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Naval Travails

Fisher’s obsession with the need to conserve the best of the Royal Navy’s resources for what he saw the decisive battle of the war, against the German High Seas Fleet, meant that the battleships allotted to force the Chanak Narrows, then support land operations at Gallipoli were all vintage specimens, pre-dreadnoughts, some of which had been commissioned in the early 1890s. They were ,however, adequate for use as floating batteries, although their main armament of four 12-inch guns proved almost useless for giving close fire support for the infantry ashore; they were essentially ship-smashers, high velocity guns whose armour-piercing shells followed a flat trajectory whereas close fire support requires guns that have the ability to lob their fire over natural obstacles. Thus, when the allied fleet tried to force the Straits on 18 March 1915 the Turks , on the advice of their German tutors, used mobile field howitzers which could attack the decks of the warships from a near-vertical angle. Together with the great Krupp guns installed in the fixed shore fortifications, this gave the defence a distinct advantage.

Minefields were laid in the Dardanelles immediately Turkey entered the war and were progressively thickened until, by early March 1915 a considerable mine sweeping effort was necessary. The resources available to Admiral Carden were totally inadequate; flotillas of trawlers manned by their peacetime crews, embodied in the Royal Naval Reserve. These were expected to face the full force of the Turkish defences as they used wire sweeps to tackle the successive minefields. In the teeth of the perennial current flowing down the Straits at about 4 knots, the trawlers, whose best speed in still water was no more than 8 knots, could not expect to make more than walking speed when deploying their sweeps. After several had been hit by shore fire their crews stated that they would not continue and even the addition of regular officers and petty Officers failed to achieve success. The loss of three battleships on 18 March was due to mines - notably those laid secretly in Eren Keui Bay from the steamer Nusret - as well as the devastating fire of the shore batteries.

Once the fleet's task became that of providing fire support for the troops ashore,. battleships were anchored close offshore in this role. Their presence gave heart to the troops ashore but exposed them to attack. The first went the Goliath, torpedoed with great loss of life by a Turkish gunboat at night in Morto Bay. By mid-May German U-boats were arriving in the Mediterranean after a long and perilous voyage, to be based in Austro-Hungarian naval ports in the Adriatic. One of these, the U 21, torpedoed HMS Triumph,then HMS Majestic within 48 hours of each other, in full view of the dismayed troops ashore and to the jubilation of their opponents. After that the navy withdrew its battleships from close support of land operations. Fire support was now provided by cruisers, destroyers and monitors - shallow draught gunboats originally designed for operations in the coastal waters off the German coast.

Mention has been made of the achievement of the submarine B 11 which penetrated the Turkish minefields in December 1914 to sink the elderly battleship Messudieh off Chanak. This gave great encouragement to the Royal Navy's hitherto discounted submarine branch. Fisher had earlier been a strong proponent of underwater warfare but his retirement in 1911 had allowed opponents with conservative views to starve the fledgling submarine branch of resources. Whilst Fisher, on his return to the Admiraly as First Sea Lord in 1914, was adamant that no modern surface ships could be spared for the Dardanelles, he readily agreed to send a flotilla of submarines and these were to perform outstandingly throughout the campaign. The first attempt to penetrate the minefields and enter the Sea of Marmara was made on 17 April by the E 15, which was detected and sunk before reaching the Narrows; it was followed early on 25 April, the day of the Gallipoli landings, by AE 2, Australian mannded, which had a short but spectacular career in the Sea of Marmara before being scuttled. After this, the Marmara became the submariners' hunting ground . soon, it became impossible for the Turks to sustain their forces on the Gallipoli peninsula by sea as the British submarines established their supremacy; the names of their commanders - Boyle and Dunbar-Nasmith above all others - became legends. On several occasions their submarines penetrated Constantinople harbour, torpedoing ships at the entrance to the Bosphorus.

As Kitchener had forbidden Hamilton the services of the Royal Flying Corps. Hamilton's air support had to be provided by the Royal Naval Air Service whose pilots displayed remarkable initiative, pioneering the use of the torpedo bomber, using wireless telegraphy to direct and adjust the fire of the fleet's guns, and, through aerial photography, providing accurate battlefield mapping for the first time. With the arrival of more modern fighter aircraft the RNAS was able to secure air superiority and, once Bulgaria had entered the war, to attack strategic targets in that country, through whose territory ran the key railroad bringing military supplies and munitions to Constantinople from the arsenals of Germany .

Throughout 1915 the two former German warships, the Goeben and Breslau, had operated under their commander, Admiral Souchon, as part of the Ottoman fleet in the Black Sea. In 1918, however, they emerged into the Sea of Marmara on the assumption that the allies had withdrawn their capital ships following the evacuation of the peninsula. It was a disastrous sortie, however. After sinking a few smaller warships off the entrance to the Straits, both struck British mines. Breslau sank with great loss of life and the badly holed Goeben after beaching for emergency repairs, limped back to Constantinople where she remained.

On This Day...

Monday, 17 May 1915

GALLIPOLI - Flight Commander Reginald Marix and his observer Charles Samson were involved in an interesting mission on 17 May 1915. That morning Marix....

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GALLIPOLI - Flight Commander Reginald Marix and his observer Charles Samson were involved in an interesting mission on 17 May 1915. That morning Marix had noticed an unusual degree of activity at the port sighting four transports and several smaller craft visibly unloading stores and troops at the small port of Ak Bashi Liman.

Aerial Samson
Photograph: Taken by Squadron Commander Charles Samson on 17 May.

He also saw a large camp filled with soldiers further inland. He returned in the afternoon with Samson as his observer. They took the opportunity to try out a new aircraft as Samson would later recall.

"On May 17th Marix had his big Breguet ready for action. As our principle objective with this aeroplane was an attack on Constantinople, we had to test it out well before allowing the attempt to be made, so in order to see what it could do I made one of my infrequent trips as passenger. We carried no less than one 100-lb and fourteen 20-lb bombs, and also a Lewis gun, a pretty formidable amount for those days. Off we set with the idea of giving Ak Bashi Liman a look-over. Arriving there, we found the place a scene of great activity. We let go all our bombs and created complete panic, and also did a lot of damage. I have since talked with Turks who were actually on the spot at the time, and they all said that we put a complete stop to work for two days, as the labourers fled to the hills. The loss of life was severe, thirteen killed and forty-four wounded. Marix and I came back delighted with the Breguet; but rather doubtful if the engine was reliable enough as it was missing fire most of the time." (Squadron Commander Charles Samson, No. 3 Squadron, Royal Naval Air Service)

The two then carried out a more detailed reconnaissance and when their reports reached the GHQ it was concluded that a new Turkish division (it was the 2nd Division) was in transit and would be launching an attack on Anzac in the near future. Warnings reached the trenches on 18 May and as a ressult the Turks would be slaughtered when they launched mass attacks on the early morning of 19 May.