British battleship HMS Irresistible abandoned and sinking, having been shattered by explosion of floating mine in Dardanelles during attack on Narrows’ Forts, March 18, 1915 (Royal Navy/Library of Congress) The Gallipoli Campaign Learning from a Mismatch of Strategic Ends and Means By Raymond Adams orld War I began on July 28, and relatively inexpensive in terms of tactics in response to new, highly de- 1914, 1 month after the assas- blood and treasure. Almost immediately, structive weapons, resulting in massive Wsination of Archduke Franz however, the combatants faced each other casualties. Rising calls from British po- Ferdinand, heir-apparent to the Austro- in a long line of static defensive trenches. litical leaders, the media, and the public Hungarian throne.1 Most Europeans The Western Front quickly became a demanded action to break the stalemate. expected the conflict to be short—“over killing ground of unprecedented violence British strategists responded by opening by Christmas” was a common refrain— in human history: combined British, a new front in the east with two strategic French, and German casualties totaled objectives: drive Turkey out of the war 2,057,621 by January 1915.2 by attacking Constantinople, and open 3 Lieutenant Colonel Raymond Adams, USMCR, is a The character of war had changed. a route to beleaguered ally Russia. The student at the National War College. Armies had not changed their battlefield decision to open a second front in the 96 Recall / The Gallipoli Campaign JFQ 79, 4th Quarter 2015 east in 1915 ultimately failed to achieve military officers to plan for the seizure Flawed Assumptions Britain’s strategic objectives during the of the Gallipoli Peninsula, “with a view Underpinning the first full year of World War I. British to admitting a British Fleet to the Sea British Strategy leaders pursued short-term, politically of Marmara” and eventually knocking The British designed their Dardanelles expedient military objectives in Turkey Turkey out of the war.9 Representatives plan on a series of faulty assumptions. that were both ancillary to their military of the War Office and the Admiralty Political leaders and military planners expertise and contrary to achieving the met and concluded that an attack on the alike assumed the Turks were deficient overall ends of winning the war by defeat- Gallipoli Peninsula was not a militarily in martial skill, grit, and determina- ing Germany. This article examines the feasible operation.10 Director of Military tion.19 Churchill displayed unbridled disastrous results of the attempt to open a Operations Major General Charles confidence in the ability of naval bom- second front and the disconnect between Callwell11 presciently observed that a bardment to destroy land targets.20 Allied strategic ends and means. campaign in Gallipoli was “likely to prove British war planners assumed that the an extremely difficult operation of war.”12 battle fleet would easily breach the Genesis of the He proffered that an operation in the enemy’s coastal defenses, float directly Dardanelles Decision Dardanelles would require a force of not to Constantinople, and seize the straits With combat in France and Belgium less than 60,000, with strong siege artil- without requiring a landing force. characterized by hopeless direct assaults lery, echeloned into Turkey in two large Kitchener assumed that, once through on entrenched enemy positions, British waves.13 Kitchener also disagreed with the straits, with naval guns pointing strategists began planning for a new opening a second front, but for different at Constantinople, the fleet would direction.4 First Lord of the Admi- reasons. He was reluctant to divert troops “compel Turkey’s capitulation, secure ralty Winston Churchill contemplated from the continent, which he viewed as a supply route to hard-pressed Russia, amphibious operations in the North Sea the primary focus of effort for the British. and inspire the Balkan states to join to increase pressure on Germany. He A dichotomy of opinion thus emerged: the Allied war effort and eventually to proposed a joint Anglo-French amphib- the politicians advocated for a second front attack Austro-Hungary, thereby pressur- ious assault along the Belgian coast on the Gallipoli Peninsula, while senior ing Germany.”21 designed to outflank German positions military officers argued against interven- Kitchener further assumed that on the Western Front, liberate the port tion in Turkey.14 The debate continued once news of the arrival of the British of Zeebrugge, and prevent Germany into winter. The dynamic changed on fleet reached Constantinople, the entire from using Zeebrugge and Ostende as January 1, 1915, when Russia formally Turkish army in Thrace would retreat, submarine bases.5 Ultimately, the British requested a “naval or military demonstra- leaving Turkey to British control.22 Sir failed to convince the French to par- tion against the Turks to ease the pressure Edward Grey, Secretary of State for ticipate, effectively scuttling Churchill’s caused by the Turkish offensive driving Foreign Affairs, argued that once the fleet North Sea plan. through the Caucasus Mountains.”15 moved through the Dardanelles, “a coup British political and military leaders British decisionmakers debated the d’état would occur in Constantinople, next focused attention on Turkey and the Russian request and the larger issue of the whereby Turkey would abandon the possibility of military operations to seize future strategic direction of the war effort Central Powers and join the Entente.”23 the Dardanelles,6 attack Constantinople, during a series of War Council meetings in All of the foregoing assumptions proved and open a line of communication to early January.16 The council decided that false, and their cumulative effect fore- Russia. Secretary of the War Cabinet the British would continue to fight side ordained the Dardanelles operation to Maurice Hankey, Chancellor of the by side with France on the Western Front, disaster. Exchequer David Lloyd George, and and the Admiralty would, commencing in Churchill advocated military operations February 1915, prepare operations “to in- Naval Operations in against Turkey on the Gallipoli Peninsula.7 vade and take the Gallipoli Peninsula, with the Dardanelles They agreed that the Ottoman Empire Constantinople as its objective.”17 British naval forces shelled the forts was weak and that “Germany [could] per- Bureaucratic maneuvering and ne- at the entrance of the Dardanelles on haps be struck most effectively, and with gotiation were thus necessary to reach November 1, 1914, well before the the most lasting results on the peace of the a decision to launch the operation. The formal commencement of the Gallipoli world through her allies, and particularly next major task for senior British leaders campaign. The purpose of the attack through Turkey.”8 Thus, within weeks was designing the strategy to implement was more to punish Turkey for siding of the outbreak of war, British attention the War Council’s decisions. The final with the Triple Alliance than an attempt turned east. plan would call for a combined force of to secure the strait. The shelling had At the end of August 1914, Churchill six British and four French battleships, ac- a more pernicious effect, alerting the formally requested that Secretary of companied by a substantial naval escort, Turkish defenders that a future mili- State for War Field Marshal Herbert to push through the Dardanelles and tary operation in the Dardanelles by Kitchener organize a group of naval and fight to Constantinople.18 the British was likely. Mustafa Kamal JFQ 79, 4th Quarter 2015 Adams 97 force of British, Australian, New Zea- lander, and French troops. Hamilton faced a challenge of epic proportions. His task was to conduct the first opposed amphibious landing in an era of high-powered defensive weapons that included innovations such as the machine gun and highly accurate artillery firing a new generation of high explosives.30 At dawn on April 25, 1915, British, Dominion, and Allied forces waded ashore onto six landing beaches at Cape Helles.31 Amphibious operations contin- ued for 8 months, but the Allies never gained more than a foothold on the peninsula. The campaign to outflank the stalemate on the Western Front ironi- cally began to resemble the fighting in France and Belgium, although on a much smaller scale, with Hamilton committing his troops against an entrenched and forewarned foe at Gallipoli.32 Although Australian troops charging near Turkish trench, just before evacuation at Anzac, ca. 1915 (U.S. Kitchener and Hamilton recognized that National Archives and Records Administration) a central assumption about the Turks— that they were a second-rate fighting Attaturk, overall Turkish commander at Council to delay further naval action force that did not stand a chance against Gallipoli, and Otto Liman von Sanders, immediately. British arms—was clearly wrong, they did a German general and military advisor The council charted a new course not change course.33 In fairness to British to Turkey, focused on fortifying the and called for landing troops in a beach- military commanders, a major reason for Dardanelles after the British attack of hopping campaign from the Aegean to continuing the operation was political November 1.24 The Anglo-French naval the Sea of Marmara, eventually attacking expediency.34 David Fromkin observes, force attacked the Dardanelles in force Constantinople.29 However, 38 days “Constantinople and the Dardanelles,