Gallipoli:
The Battle that the British Lost
As I was
enjoying my cruise in the Bosporus Strait, Turkey in August 2026, another name
popped up in my mind, Gallipoli - someplace in Turkey connected with World War
I. I researched a little deeper and a wonderful and most significant and
amazing story emerged. I am sharing this with you today. It is a totally
secular blog, different from my usual religious and spiritual blogs. So, bear
with me!
To understand
what happened at Gallipoli and why it happened, we need first to have knowledge
of a brief background of the World War I of 1914 to 1918.
First World War
started with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo by a
Serb youth on June 28th 1914. The Archduke was the heir to
Austro-Hungarian Empire, and with his wife Sophie, he was on an official visit
to the city of Sarajevo in the province of Bosnia. He was shot dead along with
his wife. Serbs were agitating for independence for their Kingdom of Serbia,
with its capital in Belgrade. Great powers, Ottoman Turks, Austrians and the
Russians, had fought for two hundred years over the Balkans. The yolk of Turks
had been broken by 1914 and they had been driven out of Serbia. Russians had
their eyes on conquering Constantinople (presently known as Istanbul) and the
waterways connecting the seas, from the Black Sea to Mediterranean Sea, via Bosporus
strait, Sea of Marmara and Dardanelle strait. The contest was now between
Russian and Austria-Hungary. Serbians wanted to get rid of the yolk of
Austria-Hungarian Empire as well. The assassination was the beginning of not
just their ambition, but also a world-wide war, also known as the Great War.
Austria-Hungary
Empire with its capital in Vienna was ruled by Emperor Franz Joseph of
Hapsburgs family, an Empire that dominated European politics for more than four
and a half centuries. But by 1914 they had run out of steam. Still, it was an
Empire and offended by the assassination of its crown prince, it declared war on Serbia on July 28th
1914. Germany under Kaiser Wilhelm II of the Hohenzollern family, supported the
Austria-Hungarian regime against Serbia, whereas Russians took the opposite
side of the Austria-Hungarian regime and support to Serbia. Both started to
mobilize their armies. Germany issued double ultimation to both Russia and
France by 31st July.
Otto von
Bismarck had unified Germany in 1871 by fighting three major wars, with
Denmark, Austria, and France, and many of their areas had been incorporated
into Germany, especially French provinces of Alsace and Lorraine, a sore point
with France. Meanwhile Germany had grown strong in Europe, becoming an industrial,
economic and military superpower, altering the balance of power. Since 1894
France and Russia had become allies, against Germany. Romanov family had ruled
the Russian Empire for three hundred years and the emperor in 1914 at the start
of the war was Tzar Nicholas II.
In 1914,
Germany’s goal was to first knock French out of action in the west and then concentrate
on defeating Russians in the east. In the event of France being attacked by the
Germans, Britain would join to support France along with Russia. So, the
pattern emerged, with on one side, Germany, supporting Austria-Hungary against
Serbia and on the other, Russia, France and Britain, the Entente (later
called as the Allied forces, when American forces joined them), against the
central axis powers. The stage was set for a European war, involving the whole
world.
It is amazing
to learn that none of the heads of the States involved, either Kaiser Wilhelm
of Germany, or Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary, or Tsar Nicholas of Russia,
wanted to go in for a war. There was a flurry of letters and telegrams between
them to sort out differences through diplomatic means. But their powerful military
men, in Berlin, St. Petersburg, and Vienna were insisting that there was no
other alternative to war to settle the matters and the emperors, mostly
figure-heads, had yielded to them.
Soon Germany
declared war on France on 3rd August 1914, and as passing onto
France would require them to pass through Luxembourg and Belgium, Germany
declared war against Belgium as well. German forces entered Luxembourg by
August 2nd itself. Realizing the grave situation, Britain declared
war against Germany; Austria-Hungary declared war against Russia; and Serbia
against Germany, all by the first week of August 1914. Though the Empire of
Ottoman Turks had no role to play in the beginnings of this war, Turkey entered
the war on the side of Austria-Hungary and Germany in October 1914.
As the
Germans marched through Belgium to reach France, France and British forces
intervened and the famous Western Front Trench war of the Great war started,
stretching from Belgian North Sea coast, down through northeastern France to the
Swiss border, of a length of 700 to 750 kms. Both the sides dug in and trench
warfare continued. So also started the death of soldiers on both sides, in
hundreds and in thousands.
In the
meanwhile, British wanting to knock off Ottoman Turks from the war and with an
eye on the prize of Constantinople, launched a naval attack, along with France
on 18th March 1915. Winston Churchill who was the First Lord of the Admiralty,
young and ambitious, prepared for a naval expedition to invade and take
Gallipoli peninsula with Constantinople as the objective. Lord Kitchener, the
war Secretary of England, though more interested in the Western front, where
the fate of the war will be decided, was persuaded to take a knock at Gallipoli
and appointed General Sir Ian Hamilton to take command of the Gallipoli naval
battle.
Gallipoli is
a long narrow strip of land, a peninsula in the European portion of Turkey. It
extends into Aegean Sea on its west and south-west. On its east, a narrow strait
called Dardanelles runs separating European Turkey from Asian Turkey. The
Dardanelles strait is 45 kms long and just one or two kms wide. It opens in the
north into the Sea of Marmara, which enters the Black Sea by another narrow
strait called Bosporus Strait, which is 30 kms long and 3.7 kms wide, on the
bank of which is situated Constantinople. This whole sea lane from Black Sea
through Bosporus strait, into Sea of Marmara, and through Dardanelle strait
opening to the Aegean Sea and connected to the Sea of Mediterranean is an
important sea route and the water way that separates the two continents, the
Asian the European geographically.
An
experimental bombardment was made by the Allied forces on 19th
February 1915, at the entrance of Dardanelles, leaving hardly any damages, but
in the process warning the Turks of a possible naval attack. Another major
attack was carried out by the Allied forces on 25th February bombing
the forts at Dardanelles’ entrance. On 18th March 1915 a formidable
naval force tried to force its entrance through Dardanelles, an exclusive naval
operation, as they were not willing to divert troops needed in the Western
front. Modern ships named Queen Elizabeth, Agamemnon, Lord
Nelson, etc., and many other ships equipped with guns sailed through the Aegean
Sea near Greece, to the narrows of the Dardanelle strait. It was an awesome
display of the naval might of the British and the French. The huge ships soon
opened fire on the forts on either side of the Dardanelle.
Turks had quietly,
and unobserved, had laid lines of mines in the strait. Their gun batteries
started to fire on the ships as well. Soon, one after the other, ships started
to sink either by the mines or by the gunfire. Lord Nelson was hit. Three
of their sixteen ships sank and three more were severely damages and not
wanting to lose their prized possession Queen Elizabeth, the
British decided to withdraw. If they had pushed for one more day, victory would
have been theirs, but they threw it away to the relief of the Turks. The
British decided to make a combined operation with the army, landing troops in
Gallipoli. Now that the Turks knew that a land attack would come, they, with
the help of their German advisors, were able to make defense arrangements to
counter the attack. It was a huge boon to the Turks and their advisors.
On 25th
April 1915, the landing of the Allied invasion force started. A huge number of
transport ships transported to the shores of Gallipoli some twenty-seven
thousand British soldiers, thirty thousand Anzac troops from Australia and New
Zealand, and sixteen thousand Frenchmen. Turks had assembled some eighty-four
thousand soldiers to defend the peninsula. The allied forces landed in five beaches,
one on the extreme north and one on the south in the Asian side – Kum Kale,
both as diversionary troops. The main landings were on Cape Helles, and at
Suvla. On reaching their respective beaches the troops were to immediately
march to reach the top of hillocks and ridges ahead of them. But they landed in
the dark, very early in the morning when the sun had not yet to risen, and their
leaders were not quick enough to order the march and they wasted time on the
beach itself, for 3-5 hours, enough time for the Turks who now knew where
exactly they had landed and to move their troops on to the hillocks. After that
it became extremely difficult for the allied forces to march and capture the heights
in the face of the Turkish gunfire from the higher ridges, though they tried
many times but with no success.
It was Mustafa
Kemal, the Turkish filed marshal, who arrived with his solders at the places of
landing on the heights, who saved the day. He commanded his soldiers saying, “I
don’t order you to attack. I order you to die.” In such time when they fight
and die, other troops will come and take their places, and hold on, was his
logic. His soldiers did die in thousands, but they held their places, at a
terrible cost. Kemal would later be called Ataturk Kemal, for he saved Gallipoli
for the Turks and became the ‘Father of the nation.’ As in the Western
frontier, here also both the sides dug up trenches and continued the war,
resulting in heavy casualties on both sides.
Refusing to
give more ammunitions and more men to Gallipoli adventure, orders were issued
from the War Council, London, for the remaining force to evacuate, as they
realized that the campaign was unachievable. This retreat, they managed to do
with so much of planning that not a single bullet was fired and all of them
managed to evacuate successfully by 9th January 1916. They Turks knew that the
Allied forces were withdrawing, but they did not know where and when and hence
could not create any last-minute havoc among the retreating forces.
Allied forces
saw 58,000 of their men die and Ottoman 86,000 deaths, besides other casualties
and missing and captured. British Indian Gurkha regiment fought alongside and
took 1350 deaths. It was a military disaster; Churchill lost his Admiralty and Hamilton
his command, but Kitchener survived. A thorough waste of men and machine in a
wasteful adventure with no result. Most of the remaining force were relocated
to the Western front.
In the
Western Front things were rapidly changing by 1917-18. Americans were joining
the Allied troops in large numbers, thus strengthening the Entente. Germany
was suffering heavy losses in men and was not able to recoup, whereas Britain
was able to mop up men and material from their colonies. Russia was in
disarray, their society erupted in riots and in the civil war that broke out, Bolsheviks
took charge of the country. Tzar, his wife and five children were arrested on
22.3.1917, and executed on 17th July, 1918, by the Bolsheviks. Russian
empire collapsed and communism took hold of the country. Austria-Hungarian
empire fell and was broken into many fragments, Czechoslovakia, Hungary,
Austria, Lithuania, Poland and Yugoslavia. Serbia was integrated into
Yugoslavia. Ottoman Empire ceased to exist by 30.10.1918, when they surrendered
to the Allied forces. Germany lost the war, its empire collapsed and they were
forced to sign the Armistice on 11 November 1918. Totally 9.5 million men had
died in this mad rush of adrenal. Life in Europe would never be the same again.
Once the
Western front fell silent, and the Armistice signed, the victors, represented
by David Lloyd, the British Prime Minister, Georges Clemenceau Premier of
France, and Woodrow Wilson, President of America, divided the spoils among themselves.
Britain took Palestine; created a puppet kingdom of Iraq for the Kurds, Sunni
and Shia population of Mesopotamia; France took over Lebanon and Syria. Belgium
was saved. As per the Treaty of Versailles signed on 7th June 1919, Germans
were to be punished and humiliated for plunging the world into war and were
asked to pay reparations. Alsace and Lorraine were returned to France. German
army was reduced to one hundred thousand volunteer troops. It wrecked the German economy and bled it
white. German people were starving after the war, but no food was allowed to go
in. Stage was set in for another war to set right the wrong decisions of the
first war. That, of course, is another story.
What did
these wars and battles achieve? Men were fed as cannon fodder, and killed in
millions. Post war scenario was even worse – poverty, hunger and unemployment hung
in the air like a thick curtain. Where did such ideas come from to subjugate and
to kill one another? Was it the continuation of the first murder of Cain of his
innocent and righteous brother Abel, the first two children of Adam and Eve, as
described in Genesis in the Bible? Such murderous ideas could be nothing but
ideas sowed by Satan in the minds of human beings, dragging a whole generation
in to war, death and devastation. The world is no better today, with Russian
war against Ukraine and the Middle East war involving Iran and USA (supporting
Israel), and the closure of Strait of Hormoz. Where is the redemption for mankind
from all these and who is to redeem us from such a state? It is only Jesus
Christ who could save us from hating and killing each other, by His own example
of love and sacrifice on the cross and the redemption that he has offered. Will
the world embrace it? Let’s pray for it and wait for world peace.
