Early battles '' by
George Lambert, 1922 shows the
landing at Anzac Cove, 25 April 1915. On the afternoon of 27 April, the 19th Division, reinforced by six battalions from the 5th Division,
counter-attacked the six Entente brigades at Anzac. With the support of naval gunfire, the Allies held back the Ottomans throughout the night. The following day the British were joined by French troops transferred from Kum Kale on the Asiatic shore to the right of the line near 'S' Beach at
Morto Bay. On 28 April, the Allies fought the First Battle of Krithia to capture the village. Hunter-Weston made a plan which proved overly complex and was poorly communicated to the commanders in the field. The troops of the 29th Division were still exhausted and unnerved by the battles for the beaches and for Seddülbahir village, which was captured after much fighting on 26 April. The Ottoman defenders stopped the Entente advance halfway between the Helles headland and Krithia around having inflicted As Ottoman reinforcements arrived, the possibility of a swift Entente victory on the peninsula disappeared and the fighting at Helles and Anzac became a battle of attrition. On 30 April, the Royal Naval Division (Major General
Archibald Paris) landed. The same day, Kemal, believing that the Allies were on the verge of defeat, began moving troops forward through Wire Gulley, near the and Lone Pine. Eight battalions of reinforcements were dispatched from Istanbul a day later and that afternoon, Ottoman troops counter-attacked at Helles and Anzac. The Ottomans briefly broke through in the French sector but the attacks were repulsed by massed Entente machine-gun fire, which inflicted many casualties on the attackers. The following night, Birdwood ordered the New Zealand and Australian Division to attack from Russell's Top and Quinn's Post towards The
Australian 4th Infantry Brigade (Colonel
John Monash), the
New Zealand Infantry Brigade and Royal Marines from the Chatham Battalion took part in the attack. Covered by a naval and artillery barrage, the troops advanced a short distance during the night but got separated in the dark. The attackers came under massed small-arms fire from their exposed left flank and were repulsed, having suffered about On 30 April, the submarine
AE2 began to rise uncontrollably and surfaced near the , then dropped precipitously below the
safe diving depth, then broke the surface again at the stern.
Sultanhisar immediately fired on the submarine, puncturing the pressure hull. Stoker ordered the company to abandon ship, scuttled the submarine and the crew was taken prisoner.
AE2s achievements showed that it was possible to force the Straits and soon Ottoman communications were badly disrupted by British and French submarine operations. On 27 April, (Lieutenant Commander
Edward Boyle), entered the Sea of Marmara on a three-week patrol, which became one of the most successful Entente naval actions of the campaign, in which four ships were sunk, including the transport
Gul Djemal which was carrying and a field battery to Gallipoli. While the quantity and value of the shipping sunk was minor, the effect on Ottoman communications and morale was significant; Boyle was awarded the Victoria Cross. Following the success of
AE2 and
E14, the French submarine attempted the passage on 1 May but struck a mine and was lost with all hands. (Several weeks earlier another French boat, , had been lost after running aground near Nagara Point.)
Operations: May 1915 On 5 May, the
42nd (East Lancashire) Division was dispatched from Egypt. Believing Anzac to be secure, Hamilton moved the Australian 2nd Infantry Brigade and the New Zealand Infantry Brigade, along with field guns, to the Helles front as reserves for the
Second Battle of Krithia. Involving a force of , it was the first general attack at Helles and was planned for daylight. French troops were to capture Kereves Dere and the British, Australians and New Zealanders were assigned Krithia and
Achi Baba. After of artillery preparation, the assault began at mid-morning on 6 May. The British and French advanced along the Gully, Fir Tree, Krithia and Kereves spurs which were separated by deep gullies, fortified by the Ottomans. As the attackers advanced, they became separated when trying to outflank Ottoman strong points and found themselves in unfamiliar terrain. Under artillery and then machine-gun fire from Ottoman outposts that had not been spotted by British aerial reconnaissance, the attack was stopped; next day, reinforcements resumed the advance. s The attack continued on 7 May and four battalions of New Zealanders attacked up Krithia Spur on 8 May; with the 29th Division the attackers managed to reach a position just south of the village. Late in the afternoon, the Australian 2nd Brigade advanced quickly over open ground to the British front line. Amidst small arms and artillery-fire, the brigade charged towards Krithia and gained , about short of the objective, with Near Fir Tree Spur, the New Zealanders managed to get forward and link up with the Australians, although the British were held up and the French were exhausted, despite having occupied a point overlooking their objective. The attack was suspended and the Entente dug in, having failed to take Krithia or Achi Baba. A brief period of consolidation followed; the Entente had almost run out of ammunition, particularly for the artillery and both sides consolidated their defences. The Ottomans relieved troops opposite the Australian line, which was reinforced by the
Australian Light Horse operating as infantry. Sporadic fighting continued, with sniping, grenade attacks and raids, the opposing trenches separated in places by only a few metres. The Australians lost a number of officers to sniping, including the commander of the 1st Division, Major General William Bridges, who was wounded while inspecting a
1st Light Horse Regiment position near "Steele's Post" and died of his injuries on the hospital ship on 18 May. At the end of April Birdwood told GHQ MEF (General Headquarters Mediterranean Expeditionary Force) that he could not land 6,000 horses at Anzac Cove as there was no water for them. GHQ MEF was unhappy that the ANZAC force would be immobilised on the beachhead, but they would have been no use. Some of the thousands of men and horses remained on board ship for up to a month. Birdwood signalled on 17 May that 17 transports would be returning to Alexandria to offload 5,251 horses accompanied by 3,217 men. GHQ MEF insisted that some of the men remain in Alexandria to look after the horses and guard ANZACs
"many vehicles and mountains of baggage".
Ottoman counter-offensive: 19 May On 19 May, troops launched an attack at Anzac to push the and New Zealanders back into the sea. Short of artillery and ammunition, the Ottomans intended to rely on surprise and weight of numbers but on 18 May, the crews of a flight of British aircraft spotted the Ottoman preparations. The Ottomans suffered in the attack, of which were killed; Australian and New Zealand casualties were and . The dead included a
stretcher bearer,
John Simpson Kirkpatrick, whose efforts to evacuate wounded men on a donkey while under fire became famous amongst the Australians at Anzac; afterwards, his story became part of the Australian narrative of the campaign. Ottoman losses were so severe that a
truce was organised by
Aubrey Herbert and others on 24 May, to bury the dead lying in
no man's land, which led to a camaraderie between the armies, much like the
Christmas truce of 1914 on the Western Front. A witness account from Private Victor Laidlaw of the Australian 2nd Field Ambulance described the day, The truce was not repeated formally. delivering orders to the batteries at Anzac Cove The British advantage in naval artillery diminished after the battleship was torpedoed and sunk on 13 May by the , killing 570 men out of a crew of 750, including the ship's commander, Captain Thomas Shelford. A German submarine, , sank on 25 May and on 27 May. More British reconnaissance patrols were flown around Gallipoli and
U-21 was forced to leave the area but ignorant of this, the Entente withdrew most of their warships to Imbros, where they were "protectively tethered" between sorties, which greatly reduced Entente naval firepower, particularly in the Helles sector. The submarine (Lieutenant Commander
Martin Nasmith, later awarded a Victoria Cross) passed through the Dardanelles on 18 May and sank or disabled eleven ships, including three on 23 May, before entering Constantinople Harbour, firing on a transport alongside the arsenal, sinking a gunboat and damaging the wharf. The Ottoman forces lacked artillery ammunition and field batteries were only able to fire between early May and the first week of June. After the defeat of the counter-attack at Anzac in mid-May, the Ottoman forces ceased frontal assaults. Late in the month, the Ottomans began tunneling around Quinn's Post in the Anzac sector and early in the morning of 29 May, despite Australian counter-mining, detonated a mine and attacked with a battalion from the 14th Regiment. The
Australian 15th Battalion was forced back but counter-attacked and recaptured the ground later in the day, before being relieved by New Zealand troops. Operations at Anzac in early June returned to consolidation, minor engagements and skirmishing with grenades and sniper-fire.
Operations: June–July 1915 in trenches at Gallipoli, 1915 In the Helles sector, which had been extensively entrenched by both sides, the Entente attacked Krithia and Achi Baba again, in the
Third Battle of Krithia on 4 June, with the 29th Division, Royal Naval Division, 42nd Division and two French divisions. The attack was repulsed and with it, the possibility of a decisive breakthrough ended; trench warfare resumed, with objectives being measured in hundreds of yards. Casualties were approximately on both sides; the British lost from and the French from . Ottoman losses were according to the
Ottoman Official History and to another account. gun near Seddülbahir, 1915 In June, the seaplane carrier arrived and the Entente air effort increased from a squadron to
No. 3 Wing RNAS. The
52nd (Lowland) Division also landed at Helles in preparation for the
Battle of Gully Ravine, which began on 28 June and achieved a local success, which advanced the British line along the left (Aegean) flank of the battlefield. Sanders credited the defence to two Ottoman officers, Faik Pasa and Albay Refet. On 30 June, the French commander,
Henri Gouraud, who had earlier replaced
Albert d'Amade, was wounded and replaced by his divisional commander, Maurice Bailloud. Between 1 and 5 July, the Ottomans counter-attacked the new British line several times but failed to regain the lost ground. Ottoman casualties for the period were estimated at On 12 July, two fresh brigades from the 52nd Division attacked at the centre of the line along Achi Baba Nullah (Bloody Valley), gained very little ground and lost out of the Royal Naval Division had and French losses were Ottoman losses were about and . At sea, the submarine
E14 made two voyages into the Marmara. The third tour began on 21 July, when
E14 passed through the straits despite a new
anti-submarine net placed near the Narrows. The next attempt was made by on 27 July, which was caught in the net, forced to the surface and bombarded by shore batteries;
Mariotte was scuttled. On 8 August,
E11 torpedoed the battleship with the loss of and sank a gunboat, seven transports and 23 sailing vessels.
August offensive using a periscope rifle The failure of the Entente to capture Krithia or make any progress on the Helles front led Hamilton to form a new plan to secure the Sari Bair hills at the
Battle of Sari Bair and capture high ground on in the
Battle of Chunuk Bair. Both sides had been reinforced, the original five Entente divisions having been increased to fifteen and first six Ottoman divisions to sixteen. The Entente planned to land two fresh infantry divisions from
IX Corps at
Suvla, north of Anzac, followed by an advance on Sari Bair from the north-west. At Anzac, an offensive would be made against the Sari Bair range by advancing through rough and thinly defended terrain, north of the Anzac perimeter by an attack on from
the Nek by dismounted Australian troops of the
3rd Light Horse Brigade, with an attack on Chunuk Bair summit by the New Zealand Infantry Brigade, who would traverse Rhododendron Ridge, the Apex and the Farm. would be attacked by Gurkhas of the 29th Indian Brigade and the Australians of the 4th Infantry Brigade. The Entente had , mainly from 3 Wing RNAS at
Imbros, which had replaced its
Voisins with Farmans and
Nieuport Xs;
Escadrille MF98T had also been established at Tenedos. The Ottomans had , of which eight were stationed at
Çanakkale. Entente aircraft made reconnaissance flights, spotted for naval guns and conducted low-level bombing of Ottoman reserves as they were brought up to the battlefield. Entente aircraft also undertook anti-shipping operations in the Gulf of Saros, where a seaplane from HMS
Ben-my-Chree sank an Ottoman tug with an air-launched torpedo. of the
29th Indian Brigade in bivouacs, Gallipoli, 1915 The
landing at Suvla Bay took place on the night of 6 August against light opposition; the British commander, Lieutenant General
Frederick Stopford, had limited his early objectives and then failed to forcefully push his demands for an advance inland and little more than the beach was seized. The Ottomans were able to occupy the Anafarta Hills, preventing the British from penetrating inland, which contained the landings and reduced the Suvla front to static trench warfare. The offensive was preceded on the evening of 6 August by diversions, at Helles, where the
Battle of Krithia Vineyard became another costly stalemate. At Anzac, the diversionary
Battle of Lone Pine, led by the Australian 1st Infantry Brigade, captured the main Ottoman trench line and diverted Ottoman forces but the attacks at Chunuk Bair and failed. in a trench at Lone Pine after the battle, looking at Australian and Ottoman dead on the parapet The New Zealand Infantry Brigade came within of the near peak of Chunuk Bair by dawn on 7 August but was not able to seize the summit until the following morning. On the morning of 7 August, the Australian 3rd Light Horse Brigade attacked on a narrow front at the Nek, to coincide with the New Zealand attack from Chunuk Bair against the rear of the Ottoman defences. The opening artillery barrage lifted seven minutes too soon, which alerted the Ottomans and the attack was a costly failure. An attack on never took place after the Australian 4th Infantry Brigade and an Indian brigade lost direction during the night. Attempts to resume the attack were easily repulsed by the Ottoman defenders, at great cost to the Entente. The New Zealanders held out on Chunuk Bair for two days before being relieved by two New Army battalions from the
Wiltshire and
Loyal North Lancashire Regiments but an Ottoman counterattack on 10 August, led by Mustafa Kemal, swept them from the heights. Of in the New Zealand Wellington Battalion who reached the summit, casualties. With the Ottoman recapture of the ground, the Entente' best chance of victory was lost. The Suvla landing was reinforced by the arrival of the
10th (Irish) Division on 7 August, the
53rd (Welsh) Division, which began landing on 8 August, the
54th (East Anglian) Division arriving late on 10 August and the dismounted
yeomanry of the
2nd Mounted Division on 18 August. On 12 August, the 54th Division attacked Kavak Tepe and Tekke Tepe, crossing the Anafarta Plain. The attack failed and Hamilton briefly considered the evacuation of Suvla and Anzac. charging an Ottoman trench, just before the evacuation at Anzac Elements of the new
Australian 2nd Division began arriving at Anzac from Egypt with the
5th Infantry Brigade landing from and the
6th Brigade and
7th Brigade arriving in early September. The 29th Division was also shifted from Helles to Suvla. The final British attempt to resuscitate the offensive came on 21 August, in the
Battle of Scimitar Hill and the
Battle of Hill 60. Control of the hills would have united the Anzac and Suvla fronts but the attacks failed. On 17 August, Hamilton had requested another but a day earlier, the French had announced plans to Kitchener for an autumn offensive in France. A meeting of the Dardanelles Committee on 20 August determined that the French offensive would be supported by a maximum effort, which left only about for the Dardanelles. On 23 August, after news of the failure at Scimitar Hill, Hamilton went onto the defensive, as the Bulgarian entry into the war, which would allow the Germans to rearm the Ottoman army, was imminent and left little opportunity for the resumption of offensive operations. On 20 September 1915, the
Newfoundland Regiment was deployed at Suvla Bay with the 29th Division. On 25 September,
Kitchener proposed detaching two British and one French division for service in
Salonika in Greece, which was the beginning of the end of the Entente campaign at Gallipoli. Instead, a counter proposal from Sir Ian Hamilton was agreed to; only the 10th (Irish) Division and the
156th Infantry Division (France) were withdrawn from the peninsula. By the end of September these troops were concentrating at Mudros for conveyance to the new front.
Alan Moorehead wrote that during the stalemate, an old Ottoman
batman was regularly permitted to hang his platoon's washing on the barbed wire undisturbed and that there was a "constant traffic" of gifts being thrown across no-man's land, dates and sweets from the Ottoman side and cans of beef and packs of cigarettes from the Entente side. Conditions at Gallipoli grew worse for everyone as summer heat and poor sanitation resulted in an explosion in the fly population. Eating became extremely difficult as unburied corpses became bloated and putrid. The precarious Entente lodgements were poorly situated, which caused supply and shelter problems. A
dysentery epidemic spread through the Entente trenches at Anzac and Helles, while the Ottomans also suffered heavily from disease which resulted in many deaths.
Evacuation serving in Gallipoli in Autumn 1915 After the failure of the August Offensive, the Gallipoli campaign drifted. Ottoman success began to affect public opinion in Britain, with criticism of Hamilton's performance being smuggled out by
Keith Murdoch,
Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett and other reporters. Stopford and other dissident officers also contributed to the air of gloom and the possibility of evacuation was raised on 11 October 1915. Hamilton resisted the suggestion, fearing the damage to British prestige but was sacked shortly afterwards and replaced by Lieutenant General Sir
Charles Monro. Autumn and winter brought relief from the heat but also led to gales, blizzards and flooding, resulting in men drowning and freezing to death, while thousands suffered
frostbite. The Serbian defeat in the
Serbian campaign in autumn 1915 prompted France and Britain to transfer troops from the Gallipoli campaign to
Greek Macedonia; the
Macedonian front was established to support the remnants of the Serbian army to conquer
Vardar Macedonia. On 4 September, the submarine was caught in the Ottoman anti-submarine net as it began another tour. Despite such reverses, by mid-September, Entente nets and mines had closed the eastern entrance to the Dardanelles to German U-boats and
U-21 was thwarted when it tried to pass the straits to Istanbul on 13 September. The first French submarine to enter the Sea of Marmara was but it was forced to turn back; on 30 October, when returning through the straits, it ran aground beneath a fort and was captured intact. The crew of 25 were taken prisoner and documents detailing planned Entente operations were discovered, including a scheduled rendezvous with on 6 November. The rendezvous was kept by the German U-boat instead, which torpedoed and sank
E20, killing all but nine of the crew. The situation at Gallipoli was complicated by Bulgaria joining the Central Powers. In early October 1915, the British and French opened a second Mediterranean front at Salonika, by moving two divisions from Gallipoli and reducing the flow of reinforcements. A land route between Germany and the Ottoman Empire through Bulgaria was opened and the Germans rearmed the Ottomans with heavy artillery capable of devastating Entente trenches, especially on the confined front at Anzac, modern aircraft and experienced crews. In late November, an Ottoman crew in a German
Albatros C.I shot down a French aircraft over Gaba Tepe and the Austro-Hungarian and artillery units arrived, providing a substantial reinforcement of the Ottoman artillery. Monro recommended evacuation to Kitchener, who in early November visited the eastern Mediterranean. After consulting with the commanders of
VIII Corps at Helles, IX Corps at Suvla and Anzac, Kitchener agreed with Monro and passed his recommendation to the British Cabinet, who confirmed the decision to evacuate in early December. Due to the narrowness of no man's land and the winter weather, many casualties were anticipated during the embarkation. The untenable nature of the Entente position was made apparent by a rainstorm on 26 November 1915. The downpour at Suvla lasted for three days and there was a blizzard in early December. Rain flooded trenches, drowned soldiers and washed unburied corpses into the lines; the following snow killed still more men from exposure. Suvla and Anzac were to be evacuated in late December, the last troops leaving before dawn on 20 December. Troop numbers had been slowly reduced since 7 December and ruses, such as
William Scurry's self-firing rifle, which had been rigged to fire by water dripped into a pan attached to the trigger, were used to disguise the Entente departure. At Anzac Cove, troops maintained silence for an hour or more, until curious Ottoman troops ventured to inspect the trenches, whereupon the Anzacs opened fire. This incident successfully discouraged the Ottomans from inspecting when the actual evacuation occurred. A mine was detonated at the Nek, which killed soldiers. The Entente force was embarked, with the Australians suffering no casualties on the final night but large quantities of supplies and stores fell into Ottoman hands. , on 7 January 1916, just prior to the final evacuation Helles was retained for a period but a decision to evacuate the garrison was made on 28 December. Unlike the evacuation from Anzac Cove, Ottoman forces were looking for signs of withdrawal. Having used the interval to bring up reinforcements and supplies, Sanders mounted an attack on the British at Gully Spur on 7 January 1916 with infantry and artillery but the attack was a costly failure. Mines were laid with time fuzes and that night and on the night of 7/8 January, under the cover of a naval bombardment, the British troops began to fall back from their lines to the beaches, where makeshift piers were used to board boats. The last British troops departed from Lancashire Landing around 04:00 on 8 January 1916. The Newfoundland Regiment was part of the
rearguard and withdrew on 9 January 1916. Among the first to land, remnants of The Plymouth Battalion, Royal Marine Light Infantry were the last to leave the Peninsula. Despite predictions of up to and mules, and of equipment were removed; that could not be embarked were killed so as not to fall into Ottoman hands and were left behind with smashed wheels. As at Anzac, large amounts of supplies (including 15 British and six French unserviceable artillery pieces which were destroyed), gun carriages and ammunition were left behind; hundreds of horses were slaughtered to deny them to the Ottomans. A sailor was killed by debris from a magazine that exploded prematurely and a lighter and a picket boat were lost. Shortly after dawn, the Ottomans retook Helles. In the final days of the campaign, Ottoman air defences had been increased by a German–Ottoman fighter squadron, which began operations over the peninsula and inflicted the first British flying losses a couple of days after the evacuation of Helles, when three shot down two RNAS aircraft. ==Aftermath==