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The First and Second Naval Bombardment of the Dardanelles
The naval operations in the Dardanelles Campaign of the First World War were mainly carried out by the Royal Navy with substantial support from the French and minor contributions from Russia and Australia. The Dardanelles Campaign began as a purely naval operation. When that failed to overcome Ottoman defences, an invasion of the Gallipoli peninsula was launched in which naval forces were heavily involved. Throughout the campaign, attempts were made by submarines to pass through the Dardanelles -
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The Gallipoli Front
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The Attempt on the Dardanelles Narrows
Having paused to consolidate following the clear failure of the previous month's attempts to batter the Turkish protective fortresses, a further naval effort was briefly launched on 18 March in an attempt to break through The Narrows: so-named because just 1,600 heavily-mined metres separated the shore on either side. -
The Gallipoli Landings at Helles and Anzac Cove
February and March 1915 saw a series of three purely naval assaults upon the Dardanelles Straits by a combined British and French force led by Sir Sackville Carden and, latterly, Sir John de Robeck. All ended in failure: all were the brainchild of British First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill. The failure of the naval offensive ultimately claimed the careers of Churchill, First Sea Lord Admiral John Fisher (whose resignation brought Churchill down with him) and French naval minister Je -
First Battle of Krithia
Having established beachheads at Cape Helles and Anzac Cove on the southern tip of the Gallipoli peninsular in the wake of the landings of 25 April 1915, Commander-in-Chief Sir Ian Hamilton determined to open the peninsular land campaign by breaking through the Turkish defensive lines via the main Allied force at Cape Helles, capture Krithia and so link up with the remaining force at Anzac Cove. -
Counter-attack at Eski Hissarlik
Three days after the Allies - under British commander Aylmer Hunter-Weston - had attempted to break north from Cape Helles in an attempt to capture Krithia and its nearby prominent hill feature Achi Baba (the First Battle of Krithia), Turkish forces operating under Liman von Sanders struck back in a counter-strike designed to push the Allied force back into the sea. -
Second Battle of Krithia
Following the failure of the first Allied attempt to capture the village of Krithia and its prominent hill feature Achi Baba on 28 April 1915 a second attempt was initiated on 6 May.
The Allied force used as the basis of the attack was sited at a beachhead on Cape Helles operating under British commander Aylmer Hunter-Weston. Some 20,000 troops had survived the landing at Cape Helles on 25 April but losses during the first attempt upon Krithia had reduced this total to just -
Turkish attack at Anzac Cove
Although the focus of activity on the Gallipoli peninsular in the wake of the Allied landings of 25 April 1915 had been at Helles - including two failed attacks upon the village of Krithia and its nearby prominent hill feature Achi Baba in April and early May - the Turk defenders at Anzac Cove launched a concerted attack on 19 May 1915. -
Third Battle of Krithia
With only modest progress accompanying the Allied attack at the Second Battle of Krithia in the first week of May 1915, regional Commander-in-Chief Sir Ian Hamilton urged his local commander Aylmer Hunter-Weston at Helles to maintain a policy of "ceaseless initiative" against the Turkish lines stretched some 7km across the southern tip of the peninsular. -
Battle of Gully Ravine
By late June 1915 agreement had been reached between the government in London, in the form of war minister Lord Kitchener, and the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force Commander-in-Chief, Sir Ian Hamilton, to despatch sizeable reinforcements to the Gallipoli peninsular to facilitate a renewed offensive in August in the north. -
Attack on Achi Baba
Mediterranean Expeditionary Force Commander-in-Chief Sir Ian Hamilton had set the capture of Achi Baba as a stated priority for operations during the Allied landing at Cape Helles on 25 April 1915.
Achi Baba was a prominent hill feature offering a commanding panorama of the Allied beachhead at Cape Helles and was therefore highly placed on the Allied list for seizure. Hamilton and his local Helles commander Aylmer Hunter-Weston had thereafter initiated repeated attempts upon -
Landings at Suvla Bay
On the evening of August 6, 1915, Allied forces commanded by Sir Frederick Stopford land at Suvla Bay, on the Aegean Sea, to launch a fresh attack against Turkish and German forces on the Gallipoli Peninsula during World War I.
The landing at Suvla Bay was part of the larger "August Offensive," which was an attempt by the Allied forces to break through the Turkish and German lines to take command of the Gallipoli Peninsula. The large-scale Allied land invasion of Gallipoli had begun the previou -
Battle of Lone Pine
One of the most famous assaults of the Gallipoli campaign, the Battle of Lone Pine was originally intended as a diversion from attempts by New Zealand and Australian units to force a breakout from the ANZAC perimeter on the heights of Chunuk Bair and Hill 971. The Lone Pine attack, launched by the 1st Brigade AIF in the late afternoon of 6 August 1915 pitched Australian forces against formidable entrenched Turkish positions, sections of which were securely roofed over with pine logs. In some ins -
Battle of Sari Bair
The August Offensive was the last major attempt made by the Allied forces at Gallipoli to break the stalemate that had persisted since the landings on 25 April 1915. The plan involved a series of thrusts being made out of the ANZAC position to seize high points along the Sari Bair range, which dominated the Gallipoli peninsula. These operations would be supported by several diversionary attacks along the existing ANZAC frontline.
The offensive began with a diversionary attack at Lone Pine on th -
Battle of Hill 60
The Battle of Hill 60, conducted by Anzac commander William Birdwood, was designed to support General Henry de Beauvoir de Lisle's far larger attack at Scimitar Hill on the same day in what comprised the final British attack at Gallipoli. Both attacks were intended as a last-ditch Allied attempt to break northwards out of the restricted beachhead at Anzac Cove and link up with the Allied force sited at Suvla Bay.
Hill 60 - named, as was often the case with such features duri -
Battle of Scimitar Hill
The Battle of Scimitar Hill, which ran alongside the Battle of Hill 60. The attack upon Hill 60 was designed to place into Allied hands the sole prominent hill feature lying between Anzac Cove and Suvla Bay. Consequently William Birdwood, the Anzac commander, appointed General Cox to oversee the capture of the hill (Kaiajik Aghyl to the Turks) along with 3,000 troops. In the event the attack proved a failure chiefly owing to reconnaissance failures and was abandoned by Birdwood on 28 August. -
Evacuation of Gallipoli
On December 15, Allied forces begin a full retreat from the shores of the Gallipoli peninsula in Turkey, ending a disastrous invasion of the Ottoman Empire. The Gallipoli campaign resulted in 250,000 Allied casualties and a greatly discredited Allied military command. Roughly an equal number of Turks were killed or wounded.
In early 1915, the British government resolved to ease Turkish pressure on the Russians on the Caucasus front by seizing control of the Dardanelles channel, the Gallipoli pe