A Naval History of World War I

by Paul G. Halpern

  The army, reinforced by five new divisions, made a final major attempt to break the deadlock with a renewed offensive combined with a landing on 8 August by fresh troops at Suvla to the north of the original beachheads. The naval part of the landing went well and included use of the special armored landing barges—nicknamed “beetles”—which Fisher had ordered, ostensibly for his Baltic projects. Unfortunately the army commanders at Suvla failed to exploit their initial surprise and push on to seize the high ground commanding the bay when they might have done so. The Turks were given time to recover, and after a short time the same stalemate prevailed, and the army was unable to advance.52

  The French had their own plan to break the deadlock with a landing of four new divisions from France and their two divisions from Gàllipoli at Yukyeri on the Asiatic shore. This would have opened what amounted to a second front at the Dardanelles and was prompted by repeated complaints from the French naval and military commanders at the Dardanelles about the deadly effects of Turkish harassing fire from the Asiatic shore. The scheme was immersed in the intricacies of French domestic politics, for the command would have gone to General Sarrail, an able but controversial soldier who had strong ties to the political left. Joffre had removed Sarrail from his command on the western front, but his powerful political friends insisted on this new command that also required tearing troops from the reluctant Joffre. The landing at Yukyeri never took place, for in September the Entente lost the contest for the allegiance of Bulgaria, which began to mobilize to enter the war on the side of the Central Powers. Sarrail and his army, joined by British forces, were diverted to Salonika in a futile attempt to march northward to save Serbia. They ended up having to fall back to the vicinity of Salonika, and the Allies were committed to yet another new campaign.53

  The failure at Suvla, the entry of Bulgaria into the war, and the opening of a new front in Macedonia meant the end of the Dardanelles campaign. The British army in the peninsula in the autumn of 1915 may have been secure in their positions, but they could not advance. The troops also suffered greatly from sickness, especially dysentery. The British were now faced with the prospect of a winter campaign and the difficulty of supplying the army over open beaches during the season when fierce local storms could be expected. Furthermore, Bulgaria’s entry into the war led to a combined Austro-German-Bulgarian offensive that overran Serbia. This, in turn, led to the prospect of direct rail communications between Germany and Constantinople and the danger that the Germans and Turks would have an unlimited supply of heavy ammunition to overwhelm the Allied positions on the peninsula. On 16 October Ian Hamilton and his chief of staff were replaced. General Sir Charles Monro, the new commander, had commanded the Third Army in France and believed in the primacy of the western front. Shortly after his arrival he recommended evacuation.

  The idea of evacuation was abhorrent to a man like Keyes. Ever since the failure at Suvla, he had been trying to persuade de Robeck to propose another naval attack. Keyes was convinced there were new factors that had been lacking on 18 March that would make such an attack successful. The British now had long-range monitors, cruisers that were specially bulged to withstand mines and torpedoes, capable aircraft for spotting, and, most important of all, an efficient minesweeping flotilla. Once past the minefields, the British fleet might be able to subject the Turkish positions to enfilading fire and shake the hold of the Turkish army on the peninsula by cutting off its supplies. The army might join in a combined attack with the fleet. The Turks might be knocked out of the war once Constantinople came under the guns of the Allied fleet. Keyes in September and October prepared plans for forcing the Strait. He was assisted by Captain William W. Godfrey, a Royal Marines officer on de Robeck’s staff. The ships involved, it should be added, were mostly old, certainly not suited for service with the Grand Fleet in a major encounter with the High Sea Fleet. Any losses, therefore, would not have affected the strategic balance in the North Sea. The loss of trained men, however, would have been a different story.54

  De Robeck was not convinced by Keyes. He did not think they had ever tackled the real minefield in March, and he doubted they were capable of clearing it under fire. Nevertheless, de Robeck was remarkably tolerant and was willing to let Keyes return home to plead his case. He gave Keyes private letters to Balfour and Jackson explaining his own argument, which ran as follows: The British might get four or five ships into the Sea of Marmara, although de Robeck doubted it, and might bombard Constantinople. The Turks on the peninsula, however, would not lay down their arms, for they had several months’ supplies. Moreover, the British could not carry on an effective campaign in the Marmara until they could pass unarmored colliers and supply ships through the Dardanelles, and they would not be able to do this until they captured and destroyed all the Turkish forts in the Strait. This could only be accomplished in a combined operation with the army. Should the attack fail, the losses in personnel and ships would be large, which would have a heavy effect on the morale of the army while encouraging the Turks. The position of the British army on the peninsula would then become critical.55

  Keyes arrived in London at a time of great indecision, because of the situation in Macedonia and the collapse of Serbia. Jackson later told de Robeck that Keyes had not made much of an impression, except perhaps on Kitchener, but that owing to the indecision of the government, things changed daily. Nevertheless, and despite the handicap of de Robeck’s negative opinion, Keyes had more effect on Balfour than many might have thought. Some of this was probably due to very real fears of what an evacuation of Gallipoli under fire would entail. The landings in April had been very expensive in terms of casualties, an evacuation might be even more so. Would not an evacuation be more costly than a renewed naval attack? Kitchener rejected General Monro’s recommendation for an evacuation and decided to go out to the Dardanelles for a personal tour of inspection. The indefatigable Keyes on his way back to the Dardanelles stopped in Paris where Admiral Lacaze, an old friend from their days as naval attachés in Rome before the war, had just become minister of marine. Lacaze agreed to support a renewed naval attack and ask his government to supply six French battleships. He too feared the enormous losses an evacuation might entail.56

  The relative success that Keyes had alarmed de Robeck, who wrote Limpus on 7 November:

  The Admiralty, probably on the advice of Roger Keyes, are evidently anxious that we should again attack the Dardanelles with the Fleet. I am perfectly determined to do nothing of the sort, as it would probably lead to a colossal disaster & then Rumania & Greece would come in against us & we should lose our army on the Peninsula & Salonika. Unless we can clear the mines away & destroy the torpedo tubes it is madness, fancy bringing these old battleships into the Narrows to be torpedoed. It is like sending an unfortunate horse into the bull ring blindfolded!

  Limpus, former head of the naval mission in Turkey, agreed. They might get some armored ships into the Marmara, but they could not accomplish anything without colliers and supply ships. He believed that “an attempt by the Fleet to rush the Dardanelles would provide us with the biggest disaster of the whole war. Imagine my thankfulness — this time — we have a man who is strong enough to say no.” But Limpus too feared the losses inherent in an evacuation.57

  Kitchener’s visit to the Dardanelles muddied the waters still more. No doubt he was heavily influenced by Monro, and he recommended evacuation. De Robeck warned him it would take six weeks, and unless they had “the most wonderful luck,” they would lose at least 30 percent in men and matériel. Kitchener then proceeded to return to an old alternative scheme of his—Alexandretta. This time he proposed landing two of the divisions withdrawn from Gallipoli combined with two drawn from Egypt at Ayas Bay in the Gulf of Alexandretta. Their objective would be to move inland far enough to sever Turkish communications with Syria, which would forestall a new Turkish attack on the Suez Canal. The success would also offset the political effects of the evacuation of Gallipoli in the Muslim world. Once a
gain Alexandretta, a perennial “what might have been” of the war, had surfaced.

  The Ayas Bay proposal ran into the same heavy opposition Alexandretta had encountered at the beginning of the year. Both de Robeck and Keyes were opposed. The former thought the defense of Egypt would be best on the Suez Canal, where the Allies had mobility and seapower, while Keyes declared: “As if Gallipoli wasn’t the place to fight for Egypt in—the maddest thing!” The Admiralty and the general staff turned their guns on the project. They would eventually have to pour in large numbers of troops—at least sixty thousand—who would have to push inland about 25 miles and hold a perimeter of 50 miles. The general staff considered that those troops would be better employed if concentrated for a great offensive on the western front, the decisive theater of the war. Operations outside the main theater should be limited to holding in check dangerous political and military developments that might threaten the security of British or French possessions and interests. The Admiralty also insisted on a sizable perimeter, for after their Dardanelles experience they were opposed to trying to supply an army over an open beach or through a port open to submarine attack or shelled by the enemy from surrounding heights. The expedition would add 400 miles to the already insufficiently protected transport routes that had to be guarded, and the small craft and lighters required for the evacuation of Gallipoli would not be available for Ayas Bay. The Admiralty concluded that they could undertake the Ayas Bay expedition if it were not for the large drain on resources caused by the Dardanelles and Salonika expeditions and the protection of transport routes in the Mediterranean, North Atlantic, and across the Channel, as well as the detachments sent to the Adriatic and North Russia.

  The Ayas Bay scheme aroused such opposition that one historian of the Dardanelles campaign has even advanced the suggestion that it was never meant as a serious proposition and had been concocted by a member of Monro’s staff as a diversion to allow time for the principle of an evacuation to gain acceptance. On the other hand, Alexandretta has its supporters. At the time the debate over the evacuation was taking place, the British Expeditionary Force in Mesopotamia was advancing up the Tigris, and the landing at Ayas Bay would have threatened Turkish communications with Mesopotamia. A historian of the Mesopotamian campaign has speculated that Alexandretta might well have been a preferable alternative to both the Mesopotamian and Dardanelles, and even Egyptian, campaigns in bringing about the collapse of Turkey. The debate will go on.58

  On 22 November Kitchener made his final recommendation for the evacuation of Suvla and Anzac but the retention of Cape Helles. The War Committee decided all three beaches would have to be evacuated.59 De Robeck was at this critical moment, and with the major decision to evacuate taken, forced to leave his command for a brief period of rest. His health was breaking down from the strain of command and chronic insomnia. He left Wemyss in charge, and this gave Keyes an opportunity to forestall the evacuation. Wemyss came to the conclusion something must be done to stop the evacuation, and the renewed naval attack seemed the only thing left. He wrote Jackson: “I believe attack is the only Policy left to us—beaten in Servia, outmanoeuvred by Greece, evacuation of the Peninsula would be disastrous politically and when I contemplate the operation and think of what it means I positively shudder.”60

  The last-minute campaign by Keyes and Wemyss was to no avail. In London de Robeck was called to the War Council meeting on 2 December and made a strong impression with his opposition to a new naval attack, and in France an Allied military conference at French headquarters from 6 to 8 December unanimously agreed to a request for an immediate and complete evacuation. On 7 December the cabinet decided on an evacuation of Anzac and Suvla. Wemyss and Keyes recognized that once this evacuation had been ordered, Cape Helles by itself could not be held during the winter months because the warships supporting the army and the supply ships would be exposed to the gales, and the submarines. Moreover, now that direct rail communications between Germany and Constantinople were about to be opened, they could anticipate an unimpeded flow of heavy munitions to the Turks and a storm of high explosives to rain down on the army clinging to Cape Helles. It was, as Keyes expressed it, a question of “get on or get out.”

  The evacuation of Anzac and Suvla on the night of 19–20 December proved a pleasant surprise, or as pleasant as any evacuation marking the failure of a campaign could be. The British organized the operation very carefully and enjoyed good luck. The anticipated heavy losses did not occur. De Robeck returned just as the first evacuation was completed, and on 27 December the cabinet decided to order the evacuation of Cape Helles. Once again, through careful organization and good luck—and one would have thought the Germans and Turks would have been forewarned by the first evacuation—the British successfully accomplished the operation on the night of 8–9 January. One sometimes suspects that if the campaign had been launched nearly a year before with the same care as the evacuations were organized, the outcome might have been a different story.61

  THE MESOPOTAMIAN CAMPAIGN

  The Mesopotamian campaign actually began a few months before the Dardanelles campaign and continued to the end of the war. It began with deceptive ease and success and reflected commendably prompt action on the part of the British government to protect British interests in the Persian Gulf as relations with Turkey deteriorated. The major cause for concern was the pipeline of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, which had its terminal and refinery at Abadan island in the Shatt-al-Arab, the channel by which the Tigris and Euphrates rivers reach the sea after coming together at Kurnah. The British, in the light of German propaganda among the Arab sheiks and worsening relations with Turkey, decided to secretly assemble a force in the Persian Gulf. The Royal Navy’s Gulf Division was old and weak, the lightly armed sloops Espiègle and Odin and the Royal Indian Marine armed transport Dalhousie. Traditional colonial vessels for carrying out “gunboat diplomacy,” they were adequate for defeating whatever Turkish naval forces were likely to be found in the area, of which the largest was the 500-ton gunboat Marmariss, but would not have been a match for either of the German cruisers in the Indian Ocean, the Emden or Königsberg. The Admiralty therefore detached the old battleship Ocean, under Captain Hayes-Sadler, to provide naval cover for the expedition. Transports carrying a brigade of the 6th Indian Division separated from one of the convoys from India to Egypt and headed for the island of Bahrain in the Persian Gulf, where the Sheik, although nominally independent, had allowed a British political agent to function and substantially gave control of his foreign relations to the British.

  The Government of India initially had control of the operations in the Persian Gulf and Mesopotamia. The expedition, commanded by Brigadier W. S. Delamain and escorted by the Ocean and the Royal Indian Marine armed transport Dufferin, reached Bahrain on 23 October. The Government of India therefore had a striking force well up the Persian Gulf when the Turkish navy attacked the Russians in the Black Sea. They ordered the expedition to the Shatt-al-Arab and prepared a second brigade for the Persian Gulf Expeditionary Force—otherwise known as “Force D.” The Ocean herself drew too much water to cross the outer bar, but Hayes-Sadler armed launches and tugs, fitted minesweepers, and on 5 November—the day war with Turkey was formally declared—crossed the outer bar. The Espiègle was in position protecting the oil refinery at Abadan. The following day the Turkish guns at Fao at the entrance to the Shatt-al-Arab were silenced and by the 10th Delamain’s brigade, except for a small garrison left at Fao, was in position at Saniyeh on the Turkish side of the river about 2½ miles upstream from the refinery, awaiting the arrival of additional troops from India under the command of Lieutenant General Sir A. A. Barrett.

  The port of Basra, about 70 miles up the Shatt-al-Arab and the furthest point oceangoing ships could reach, was considered the key to the area, and General Barrett, once he and his troops had arrived, was ordered to take it if he could. The advance would be the best means of securing the oil refinery, supporting the pro-British Sheik of
Muhammerah, and offsetting the effects of the Jihad, the holy war proclaimed by the Sultan of Turkey. Barrett decided to advance on 19 November, and by the 22d the British and Indian troops, supported by the Espiègle, Odin, and Lawrence (a paddle steamer of the Royal Indian Marine) had broken through the Turkish positions along the banks and the obstructions in the river and captured Basra. The war with Turkey was barely three weeks old, and so far the campaign had been the classic type of colonial action: great political and diplomatic gains at small matériel loss.