STRATEGY AND TACTICS OF THE DARDANELLES CAMPAIGN
Now, having recognised the tremendous issues which were involved in the
fall of Constantinople, it may be asked did the Government provide a
weapon sufficiently strong to carry out their policy? In my humble
opinion they did,--if only the weapon had been rightly handled.
Of course, whoever is to blame for the Bedlamite policy of the first
disastrous attempts by the Navy alone bears a heavy responsibility.
Beyond knocking the entrance forts to pieces, all that this premature
attack by the Fleet effected was to give the Turks ample warning of our
intentions, of which they took full advantage by making the Gallipoli
Peninsula an almost impregnable fortress and the Dardanelles a network
of mines.
But even this grave initial blunder could have been rectified, if only
sound strategy had been adopted in the combined naval and military
attack on the Dardanelles.
The problem before the strategists was, of course, to get through to
Constantinople with the Fleet, and this could only be done by forcing
the Narrows, a strip of the Dardanelles heavily fortified and only a
mile wide. It was therefore necessary to reduce the forts guarding the
Narrows, and with an army to hold the heights on Gallipoli dominating
the Dardanelles, so as to ensure the safety of the Fleet.
Having command of the seas gave us the choice of launching the attack at
any point we chose on the Turkish coast; therefore the Turks were at the
great disadvantage of having to divide their forces into several parts,
so as to guard such points as they thought might possibly be attacked.
It was known that there was a Turkish army on the Asiatic side, at the
south of Chanak, the principal Fort on the Asiatic shore of the Narrows;
also that the Bulair lines, some forty miles from the extremity of the
Peninsula, were strongly fortified and held; that a strong force was
entrenched on the southern portion of the Peninsula in the neighbourhood
of Cape Helles; and, in addition, that there was yet another Turkish
army holding the heights on the Ægean at, or near, a point now known as
Anzac.
Now, if any one will take the trouble to study the map, which will be
found at the end of this book, he will see that the key to the Narrows
is that portion of the Gallipoli Peninsula which extends across from
Anzac on the Ægean, through the heights of Sari Bair, to the
Dardanelles.
If, therefore, instead of dividing the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force
(which unfortunately was the plan adopted) and having it held up or
destroyed in detail, the whole force had been thrown in its entirety at
this point, and a vigorous sledge-hammer blow delivered, I feel
absolutely confident that a crowning victory would have been gained and
the expedition would have been a glorious success.
Of the four Turkish armies the only one that could have opposed a sudden
vigorous thrust at the key position was the one at and near Anzac, and
this force we could have swept aside and crumpled up before any of the
others could possibly have come to its assistance.
That the Expeditionary Force could have been landed here is proved by
the fact that the two Australian and New Zealand Divisions did land
here, and these dauntless men, by themselves, almost succeeded in taking
Sari Bair and getting astride the Peninsula. For eight months they held
their end up, and more than held it up, against overwhelming odds. Had
they been backed up at the time of the first landing on April 25th,
1915, by the "incomparable 29th Division," one of the best the British
Army has ever seen, together with the two French Divisions, with their
hundred celebrated .75 guns, and the Royal Naval Division, no Turkish
troops at that time in the neighbourhood could for a moment have stood
up against them, and with our grip once established on the Peninsula
nothing could have shaken us off--not all the soldiers in the Ottoman
Empire.
Every Turk on the southern portion of Gallipoli must inevitably have
fallen into our hands within a few days, for it was well known that they
were but ill supplied with ammunition and food. There was no chance of
escape for them, for our Fleet commanded all the waters round Gallipoli
up to the very Narrows themselves, and nothing could possibly have
gained the Asiatic shore; while anything attempting to cross at the
Narrows would have been inevitably sunk by the artillery which we would
have mounted on the dominating heights of the Peninsula. No help could
reach them from Constantinople, for the same reason, and it would have
been in vain for them to have endeavoured to break through our lines, as
was proved over and over again in the many determined but futile
assaults they made on us in Gallipoli, when they were invariably hurled
back with enormous losses.
Once astride the Peninsula, where our length of front would be less than
seven miles, with over six men to the yard holding it, nothing could
have shaken off our strangling hold. It would only then have been a
question of directing the fire of the heavy naval guns on the Forts in
the Narrows, which would, of course, be done by direct observation, and
these strongholds would have been pounded to dust by the _Queen
Elizabeth_ and other battleships within a week, thus leaving open the
road to Constantinople. Such might have been the glorious ending of the
Gallipoli campaign if only sound strategical and tactical methods had
been employed.
It is a thousand pities that this plan of operations was not adopted,
for with such proved commanders as General d'Amade, General Birdwood and
General Hunter-Weston--thrusters all--and with such incomparable men,
there would have been no "fatal inertia" to chronicle.
It must be remembered that at the time of this landing on April 25th,
the Turks had had but little time to organise their defences and it
would then have been a much easier task to have seized the heights of
Sari Bair than when the attempt was made with raw troops later on in
August, an attempt which, even with all the drawbacks chronicled against
it, came within an ace of being a success.
Another great advantage was that the weather, when we landed in April,
was much cooler; there was also an ample rainfall, so that there would
have been no difficulty about drinking-water, a lack of which in August
proved fatal to the attempt made in that hot, dry month. We did not, of
course, rely upon a chance rainfall at the time of our landing, for, as
I shall show later on, ample provision had been made for carrying and
supplying water, at all events for the 29th Division.
Unfortunately, such a plan of campaign as I have outlined was not put
into execution. Instead, the force was split up into no less than nine
parts, and practically destroyed in detail, or brought to a standstill
by the Turks.
The Australian and New Zealand Divisions landed at Anzac, the key
position; the 29th Division beat themselves to death attacking six
different and almost impregnable positions on the toe of the Peninsula,
where, I dare to say, not a single man ought ever to have been landed;
in addition to the opposition they met with in Gallipoli they were
subjected to a rain of shells from Asia, not only at the time of landing
but throughout the whole time we wasted in occupying this utterly (from
a military point of view) useless end of the Peninsula.
The Royal Naval Division was sent somewhere in the direction of the
Bulair Lines, where it effected nothing, and the two French Divisions
made an onslaught on the Asiatic coast, which, although well conceived
and most gallantly put into execution, helped the main cause not at all.
Of course, they were invaluable in preventing the Asiatic guns from
firing on the 29th Division at the time of the landing, but then this
Division should of course have been landed at Anzac, where they would
have been out of range of those guns. Whatever Turkish force opposed the
French at Kum Kale could never have got across the Dardanelles in time
to have opposed our landing at or near Anzac.
If it had been thought necessary to make demonstrations on the Asiatic
coast, at the toe of the Peninsula, and at the Bulair Lines, this could
have been done equally well by sending the empty transports to those
places, escorted by a few gunboats, and thus have held the Turks in
position by making a pretence at throwing troops ashore at those points.
Of course, it is easy to be wise after the event, but I never did see,
and never could see, the point of dividing our force and landing on the
southern part of Gallipoli, for, once we had got astride the Peninsula
from Anzac to the Narrows, all the Turks to the south of us must have
fallen into our mouths, like ripe plums.
Napoleon has placed it on record that it is the besetting sin of British
commanders to fritter away their forces by dividing them and so laying
themselves open to be defeated in detail. It would appear that we have
not even yet taken Napoleon's maxim to heart, for if ever there was an
occasion on which it was absolutely vital to keep the whole force intact
for a mighty blow, it was on that fateful Sunday morning, April 25th,
1915, when one concentrated thrust from Anzac to the Narrows would have
undoubtedly placed in our hands the key of the Ottoman Empire.
The Dardanelles campaign will go down to history as the greatest
failure sustained by British arms, and yet no more glorious deeds have
ever been performed by any army in the world.