Gallipoli 1915 E-Book

Peter Doyle

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 210

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

In a campaign part sponsored by First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill, the Battle of Gallipoli in 1915 remains one of the most resounding Allied defeats of the First World War, with both the Allied and Ottoman armies suffering in excess of 200,000 casualties. Despite this, many believed it would be a sure-fire success due to the preceding naval campaign, but increased losses at sea prompted the Allies to send in ground troops. Comprising a large ANZAC contingent on their first major operation, they were tasked with invading and eliminating the formidable Ottoman artillery. On 25 April 1915, they landed on five stretches of beach in open boats. The casualties from the first landing were horrific: of the first 200 men out of the boats, only twenty-one reached inland, the rest being mown down by Ottoman machine guns. Casualties only accelerated from there for both sides, until the Allies were forced to evacuate. Gallipoli 1915 takes you to the front line and beyond, ensuring that you will appreciate the ultimate sacrifice made by these brave soldiers.

Leseprobe

To the lads they left behind

CONTENTS

Title

Dedication

Acknowledgements

List of Illustrations

Introduction

Timeline

Historical Background

The Armies

The Ottoman Defenders

The Mediterranean Expeditionary Force (MEF)

The Days Before Battle

Ottoman Preparations

The Battlefield: What Actually Happened?

The Battle of the Beaches

The Battles for Krithia

Stalemate: Trench Warfare

The August Offensives

The Battle for Sari Bair

After the Battle

The Legacy

Orders of Battle

Further Reading

Copyright

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank a range of friends and colleagues who have helped inform my ideas on the Gallipoli campaign: Kenan Çelik, Peter Chasseaud, Ashley Ekins, Peter Hart, Savas Karaças, Bill Sellars and Nigel Steel – and to Chris Malone for the chance to explore my ideas during the making of the the TV documentary Battlefield Detectives: Gallipoli. I am grateful for the Trustees of the Imperial War Museum for granting me access to the material in their magnificent archive, and to the National Archives in Kew. The richness of the writing that surrounds the campaign should also be celebrated. Other than those I’ve taken or that are from my collection, the illustrations are gathered from the pictorial publications of the day, particularly important are The War Illustrated (Amalgamated Press) and The Illustrated War News. I am also grateful for access to the free online resources of the Great War Picture Archive, Wikimedia Commons and the Library of Congress. Gallipoli is a special place, both beautiful and tragic: I am glad that I have been able to share it with my fellow battlefield travellers, Julie and James.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

1The Balkan States 1912–13.

2Constantinople from the Bosphorus.

3Artillery forts either side of the Narrows.

4Forcing the Dardanelles: a contemporary postcard.

5Enver Pasha.

6Ottoman troops present arms.

7An Ottoman mountain gun battery in Gallipoli.

8General Liman von Sanders.

9‘Gallipoli Star’ – an Ottoman gallantry medal instigated in 1915.

10Colonel Mustafa Kemal in Gallipoli.

11Fully equipped Ottoman infantryman.

12Men of the 125th (Lancashire Fusiliers) Brigade arriving at Gallipoli.

13General Sir Ian Hamilton, Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force.

14A British 60 pounder howitzer taking part in the Third Battle of Krithia.

15British Soldier of the Army Service Corps wearing serge uniform and a Gor’blimey hat.

16Private Robert Wheatley of the 6th Yorkshire Regiment.

17Men of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps training at Giza.

18Australian Field battery in action at Gallipoli.

19The Gallipoli Star intended for all members of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, but was not awarded.

20General William Birdwood.

21The epitome of Anzac spirit; an Australian sergeant.

22French colonial troops.

23Medaille d’Orient.

24General Gourard, commander of the Corps Expeditionaire d’Orient.

25French infantryman carries a wounded comrade in Gallipoli.

26Map of the Gallipoli Peninsula, showing the main fortresses.

27The fleet steams into the Dardanelles.

28HMS Irresistible.

29Destroyed gun at Fort No. I (Etrugrul).

30Modern satellite view of the Dardanelles and the Gallipoli Peninsula.

31‘The Sphinx’.

32Achi Baba.

33The Helles Front, showing the main landing beaches.

34Major General Sir Aylmer Hunter-Weston.

35The assault on V Beach from the SS River Clyde.

36An analysis of V Beach.

37Captain Willis leads the Lancashire Fusiliers at W Beach.

38Map of the Anzac sector.

39Anzac Cove.

40Steele’s Post.

41HMS Majestic, sunk off Cape Helles.

42A charge by the Royal Naval Division,Third Battle of Krithia.

43Anzacs at work making jam tin bombs.

44Periscope rifle, one of many devices invented in Gallipoli.

45Monash Gully, the main transport corridor into the Anzac sector.

46Evacuation of sick and wounded on barges.

47Suvla Bay from Chunuk Bair.

48Map of Suvla Bay from Ian Hamilton’s Gallipoli Diary.

49A sniper is captured by the Anzacs.

50The 2nd Mounted Division advance across the Salt Lake.

51Map of the Assault on Sari Bair.

52Men of the 1st Australian Division at Lone Pine.

53The assault at the Nek.

54All that remains; ration tins at C Beach, Suvla Bay.

Front cover: Turkish soldiers firing from Halil Bey Hill toward Gelik Lake, courtesy of General Staff Archives, Ankara.

INTRODUCTION

When the moon shines bright on Charlie Chaplin,

He’s going balmy

To join the Army;

And his old baggy trousers want a-mending

Before they send him

To the Dardanelles

Gallipoli – almost 100 years on and the name of this ill-fated campaign still resonates. Historians are divided: was this brief campaign, fought from April 1915 to January 1916, doomed from the start, a hopeless endeavour that was guaranteed to do nothing other than preside over the tragic slaughter of its protagonists? Or was it a bold step, a masterful stroke of genius that was to become bogged down as momentum was lost and trench warfare took over? Certainly the German Commander, Liman von Sanders, believed it could have succeeded, but as the years have passed opinions have become more divided.

Forgotten, more often than not, is the fact that this was an Ottoman victory. And not just a victory by default, but a resounding victory that saw the Allies hemmed into three small fragments of the Peninsula, unable to breakout. With tenacious soldiery under skilful leadership (only a few of whom were German), intelligent use of terrain and husbanding of resources on home territory by the Ottoman forces, the Allies had little choice but to leave the Peninsula and depart, Constantinople never under threat. For these reasons, Çanakkale is rightly remembered in modern Turkey.

In recent years, Gallipoli has become a battleground of a new sort, a war of words between nationalities seeking to apportion blame for what was ultimately a failure. Recriminations commenced before the campaign was over; reputations were destroyed. Winston Churchill was to fall from grace, and would serve his own time on the Western Front as a battalion commander. General Sir Ian Hamilton, Commander-in-Chief of the military forces, an Edwardian gentleman and one of Britain’s most senior and experienced soldiers, would never again serve in a meaningful military capacity. Like Vimy Ridge for the Canadians, Gallipoli has also become associated with the birth of nationhood – with the emergence of Australia and New Zealand from behind the skirts of the mother country, and of the rising of the new nation of Turkey from the burning embers of the Ottoman Empire.

Over the last 25 years there has been an increase in the numbers of people visiting Gallipoli. For Turks, the campaign was a well-executed defence of their homeland, and this has led to an increased memorialisation of the Peninsula that has proceeded apace – in line, in fact, with the increased interest in attending the Dawn Service, predominantly a remembrance of the landings at Anzac Cove on 25 April 1915. Every year, thousands of people from Australia and New Zealand flock to the small cove that was officially named Anzac by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, former military commander and future father of his new country. This has created tensions, as the great mass of people struggle with the limited facilities, unintentionally causing decay and erosion of the fragile surfaces, and leading, controversially, to a new roadway that cut through the fragile battlefield terrain, exposing, according to some sources, the bleached white bones of supposed soldiers’ remains. Perhaps understandably, each new generation sees the campaign as a struggle of ANZAC soldiers (and therein, mostly Australians) with the Turks, led hopelessly by ineffectual British generals. As with all military history, the truth is somewhat more complex.

The campaign at Gallipoli in 1915 was short – operated over just eight months – and was exceptionally bloody. Casualties were high, as were deaths and debilitating illnesses from disease and poor hygiene. Logistically difficult and poorly planned, Gallipolli was to serve as a perfect example of how not to carry out an amphibious landing. Without Gallipoli the planning for the Normandy landings in 1944 would have been a lot more difficult, its lessons studied by military academies worldwide.

Contentious, very many books have been published that tread the well-worn path of discussing the campaign, considering its what-ifs, and drawing conclusions based on its stated aims. There have been accounts from each of the protagonists (though relatively little accessible work from the Ottoman side), from the soldiers themselves, and treatises that have examined the minutiae of the campaign from its mapping through to its medical preparations. There has been much original research and many new angles. This book is necessarily a summary of much of this scholarship, and is intended as a brief overview of some of the most important aspects. It is meant to act as a basic introduction to the campaign for a new audience. Though truly an all-arm combined amphibious operation – the largest such endeavour carried out at this point – the focus of the book is the military campaign, rather than the naval prelude.

Throughout this book, the spellings and names are as used by the Allies at the time; the terms ‘the Straits’ and ‘the Dardanelles’ are used interchangeably (the term Narrows restricted only to that point between Chanak – modern Çanakkale, and Maidos – modern Eceabat). I have used the term ‘Allies’ to encompass both what are strictly the ‘Entente’ Powers (Britain, France and Russia), and also the Imperial forces of France and Britain – from Senegal, Australia, New Zealand, India – and, at its later stage, Newfoundland.

TIMELINE

1914

2 August

Ottoman ships Sultan Osman and Reshadieh requisitioned by British Government

10 August

German ships Goeben and Breslau enter Dardanelles

28 October

German Admiral Souchon and the Ottoman Fleet (including the Goeben and Breslau) bombards Odessa, Sebastopol and Feodosia

2 November

Russia declares war on the Ottomans

3 November

British naval squadron bombards outer Dardanelles forts

6 November

Britain declares war on the Ottoman Empire

13 December

Submarine B11, commanded by Lieutenant Holbrook, sinks Ottoman battleship Mesudiye in the Dardanelles

1915

13 January

British War Council approves naval operation to ‘Force the Dardanelles’

19 February

Allied bombardment of outer defences commences, battleships Cornwallis, Vengeance and the French battleship Suffren

25 February

Second naval attack on the Dardanelles defences

13 March

General Sir Ian Hamilton appointed to command the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force (MEF)

13 March

Commodore Roger Keyes leads night minesweeping operation

16 March

Admiral Carden resigns, Vice-Admiral de Robeck takes charge of naval operations

18 March

Naval attempt to force the Dardanelles fails, with the loss of three battleships sunk by mines, and four others badly damaged

22 March

Decision taken to land at Dardanelles by Hamilton and de Robeck

25 April

Battles of the Beaches commence; British 29th Division at Cape Helles, Anzac Corps at Ari Burnu, French Corps Expeditionaire d’Orient at Kum Kale

27 April

Ottomans counterattack in Anzac sector

28 April

First Battle of Krithia: 3,000 British and French casualties

6–8 May

Second Battle of Krithia commences, 42nd East Lancashire Division lands

12–13 May

Australian Light Horse Brigade and New Zealand Mounted Rifles Brigade land at Anzac Beach as reinforcements

18 May

Large Ottoman attack at Anzac Beach: 10,000 Ottoman casualties

4 June

Third Battle of Krithia

28 June– 5 July

Battle of Gully Ravine

12 July

British 52nd (Lowland) Division and Royal Naval Division (RND) attack at Achi Baba Nullah

6 August

Major Allied offensive commences

6 August

Suvla Bay landings commence, General Frederick Stopford commanding

6–12 August

Battle of Lone Pine by Australian 1st Division

6–13 August

Battle of the Vineyard (Helles sector), by British 29th Division

7 August

Attack of the 3rd Light Horse at the Nek with heavy losses

8–10 August

Battle of Chunuk Bair, attack by New Zealand and British forces repulsed by Mustafa Kemal

15 August

General Sir Frederick Stopford replaced as commander of IX Corps

21–29 August

Battle of Hill 60, Suvla sector

19 September

1st Newfoundland Regiment arrives as reinforcements, to serve in the 29th Division

15 October

General Hamilton relieved of command

28 October

General Sir Charles Monro assumes command of the MEF

15 November

Field Marshal Kitchener visits Gallipoli, recommending evacuation seven days later

27 November

Blizzard conditions on the Peninsula

7 December

Evacuation of Anzac and Suvla ordered

19–20 December

Anzac sector and Suvla Bay evacuated

28 December

Evacuation of Helles sector ordered

1916

7 January

Ottoman assault along Gully Spur, Helles sector

8–9 January

Cape Helles evacuated

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The Balkans had seen an almost constant state of unrest since the end of the Crimean War. The volatility of the region was in part due to the parlous state of two of the oldest empires, the Austro-Hungarian Empire of the Hapsburgs and the Ottoman Empire, the ‘Sick Old Man of Europe’. Riven by ethnic differences and the birth of new national awareness, the Balkan states turned inwards on each other in 1912–13, creating a powder keg that would ultimately lead to the outbreak of the First World War almost exactly a year later, and a headlong rush into conflict. Within weeks of the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914, the major European powers were at each other’s throats, with, according to British Foreign Minister Sir Edward Grey, ‘the lights going out all over Europe’.

For the Ottoman Empire, the prospect of another war after those fought in 1912–13 was an unpalatable one. Though the Young Turks who had overthrown the Sultan in 1909 had set about modernising the country and the military, it had been inadequate. The Ottomans had been roundly beaten in the Balkan Wars, its European possessions stripped bare to a small component of Thrace and that sliver of land that was to form the northern shore of the Dardanelles, the ancient Hellespont that had fascinated classicists for decades.

1. The Balkan States. The Balkan Wars of 1912–13 were to have devastating results for the Ottomans, already under pressure in North Africa. After losing the First Balkan War, most of the Ottoman territory in Europe would be severely curtailed.

The Dardanelles, a narrow passageway between European and Asian Turkey, is a tightly constrained waterway that was created by geological faulting over millennia. This strategic waterway connects the Aegean Sea and Mediterranean with the Sea of Marmara and ultimately, through the Bosphorus, to the Black Sea, and had been a point of interest to military minds for centuries. Constantinople, (now the modern city of Istanbul), sits astride the Bosphorus and guards the entrance to the Black Sea, thereby controlling entry to the winter ports of Russia. Because of this and a myriad of other reasons, Constantinople had been coveted for centuries, particularly by the old enemies of Greece and Russia.

In European Turkey, the shores of the Dardanelles are guarded by the Gallipoli Peninsula, a narrow finger of land named after its principal settlement (Gelibolu, or Gallipoli). Opposing this is the Asiatic shore, the Aegean expression of the great Anatolian Peninsula, the greater part of modern Turkey, and the heart of the ailing Ottoman Empire in 1915. Fortified for centuries, the idea of squeezing a fleet of ships between the beetling brows of the shores of the Dardanelles had exercised the mind of the military of many nations for centuries, particularly so in the complex diplomacies of two centuries before the Gallipoli landings of 1915.

THE YOUNG TURKS

At the close of the nineteenth century, the Young Turks had grown as a movement from groups of dissident university students to a national movement – the Committee of Union and Progress, committed to a regime in which the Sultanate was a constitutional monarchy. In 1907, militant members of the Ottoman Freedom Society raised by Mehmet Talat worked under the umbrella of the CUP. The militant nationalists would become powerful; one of them, Ismal Enver, became Secretary of State for War, and would face significant challenges in 1914–15; another was Mustafa Kemal.

2. Constantinople from the Bosphorus; Allied hopes were pinned on the Ottoman capital faltering if the fleet got through the Straits.

When war with Germany was declared on 4 August 1914, the Ottoman Empire ostensibly remained neutral; yet already the Ottomans had signed a treaty with Germany that would bind them into the Central Powers. For the Kaiser, the possibility of a Greater Germany, and an influence that would spread through the Balkans and into the Middle East, was an unbridled dream that would manifest itself in the construction of an unbroken railway link from Berlin to Baghdad, through Thracian Turkey and into Anatolia, passing over the Bosphorus at Constantinople. This would pass through aligned nations, with Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire pivotal in this; it was inconvenient, though, that belligerent Serbia sat squarely in the way.

Germany was also keen to ensure that its eastern enemy, Russia, was depleted in both supplies and support. As most Russian war materiel would have to travel, on the southern, winter, route through the Straits and into the Black Sea, the temptation to make certain that the Dardanelles was closed to traffic was pressing. German influence was already strong, with military missions to the Ottomans from the late nineteenth century; it was to grow when, on 3 August 1914, the British clumsily requisitioned two warships being built in British shipyards, at great cost to the Ottoman populace. Tensions came to a head on 10 August, when the German warships Goeben and Breslau were granted passage through the technically neutral Dardanelles to Constantinople, to become symbolic substitutes for the ships ‘stolen’ by the British. A final blow to British influence was the appointment of the German Admiral Souchon to the command of the Ottoman Navy – the Goeben and Breslau now technically Ottoman ships, the Yazus Sultan Salim and the Midilli.

With the Ottomans committed to war, some means was sought to make sure that they would be quickly despatched; for the British and French this would remove the possibility of Ottoman belligerency against their possessions and protectorates in the Middle East. Both had low opinions of the Ottoman military – defeat in the last Balkan War in 1913 was surely indicative of what might be expected in the coming conflict. But how would this be achieved? There were other players in the arena.

For centuries there had been Greek and Russian aspirations to possess the Imperial city of Constantinople, sitting astride the Bosphorus and in ultimate control of the Black Sea route. With the Ottomans in an uncertain period, the gears of diplomacy started to grind – the essential goal was the carving up of what remained of the Ottoman Empire, spreading from European Thrace into the Arabian Peninsula. First to act were the Greeks. On 19 August, the British Foreign Minister Sir Edward Grey received notice Premier Venizelos had placed all Greek naval and military resources at the disposal of the Allies. Seizing on this, the Russians approached the pro-German Greek King Constantine; would he consider providing an expeditionary force to assist an attack on the Dardanelles? Both sets of eyes were focused on Constantinople.

A combination of circumstances led to the evolution of the Dardanelles expedition – which would gradually spiral out of control – and which would consume all its originators and have lasting effects on their lives. The entry of the Ottoman Empire into the conflict left the Allies with little choice but to demonstrate their intention that this would not be taken lightly. The Russians in particular sought to show, by arms, that the Ottoman decision to side with the Central Powers was unwise.

Dawning in the minds of the British, was the old concept, exercised since the late nineteenth century, of the ‘Forcing of the Dardanelles’ in order to threaten Constantinople – especially if the north shore of the Straits, the Gallipoli Peninsula, could be taken in force by the Greeks, and if the Russians could be on hand to meet the Allies at Constantinople. This would surely lead to the surrender of the Ottomans, thereby removing the threat to Egypt and the Suez Canal. In November 1914, at the first meeting of the War Council set up to advise the Cabinet on directions in the war, Sir Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, reignited the Dardanelles question by suggesting the best way to protect Egypt and the Suez Canal was to ‘capture’ the Gallipoli Peninsula; he was to persuade the council that this would be possible by purely naval action on 13 January 1915. The scene was set for the Gallipoli landings.

On 3 January 1915, the Admiralty signalled to Admiral Carden, commanding the Eastern Mediterranean Squadron, for his views on the forcing of the Dardanelles. As First Sea Lord, Churchill had hopes that the age-old naval concept of pitting ships’ guns against stone fortresses in ‘Forcing’ a passage through the Dardanelles Straits could be achieved. However, knowing that the Dardanelles were well-defended, Carden was cagey with his political masters, replying: ‘I do not consider Dardanelles can be rushed. They might be forced by extended operations with large numbers of ships.’ This cautious, politically worded statement was taken as positive by the Admiralty, who asked Carden to expand his ideas. His detailed four-stage plan that followed involved the reduction of the forts at Sedd el Bahir and Kum Kale at the mouth to the Dardanelles, destroying the inside defences up to Kephez at the entrance to the Narrows, then reducing the forts at the Narrows and, finally, clearing the minefield, reducing the defences above the Narrows, and advancing into the Sea of Marmara. The plan was careful and cautious, but it caught the imagination of Winston Churchill, who, almost by seeing the plan written down, could imagine it being executed in theatre. It would be Carden’s plan that would ignite the flames; Carden himself would bear the responsibilities heavily.

ADMIRAL CARDEN

Admiral Sir Sackville Hamilton Carden had served in Egypt and Sudan and with the Atlantic Fleet until appointed Superintendant of the Malta Dockyard in 1912, finally commanding the British squadron of a joint French-British Mediterranean Fleet in September 1914. When asked to report on its feasibility, Carden’s careful strategy for forcing the Dardanelles called for slow, line-abreast advance of the fleet, and the systematic destruction of Turkish fortifications. His plan was successful up to a point; but the strain of the command, and the responsibilities of his plan, meant that he would suffer a nervous breakdown; he would be replaced in early March by Admiral John de Robeck, retiring from the Royal Navy in 1917.

Yet the feeling at the Admiralty was that a combined operation was to be preferred to a purely naval attempt, and that troops would be needed to follow up a naval success and clinch the matter; the Gallipoli Peninsula and Constantinople would have to be occupied. With the Greeks and Russians involved, there could surely be no doubt about success; but there was no guarantee that their initial diplomatic advances would come to any concrete proposals. The Secretary of State for War, Field Marshal Lord Kitchener’s view was that no British troops were available other than those already committed. Kitchener, a high autocrat, was careful in his husbanding of military resources, and resistant to all schemes to widen the war to other fronts, thereby diverting valuable manpower from the only front that engaged the Germans fully – in France and Flanders. In his mind, the Western Front would have to come first, and the war would be long and costly. However, the Admiralty considered that it would not do much harm to carry out a purely naval attempt in the Dardanelles, a demonstration laid on primarily for benefit of the Russians. So, Winston Churchill would declare at the War Council, that: ‘The Admiralty should prepare for a naval expedition in February to bombard and take the Gallipoli Peninsula with Constantinople as its objective.’ There was a hint of military objectives too; in addition to ships, a naval ‘Special Service Force’ of two battalions of Royal Marine Light Infantry was prepared for Dardanelles service and sent out to the Island of Lemnos on 6 February 1915 ‘to be used as demolition parties against forts and batteries’. The scene was set for greater military engagement – and ultimately the landings at Gallipoli. Mudros would be the scene of gathering momentum in the coming weeks.

3. Artillery forts either side of the Narrows: at Kilid Bahr (above) and Chanak (Çanakkale, below). The fleet fully expected to be able to bombard these into submission, but it would also have to contend with minefields, torpedoes and mobile batteries. The minelayer Nusret, pictured next to the fort at Çanakkale (below, left), was hero of the hour.

4. Forcing the Dardanelles: a contemporary postcard celebrating the Allied naval failure. Featured is HMS Bacchante, a British cruiser that would provide naval artillery support for the Anzac landings.