THE DARDANELLES—STRATEGY OF THE CAMPAIGN

The beginning of the bombardments in the Dardanelles opens a remarkable chapter in military and naval warfare. The desperate campaign to batter down the fortifications which lead to Constantinople and the disastrous attempt to conquer the most strongly barricaded city in the world, probably excited more world-wide interest or put to the test more theories of warfare than did the Dardanelles campaign undertaken by Great Britain with the assistance of France. It was fiercely attacked by military critics almost from the start. It was, however, a boldly conceived operation, calculated to have a most important effect upon the war as a whole—certainly upon the war in the southeast corner of Europe.

The Dardanelles campaign was largely conceived and controlled by the Rt. Hon. Winston Spencer Churchill, the remarkable and able British Secretary of the Admiralty. He has been widely condemned for his share of the operation, but revelations that have been made would appear to clear him of a great measure of the blame.

What were the considerations that weighed with the British admiralty in deciding to undertake one of the most difficult operations in the whole world? Primarily it seems to have had the idea of relieving the pressure on Russia. The Turkish offensive in the Caucasus had come to grief about the end of December but a resumption was momentarily expected and feared. Hindenburg's victory at Tannenberg in East Prussia had been a terrible blow to Russia and she had no troops to spare for defense in the Caucasus.

Furthermore, Constantinople, besides being one of the objectives of the war, was Russia's only warm sea gate into Europe. It must have been apparent to the Russian military authorities that the existing supplies of munition and guns of the czar's army would not suffice to withstand a hard German-Austrian drive. In other words the condition that resulted in the defeat of the Russian army in Galicia and Poland in the summer of 1915 were foreseen. Russia called upon England and France to force the Dardanelles. One can find it easy to condemn the operation but few can be found who will deny that it was a glorious failure. One that added luster to the glory of the British army, navy, and many unmatched pages to the story of their bravery. And no less credit and glory did it bring to the Turkish armies.

In addition to the question of war supplies there were other reasons for opening the Dardanelles as soon as possible. Russia's ability to finance a war of the magnitude of the one there being fought, especially where large foreign purchases were made, depended very largely upon the maintenance of foreign commerce. Russia was buying from all the neutral world as well as from her Entente partners. England, for instance, was not only making for her millions of dollars' worth of war supplies, but she was, for the moment, financing many of Russia's purchases abroad.

In return for all this it was important that Russia should export as freely as possible. Now one of her most valuable commodities and one in high demand not only in England, but in other countries, was wheat. Millions upon millions of bushels of Russian wheat were stored in her great Black Sea ports waiting to be shipped through Constantinople when the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles were commanded by Entente guns and ships. Greece, under the leadership of Premier Venizelos was hesitating on the brink of a plunge into the struggle as an ally of the Entente and not only agreed to the use of Greek islands but actually considered a proposal to send a Greek force of not less than 20,000 and possibly as many as 40,000 over to the Dardanelles. Bulgaria was in that state where a striking victory in the Turkish peninsula would have swept her off her feet. Italy was at loggerheads with Austria, her ally, and about to break.

Then from the English point of view there was the possible effect upon the Mohammedan throughout the British Empire. Possibly not for many years, if ever, will the world know the truth of the conditions in India during the war. One thing is certain. In one way and another there was much disaffection, much open rebellion and much fear of an even wider spread of revolt. The need for the maintenance and even strengthening of British prestige must have been constantly before the British ruler and no other campaign could possibly serve this end so efficaciously as a successful assault upon Constantinople and the temporal power of the sultan. It would clinch probably for generations to come Britain's claim to be the great Mohammedan power of the world and would destroy the one condition that for years before and at that time especially had contained the seeds of rebellion against the British yoke.

In beginning the campaign which Great Britain and France carried on in the Dardanelles there reappeared a very old problem of war—the question of Warships versus Forts or land fortifications. It appears to have been the consensus of opinion among all except the more extreme exponents of battleships that land fortifications would possess an undoubted advantage in a contest against purely naval forces.

This it seems had been the opinion of the American naval authorities in the Spanish-American War, when the American commander, Admiral Sampson, was expressly warned not to risk his ships against the shore defenses of Santiago Harbor. It also appears to have been the opinion of many British admirals who have placed their views on record. Indeed, there was in existence the views of several competent naval authorities as to the possibilities of a purely naval attack upon this very system of defenses.

It was not by any means the first time that an attempt had been made to force the Dardanelles. Many such attempts had proved this narrow neck of water running between high banks to be one of the great natural defensive spots of the world. The realization of that obvious and oft-proved fact had made Constantinople through the ages one of the most fought for and schemed for cities of the whole world.

It is necessary to study these attempts in order to understand clearly the difficulties which faced the British and French Allies in 1914. Of the previous attacks that had been made to force a way through the Dardanelles and so up to the city of Constantinople, that of the famous Admiral Hornby in 1877 was one of the most interesting as well as one of the most instructive. Ordered by the British Government to take his fleet past the forts that lined the approaching banks, he proceeded to carry out his orders, but wrote a warning in which he pointed out that, while it might be possible for his fleet to make its way into the Sea of Marmora, once there it would be helpless if the land defenses were controlled by the enemy. Out of coal, ammunition, and food, the ships would be at the mercy of the Turks. "Although the forts might not prevent a strong fleet passing through the Dardanelles, they certainly," wrote Admiral Hornby, "could sink armed and unarmed transports and supply ships." In view of these considerations, Hornby urged the British Government to provide a land force of sufficient strength to carry and hold the land defenses. His superiors, however, did not agree with him, for they told him to go ahead with a purely naval operation. His ideas were never put to a real test because the Turks offered no resistance to his passage of the straits.

The situation in the Great War of 1914 presented Constantinople as the same perplexing military problem. If we go back another three-quarters of a century to 1807, the experience of Admiral Duckworth throws some light on the subject, although conditions had changed radically. Duckworth, with his sailing ships, ran past the forts in the Dardanelles and anchored in front of Constantinople. It was hoped that a threat of bombardment would bring the Turks to their knees, but the latter refused to be intimidated. In the end, the British admiral ran out of food and water and was compelled to leave without accomplishing anything.

The student of the War of 1914 also must consider that during the war between Italy and Turkey, the Italian General Staff is known to have worked out an elaborate plan for an attack upon the Dardanelles. However, at the critical moment, the European powers interfered and forced upon Italy an agreement that the war should not be extended to the mainland of Europe. In the Balkan War, the Bulgarians threatened the lines of Bulair, the narrow neck which connects the Gallipoli peninsula to the mainland, but never launched the attack.

When in 1914 the British and French determined to press a purely naval attack upon the Dardanelles, they appear to have been influenced by two major considerations. At the time there was not ready a sufficient number of troops to make a land campaign successful and, at the last moment, King Constantine of Greece repudiated a personal agreement made by Venizelos, the Greek Premier, with the Allies by which Greece was to provide at least 20,000 troops to assist the France-British fleet. Even after the fall of Venizelos it was still determined to push the naval attack because of the second consideration. In the opinion of the British admiralty the full power of modern naval guns of 11-and 12-inch had never been tested and in their opinion they would suffice to reduce the Dardanelles defenses in a comparatively short time. Furthermore, the British authorities appear to have relied largely upon the new 15-inch guns of the Queen Elizabeth and her sister vessels, then nearing completion in British yards. So tremendous was the power of these new guns and so great their range that it was believed the Queen Elizabeth and her sister ships could stand miles out of range of the heaviest of the Dardanelles guns and quickly smash them to an unrecognizable mass of ruins.

It was evident that the British naval command held these views even in spite of the experience of British warships off the coast of Belgium earlier in the war. For a while in 1914 British monitors and battleships bombarded almost at will the German troops posted along the coast running from the Dutch frontier line almost to Nieuport. Finally, however, the Germans brought up heavy army and naval guns and, mounting them in concealed spots among the sand dunes, soon drove off the British naval force.

But Turkish guns were not German guns, Turkish gunners were not German gunners, and above all, the munition supply of the Turkish army was not fed by factories able to turn out a quarter of a million shells a day. Some such considerations as these appear to have convinced the British higher command that there was a difference in the two tasks.

The command of the Dardanelles forts at the entrance to Constantinople and the Black Sea is similar, except that it is perhaps more sure as to the command of the entrance to the Baltic by Copenhagen, the Mediterranean by Gibraltar, and, in a lesser degree, of the North Sea by Dover.

The narrow passage of water called the Dardanelles separates the peninsula of Gallipoli and the Asiatic shore of Turkey. It connects the Ægean Sea and the Sea of Marmora, which in turn, through the Bosphorus, connects with the Black Sea. Curiously enough this tremendously important waterway, the only warm sea outlet of Russia, had been closed against that country by the action of the very powers now fighting desperately to smash it open. The Black Sea was a Turkish lake in the seventeenth century but in the century following the growth of Russia in that part of Europe made the question of the control of the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles one of supreme importance to her. Thus we find, in the so-called "will" of Peter the Great, among other injunctions he lays upon his successors, an admonition never to rest until Constantinople had been wrested from the Turk. But whether this "will" is authentic or not, Russian policy has steadily kept that object in view.

The Crimean War was an attempt by France and England to stem the almost resistless tide of Russian expanse toward the southwest. Russian control of Constantinople was regarded as the chief danger that threatened the western powers and, in 1856, by the Treaty of Paris, not only was the strength of the Russian Black Sea fleet expressly limited, but the Dardanelles were closed against the passage of Russia's warships into the Mediterranean. France and England revived what they called "an ancient rule of the Ottoman Empire, in virtue of which it has at all times been prohibited for ships of war of foreign powers to enter the Straits of the Dardanelles and of the Bosphorus."

Turkey was of no mind to leave the enforcement of this "ancient rule" to the powers. She began the construction of more elaborate fortifications commanding both the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles. German advice, especially after the Franco-Prussian War, was asked and obtained and Krupp sent some of his gigantic pieces for the defense of the narrow waters. This German cooperation with the Turks in the strengthening of those positions through all the years that have intervened is significant.[Back to Contents]