Naval Operations in The Dardanelles Campaign - Forcing The Straits

Forcing The Straits

On 3 November 1914, Churchill ordered the first British attack on the Dardanelles following the opening of hostilities between Ottoman and Russian empires. The British attack was carried out by battlecruisers of Carden's Mediterranean Squadron, HMS Indomitable and Indefatigable, as well as the obsolete French battleships Suffren and Vérité. This attack actually took place before a formal declaration of war had been made by Britain against the Ottoman Empire.

The intention of the attack was to test the fortifications and measure the Ottoman response. The results were deceptively encouraging. In a 20-minute bombardment, a single shell struck the magazine of the fort at Sedd el Bahr at the tip of the Gallipoli peninsula, displacing (but not destroying) 10 guns and killing 86 Ottoman soldiers. Total casualties during the attack were 150, of which 40 were German. The most significant consequence was that the attention of the Ottomans was drawn to strengthening their defences, and they set about expanding the mine field.

The Dardanelles were defended by a system of fortified and mobile artillery arranged as the "Outer", "Intermediate" and "Inner" defences. While the outer defences lay at the entrance to the straits and would prove vulnerable to bombardment and raiding, the inner defences covered the Narrows, the narrowest point of the straits near Çanakkale. Beyond the inner defences, the straits were virtually undefended. However, the foundation of the straits defences were a series of 10 minefields, laid across the straits near the Narrows and containing a total of 370 mines.

What was to become the Battle of Gallipoli, a 10-month battle of attrition, began at 07:30 on 19 February 1915. Two destroyers were sent in to probe the straits. The first shot was fired from Kumkale by the Orhaniye Tepe battery's 240 mm (9.4 in) Krupp guns at 07:58. The battleships HMS Cornwallis and Vengeance moved in to engage the forts and the first British shot of the campaign proper was fired at 09:51 by Cornwallis. The day's bombardment lacked the spectacular results of the 3 November test.

Another attempt was made on 25 February. This time the Ottomans evacuated the outer defences and the fleet entered the straits to engage the intermediate defences. Demolition parties of Royal Marines raided the Sedd el Bahr and Kum Kale forts, meeting little opposition. On 1 March, four battleships bombarded the intermediate defences.

Little progress was made clearing the minefields. The minesweepers, commanded by Carden's chief of staff, Roger Keyes, were merely un-armoured trawlers manned by their civilian crews who were unwilling to work while under fire. The strong current in the straits further hampered the sweeping process. This lack of progress by the fleet strengthened the Ottoman resolve which had wavered at the start of the offensive. On 4 March, raids on the outer defences were resisted, leaving 23 British marines dead.

Queen Elizabeth was called on to engage the inner defences, at first from the Aegean coast near Gaba Tepe, firing across the peninsula, and later from within the straits. On the night of 13 March, the cruiser HMS Amethyst led six minesweepers in an attempt to clear the mines. Four of the trawlers were hit and Amethyst was badly damaged with 19 stokers killed from a single hit.

On 15 March, the admiralty informed Carden that they agreed to his plan for a further all out attack by daylight, with the minesweepers operating under the direct protection of the entire fleet. Carden was taken ill the same day, and had to be replaced by Rear Admiral John de Robeck. A gunnery officer noted in his diary that de Robeck had already expressed misgivings with the likelihood of being able to silence the Ottoman guns by bombardment, and that this view was widely held on board the ship.