Grasping Gallipoli

by Peter Chasseaud

  A temporary member of GSGS in the autumn of 1914 was T E Lawrence, who had already spent some years in the Middle East, and who in January and February 1914 had spent six weeks with Leonard Woolley, providing the archaeological cover for Captain S F Newcombe’s topographical survey of southern Palestine; it has also been suggested that Newcombe was conducting a clandestine reconnaissance of tracks and water holes in the Sinai desert (the Negev) in order to determine the likely route of a Turkish advance towards Egypt. Newcombe later commanded the 4th Field Company RE of 2nd Australian Division at Gallipoli, and was responsible for the mapping of the Anzac area.

  Lawrence returned to England in June 1914, visited GSGS at the War Office in that month in connection with a map of Sinai – he was writing-up, with Woolley, the archaeological part of the Southern Palestine survey, to be published the following year by the Palestine Exploration Fund as The Wilderness of Zin – and when war broke out tried to join the OTC in Oxford. He was not accepted, and neither was he accepted in London because the flood of volunteers had been so great, so, after trying in vain to get a war job through Newcombe, he wrote to the archaeologist D G Hogarth, Keeper of the Ashmolean and a member of the Royal Geographical Society – as we have seen he was to speak on Gallipoli to this learned society at the time of the landing.7 Hogarth had, in 1910, fixed Lawrence up with a job on a British Museum dig at Carchemish on the Euphrates, and now, in 1914, he was instrumental in obtaining, as a special favour of Colonel Hedley, a week’s trial for him in GSGS. Lawrence had been working there for three weeks when Hogarth asked Hedley if he had been any use; the latter replied that he was running the whole department. Under Hedley, Lawrence worked on a 1:125,000 map and handbook of Sinai, but also on maps of Belgium and France. Lawrence’s desk at the War Office used to be pointed out to newcomers – Carrol Romer, who was with Hedley from 1916 to 1918, noted of Lawrence: ‘He used to occupy the position I now occupy at the W.O. He had an astonishing memory but would take no notes. Hence his handing over was something of a debacle.’8

  Early in December 1914, a month after the commencement of hostilities with Turkey, Kitchener, realising the value of their knowledge in planning Egypt’s defence, sent the two archaeologists (Lawrence and Woolley) of the southern Palestine survey expedition to join General Maxwell’s new Intelligence Department in Cairo. Second Lieutenant Lawrence and Captain Newcombe (who had been sent to France but was soon recalled) left together for Marseilles on 9 December, sailing to Port Said, and then on to Cairo.9 At the same time George Lloyd MP, Aubrey Herbert MP and Captain Hay left London, also on their way to join the Military Intelligence Department in Cairo, and later the newly created Arab Bureau. Other members of the Bureau, under its chief, Colonel Gilbert Clayton, were Lawrence’s mentor Commander Hogarth, Colonel K Cornwallis, Lt Wyman Bury RNVR, Sir Mark Sykes and Gertrude Bell.

  Lawrence joined the Intelligence Department of GHQ Egypt as its Maps Officer, providing liaison with Ernest Dowson at the Survey of Egypt.10 There he took over the job of Captain L B Weldon of the Egyptian Survey, who joined the 7,000-ton Aenne Rickmers, a seaplane carrier converted from a captured German cargo ship, which had brought the ‘Nieuport Squadron’ of seven or eight seaplanes to Egypt. The ship and squadron had concentrated at Nice in August 1914, moving to Bizerta in September to protect Allied shipping in the Mediterranean. From here she sailed to Malta, and on 1 December arrived at Port Said, having been placed under Maxwell’s command to help the defence of Egypt and the Suez Canal.

  Weldon arrived at Port Said on 16 January 1915, to join Clayton’s Intelligence Service and performed a vital role in the Aenne Rickmers (equipped with two seaplanes) determining the Turkish order-of-battle at Gallipoli and in Syria and Mesopotamia. Apart from commanding five bluejackets and six marines, his task was a combination of liaison and intelligence work – in particular to infiltrate spies, or ‘agents’ as they were more politely known, behind the Turkish lines. He landed these agents on the Palestinian and Syria coasts and collected them when they had gathered information on enemy troop movements, etc. from the many people in those territories who were willing to help.11 Weldon was later engaged in reconnaissance work and clandestine operations in the Red Sea.

  The Aenne was part of an operation contributing a huge amount of vital intelligence about the Turkish Army and its movements to Maxwell, Birdwood and Hamilton. In March she was torpedoed, wounding several men, but stayed afloat. Weldon was then given temporary command of the transport Euryalus and carried the Lancashire Fusiliers from Mudros to Gallipoli. He later worked with Lawrence and Feisal, and in February 1917 was given the Managem, a 160-ton steam yacht, and continued to do ‘spy work’ for the Army, rather than the Navy. In early 1918 he was made Intelligence Officer, Port Said, a post he held until the end of the war.12

  Despite the departure of many officers from MO4 and the rest of the War Office to the Western Front, there should have been no difficulty in supplying maps and geographical information to Hamilton and Braithwaite. The loss of staff applied to MO4 and the MO5 Library to a lesser extent; Hedley, Chilcott and Hudleston, the Geographical Section Librarian, had all remained in place, were totally familiar with the resources of the Section and Libraries, and were able to point to key topographical and other intelligence resources. The GSGS Map Room was well-organised, and maps of ‘Turkey in Europe’, which included Gallipoli, were kept together. Colonel Hedley noted after the war that:

  … the burden of map supply in Gallipoli fell on the Survey of Egypt [he had arranged this with Dowson, Director General of the Egyptian Survey, shortly after the outbreak of war], but the original supply of [one-inch and 1:250,000] maps and the printing plates for all small scale maps came from the War Office.13

  Intelligence after the outbreak of war

  The flow of intelligence from Constantinople and the Dardanelles continued after the outbreak of war with Germany in August 1914, and before the outbreak of hostilities with Turkey at the beginning of November. As early as the period August–October 1914, the Royal Navy was including in its intelligence reports information about defensive activity against landings on the Peninsula. Cunliffe Owen, the military attaché at Constantinople from the end of 1913 to the outbreak of war, who made a thorough reconnaissance of the Dardanelles area in the spring of 1914, sent to the War Office a continual flow of data about new or projected armaments, changes in the locations of batteries and minefields, and related matters, as well as vital topographical information about the Peninsula and the Asiatic Shore. From July 1914 he:

  … made frequent reports as to any activities in the region of the Dardanelles and as the situation became more intense, I reported at considerable length about troops, movements and installations in regard to armaments, location or setting up of mine fields, collection of shipping and appreciations.14

  In the gathering of this intelligence, he was aided by Mr C E S Palmer, the vice-consul at the Dardanelles, who lived at Chanak, and was later captured by the Turks when serving as an intelligence officer in the submarine E15. It may well have been Palmer who reported on the approximate position of a minefield laid by the Selanik on 4 and 5 August 1914.15 On 15 August Palmer sent a letter from Chanak to the Senior Naval Officer at Malta about the Dardanelles defences, giving information about mines, guns, batteries, troops, etc., and stated that in future he would be using coded messages. His word-code was very simple: ‘Feeling better’ meant that the Goeben was at Ismid and still flying the German flag; ‘Boy born’ meant that the Turks would probably assist the enemy; ‘Mary better’ meant that the German ships were sold.16

  In the same month the master of a British merchant ship and his wife counted the mines set out in long lines on the decks of Turkish transports in the Dardanelles, before they were laid in the water. Many British merchant ships were being prevented from leaving Constantinople, but nine managed to get through to the Aegean in August and September bringing vital information.17 The French military attaché in Constantinople, Colonel Maucor
ps, also provided intelligence via the Deuxième Bureau and, after the commencement of hostilities with Turkey, through the French Military Mission in Cairo.

  On 1 September 1914, when the question of the feasibility of capturing the Gallipoli Peninsula was raised in London, Colonel Talbot of the Directorate of Military Operations prepared a paper simply entitled The Gallipoli Peninsula for Callwell (DMO) to brief the CIGS. From this date the interplay between intelligence and operational planning becomes crucial. A new file was now opened. Talbot’s memorandum comprised a description of the Peninsula and its defences, including the point that the Bulair Lines ‘successfully kept out the Bulgarians’. He looked back to 1906, when he noted that:

  … a scheme was prepared for the capture of this Peninsula. It included the use of 4 divisions, each of 3 brigades. The general plan was to land them on the south west end of the peninsula and take in rear the forts commanding the Dardanelles.18

  He then drew attention to the recent enhancement of the defences:

  Since the date of this scheme the fortifications have been much strengthened: and it is believed that an attempt to capture the peninsula would be a much more serious operation now, than it was before the Turko-Bulgarian war.19

  At this stage, still on 1 September, Colonel A G Dallas hastily looked through the 1906 scheme and prepared a memorandum entitled The Dardanelles and Gallipoli Peninsula,20 to which a 1:250,000 outline map was attached showing the coastal batteries and forts and also the Bulair Lines, possible landing places, bridgeheads and route from the Gaba Tepe area to Kilid Bahr. After providing details of the Turkish garrison of the Peninsula and Asian and European Turkey, Dallas wrote a brief strategic appreciation in the light of the continual flow of fresh intelligence, and referred to possible Greek involvement:

  A map is attached to show the armament as it existed before the last Balkan war. Since then additional modern guns have been mounted and it is possible that some of the armament reported to have been brought [from Germany] to Constantinople through Roumania during the last week may have been sent to the Gallipoli Peninsula. The extreme width of the Bulair Peninsula [i.e. isthmus] is some 5,200 yards. In 1912 the Turks easily held it against a serious military operation in force undertaken by the Bulgarians. It is believed that German officers and a proportion [of] German personnel are in charge of the Dardanelles defences. It might be possible to induce Greece to undertake the military part of an offensive directed against the Gallipoli Peninsula but this would most probably lead to a Bulgarian incursion into Macedonia. The pressure now being exerted by Servia [Serbia] on Austria would then at once be removed. Servia is nervous of her rear and of any proposal or threat against Macedonia from which she has drawn a part of her army and is drawing supplies.

  Callwell having been briefed with this material, he and Talbot crossed Whitehall to the Admiralty where, at 6pm on 1 September, they met Captain C F Lambert (Fourth Sea Lord), Mr Thomson (Director of Transport), and Captain H W Richmond (Assistant DOD). These Admiralty representatives, warmer to the proposed operation than the outnumbered War Office contingent, stated that, given six weeks’ warning, they could assemble sufficient ships to carry 40,000 or 50,000 men (Greek, not British) to the selected landing places, while warships could also be provided to give covering fire; significantly, the Navy were thinking at this stage of a combined operation. Callwell stated bluntly that, considering the strength of the Turkish garrison and the large force already mobilised in European Turkey, he did not regard it as a feasible military operation; he capped this by saying that he believed this to be the War Office view.21

  As this was not what Churchill in particular wanted to hear, the initial meeting of subordinates was immediately followed up a day or two later by a top-level conference at the Admiralty, dominated by Churchill and the First Sea Lord (Prince Louis of Battenberg), and attended by Callwell and Captains Lambert and Richmond. Strangely, the CIGS was not present. Talbot noted that ‘the matter was thrashed out again, with the result that the DMO put his views on [enclosure] D’.22 This appreciation by Callwell, dated 3 September, and written under pressure from Churchill, is a crucial and prescient document which is worth studying, if only for its emphasis on the vital putative Greek contribution. Callwell did not mention this meeting in his evidence to the Dardanelles Commission, merely stating that it was only about the end of October that ‘Mr Churchill asked me to go over to him from the War Office to discuss the possibility of an attack on the Dardanelles’, and that ‘early in September, at the suggestion of Mr. Churchill, I drafted a memorandum, based on the assumption that Greece would be prepared to despatch a military force to co-operate with our Navy’.23 This memorandum, in which Callwell adjusted his judgement of the operation from his early ‘not a feasible military operation’ to ‘extremely difficult’, stated:

  It ought to be clearly understood that an attack upon the Gallipoli Peninsula from the sea side (outside the Straits) is likely to prove an extremely difficult operation of war. The subject has often been considered before by the General Staff and it was examined by the Committee of Imperial Defence in 1906: it was then decided that such an operation could not be regarded as feasible with the British Troops that might at short notice be collected for the purpose at that time. Since then the garrison has been greatly augmented, and as a consequence of threats on the part of Greeks and Bulgarians during the first Balkan War, and of the attack made upon the Lines of Bulair, the protection of the rear of the various batteries and works dominating the Straits was taken in hand. It is understood that what was then done renders them secure against anything in the nature of a surprise attack.

  The garrison of the Peninsula now normally consists of an Army Corps which may be taken at 27,000 men with 136 guns. But under existing conditions this garrison will almost certainly have been strengthened considerably, and it would be unsafe to assume that the attacking side would only have the above number to deal with. In any case it would not seem justifiable to undertake an operation of this kind with an army of less than 60,000 men against the Ottoman Forces likely to be encountered. These 60,000 might, however, cross the sea in two echelons, admitting of the transports returning to Greece after disembarking the first echelon.

  The Expeditionary Force could dispense almost entirely, if not entirely, with cavalry, and its mobile artillery might well be composed mainly of mountain batteries. It ought, however, to be accompanied by a strong contingent of siege pieces, especially howitzers, for attacking the batteries and forts bearing on the straits, which are the real objective; but unfortunately the Greeks do not seem to have any howitzers and very few siege guns.

  It has to be remembered that there is nothing to prevent the Turks bringing strong reinforcements to the Gallipoli Peninsula from Constantinople, Panderma and elsewhere across the Sea of Marmara, until such time as it becomes impracticable for them to disembark such troops within the Peninsula. There is a division – say 6,000 men – normally stationed on the Asiatic side of the Straits which could be got across at the very start if there were a few steamers and launches available at Chanak. Moreover a report just to hand says that there is now an army corps assembled on the Asiatic side.

  As a rough outline of the plan of attack it is suggested that in the first instance 30,000 men should be landed, should gain as much ground as possible, and should prepare landing stages while the transports return for the other 30,000 and the siege ordnance. The first 30,000 would have to be prepared to hold their own for about a week [the 1906 scheme stated that the whole operation should be finished within three days], allowing for the time taken on the voyage and in getting the transports loaded up afresh at the port of embarkation. But the actual details would of course have to be worked out by the General appointed to command the Expeditionary Force [not by the General Staff]. It is not unlikely that the Greek War Office and Admiralty are in possession of later information as to the conditions of the land defences of the Gallipoli Peninsula than we are.24

  No less str
iking than the emphasis on the necessity for the Greek military contingent, carried in British transports, is Callwell’s remark that the details would have to be worked out by the force commander, rather than the General Staff whose task it properly was. And so it turned out in March 1915, when Hamilton was appointed to command just such an Expeditionary Force, but with British, Anzac and French rather than Greek troops.

  On the same day (3 September), two staff officers of MO2(b) – Major F W Gossett RA and Captain F W L S H Cavendish, 9th Lancers, p.s.c. (passed staff college), prepared short statements on the strengths and compositions of the Greek Army and ‘Present dispositions and strength of Turkish Army Corps exclusive of those in Eastern Asia Minor, Lower Syria and the Yemen’ respectively.25

  On 6 September 1914 Frederick Cunliffe Owen sent from Constantinople to Callwell a copy of a five-page feasibility report on operations in the Dardanelles – entitled Question of Passage of the Straits – which he had prepared a week earlier for Mallet, with a covering letter,26 in which he assessed the complex strategic situation and the strength of the defences and stressed the rate at which the Germans were working to improve them. He advised against a Dardanelles operation, preferring the Persian Gulf, Red Sea and Syria if Turkey joined the Central Powers, but said that if an attempt to force the Dardanelles was made, a combined operation was to be preferred to a purely naval one. To facilitate the passage of the fleet through the Narrows and to keep the Straits permanently open, military force was necessary in the Besika Bay and Kilid Bahr areas. He was in close touch with the Greeks who, he said, believed they could succeed in this. According to the annotations on its cover, this copy of the report did not go outside the Military Operations Directorate, though Callwell may have discussed it with Kitchener and others. Mallet, of course, passed on his views to London, so Churchill and Fisher were familiar with them. As there was no intention of landing British troops at this early stage, any Dardanelles operation may have been considered primarily a naval and Greek matter, and therefore have aroused less interest than it should at the War Office.