The wrong lesson was learned from both exemplars: the sieges in Flanders were won by howitzers that lobbed their shells into the air in a high, curving trajectory, which meant they struck home like aerial bombs, from a great height. The trajectory of the big naval guns of the day was as near flat as possible except at extreme range: the armour-piercing shells had surprisingly little effect unless they scored a very rare direct hit, and were quite capable of burying themselves deep in the earth without exploding. The latest guns’ long range, ten miles or more, meant that capital ships could open fire with impunity, beyond the reach of the artillery in the entrance forts, but also implied that if shelling was to be effective, pinpoint accuracy was needed, which meant that the fall of shot had to be closely observed, something that local conditions seldom allowed, as we shall see. Even 30 years later, shattering naval bombardments by Allied navies in the Pacific and off Normandy had remarkably little effect on coastal defences except when rare direct hits were scored.
The Turks admittedly were prompted by this first bombardment to speed up the programme, already begun, to strengthen the defences: the fixed gun-batteries were linked by field telephones, extra searchlights were set up, German rangefinders, the world’s best, were introduced and buoys placed out to sea to assist the gun crews in ranging their fire. Most important of all, more mobile batteries of field guns, light and medium howitzers were deployed, not only to support the cannon emplaced in the forts but also to protect the all-important lines of mines, whose number in the Narrows area was gradually increased after November from five to ten. No new large-calibre artillery could be obtained for the forts, but some of the Goeben’s secondary 15-centimetre guns were unshipped and set up on land and new artillery pieces were shipped down the Danube and the western Black Sea coast to the Bosporus from Czech factories, then within the Austrian Empire. In the end, however, the defenders had all the time in the world to prepare for the next attack and did not exert themselves unduly: it was to be more than three months before the Anglo-French fleet tried again.
Towards the end of November 1914 the Admiralty was considering handing over the blockade of the Dardanelles to the French Navy, which by pre-war agreement was responsible for the Mediterranean naval theatre overall. The French fleet was using British Malta as its base for operations in the eastern basin, where its main task was to guard the mouth of the Adriatic against the Austrian fleet. As in the North Sea, the blockade was a distant one, a precaution against submarine attack. The British naval presence off the Dardanelles had for the time being been reduced to a force just sufficient to deal unaided with the unlikely event of a breakout by the German ships: one battlecruiser (Indefatigable), one light cruiser (Dublin), six destroyers and three submarines. But also recently arrived to join
Carden’s flag was a French heavy squadron commanded by Rear-Admiral Émile Guépratte, consisting of the Gaulois (flag) and three other pre-dreadnoughts, plus six destroyers and three submarines. Rear-Admiral John de Robeck was Carden’s deputy, and Commodore Roger Keyes (previously based at Harwich in command of submarine forces) was chief of staff; both were competent officers.
The destruction of Graf Spee’s squadron on 8 December brought not only a boost to naval and national morale but also a useful strategic dividend. Only very few, isolated German light cruisers and auxiliary cruisers were left at large (but not for long), which meant there was no longer any need to keep groups of heavy ships scattered across the broad oceans to protect merchant shipping against an attack by an enemy squadron. No such formation now existed outside German home waters. The Germans would run a dangerous handful of disguised merchant cruisers, much better armed and more dangerous than mere auxiliary cruisers, with some success for most of the rest of the war, but each one operated alone, with effects that were hardly noticeable once the U-boat campaign got into its stride. Meanwhile dozens of Allied cruisers and other vessels could be redeployed to such areas as the Mediterranean. Vice-Admiral R. H. Peirse, for example, left his Bombay base and the East Indies station and moved his flag to Suez, to reinforce the naval protection of Egypt with patrols off the Syrian coast. The Russian light cruiser Askold, temporarily attached to his flag, explored as far north as Alexandretta (Iskanderun) and was followed by the British light cruiser, the misleadingly gentle-sounding HMS Doris.
The latter’s commander, Captain F. Larken, RN, appears to have come from the same mould as the brothers Kelly, his light-cruiser colleagues. As the official naval historian, Sir Julian Corbett, noted, ‘Captain Larken at once went north and proceeded to interpret the Admiralty instructions in a liberal manner.’ He conducted a series of pinprick raids along the coast, bombarding coastal defences, cutting telegraph wires and blowing up railway tracks and equipment, particularly at Alexandretta, where many Turkish troops were based. Information from Doris prompted the thought at the Admiralty of making Alexandretta, at the northern end of the Syrian coast, a target for a substantial military and naval intervention against the Turks. It was an easier target than the Dardanelles and would involve not only less risk but also fewer resources. A landing there could inflict permanent damage to the strategic Baghdad and Hejaz railways and bolster Britain’s positions in Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) and Egypt. It could be attacked instead of the Dardanelles, or if an assault on the straits were frustrated.
Another example of the contrast between the mostly uninspired admirals and the gumption of individual British commanders was provided by Lieutenant Norman Holbrook in the primitive submarine B11 on 13 December 1914. Carden’s Captain (D), C. P. R. Coode, RN, commanding the six destroyers and also the three submarines with the squadron (B9, B10 and B11), chose Holbrook for a mission he had had in mind for some time. Holbrook’s boat was built in 1905 (ancient in submarine terms), was 135 feet long, displaced just 280 tonnes (315 submerged) and was armed with only two torpedo tubes. Her maximum underwater speed was eight knots and she had a crew of 16. Holbrook was ordered to enter the Dardanelles to look for a target to sink. The boat was specially fitted with mine ‘bumpers’ – metal fenders at the bow which were intended to push aside the anchoring cables of mines like curtains, without setting off the explosive charges. As yet there were still only five completed lines of mines across the strait and Holbrook passed under them unscathed, making slow headway against the eternal current.
Just short of Chanak at the Narrows he sighted an old 10,000-tonne battleship, which he proceeded to hit fair and square with a single torpedo fired from 800 yards. A large explosion ensued and the unfortunate ship, the Messudieh, turned over and sank in ten minutes. She had been commissioned in 1874, though rebuilt in 1902, and had a main armament of two 9.2-inch guns. She had been moved to her exposed position by the Germans, against Turkish protests, as a floating battery to defend the Narrows. Only 10 officers and 27 men were killed; a dramatic rescue operation involving the cutting of holes in the upended hull rescued more than 600 of her crew.
Holbrook dived and turned to escape, only to discover that the glass of the boat’s compass was fogged. He steered blind and bumped along the bottom, using the periscope fleetingly to try and locate his position. After nine hours submerged, the B11 returned to base with only minor damage. Holbrook won the first VC of the submarine service for his unprecedented stroke, and every other crew member received a high decoration. A month later the French submarine Saphir tried to repeat the exploit, but ran aground and was lost.
The British war leadership in general and Churchill in particular were casting about at the end of 1914 for a way of using their huge naval margin in secondary ships, without weakening the Grand Fleet in the North Sea, for a blow against the Central Powers and their allies, who enjoyed the advantage of internal lines of communication all the way across Europe. The traditional British tactic, whether on the individual battlefield or in a war against a continental enemy, was the flank attack, a classic example being the campaign in the Iberian peninsula against Napoleonic France.
Theoretically there were five pos
sibilities for exploiting Britain’s overwhelming maritime advantage:
• A move against Germany in the north by British warships and Russian troops, focused on the Baltic (but the Russians were heavily engaged elsewhere against the Germans, Austrians and Turks).
• A drive up the Adriatic against the Austrians and their fleet (impossible without Italian support and dangerous because of submarines).
• A landing at Salonica to take the pressure off isolated Serbia (out of the question without Greek participation, which was unavailable so long as Bulgaria’s intentions remained unknown).
• A northward thrust by the BEF in Belgium, supported by naval guns, to expel the Germans from the captured ports, including Zeebrugge and Ostend.
• A combined operation against the Turks at the Dardanelles aimed at Constantinople (or something less ambitious against Alexandretta).
Kitchener, Sir John French, commanding the BEF, and his staff insisted that all freshly raised and trained British troops must be sent to the Western Front – even as they admitted that there was no foreseeable chance of a strategic decision there. If there were to be such a development it would have to come on the Eastern Front, where there was enormous room for manoeuvre and huge reserves of manpower – but a shortage of munitions, thanks to the closure of the Dardanelles. French favoured the Belgian coast option, Fisher and Churchill the Baltic, while France believed a knockout blow against the Germans on the Marne was still possible, given the necessary reinforcements.
We saw how the War Council finally got around to considering what to do about Turkey at its first wartime meeting on 25 November 1914, when an attack on Gallipoli and the Dardanelles was considered. The minds of Britain’s war leaders were drawn back to the question at the turn of the year. On 30 December the Russian commander-in-chief, Grand Duke
Nicholas, told Sir George Buchanan, the British ambassador to Petrograd (formerly and now St Petersburg), that his armies were under pressure from the Turks in the Caucasus. He asked for help, in the form of a diversionary ‘demonstration’ against Turkey. Buchanan informed Grey, the Foreign Secretary, of this request on New Year’s Day in a telegram that arrived on 2 January 1915. Grey forwarded it to Kitchener, who showed it to Churchill on a visit to the First Lord’s office. Prior to this development, Churchill’s opinion had been in favour of Fisher’s idea of an intervention in the Baltic, seizing the German Frisian island of Borkum as a base for naval operations. Clearly now the Russians were in no position to mount a large invasion of north Germany.
Faced with Churchill’s proposal to respond to the Grand Duke’s call for help with a combined operation at the Dardanelles, including a landing at Gallipoli, Kitchener suggested a demonstration at the Dardanelles by the navy alone, deploying what was to become his mantra in the coming weeks: ‘We have no troops to land anywhere.’ Churchill therefore eventually decided on a purely naval operation. Kitchener sent a telegram to the Grand Duke via the Foreign Office, committing Britain to a demonstration at the Dardanelles. It was not shown to Churchill, or even to the Prime Minister apparently, as noted in a curious paragraph in the first report of the Dardanelles Commission, published early in 1917: ‘Mr Asquith thinks that he did not see this telegram before it was sent, but it must not be by any means inferred on that account that he would not have approved of its dispatch if he had seen it’! The available evidence suggests that Kitchener had only a demonstration in mind, and not the all-out naval attempt to force the strait which Churchill was to make of it: he still had no troops to offer. Kitchener’s aim was merely to deter or distract the Turks from sending more troops to the Caucasus against the Russians.
The idea was discussed by the Admiralty War Group of senior admirals on 3 January amid general pessimism, shared at this stage by Churchill himself, who was still thinking about the Baltic. The old admirals reluctantly endorsed a naval demonstration. Fisher favoured all or nothing: a full-blown Dardanelles strategy – provided the Russians and the Balkan armies (Serbs, Greeks, Bulgarians, Romanians) joined in with enough troops to overwhelm Gallipoli and march on Constantinople: ‘But as the great Napoleon said, “CELERITY” – without it – “FAILURE”!’ Fisher’s memoranda, notes, minutes and letters were full of exclamations, capital letters and underlinings, often in green ink. Maurice Hankey, secretary to the War Council, had suggested in more measured tones a similar campaign in a memorandum to Asquith, the Prime Minister, as recently as 28 December; Fisher used this to underpin his own plan for a combined operation. Lloyd George was also in favour, writing a paper of his own in support. Balfour and Grey too agreed.
General Lord Kitchener of Khartoum in 1900.
The Rt. Hon. Winston Churchill, MP, First Lord of the Admiralty, in 1915.
Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fisher of Kilverstone.
Lieutenant Norman Holbrook, RN, and the crew of submarine B11 after sinking the battleship Messudieh inside the Dardanelles, December 1914.
Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, architect of the Imperial German Navy.
Hans Freiherr von Wangenheim, German Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, in 1914.
Rear-Admiral Wilhelm Souchon, commanding the Mediterranean Division commanding the Mediterranean Division of the Imperial German Navy, in 1914.
General Otto Liman von Sanders in Turkish service, defender of Gallipoli Turkish service, defender of Gallipoli 1914-15.
The Allied fleet sailing for the Dardanelles
SS River Clyde grounded at ‘V’ beach after playing ‘Trojan horse’ for the Cape Helles landing.
French soldiers from the Colonial Regiment inspect a smashed searchlight.
The Kaiser and Enver Pasha converse on the deck of the Goeben.
The commanders and chiefs of staff on HMS Triad: (L to R) Commodore Roger Keyes; Vice-Admiral John de Robeck; General Sir Ian Hamilton; Major-General W.P. Braithwaite.
The man who answered the Turkish Question, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.
The undoing of the Allied fleet. The Turkish minelayer Nusret — the modern copy at Çannakale.
Atatürk’s verdict on the Dardanelles and Gallipoli campaigns.
So on 3 January Churchill sent a telegram to Admiral Carden, asking whether forcing the Dardanelles by naval gunfire was practicable: ‘The importance of the results would justify severe loss.’ Two days later Carden replied that it could be done, though slowly and with a suitable number of ships. On the 6th Churchill asked the admiral how he would do it and what he needed. Five days later Carden telegraphed his considered reply:
… Possibility of operations.
(a) Total reduction of defences at the entrance.
(b) Clear defences inside of straits up to and including Kephez Point battery no. 8.
(c) Reduction of defences at the Narrows, Chanak.
(d) Clear passage through minefield, advancing through Narrows, and final advance to Marmora.
…
Whilst (a) and (b) are being carried out a battleship force would be employed in demonstration and bombardment of Bulair lines and coast [at the north-eastern neck of the Gallipoli peninsula] and reduction of battery at [near the south-western end].
Force required 12 [pre-dreadnought] battleships … three battlecruisers … three light cruisers, one flotilla leader [light cruiser], 16 destroyers … six submarines, four seaplanes … 12 minesweepers …
And a dozen support ships, including a hospital ship and supply vessels. And piles of shells. Carden’s long telegram went on to describe in detail the programme of action, step by step, starting with silencing the entrance forts and sending the battleships, preceded by minesweepers, up the straits, bombardments over the peninsula from the Aegean followed by shorter-range direct shelling, with the seaplanes observing the fall of shot: ‘Might do it all in a month about. Expenditure of ammunition would be large.’ Carden made no mention of a combined operation or of troops to support the fleet.
On 4 January, just five days after the Grand Duke’s plea for help, the Russians turned the tables
on the Turks in Armenia, defeating them in several actions. Nicholas neglected to tell his British allies of this favourable turn of events, and they went on believing that their Dardanelles intervention, whatever form it took, was for the immediate relief of Russia, as well as for her and the Entente’s long-term benefit. There were 129 merchant steamships, Allied and neutral, totalling 350,000 gross register tons, locked up in the Black Sea. Freeing Russia’s main trade route would salvage her economy, solve her munitions shortage, guarantee Anglo-French grain supplies, impress the wavering Balkan states and the Arabs under Turkish rule, and quite possibly Italy too. All this was an understandably dazzling prospect.
Churchill took Carden’s exhaustive shopping list to the meeting of the War Council on 13 January 1915. A low-key discussion was almost electrified, and certainly enlivened, when he produced it. Sir John French was still arguing for the Zeebrugge attack, on which a final decision was postponed until mid-February, when two new Territorial Army divisions would be ready for the Western Front. Meanwhile General Joffre, the French commander-in-chief, had pulled 100,000 troops out of the line immediately to the right of the BEF to form part of his mobile reserve, which meant that the temporarily exposed British Army could not risk an advance on the Belgian ports.
The First Lord explained that a dozen slow old battleships, of little use against the High Seas Fleet but usually carrying four 12-inch guns, could be used as floating batteries to destroy most of the Dardanelles fortifications. Fisher not only agreed at this stage that old battleships could be spared but threw in the latest pre-dreadnoughts, the Agamemnon and Lord Nelson – and on the eve of the Council meeting he suggested to Churchill that the new Queen Elizabeth, with eight 15-inch guns, the world’s most powerful battleship of the day, could go too. The First Sea Lord’s enthusiasm for a massive bombardment obviously knew no bounds: he was going to go ‘the whole hog – totus porcus’, as he said later, when the final decision on the nature of the attack was taken, against his advice, at the end of the month; but he soon developed misgivings when it became clear to him that Churchill was pursuing a totus porcus of his own: a naval breakthrough followed by an attack on Constantinople, after Kitchener had repeated that no troops were available. This would entail considerable, possibly serious, losses; while some old ships could be spared, their trained crews, needed as reserves for the Grand Fleet, could not; and in the event of a defeat of the Grand Fleet the Channel Fleet’s pre-dreadnoughts would be the only reserves left against a German invasion. Total domination of the North Sea and Channel was Fisher’s absolute strategic priority. A bombardment from a great distance was one thing; a short-range duel with Krupp cannon amid the mines in the Narrows was something else altogether.
The Dandarnelles Disaster Page 11