Which of the 4 reasons given below was most to blame for the failure of the Dardanelles campaign to achieve its military objectives? Explain you answer by referring to all 4 reasons.
- An Ill Thought-out plan
- Poor Command
- Bad organisation
- Inadequate forces and supplies from Britain
The Dardanelles campaign was launched on 29th of February when Admiral Carden started bombardment of the Dardanelles defences. The aims of the campaign were to capture Constantinople so turkey would fall allowing Britain to send supplies to Russia who were fighting on the eastern front where they were steadily losing to the Germany.
The plan was to get through the Dardanelles to knock out all the sea forts and other coastal defences all by a naval attack, this was re-thought and Churchill decided troops from the army were needed to knock out the defences while the navy bombarded the forts. After this, Constantinople needed to be taken out thus knocking turkey out of the war. Then the navy could bring desperate supplies through the Dardanelles into the sea of Mamara and then through Bosporus to get into the black sea
An ill thought-out plan:
Churchill put forward the Gallipoli campaign to the war council stating that it could bring the war to a quick end by enabling Russia to fight more effectively on the eastern front, take turkey out of the war and encourage the surrounding countries that they should join the triple entente. The war council were convinced. They agreed to put this campaign into motion. However Kitchener would only allow a small amount of resources as he thought the western front would be a much more promising campaign to support. Churchill had covered the advantages thoroughly however he had not thought in enough detail about what might bring the campaign down: He had not thought about the terrain the land troops would have to face or how many coastal defences the Dardanelles had and that the defences would be looking down on the strait so the ships would have to shoot upwards causing the British a severe disadvantage. He had also neglected to consider the geography of the straits and the defences the Turks had put in place. Churchill’s blind ambition to use this plan clouded his ability to think logically about what may go wrong. This would be a problem throughout the whole campaign. He had even announced in 1911 that:
