Gallipoli Campaign - Decision To Attack

Decision To Attack

The Allies were keen to open an effective supply route to Russia: efforts on the Eastern Front relieved pressure on the Western Front. Germany and Austria-Hungary blocked Russia's land trade routes to Europe, while no easy sea route existed. The White Sea in the north and the Sea of Okhotsk in the Far East were distant from the Eastern Front and often icebound. The Baltic Sea was blocked by the German Kaiserliche Marine. The Black Sea's only entrance was through the Dardanelles and the Bosporus, which were controlled by the Ottoman Empire. When the Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers in October 1914, Russia could no longer be supplied from the Mediterranean Sea.

By late 1914 to early 1915 the Western Front in France and Belgium had effectively become a stalemate. A new front was desperately needed. Also, the Allies hoped that an attack on the Ottomans would draw Bulgaria and Greece into the war on the Allied side. A first proposal to attack the Ottoman Empire had been made by the French Minister of Justice Aristide Briand in November 1914, but it was not supported. The British attempt to bribe the Ottoman Empire to join the Allied side was also not successful; their offer of £4 million was trumped by Germany's £5 million.

Later in November 1914, First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill put forward his first plans for a naval attack on the Dardanelles, based at least in part on what turned out to be erroneous reports regarding Ottoman troop strength. He reasoned that the Royal Navy had a large number of obsolete battleships which could not be used against the German High Seas Fleet in the North Sea, but which might well be made useful in another theatre. Initially, the attack was to be made by the Royal Navy alone, with only token forces from the army being required for routine occupation tasks.

First Sea Lord John Fisher opposed the campaign and instead preferred a direct naval landing on the north coast of Germany, but Churchill won the argument.