Battle of Gallipoli
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Çanakkale Savaşları
Jump to: navigation, search
Battle of Gallipoli
Part of the Middle Eastern Theatre (First World War)
The Battle of Gallipoli, February–April 1915
The Battle of Gallipoli by Ben Dangoor, April 1915
Date 19 February 1915 – 9 January 1916
Location Gallipoli peninsula, Ottoman Empire.
Result Decisive Ottoman victory
Belligerents
Flag of the United Kingdom British Empire

* Flag of Australia Australia
* Flag of India British India
* Flag of Dominion of Newfoundland Newfoundland
* Flag of New Zealand New Zealand
* Flag of the United Kingdom United Kingdom
* Egyptian labourers[1]

Flag of France France

* Flag of France Senegal

Ottoman flag Ottoman Empire
Flag of German Empire German Empire[2]
Flag of Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary[3]
Commanders
Flag of the United Kingdom Sir Ian Hamilton
Flag of the United Kingdom Lord Kitchener
Flag of the United Kingdom John de Robeck Flag of German Empire Otto Liman von Sanders
Ottoman flag Mustafa Kemal Atatürk
Strength
5 divisions (initial)
16 divisions (final)[citation needed] 6 divisions (initial)
15 divisions (final)[citation needed]
Casualties and losses
141,113[4] 195,000[5]
[show]
v • d • e
Gallipoli Campaign
Naval operations – Anzac – Helles – 1st Krithia – 2nd Krithia – 3rd Krithia – Gully Ravine – Sari Bair – Krithia Vineyard – Lone Pine – Suvla – The Nek – Chunuk Bair – Scimitar Hill – Hill 60
[show]
v • d • e
Theatres of World War I
European
Balkans – Western Front – Eastern Front – Italian Front
Middle Eastern
Caucasus – Mesopotamia – Sinai and Palestine – Gallipoli – Persia
African
South-West Africa – West Africa – East Africa
Asian and Pacific
Other
Atlantic Ocean – Mediterranean – Naval – Aerial

The Battle of Gallipoli took place at Gallipoli peninsula in Turkey from April 1915 to December 1915, during the First World War. A joint British Empire and French operation was mounted to capture the Ottoman capital of Istanbul, and secure a sea route to Russia. The attempt failed, with heavy casualties on both sides.

In Turkey, the campaign is known as the Çanakkale Savaşları, after the province of Çanakkale. In the United Kingdom, it is called the Dardanelles Campaign or Gallipoli. In France it is called Les Dardanelles. In Australia,[6] New Zealand,[7] and Newfoundland,[8] it is known as the Gallipoli Campaign or simply as Gallipoli.

The Battle of Gallipoli resonated profoundly among all nations involved. In Turkey, the battle is perceived as a defining moment in the history of the Turkish people—a final surge in the defence of the motherland as the centuries-old Ottoman Empire was crumbling. The struggle laid the grounds for the Turkish War of Independence and the foundation of the Turkish Republic eight years later under Atatürk, himself a commander at Gallipoli.

In Australia and New Zealand, the campaign was the first major battle undertaken by a joint military formation, the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC), and is often considered to mark the birth of national consciousness in both of these countries. ANZAC Day (April 25) remains the most significant commemoration of military casualties and veterans in Australia and New Zealand, surpassing Armistice Day/Remembrance Day.

The Allies were keen to open an effective supply route to Russia: efforts on the Eastern Front relieved pressure on the Western Front. The German Empire and Austria-Hungary blocked Russia's land trade routes to Europe, while no easy sea route existed. The White Sea in the north and the Sea of Okhotsk in the Far East were distant from the Eastern Front and often icebound. The Baltic Sea was blocked by Germany's formidable Kaiserliche Marine. The Black Sea's only entrance was through the Bosphorus, which was controlled by the Ottoman Empire. When the Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers in October 1914, Russia could no longer be supplied from the Mediterranean Sea.

By late 1914, the Western Front, in France and Belgium, had effectively become fixed. A new front was desperately needed. Also, the Allies hoped that an attack on the Ottomans would draw Bulgaria and Greece into the war on the Allied side. However, an early proposal to use Greek troops to invade the Gallipoli peninsula was vetoed by Russia as its south slavic allies would feel threatened by an expansion of Greek power and influence.

A first proposal to attack Turkey had already been suggested by French Minister of Justice Aristide Briand in November 1914, but it was not supported. A suggestion by British Naval Intelligence (Room 39) to bribe the Turks over to the Allied side was not taken up.

Later in November, First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill put forward his first plans for a naval attack on the Dardanelles, based at least in part on what turned out to be erroneous reports regarding Turkish troop strength, as prepared by Lieut. T. E. Lawrence. He reasoned that the Royal Navy had a large number of obsolete battleships which could not be used against the German High Seas Fleet in the North Sea, but which might well be made useful in another theatre. Initially, the attack was to be made by the Royal Navy alone, with only token forces from the army being required for routine occupation tasks.
On 19 February, the first attack on the Dardanelles began when a strong Anglo-French task force, including the British battleship HMS Queen Elizabeth, bombarded Turkish artillery along the coast.

A new attack was launched on 18 March, targeted at the narrowest point of the Dardanelles where the straits are just a mile wide. A massive fleet under the command of Admiral de Robeck containing no fewer than 16 battleships tried to advance through the Dardanelles. However almost every ship was damaged by sea mines which were laid along the Asian shore by the Turkish minelayer Nusrat. Trawlermen had been used by the British as minesweepers, but they retreated as the Turks opened fire on them, leaving the minefields intact. Soon afterwards three battleships were sunk (HMS Ocean and HMS Irresistible and the French Bouvet), while the battlecruiser HMS Inflexible and the French battleships Suffren and Gaulois were badly damaged.

These losses prompted the Allies to cease any further attempts to force the straits by naval power alone. The defeat of the British fleet had also given the Turks a morale boost. The Turkish gunners had almost run out of ammunition before the British fleet retreated. The results of this decision to turn back are unclear—if the British had pushed forward with the naval attack, as Churchill suggested, then Gallipoli might not have been so great a defeat. On the other hand, it is possible that they would simply have trapped themselves in the Sea of Marmara, with force insufficient to take Constantinople and a minefield between themselves and the Mediterranean Sea.

After the failure of the naval attacks, it was decided that ground forces were necessary to eliminate the Turkish mobile artillery. This would allow minesweepers to clear the waters for the larger vessels. The British Secretary of State for War, Lord Kitchener, appointed General Sir Ian Hamilton to command the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force that was to carry out the mission.

In early 1915, Australian and New Zealand volunteer soldiers were encamped in Egypt, undergoing training prior to being sent to France. The infantry were formed into the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC), which comprised the Australian 1st Division and the New Zealand and Australian Division. General Hamilton also had the regular British 29th Division, the Royal Naval Division (RND) (Royal Marines and hastily drafted naval recruits) and the French Oriental Expeditionary Corps (including four Senegalese battalions) under his command.

There was a delay of over six weeks before many of the troops arrived from Britain. This gave the Turkish forces time to prepare for a land assault. There was little security or secrecy in Egypt, and the intended destination of Hamilton's force was widely known. The Turks quickly replenished their stocks of ammunition and other supplies.
Hamilton's invasion force was opposed by the Fifth Army, under the command of the German advisor to the Ottoman Army, General Otto Liman von Sanders. The Fifth Army, which had to defend both shores of the Dardanelles, comprised six of the best Turkish divisions totaling 84,000 men. At Bulair, near the neck of the peninsula, were the Turkish 5th and 7th divisions. At Cape Helles, on the tip of the peninsula, and along the Aegean coast, was the Ninth Division and, in reserve at Gaba Tepe in the middle of the peninsula was the 19th Division, under the command of Mustafa Kemal. Defending the Asian shore at Kum Kale, which lies at the entrance to the Dardanelles, were the 3rd and 11th division.

The invasion plan of 25 April 1915 was for the 29th Division to land at Helles on the tip of the peninsula and then advance upon the forts at Kilitbahir. The ANZACs were to land north of Gaba Tepe on the Aegean coast from where they could advance across the peninsula and prevent retreat from or reinforcement of Kilitbahir. The French made a diversionary landing at Kum Kale on the Asian shore. There was also a one-man diversion by Bernard Freyberg of the RND at Bulair.
The Helles landing was made by the 29th Division under the command of Major-General Aylmer Hunter-Weston, on five beaches in an arc about the tip of the peninsula, designated from east to west as S, V, W, X and Y beach.

The commander of the Y Beach landing was able to walk unopposed to within 500 metres of Krithia village, which was deserted. The British never got so close again. Y Beach was eventually evacuated the following day as Turkish reinforcements arrived.

The main landings were made at V Beach, beneath the old Seddülbahir fortress, and at W Beach, a short distance to the west on the other side of the Helles headland.

At V Beach the covering force from the Royal Munster Fusiliers and Royal Hampshires was landed from a converted collier, SS River Clyde, which was run aground beneath the fortress so that the troops could disembark directly via ramps to the shore. The Royal Dublin Fusiliers would land at V Beach from open boats. At W Beach the Lancashire Fusiliers also landed in open boats on a small beach overlooked by dunes and obstructed with barbed wire. On both beaches the Turkish defenders were in a position to inflict appalling casualties on the landing infantry. The troops emerging one by one from the sally ports on the River Clyde presented perfect targets to the machine guns in the Seddülbahir fort. Out of the first 200 soldiers to disembark, only 21 men made it onto the beach.[9]

As at Anzac, the Turkish defenders were too few to force the British off the beach. At W Beach, thereafter known as Lancashire Landing, the Lancashires were able to overwhelm the defences despite their dreadful losses, 600 killed or wounded out of a total strength of 1,000. The battalions that landed at V Beach suffered about 70% casualties. Six awards of the Victoria Cross were made amongst the Lancashires at W Beach. Six Victoria Crosses were also awarded amongst the infantry and sailors at the V Beach landing and a further three were awarded the following day as they finally fought their way off the beach. After the landings, there were so few of the Dublin Fusiliers and Munster Fusiliers left that they were amalgamated into one unit, "The Dubsters". Only one Dubliner officer survived the landing; overall, of the 1,012 Dubliners who landed, only 11 would survive the entire Gallipoli campaign unscathed.
On the afternoon of 27 April Kemal launched a concerted attack to drive the ANZACs back to the beach. With the support of naval gunfire, the Turks were held off throughout the night.

On 28 April, the British, now supported by the French on the right of the line, intended to capture Krithia in what became known as the First Battle of Krithia. The plan of attack was overly complex and poorly communicated to the commanders in the field. The troops of the 29th Division were still exhausted and unnerved by the battle for the beaches and for Seddülbahir village, captured after heavy fighting on 26 April. The attack ground to a halt around 6 pm with a gain of some ground but the objective of Krithia village was not reached. After the battle, the Allied trenches lay about halfway between the Helles headland and Krithia village. With Turkish opposition stiffening by the day, the opportunity for the anticipated swift victory on the peninsula was disappearing. Helles, like Anzac, became a siege. Strong Turkish counter-attacks on the nights of 1 May and 3 May were repulsed despite breaking through the French defences.

The first attempt at an offensive at Anzac took place on the evening of 2 May when New Zealand and Australian Division commander, General Godley, ordered the Australian 4th Infantry Brigade, commanded by General John Monash, and the New Zealand Infantry Brigade, to attack from Russell's Top and Quinn's Post towards Baby 700. The troops advanced a short distance during the night and tried to dig in to hold their gains but were forced to retreat by the night of 3 May, having suffered about 1,000 casualties.

Believing Anzac to be secure, Hamilton moved two brigades, the Australian Second Infantry Brigade and the New Zealand Infantry Brigade, to the Helles front as reserves for the Second Battle of Krithia starting on 6 May. This was the first major assault at Helles and gained about a quarter of a mile on a wide front at the now customary enormous cost in casualties.

The Turks launched a major assault at Anzac on 19 May—42,000 Turks attacked 17,000 Australians and New Zealanders—but the attack miscarried. Lacking sufficient artillery and ammunition, the Turks relied on surprise and weight of numbers for success but their preparations were detected and the defenders were ready. When it was over the Turks had suffered about 10,000 casualties. In comparison, the Australian casualties were a mere 160 killed and 468 wounded. The Turkish losses were so severe that a truce was organized for 24 May in order to bury the large numbers of dead lying in no man's land.
In May the British naval artillery advantage was diminished following the torpedoing of the battleship HMS Goliath on 13 May by Turkish torpedo boat Muavenet-i Milliye. Shortly after German submarine SM U-21 sank HMS Triumph on 25 May and HMS Majestic on 27 May. Following these losses much of the battleship support was withdrawn and those remaining would fire while under way, reducing their accuracy and effectiveness.

In the Third Battle of Krithia on 4 June all thought of a decisive breakthrough was gone and the plans for battle had reverted to trench warfare with objectives being measured in hundreds of metres. Casualties ran to around 25% for both sides; the British suffering 4,500 from an attacking force of 20,000.

In June, a fresh division, the 52nd Division, began to land at Helles in time to participate in the last of the major Helles battles, the Battle of Gully Ravine which was launched on 28 June. This battle advanced the British line along the left (Aegean) flank of the battlefield which resulted in a rare but limited victory for the Allies. Between 1 July and 5 July the Turks launched a series of desperate counter-attacks against the new British line but failed to regain the lost ground. Their casualties for the period were horrendous, estimated at in excess of 14,000.

One final British action was made at Helles on 12 July before the Allied main effort was shifted north to Anzac. Two fresh brigades from the 52nd Division were thrown into an attack in the centre of the line along Achi Baba Nullah (known as Bloody Valley) and sustained 30% casualties without making any significant progress.
The repeated failure of the Allies to capture Krithia or make any progress on the Helles front led Hamilton to pursue a new plan for the campaign which resulted in what is now called the Battle of Sari Bair. On the night of 6 August a fresh landing of two infantry divisions was to be made at Suvla, five miles (8 km) north of Anzac. Meanwhile at Anzac a strong assault would be made on the Sari Bair range by breaking out into the rough and thinly defended terrain north of the Anzac perimeter.

The landing at Suvla Bay was only lightly opposed but the British commander, Lieutenant-General Sir Frederick Stopford, had so diluted his early objectives that little more than the beach was seized. Once again the Turks were able to win the race for the high ground of the Anafarta Hills thereby rendering the Suvla front another case of static trench warfare.

The offensive was preceded on the evening of 6 August by diversionary assaults at Helles and Anzac. At Helles, the diversion at Krithia Vineyard became another futile battle with no gains and heavy casualties for both sides. At Anzac, an attack on the Turkish trenches at Lone Pine by the infantry brigades of the Australian 1st Division was a rare victory for the ANZACs. However, the main assault aimed at the peaks of Chunuk Bair and Hill 971 was less successful.

The force striking for the nearer peak of Chunuk Bair comprised the New Zealand Infantry Brigade. It came within 500 metres of the peak by dawn on 7 August but was not able to seize the summit until the following morning. This delay had fatal consequences for another supporting attack on the morning of 7 August; that of the Australian 3rd Light Horse Brigade at the Nek which was to coincide with the New Zealanders attacking back down from Chunuk Bair against the rear of the Turkish defences. The New Zealanders held out on Chunuk Bair for two days before relief was provided by two New Army battalions from the Wiltshire and Loyal North Lancashire Regiments. A massive Turkish counter-attack, led in person by Mustafa Kemal, swept these two battalions from the heights.

Of the 760 men of the New Zealanders' Wellington Battalion who reached the summit, 711 were casualties.

Another planned attack on Hill 971 never took place. The attacking force of the Australian 4th Infantry Brigade (General J. Monash) and an Indian brigade was defeated by the terrain and became lost during the night. All subsequent attempts to resume the attack were easily repulsed by the Turkish defenders at great cost to the Allies.

The Suvla landing was reinforced by the arrival of the British 53rd and 54th Divisions along with the British 10th Division from Kitchener's New Army Divisions plus the dismounted yeomanry of the 2nd Mounted Division. The unfortunate 29th Division was also shifted from Helles to Suvla for one more push. The final British attempt to resuscitate the offensive came on 21 August with attacks at Scimitar Hill and Hill 60. Control of these hills would have united the Anzac and Suvla fronts but neither battle achieved success. When fighting at Hill 60 ceased on 29 August, the battle for the Sari Bair heights, and indeed the battle for the peninsula, was effectively over.

Following the landing at Suvla Bay, casualties among the opposing armies were particularly high, and the hot and humid weather made the stench of bodies especially nauseating. A day's truce was arranged to facilitate the removal of the dead and wounded; this momentary contact led to a strange camaraderie between the armies much like the Christmas truce of 1914. Alan Moorehead records that one old Turkish batman was regularly permitted to hang his platoon's washing on the barbed wire without attracting fire, and that there was a "constant traffic" of gifts being thrown across no-man's land: dates and sweets from the Turkish side, and cans of beef and cigarettes from the ANZAC side.

See Also: Battle of Krithia Vineyard – Battle of Lone Pine – Battle of Chunuk Bair – Battle of the Nek – Battle of Scimitar Hill – Battle of Hill 60
The Ottoman Empire had been dismissed by Tsar Nicholas I of Russia as "the sick man of Europe" but after victory over the Allies at Gallipoli, Turkey's visions of the empire were renewed. In Mesopotamia the Turks surrounded a British expedition at Kut Al Amara, forcing their surrender in 1916. From southern Palestine the Turks pushed into the Sinai with the aim of capturing the Suez Canal and driving the British from Egypt. Defeat at the Battle of Romani marked the end of that ambition and for the remainder of the war the British were on the offensive in the Middle East.

After the evacuation, Allied troops reformed in Egypt. The ANZACs underwent a major reorganization; the infantry were expanded and bound for the Western Front, the light horse were reunited with their horses and formed into mounted divisions for operations in the Sinai and Palestine. At the Battle of Beersheba they would finally achieve the decisive break-through victory that had eluded the Allies on Gallipoli.

Amongst the generals, Gallipoli marked the end for Hamilton and Stopford but Hunter-Weston was granted another opportunity to lead the VIII Corps on the first day of the Battle of the Somme. The competence of Australian brigade commanders, John Monash and Henry Chauvel, would be recognized with promotion to the command of divisions and ultimately corps. Lord Kitchener was too popular to be punished, but he never recovered his old reputation for invincibility and was increasingly sidelined by his colleagues until his death the following year.

On the Turkish side, the meteoric rise of Mustafa Kemal began at Gallipoli.
The failure of the landings had significant repercussions in the UK, which began even as the battle was still in progress. The First Sea Lord, John Fisher resigned in May after bitter conflict with Winston Churchill over the campaign. The crisis that followed forced the Prime Minister, Herbert Asquith to end his single-party Liberal Government and form a Coalition Government with the Conservative Party.

Churchill was demoted from First Lord of the Admiralty as a prerequisite for Conservative entry to the coalition; although retained in the Cabinet, he was given the sinecure job of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, from which he resigned at the end of 1915, departing for the Western Front where he commanded an infantry battalion early in 1916. Asquith was partly blamed for Gallipoli and other disasters, and was overthrown in December 1916 when David Lloyd George successfully split the Liberal Party in two. Lloyd George formed a new government, in which Churchill, active in the House of Commons again in late 1916, was not offered a place; he was eventually appointed Minister of Munitions in the middle of 1917, although he was not a member of the small War Cabinet and no longer had the influence over war strategy which he had earlier enjoyed.

The Dardanelles Commission was established in 1916 to investigate the failure of the expedition. Its final report was issued in 1919, concluding that the adventure had been badly planned and difficulties underestimated, and that government had exacerbated problems through its procrastination. However its censures did not damage careers measurably further than they already had been.[10]

Some people, such as Winston Churchill, have also argued that the landings may have helped accelerate the genocide of the Armenian population in the Ottoman Empire during 1915.[11][12]

* Martin Gilbert, The First World War: A Complete History, Chapter 8, ISBN 0-8050-7617-4
* Philip J. Haythornthwaite, Gallipoli 1915, Frontal Assault on Turkey; Osprey Campaign Series #8, Osprey Publishing, 1991.
* M. Tyquin, "Gallipoli: the Medical War", University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 1993.
* National Library of Australia: Despatches from Gallipoli
* The New Zealanders at Gallipoli by Colonel Fred Waite (1919)
* The Maoris in the Great War (including Gallipoli) by James Cowan (1926)


from vikipedia