THE ORIGINS OF THE DARDANELLES CAMPAIGN RECONSIDERED

THE ORIGINS OF THE DARDANELLES CAMPAIGN RECONSIDERED*

DAVID FRENCH

University College, London

In March 1917 Winston Churchill, who had been first lord of the admiralty during the inception of the Dardanelles campaign in 1914-15, wrote a bitter letter to the prime minister, David Lloyd George. In it he complained about distortions of the evidence in the recently published first report of the royal commission which had investigated the failure of the campaign. ‘The Government excisions in the Dardanelles Report’, he wrote, ‘are extremely injurious to me and incidentally to the late Government.’’ He was especially angry that quotations from the evidence of Captain W.R. Hall, the director of naval intelligence, had been suppressed. He believed that they supported his contention that if the naval attack of 18 March 1915 had been resumed shortly afterwards it would have succeeded. He argued that ‘the arrival of any portion of the Fleet before Constantinople would have produced revolution and put Turkey out of the war’.? It is easy to understand why Hall’s evidence was suppressed. Since the establishment of the modern British secret service in 1909, successive governments were intent on hiding its existence from the public. They were anxious to claim, with an almost clear conscience, that they knew nothing of the activities of British spies in peacetime, and the need for complete secrecy was even more apparent in wartime. Sir Maurice Hankey, secretary of the Cabinet’s War Committee. wrote a paper in July 1916 listing the reasons against any public enquiry into the Dardanelles and included amongst them the argument that ‘the enemy would obtain an extraordinarily close knowledge of our Intelligence Services in the East at different phases of the campaign, which, in the aggregate, should give him an intimate acquaintance with their value.. . ‘3

Hall’s evidence is crucial for a complete understanding of the origins of the Dardanelles campaign because it provides two crucial insights into the attitudes of the men who planned it. The campaign was begun as if it was to be no more than a large-scale punitive expedition against a recalcitrant native regime and not against a serious military power. And furthermore, until the failure of the 25 April military landing to bring about the swift collapse of Turkish resistance it was confidently expected that they would put up only a token fight. It was believed that their government would

* I would like to thank the trustees of the Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, King’s College. London. for permission to quote from the Hamilton papers. Crown copyright material appears by kind permission of the Controller of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office. I am also grateful to Dr. M.D. Pugh and Professor M.R.D. Foot for commenting on an earlier draft o f this article. All errors of fact and judgement are my own. ’ Churchill to Lloyd George. 10.3.1917. in M. Gilbert. ed., Winsron S. Churchill: Cqmpaniorr. Vol IV (London. 1977). part I. p. 12.

- Gilbert. Chrrrchill. Commmion. p. 13: see also Cd 8J?O Dardanelles Commission. First Report. 1917. p. 29.

D. French. ’SDV fever in Britain. 1900-15’. HisroriculJournai. Vol. 21. no. 2. 1978. D. 362: t i

The presentation to Parliament of papers in regard to the military operations in Mesopotamia and the Dardanelles. M.P.A. Hankey. 8.7.1916. PRO CAB 4211614.

210

DAVID FRENCH 21 1 collapse into revolution when the allies made clear their intention to force a passage through the Dardanelles. These two beliefs were based on little more than a misreading of Turkish politics since the Young Turk revolution of 1908 and racial prejudice which confined the Turk to a much lower plane of existence than his European opponents.

By the end of the nineteenth century the experience of ruling a multi-racial empire had convinced the British of the innate superiority of the white over the coloured races and of Christianity over Islam. They regarded all coloured races as being to a greater or lesser degree savage and incompetent. These beliefs extended to their attitudes towards the Turks. Sir Louis Mallet, the British ambassador at Constantinople, described the Grand Vizier in October 1914 as ‘an absolute oriental and the grandson of Mahomet Ali, fanatical, intriguing and barbarous at heart, although his western education and manners tend to deceive the ~ n w a r y ’ . ~ The British had come into direct contact with Islam in India and Egypt and felt little more than contempt for what they saw as its fanaticism, bigotry and cruelty. It blocked the true path towards progress, which lay through constitutionalism and parliamentary government. First hand experience of the effects of Turkish rule in Cyprus and Egypt convinced them that it was despotic and corrupt. But before 1908 these prejudices had not yet begun to blind them to Turkish military prowess. In 1906 an Admiralty-General Staff committee reporting on the feasibility of forcing the Dardanelles concluded that even a combined operation would be very hazardous and success was far from ~ e r t a i n . ~

The Young Turk revolution in July 1908 marked the start of a sharp drop in Britain’s estimation of the Turks. Although the revolution promised an end to the despotism of Abdul Hamid I1 and the establishment of a constitution, London’s optimism was tainted with the fear that the Turks had been so long subject to arbitrary rule that they might find the path to liberal constitutionalism too steep to surmount. In October 1908 Sir Edward Grey, the foreign secretary, wrote to Sir George Lowther, Mallet’s predecessor at Constantinople, that:

What has happened already in Turkey is so marvellous that I suppose that it is not impossible that she will establish a Constitution, but it may well be that the habit of vicious and corrupt government will be too strong for reform and that animosities of race and religion will produce violence and disorder. Or out of the present upheaval there may be evolved a strong and efficient military despotism.6

Initially the Committee of Union and Progress which had engineered the revolution remained in the background and the Turkish empire was ruled by a group of Liberal politicians who looked to Britain for moral support. But in April 1909, after a series of coups and counter-coups, members of the CUP began to join the government. Lowther despised them for their

Mallet to Tyrell, 16.10.1914, PRO FO 800/80. J . Gooch, The Plans of War: The General Staff and British military strategy c1900-1916

(London, 1974), pp. 259-61. ‘Grey to Lowther, 11.8.1908, in H.W.V. Temperley and G.P. Gooch, eds., British

Documents on rhe Origins of the War 1898-1914 (London, 1926-38), Vol. V, p. 266 (Hereafter BDOW); see also C . Bolt, Victorian Attitudes to Race (London 1971), pp. 112,120-1,173; V. Kiernan, The Lords of Human Kind (London, 1972), pp. 114-18,137.

212 THE ORIGINS OF THE DARDANELLES CAMPAIGN

political inexperience, and because they came from lowly social back- grounds, they did not share the pro-British proclivities of the Liberals. He also disliked the Jews among them and in 1910 he described the CUP as ‘a Judaeo-Turkish dual alliance’.’ A subtle but pervasive anti-Semitism existed in Edwardian England which was mirrored in Lowther’s despatch. In whatever country they settled, Jews were believed to constitute an anti-national group who were anxious to establish a state within a state and to control the social, economic and political life of that country. Lowther described the Jewish members of the CUP as trying ‘to inspire and control the inside machinery of the State and [they] are bent on the economic and industrial capture of Young Turkey’.# The one bright spot was that their very alienness to what he conceived to be the real Turkish empire gave Lowther hope that their regime would soon be toppled:

It must, moreover, not be forgotten that the present form of constitutionalism in Turkey is not one which the masses have risen up and demanded but is rather a form which a free-thinking oligarchy have imposed on the masses at the point of the bayonet. This minority, who are also in a sense anti-clerical, have felt the necessity of replacing the old theocratic conception of the deeply religious Mussulman by a new Panislamic and Panasiatic creed.’

With such shallow roots in the affections of the people he was convinced that the merest set-back would bring about the downfall of the CUP and its replacement by the Liberals and ‘we should almost certainly see a repetition of the pro-British demonstrations of 1908, somewhat embarrass- ing as they were’.“’

In fact, the wish was father to the thought. Turkey did suffer a further series of coups and counter-coups, but by May 1914 the CUP had come out firmly on top. The Liberals were impotent and many of their leaders had been driven into exile. The CUP dominated the government, the army and parliament, and had shown themselves to be ruthless and successful politicians,” though that did not stop Mallet describing them in December 1913 as ‘like children and very appreciative of sympathy’.’* The Balkan wars only further convinced the British that the CUP had failed their country. The press, and in particular The Times, helped to create the myth of a brilliant Bulgarian pursuit of a broken Turkish army after the battle of Lule-Burgas. More accurate reports, showing that the Turkish retreat had been slow and deliberate, reached London too late to prevent the destruction of the Turks’ military r ep~ ta t i0n . I~ In July 1913 Grey told the cabinet that ‘the regeneration of Turkey is impo~sible’.’~ His per- manent under secretary, Sir Arthur Nicolson, concluded that military

Lowther to Grey, 22.8.1910. BDOW, Vol. X, part 2, p. 2. ’ Ibid; P.M. Kennedy and A. Nicholls. eds., Nationalist arid Racialist Movements in Britain

’ Lowther to Grey. 22.8.1910. BDOW, Vol X. part 2. pp. 2-3.

‘I F. Ahmad. The Young Turks: The committee of Union and Progress in Turkish Politics

I’ Mallet to Grey. 18.12.1913, PRO FO 800/80. l 3 The History of the Times: the 150th Anniversary and beyond, 1912-1948 (London, 1952),

‘‘ E. David, ed. . Inside Asquith’s Cabinet: From the diaries of Charles Hobhouse (London,

and Germany before1914 (London. 1981). p. 82.

Ibid.

19O8-I 91 4 ( London. 1969). passim.

p. 11.

1Y77). p. 141.

DAVID FRENCH 213 defeat spelt the end of the Porte’s claims to be a great power. ‘The prestige of the Turk as a fighting machine’, he wrote, ‘and also as the soldier of Islam has entirely disappeared and there are many indications to show that the spirit has gone out of the Turks and that they are no longer capable of maintaining the position they have hitherto enjoyed.’15 After touring the battlefields in October 1913 Brigadier-General Henry Wilson, the director of military operations at the War Office, was even more blunt, writing that ‘The Turkish army is not a serious modern army’.16

Given the Turks’ unpreparedness, the British found their entry into the war in November 1914 on the side of the Central Powers all but incomprehensible. British diplomats and attaches reported that mobili- sation was unpopular, the treasury was empty, the army had not recovered from the Balkan wars, and that the fleet lacked coal.” They could only explain to themselves the Turks’ seeming perversity by reference to bitter internal divisions within the CUP and the machinations of a handful of pro-German conspirators. The latter were thought to have seized control of Turkish policy at the vital moment from another faction who prudently wished to avoid committing Turkey to either side. Mallet’s reports indicate that they believed the Turkish government to be divided between a group of ‘moderates’ who were ‘a large party here - probably a majority [and who] regard war at all - and especially with England and Russia as disastrous’ and the ‘Military Dictatorship’ led by the minister of war, Enver Pasha. They were pro-German and their power ultimately rested on support from the German military mission led by General Liman von Sanders and the guns of the German cruisers Goeben and Breslau which had been anchored off Constantinople since the middle of August. Mallet did his utmost to delay Turkey’s entry into the war. The fact that the Turkish government did hesitate between August and November to commit itself finally to the Central Powers lent credence to Mallet’s analysis that they were weak and faction-ridden and that the pro-British elements realised that war would be unpopular, especially one intended ‘simply to gratify the vanity of a young idiot like Enver and a mad German general like Liman’.’*

But ever since the British had refused to come to Turkey’s aid during the Balkan wars the Turks had written off the British as their friends. What held them back from finally joining Germany was the uncertain attitude of Bulgaria and the need to await the delivery of German gold to enable them to pay for their war effort.19

The hesitant manner of Turkey’s entry into the war, her recent turbulent political history, the poor performance of her army in the Balkan wars and

l5 Nicolson to Cartwright, 8.7.1913, in C.J. Lowe and M.L. Dockrill, The Mirage o fpower : British Foreign Policy 1902-22 (London, 1972), Vol. 111, p. 476.

Sir C.E. Callwell, Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson: His life and diaries (London, 1927), Vol. 1, p. 129.

l7 Beaumont to Grey, 7.8.1914, PRO FO 371/;!163/37125; Report on a journey from Constantinople, through Rumania, Hungary and Germany to London, 10.8.1914, Captain W.H. Deedes, PRO FO 371/2169/37824; Beaumont to Grey, 13.8.1914, PRO FO 371/2170/39200; Buchanan to Grey, 6.10.1914, PRO FO 371/2169/56661.

l8 Mallet to Tyrell, 16.10.1914, PRO FO 800/80; see also Mallet to Grey, 26 and 27.10.1914, PRO FO 371/2172/63630 and 64063.

” U . Trumpener, ‘Turkey’s entry into World War One: an assessment of the res- ponsibilities’, Journal of Modern History, Vol. 34, no. 4,1962, pp. 369-80.


the conviction held by most Englishmen that the Turk was inherently inferior to the white man, convinced the British that it would take very little to knock her out of the war. The Liberal and Conservative press vied with each other in November 1914 to point out the folly of her joining the war on Germany‘s side and in demonstrating what must have seemed obvious. that the Turks were already as good as beaten. The Spectator’s leader article of 7 November was typical when it asserted that:

Turkey’s entry into the Great War can only be the end of the Turkish Empire. The Ottoman Empire has committed suicide, or rather has been assassinated by Enver Bey and the group of desperados who now form the Young Turk Committee. Whether the act has been merely that of men drunk with ambition, or whether the bravos, or a large portion of them, have taken German gold, remains to be seen.?”

Had these assertions been confined to the press they would not have mattered. But they were not. They were shared by many members of the government who planned the Dardanelles campaign. This enabled them to interpret the intelligence they received about the Turks’ capabilities in such a way as to convince themse!ves that it would not require a major military effort to knock them out of the war. In British eyes the Turks were not a western nation but a backward eastern power, whose government was unstable and faction-ridden. Their rule rested on the shaky foundations of a poorly equipped army suffering from low morale. Waiting in the wings were the pro-British liberal opposition ready to take advantage of an opportunity to topple them. Hence the lengthy military preparations necessary to confront a major European military power like Germany were not necessary. The Dardanelles campaign was begun as the last example of nineteenth-century gun-boat diplomacy. Seapower used in this way did have its limitations, however, and this was something which Britain sometimes overlooked. In 1882, for example, the royal navy bombarded Alexandria in an effort to bring about the downfall of the Egyptian nationalist regime of Arabi Pasha. The bombardment was a tactical success in that the forts protecting Alexandria were eventually silenced because their crews were driven away from their batteries, but it was a political failure. The nationalist forces simply evacuated the city and placed themselves beyond reach of the fleet‘s guns. Riots and looting then broke out in the city and the fleet had to land marines to restore order and eventually an entire army had to be landed to inflict a final defeat on the nationalist forces. Early in 1915 the only senior government adviser with a vivid memory of this was the first sea lord, Lord Fisher, who as a young captain had commanded the marine landing parties. It had taught him the necessity of having a considerable body of troops available on the spot to follow up immediately a naval bombardment of shore batteries and to occupy a city as soon as it had been bombarded. This was one reason why he deprecated launching the Dardanelles campaign as a purely naval action. But in January and February 1915 he was not able to convince his colleagues of the dangers of proceeding with ships alone, and they

”’ The Spectator. 7.11.1914; see also. The Nation, 7.11.1914, The Saturday Review, 7.11.1914. T h e T m e s , 3.11.1914.

DAVID FRENCH 215 continued to overlook the fact that when in the past the Sultan had agreed to European demands backed by a naval demonstration on his door-step, his acquiescence had frequently depended a1 least as much on his need for European money and political support.21

Once the war with Turkey had begun, the British gathered most of their intelligence about events at Constantinople from their diplomatic missions in capitals adjoining the Turkish empire. By January 1915 the same messages were being received from Sofia, Bucharest and Athens. The CUP and their German advisers were growing daily more unpopular and only a small setback would suffice to unseat them. On 2 January the British minister at Sofia, Sir Henry Bax-Ironside, reported that his military attache had recently discovered that an important business concern had begun to transfer its offices from Constantinople to Sofia in anticipation that the allies would soon force the Dardanelles. Two days later Sir Francis Elliot at Athens told the Foreign Office that the Greek minister at Constantinople had reported that ‘discontent with party in power and with German officers is growing. Italian ambassador has called serious attention of German ambassador to possibility of disorders at Constantinople and to responsibility of Germany for dangers to foreigners’. A similar story was told to Sir George Barclay at Bucharest by a Greek consular official who had recently left Turkey.22 But perhaps the most intriguing of all was the report received in January 1915 through the Belgian foreign ministry of the effect in Constantinople of the sinking of the Turkish battleship Mess- udiyeh by the British submarine Bl1 which had passed through the Dardanelles in mid-December 1914. ‘It was pathetic’, wrote an employee of the Belgian consulate in Constantinople, ‘to see the absolute faith of all the lower classes in our fleet; Greeks, Turks, Armenians all whispering-“the English fleet will come and all will be well”.’ It was also reported that this operation had caused the Sultan, the Treasury and the government archives to be evacuated from Constantinople to a place of safety.23

If one small submarine could have such an impact, then a whole fleet of battleships appearing off Constantinople might have a really traumatic effect on the political situation in the Turkish capital. This intelligence of what seemed to be defeatism and panic in Constantinople made a deep impression on several members of the cabinet’s War Council who planned the Dardanelles expedition, confirming their belief that the Turks were not serious opponents. Constantinople was a glittering prize. Its fall would bring immeasurable assistance to Russia in her war against the Turks, and enable her to do as the British wished and concentrate her resources against the Germans on the eastern front. Diplomatic negotiations had hitherto failed to persuade the neutral states of south east Europe to sink

*I C.I. Hamilton, ‘Naval power and diplomacy in the nineteenth century’, Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 3, no. 1, 1980, pp. 74-86; C.S. White, ‘The bombardment of Alexandria 1882’, Mariners Mirror, Vol. 66, 1980, pp. 31-46; R.F. Mackay, Fisher of Kilverstone (London, 1973), pp. 166-70.

22 Bax-Ironside to Grey, 2.1.1915, PRO FO 371/2478/854; Elliot to Grey, 4.1.1915, PRO FO371/2479/1303; Barclay to Grey, 11.1.1915,

23 Kidston to Nicolson, 2.1.1915, PRO FO 800/377.

2 16 THE ORIGINS OF THE DARDANELLES CAMPAIGN

their differences and join the Entente." The fall of Constantinople and the long-hoped-for collapse of the Turkish empire would hold out the prospect of loot for all and might tempt them to join the war against the Central Powers. These prizes were made all the more attractive by the conviction that they would fall into the Entente's lap with very little effort because the Turkish empire would collapse after barely a shot had been fired. Nothing else can adequately explain the willingness of Asquith, Grey, Churchill and Kitchener to push ahead with the Dardanelles operation as a purely naval venture. They did so despite their own better judgement and the view of some of their senior advisers that it could not succeed unless a substantial body of troops was available to act in conjunction with the fleet at the very start of the campaign.'

Their confidence grew as the time approached to take the actual decision to launch the naval attack. Throughout January the War Council held a series of meetings to review Britain's strategic options. Ultimately landings at Alexandretta and Salonika and operations in the Adriatic or on the Belgian coast were all rejected in favour of a naval attack at the Dardanelles. The politicians who took this decision placed enormous faith in the efficacy of naval gunfire to shatter Turkish morale. On 28 January, when the War Council finally assented to the attack, Grey told his colleagues that he 'thought that the Turks would be paralysed with fear when they heard that the forts were being destroyed one by This faith rested on two erroneous assumptions. Churchill mistakenly believed that low-trajectory naval guns would be able to demolish land fortifications as easily as German howitzers had destroyed the Belgium forts of Likge and Namur in August 1914?: and that naval gunfire could destroy the mobile howitzer batteries which the Turks had concealed along the shores of the Dardanelles. But these were mistakes which were shared by the gunnery experts on the spot. The plan to attack the Dardanelles had been worked out by the gunnery officer on board Vice-Admiral Carden's flagship at the Dardanelles.'s Secondly. recent events had only strengthened the belief that the Turks did not have their heart in the war. On 19 December the British cruiser H M S Doris operating off the Syrian coast, had sent an ultimatum to the Turkish authorities in Alexandretta demanding the destruction of all railway engines and military stores in the vicinity and threatening otherwise to bombard the town. Not only did the Turks comply with the ultimatum. they also ?.greed to carry out the demolition themselves-provided the British would lend them the explo- sives. The British ship put ashore one of its officers with a charge of gun

The literature on the diplomatic background 10 the Dardanelles campaign is voluminous. See. Tor euaniplc. C.J. Lowe. ' I ta ly and the Balkans' in F.H. Hinsley. ed., Rrirish Foreign Polir.!, ioitirr Sir Erlwrt l Grey (Cxnhridge. 1977). pp. 41 1-421: K. Rohbins. Sir Edwurd G r c v : A hiogrtiph?. of Lord Gre! o f F d / o d o ) i (London. 1971 ). pp. 301-8; W.A. Renzi. 'Great Britain. Russia and the Straits. 1914-15'. Joirrmzl of.2loderri Hisfory. Vol. 42. 1970. pp. 1-19; I(. Ncilson. 'Kitchener: a reputation refurbished?'. Cariadian Jourriul of History. Vol. 15, 1980. pp. 207-18: C.J. Lowe. 'The failure of Briti%h diplomacy in the Balkans. 1914-16', ('umdictri Juirrtirrl of Hi.yror,v. Vol. 4. 1969. pp. 73-85: K. Robbins. 'British diplomacy and Bulgaria, 1914- 15'. Sktwonir nutl Etrsr Eirropecrri Rr\,irw. Vol. 49. 1971. pp. 565-73. '' M. Gilbert. Winsrun S. Cliurciiill (London. 1971). Vol. 111. pp. 249, 260.

Ih Minutes o f the War Council. 28.1.1915. P R O CAB 42/1/25, - Minutes o f evidence of Dardanelles Commission. 0. 263 (Hankey), P R O CAB 19/33. '' C'arden toChurchill. 11.1.1915. PRO CAB 171123.

7-

DAVID FRENCH 217 cotton, but then a problem arose. Pride would not allow the Turks to permit a British sailcr to do the job. After several hours, the dilemma was resolved by giving the British officer a temporary commission in the Turkish navy. The railway engines and military stores were then demolis- hed. Six weeks later British confidence was further heightened when a Turkish attack across the Sinai Peninsula against the Suez canal was easily repulsed.?’. All this meant that on 2 February Vice-Admiral Oliver, the chief of the war staff at the Admiralty could predict that:

It is expected that the slow, irresistible destruction of the forts by the vessels which cannot be reached effectively by their fire will have a great effect on the morale of the garrisons of those forts which have yet to be attacked; and will go far to shake the confidence of the Turks in their German advisers, and it may possibly result in an overthrow of the German rule in Cons tan t in~ple .~~’

The idea of a British inspired coup at Constantinople was not new. In April 1909 there were suggestions in the city that the British embassy helped to plan and finance a counter-revolution intended to put the Liberal and pro-British leader Kamil Pasha back in power. In April 1913 Kamil went to Cairo to seek British support for an anti-Unionist coup. This time the British definitely decided not to become involved in Turkish domestic politics and the British consul-general, Kitchener, turned a deaf ear to his request.31 He did the same again in October 1914 when a go-between for the Liberals, Djafer Fahhry, claimed that he represented a group of prominent Turks inside and outside the country who believed that the CUP would ruin Turkey and wanted ‘to bring about a bloodless revolution at Constantinople where they have many adherents, as well as in the province^'.^^ But the Liberals were not daunted. In January 1915 they tried to open negotiations with the Russians in Constantinople and sent emissaries to Athens and Berne to communicate with the British and French.33 In October the British had been anxious not to do anything to provoke the Turkish government, but now they were more receptive to these overtures. A coup was exactly what they wanted to complement their naval assault and they set about trying to organise one. The director of naval intelligence, Captain W.R. Hall, sent three agents to Athens to open secret negotiations with the Turks, who by now actually included at least one dissident member of the government. The three agents, Griffin Eady and Edwin Whital, two civilians who had lived for a considerable time in Turkey, and G.H. Fitzmaurice, the chief dragoman at the British embassy in Constantinople until 1912, arrived in Athens on 1 February. They soon made contact with the Turks. News of these talks was kept secret from all but a handful of British cabinet ministers until just three days before the

2L) Minutes of evidence of Dardanelles Commission, QQ. 1123-4 (Churchill), PRO CAB 19133; Brig-Gen. C.F. Aspinall-Oglander, History of tke Great War. Military Operations. GaNipoli (London, 1929). Vol. 1, p. 53.

3n Oliver to Churchill, Asquith, Grey, Kitchener, Ballour and French Minister of Marine, 2.2.1915, PRO CAB 171123.

3’ Ahmad, Young Turks, pp. 126-8; F. Ahmad, ‘Grea,t Britain’s relations with the Young Turks, 1908-14’, Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 2, 1965-6, pp. 313-14.

32 Elliot to Kitchener, 10.10.1914; Memorandum by Kitchener. 12.10.1914; Grey to Elliot, 13.10.1914; all in PRO FO 800163.

33 Elliot to Grey, 15.1.1915, PRO FO 3711248215783; Minute by G.R. Clerk, 23.1.1915, PRO FO 371/2482/10108; Grant Duff to Grey. 29.1.1915, PRO FO 37112482113893.


start of the naval attack, but it seems to have been common knowledge amongst the British community in Constantinople.’? Then, on 16 February, the cabinet was let into the secret for the first time and, as one of them recorded, ’we are promised a military rising and ultimate revolution on the fall of the first forts’.35

The bombardment began on 19 February and the talks went on in parallel. The British placed considerable faith in them. On 26 February Grey told the War Council that ‘what we really relied on to open the Straits was a coup d’krar in Constantinople’. The Prime Minister insisted at the same meeting that ‘we had a double purpose in attacking the Dardanelles. First, we wanted to bring about a coup d’trat in Constantinople; and second, we wanted to bring in the Christian Balkan States’.36 By early March the talks seemed to be going well and a senior member of the CUP, Talaat Pasha, the minister of the interior, had agreed to meet the British agents in person. Their meeting took place at Dedeagatch in Thrace on 15-16 March. The terms the British offered were that the Turks should withdraw from their alliance with Germany, end the war, and open the Dardanelles to the Entente. Entirely on his own responsibility, Hall sought to sugar this bitter bill by offering the Turks a bribe of f4 million. Their reaction showed how completely the British had misunderstood and underestimated their enemy. Hall had sent agents to Dedeagatch in the expectation that they would do business with a traitor who was interested only in selling his country for British gold. In fact, they were confronted by a patriot who wanted to reverse a political error and negotiate an honourable peace. The Turks demanded assurances about the post-war status of Constantinople and insisted that it should remain the capital of Turkey. The British were in no position to give such assurances because, less than a week before, they had promised the city to the Russians as the price of their continued participation in the war.37

The talks were broken off on 17 March, the British doubtless hoping that they would soon be resumed after their ships had scored more successes against the Turkish forts. On 12 March the naval intelligence department at the Admiralty had intercepted a telegram between Berlin and the Dardanelles which indicated that the Dardanelles batteries were short of heavy ammunition.3R The final naval attack took place on 18 March. It resulted in the Turks firing off even more of their precious ammunition and the allied fleet losing three battleships sunk and a battle-cruiser badly damaged. But even more important, the Turkish resistance and the difficulty the ships had in destroying rather than in just temporarily silencing the enemy batteries convinced Carden’s successor, Vice-Admiral de Robeck. that the garrison would not bolt from the Gallipoli Peninsula

’’ Reverend Frew to ?, 27.3.1915. P R O FO 371/2487/44MS. “ David. ed.. Inside Asquiih’s Cahinei, p. 222. ” Minutes of the War Council. 26.2.1Y15, P R O CAB 42/1/47. I ’ Captain G . R . Allen. ‘A Ghost from Gallipoli’, Journal of the Royal Uniied Services

Insiiiuw, Vol. 108. 1963. pp. 137-38: see also Admiral W.R. James to the editor, Journal of thr RoFal United Services Insiiture, Vol. 108. 1963; Minutes of evidence of the Dardanelles Commission. 00. 4909-11 (Captain W.R. Hall). P R O CAB 19/33: Grey to Buchanan, 11.3.1915. P R O C A B 37112613. ’’ Minutes of evidence of the Dardanelles Commission. Q. 4916 (Hall), P R O C A B 19/33; A . Marder. From die Dardanelles 10 Oran (London. 1974), p. 15.

.-

DAVID FRENCH 219 when the fleet passed them by. Nor did he now believe that there would be a revolution in Constantinople, even if the fleet did break through into the Sea of Marmara. That meant that his ships might find themselves stranded in the Marmara as Turkish howitzer batteries on the shores of the Dardanelles prevented unarmoured supply ships from reaching them. In that case the fleet would only be able to remain off Constantinople for three weeks before it had to escape into the Mediterranean. The case for landing a large body of troops on the peninsula was now in his eyes and those of the senior military commander on the spot, General Sir Ian Hamilton, o~e rwhe lming .~~ Churchill wanted the fleet to press on immediately without military help, but the Admiralty War Group opposed him and the final decision was left to de Robeck.

It has been suggested that Churchill was correct and that had the fleet renewed its attack, especially after 4 April by when de Robeck had reorganised his force of minesweepers, his ships would have broken through the defences and there would have been a revolution in Constantinople. The evidence to support these suggestions is contentious and contradictory. After the event, the American ambassador in the city and the senior German military commander present both agreed that the fleet’s progress had caused consternation in the capital and that the cabinet was tottering. In his evidence to the Dardanelles commission Churchill claimed that, had the fleet reached Constantinople, ‘probably a daily shelling of a moderate character at stated intervals, with parleys and bargainings in between would have been most efficacious and least costly in ammunition and life as it would have led the enemies of the Young Turks to unite, overthrow them, and make peace’. But the fleet’s ability to maintain station off Constantinople for more than a short time depended upon the Turkish army having bolted from the Gallipoli Peninsula, thus ensuring the free passage of supply ships to the fleet. Churchill’s belief that this would have happened had the fleet got through rested on little more than his conviction of the innate inferiority and poor fighting qualities of non-European troops. As he explained to the commissioners, ‘incidents are very frequent in history especially amongst Mahommedan or native troops, where the advance of a naval force or flotilla along a river or a waterway behind the positions which these lroops are holding, have (sic) led to a general retreat and evacuation even when the line of supply was not completely

Against this, the Turks claimed that although their heavy guns were short of ammunition after 18 March, they still had plenty left for their lighter weapons and howitzers and they would have tried to use those to stop the fleet’s advance. And at Constantinople, whilst steps were being taken to evacuate key government offices, measures were also being taken to build defences around the city which could be manned by the eight divisions currently stationed there. Enver claimed that even had the fleet got through and forced the Turks to abandon the city they would have

39 Minutes of evidence of Dardanelles Commission, QQ. 2730,2740,2776-82 (de Robeck), PRO CAB 19/33; de Robeck to Churchill, 27.3.1915, in Gilbert, ed., Churchill. Companion, Vol. 3, part I, pp. 752-3.

Minutes of evidence of Dardanelles Commission, Q. 5415 (Churchill), PRO CAB 19/33; A. Moorhead, Gallipoli (London, 1963), pp. 64-6; Marder, Dardanelles to Oran, pp. 23-32.


fought on in Asia confident that ‘they [the British] would not have destroyed i t , and the result would have been an impasse’.4’ The tenacity of Turkish resistance after Hamilton did land in April belies Churchill’s belief in the innate inferiority of Asiatic troops.

The landing which took place on 25 April was planned on the assumption that Turkish resistance would quickly collapse after the troops were firmly established on shore. The military landing was conceived as if it would be no more than the last of Queen Victoria’s ‘little wars’, operations which a recent authority has characterised as ‘campaigns against distance and natural obstacles more than against man’.J? This proved to be the most serious error of the whole campaign. It rested on two misconcep- tions. There wa? a continued belief until after the failure of the landing that the Turks lacked the will to resist. and intelligence about their real capabilities was misinterpreted.

On 12 March, the day before he left for the Mediterranean, Hamilton was told by Kitchener that his troops would probably not have to land on the peninsula because ‘if we could get one submarine into the Marmara the defence of the Dardanelles would collapse. Were a submarine to pop up opposite the town of Gallipoli,’ he said, ‘and to wave the Union Jack three times. the whole Turkish garrison on the Peninsula would take to their heels and make tracks as fast as they could for the north side of the lines of Bulair.‘ Discounting Hamilton’s habitual facetiousness in the way he recalled this briefing. Kitchener’s opinion was a considered judgement based on a paper prepared by the directorate of military operations.j3 Even after the 18 March, Kitchener and Grey still remained convinced that the fall of the forts would be the signal for a revolution in Constantinople and that the breaking-off of negotiations had been no more than a temporary set-back.‘ This explains much of the unquestioning willingness with which their cabinet colleagues allowed the naval attack to be transformed into a combined operation. It also explains why they were willing to send the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force without its proper complement of artillery. signallers and gunners. and why it lacked the usual ten percent reserves which normally accompanied a force into action ready to replace the first casualties.”

The whole expedition had an air of hasty improvisation, and this was especially true of its intelligence organisation. Before the war the director of naval intelligence had relied on several different sources to provide information about the Dardanelles defences. The most important were reports from naval attaches and officers on ships passing through the Dardanelles. British diplomats and consuls, the foreign press and secret

” The Tinm. 27.1.1916: Gen. Sir G.F. Milnc to War Office. Work of British intelligence officer\ in thc Ottoman War Office. carried out at the instance [sic] of the Dardanelles Committee. 15.11.1919. P R O W O 3219636. “ H. Bailes. ’Technology and Imperialism: a case study of the Victorian Army in Africa’,

Vicloriun Studie.~. Vol. 7-t. no. I . 1980. p. 103. Minuto of evidence of Dardanelles Commission. Q. 1318 (Hamilton), PRO CAB 19/33;

Drtrdanellcs Operations. memorandum by the Director of Military Operations, February 1915. P R O W O 106!1538.

Minutes of cvidcncc of Dardanelles Commission. QQ. 351 (Hankey), 3598-3603 (Callwell). 791 (Grey). P R O CAB 19/33.

Minutes of evidence of the Dardanelles Commission. Q. 18549 (Sclater). P R O CAB 19/33: R . R . James. Gnllipoli (London. 1965). pp. 78-9.

DAVID FRENCH 221 agents. The last two were only used to cross-check information gathered from other sources. In 1908 all this information was gathered together into a memorandum entitled ‘The Turks’ coast defences’.46 Personal reconnaissance of the defences was difficult because the Turks treated all foreigners trying to land on the peninsula with great suspicion, but it was done at least once. In November 1906 a former Guards officer, Charles Woods, landed secretly on the peninsula thanks to the help of the British vice-consul at Gallipoli. Disguised as a member of a shooting party, Woods had been asked by the British military attache at Constantinople to reconnoitre possible invasion beaches for use by the British if they ever launched a combined operation against the forts. His report was forwarded to the general staff and the naval intelligence department but was then lost. Before the bombardment began in February, Woods reminded the latter of the report’s existence and when they could not find it in their files, he sent them his own copy. Although it would have been of considerable value to Hamilton it was not amongst the intelligence material he took with him to the Mediterranean.47 When he left London in the middle of March he had with him just three pieces of intelligence: a map of the peninsula, which was later found to be inaccurate, a topographical report of the peninsula, which made no mention at all of the Turkish defences, and some notes compiled at the War Office on the Turkish army. This document did n.3 more than describe the establishments of their army and ventured the opinion that although it had been reorganised by the Germans after the Balkan wars it was still no match for the Balkan armies, and, by implication, for the British army.48

Before Hamilton departed, measures had been begun to fill in the gaps left by this paucity of intelligence. On 20 February Kitchener sent three intelligence officers to Egypt to begin to collect information. Another officer, major Sampson, a former military consul-in the Levant who had recent intelligence experience in France, was sent to Athens to open an office to collect military information about the Turks. Because the Greeks were neutral, Sampson operated under cover as the administrator of a relief fund to help refugees from Turkey.49 Hamilton supplemented these sources himself by gathering around him his own intelligence staff. With one or two exceptions, they were amateurs with little previous experience of such work. His chief intelligence officer, colonel Ward, was not the right man for the job. He had never visited Turkey nor did he speak Turkish, and one of his subordinates described him as exhibiting ‘blank obstruc- tiveness’ to any new ideas.5o But better men were available. Colonel G.E. Tyrell, a former military attache at Conslantinople, or his successor, lieutenant-colonel Cunliffe-Owen, could have gone with Hamilton, but the former did not replace Ward until August 1915. Ward’s defects were not

4h Minutes of evidence of Eardanelles Commission, QQ. 4866-7 (Hall), PRO CAB 19/33. 47 Minutes of evidence of Dardanelles Commission, QQ. 16730-16803 (Woods), PRO CAB

19/33. 48 Minutes of evidence of the Dardanelles Commission, Q. 4380 (Hamilton), PRO CAB

19/33; Gallipoli Peninsula. Report of 1910, PRO WO l06/1536; Notes on Turkish army, March 1915, PRO WO 10611472,

49 Kitchener to Maxwell, 20.2.1915, PRO 30/57/65; C. Mackenzie, First Athenian Memories (London, 1931), p. 10.

Mackenzie, First Atheniun Memories, p. 175.


compensated for by his subordinates, only three or four of whom could speak Turkish or had any knowledge of the country.

British intelligence continued to experience considerable difficulty in gathering information on the ground on the peninsula because by February the Turks had evacuated all civilians and so reliance had to be placed on indirect sources.” These sources included Greek diplomatic and consular reports from Constantinople, information from the Greek general staff (all three sources were presumably intercepted by Sampson in Athens), British diplomatic sources in Sofia. and Austrian diplomatic telegrams intercepted and passed on by the Russians. (Since October 1914 a British intelligence officer had been stationed in the Russian War Office in Petrograd especially to pass back to the British any information the Russians had gleaned about enemy troop movements.) These reports were supplemented by direct observations of the peninsula from British ships and by two aerial reconnaissance flights carried out about ten days before the landing.’’

Despite the difficulties they faced and the haste and improvisation with which their work began. Ward’s staff was able to build-up an accurate picture of the Turkish order of battle. Hamilton received a steady stream of news showing the build-up of the Turkish garrison. On 8 March lieutenant-general W.R. Birdwood, Hamilton’s predecessor in command of the troops who reverted to command of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps during the landing. telegraphed to Kitchener that information from Athens showed there were about 40,000 enemy troops actually on the peninsula. By 16 April a report from the Greek consul at Dedeagatch indicated that there were now almost 200,000 Turkish troops around the straits and Constantinople.’? If all the Turkish forces on the peninsula and around Constantinople and the Bosphorus were regarded as being available to defend the Dardanelles the consul’s report was accurate. By mid-April the Turks had four divisions on or near the peninsula, two more on the Asiatic side of the straits, and another eight at the Bosphorus and around their capital. The total number of rifles available at the Dardanelles came to about 45,000 but on top of this there were another 39,000 ancillary troops who could be pressed into service.54

Hamilton hoped that a Russian demonstration would tie down some of these forces in the Caucasus, but he also recognised that the Russians could not be relied on to co-operate.” The British knew that they would probably be outnumbered but Hamilton does not appear to have felt any particular qualms about this. His intelligence officers dismissed the Turks’ numerical superiority simply by refusing to believe that they would offer any serious resistance once the British forces had established themselves firmly on the shore. Hamilton’s intelligence staff shared the government’s

” Minutes of evidence of Dardanelles Commission, QQ. 21243-5 (Birdwood). PRO CAB 1’),’33. ” Dardanelles G.H.Q. Intelligence Summary. March-April 1915. PRO WO 1571647; K.

Neilson. . “Joy Rides”?: British Intelligence and propaganda in Rilssia, 1914-1917’, Historical J o u r r i d . Vol. 24. no. 1. 1981, pp. 886-7. I am grateful to Dr. Neilson for allowing me to see a copy of this article when it was still in proof. ” Minutes of evidence of Dardanelles Commission. QQ. 21243-4 (Birdwood), PRO CAB

19/33: Dardanelles G.H.Q. Intelligence Summary. entry for 16.4.1915, PRO W O 157/647. <.I Aspinall-Oglander, Callipoli, p. 155. ’’ James. Gallipoli. pp. 93-4; Hamilton to Kitchener. 15.1915, Hamilton MSS. 15/17.

DAVID FRENCH 223 optimism about the landing. Doubters were ostracised. One officer, whose intelligence experience went back to 1906, who had been in Turkey during the Young Turk revolution and who had been a correspondent with the Bulgarian army during the Balkan wars and watched the Turks in action, questioned his colleagues’ credulity. He was initially ignored but when he persisted, major-general Braithwaite, Hamilton’s chief of staff, relegated him to the job of chief press censor, a post where his knowledge was largely wasted.56 Reports purporting to show that the Turks were unwilling to fight were assiduously collected by Ward’s staff. For example, on 23 March a report was received that ‘a declaration has been made by Prince Yusuf Izzedin [the heir apparent to the Sultan] in favour of conclusion of peace’. Five days later morale in the Turkish navy was supposed to be so low that the Bresluu had been ordered not to attack the Russian Black Sea fleet. On 3 April another report indicated that although trenches were being dug around Constantinople ‘many influential Turks [are] opposed to offering resistance as they wish to avoid bombardment of the town’.57 Reports like these, the ease with which the British were then ejecting the Turks from their trenches in Mesopotamia, and perhaps also his own sanguine temperament , enabled Hamilton to overlook the evidence provided by sea and air reconnaissance. This showed that the Turks had considerably strengthened their defences since February. The great question mark hanging over the British plans was how well the Turks would fight. The British despised them because they were Asiatics. As one of Birdwood’s staff officers wrote on the eve of the landing, they were ‘an enemy who has never shown himself to be as good a fighter as the white man’.5R

Hamilton landed on the peninsula on 25 April. Far from collapsing in rout and revolution the Turks resisted fiercely and Hamilton’s forces were barely able to advance beyond the beaches. Within ten days of getting ashore Hamilton began to ask for drafts to replace his heavy casualities, reinforcements to increase his force and shells and guns so he could blast his way through the Turks’ trenches.59 It was clear that the Turks would not tamely surrender, and as the Russian demonstration in the Caucasus had not materialised they were able rapidly to reinforce their garrison. Failure had given Hamilton a more realistic understanding of the Turks. He admitted that he was surprised at how well they fought, and on 26 May he wrote of them that ‘This enemy, though much fallen away from his former high state, is still a great empire on a continental scale possessing vast resources’.60 The idea of the landing as little more than a punitive expedition was now dead. When he began to contemplate his next offensive Hamilton was determined that his troops would be fully equipped with all the paraphernalia necessary in a war against a first-class enemy. When Kitchener replied that his requests for heavy howitzers and high-explosive ammunition could not be met, he retorted sharply that ‘for

5h Minutes of evidence of Dardanelles Commission, QQ. 19158-19287 (Captain W.

” Dardanelles G.H.Q. Intelligence Summary, entries for 23.3.1915 and 28.3.1915, PRO

58 James, Gallipoli, p. 86. sy See, for example, Hamilton to Kitchener, 28.4.1915, 9.5.1915, 10.5.1915, 17.5.1915, all

Hamilton to Churchill, 26.5.1915, in Gilbert, ed., Churchill. Companion, part 2, p. 952.

Maxwell), PRO CAB 19/33.

WO 1571647.

in Hamilton MSS 15/17.


our part we realise that in the matter of guns and ammunition it is no good crying for the moon and for your part you must recognise that until howitzers and ammunition arrive it is no good crying for the crescent’.6i

The most recent and valuable studies of the origins of the Dardanelles campaign and the reasons for its ultimate failure have concentrated on the many faults in the administrative machinery through which the government tried to run the war in the autumn and winter of 1914-15. It has been suggested that a properly constituted general staff at the war office and a small and effective cabinet committe which bore the sole responsibility for taking strategic decisions might have avoided some of the mistakes which were made.(” But this would only have been possible if the committee and its professional advisers had rid themselves of the erroneous assumption that the Turks were not a serious enemy who would surrender the moment the fleet appeared off Constantinople. If they had remained wedded to these ideas it is probable that no changes in the machinery of government would have improved the chances of the operation succeeding. The one factor vital to success was that the British had to realize from the outset that they were embarking on an operation against a first-class military power and not a backward oriental despotism.

h’ Hamilton to War Office. 16.6 1915. Hamilton MSS. 514 h2 James. Calhpoli. passim, Gooch. Plans of War. pp 299-333