The Ottoman coastal defences at the Dardanelles comprised forts containing 82 heavy guns. This photo shows a heavy coastal gun stationed at the Narrows. Eventually the Turks would augment these defences with an additional 230 artillery pieces including heavy howitzers.
The relatively brief operations in the Dardanelles form one of the most famous episodes of the entire war. From the point of view of the Allies, the attempt to secure access to Constantinople and the Black Sea via the Dardanelles Straits and the Sea of Marmara was shown to be over ambitious and poorly planned, while the Ottoman forces proved themselves to be stubborn and courageous in their defence.
One historian claims today that ‘there are more books written about Gallipoli in the English speaking world than on any other campaign in World War I’. This high level of interest almost certainly derives from the fact that the Gallipoli campaign had the most wide-ranging implications and possibilities of any single effort in that war, which in a sense gives it the greatest ‘What if…?’ appeal as well. The campaign was singularly unique, in that it was the only large-scale amphibious operation of the war and it involved land, sea and air forces. It was also a combined operation involving multi-national forces on land and sea. Moreover, it was fought over a landscape that was pockmarked with history and war; from the battlefield itself, it was even possible to see the ruins of Troy. As a result, today there are many levels of modern historical interest, among both professionals and amateurs, the focus of which ranges from political and diplomatic history down to the activities of individual soldiers in trenches. There are thousands of families in Europe, the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent and the Antipodes whose forefathers fought there, and who maintain an active interest in these events.
The Western view of the campaign dwells on the ‘What if…?’ factor, and tends to focus on the mistakes of the Allied commanders – for, in truth, it is regarded as a battle that should have been won. The accepted thinking on the campaign maintains that an Allied naval victory was possible in March 1915 and a land victory was possible later in April. This view also maintains that a final possibility for victory was offered to the Allies in August 1915. However, in each case it is thought that disconnected and timid admirals and generals threw away victory when boldness would have succeeded. Most books in the English-speaking world take the approach that the British lost the battle rather than advance the idea that the Turks won it – that a combination of mistakes fatally disabled British plans and that the Turks won because they were brave and stubbornly held on to their ground. In addition to becoming the graveyard of 100,000 men, Gallipoli became the graveyard of reputations, both military and political.
A Turkish fort in the Dardanelles viewed from the air. Many of the defences of the straits were built on the sites of older fortifications. The photo shows a fifteenth-century Ottoman castle with nineteenth-century gun emplacement additions.
In many ways, the Western historiography of the Gallipoli campaign is similar to that of the American Civil War battle at Gettysburg (1–3 July 1863), which broadly posits that General Robert E.Lee should have won the battle and threw away his chance for a decisive victory. Little is written about why the Union commander, General George G. Meade, actually won the battle. The Gallipoli story is most often told in a similar fashion.
The straits of the Dardanelles are about 65km (40 miles) in length and are dominated by the heights of the Gallipoli Peninsula, where high hills in the centre provide commanding terrain. North of these hills, the peninsula narrows to a tiny waist only a little over1.6km (one mile) in width before merging into the mainland. The Dardanelles themselves are only 1462m (1599 yards) wide at the part known as the Narrows and the current from the Black Sea runs swift and deep. Ownership of the strategic straits has been contested since ancient times. More recently, Admiral Duckworth took a British fleet to Constantinople in 1807, and Florence Nightingale’s mid-nineteenth-century hospital at Scutari looked out on the Bosporus.
In peacetime, the defence of the Dardanelles was organized as the Chanak Kale Fortified Area Command. The fortress command controlled 19 forts and a brigade of three heavy and medium artillery regiments, armed with coastal guns with calibres of up to 35.56cm (14in). The forts were grouped in two areas, at the mouth of the straits and at the Narrows, and, in times of peace, were lightly manned. Few regular troops were stationed on the peninsula, but to the north the Ottoman III Corps garrisoned the cities of western Thrace. The III Corps had the 7th, 8th and 9th Infantry divisions assigned to its rolls, and also the 9th Field Artillery Regiment, 3rd Cavalry Brigade and support troops as well. This corps was the most famous one in the army and had a hard-earned fighting reputation from the Balkan Wars of 1912–13, from which it emerged intact – the only Ottoman corps to do so.
By 1914, forts such as this one in the Dardanelles were a tactical liability for their Ottoman defenders because they attracted enemy artillery fire. They offered little protection against enemy shells.
In July 1914, during the Sarajevo crisis, the Ottoman Army was unready for war and the empire remained outside the general European scheme of military alliances. However, as Europe tumbled towards conflict, the general staff ordered military mobilization as a precautionary measure, even though the empire was not yet at war. The high command mobilized its army on 2 August and III Corps, in Thrace, received the orders at 1am the next morning. The corps commander was Esat Pasha, who got out of bed to read the orders. Esat was vigorous and professional, and had emerged from the Balkan Wars as one the empire’s few genuine military heroes. During the war, his defence of the fortress of Janinna in Greece showed that Esat understood the dynamics of modern trench warfare. That he roused himself out of bed in the middle of the night to personally read the mobilization order offers a snapshot of him and his concern for his mission. Esat began immediate preparations for war at dawn, which was the first numbered day of mobilization. Like all Ottoman corps, III Corps had only about 15,000 men out of the 40,000 it was authorized under its war establishment and many of the soldiers were recently conscripted.
Turkish troops in the Dardanelles in 1915. The Ottoman III Corps conducted numerous training exercises prior to the attack of 25 April. These exercises tested the deployment and positioning of the Ottoman defensive plans. Here Turkish soldiers overwatch a landing beach.
Fortunately for Esat Pasha, the available force pool of the reserves programmed to fill the ranks consisted almost entirely of recently discharged combat veterans of the Balkan Wars, who were themselves veterans of III Corps.
Upon mobilization, the 9th Infantry Division was ordered to the straits fortress as a mobile reserve. Technically, it remained part of III Corps, but fell under the control of the fortress commander so that troops were available to defend the rear of the forts and the peninsula itself. Whilst the mobilization proceeded slowly for the other army corps, III Corps was the only one to meet its mobilization timetable of 22 days. Its strength had swelled to over 30,000 men (and some 7000 animals) and its infantry divisions filled to their full strengths of over 12,000 men. The fortress had a more difficult time, but on 17 August its commander had his heavy coastal artillery regiments ready for war. By late August, the commanders of III Corps and the fortress had detailed plans for the deployment of the 9th Division to the peninsula. The division moved there in September, followed by the 7th Division in October, and Esat’s headquarters moved to Gallipoli itself in November. His 8th Division was diverted to Palestine, but III Corps would raise a replacement division over the winter.
As the war progressed soldiers from the various ethnic groups in the Ottoman Empire were thrown together under combat conditions. In this photo Arab and Turkish soldiers appear in the same formation.
The Ottoman trench systems at Gallipoli became more robust as the campaign progressed. Many Turkish soldiers lived in bunkers equipped with such relative luxuries as beds, lamps and furniture.
The Gallipoli Peninsula was the most heavily defended point in the Ottoman Empire, with defensive works dating back hundreds of years. Construction of the modern defences began during the 1880s, and focused on defending against a naval attack on the Dardanelles Straits. Consequently, the defences until 1912 were primarily composed of coast defence guns, underwater minefields and searchlights. In 1912, under the threat of a Greek amphibious invasion, the Ottoman general staff ordered the fortification of the Gallipoli Peninsula itself. During the First Balkan War, a corps-level command was created on the peninsula to construct and occupy the defensive works that would guard against an enemy landing. It is generally unknown that the Dardanelles defences were given a thorough workout during the First Balkan War (1912–13) and it was during this war that the Ottomans put together the basic defensive plans and concepts used to defend the peninsula in 1915. The Dardanelles Straits and the peninsula fell under the command of the Straits Forces and Fortification Command in 1912. The fortress command had an active infantry division, a provisional infantry division and three reserve infantry divisions. Altogether, for the defence of the peninsula the Turks had 40,000 men armed with 27,000 rifles, 38 machine guns and 102 cannons (not counting coastal artillery). The peninsula was defended by stationing two of the three reserve infantry divisions in beach defence roles, placing the active division at Bulair (the isthmus), and keeping one reserve division as a general reserve at Eceabat. A divisional detachment defended the Asiatic shore. Thus, by the end of the year, the general configuration and strength of the Turkish defence was established, and after the war the plan was retained for future use.
The pre-war Dardanelles fortress remained weak, because many of its cannons were obsolete, ammunition was in short supply and because the fortifications themselves were out of date. To help rectify this situation, the Germans sent an admiral, who was an expert in coastal defences, with about 500 German specialists in coast artillery, engineering and naval mines. At the same time Germany sent limited quantities of war matériel (including shells and underwater mines) to the Ottoman Empire through the neutral countries of Romania and Bulgaria. On 3 November 1914, ships of the Royal Navy briefly bombarded the forts at the entrance of the straits. This attack achieved nothing of value, and only served to alert the Turks to the vulnerability of the straits. Moreover, the bombardment thoroughly alarmed the high command and provided it with reasons to accelerate its defensive preparations
‘I do not consider that the Dardanelles can be rushed. They might be forced by extended operations with large numbers of ships.’
Vice Admiral Sir Sackville Carden, January 1915
Esat Pasha began a vigorous training programme on 8 November that focused on combined-arms training, detailed rehearsals of battle plans and anti-invasion drills. These were lessons he had learned from his experiences in the Balkan Wars. He also began to improve the seaward defences and constructed roads and interior lines of communication. Importantly, the infantry and artillery began to plan the coordination of fire on each of the likely landing beaches. By February 1915, the fortress (including the 9th Division) had 34,500 soldiers and 263 cannon on the peninsula. Esat’s III Corps, the mobile reserve which now included only the 7th Infantry Division, had 15,000 soldiers and 50 cannon. However, a new division, the 19th, was hurriedly garrisoned; it came under the command of the young Lieutenant-Colonel Mustafa Kemal.
A full-blown assault on the Dardanelles was never part of Britain’s pre-war strategic thinking; indeed, the best of its army went to France, and the pride of its navy monitored the North Sea. However, as early as August 1914 the British tried (and failed) to coax the Greeks into landing on the peninsula. When war broke out, Britain had no forces in place with which to mount a serious attack on the straits. Things might then have remained as they were, but for the presence of a uniquely dynamic group of aggressive personalities in London.
By chance, fate had brought Winston Churchill to the position of First Lord of the Admiralty in 1911. Churchill was ambitious, headstrong, sometimes reckless and was often possessed with the rightness of his own thinking. Upon the outbreak of war, Churchill in turn brought Admiral John Arbuthnot Fisher (known to all Britain as ‘Jacky’) out of retirement as his First Sea Lord. Fisher was relentlessly eccentric, prone to exaggerated and hyperbolic statements and possessed of a vivid imagination. He was undeniably brilliant and aggressive to an extreme. Churchill and Fisher often clashed over who ran the navy and its deployments, but both were fighters and took every opportunity to bring the war to the enemy. They were intolerant of inactivity and shared the view that Britain must wield its sea power offensively. In December 1914, these men ordered British submarines through the straits. At the same time, General Herbert Horatio Kitchener returned to London from Egypt to serve as Secretary of State for War. Kitchener was a genuine British hero, whose main concern was raising the new armies required for sustained continental war. He was more cautious than his naval counterparts, but was a formidable administrator. The Committee of Imperial Defence, led by Prime Minister H.H. Asquith, included Churchill, Fisher and Kitchener, as well as David Lloyd George, Edward Grey and Lord Haldane.
An Admiralty chart of the Dardanelles. One of the most glaring errors of the British Army in the opening stages of the campaign was its failure to provide accurate maps to its troops. The absence of grid lines and comprehensive terrain features on this example highlights the problem.
By December 1914, operations on the Western Front had degenerated into stalemate, while in the east the hard-pressed Russians suffered a great defeat in East Prussia, and began to feel the pinch of isolation. Operations against the Turks, however, had proved thus far to be reassuringly easy. Intelligence reports also continued to pour in about the dismal state of readiness in the Ottoman Army. These were seemingly reinforced by the comic opera Turkish response to Captain Larkin’s raids sailing in HMS Doris around the Gulf of Alexandretta. Some in Britain began to question whether the war could be won on either of the main fronts, particularly the Secretary of the War Council, Maurice Hankey, who wrote a memorandum on Boxing Day suggesting that Turkey or Austria might be easily knocked out of the war. As the New Year approached, Churchill, Fisher and even Lloyd George began to advance similar theories, including amphibious operations in the Baltic.
In early January 1915 during the Sarikamis campaign, the Russians asked Britain for help; Kitchener informed them that none was available, and asked Churchill for a naval demonstration off the straits instead. Working relentlessly on a Sunday, Jackie Fisher swung toward this idea, but provocatively changed the ‘demonstration’ to ‘forcing the Dardanelles’, advocating an immediate attack using outdated pre-Dreadnought battleships. Churchill opposed the idea initially, as did the admiral commanding the Mediterranean Fleet. This generated much debate in the War Council; the army did not like the idea and instead stressed the importance of the Western Front, but the enthusiastic Churchill (now a convert to the idea) put the concept on the table on 13 January 1915. For the next two weeks, debate raged, and Fisher threw in the brand-new 15in-gunned battleship HMS Queen Elizabeth like a poker chip to sway the council. Kitchener and Balfour moved to support the operation and the War Council finally endorsed the scheme on 28 January. Moreover, having defeated the Turks on the Suez Canal, the mass of imperial troops in Egypt now seemed redundant there, and the general staff began preparations to support the fleet with the ANZAC and regulars from home. Britain was now committed to attacking the Dardanelles.
The first naval assault on the straits began on 19 February under the command of Vice Admiral Sackville Carden, who led a polyglot fleet of elderly ships that were not needed in the North Sea. Carden, himself, was a reflection of his ships and was considered by Churchill as ‘second rate’. Nevertheless, Carden’s staff drew up a three-phased plan to force the straits, central to which was the clearing of the underwater minefields laid in the channel.
The fortifications of the Dardanelles consisted of three layers: the outer defences, the intermediate defences and the inner defences. The outer defences comprised two very old forts at Kum Kale on the Asiatic side and two more at Sedd el Bahr (Seddelbahir to the Turks) on the peninsula. These forts had a dozen heavy guns, but were unprotected by minefields. The intermediate defences were positioned inside the straits to protect the interior minefields, and fielded medium and quick-firing guns; their purpose was to prevent enemy minesweeping activities within the straits. The inner defences were very powerful, composed of some 70 heavy coastal guns; however, many were antiquated and ammunition was scarce. After the 3 November bombardment of the outer defences, it was very clear to the Turks that the fortress complex required significant augmentation.
Over the winter, many reinforcements poured into the area. By mid-February 1915, the British were facing a significantly more powerful defensive force. In particular, the 8th Artillery Regiment commanded by the German Colonel Wehrle, equipped with 150mm howitzers, came to the peninsula. The howitzers of this regiment were capable of firing from behind protective terrain and delivering deadly plunging fire on the weakly armoured decks of enemy ships. Wehrle had 32 howitzers that he positioned on both sides of the straits, between the outer and the intermediate defences. The Turks had also been busy over the winter and had laid additional minefields, one of which was located inshore on the Asiatic side and parallel to the coastline (as well as parallel to the direction of the enemy fleet’s advance). Nine previously laid belts of mines were positioned perpendicularly across the channel at its narrowest point. The unorthodox parallel line of mines lay directly under the guns of the 8th Artillery Regiment.
Admiral Sir John Fisher was one of the proponents of the naval and subsequent land assault on the Dardanelles. However, the second-class fleet that he sent against the Turks proved inadequate for the task.
On 19 February, Vice Admiral Sir Sackville Carden began the Allied attack, which went on sporadically (‘utterly without vigour’, according to Churchill) for the next several weeks. Some minesweepers were lost and Carden landed Royal Marines at the Kum Kale and Sedd el Bahr forts, which had been abandoned by the Turks under heavy British fire. The Royal Marines destroyed the guns in these old forts and withdrew. This action alarmed the Turks and only provoked them to work harder in preparing their defences with additional guns.
There were now three cornerstones in the defensive concept. First, groups of mobile howitzers would deliver plunging fire on the fleet entering the straits. This would keep the British from deploying their unarmoured and vulnerable minesweepers ahead of the oncoming fleet. Second, underwater mines and anti-submarine nets were laid in successive belts within the constricted narrows and heavily covered by fire. Finally, the inner defences (comprising heavy coastal defence guns) were ready to blast any ships that managed to break through the mine belts. Altogether, the Turks had 82 heavy guns in the fixed defences and an additional 230 guns posted along the shores. Ammunition availability remained a problem for the Turks, but was sufficient to withstand a number of determined attacks. The 150mm howitzers of the 8th Artillery Regiment divided the area between the entrance of the straits and the Narrows into sectors and registered pre-planned fire on the straits.
The Dardanelles defences. By March 1915, the defences of the straits comprised over 300 guns and howitzers as well as hundreds of underwater mines. Moreover, two well-trained Ottoman infantry divisions garrisoned the peninsula.
Interior of fort of Sedd el Bahr following the bombardment. The forts at Sedd el Bahr and Kum Kale were exposed to direct naval gunfire and were deceptively easy to knock out. The inner defences proved more difficult to destroy.
Admiral Sir John Michael de Robeck (1862–1928)
Admiral Sir John Michael de Robeck entered the Navy in 1875 and had reached the rank of rear admiral three years before war broke out. With the declaration of war, de Robeck was given command of a cruiser squadron. After the resignation of Admiral Carden, de Robeck took command of the Allied fleet at the Dardanelles. His vigorous attack of 18 March 1915 on the straits was a disaster and resulted in his recommendation of an amphibious attack on the Gallipoli Peninsula. He survived the Gallipoli campaign with his reputation intact and was promoted to serve with the Grand Fleet. From 1919 to 1920 he served as High Commissioner at Constantinople, and from 1922 to 1924 he was commander of the Atlantic Fleet.
Carden’s last attack took place on the night of 13/14 March 1915, against a thoroughly alert Ottoman defence; it too failed. By this point, he himself was thoroughly demoralized and close to nervous breakdown. Two days later he relieved himself of command, which passed to Rear Admiral John de Robeck.
On 18 March, the Allies made a determined attempt to break through the Dardanelles into the Sea of Marmara. De Robeck’s combined Anglo-French fleet attempted to force the straits, but unlike the cautious Carden, de Robeck planned to send his battleships directly into the straits to suppress the forts with heavy fire, clearing the way for minesweepers to create lanes through the mine belts through which the larger battleships might then pass. By noon his warships had silenced most of the forts; however, plunging fire from the howitzers of 8th Artillery Regiment remained heavy. Disaster struck around 2pm as the French squadron turned away to allow the minesweepers access to the mine belts. In quick succession the Bouvet blew up and the Gaulois and Suffren were seriously damaged. De Robeck continued his attack, sending in minesweepers and more battleships. Around 4pm HMS Inflexible (a modern battlecruiser) and HMS Irresistible hit mines, receiving serious damage. Inflexible escaped, but when HMS Ocean went in to tow Irresistible she was also mined. Both of these ships sank during the night. The Turks had ambushed de Robeck by the unorthodox positioning of the parallel minefield. Encouraged by their success, the Turks rushed from their bunkers and returned fire. Reluctantly, de Robeck called off the attack, but was determined to renew it the next day. However, he changed his mind and announced on 22 March that the navy could not carry the straits alone, and that it required the help of the army. Ottoman losses were slight, while the Allies had three battleships sunk and two damaged, and a battlecruiser damaged.
Sir Ian Standish Monteith Hamilton was born on Corfu and began his military career in 1873. He served in South Africa, where he was wounded and lost an arm. He was Kitchener’s chief of staff during the Boer War. He was commander-in-chief of British forces in the Mediterranean in 1910. Hamilton also commanded forces at home. He was well qualified and a logical choice for command of the expeditionary force assembled in 1915 for the invasion of Gallipoli. In the end, Hamilton’s failure made him a scapegoat for the lack of success of the operation and he was recalled on 16 October 1915. Although his active career was over, he was subsequently appointed Lieutenant of the Tower from 1918 to 1920. His testimony before the Gallipoli Commission revealed that the expedition he had commanded was riddled with problems. He published a diary of his experiences in 1920.
This was a terrific defeat for the Royal Navy and led to even worse unforeseen consequences. Churchill claimed later that the Turks had expended most of their available shells during the day-long battle and that ‘one more push’ was all that was needed to force the Dardanelles. While the distribution of the remaining shells was a problem with some of the guns, the Turks in fact had enough ammunition left to withstand several attacks of similar scale. Ottoman morale soared when it became apparent that the Allies had quit the attack. In the meantime, the Allies began serious preparations for an amphibious landing intended to seize and hold the Gallipoli Peninsula; the capture of the high ground would dominate the straits and render the Ottoman defences useless.
In mid-February, the War Council agreed to make the ANZAC, then in Egypt, and the last remaining division of the regular army, 29th Division, available for operations in the Aegean. There was much confusion about what was to be done and who would be in command. Shortly thereafter, the Royal Naval Division and a French corps were added to the mix. On 12 March, General Sir Ian Hamilton was summoned to Kitchener’s office and was offered command of what would come to be called the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force (MEF). Hamilton was a hero of the wars in South Africa and had lost the use of one arm as a result of being wounded. He was highly intelligent, well qualified and widely regarded as the right choice for such an operation. Hamilton rushed off to the Aegean, only to find that his army had no accurate intelligence regarding the enemy defences, inaccurate maps, little field artillery and few fully trained soldiers. Indeed, Hamilton’s ad hoc force was in every way a military counterpart of de Robeck’s piecemeal fleet of cast-off ships.
Ottoman intelligence was keenly aware of the impending Allied operation. Famously, many of the officers of the Royal Naval Division, public school men like the poet Rupert Brooke and Prime Minister Asquith’s son Arthur, told their friends to post letters to ‘MEF, Constantinople’. On 20 February 1915, Enver Pasha directed the general staff to examine the defensive plans against an amphibious attack of 70,000 men (the Turks were well aware of the forces arrayed against them). The Ottoman staffs were also aware of Allied plans to coordinate a landing on Gallipoli with a Russian Black Sea fleet landing on the Bosporus. This led Enver to move two army corps closer to Constantinople to repel the expected Russian amphibious invasion. Liman von Sanders protested against this deployment: these troops were the closest reserves to the Dardanelles and he felt that they would be needed to assist in fighting off the Allies. However, the Allied attempt of 18 March to force the Dardanelles fully alerted Enver to the danger, and he decided to form a new army, which would be directly responsible for the defence of the southern straits. On24 March 1915, the new Ottoman Fifth Army was activated and Enver asked General Liman von Sanders to relinquish command of the First Army and take command (which he did on 25 March). Liman von Sanders left the capital taking Lieutenant-Colonel Kiazim Bey as his chief of staff and his two German aides – captains Muhlmann and Prigge. The recently arrived Field Marshal Freiherr von der Goltz took over the German Military Mission and the First Army, and Liman von Sanders arrived by sea at the port of Gallipoli the next day.
Lieutenant-Commander E.G. Robinson, Royal Navy lays a charge to destroy a Turkish 4in gun, 26 February 1915: he was awarded the VC for his gallantry. Royal Marines and Royal Navy personnel landed at Sedd el Bahr and Kum Kale to ensure the destruction of the forts. The Turks never reoccupied them during the conduct of the campaign.
Liman von Sanders was born in Pomerania, and began his military career in 1874 He was unpopular, but rose to the rank of lieutenant-general and divisional commander before being appointed commander of the German Military Mission to the Ottoman Empire in 1913. His portfolio brought a storm of protest from the Entente Powers. Prior to the outbreak of war in August 1914, Liman worked to improve the Turkish Army’s fighting capabilities. He was nevertheless highly uncomfortable in finding himself in the dual role of diplomat and soldier. His influence upon Turkish affairs was further notably diminished by his self-evident inclination to pursue German interests at every opportunity. He took command of the First Army in the autumn of 1914, but assumed command of the new Fifth Army in March 1915. He consistently advocated a rational defensive strategy for the empire. In February 1918 Liman von Sanders took command of the Yildirim Army in Palestine. At the armistice he returned to Constantinople to oversee the repatriation of German forces. He was briefly arrested by the British on suspicion of war crimes in February 1919 but released in August, at which point he announced his retirement.
Hamilton’s MEF was a mixed bag of improvised units brought together for the purpose of assaulting the peninsula. It had five divisions and, on paper and in the minds of men like Kitchener and Churchill, was very powerful. In truth, though, it suffered from many deficiencies. The ANZAC was composed of an Australian division and a composite Australian–New Zealand division, and was commanded by Lieutenant-General Sir William Birdwood. Neither division had many regular officers, and over half the men had enlisted the previous summer. The divisions were very short of artillery and machine guns and, more importantly, while garrisoned in Egypt had done no combined-arms training or divisional exercises whatsoever. The men were sometimes undisciplined and resentful of authority, but were enthusiastic and in superb physical condition. The 29th Division, although composed of 11 regular infantry battalions and one Scottish territorial battalion, was put together in March from units brought separately to the UK from India. While the officers and men were sound professionals, likewise this division conducted no collective or combined-arms training prior to embarkation for the Aegean. The Royal Naval Division was composed of sailors for whom there was no room on board ships, and Royal Marines. Its first action of the war, at Antwerp in October 1914, was a disaster and over 2,000 of its members were interned in neutral Holland. Many of its junior officers were already well known or affluent young men, including Brooke, Asquith, Johnny Dodge, Patrick Shaw-Stewart, and a soon to be well known New Zealander named Bernard Freyberg. Likewise, the French Corps Expéditionnaire d’Orient initially was composed of a single division that was cobbled together hastily from Senegalese, Zouave and regular troops. Although it was well led and had powerful artillery, it too had never trained together as a division.
The 25 April landings on the Gallipoli Peninsula. Simultaneous landings at five points on the peninsula’s tip and in Asia confused the Ottoman tactical commanders as to the exact location of the main effort. This delayed the Ottoman response.
French troops preparing to embark for the Dardanelles from Mudros, Lemnos. The French expeditionary force sent to the Dardanelles was something of an afterthought. It was composed of lashed-together divisions of colonials and Foreign Legion regiments. In spite of this, it fought well.
Australians en route to Gallipoli. In the era before specialized amphibious landing craft, soldiers had to debark into lighters from a merchantman or warship. The lighters were then towed to the shore by cutters, which were often commanded by teenage midshipmen.
Nevertheless, the Imperial general staff and the Admiralty began to put its forces together to conduct a joint (involving more than one service) and combined (multi-national) amphibious landing on a strongly held enemy shore (considered by many to be the most complex of all military–naval operations). In less than two months, the British and French staffs organized, loaded and carried over 70,000 soldiers and their horses, artillery and equipment to the harbour of Mudros on the Greek island of Lemnos, located some 80km (50 miles) to the west of the entrance to the Dardanelles. Naturally, mistakes were made, notably in the loading of the merchant ships contracted to carry the MEF: in some instances artillery pieces would be placed in one ship while the ammunition would be in another. All manner of problems had to be planned for, such as building water carriers for 70,000 men, as water was scarce on the peninsula. Naval gunfire support, aerial reconnaissance and assault landing techniques were in their infancy, and tactics and procedures had to be created from scratch. Remarkably, by 24 April 1915, a readied landing force was anchored in Mudros Harbour. This remarkable feat performed by the Allied military and naval staff is a model example of creative staff work, ingenuity and sheer determination, a fact that is often overshadowed by subsequent defeat.
The British Army as a whole in 1914 was unprepared for modern war. Although the overseas deployment of the British Army went well, its immediate performance in combat in France was below that of the German and French armies. As a result, the BEF narrowly escaped disaster several times, and was unable to execute effectively offensive operations. Such success as it enjoyed resulted mainly from the heroic performance of its officers and men at regimental level and below. The British Army’s initial performance against the Ottomans in 1914 and early 1915 appeared more positive when it came into contact under locally favourable operational conditions. However, many of the problems that had appeared in France would surface again against the battle-ready units of the Ottoman Army.
The newly formed Ottoman Fifth Army was a powerful force, and had as its main components III Corps, XV Corps, the 5th Infantry Division and an independent cavalry brigade. III Corps was composed of the 7th, 9th, and 19th Infantry divisions, while XV Corps commanded the 3rd and 11th Infantry divisions. The 5th Division and the Cavalry Brigade remained as army reserves, while the Chanak Kale Fortified Area Command (the Dardanelles forts) continued as a separate operational command. Under this arrangement, III Corps defended the Gallipoli Peninsula itself, with the 7th and 9th Infantry divisions watching the beaches and the 19th Division held in corps reserve near Eceabat. XV Corps held the Asiatic coast, with the 3rd and 11th Infantry divisions defending the vulnerable flat beaches. XV Corps’ headquarters was located at Calvert’s Farm near Ciplak, the site of Heinrich Schliemann’s archaeological excavation of ancient Troy. In the north, the 5th Division guarded the critical and narrow isthmus, and the independent Cavalry Brigade screened the long beaches of the Gulf of Saros. Liman von Sanders’s Fifth Army headquarters was based in the town of Gallipoli.
Turkish sailors from the Hamidieh, photographed in 1915. The Ottoman cruiser became famous during the Balkan Wars of 1912–13 as a surface raider. In World War I it operated mainly in the Black Sea.
Kemal was born in Salonika, and was commissioned in 1902. He graduated from the Ottoman War Academy in 1905 and served in important staff positions in the Third Army, where division to corps command. He commanded in the Caucasus in 1916 and in Palestine in 1917–18. Kemal was the best general produced by the Ottomans in the war. After the war, he led the Turkish nationalists to victory over the Greeks solidifying his reputation as one of the twentieth century’s greatest commanders. He was the first president of the Republic of Turkey. Kemal was brilliant, ambitious and committed to the westernization and modernization of his country.
A case can be made that the Ottoman Army at Gallipoli was not as efficient as the German or British armies, but the efficiency of the Turks belied the effectiveness of their army. In fact, by the spring of 1915 the divisions of III Corps were very well trained and had achieved high levels of combat effectiveness as indicated by their training programmes, which showed a consistent pattern of tough and realistic battle training. For example, the 9th Infantry Division reported its battalions at war strength on 12 August 1914. Four days later its troops were ordered to occupy coastal observation posts and to prepare defensive positions. Later in October, the division’s regiments developed fire plans from Achi Baba (or Alchi Tepe, as the Turks called it) overlooking Cape Helles and from Kavak Tepe overlooking what would become known as Anzac Beach. Beginning in November 1914, the division conducted combined-arms training with artillery and infantry in the reserve area.
Lieutenant-Colonel Mustafa Kemal’s subsequently famous 19th Infantry Division was activated on 1 January 1915. However, two of its regiments were sent to join VI Corps, and the division was reorganized on9 February by adding the 72nd and 77th Infantry regiments. On 6 April 1915, the division was assigned to the new Fifth Army. Several of the regiments were composed of ‘Arabs’, and this made portions of the 19th Division unsteady. Kemal’s 57th Infantry Regiment was activated on 1 February 1915 and comprised experienced ethnic Turks led by highly trained officers; it was regarded by Mustafa Kemal as his most solid regiment. The regiment spent the next two months in ‘very intensive training undergoing frequent field exercises’. The 77th Infantry Regiment was mobilized in Aleppo, Syria, and in September it was assigned to the Second Army and began intensive field training and manoeuvres. It came under Lieutenant-Colonel Mustafa Kemal’s command in February 1915, and was provided with intelligence that the British would attempt to land during the hours of darkness.
Other regiments had similar experiences to those of the 9th and 19th Infantry Divisions. The 7th Division mobilized at war establishment and moved to Gallipoli in early November, where it continued field exercises and manoeuvres. The experience of the 11th Division reflected a pattern typical of Ottoman divisions. It reached war strength on 8 August 1914, and began to deploy the following week. On 8 October the division started its training regime near Bandirma. This included very intensive battalion and regiment training, division and corps manoeuvres, hard road marches and (unusually) the on and off loading of ships. On 14 October, the division participated in First Army field manoeuvres. Training went on throughout the winter, and by 3 March 1915 the division was conducting frequent night march training. Twenty days later the division was deployed to positions near Calvert’s Farm where it was informed that 80,000 Allied troops (including 50,000 Australians) were expected to invade Gallipoli. Thus by April 1915, the fighting formations of the newly formed Ottoman Fifth Army were ready to receive the Allies.
In the weeks following the 18 March attack, Liman von Sanders worked tirelessly to improve the tactical situation in his new army area. He concentrated on realistic preparations that were within Turkish capabilities, such as improving the road network, camouflaging troop concentrations and artillery batteries, and improving the fortifications along the likely landing beaches. He commandeered tools and barbed-wire fences from the local farmers in order to fortify even more areas. He worked to improve the existing hospital situation and in between the gruelling periods of building fortifications, at night, and in inclement weather, the troops were subjected to anti-invasion drills. Although ammunition for some of the larger calibres of artillery was in short supply, morale in the Fifth Army was high.
A torpedo crew on board the Muavenet in 1915. The Muavenet was a typical Dreadnought-era torpedo boat destroyer. The Ottoman Navy rarely used this type of ship beyond the confines of the Black Sea. Muavenet sank the pre-Dreadnought battleship HMS Goliath on 13 May 1915.
British troops en route to the Dardanelles. The British and ANZAC forces were deployed to Mudros harbour several weeks before the invasion of 25 April 1915. The enlisted men remained on board ship while the officers toured the island of Lemnos.
In 1912, the Ottoman general staff identified three vulnerable areas on the peninsula: the isthmus of Bulair and the Gulf of Saros, the coast of Asia near Kum Kale, and the southern part of the Gallipoli Peninsula. The Fifth Army was organized into three operational groups corresponding to these areas. Colonel von Sodenstern with 5th Division and the independent Cavalry Brigade was assigned the Gulf of Saros sector. Colonel Weber was given XV Corps to defend the Asiatic shore. The critical Gallipoli Peninsula itself remained under the operational command of Major-General Esat Pasha’s III Corps. Esat deployed the 7th Division along the vulnerable isthmus of Bulair, 9th Division along the southern tip of the peninsula and maintained the new, but well trained, 19th Division as a reserve.
At the strategic level, the Fifth Army knew that the Allies had embarked and were about to launch a large multi-divisional Anglo-French expeditionary force somewhere either in European Thrace or in the Asian Troad. However, it did not know exactly where the main effort would be, and the dispositions of the Fifth Army reflected this weakness in intelligence at the operational level. Nevertheless by mid- to late April 1915, an almost continuous series of alarms and invasion scares had raised Turkish troop readiness to a very high level.
Tactically, as in 1912, the Fifth Army employed a light infantry screen in outposts sited on the dominating terrain overlooking potential landing beaches. These forces were usually in platoon strength and were well dug in behind wire in prepared trenches. The Turks did not intend to stop the Allies on the beaches with these troops. Instead, regiment sized forces were positioned three to five kilometres (three miles) behind the beaches in protected ground. As the outposts slowed the enemy landing and channelled their advance, these larger forces would counterattack the enemy. It was hoped that these counterattacks, conducted immediately or as soon as possible, would throw the unwary invaders back into the sea. At all levels the Turkish commanders rehearsed these counterattacks in detail.
Hamilton’s final plan likewise consisted of three components mirroring the vulnerable areas. Recognizing that he had lost the element of surprise, Hamilton planned to land at multiple locations and conduct feints as diversions. In this way, the Turks would be uncertain of his intentions and unable to respond coherently. Hamilton’s main effort employed Birdwood’s ANZAC landing mid-peninsula to seize the high Maltepe plateau overlooking Eceabat (Maidos). This would cut the peninsula in half and isolate the western coastal forts. Major-General Aylmer Hunter-Weston’s 29th Division was assigned to land on the very tip of the peninsula. At the same time, the French were to land in force at Kum Kale, divert the enemy, and then withdraw several days later, having tied down enemy reserves. To the north, in the Gulf of Saros, the Royal Naval Division was to conduct a very visible demonstration to convince the Turks that Hamilton intended to land there as well. Although this plan dispersed Hamilton’s army, the Allies believed that at the ‘man-to-man level’ Europeans would easily beat the Turks.
The long-awaited landings began early on 25 April 1915, as Hamilton’s soldiers landed at six points on the peninsula and across the straits at Kum Kale. The alert Turks defending the beaches immediately sent word up the chain of command to Liman von Sanders, describing large landings well supported by intense naval gunfire. In the Gulf of Saros, Fifth Army reported what appeared to be an impending landing there (although this was a deception operation).
Both sides made use of submarines in the Gallipoli campaign. Despite the formidable defences of the straits several Allied submarines managed to break through and reach the Sea of Marmara, notably E11 and E14 of the Royal Navy, causing havoc to Turkish shipping there.
Men from the Ottoman 27th Infantry Regiment defended what the Allies called Z Beach, or Anzac Beach as it came to be known, in well dug-in and recently improved positions. Their commander was Major Halis, who had taken command of the battalion in September 1914. Halis was a combat veteran of the Libyan War and the Balkan Wars, and had established his command post in the Gaba Tepe strongpoint. Two battalions of the regiment, under the personal command of Lieutenant-Colonel Mehmet Shefik, lay several kilometres behind in the 9th Division’s reserve area. His attached artillery and cavalry had been under his command for almost nine months. Just to the north, in army reserve, lay Mustafa Kemal’s 19th Division. These units had been alerted to the acute danger of an imminent Allied invasion, and since late February there had been continuous coordination between the regiment and Mustafa Kemal’s division.
The ANZAC beachhead, 25 April 1915. The planned landing at Z Beach would have brought the ANZAC troops on to a beach more heavily defended than V Beach. It is debatable whether the corps would have managed to get ashore in the face of such a strong defence.
The Turks considered the most likely landing beach to be just north of Gaba Tepe (the area later known by the Australians as Brighton Beach). In fact, it was here that the Australians intended to storm ashore, but a misjudged landing instead cast them ashore in the narrow shelf-like cove at Ari Burnu. The longstanding British view is that this was a serious error, which upset the landings. However, had the Anzacs landed in the designated site, they would have found themselves immediately under the guns of the enemy (and in similarly dire circumstances to the troops on W and V beaches at Cape Helles).
Despite Allied attempts to remain unseen and unheard, 9th Division was alerted at 2.30am that the British were preparing to land. This news sped up the Turkish chain of command and 50 minutes later III Corps notified the Fifth Army that landings were imminent. By 4.30am rifle and artillery fire was engaging the incoming boats. The Australians began to land about 5am, and their location was immediately passed up to III Corps’ headquarters. Although his soldiers were tired from night training, Lieutenant-Colonel Shefik immediately ordered his infantry and artillery to begin operations. Based on Shefik’s reports, at around 6am the division commander, Colonel Halil Sami, issued orders to drive the enemy into the sea and relayed copies to III Corps and also to Kemal’s 19th Division.
Some of the first troops ashore were from the Australian 3rd Brigade, and they quickly found that their maps were inaccurate. Nevertheless, they had landed in a spot protected from direct Turkish fire and, led by their officers, they pressed uphill to the east into the deeply cut terrain. Consolidated resistance began to be felt at about 9am as they met the Turks, who took positions above them. Conscious of growing enemy forces on the right flank, Brigadier Sinclair MacLagan, the senior man in the beachhead, brought the follow-on elements of his division into this area, changing the focal point of the attack. Because of the difficult terrain, he also directed his soldiers to leave their packs and spades on the beach.
The Australian infantry earned a reputation for independence and resistance to military discipline. The men were all volunteers and man for man were physically the most impressive force fielded in the Middle East.
By 8am Shefik’s two battalions, as well as his artillery, were moving along parallel routes toward Kavak Tepe, more or less in the centre of the Anzac beachhead. These were not the only Turkish forces preparing to engage the Australians. Earlier, at 5.30am, Mustafa Kemal alerted his 19th Division to prepare for action and ordered his cavalry forward to conduct route reconnaissance of the roads to Kocachimen Tepe (north of Kavak Tepe). By 7am, although he had received no orders, the impatient Kemal sent his 57th Infantry Regiment with artillery to Kocachimen Tepe. He then sent a situation report to III Corps outlining his intentions, and his troops began their march within the hour.
There were now two separate forces moving against the Anzacs. The 9th Division commander reacted quickly, and issued new orders at 8.25am to Shefik that revised and clarified the chain of command. These orders alerted him that Kemal’s 57th Infantry Regiment was operating at Kocachimen and ordered him to coordinate his operations with Kemal in the Kavak Tepe area. About 9am, Shefik’s leading elements were nearing Kavak Tepe and met the men of his 2nd Battalion who were conducting a fighting retreat up from the beaches. They brought with them captured enemy soldiers of the ‘3rd Australian’. At 10.30am, the 27th Infantry Regiment was firmly in contact with the enemy; however, Shefik’s planned attack was now held up by the orders to coordinate with Mustafa Kemal.
Meanwhile, Mustafa Kemal had reached Conkbayri and prepared a short attack order specifying that two battalions (of the 57th Infantry) would attack, with the other held in reserve. Shefik’s plan was brought to him at 11am, to which he wrote a reply outlining his own plan, thus effectively achieving tactical coordination; copies of these orders were sent to III Corps. The essence of Kemal’s plan was that he would attack the enemy’s left wing with his regiment and artillery, but would wait to begin the attack until Shefik’s regiment attacked. Shefik replied directly to Kemal half an hour later outlining the scope of the enemy’s dispositions and stating his intent to attack toward Ari Burnu on the coast. Final orders were issued at noon, and Shefik weighted his right flank, which lay nearest to Kemal’s regiment.
The Australian beachhead at Gaba Tepe. This photo dramatically illustrates the narrowness of the tiny beach at Anzac Cove. It was not the intended landing spot, but it was protected from direct Turkish observation and fire.
Anzac Beach. The ANZAC perimeter was packed full of men, animals, supplies, ammunition and water containers. Turkish artillery rounds fired into the perimeter invariably hit something in the densely packed beachhead.
Sometime between noon and 1pm, Shefik’s skirmishers went forward, followed by waves of infantry with bayonets fixed, at the same time that Kemal’s men advanced. They were supported by three batteries of artillery; Kemal also took the time to order his 77th Infantry Regiment forward to reinforce the left flank of Shefik’s regiment, and his remaining 72nd Infantry Regiment to reinforce his own right flank. This attack rocked the Australians and brought their advance to a halt. Their subsequent staunch resistance stopped the determined but badly outnumbered Turkish assault – four Turkish battalions were attacking over eight Australian ones.
Although the Turks had delayed their counterattack by several hours from its optimum time of around 10am, they achieved considerable advantages by waiting until coordination was complete. Neither Shefik nor Kemal launched reckless, premature and unsupported attacks; instead, they executed a combined attack fully supported by artillery and machine guns. By releasing control of Shefik’s regiment to Mustafa Kemal, Colonel Halil Sami had effectively and informally cross-attached what might be termed a regimental combat team to the 19th Division, thus ensuring that the senior man on the spot enjoyed unity of command. Descriptions of the severity of the Turkish attack speak of highly effective Turkish shrapnel fire and sniping. The continuous shelling and the subsequent Turkish bayonet attack initiated a disintegration of morale and effectiveness among the Anzacs, which would gather momentum as the day passed. As early as 1pm, messages began to arrive at Australian headquarters declaring that its men could not stand against the Turks without artillery support.
By 3.30pm two battalions of the 77th Infantry Regiment were in position, and Kemal launched a second powerful counterattack in concert with the five battalions in contact. This attack was supported by artillery fire from the area now known as Kemalyeri (Kemal’s Place). An hour later, the three battalions of the 72nd Infantry Regiment, now in position, also attacked. Kemal now had 10 battalions in action against the Allies’ 18. Fortunately for him, the Allied battalions were poorly deployed against the Turks. This was a result of MacLagan’s aggressive push inland toward the sound of the guns rather than towards the high ground. As a result, the Australians were weak at the point of Mustafa Kemal’s attack. Moreover, MacLagan’s decision to leave packs and shovels on the beach meant his men were now unable to dig in.
Meanwhile, at Esat Pasha’s III Corps field headquarters on Maltepe it was apparent that it was necessary to revise the command arrangements to reflect the on-the-ground realities of the battle. From a purely technical perspective, Mustafa Kemal was fighting in the 9th Division’s sector. Reacting swiftly to reorganize his corps, Esat designated Kemal as the Ari Burnu Front commander and attached the 27th Infantry Regiment to him. In effect, this transferred the coastline sector from 9th Division to Kemal’s 19th Division. Esat now had Mustafa Kemal focused on the Anzacs at Ari Burnu and Halil Sami focused on the British at Cape Helles.
One of the most memorable displays of heroism in the war occurred as the men of the 1st Battalion, Lancashire Fusiliers came ashore at W Beach on 25 April 1915. The battalion was a regular army unit from the town of Bury and had served in India before the war. Deadly fire poured into the boats carrying the battalion onto the heavily wired beach. Once ashore, the men had to fight their way through heavy Turkish fire and scale a cliff to take the defenders’ positions. Despite naval gunfire support from HMS Euryalus and Implacable, the fusiliers were pinned on the beach and the fighting resolved itself into a soldiers’ battle. After a bitter day-long struggle, the battalion finally broke through to seize the cliff-like enemy positions on Hill 138. At day’s end, out of over a thousand men, the Lancashire Fusiliers reported 11 officers and 399 men fit for duty. The Victoria Cross was awarded to Captain C. Bromley, Captain R.R. Willis, Sergeant A. Richards, Lance-Sergeant F.E. Stubbs, Corporal J.E. Grimshaw and Private W. Keneally.
The landings at Cape Helles encountered strong Turkish resistance. Here British soldiers watch from cover as a shell from ‘Asiatic Annie’, one of the Turkish guns from across the Dardanelles Straits, explodes in the sea.
The Turks had their share of coordination problems. Nevertheless, as darkness fell on the battlefield, it was the Australians who were notably demoralized. Mustafa Kemal now issued his famous order: ‘I do not expect you to attack, I order you to die! In the time which passes until we die, other troops and commanders can take our place!’ It was inspired and heroic leadership, and the final result of the battle probably rested on this single dramatic action. Encouraged by his success in pushing the enemy back during the afternoon, Kemal ordered his regiments to continue with night bayonet assaults. These attacks were unsuccessful, but served to keep pressure on the embattled Australians and New Zealanders. Remarkably, and despite having landed 20,000 out of 24,000 troops, both ANZAC division commanders (Major-General W.T. Bridges and Major-General Sir Alexander Godley) became convinced that the Turks had the advantage and would overrun the corps at daybreak. Near midnight, they shocked Birdwood with a joint recommendation to evacuate the beachhead. Birdwood referred the decision to Hamilton, who issued no orders but famously advised the Anzacs to stay put and ‘dig, dig, dig’. In truth, Hamilton did not set foot on dry ground that day (and nor did Birdwood until 10pm), instead relying on ‘the man on the spot’ to make tactical decisions. This pattern of disconnected leadership between the front and the high command would reappear later in the campaign. Kemal would later note that the 57th Infantry Regiment was ‘a famous regiment … because it was completely wiped out’.
The Cape Helles beachhead and breakout, 25–28 April 1915. Ottoman resistance solidified as reinforcements arrived on the peninsula. Within days of the landings trench warfare asserted itself in the Mediterranean.
The Cape Helles beachhead. In this image a lighter designed to ferry animals from ship to shore is shown in the lower portion of the photo. Most of the animals brought ashore were shot during the evacuation rather than attempting to bring them off.
The battles that raged on the southern tip of the Gallipoli Peninsula on 25 April 1915 were dramatically different to those at Anzac Beach, chiefly because they were fought mostly on the landing beaches themselves. The fighting revolved around the desperate struggle to get off the landing beaches and onto the high ground beyond.
The Ottoman defence of Cape Helles (or Sedd el Bahr to the Turks) was the responsibility of the 26th Infantry Regiment, which had occupied the area since August 1914. Troops of the regiment came under fire during the Allied naval attacks in February and March and, although bloodied, morale within the battalions remained very high. As Ottoman reinforcements poured into the area in March and April, the 9th Division commander was able to place the entire regiment in the Cape Helles beach defences, and on the eve of the Allied invasion, it had been fully trained and was fully manned.
The Allied beachheads became huge logistical bases as the campaign progressed. Most of these stores at Cape Helles were destroyed during the evacuation rather than allowing them to fall into the hands of the Turks.
The regiment commander, Major Kadri, finalized the coordination of the defence and rapidly issued orders that would take effect on 24 April. Kadri’s regimental order described in detail the occupation of the defensive works by his men and paid close attention to artillery support. As configured on the morning of 25 April, Kadri deployed a battalion in the Sedd el Bahr defences and another in the Kum Tepe defences. In the centre, he maintained three companies of his third battalion in regimental reserve, while positioning his last company on the western coast (thus linking the Sedd el Bahr and Kum Tepe positions). Kadri’s regimental command post and his regimental reserve lay in the village of Kirte (Krithia). Most of his artillery was positioned on the eastern slopes of the peninsula where it was partially protected from Allied naval gunfire, but the observers remained on the Achi Baba high ground. The division artillery was firmly connected to the troops and could call on additional fire support from the fortresses on the straits. Behind Kadri, the entire 25th Infantry Regiment waited in general reserve.
The fighting at Anzac Beach on 25 April comprised an initial engagement of forces followed by hasty Ottoman attacks, but the fighting at Cape Helles was characterized by direct British assaults on an enemy strongpoint system. It was more like the fighting then raging in France and, consequently, was far more violent and resulted in far more British casualties – as well as a large number of Victoria Crosses awarded for acts of gallantry. The British threw almost the entire strength of the regular 29th Division at the very tip of the Gallipoli Peninsula, with the objective of driving northwards to seize the high ground of Achi Baba (Alchi Tepe). Against this was Major Mahmut Sabri’s single 3rd Battalion, 26th Infantry. This battalion had two companies in strongpoints (fortified with wire and trenches) on the low hills overlooking the landing beaches. Reserve platoons were positioned behind the hills. Mahmut Sabri’s command post, two infantry companies, and his attached engineer company lay about a kilometre inland and he had an artillery battery southwest of Krithia for direct fire support.
The 29th Division was assigned five landing sites, designated as S, V, W, X and Y beaches, but its commanders were far from optimistic that the division would be able to take the high ground of Achi Baba. To assist in the assault, Royal Navy battleships lay close in to shore to provide fire support with their heavy 12in and 15in guns. The night of 24/25 April was quiet and moonlit, and in spite of the light breeze and waves, the Turkish sentries could hear enemy ships. At 4.30am the British naval bombardment began from three directions, fully alerting the Turkish defenders. About 6am the Turks observed over 40 boats in lines heading for W Beach and opened fire at 400m (437 yards) on the Lancashire Fusiliers. At the same time in nearby Sedd el Bahr (V Beach), the Turks, to their great amazement, watched a steamship (the converted collier River Clyde) heading inshore amidst the mass of smaller boats. Again, at 400m (437 yards) they engaged the enemy. Heavy fire kept the boats at bay, but the steamship continued on until it grounded out in the surf, at which point it became apparent to the Turks that it contained hundreds of enemy soldiers as well as numerous machine guns. The ship immediately became a magnet for heavy Turkish rifle and machine-gun fire.
The River Clyde was crammed full of Munster Fusiliers and men of the Hampshire Regiment, who were supposed to clamber over towed wooden lighters onto the shore. However, the lighters became lodged in the rocks and were taken under heavy fire. Commander Edward Unwin and Able Seaman Williams of the Royal Navy tried to salvage the situation, leaping into the surf to lash the lighters into a bridge. Both were awarded the Victoria Cross, Williams posthumously. The Fusiliers tried to run across, but were slaughtered by enemy fire. Some jumped into the sea and were carried to the bottom by their heavy packs. Out of communication with the battleships only 1500m (1640 yards) away, the River Clyde became a death trap. Mahmut Sabri judged that the River Clyde was a ‘bankrupt operation’, but felt that its presence confirmed that Sedd el Bahr was the enemy’s main effort. He ordered his reserves forward.
Simultaneously, the British landed at S, W, X and Y beaches, the aim being to confuse the Turks, causing them to disperse and expose their reserves. At W Beach the Lancashires were able to land, but were immediately pinned down in the Ottoman wire. In conditions similar to the Western Front, the men struggled forward to reach the high plateau ahead of them. The battalion suffered 533 casualties (out of a total of 950) that day, but famously won ‘six VCs before breakfast’ as well as five lesser medals for heroism. The landings at S, X and Y beaches suffered fewer casualties because the Turks had not heavily fortified them. While it had been stopped at the tip of the peninsula, the 29th Division had troops on shore in flanking positions by mid-morning.
The battles for V and W beaches were bloody in the extreme. These actions brought the British main effort directly into the teeth of well prepared defences manned by fully trained men. Handfuls of Turks in strongpoints on the high ground held entire battalions of British on the beaches for most of the day. The conservatism of the British command and control ethos now came to the aid of the Turks. Exhibiting behaviour similar to that of Birdwood and Hamilton, Major-General Hunter-Weston was reluctant to over-supervise his subordinates and, more importantly, became fixated on W and X beaches, where the fighting raged heaviest. This institutional trait caused Hunter-Weston to miss a golden opportunity to exploit the favourable situation at Y Beach by ordering the troops there, the King’s Own Scottish Borderers and a Royal Marine battalion, to drive on Krithia. Hamilton also failed to do this, and the men on Y Beach sat there throughout the day.
As the day progressed Hunter-Weston managed to bring in more boats loaded with troops to V Beach, and by mid-afternoon Irishmen were struggling uphill. The situation on the tip of peninsula grew steadily worse for the Turks. At 3pm, Mahmut Sabri reported that he had committed his entire command and that the situation on Ay Tepe was in doubt. At5.40pm Ay Tepe strongpoint fell and the adjacent strongpoint on Gozcubaba Tepe came under direct attack. With all of the Turkish officers down, the defence fell to Sergeant Yahya, who found himself with five squads of infantry, and his position under assault by a large column of enemy infantry. He beat back several determined attacks on his hilltop position and personally led a bayonet attack that restored the situation. He survived to tell the story and his name is inscribed on a contemporary memorial at the site. Nonetheless, Yahya was pushed off Gozcubaba Tepe position that evening when the British were able to bring to bear heavy enfilading machine-gun fire on the hills. Written and telephone reports poured into 9th Divison’s headquarters, and Colonel Halil Sami belatedly issued orders sending the remaining two battalions and the machine-gun detachment of 25th Infantry Regiment to Sedd el Bahr to close off the enemy landings by nightfall.
It is clear that Colonel Halil Sami was unsure exactly where the Allied main effort was, and consequently felt compelled to disperse his scarce reserves to cover all of the landing beaches – a clear tactical success for the British multiple-landing plan. Halil Sami’s apparent lack of situational awareness contrasts significantly with that of Mustafa Kemal, who realized that the ANZAC had conducted a single massive landing at Ari Burnu. Halil Sami had also previously detached 27th Infantry Regiment to Mustafa Kemal (about one third of his combat power), leaving 9th Division with only two infantry regiments to oppose the Cape Helles landings.
The fighting on the Gallipoli peninsula was never characterized by the intense artillery bombardments of the Western Front. Nevertheless, the armies constructed bomb proofs and bunkers to avoid casualties from indirect fire.
At 1am on 26 April the Turks crafted a plan to retake the lost high ground of Ay Tepe using fresh troops, which began about 3.30am. A night bayonet attack was met by a wall of British rifle fire and grenades that hit the advancing Turkish infantry. The battle seesawed back and forth; some parts of the British trenches were taken, but the attack collapsed. Similar night bayonet attacks simultaneously hit the British on Y Beach. The difficult first 24 hours of the battle then ended with the British lodged in their precarious beachheads.
Many of the opposing trenches, particularly at Anzac Beach, were as close as 20m (65ft) apart. Homemade periscopes fabricated from shaving mirrors were often used to avoid the risk of being shot in the head.
Across the straits the French intended to land the 6th Colonial Regiment at Kum Kale early, but strong four-knot currents thwarted them until about 9.30am. Resistance was weak and they came ashore with few losses. The operation was, however, a diversionary one, and the French had no intention of either advancing inland or remaining on shore.
To the north, in Saros Bay, ships of the Royal Navy began bombarding the Turks at Bulair while almost the entire Royal Naval Division cruised off the coast. Hamilton did not intend to actually land the division, but a platoon was supposed to go ashore and light flares as a ruse. However, because of the danger, the officer in charge – Lieutenant Bernard Freyberg (a swimming champion from New Zealand) – swam alone to the shore with his flares and a revolver in a waterproof bag. Freyberg found only dummy positions, lit his flares and swam back in the frigid water. Freyberg spent hours alone in the water in darkness, an astonishing feat that earned him a DSO.
The demonstration at Bulair, using only ships and a few flares, was unconvincing at best, but Liman von Sanders personally rode to the threatened isthmus to gauge for himself the strength of the Allied effort. Later in the day, he consulted with Esat Pasha and became convinced that the Allied presence in the Gulf of Saros was merely a diversion. Liman von Sanders also endorsed Esat’s contention that the Anzacs represented the gravest threat to the peninsula. He ordered the 7th Division to prepare to move south in response to Esat’s plea for reinforcements. Additionally, he ordered the 5th Division to send troops south as well. Incoming reports from the Asian side of the straits indicated that the situation there was under control.
The Australian troops earned their infamous nickname of ‘Diggers’ at Gallipoli when General Sir Ian Hamilton famously advised the Australian commanders to ‘dig, dig, and dig’.
At dusk on 25 April, the tactical situation appeared threatening, but favourable to the Ottomans. The Allied landings had been contained to a handful of small beachheads and the Turks held commanding positions over them. Reserves were deploying to reinforce the thin defensive lines holding the invaders. Although the Turks did not know it, not a single Allied objective had been reached.
Esat Pasha, commander of Ottoman III Corps, is shown talking to his troops in a well-camouflaged artillery position. Grandfatherly in appearance, Esat was arguably the finest Ottoman corps commander of the war.
The next morning, even more convinced that he had correctly anticipated the Allied assaults, Liman von Sanders sent the regiments of the 5th and 7th divisions to the Sedd el Bahr front, and ordered an uncommitted regiment from the 11th Division in Asia to be brought to the Anzac beachhead. The reinforcements sent earlier were now on hand and were immediately pressed into the fight by Esat Pasha. In Asia, the situation had stabilized, with German Lieutenant-Colonel August Nicolai’s 3rd Infantry Division inflicting heavy losses on the French, who withdrew on29 April.
On 26 April Fifth Army sent an encrypted telegram to Enver Pasha at the Ministry of War outlining its intent to attack the enemy beachheads in the coming days. This telegram reflected Liman von Sanders’s most important contribution to the decisive defeat inflicted on Hamilton’s landing force. The Fifth Army commander had personally evaluated the diversionary operation at Saros Bay, and was not deceived by the manoeuvre. With this understanding clear in his mind he was able to commit his army entirely to the fighting at Anzac Beach and Cape Helles. In doing so, he stripped away the defenders from the Bulair isthmus and from the French front (itself a diversion) in Asia. This decision indicates an unusually high degree of situational awareness at army level (by 1915 standards) and reflected the capability of Turkish units to transmit accurate and timely information. Overall, the Turks characterized 26 April as a quiet day, and that evening Kemal directed his formations to make preparations for renewing the attack and also to carefully coordinate their defences with flanking units. At higher levels, more reinforcements (in the shape of the Fifth Army units of XV Corps) were on the way by ferry to Maidos from Asia.
Kemal’s attacks began on 27 April at 7.30am with determined bayonet assaults that spread panic in the Allied lines. These were repulsed, but the Turks attacked again later with reinforcements. Throughout the day further fitful attacks materialized, but the Turks were unable to synchronize their operations. Casualties began to mount and by 6.30pm losses amounted to between 30 and 40 per cent. At this point, Mustafa Kemal decided to call off the attacks and prepare for a night assault, which would mitigate the effects of Allied naval gunfire. He was also, by now, aware of the severe collapse of morale suffered by the Australians and New Zealanders on the previous night, and he hoped to capitalize on this with a force that now numbered 15 infantry battalions (organized into two tactical groups) and nine batteries of artillery.
The night attack began a little after 9pm, as Kemal’s two-regiment northern group swept forward into the enemy’s trenches. Intense fighting at close quarters ensued, but heavy Anzac fire drove the Turks back. Shortly thereafter, his southern group, comprising four regiments, launched its attack. Kemal committed every available man to this, leaving no reserve. Again the Turks broke into the enemy trenches, but the attacking regiments, exhausted and depleted from two days of combat, could not break through. Moreover, Turkish soldiers from various regiments became mixed up in the confusion of darkness. The night attack then degenerated into a series of small actions, and eventually collapsed. The tempo of battle slowed on the following day as each side sought to consolidate gains and stabilize their lines. The ANZAC had grown to 21 infantry battalions and now outnumbered the Turks in the battle area. Another regiment arrived, and Enver Pasha promised that Ottoman forces held in general reserve near Constantinople would soon be on the way to the front. Encouraged by this development, the Fifth Army ordered the renewal of the attack and ordered the remainder of 5th Division south to join the fight at Anzac Beach.
Mustafa Kemal now planned a decisive attack to drive the invaders into the sea. He decided to launch a three-pronged assault, supported by an artillery preparation, with his main effort in the centre. To accommodate this he organized a Right-Wing Column (of seven battalions from four regiments), a Centre Column (of the six battalions of the fresh 14th and 15th Infantry regiments) and a Left-Wing Column (of six battalions from four regiments). Kemal’s artillery spent most of the day of 30 April repositioning their guns to support the attack. Essentially, Mustafa Kemal was launching a divisional-scale main attack of fresh men, supported by two simultaneous divisional-scale supplementary attacks, and he planned to throw over 18,000 men into the fight. The divisional orders reached the company officers in the frontline trenches in the early evening hours. He reckoned that morale among the Australians was almost broken, and that once his men broke into the enemy trenches his opponents would collapse. He was also convinced that his artillery would have an especially demoralizing effect. There were some lingering concerns over the reliability of the Arab soldiers of the 77th Infantry Regiment, but Kemal kept these troops on the right flank where a failure would not endanger the decisive main attack. That night the troops rested in anticipation of the events of the coming day.
At 5am on 1 May 1915, the Turkish artillery began to fire on the enemy trenches. Fifteen minutes later the centre and left columns went over the top on time, but the right column was somewhat delayed. The distance between the trenches (no man’s land) was about 200m (219 yards) in the critical centre sector, and, unfortunately for the Turks, it was open ground. They were met by a wall of fire, suffering huge casualties, but small groups managed to reach the Australian lines, where hand-to-hand fighting using bayonets and knives broke out. The Turkish attacks faltered and ground to a halt in the face of fierce resistance. Kemal committed his reserves at 10.30am in the centre. However, by noon all of his column commanders reported that the massive attack had failed, although some ground had been gained on the left flank and at certain points along the front a mere 10m (11 yards) separated the two armies. The fire of the Turkish artillery had died away to nothing because of ammunition shortages. Kemal was discouraged and was tempted to call off his offensive. But, in the early afternoon, he was cheered by an intercepted Australian radio transmission indicating that their tactical situation was critical. Kemal began immediate preparations for a night assault.
These well equipped and fresh-looking Ottoman soldiers are probably reinforcements coming to the Gallipoli front from the Constantinople area. They are gathered in an assembly area and are awaiting orders.
Kemal’s attack was timed to begin at midnight, but unfortunately for the Turks, the Anzacs were alert and observing their fronts. Again, the Turks ran into a withering barrage of machine-gun and rifle fire. By 3am Kemal acknowledged failure and called off the attacks. The Allies estimated that as many as 10,000 Turks were killed, while the Turkish official history admits to 6000. The attacking regiments were shattered and with this battle the first phase of fighting at Anzac Beach ended.
At the southern tip of the peninsula, on the morning of 26 April, the 29th Division had its infantry ashore and was preparing to bring in its artillery. Some of the infantry battalions had suffered terrible casualties in the landings, but the division nevertheless intended to push inland toward its main objective of Achi Baba. At 9am British infantry units began to push off the high ground. The Turks were still under the control of Major Mahmut Sabri, who had the remnants of about three infantry battalions under his tactical command and was opposed by 14 weakened British infantry battalions. There were no other Turkish troops available in the lower peninsula to reinforce him. Throughout the day, he conducted a deliberate withdrawal to a new defensive line centred on the high ground of Achi Baba. Here the front stabilized. Ottoman reinforcements arrived around noon on 27 April and by evening the 9th Division now had a fresh regiment (over 3000 men) on the west side of the Gallipoli Peninsula and a composite regiment of equal strength on the east side.
Because of the relative calm on 27 April, the Turks decided to conduct a local attack with fresh troops before the Allies could consolidate their gains. There was considerable confusion concerning the orders: changes were made in the evening that resulted in the finalized attack order being considerably delayed. The attack began on time, but was poorly organized because of the haste with which the division had coordinated the operation. Predictably the attack failed to even give pause to a major Allied attack that began at 8am on 28 April.
Hunter-Weston had spent the day of 27 April preparing for a corps-level attack designed to seize the village of Krithia. Hunter-Weston now had 14 British infantry battalions and five French infantry battalions, and although he had scant field artillery ashore, he had the guns of the combined Allied fleet at his disposal. The Turkish 9th Division had 10 badly battered infantry battalions, but three fresh battalions arrived from the north, giving them good odds against their enemy. Moreover, III Corps identified Mustafa Kemal’s attempt to drive the Anzacs into the sea as the Ottoman main effort, relegating Halil Sami’s fight to a secondary effort (although Esat Pasha intended to eliminate the Cape Helles beachhead after dispensing with the Anzacs). As a result, he received fewer reinforcements and less support than Kemal.
The multi-national attack was hastily coordinated and employed British regulars, Indians, Royal Naval Brigade infantry and the French. Moreover, field artillery support was lacking (only 28 field guns were ashore) and the troops had no time to rehearse. The 29th Division was ordered to push north to seize Krithia and the high ground, while the French attacked to shield the right flank. Once these objectives were in hand, Hunter-Weston intended to wheel east and seize Achi Baba. By the standards of the day, the plan was tactically complex and, moreover, required multi-national coordination. Over 10 battalions of British infantry stormed the Turkish forward trenches. In many locations, they broke through but were confronted immediately by locally positioned, platoon-sized Ottoman reserves. However, the local reserves were quickly decimated by Royal Navy gunfire, and Halil Sami committed his reserves at 10am. By noon, the Turks were in trouble and Halil Sami decided to authorize a withdrawal to the Achi Baba–Yassi Tepe line. Orders to this effect were sent out to the regimental commanders, but many ignored them. In the east, the intrepid Mahmut Sabri was put in charge of a hastily gathered-together reserve force and tasked with launching a counterattack at 3pm. Simultaneously, delayed Ottoman reinforcements arrived and launched a timely bayonet attack to the right of Mahmut Sabri’s men. These attacks were well supported by the Ottoman artillery. This counterattack sounded the death knell for Hunter-Weston’s offensive, and the tired and disorganized Allies began to retreat and dig in. The battle became known as First Krithia.
The French initially landed at Kum Kale in Asia as a deception, but were quickly withdrawn and moved to the eastern sector of the Cape Helles front.
A field dressing station. From here, British casualties would be evacuated to hospital ships and thence to Egypt. Ottoman casualties were evacuated to field hospitals behind the lines and then to permanent facilities in Constantinople.
According to the memoirs of Liman von Sanders, the confusion of the first several days of battle forced him to feed reinforcements into the fight without regard to formal command arrangements. Regiments from 5th and 11th divisions were fighting under 19th Division and regiments from the 3rd, 5th, 7th and 11th divisions were fighting under 9th Division. This meant that, potentially, III Corps was in danger of losing control of the battle. The safest way to keep this from happening was to form new operational groups under trusted commanders, who would control the battle on the spot. On 1 May 1915, Liman von Sanders created corps-level group headquarters to weld together these disparate formations into two ad hoc but coherent combat groups. He placed Colonel von Sodenstern in command of the Southern Group at Cape Helles, and Esat Pasha in command of the Northern Group on the Ari Burnu front (Anzac beachhead). The officers of XV Corps manned Sodenstern’s headquarters.
Thus, a combination of prompt reactions by Turkish commanders at lower levels and carefully weighed decisions by the senior Turkish and German commanders enabled the Fifth Army to accomplish much in the decisive initial phase of what would become known as the Gallipoli campaign. Except at Anzac Beach, the well drilled Turks had stopped the Allies on the landing sites. By the end of the second day, the Fifth Army had five of its six infantry divisions in contact with the enemy. On the third day of battle, every Ottoman infantry division had regiments in action. By the end of the fourth day, only two infantry regiments remained in Asia and two infantry regiments remained at Bulair.
For the Allies, the operation was discouraging. Historians have universally criticized Hamilton for remaining on board ship and for not intervening directly at critical moments. Presumably his presence ashore might have added momentum or direction to the attacks. This is largely unjustified since Hamilton would have shared the experiences of those already ashore and, most probably, would have arrived at similar conclusions. In truth, Hamilton was as able and as well prepared as any senior general then serving in the British Army. He was, however, trapped inside the same antiquated command paradigm that afflicted the British Army until 1918, and was also a prisoner of European society’s Social Darwinism that held the Turks in contempt.
Shocked by the violence of these encounters, the political will to prevail hardened in both London and Constantinople. At the end of April, Enver ordered the Ottoman V Corps, with the 13th, 14th and 15th divisions, to Gallipoli, together with the 4th Division. Simultaneously, Kitchener ordered the 42nd Division Gallipoli from Egypt, Australian Light Horse brigades were also inbound. The French rallied to cause and also dispatched second composite division.
‘The English officers were brave but inexperienced, and did not seem to know how to command or to lead their soldiers into battle.’
Turkish officers to Captain R.H. Williams, American military attaché, 1915
With the arrival of fresh reinforcements, Colonel von Sodenstern launched a massive 21st Battalion night attack on 1 May. Like Kemal’s simultaneous attack, a short bombardment was followed by waves of thousands of men with bayonets fixed sweeping into the British lines. Sodenstern’s attack also failed, as coordination and command broke down in the darkness. The Turks suffered some 3000 casualties. Undeterred, Sodenstern launched a smaller, eight-battalion night attack on the French lines on 3/4 May. Because of the scarcity of ammunition, the artillery barrage lasted only a few minutes and succeeded only in waking the French in their trenches. The attack was repulsed with heavy losses (perhaps 2000) to the Turkish divisions.
A frustrated Kitchener sent Hamilton a signal urging action, leading Hamilton to reorganize his forces to try once again to seize Krithia. The 29th Division broke up a brigade, but received the fresh 125th Brigade (42nd Division) and 29th Indian Brigade. The Royal Naval Division attached the 2nd Naval Brigade to the French, and in return received the 2nd Australian Brigade. While this appeared to balance the divisions, the Allies were totally unpractised in cross-attaching brigades in this manner. Altogether 25,000 Allied soldiers and 95 guns were assembled for an attack.
Hamilton wanted to attack at 5am, but due to severe shortages of officers Hunter-Weston convinced him to wait until full daylight. Hunter-Weston was in overall command, as Hamilton remained at sea, and his plan comprised a straightforward attack. At 11am on 6 May began what became known as the Second Battle of Krithia, with the launching of the Allied assault on the Turkish lines. Hundreds of men were killed attempting to cross no man’s land, but some made it into the Turkish trenches. The battle raged for two days. Hamilton finally came ashore, but his presence made no difference as the Allies made their last attack on 8 May. Although the British were short of artillery shells the French had plenty, and the field artillery barrages were the heaviest yet seen on the peninsula. Unfortunately, the artillery was unable to knock out the Turkish machine gunners. Altogether, Hunter-Weston’s men advanced 600m (656 yards) in some places but at a cost of over 6000 casualties.
In the meantime, Ottoman attacks were launched by the newly arrived 2nd Division. Esat Pasha launched a night attack again on 18 May; he was confident of success because he had numerical superiority at the point of attack using two fresh and highly regarded Turkish infantry divisions (the 3rd Division also participated). However, the Australians and the New Zealanders were warned by aerial reconnaissance, and by the observation of preparations in the enemy trenches. The Turks went over the top at 3am into withering fire, taking over 13,000 casualties, including 3000 killed; the 2nd Division alone lost over 9000 men. For the first and only time in the Gallipoli campaign, the local British commander asked for and received permission for a Red Cross-supervised truce in which to bury the ANZAC dead. Liman von Sanders agreed, and on 23 May both sides suspended hostilities.
On 24 May Hamilton organized his army at Cape Helles into VIII Corps, commanded by Hunter-Weston – a sound decision, given that Hunter-Weston had laboured under divisional and de facto corps command for almost a month. On 4 June the Allies again took to the offensive in the Third Battle of Krithia, sending in both the British and French corps, with a rifle strength of some 30,000 men. They repeated their frontal daylight attack, with some variants such as more artillery and an armoured car squadron. In the enemy trenches lay the Ottoman 9th and 12th divisions, which were well wired in and had constructed strongpoints for their machine guns. The attack began with a combined naval and artillery bombardment from 8am. The 20,000 men in the Allied first wave attacked at 11.20am. Within 15 minutes the British were in the frontline enemy trenches. Most of the attacks penetrated 200–450m (218–492 yards) into the Turkish defences and the farthest advanced about a kilometre. Hamilton was ashore to watch the battle, and was later criticized for failing to prompt Hunter-Weston to commit his large reserve (18 battalions) at the decisive moment. This gave the Ottomans a momentary opportunity to launch counterattacks, which they did. These blunted the penetrations, and the attacking troops were held in check. Tired and disorganized, the Allies seemed to become bogged down. The Turks then began to wipe out any isolated pockets of Allied men. All Allied attacks were finally repulsed and the front stabilized about 8pm. The Turks estimated that the British suffered 4500 casualties and the French another 2000 on that day. Expecting the British attacks to continue, two Ottoman divisions moved into staging areas behind the lines in readiness for a massive counterattack in the event of an Allied breakthrough. At the day’s end the survivors mostly returned to their trenches, leaving the front relatively unchanged.
These British soldiers have the look of veterans who have served on the front. Unlike in France, conditions at Gallipoli in the summer tended to be dry and hot. Water was a critical factor in planning operations in such an environment.
The battles for control of Krithia. Determined to reach the high ground, the Allies mounted a joint British and French offensive. This failed in the face of well-entrenched and determined Ottoman defenders.
The early phases of the fighting on the peninsula were intense, but were characterized on the Turkish side by massed rifle fire, bayonet assaults and sniping rather than by machine-gun fire or artillery attacks. Indeed, the Ottoman Army was very short of shells for all of its artillery (it had gone to war with stocks of about 500 shells per gun, while the Allies went to war with about three times that number). Moreover, shells for the most useful category of artillery used in trench warfare – howitzers and mortars (because of their high arcing trajectories) – were in critically short supply. In fact, in these two important categories the Turks only fired 30,000 shells in the first 30 days of fighting (a tiny fraction of a single day’s shooting in France). The British and French also experienced shortages of shells, especially high-explosive ones, but could call on the guns of the Royal Navy for naval gunfire support.
An Australian recruitment poster, May 1915.
Further attempts were made to break the deadlock, but neither side made any progress. The French conducted a well prepared attack on 21 June, lavishly expending some 30,000 artillery and mortar shells. It was locally successful, securing a piece of high ground that commanded their positions. While they lost several thousand men, the artillery fire was particularly devastating to the Turks, who suffered some 6000 casualties. Later in the month, the British attempted a similar offensive on 28 June using the newly arrived 52nd Division, aimed at seizing the enemy positions on Gully Spur; in the process they expended about 12,000 rounds of precious ammunition focused on the attack frontage. The fighting in Gully Ravine was bitter and lasted several days, after which the British attack eventually stalled. The Turks lost fewer men in this battle.
HMS Majestic of the Royal Navy, sunk by the German submarine U21 off the Dardanelles on 27 May 1915. For most of the campaign, the Royal Navy employed similar pre-Dreadnought battleships for naval gunfire support. Armed with four 12in guns, these ships were poorly protected and sank easily when torpedoed or mined.
French artillery firing at Turkish positions. The French Corps at Gallipoli was more lavishly equipped with artillery than its British counterpart, and so were frequently called upon to reinforce the British with artillery support.
Neither the Allies nor the Turks were able to break the deadlock at the tactical level. In Constantinople, Enver continued to repeat his call for continued Turkish offensives against the two Allied beachheads. Many of the Fifth Army’s infantry divisions had been depleted to regimental strength by months of continuous combat. As a result, the Ottoman Army sent a steady stream of replacements. The continuing battles absorbed large quantities of available Turkish resources, and Liman von Sanders now commanded a total of 16 Turkish infantry divisions. In addition to his original six divisions, the 12th, 15th and 16th divisions arrived in May, with the 1st, 4th and 6th divisions following in June, and V Corps with the 13th and 14th divisions and XIV Corps with the 8th and 10th divisions in July. At the end of July 1915, Liman von Sanders had about 250,000 men under his command (of which some 120,000 were infantrymen). However, the Turks had become aware of a second Allied landing force assembling on the island of Lemnos, preventing Fifth Army from employing all of these forces on the front lines.
Indeed, the British were building up their army in the Aegean as well. The 52nd Division arrived in June. This gave Hamilton a total of eight divisions (and some independent Indian brigades), which seemed to put him at a severe numerical disadvantage. However, British divisions contained 12 infantry battalions (the Royal Naval Division being a notable exception with nine), while the triangular Turkish divisions contained nine infantry battalions. Therefore, Hamilton’s army contained the equivalent of 11 Turkish divisions. Moreover, Liman von Sanders had to guard the long, vulnerable coastlines of Asia and the Gulf of Saros, an effort that absorbed some five divisions. In fact, on the front lines at Anzac Beach and Helles the opposing armies were surprisingly well balanced.
One aspect of study that is worthy of note is the evolution of aerial operations in the Middle East.While both the Turks and the Allies deployed aircraft in the Caucasus, Mesopotamia and the Sinai in the first two years of the war, air operations in those locations were sporadic and contributed little to the overall ground war (in fact the Turks had used aircraft in military operations as early as 1912 in Libya against the Italians). The Gallipoli campaign, however, saw the beginning of effective Middle Eastern air operations.
The British air effort was two fold, involving military and naval air assets. Royal Flying Corps (RFC) squadrons, based on the islands at the mouth of the Dardanelles, flew reconnaissance and artillery spotting missions over the peninsula; in contrast to the Western Front, fighter and bomber operations were rare. The Royal Navy sent HMS Ben-My-Chree, a converted civilian steamer that carried half a dozen seaplanes, to the Mediterranean. Like the RFC squadrons, these aircraft were used primarily for reconnaissance and naval gunfire spotting. However, on 12 August 1915, Flight Commander C.H.K. Edmonds, flying a Short 184 seaplane, made the first successful aerial torpedo attack in aviation history – although it happened to be on a beached Turkish ship previously torpedoed by a British submarine.
The air war over Gallipoli consisted mostly of reconnaissance and photographic missions, conducted by aircraft such as these Short seaplanes. As a result contact between fighter planes was minimal and no ‘aces’ emerged from the campaign.
The Turks also sent squadrons to the Gallipoli Peninsula. Of seven operational flying squadrons in the Ottoman air service in 1915, two (Nos. 1 and 6) flew in support of Liman von Sanders’s Fifth Army. These aircraft performed reconnaissance missions but most importantly flew routine missions over the British bases on the islands of Lemnos and Imroz. This kept Liman von Sanders up to date on enemy preparations and concentrations. The Turks were short of trained military pilots and integrated German aviators and even Ottoman civilian pilots into their squadrons.
In early June 1915, the British Government formed the Dardanelles Committee, composed of Asquith, Grey, Lloyd George, Churchill, Kitchener, Balfour, Lord Curzon and five other distinguished men. Their charge was to determine the future course of action that best suited Britain’s war effort. Their options ranged from reinforcing Hamilton to abandoning the entire endeavour. The committee met amidst a level of great popular enthusiasm for the campaign, which had captured the public imagination in Great Britain and Australia. They decided to send large reinforcements in an attempt to settle the issue quickly. By 5 July, the Dardanelles Committee had assembled five additional divisions and a unique fleet of monitors and cruisers with special ‘bulges’ to support the additional land forces. The ships were perfect for the waters around the peninsula, being of shallow draft and heavily armoured; they had been designed for operations in the Baltic that had been cancelled. Further divisions of dismounted Australian light horsemen would be sent later.
In the meantime, the Allied high command learnt of a significant Ottoman weakness on the northern flank of the Anzac beachhead, via reconnaissance conducted in late May by New Zealanders who had nearly reached the summit of Chunuk Bair. Additionally, New Zealanders landed to the north and reported that the Salt Lake was passable and undefended. In turn, Birdwood, began to draw up plans for a major offensive that would swing to the north via Chunuk Bair and envelop the Turks. This would then break the deadlock and open the way to the straits. He asked Hamilton to consider the plan and to support it with reinforcements. Hamilton and his staff ignored this opportunity by reinforcing Hunter-Weston instead, who continued the fruitless attacks at Cape Helles in June. Thereafter, Hamilton moved to endorse the plan, which would be executed in July. However, when word arrived from the Dardanelles Committee that sizeable reinforcements were being sent, he decided to delay the operation until early August 1915. The immediate tactical problem became one of where to put the 60,000-plus troops of the incoming divisions, as the Anzac beachhead was already packed with troops. With this in mind, Hamilton’s staff began to explore options that ranged from more attacks at Helles to operations in Asia. In the end, conversations between Hamilton, de Robeck and Roger Keyes convinced Hamilton of the feasibility of landing an army corps in Suvla Bay. Planning now gathered a momentum of its own as the MEF began working on a major offensive that would redefine the entire campaign.
General Aylmer Hunter-Weston with staff officers in the communication trench approach to the Staff Headquarters in the Gallipoli Peninsula.