Authors: Alan Moorehead
But these actions were nothing more than local raids, and no attempt was made to follow them up. In London, it is true, there was a general feeling that something ought to be done about Turkey,
and the question was revived from time to time. Even before hostilities began Lord Kitchener, the Secretary of State for War, and Winston Churchill, the First Lord of the Admiralty, had discussed
whether they might not persuade the Greeks to land an army on the Gallipoli peninsula. Once the Turkish garrison there had been defeated the fleet would sail through the straits, sink the
Goeben
, and then turn its guns on Constantinople. It was an intriguing project, and the Greeks on being sounded out were at first quite eager; they were to be given the island of Cyprus as
a reward. Later, however, they changed their minds, and the British too soon cooled.
The vast killing match in France overwhelmed them all. By the end of November, barely three months after the fighting began, the Allies had suffered nearly a million casualties, a fantastic
figure never to be eclipsed in so short a period throughout the entire war. It was so terrible that it seemed that it must soon produce some result; somehow, if only sufficient men were got to the
front, if they charged just once more against the machine-gun bullets and the barbed wire, they were bound to get through.
To kill Germans—that was the thing; to go on killing them until there were no more left, and then to advance into Germany itself.
At the end of December Lieut.-Colonel Hankey, the Secretary
of the War Council, produced a paper in which he pointed out that the Allies were not in fact advancing, nor
were they killing Germans at a greater rate than they were being killed themselves. The trenches were now dug for 350 miles from the North Sea to the Swiss Alps, and Hankey suggested that it was
time to consider whether this impasse might not be broken by making some broad flanking movement around the line—perhaps through Turkey and the Balkans.
These ideas had been canvassed already in a general way by Churchill, Lloyd George and others, and Lord Fisher, the First Sea Lord, had a scheme for breaking into the Baltic and landing a
Russian army on Germany’s northern coast. But there was determined opposition from the French and British generals in France—the killing-Germans school of thought; in their view not a
man could be spared from the vital theatre in the west. They argued that to divide the Allied forces, to set off on some experimental expedition in the east, would endanger the safety of their
whole position in France and expose England to the risk of invasion.
Kitchener at first supported these views, but then in the last days of the year a message arrived from Sir George Buchanan, the British Ambassador in Petrograd, saying that the Russians were in
difficulties. The Grand Duke Nicholas, the commander-in-chief of the Russian armies, had asked, Sir George said, ‘if it would be possible for Lord Kitchener to arrange for a demonstration of
some kind against the Turks elsewhere, either naval or military, and to so spread reports as to cause Turks, who he says are very liable to go off at a tangent, to withdraw some of the forces now
acting against the Russians in the Caucasus, and thus ease the position of the Russians.’
This was a matter that could not be ignored. After the tremendous blows of Tannenberg and the Masurian Lakes the Russian armies were beginning to falter everywhere along the line. They were
reported to have suffered over a million casualties, and their supplies of rifles and ammunition were giving out. A new German offensive in the spring might prove disastrous.
Kitchener came across to the Admiralty to discuss the message
with Churchill, and the following day, January 2, 1915, in a letter to Churchill, he said: ‘The only
place that a demonstration might have some effect in stopping reinforcements going east would be the Dardanelles. Particularly if, as the Grand Duke says, reports could be spread at the same time
that Constantinople was being threatened.’ And the following telegram was sent off to Petrograd:
‘Please assure the Grand Duke that steps will be taken to make a demonstration against the Turks. It is, however, feared that any action we can devise and carry out will be unlikely to
seriously affect numbers of enemy in the Caucasus, or cause their withdrawal.’
Gloomy as this message was, it committed the British to action, and at the Admiralty both Churchill and Fisher got down to the question of just what action it should be. Fisher was all for
taking up Hankey’s plan at once. ‘
I CONSIDER THE ATTACK ON TURKEY HOLDS THE FIELD
!’ he wrote (in capital letters), ‘
BUT ONLY IF
IT
’
S IMMEDIATE
!’ and he went on to define exactly what should be done. All the Indians and 75,000 of the British troops in France were to be embarked at
Marseilles and landed, together with the Egyptian garrison, on the Asiatic side of the Dardanelles; the Greeks were to attack the Gallipoli peninsula, and the Bulgarians to march to Constantinople.
At the same time a squadron of old British battleships of the
Majestic
and
Canopus
class were to force the Dardanelles.
This was all very well in its way, but Kitchener had said emphatically in the course of the discussions that he could not spare a man for any new expedition, and there was certainly no question
of taking troops from France; if there was to be any demonstration at all it would have to be a naval affair. Churchill was particularly struck by Fisher’s reference to the forcing of the
straits with old battleships. It was an exploit which had captivated British naval strategists for at least a century, and in fact it had once been done, and in very similar circumstances to those
that now prevailed. In 1807 when Napoleon was advancing to the east, the Russians had asked for assistance against Turkey, and the British
sent a naval squadron to the
Dardanelles. Sir John Moore, who was second-in-command of the British garrison in Sicily, urged that troops should accompany the expedition, but was told that there were none to spare (which was
not, in fact, true). ‘It would have been well,’ Sir John wrote after the ships had sailed, ‘to have sent 7,000 or 8,000 men with the fleet to Constantinople, which would have
secured their passage through the Dardanelles and enabled the admiral to have destroyed the Turkish fleet and arsenal, which, from the want of such a force, he may not be able to effect.’ The
expedition, however, opened very well. Admiral Duckworth with seven ships of the line ran the gauntlet of the Turkish batteries along the straits, destroyed a Turkish squadron and was within eight
miles of Constantinople when the wind failed. He waited for a week, unable to bring his guns to bear on the city, and then decided to retire. The return journey proved more difficult. He lost no
ship but the Turkish guns at the Narrows inflicted 150 casualties among his sailors.
Since then the problem had been studied anew on several occasions and in the light of steam navigation. Fisher himself had twice considered making the attempt in the first years of the twentieth
century, but had decided that it was ‘mightily hazardous’. There were now, however, good arguments for taking up the matter again. The battleships of the
Majestic
and
Canopus
class were all due for scrap within the next fifteen months. Already they were so out of date they could not be used in the first line of battle against the German fleet, but they
were perfectly adequate to deal with the Turkish batteries at the Dardanelles. The Germans in their recent advance across Belgium had given a striking demonstration of what modern guns could do
against old forts—and the Turkish forts were very old indeed. The British had had their naval mission in Turkey for years, and they knew all about them, gun by gun. It was also known that
there was barely a division of Turkish soldiers on the Gallipoli peninsula. These were widely scattered and very badly equipped; and presumably they were still subject to the inertia and the
confusion of command which had lost Turkey all her battles in the past five years.
As for Fisher’s other proposal—the bringing in of Greek and Bulgarian soldiers to attack Turkey—there was a good deal to be said for it. Once the fleet
was in the Sea of Marmara it was quite likely that Greece and Bulgaria would abandon their neutrality in the hope of gaining still more territory from the Turks. Italy and Rumania too would be
greatly influenced, and thus you might end with a grand alliance of the Balkan Christian states against Turkey. But it was the aid that would be brought to Russia that was the really vital thing.
Directly the Dardanelles was forced and Constantinople taken, arms and ammunition could be sent to her across the Black Sea, and the 350,000 tons of shipping which had been bottled up would be
released. Russia’s grain would once more become available to feed the Allies in the west.
With these ideas in mind Churchill sent off the following message to Vice-Admiral Sackville Carden, who was commanding the squadron outside the Dardanelles:
‘Do you consider the forcing of the Dardanelles by ships alone a practical operation?
‘It is assumed older battleships fitted with mine-bumpers would be used, preceded by colliers or other merchant craft as mine-bumpers and sweepers.
‘Importance of results would justify severe loss.
‘Let me know your views.’
Both Fisher and Sir Henry Jackson (who was attached to the Admiralty staff as an adviser on the Turkish theatre), saw this telegram before it went, and approved it. On January 5 Carden’s
answer arrived: ‘With reference to your telegram of 3rd instant, I do not consider Dardanelles can be rushed. They might be forced by extended operations with large number of
ships.’
Up to this point nobody, either in the Admiralty or at the War Office, had reached any definite conclusions or made any plan as to what was to be done. But here for the first time was something
positive: the Admiral on the spot believed that he might get through the straits, and by a method that had not been broached before: that of a slow progress instead of a rush, a calculated shelling
of the forts one by one. Having consulted Sir Henry Jackson
and his Chief-of-Staff, Admiral Oliver (but not Fisher), Churchill telegraphed again to Carden:
‘Your view is agreed with by high authorities here. Please telegraph in detail what you think could be done by extended operations, what force would be needed, and how you consider it
should be used.’
Admiral Carden’s plan arrived in London on January 11 and it envisaged the employment of a very large force: 12 battleships, 3 battle-cruisers, 3 light cruisers, 1 flotilla leader, 16
destroyers, 6 submarines, 4 seaplanes, 12 minesweepers and a score of other miscellaneous craft. He proposed in the first place to take on the forts at long range and by indirect fire and then,
with his minesweepers in the van, to sail directly into the range of the Turkish guns and demolish them
seriatim
as he went along. Meanwhile a diversionary bombardment would be carried out
on the Bulair Lines at the base of the Gallipoli Peninsula and on Gaba Tepe on the western coast. He would require much ammunition, he said, and once he had emerged into the Sea of Marmara he
proposed to keep open the straits in his wake by patrolling them with a part of his force. He added,
‘Time required for operations depends greatly on morale of enemy under bombardment; garrison largely stiffened by the Germans; also on weather conditions. Gales now frequent. Might do it
all in a month about.’
This plan was discussed and approved in detail at the Admiralty and one very important addition was made to it. The
Queen Elizabeth
, the first of five new battleships and one of the
most powerful vessels afloat, was about to set off for the safe waters of the Mediterranean for her calibration exercises. It was now decided that, if the plan went through, she should proceed to
the Dardanelles and calibrate her 15-inch guns on the Turks—a thing she could very easily do without ever coming into the range of the hostile batteries on shore.
The vital meeting of the War Council took place on January 13. Churchill had now become an ardent enthusiast for the plan, and with the aid of a map he explained it to the other members. He
argued, Lloyd George says, ‘with all the inexorable force and pertinacity, together with the mastery of detail he always commands when he is really interested in a
subject’.
There appears to have been very little discussion. Lord Fisher and Admiral of the Fleet Sir Arthur Wilson had come to the meeting but did not speak. ‘Lord Kitchener,’ it is recorded
in the Council’s Minutes, ‘thought the plan worth trying. We could leave off the bombardment if it did not prove effective.’ And finally the decision was made without a dissenting
voice: ‘That the Admiralty should prepare for a naval expedition in February to bombard and take the Gallipoli Peninsula with Constantinople as its objective.’
In the years that followed great play was made over the wording of this resolution. ‘It is impossible,’ the Dardanelles Commissioners wrote in their report in 1917, ‘to read
all the evidence, or to study the voluminous papers which have been submitted to us, without being struck by the atmosphere of vagueness and want of precision which seems to have characterized the
proceedings of the War Council.’ How, it was asked, can a fleet ‘take’ a peninsula? And how could it have Constantinople as its objective? If this meant—as it apparently did
mean—that the Fleet should capture and occupy the city, then it was absurd.
Yet in point of fact this is precisely what everyone at the War Council did hope; and it may not have been altogether absurd. Turkey’s position was very weak. Twice within the last five
years Constantinople had been thrown into chaos by political revolution. It had the reputation of being an hysterical place, and it was known to be divided against itself. For the moment Enver and
the Young Turks might have control, but anything could happen with the appearance of an Allied fleet in the Golden Horn. One had to consider the condition of the crowded streets with their
tumbledown wooden houses once the guns had begun to fire—or even at the threat of the guns firing. On past occasions the mob had run loose under far less provocation than this, and Turkish
governments had been known to bolt very easily. There existed only two munition factories in Turkey, and both these were on
the shore, where they could have been quickly
destroyed by naval gunfire along with such military objectives as the naval dockyards, the Galata bridges and the Ministry of War. Constantinople was the centre of all Turkish affairs, economic,
political and industrial as well as military. There was no other city in the country to replace it, no network of roads and railways which would have enabled the Army and the government to have
rapidly re-grouped in another place. The fall of Constantinople was in effect the fall of the state, even though resistance might have been maintained indefinitely in the mountains. If the arrival
of one battle-cruiser, the
Goeben
, had been enough to bring Turkey into the war then surely it was not altogether too much to hope that the arrival of half a dozen such ships would get her
out of it.