Gallipoli campaign

The Gallipoli campaign was a failed Allied attempt during the First World War to force the Dardanelles strait and knock the Ottoman Empire out of the war. It ran from 19 February 1915, when the first naval bombardment began, to 9 January 1916, when the last Allied troops left the Gallipoli peninsula in north-western Turkey. Hundreds of thousands of men became casualties on both sides. The campaign helped make the reputation of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and holds a central place in the national memory of Turkey, Australia and New Zealand.

The Ottomans entered the war on Germany's side at the end of October 1914, and the straits, the route linking Russia's Black Sea ports to its allies, were closed. By then the Western Front had sunk into trench warfare. Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, proposed using older battleships to force a way through the Dardanelles. The aim was to expose Constantinople to the fleet's guns and open a supply route to Russia.

British and French ships began shelling the outer forts in February 1915. On 18 March a fleet of 18 battleships attacked the Narrows, the strait's narrowest point. A line of mines laid secretly some days earlier by the Ottoman minelayer Nusret caught the fleet: the French battleship Bouvet capsized within minutes with heavy loss of life, and several other ships were sunk or badly damaged. The admirals called off the naval attempt and decided that troops would be needed to clear the shore defences.

General Sir Ian Hamilton gathered a force of British, French, Indian and Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (Anzac) troops. The delay gave the Ottoman Fifth Army, commanded by the German general Otto Liman von Sanders, weeks to dig in. On 25 April 1915 the British landed at Cape Helles, at the tip of the peninsula, where the defenders on V and W beaches inflicted terrible losses. The Australians and New Zealanders came ashore further north, in what became known as Anzac Cove, on steep and confusing ground. Kemal, commanding a division in reserve, led the counter-attacks that held the heights above them. Neither landing achieved its objectives.

The fighting turned into trench warfare in summer heat and widespread disease. Repeated Allied attacks on the village of Krithia failed, and a large Ottoman attack at Anzac on 19 May was beaten off with heavy losses. In August Hamilton launched a new offensive, with fresh landings at Suvla Bay and attacks on the Sari Bair ridge. New Zealand troops briefly took the summit of Chunuk Bair, but on 10 August an Ottoman counter-attack led by Kemal drove the Allies off. The Suvla force failed to advance quickly inland and was soon held.

As criticism mounted at home, Hamilton was replaced in October by Sir Charles Monro. Bulgaria's entry into the war opened a rail link from Germany, bringing the Ottomans heavy guns, and storms and blizzards in late November caused further suffering. The Allies withdrew from Suvla and Anzac by 20 December 1915 and from Helles by 9 January 1916, with far fewer casualties than had been feared, although large quantities of stores were left behind.

Casualty figures vary greatly. Estimates commonly put total casualties, including the sick, at close to half a million, with perhaps 250,000 on each side and over 100,000 dead. In Britain the failure contributed to a political crisis in May 1915, when Churchill lost his post at the Admiralty and a coalition government was formed. In Australia and New Zealand, the anniversary of the landing, 25 April, is marked as Anzac Day, and the campaign is often seen as a founding moment of national identity. In Turkey the victory, remembered especially on 18 March, is regarded as a step towards the emergence of the modern state under Kemal.

Our 1914 map shows the Ottoman Empire on the eve of the campaign, and our 1920 map the shrunken Ottoman state at the start of the partition of the Ottoman Empire. The peninsula lies in modern Turkey, and many Anzac troops came from Australia.