On April 25, 1915, 100 years ago this week, British and commonwealth military units landed at various beaches on the Gallipoli Peninsula. It was hoped that the attack against the Ottoman empire would ultimately succeed in capturing Constantinople, though the offensive soon bogged down and proved one of Britain's greatest fiascos of World War I.
The First World War began in late July 1914, and after dramatic events in August and September, it settled down into static trench warfare. From the English Channel to the Swiss border, massive systems of fortified trenches appeared, ensuring that any attack against either side would end in bloody futility. Heavy artillery, machine guns, barbed wire and improved rifles — the full fruits of the industrial revolution — made this conflict unlike any other in world history.
Two alliances dominated the conflict: the Allied Powers, including Britain, France and Russia; and the Central Powers, including Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman empire. Mired in stalemate and unable to turn the flank of the German lines in northern France and Belgium, the British considered a bold strategy: why not attempt to turn the flank of Europe itself by using sea power to attack and conquer Constantinople, the capital of the Ottoman empire? Such a blow would have devastating consequences for the Central Powers' war effort.
The scheme was largely the brain child of Britain's First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill. Churchill, who throughout his long and illustrious career never failed to conceive of dramatic military adventures, galvanized the British admiralty, and together with the First Sea Lord, Jackie Fisher, planned a campaign that he believed would end in a major victory.
To the south of Constantinople, the Sea of Marmara narrows into the Dardanelles Strait, which allows access to the Aegean Sea. While Asia Minor flanks the strait to the east, the western border of the strait is the Gallipoli Peninsula, itself a long, narrow strip of land jutting out 52 miles into the Aegean. Since antiquity, the area had played an important strategic role, dominating not only military considerations, but also trade with Crimea through the Black Sea.
The British had blockaded the strait since the Ottoman declaration of war in November 1914. Originally, British naval strategists believed that the Royal Navy was strong enough to send a fleet of ships through the strait to bombard Constantinople. Several attempts were made to force the strait, including the disastrous operation of March 18, 1915, which saw three battleships sunk by mines and others coming under heavy fire from Turkish guns.
The high cost of March 18 prompted Churchill and other naval planners to consider a new strategy in order to breach the strait. A force could be landed on the Gallipoli Peninsula, supported by the navy's heavy guns, capture key Turkish forts, secure the strait, and advance on Constantinople. The navy now shifted from the focus of the campaign to a supporting role for the army. The problem, of course, was that the Turks could easily anticipate the British strategy, and already their German allies were sending help. Indeed, the German Gen. Liman von Sanders was charged with preparing the area's defenses.
Churchill later wrote in his memoirs of the conflict, “The World Crisis”: “The operations which were now to take place presented to both sides the most incalculable and uncertain problems of war. To land a large army in the face of a long-warned and carefully prepared defense by brave troops and modern weapons was to attempt what had never yet been dared and what might well prove impossible. On the other hand, the mysterious mobility of amphibious power imposed equal perils and embarrassments upon the defenders.”
The British began assembling a force in Egypt of roughly 90,000 men. While the British and French supplied army units for the assault, the bulk of the force came from Australia and New Zealand. Six different beaches were targeted, but the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps was charged with perhaps the most dangerous assignment, the landing at Gaba Tepe on the western shore of the peninsula.
After much preparation, and under the overall command of Gen. Sir Ian Hamilton, the Allies launched their assault on the peninsula on April 25. In the book, “Castles of Steel: Britain, Germany, and the Winning of the Great War at Sea,” historian Robert K. Massie wrote:
“Then came the opening thunderclap of the naval bombardment. The landings began at 5:30 a.m. and the men came ashore onto beaches tangled with barbed wire, swept by machine guns, and blasted by howitzers. Under a tempest of fire, boats were shattered and sank; others, filled with dead and dying, drifted away. Men clambered out of the boats, floundered up to their shoulders in the water, and were cut down, screaming. Others stepped into water too deep for them, and weighed down by their equipment, drowned unnoticed. Bodies floated out to sea or lay a few feet from shore, lapped by wavelets.”
The entrenched Turkish forces proved too weak to repel the invasion, though they did succeed in making the landing a costly affair for the Allies. As night descended over the beaches, 36,000 British, Indian, French, Australian and New Zealand troops had landed. There were 5,000 casualties. The Turks had also succeeded in keeping the landing forces from reaching their first day's objective. The Anzac forces at Gaba Tepe failed to take the strategic positions of Chunuk Bair and Sari Bair. The British and Indian forces that landed at Cape Helles failed to capture the heights of Achi Baba, which would have allowed British artillery unobstructed fields of fire over most of the southern peninsula.
The same stalemate that locked the British, French and German armies in France now descended upon Gallipoli. In the coming weeks and months, both sides would initiate fatal attacks and suffer appalling casualties. Several major battles ensued, culminating in a large British push in August that failed to make headway. Meanwhile, the casualties continued to pile up. Over the course of the next few months, the Allies faced the problem of evacuating a force that was no longer strong enough to challenge the German-backed Turks. In January 1916, the Allies finally abandoned the operation completely.
The failure of the operation also had profound political repercussions in London. Fisher, who's support for the Gallipoli landings had always been lukewarm at best, took issue with Churchill's direction of the campaign and resigned from the government only a few weeks after the initial landings. This move effectively brought down the Liberal government of Prime Minister H.H. Asquith in May, and the creation of a coalition government. Suffering a demotion in the new government, Churchill resigned several months later and then served in the trenches in France. For the rest of his life, Churchill defended his handling of the Dardanelles campaign.
So many Australian and New Zealand forces were lost in the campaign (around 10,000 dead, 25,000 wounded), that those two nations began the observance of Anzac Day, celebrated every April 25. Both the Allies collectively and their Ottoman opponents each lost roughly 57,000 men killed, and well over 100,000 each wounded. The failure at Gallipoli, like so many other names from that conflict — Verdun, the Somme, Ypres — has come to symbolize the horrors of 20th century warfare.
Cody K. Carlson holds a master's in history from the University of Utah and teaches at Salt Lake Community College. An avid player of board games, he blogs at thediscriminatinggamer.com. Email: ckcarlson76@gmail.com