The British forces had planned to invade Turkey in order to capture Constantinople through a series of land and sea based assaults thus gaining access to the Dardanelles, a strait providing a route to Russia by sea. The beginning of the Gallipoli campaign began on February 17, 1915 by sea as the British navy attacked the Ottoman Empire through peninsula of Dardanelles. This initial assault brainstormed by the great military mind Winston Churchill was under the assumption that the Ottoman troops lacked the strength necessary to match the military might of the Ally Powers collectively. This calculation was very erroneous, but there was still hope for a successful campaign due to the interception of German communication message which detailed the Dardanelles forts of the Ottoman Empire were slowly running out of ammunition. Due to this news, the allied fleet launched the main naval attack on March 18, 1915 consisting of battleships, cruisers, and various destroyers. The British were met with Ottoman forces that created havoc and destruction in defense of the country. “All telephone wires were cut, all communications with the forts were interrupted, and some of the guns had been knocked out and in consequence, the artillery fire of the defence had slackened considerably”. Due to continued bad weather and unnecessary losses to the navy, the Allies ended their attempts to capture the capital of Constantinople and the Dardanelles peninsula by sea. This resulted in the creation of a land campaign in order to eliminate the Ottoman mobile artillery.
The Allies once again were met with an unprecedented amount of backlash and fighting spirit from the cunning Turkish soldiers. The underestimation of the Ottoman Empire and their military presence came from the overinflated hegemonic superiority among the Allies, because of the recent downturn of the “sick man” Ottoman Empire.
The heavily boastful Ally forces attacked the shore of the Dardanelles being met by Ottoman forces.
At the beginning of May, 1915, both the forces which had landed a week earlier on the Gallipoli Peninsula had secured a foothold. But neither had approached its objective. Even the positions intended to be reached by the covering forces, namely, Achi Baba at Helles and the “Third” ridge at Anzac. had not been attained.
The Ottoman defenses of the Peninsula were strategically envisioned by bringing both Ottoman commanders and senior German officers together to combat against an oncoming battery by the enemy forces. The preferred plan of action was to hold high grounds of the peninsula in order to gain better line of sight of the enemy and strike faster than the Allied forces would be able to mobilize. There was a belief that the British would use their navy to command the various tips of the peninsula and use the land troops to secure the northern shore containing the Ottoman forts. Naval gunfire supporting the landings originally included bombarding the peninsula but the plan was switched to prioritize only shelling the beaches before the landings. The Ally forces has little effectiveness in their changing strategies due to the initial confusion, rough terrain and land, and a lack of proper scouting information. The push onward was met with Allied aircrafts conducting overhead observations such as reporting naval gunfire, Turkish troop movements, and small bombing raids.
The stalemate of the battle caused Ally to worry about the actual progress being made towards the capture of Gallipoli. The battle was very even between Central and Ally forces, therefore the latter tried to embolden the army by moving troops toward the Sulva Bay while also combining with the oncoming advancements of troops toward Anzac cove and Helles. This caught the Ottoman by surprise, but even with this advantage for the Allies the constant indecision about tactical strategy and delay of execution allowed the Central forces to shore up the defenses with numerous reinforcements.
Throughout the early land battle of the early Gallipoli campaign the Allied powers kept the Ottomans on defense while simultaneously bolstering their troop forces by including French soldiers to further the push. Intending to gain a swift victory on the peninsula, the forces of Britain and allies were unprepared for the arrival of Ottoman troop backups. Soon the battles on the shores of Helles and Anzac became boiling flashpoints of atrocious warfare. Due to the impenetrable front line of the Ottoman’s the Ally forces were unable to gain a clear advantage throughout the campaign such as the inability to capture the village of Krithia or make any progress in the Helles advance.
The conditions at Gallipoli continued to worsen throughout 1915 due to the summer heat and poor hygiene causing a massive outbreak of disease. Fly related diseases and forms of dysentery became epidemics that started wiping out the Allied forces in the trenches of Anzanc and Helles. This emergence of disease was deadly for both Allied and the Ottoman Empire wiping out thousands of soldiers throughout the campaign. This quick depletion of soldiers furthered the struggles of the Allies encroachment and capture of the Ottoman Empire’s capitol of Constantinople and the peninsula it controls.
The reality of an evacuation of Gallipoli by the Ally forces became clear due to the faltering of plan and the soldier morale.
With Allied casualties in the Gallipoli Campaign mounting, Hamilton (with Churchill’s support) petitioned Kitchener for 95,000 reinforcements; the war secretary offered barely a quarter of that number. In mid-October, Hamilton argued that a proposed evacuation of the peninsula would cost up to 50 percent casualties; British authorities subsequently recalled him and installed Sir Charles Monro in his place. By early November, Kitchener had visited the region himself and agreed with Monro’s recommendation that the remaining 105,000 Allied troops should be evacuated.
The evacuation began on December 7, 1915 and concluded January 9, 1916 with a death toll that surpassed hundreds of thousands for a single military campaign. “WHEN, in the closing days of December, 1915, the news of the British evacuation of Gallipoli reached Constantinople, the populace was stirred to almost fanatical rejoicing.” Despite the evacuation by the Allied troops the campaign was a “close-fought affair” due to the overall stalemate of the whole ordeal. The Allies were able to put an enormous strain to the Ottoman national resources at the stage of the war and the country’ forces had to be diverted to Gallipoli but not toward other fighting areas of the war. The Allies however took the majority of the downfalls in the campaign due to the various problems that had occurred within their tactics. The Allied powers campaign over Gallipoli was ill-advised, poorly planned, inaccurately mapped/observed, and lacked the necessary equipment needed for a concise victory. Militari
ly the campaign gave hop
e to the Ottomans that they would be able to defeat the Allies and their troops, but this aspiration diminished at the Battle of Romani due to the lack of military equipment and materials to complete such an ambitious conquest. The lessons learned from the Gallipoli campaign were studied by military strategists and planners for many years after that. Many different amphibious operations and battles such as Normand Landings in 1944 and the Falklands War in 1982 were influenced by the lessons taken from the Gallipoli battles.
The aftermath of the battle entailed political disruptions in Ally Powers such as in Great Britain where the defeat of Gallipoli left the government to form coalitions over the outrage towards the campaign. The Dardanelles Commission was made in order to figure out reasons and logistics of why the battle was a failure. The prime minster, H. H. Asquith was blamed for the faults that occurred at Gallipoli and the other disasters that had ensued. Asquith was later overthrown in December 1916 causing Lloyd George to take his place as the prime minister, where he established a new government in a model equipped for war and military endeavors. The political eruptions that occurred after Gallipoli affected the country and the government for the future thereafter.
The death count and casualties by warfare was atrocious in the span of less than a year for both the Ottoman Empire and the Ally powers. The specific numbers outlining the accepted death toll is heavily disputed by many different archives of World War 1 history. The Ottoman Archives states that over 100,000 men were killed including an estimated 56,000 Ottoman soldiers and 53,000 British and French troops. Other sources such as, British Official History, range up to stating nearly 500,000 casualties which included sickness towards that death toll.
Sickness took many lives in the process of battle mainly related to the poor sanitation conditions of the time period overall and the horrid conditions of battle. Typhoid, dysentery, and diarrhea were the main diseases that ran rampant during Gallipoli. An estimated 90,000 British and 20,000 French soldiers were evacuated due to these health-related issues. The proportion of the number of sickness to battle related casualties was enormous and considered very high compared to other battles on the western front. British forces were evacuated by the thousands such as 29,728 for dysentery and 10,383 for diarrhea.
Disease related controversy occurred throughout the campaign relating to the status of hospital and the destruction of them. The Turkish people made allegations that Ally Powers had bombed Ottoman hospitals and ships before Gallipoli. These accusations were refuted by the Allies with more allegations that the Ottoman had attacked hospital ships of Russia. During the Gallipoli campaign this couldn’t have happened by either accused party due to the lack of chemical weapon use. Despite the lack passion by the Ally forces to use chemical warfare, the campaign of Gallipoli never saw the use of these devastating forces of destruction.
Being such a hard fought and controversial battle, Gallipoli is very significant in history for the directly affected countries and the lesser implicated ones. The countries of Australia and New Zealand claims strong significance due to the battles of Gallipoli, despite only playing a small and minor role of Allied forces. Gallipoli prompted a strong sense of independence as states for both countries. This gave a unique identity to Australia creating a very valiant and prosperous spirit for the people of the nation, thus allowing them to embody the feeling of the “Anzac Spirit”. The Anzac Day itself is commentated in April 25th by both countries of New Zealand and Australia. This day is the most celebrated and prominent reminder of the casualties of the military in these countries.
For the Ottoman Empire, there were obviously plenty of significant moments and deeper meaning to the battle. The Gallipoli campaign brought great hope to the country ushering a new direction for the “sick man” of Europe. March 18th is known as a special day in the nations history despite lacking a properly commemorated holiday. This day indirectly played a crucial role in creating a gateway for the first president of the Republic of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal, to gain power. This signified the end of the Empire, but the birth of a true nation.
Gallipoli clearly is a very well documented and commentated battle in the history of the world for all nations. Although it was just a single campaign, the series of events that unfolded throughout it has created an everlasting amount of changed throughout the course of time. From shaping the course of the World War to changing the history of different nations and their battles for independence and change, Gallipoli had very extensive impacts that stemmed from it.