Gallipoli Campaign (1915-1916): Allied Failure at the Dardanelles

The Gallipoli campaign was the Allied attempt in 1915 to force the Dardanelles strait and knock the Ottoman Empire out of the First World War. It began with a naval attack in February and March 1915, continued with landings on the Gallipoli peninsula on 25 April, and ended with the evacuation of the last Allied troops on 9 January 1916. The campaign cost hundreds of thousands of casualties, shaped the national identities of Australia, New Zealand and Turkey, and launched the career of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.

Background: why the Dardanelles?

The Ottoman Empire entered the war on the side of Germany in late October 1914, when its fleet bombarded Russian Black Sea ports. Britain, France and Russia declared war in early November. The Ottomans now controlled the Dardanelles, a narrow strait about 60 kilometres long that links the Aegean Sea with the Sea of Marmara and Constantinople (Istanbul).

By early 1915 the Western Front had settled into trench deadlock. Some British leaders, above all Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, argued for a strike elsewhere. A fleet that forced the Dardanelles could threaten Constantinople, perhaps drive the Ottomans out of the war, open a supply route to Russia and encourage neutral Balkan states such as Bulgaria, Greece and Romania to join the Allies. In January 1915 Russia also asked for a diversion to relieve Ottoman pressure in the Caucasus.

The naval attack

British and French warships began bombarding the outer forts at the entrance to the strait on 19 February 1915. Progress was slow. Mobile Ottoman howitzers harassed the minesweepers, which were converted fishing trawlers with civilian crews, and the minefields further up the strait remained largely intact.

On 18 March 1915 the Allied fleet under Vice-Admiral John de Robeck made a major attempt to break through the Narrows. It ran into a line of mines laid secretly by the small Ottoman minelayer Nusret on 8 March, in a bay the Allies thought was clear. The French battleship Bouvet sank within minutes with heavy loss of life, and the British battleships Irresistible and Ocean were also lost. The battlecruiser Inflexible and two French battleships were badly damaged. De Robeck called off the attack, and the commanders decided that troops would have to take the peninsula first.

The landings of 25 April 1915

The Mediterranean Expeditionary Force under General Sir Ian Hamilton needed five weeks to assemble, giving the Ottomans time to prepare. The German general Otto Liman von Sanders took command of the Ottoman Fifth Army defending the peninsula and spread his forces to cover the likely landing places.

At dawn on 25 April the Allies landed at several points. The British 29th Division came ashore at five beaches around Cape Helles, the southern tip of the peninsula. At V Beach the converted collier River Clyde was run aground to land troops, but men leaving the ship were cut down by machine-gun fire. At W Beach the Lancashire Fusiliers suffered heavily but secured the beach; six Victoria Crosses were later awarded to the battalion for that morning. French troops made a temporary diversionary landing at Kum Kale on the Asian shore.

Further north, the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) under Lieutenant General William Birdwood landed at a small cove north of Gaba Tepe, soon known as Anzac Cove. The troops found themselves facing steep ridges and gullies. Small parties pushed inland towards the heights of Sari Bair, but they were stopped by Ottoman counter-attacks.

Mustafa Kemal and the Ottoman defence

The key Ottoman commander that day was Lieutenant Colonel Mustafa Kemal, in charge of the 19th Division held in reserve near the landing area. On his own initiative he led troops, including the 57th Infantry Regiment, to the high ground and counter-attacked. The 57th Regiment was almost destroyed in the fighting; Kemal is widely reported to have told his men that he was ordering them not to attack but to die, so that others could take their place.

The Allies held only shallow beachheads. At Helles, three battles for the village of Krithia and the hill of Achi Baba between April and June failed with heavy losses. At Anzac, a massive Ottoman attack on 19 May was repulsed with about 10,000 Ottoman casualties. On 24 May a truce was arranged so that both sides could bury their dead lying between the trenches.

The August offensive

In early August Hamilton launched a new offensive to break the deadlock. On the night of 6-7 August fresh British divisions landed at Suvla Bay, north of Anzac, while the Anzac forces attacked the Sari Bair range.

Australian infantry captured the Ottoman trenches at Lone Pine in fierce fighting from 6 August, at a cost of more than 2,000 Australian casualties. At the Nek on 7 August, dismounted Australian Light Horsemen charged across a narrow ridge and were shot down in waves. New Zealand troops, notably the Wellington Battalion, reached the summit of Chunuk Bair on 8 August, with British and Gurkha troops attacking nearby. On 10 August an Ottoman counter-attack led by Mustafa Kemal drove them off the heights.

At Suvla the landing met little opposition at first, but delays under the elderly General Sir Frederick Stopford let Ottoman reinforcements occupy the surrounding hills. By the end of August the offensive had failed everywhere.

Disease, winter and evacuation

Through the summer, disease caused more casualties than combat. Heat, flies, poor water and unburied bodies spread dysentery and enteric fever, and a large share of Allied soldiers were evacuated sick. In late November a great storm and blizzard flooded trenches, and many men suffered frostbite or drowned.

Hamilton was recalled in October 1915 and replaced by General Sir Charles Monro, who recommended evacuation. Lord Kitchener, the Secretary of State for War, visited in November and agreed. The withdrawals from Anzac and Suvla were completed by 20 December 1915 and from Helles by 9 January 1916. In contrast to the rest of the campaign, the evacuation was a success: tens of thousands of men left in secret with very few casualties.

Consequences

The failure had major political effects in Britain. Admiral John Fisher, the First Sea Lord, resigned in May 1915 in protest at the drain of ships to the Dardanelles. The resulting crisis forced Prime Minister H. H. Asquith to form a coalition government, and Churchill was removed from the Admiralty. A Dardanelles Commission investigated the campaign in 1916-1917 and criticised its planning.

For the Ottoman Empire, Gallipoli was a major defensive victory that kept the strait closed and isolated Russia from its allies. The empire went on to fight in Mesopotamia, including the siege of Kut, and in Palestine. During the same period, beginning with arrests in Constantinople on 24 April 1915, the eve of the landings, the Ottoman government carried out the Armenian Genocide.

Mustafa Kemal emerged as a national hero. He later led the Turkish War of Independence and became the first president of the Republic of Turkey in 1923.

By the numbers

Exact figures differ between official histories, and Ottoman losses in particular are uncertain.

Myths and facts

Myth: Gallipoli was mainly an Australian and New Zealand campaign. The Anzacs played a central role, but British troops formed the largest part of the Allied force and suffered the most deaths. France, British India and Newfoundland also sent troops.

Myth: British officers sent Anzacs to die while British soldiers stayed safe. British units fought and died in large numbers at Helles, Suvla and Sari Bair. Allied command failures were real, but they affected all nationalities.

Disputed: Atatürk’s 1934 tribute. Words of reconciliation addressed to the mothers of fallen Allied soldiers are inscribed on memorials at Anzac Cove and in Australia and attributed to Atatürk in 1934. Historians have questioned whether he actually wrote or spoke this text, although it reflects the spirit of later Turkish-Anzac remembrance.

Timeline

• 1915, 19 February: Allied warships begin bombarding the Dardanelles forts.
• 1915, 18 March: The main naval attack fails after three battleships are sunk by mines.
• 1915, 25 April: Allied landings at Cape Helles and Anzac Cove; French landing at Kum Kale.
• 1915, 19 May: A major Ottoman attack at Anzac is repulsed.
• 1915, 6-10 August: The August offensive: Suvla landing, Lone Pine, the Nek and Chunuk Bair.
• 1915, October: Hamilton is replaced by Charles Monro.
• 1915, 20 December: Evacuation of Anzac and Suvla completed.
• 1916, 9 January: The last Allied troops leave Cape Helles.

Legacy

In Australia and New Zealand, Gallipoli became a founding story of nationhood. Anzac Day, 25 April, is a national day of remembrance in both countries, and thousands of people travel to the dawn service at Anzac Cove. In Turkey, the victory at Çanakkale, as the battles are known there, is commemorated on 18 March and is closely tied to the memory of Atatürk.

The peninsula today is a historical national park with Allied cemeteries maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission alongside Turkish memorials. Military planners also studied the campaign closely; its failures influenced the development of amphibious warfare doctrine in the interwar years.

Why it matters

Gallipoli was one of the boldest strategic gambles of the First World War, and one of its costliest failures. It weakened Russia, strengthened the Ottoman war effort, ended careers in London, and left a lasting imprint on the identities of Australia, New Zealand and modern Turkey.