The initial naval attack goes very well. By 2PM on 18 March, the Ottoman defenses look like they’re going to fall.
The outer fortresses, artillery, and fire control systems are being systematically destroyed. The artillery from the shore has ceased to fire entirely; Ottoman morale is shattered.
And then, a loud explosion and confusion.
Within rapid seconds, the French battleship Bouvet is entirely under the water with all hands lost, shocking the combined British and French fleet. What happened?
The Admiral does not realize at the time that they had missed hidden sea mines; the misunderstanding is that the French ship was torpedoed.
Ottoman artillery is heartened and comes alive again with the sinking of the French warship.
The critical defensive minesweeper ships, under civilian crews, panic and withdraw.
A little after 4PM, the British HMS Inflexible hits a mine and begins to sink.
Almost immediately, the HMS Irresistible hits a mine and must be evacuated.
Admiral de Roebeck orders a withdrawal of the fleet.
***
DISASTER AT GALLIPOLLI, III: THE ARMADA SAILS AWAY
Hearing the news from British Admiralty HQ, Churchill is furious.
He sends orders repeatedly to press on with the attack – the Ottomans are almost beaten.
De Roebeck cannot do it; he did not prepare the campaign as commander and was not psychologically ready to see ships under his command sink.
Later that summer, questioned about the losses, Churchill was irate:
“That is not the point! They ought to have gone on. What did it matter if more ships were lost? The ships were old and useless!”
The Admiralty had been willing to lose the obsolete ships – it had been a tactical price they were willing to pay, to potentially shorten the World War.
The tactical price had already been paid nearly in full – the American Ambassador was in Istanbul and talking with Turkish and German officers about the attack.
In the chapter in his memoir, “The Allied Armada Sails Away, Though On the Brink of Victory”, Ambassador Morgenthau would write –
"I returned to Constantinople that evening, and two days afterward, on March 18th, the Allied fleet made its greatest attack. As all the world knows, that attack proved disastrous to the Allies. The outcome was the sinking of the Bouvet, the Ocean, and the Irresistible and the serious crippling of four other vessels. Of the sixteen ships engaged in this battle of the 18th, seven were thus put temporarily or permanently out of action.
... for days [the Ottomans and Germans] anxiously waited for the fleet to return. The high tension lasted for days and weeks after the repulse of the 18th. We were still momentarily expecting the renewal of the attack. But the great armada never returned.
Should it have come back? Could the Allied ships really have captured Constantinople? I am constantly asked this question. As a layman my own opinion can have little value, but I have quoted the opinions of the German generals and admirals, and of the Turks---practically all of whom, except Enver, believed that the enterprise would succeed, and I am half inclined to believe that Enver's attitude was merely a case of graveyard whistling; in what I now have to say on this point, therefore, I wish it understood that I am giving not my own views, but merely those of the officials then in Turkey who were best qualified to judge.
Enver had told me, in our talk on the deck of the Yuruk, that he had "plenty of guns---plenty of ammunition." But this statement was not true. A glimpse at the map will show why Turkey was not receiving munitions from Germany or Austria at that time. The fact was that Turkey was just as completely isolated from her allies then as was Russia. There were two railroad lines leading from Constantinople to Germany [which were not operating effectively]. [...]
Let us suppose that the Allies had returned, say on the morning of the nineteenth, what would have happened? The one overwhelming fact is that the fortifications were very short of ammunition. They had almost reached the limit of their resisting power when the British fleet passed out on the afternoon of the 18th. [...]
"We expect that the British will come back early tomorrow morning," he said, "and if they do, we may be able to hold out for a few hours."
Once these defenses became helpless, the problem of the Allied fleet would have been a simple one. The only bar to their progress would have been the minefield, which stretched from a point about two miles north of Erenkeui to Kilid-ul-Bahr. But the Allied fleet had plenty of mine-sweepers, which could have made a channel in a few hours. North of Tchanak, as I have already explained, there were a few guns, but they were of the 1878 model, and could not discharge projectiles that could pierce modern armour plate. North of Point Nagara there were only two batteries, and both dated from 1835! Thus, once having silenced the outer straits, there was nothing to bar the passage to Constantinople except the German and Turkish warships. The Goeben was the only first-class fighting ship in either fleet, and it would not have lasted long against the Queen Elizabeth. The disproportion in the strength of the opposing fleets, indeed, was so enormous that it is doubtful whether there would ever have been an engagement.
Thus the Allied fleet would have appeared before Constantinople on the morning of the twentieth. What would have happened then? We have heard much discussion as to whether this purely naval attack was justified. Enver, in his conversation with me, had laid much stress on the absurdity of sending a fleet to Constantinople, supported by no adequate landing force, and much of the criticism since passed upon the Dardanelles expedition has centred on that point. Yet it is my opinion that this exclusively naval attack was justified. I base this judgment purely upon the political situation which then existed in Turkey. Under ordinary circumstances such an enterprise would probably have been a foolish one, but the political conditions in Constantinople then were not ordinary. There was no solidly established government in Turkey at that time. A political committee, not exceeding forty members, headed by Talaat, Enver, and Djemal, controlled the Central Government, but their authority throughout the empire was exceedingly tenuous. As a matter of fact, the whole Ottoman state, on that eighteenth day of March, 1915, when the Allied fleet abandoned the attack, was on the brink of dissolution. All over Turkey ambitious chieftains had arisen, who were momentarily expecting its fall, and who were looking for the opportunity to seize their parts of the inheritance."
The Ottomans re-arm and rebuild their defenses.
Istanbul would never fall to sea or ground operations; the Ottomans would surrender with their capital intact – only 12 days before all of the First World War ended.
And yet, if this naval half-measure had ended in March 1915, it would not have been particularly damaging to the Allied cause.
But this was not to be.
***
DISASTER AT GALLIPOLLI, IV: UNDER-COMMITMENT
Was it now a sound strategy to attempt to take Istanbul by amphibious invasion?
It can be debated.
Probably: yes.
It was doable.
A total of 31,750 of combined British Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, Allied Entente Soldiers, and spearheaded by the now legendarily-renowned Australia and New Zealand Army Corps – ANZAC – landed on 25 April 1915.
They were met in a desperate struggle by 16,700 Ottoman troops with no machine guns, poor road and resupply networks, and not enough ammunition.
The Turks were on the verge of being overrun –
“At Seddülbahir, 4,700 Turks faced 14,000 Allied troops and the number of casualties were 1,700 and 2,200 respectively. At Arıburnu, 8,500 Turks faced 14,500 Allied troops and the casualties were 2,500 to 2,000. Turkish casualty rate was highest in Kumkale; 3,500 troops saw action and the casualties were 1,735. For the French, this rate was 778 out of 3,250.”
On the heights overlooking the beaches at Chunuk Bair, the Turkish defenders run out of ammunition.
The 57th regiment was out of ammunition and down to only bayonets… the Ottom
an capital is about to fall.
In a moment to rival the Spartans at Thermopylae, a 34-year-old Lieutenant Colonel sees the war is about to be lost.
He orders the 57th regiment –
“I don’t order you to fight, I order you to die! By the time we die, other units and commanders will have up to take our place!”
Remember his name, we'll return to him later in this series: this is Mustafa Kemal, who not too long from now, will radically alter the course of history in the Middle East.
Nearly 100% of the soldiers of the 57th are wounded or killed.
Yet the Turks hold.
***
DISASTER AT GALLIPOLLI, V: HALF-COMMITMENT
One-third of the Allied invasion force are casualties after the initial fighting.
Not realizing that the Ottomans are almost beaten again, Major-General William Birdwood requests evacuation.
General Sir Ian Hamilton denies evacuation and plays it halfway.
In one of the single worst orders in British military history, he advises, “You have got through the difficult business, now you have only to dig, dig, dig, until you are safe.”
The Ottoman Turks have minimal ammunition, insufficient transportation, reserves have not arrived – but they’re coming – and otherwise, are set to be overrun if high command will push for it.
Alternatively, the British could have cut their losses there.
Instead, they dig in – setting up camp trapped near to the waterline, the Turks holding the high ground above them, the sea-weather regularly making soldiers’ lives miserable.
***
DISASTER AT GALLIPOLLI, VI: OVER-COMMITMENT
The Allies – primarily British Empire forces – keep reinforcing Gallipoli.
They tripled their initial troop commitment, but the greater number of troops just made the terrible positions on the beaches and coves even more unsanitary and inhospitable to human life.
With an amount of troops that would have guaranteed an easy and early victory if deployed at the start of the campaign, Allied forces would too-late swell from 5 divisions to 15; eventually they would deploy 568,000 men to Gallipolli; 252,000 of them would become casualties.
Meanwhile, all advantages of surprise were lost. The Central Powers shipped equipment and ammunition as fast as possible to the Turks, who roughly tripled their own strength to 16 divisions and 315,000 soldiers – more than enough when holding the high ground, with time to dig trenches, and fighting in their homeland with the friendly capital a few miles away for resupply and troop rotation.
The British and French forces at Gallipoli become sicker, weaker, and more demoralized as time passes – while the bravery of the units stays strong, the toll of living pinned down close to the sea, in close quarters, with corpses and excrement around oneself… it takes its toll.
The battle at Gallipoli was lost far before the final major offensive in August; Allied forces were finally fully evacuated from Gallipoli in January 1916. It was the worst single battlefront in British history.
***
TEMPORAL CONTROL #1: PRELUDE
The word “Temporal” is curious – and useful.
It means “relating to time and space” but has also been commonly used to differentiate between the “temporal” and “spiritual” realms – back when these were more commonly believed things. There’s often been arguments in powerful mainstream religions of how much temporal authority they should have – laws, courts, jails, inquisitors, money, gold, artwork, buildings – as compared to merely their great spiritual authority over the next world.
“Temporal condition” has often been used to remark on the fact that all humans live in time and space – we all die someday, of course.
It’s a curious thing, when you stop and think on it – right now we are, some day we won’t be – at least in this temporal form. We exist as stuff, matter, but also in time.
Whatever. We don’t need to think about this too much. This series – while hopefully being intensely thought-provoking and showing you some of the invisible lines that all our decisions follow from as try to navigate life – is nevertheless more interested in the practical dimensions of Temporal Control than the philosophical ones.
Oh, yes – an important note.
When you hear Temporal Control, think more like “Quality Control” and less like an upset 13-year-old hollering, “Stop controlling me, Dad! I hate you!”
You, obviously, cannot control time.
You can, however, study it – measure it – navigate it. You can choose your next actions and do them. If things don’t unfold the way you like, you can study why and make adjustments. This is a good thing.
And we do this similar to Quality Control engineers.
Most people are too caught up in current moment. They greatly overestimate what they can do now, and underestimate broad and grand arcs of time unfolding.
Let’s imagine for a moment that you were completely unskilled; you had no career, trade, or profession at all. (Perhaps like the upset 13-year-old.)
How fast can you successfully build a career?
Very likely not in the next 30 minutes.
Almost certainly over the next 10 years.
And yet, we arrive 10 years to a terrific future only by stringing a lot of highly effective 30-minute blocks together.
Here is a question we will explore in Temporal Control, but really, you ought to ask yourself the question pretty regularly anyways:
“Is what I’m doing in this current 30-minute block serving to build the next 10 years of my life the way I want to?”
Some readers are nodding. “Oh, yes, a familiar topic. This series sounds nice. Sebastian is going on to something I already know pretty well.”
Other readers might perhaps be getting a little tiny bit anxious. Maybe saying something like, “Uhh, well, I can’t be doing the right thing all the time, can I?”
Actually, I think you can and should do the right thing all the time.
Really, at the risk of sounding a mix of grandiose and boring, I think taking life seriously makes a lot of sense.
I think it also makes sense to be pragmatic and have self-awareness.
You don’t have to (and probably shouldn’t) always follow whatever the definition of “mainstream responsibility” is constantly – if you think going to an electro-rave on Friday night is the right thing for you, then by all means, get to it. If you think it’s not the right thing for you, then... don’t go. If you want to go to it, that’s because you think it’s the right thing for you, right?
No really, stop and reason through that.
I know our readership tends to be much more sophisticated than the mainstream, and I know this might seem like basic stuff, but let’s linger here, for a moment, for just a couple paragraphs more.
Most people are a conflicted bundle of mess. They have different competing urges and impulses, and instead of reconciling and owning them, they instead fight some sort of terrible internal struggle, a tug-of-war between competing objectives with rapid oscillation and lots of self-hatred in the process.
If you’re doing that – and I understand because I used to do that – maybe you ought to ask yourself, is that serving you very well?
Look, if you’re going to go to a rave, it’s presumably because you want to go rave, so acknowledge it and go rave and enjoy yourself.
And if you don’t want to go, umm, don’t go.
It’s really that simple.
(And yet, it’s not. I know. We’ll cover it more thoroughly in this series.)
***
THE BRIEFEST OF LESSONS FROM THE WORLD WAR
It’s hard to appreciate just how complicated the First World War was.
I was originally going to just cover Gallipoli from the British perspective, but the context makes it more useful. And I left a lot of relevant scenes out; on my cutting board, I’ve got another 10 outlined (not fully written) scenes: from Berlin, from Moscow, from Belgium, from comma
ndo movements, from London, from a lot of places.
There are two reasons I recommend you study World War I more thoroughly:
(1) It created the modern world. Most people know too little about it, and would do well to beef up their history muscle in this area.
(2) It’s got many of the most ”wow that could have gone either way” moments in history.
Slightly better planning, communication, security, decisionmaking, focus, speed, resources, diplomacy, phrasing of words, resources, etc – a tiny little bit more in any number of places could have made an overwhelming difference, affecting millions of lives and all of world history forevermore.
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