It was too much for the minesweepers. Four of the six passed over the minefield below Chanak without getting their kites down, and one of the remaining pair soon struck a mine and blew up. For a time a tremendous fire poured down on the survivors, and it was an astonishing thing that, with so many mines cut loose and drifting about in the darkness, only two men were wounded before the flotilla got away.
Next night Keyes tried again without the assistance of the battleship, hoping to steal up on the Turks unawares. ‘The less said about that night the better,’ he wrote later. ‘To put it briefly, the sweepers turned tail and fled directly they were fired upon. I was furious and told the officers in charge that they had had their opportunity, there were many others only too keen to try. It did not matter if we lost all seven sweepers, there were twenty-eight more, and the mines had got to be swept up. How could they talk of being stopped by heavy fire if they were not hit? The Admiralty were prepared for losses, but we had chucked our hand in and started squealing before we had any.’
And so too it seemed to Churchill in London. On this same day, March 11, he sent the following telegram to Carden:
‘Your original instructions laid stress on caution and deliberate methods, and we approve highly the skill and patience with which you have advanced hitherto without loss. The results to be gained are, however, great enough to justify loss of ships and men if success cannot be obtained without. The turning of the corner at Chanak may decide the whole operation. . . . We do not wish to hurry you or urge you beyond your judgment, but we recognize clearly that at a certain point in your operations you will have to press hard for a decision, and we desire to know whether you consider that point has now been reached.’
By March 13 new crews had been assembled for some of the minesweepers—just as Keyes had anticipated there had been an immediate response to the call for volunteers—and that night the attack was renewed with great resolution. The enemy gunners waited until the trawlers and the picket boats were in the middle of the minefield and then, turning on all their searchlights together, opened up with a concentrated fire. This time the trawlers stuck to it until all but three were put out of action, and the effect of this was seen on the following morning when many mines came floating down with the current and were exploded. From this time forward it was decided that the sweeping should be done by day, and it was hoped that sufficient progress would be made for the Fleet to close in for the full scale attack on the Narrows on March 17 or 18.
Carden meanwhile had still not replied to the Admiralty’s message, and on March 14 Churchill telegraphed again. ‘I do not understand,’ he said, ‘why minesweepers should be interfered with by firing which causes no casualties. Two or three hundred casualties would be a moderate price to pay for sweeping up as far as the Narrows. I highly approve your proposal to obtain volunteers from the Fleet for minesweeping. This work has to be done whatever the loss of life and small craft and the sooner it is done the better.
‘Secondly, we have information that the Turkish forts are short of ammunition, that the German officers have made despondent reports and have appealed to Germany for more. Every conceivable effort is being made to supply ammunition, it is being seriously considered to send a German or an Austrian submarine, but apparently they have not started yet. Above is absolutely secret. All this makes it clear that the operation should now be pressed forward methodically and resolutely at night and day. The unavoidable losses must be accepted. The enemy is harassed and anxious now. The time is precious as the interference of submarines is a very serious consideration.’
To these messages Carden now replied that he fully appreciated the situation, and that despite the difficulties he would launch his main attack as soon as he could: probably March 17.
Carden was ill. Under the increasing strain of the operations he was unable to eat and he slept very little at night. He was worried about the failure of the seaplanes, about the mines and about the weather. It had taken him two days to make up his mind as to how he was to reply to Churchill’s messages, and now that he had pledged himself to this drastic all-out attack his confidence began to ebb away. He did not explicitly lose faith in the adventure, but in his weakened condition he seems to have felt that he no longer had the personal power to command it.
In fairness to Carden it ought perhaps to be remembered that it was only by chance that he had ever come to the Dardanelles at all; this was a post that should have gone to Admiral Limpus, the head of the former British Naval Mission to Turkey, the man who knew all about the Dardanelles. But at the time when Limpus left Constantinople Turkey was still a neutral, and the British did not wish to irritate the Turks by deliberately sending the man who knew all their secrets to blockade the Dardanelles. So Carden had been lifted out of his post as Superintendent of Malta Dockyard, and he had already had a long winter at sea off the straits before this action had begun. The enterprise had not been exactly thrust upon him—indeed, he himself had suggested the method of attack—but in agreeing to it in the first place one can imagine that he was influenced by the knowledge that he was going the way the young First Lord wanted him to go. And now this highly dangerous operation had built itself up around him into a tremendous thing. It had gathered an impetus out of all proportion to its beginnings, and since as yet he had fought no major action, had lost no ship and scarcely any men, he felt bound to go on. But he dreaded it.
On March 15, after another bad night, Carden told Keyes he could continue no longer. This meant the end of his career, and both Vice-Admiral de Robeck and Keyes begged him to reconsider. However, on the following day a Harley Street specialist who was serving with the Fleet announced after an examination that Carden was on the edge of a nervous collapse; he must sail for home at once.
The attack was now due to be bunched within forty-eight hours, and a new Commander had to be found in haste. Admiral Wemyss, the commandant of the base on the island of Lemnos, was the senior officer on the station, but he at once offered to stand down in favour of de Robeck, who had been involved in the fighting from the beginning. On March 17 Churchill cabled his agreement to this arrangement, and sent de Robeck the following message:
‘Personal and Secret from First Lord. In entrusting to you with great confidence the command of the Mediterranean Detached Fleet I presume . . . that you consider, after separate and independent judgment, that the immediate operations proposed are wise and practicable. If not, do not hesitate to say so. If so, execute them without delay and without further reference at the first favourable opportunity. . . . All good fortune attend you.’
De Robeck replied that weather permitting he would attack on the following day.
There is an excitement about the attack on the Narrows on March 18, 1915, a sense of natural adventure, which sets it apart from almost any other battle in the two world wars. Those who took part in it do not remember it with horror, as one might remember poison gas or the atomic bomb, or with the feeling of futility and waste that eventually surrounds most acts of war. Instead they look back on this battle as a great day in their lives: they are delighted that the risk was taken, delighted that they themselves were there, and the vision of the oncoming ships with great fountains of spray about them, and the gunfire echoing along the Dardanelles, is still an exhilaration in their memory.
In our time most decisive naval actions have been fought far out at sea, and often in rough weather and over a large area of water so that no one man’s eye could command the whole scene. But here the land was near, the area of action very closely confined, and from morning until dusk a brilliant sun shone down on the calm sea. An observer, whether in the fighting tops of a battleship or standing on any of the hills on either side of the straits, could have seen precisely what was going on as the struggle unfolded itself from hour to hour; and even when night fell the battlefield was still illuminated by the beams of the searchlights constantly sweeping across the water.
In another sense this struggle was unusual, for it was essent
ially a naval attack upon an army, or at any rate upon artillery. From first to last the Turkish and German warships never appeared, and no aircraft were employed by either side. Then too, there was no element of surprise. Every fine morning had brought the Turks and the Germans the prospect of this attack. The forces on either side were very largely known—just how many ships and guns and mines—and the object of the struggle was perfectly obvious to everybody from the youngest bluejacket to the simplest private. All hung upon that one thin strip of water scarcely a mile wide and five miles long at the Narrows: if that was lost by the Turks then everything was lost and the battle was over.
De Robeck arranged his fleet in three divisions. Line A, steaming abreast, consisted of the four most powerful British ships which were to open the attack—Queen Elizabeth, Agamemnon, Lord Nelson and Inflexible—and they were accompanied on either flank by two more battleships, Prince George and Triumph.
In Line B, following about a mile astern, was the French squadron—Gaulois, Charlemagne, Bouvet and Suffren—with two more British battleships, Majestic and Swiftsure, on either side. The other six battleships and the destroyers and minesweepers which were also committed to the engagement were to wait their turn outside the straits. It was hoped that in the course of the day the forts at the Narrows would be so battered that the minesweepers would be able to clear a channel that same evening. Then with luck the battleships might pass through into the Sea of Marmara on the following day.
The morning of March 18 broke warm and sunny, and soon after dawn de Robeck gave orders for the Fleet to clear for action. Then with the crews at action stations down below and only the commanders and the men controlling the guns on deck the ships moved off from their anchorage at Tenedos.
At 10.30 a.m., when the morning haze had lifted sufficiently for the Turkish forts to be clearly seen, the first ten battleships entered the straits, and at once came under the fire of the enemy howitzers and field guns on either side. For about an hour the Queen Elizabeth and her companions steamed steadily forward under this barrage, getting in a shot with their lighter guns where they could but making no other reply. Soon after 11 a.m. Line A reached its station, a point about eight miles downstream from the Narrows, and without anchoring remained stationary, stemming the current. At 11.25 a.m. the assault began. The Queen Elizabeth’s targets were the two fortresses on either side of the town of Chanak on the Narrows, and on these she turned her eight 15-inch guns. Almost immediately afterwards the Agamemnon, Lord Nelson and Inflexible engaged three other forts at Kilid Bahr on the opposite bank.
After their first few shots in reply the Turkish and German gunners at the Narrows realized that they were out of range, and the forts fell silent; and in silence they endured the fearful bombardment of the four British ships for the next half hour. All five forts were hit repeatedly, and at 11.50 a.m. there was a particularly heavy explosion in Chanak. The British meanwhile were entirely exposed to the Turkish howitzers and smaller guns which were nearer at hand, and these poured down a continuous barrage on the ships from either side. This fire could never be decisive against armour, but the unprotected superstructure of the battleships was hit again and again and a certain amount of minor damage was done.
A few minutes after midday de Robeck, who was in the Queen Elizabeth, judged that the time had come to engage the Narrows at closer range, and he signalled for Admiral Guépratte to bring the French squadron forward. This was a mission for which Guépratte had expressly asked on the ground that it was now the turn of the French, since it was de Robeck himself who had carried out the close-range attack on the outer defences.
Admiral Guépratte has a personality which refreshes the whole Gallipoli story. He never argues, he never hangs back: he always wishes to attack. And now he took his old battleships through the British line to a point about half a mile further on where he was well within the range of all the enemy guns and in constant danger of being hit. On reaching their station the French ships fanned out from the centre so as to give the British astern of them a clear field of fire, and there then ensued through the next three-quarters of an hour a tremendous cannonade.
One can perhaps envisage something of the scene: the forts enveloped in clouds of dust and smoke, with an occasional flame spurting out of the debris, the ships slowly moving through a sea pitted with innumerable fountains of water, and sometimes disappearing altogether in the fumes and the spray, the stabs of light from the howitzers firing from the hills, and the vast earthquake rumbling of the guns. Presently Gaulois was badly holed below the waterline, the Inflexible had both her foremast on fire and a jagged hole in her starboard side, and the Agamemnon, struck twelve times in twenty-five minutes, was turning away to a better position. These hits though spectacular had scarcely touched the crews—there were less than a dozen casualties in the whole fleet—and as yet no ship was seriously affected in its fighting powers.
With the enemy at the Narrows, on the other hand, a critical situation had developed. Some of the guns were jammed and half buried in earth and debris, communications were destroyed between the fire control and the gunners, and those few batteries which managed to continue became more and more erratic in their fire. Fort 13 on the Gallipoli side had been obscured by an internal explosion, and it was clear to the British and the French that even though the forts were not yet destroyed the enemy gunners were for the moment demoralized. Their fire grew increasingly spasmodic until at 1.45 p.m., after nearly two and a half hours of continuous engagement, it had practically died away altogether.
De Robeck now decided to retire the French squadron with the rest of Line B and bring in his six battleships waiting in the rear. The movement began shortly before 2 p.m. and the Suffren, turning to starboard, led her sister ships out of the action along the shores of Eren Keui Bay on the Asiatic side. They were almost abreast of the Queen Elizabeth and the British line at 1.54 p.m. when the Bouvet, lying immediately astern of the Suffren, was observed to be shaken with an immense explosion, and a column of smoke shot up from her decks into the sky. She heeled over, still going very fast, capsized and vanished. It was all over in two minutes. According to one observer the vessel ‘just slithered down as a saucer slithers down in a bath’. At one moment she had been there, perfectly safe and sound. Now there was nothing left but a few heads bobbing about in the water. Captain Rageot and 639 men who were trapped between decks had been drowned.
It seemed to those who watched that the Bouvet had been struck by a heavy shell which had reached her magazine, and now the Turkish gunners, heartened by what they had seen, renewed their attack on the other ships. The next two hours were largely a repetition of the morning’s events. Moving in pairs, Ocean and Irresistible, Albion and Vengeance, Swiftsure and Majestic, came in and closed the range to ten thousand yards. Under this new barrage the heavy guns at the Narrows began firing wildly again, and by 4 p.m. they were practically silent once more.
Now at last it was time for the minesweepers to go in, and de Robeck called them forward from the mouth of the straits. Two pairs of trawlers led by their commander in a picket boat got out their sweeps and they appeared to be going well as they passed by Queen Elizabeth and the rest of A Line. Three mines were brought up and exploded. But then, as they drew forward to B Line and came under enemy fire, something like a panic must have occurred: all four trawlers turned about, and despite all the efforts of their commander to drive them back, ran out of the straits. Another pair of trawlers, which was supposed to take part in the operation, vanished without getting out their sweeps at all.
This fiasco was followed by something much more serious. At 4.11 p.m. the Inflexible, which had held her place in A line all this time, despite the fire in her foremast and other damage, was seen suddenly to take a heavy list to starboard. She reported that she had struck a mine not far from the spot where the Bouvet had gone down and now she left the battle line. She was observed to be down by the bows and still listing considerably as she steamed for the mouth of the st
raits, with the cruiser Phaeton attending her. It seemed likely that she would go down at any moment. The explosion of the mine had flooded the fore torpedo flat and besides killing the twenty-seven men stationed there had done other extensive damage. Flames and poisonous fumes began to spread; not only were the ship’s electric lights extinguished but the oil lamps, which had been lit for just such an emergency, failed as well. At the same time the ventilator fans stopped running and the heat below deck was intolerable. In these circumstances Phillimore, the captain, decided that it was not necessary to keep both steaming watches on duty, and he ordered one of the watches up to the comparative safety on deck. All, however, volunteered to stay below. They worked in darkness amid the fumes and the rising water until all the valves and watertight doors were closed. The remainder of the ship’s company stood to attention on the upper deck as they passed back through the rest of the Fleet. It seemed to those who saw them that none of these men had been defeated by the day’s events, or were shaken by the imminent prospect of drowning; and they got the ship back to Tenedos.
Meanwhile the Irresistible had been struck. Not five minutes after Inflexible had left the line, she too flew a green flag on her starboard yard arm, indicating that she believed she had been torpedoed on that side. She was on the extreme right of the Fleet at the time, close to the Asiatic shore, and at once the Turkish gunners began to pour their shells into her. Unable to get any answer to his signals, de Robeck sent off the destroyer Wear to render assistance, and presently the Wear came back with some six hundred of the Irresistible’s crew, several dead and eighteen wounded among them. The senior executive officers of the Irresistible had stayed on board with ten volunteers in order to make the ship ready for towing.
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