed forward methodically and resolutely at night and day. The unavoidable losses must be accepted. Time is precious and the interference of submarines is a very serious consideration.

Carden replied that his attack would come within three days.

Churchill’s prodding stemmed from his awareness that the attack was losing momentum. By the middle of March, the glow of success created in London by Carden’s destruction of the outer forts was fading and the impression of a check at the Dardanelles was spreading. Here, in the pause created by the failure of the minesweepers, was a moment to reassess, a chance to turn back, to break off the operation if this seemed wise. In early discussions, Kitchener had pointed out that the advantage of a purely naval attack was that, if things did not go well, everything could be stopped at a moment’s notice. Later, Churchill said that this was now also Fisher’s view: “We have given the Carden plan a good trial. I never liked it much, but it has been a very good demonstration. It has fooled the Turks; it has helped the Russians; it has cost us practically nothing. Now let us break off altogether.” Churchill admitted that if the War Council were to choose this course, terminating the campaign would not be difficult: “One gesture with a wand and the whole armada assembled at the Dardanelles or moving thither—battleships, cruisers, destroyers, trawlers, supply ships, transports—would melt and vanish away. Evening would close on a mighty navy engaged in a world-arresting attack. The sun would rise on empty seas and silent shores.” There were many reasons, of course, that no wand was waved. National prestige had now been invested in the expedition; neither Britain nor France wished the enemy or the neutrals to witness the spectacle of the Entente powers retreating in the face of a setback. Further, Churchill himself passionately believed that the check was only temporary; that the minefields would be swept; that the fleet would force the Straits and topple the Ottoman empire. And for the moment at least, all of the First Lord’s colleagues agreed with him. Oddly, even Fisher, Churchill said later, “was never more resolute in his support.” The First Sea Lord, “who had a sort of feeling that the thing was rather too much for Carden,” even offered to go out to take personal command of the assault, but Churchill persuaded him to abandon the idea. The Sea Lords unanimously supported continuing the attack. So did the War Council, the War Office, the Foreign Office, and the prime minister. “Everyone’s blood was up,” said Churchill. “There was a virile readiness to do and dare.” But all of this rested on Carden; he must go forward; he must break through.

Yet even as the Allies were steeling themselves to persevere, the morale of the Turkish and German gunners at the Dardanelles was rising. About this time, the American ambassador to Turkey, Henry Morgenthau, visited the forts at Hamidieh near Chanak and at Kilid Bahr. At Hamidieh, he found that almost everyone was German and that German, not Turkish, was the language spoken on every side. Across the Narrows, at Kilid Bahr, the ambassador found a scene quite different from the quiet, workmanlike professionalism of the Germans at Hamidieh: “Everything was eagerness and activity. Evidently the Germans had been excellent instructors but there was more to it than [that] . . . for the men’s faces lighted up with all that fanaticism which supplies the morale of Turkish soldiers. . . . Above the shouts of all, I could hear the singsong chant of the leader, intoning the prayer with which the Moslem had rushed to battle for thirteen centuries: ‘Allah is great. There is but one God, and Mohammed is his Prophet!’ ”

The great daylight attack—the effort to overwhelm the defenses with massed battleships covering the minesweepers—was imminent when suddenly the Dardanelles campaign suffered a significant casualty: Admiral Carden became seriously ill. Six months at sea off the Straits with mounting responsibilities had destroyed his health. “My poor admiral,” Keyes noted on March 13, “is very seedy.” It did not help that the next morning Carden received another insistent message from Churchill: “I do not understand why minesweepers should be interfered with by firing which causes no casualties. . . . This work has to be done. . . . Time is precious.” By now, everything Carden swallowed made him wince with pain. Worrying about mines, about howitzers, about the weather, about the opinion of the Admiralty, he could not sleep. Each reply to a Churchill message took him several days to write. His situation was intolerable: he had promised an all-out attack, using the fleet alone, which he no longer believed in or had the resolution or energy to command. On March 15, after another bad night, Carden told Keyes he could not conduct a preattack conference with British and French admirals and captains. Giving up command at this point would mean the end of his career, and de Robeck and Keyes both urged him to reconsider. However, the following day a Harley Street specialist, serving with the fleet aboard the hospital ship Soudan, examined Carden and announced that the admiral had a dangerous ulcer and was on the verge of a “complete break down; he must have 3 or 4 weeks rest and freedom from all anxiety,” Keyes wrote to his wife. Carden telegraphed his resignation to the Admiralty and on March 17 departed for Malta and England on the cruiser Minerva.

A new commander had to be found quickly. Carden’s resignation left Rear Admiral Rosslyn Wester Wemyss, the commander of the base at Mudros, as the senior British naval officer in the eastern Mediterranean and, normally, Wemyss would have succeeded Carden. But with the fleet poised for attack, Wemyss generously and sensibly offered to step aside in favor of Carden’s deputy, de Robeck, who had commanded during the actual fighting in the Straits. De Robeck was a tall, heavily built seaman of phlegmatic courage and unremarkable imagination, “a real fine fellow—worth a dozen of Carden,” in the opinion of General Birdwell, who had observed both admirals during his visit to Mudros. Churchill was less impressed with de Robeck: “One could not feel that his training and experience up to this period had led him to think deeply on the larger aspects of strategy and tactics.” But de Robeck possessed, at that moment, an overwhelming qualification: he was on the scene. Accordingly, Churchill quickly accepted Wemyss’s offer and appointed de Robeck acting vice admiral. At noon on March 17, even as Carden was leaving Mudros, de Robeck hoisted his flag on Queen Elizabeth. That same day, the First Lord asked the new commanding admiral for a rapid judgment: “Personal and Secret from First Lord: In entrusting to you, with great confidence, the command of the Mediterranean Detached Fleet, I presume that you consider, after separate and independent judgement, that the immediate operations are wise and practicable. If not, do not hesitate to say so. If so, execute them without delay and without further reference at the first favourable opportunity. . . . All good fortune attend you.” De Robeck replied that he accepted completely Carden’s plan and that if he had good weather, the attack would begin the following day.