What was the Gallipoli Campaign

What was the Gallipoli Campaign? Back to Contents

Gallipoli Campaign (April 25, 1915-January 8, 1916), major land and sea operation of World War I, in which British, French, Australian, and New Zealand forces unsuccessfully attempted an invasion of Turkey. The action was confined to the Dardanelles Strait and the tip of the Gallipoli (Gelibolu) Peninsula near Istanbul. The purpose of the campaign, devised by British munitions minister David Lloyd George, first lord of the admiralty Winston Churchill, General Herbert H. Kitchener, and Admiral Sackville H. Carden, was to open up a new theater of war as an alternative to the stalemate in France, to relieve Turkish pressure on Russian forces in the Caucasus, and, by gaining control of Istanbul and the straits, to provide a direct link with Russia via the Black Sea. What initially was to be exclusively a naval operation failed in February 1915 when several British and French ships were damaged by floating mines. A land invasion was then decided on, but it was not begun until late April. An amphibious landing at that time was met with heavy resistance by the Turks. Excessive caution and timorous leadership by the British commander, Sir Ian Hamilton, resulted in several lost initiatives. Little headway was made beyond the several beachheads. In early August, after three months of stalemate and stagnation on the beaches, a new major offensive was begun. Once again, however, the caution and indifferent leadership of the British command offset the effect of heavy reinforcements. The Turkish forces, on the other hand, were inspired by the leadership of Mustafa Kemal (Kemal Atatürk, later president of Turkey) and the skill of their German commander, Otto Liman von Sanders. After a few more months of stalemate, Hamilton was replaced by Sir Charles Monro, who was sent to evaluate the situation. Monro recommended evacuation, and the allied forces were withdrawn in December and January.

British casualties were 205,000 out of 410,000; the French sustained a rate of 47,000 out of 79,000; Turkish, 250,000 to 300,000 out of 500,000. The fiasco badly stained the reputations of Churchill, Hamilton, and Kitchener. Despite its overall failure, however, the Gallipoli campaign weakened the Turks enough to facilitate the British seizure of Palestine in 1917. The action also distracted the Germans from a plan they had in 1915 to begin another offensive in France.

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