March 18, 1915 | Naval Victory at Gallipoli

Mavi Boncuk | 

March 18, 1915 is the Anniversary of Naval Victory.

"ATAA Commemorates the 105th Anniversary of
the Battle of Çanakkale/Gallipoli, March 18, 1915" writes the Turkish American Association. Which is erroneous

Mustafa Kemal brings his units to Bigali. On April 18, 1915 to support Liman von Sanders (5th Army), who was appointed to the field on 23 March, 1915. The ground operations" will start on April 25. Anafartalar and Conkbayırı battle actions take place beginning on 10th of August. 

 The naval operations in the Dardanelles campaign (17 February 1915 – 9 January 1916) took place against the Ottoman Empire during the First World War. Ships of the Royal Navy, French Marine nationale, Imperial Russian Navy (Российский императорский флот) and the Royal Australian Navy, attempted to force the defences of the Dardanelles Straits, a narrow, 41 mi (66 km) long waterway connecting the Mediterranean Sea with the Black Sea. The Dardanelles campaign began as a naval operation but the success of the Ottoman defence led the Allies to initiate the Gallipoli campaign, an attempt to occupy the Gallipoli peninsula with land forces supported by the navies, to open the sea route to Constantinople. The Allies also tried to pass submarines through the Dardanelles to attack Ottoman shipping in the Sea of Marmara.

Battle of 18 March

The event that decided the battle took place on the night of 18 March when the Ottoman minelayer Nusret laid a line of mines in front of the Kephez minefield, across the head of Eren Köy Bay, a wide bay along the Asian shore just inside the entrance to the straits. The Ottomans had noticed the British ships turned to starboard into the bay when withdrawing. The new row of 20 mines ran parallel to the shore, were moored at fifteen m (49.2 ft) and spaced about 100 yd (91 m) apart. The clear water meant that the mines could have been seen through the water by reconnaissance aircraft. The British plan for 18 March was to silence the defences guarding the first five minefields, which would be cleared overnight by the minesweepers. The next day the remaining defences around the Narrows would be defeated and the last five minefields would be cleared. The operation went ahead with the British and French ignorant of the recent additions to the Ottoman minefields. The battleships were arranged in three lines, two British and one French, with supporting ships on the flanks and two ships in reserve.

Battle lines of 18 March

The first British line opened fire from Eren Köy Bay around 11:00. Shortly after noon, de Robeck ordered the French line to pass through and close on the Narrows forts. The Ottoman fire began to take its toll with Gaulois, Suffren, Agamemnon and Inflexible suffering hits. While the naval fire had not destroyed the Ottoman batteries, it had succeeded in temporarily reducing their fire. By 13:25, the Ottoman defences were mostly silent so de Robeck decided to withdraw the French line and bring forward the second British line as well as Swiftsure and Majestic.

The Allied forces had failed to properly reconnoitre the area and sweep it for mines. Aerial reconnaissance by aircraft from the seaplane carrier HMS Ark Royal had discovered a number of mines on 16 and 17 March but failed to spot the line of mines laid by Nusret in Eren Köy Bay. On the day of the attack civilian trawlers sweeping for mines in front of line "A" discovered and destroyed three mines in an area thought to be clear, before the trawlers withdrew under fire. This information was not passed on to de Robeck. At 13:54, Bouvet—having made a turn to starboard into Eren Köy Bay—struck a mine, capsized and sank within a couple of minutes, killing 639 crewmen, only 48 survivors being rescued. At first it appeared that the ship had been hit in a magazine and de Robeck thought that the ship had struck a floating mine or been torpedoed.

The British pressed on with the attack. Around 16:00, Inflexible began to withdraw and struck a mine near where Bouvet had sunk, thirty crew being lilled and the ship taking on with 1,600 long tons (1,600 t) of water. The battlecruiser remained afloat, was eventually beached on the island of Bozcaada (Tenedos) and temporarily repaired with a coffer dam.[48] Irresistible was the next to be mined and as it began to drift, the crew were taken off. De Robeck told Ocean to take Irresistible under tow but the water was deemed too shallow to make an approach. At 18:05, Ocean struck a mine which jammed the steering gear leaving the ship adrift. The abandoned battleships were still floating when the British withdrew but when a destroyer commanded by Commodore Roger Keyes returned to tow or sink the vessels, they could not be found despite a 4-hour search.

In 1934, Keyes wrote that

The fear of their fire was actually the deciding factor of the fortunes of the day. For five hours the [destroyer] Wear and picket boats had experienced, quite unperturbed and without any loss, a far more intense fire from them than the sweepers encountered... the latter could not be induced to face it, and sweep ahead of the ships in 'B' line.... I had the almost indelible impression that we were in the presence of a beaten foe. I thought he was beaten at 2 pm. I knew he was beaten at 4 pm — and at midnight I knew with still greater clarity that he was absolutely beaten; and it only remained for us to organise a proper sweeping force and devise some means of dealing with drifting mines to reap the fruits of our efforts.

— Keyes

For 118 casualties, the Ottomans sank three battleships, severely damaged three others and inflicted seven hundred casualties on the British-French fleet. There were calls amongst the British, particularly from Churchill, to press on with the naval attack and De Robeck advised on 20 March that he was reorganising his minesweepers. Churchill responded that he was sending four replacement ships; with the exception of Inflexible, the ships were expendable. It is not correct that the ammunition of the guns was low: they could have repulsed two more attacks.The crews of the sunken battleships replaced the civilians on the trawler minesweepers and were much more willing to keep sweeping under fire. The US Ambassador to Constantinople, Henry Morgenthau, reported that Constantinople expected to be attacked and that the Ottomans felt they could only hold out for a few hours if the attack had resumed on 19 March. Further, he thought that Turkey itself might well disintegrate as a state once the capital fell.

The main minefields at the narrows, over ten layers deep, were still intact and protected by the smaller shore guns that had not seen any action on 18 March. These and other defences further in the strait had not exhausted their ammunition and resources yet. It was not a given that one more push by the fleet would have resulted in passage to Marmara Sea. Churchill had anticipated losses and considered them a necessary tactical price. In June 1915, he discussed the campaign with the war correspondent Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett, who had returned to London to deliver uncensored reports. Ashmead-Bartlett was incensed at the loss of ships and lives but Churchill responded that the ships were expendable.To place the losses into perspective, the Navy had ordered six hundred new ships during the period Admiral Fisher was First Sea Lord, approximately corresponding with the length of the Dardanelles campaign.

Sir Roger Keyes, Vice-Admiral De Robeck, Sir Ian Hamilton, General Braithwaite.

De Robeck wrote on 18 March,

After losing so many ships I shall obviously find myself superseded tomorrow morning.

The fleet lost more ships than the Royal Navy had suffered since the Battle of Trafalgar; on 23 March, de Robeck telegraphed to the Admiralty that land forces were needed. He later told the Dardanelles Commission investigating the campaign, that his main reason for changing his mind, was concern for what might happen in the event of success, that the fleet might find itself at Constantinople or on the Marmara sea fighting an enemy which did not simply surrender as the plan assumed, without any troops to secure captured territory.[58] With the failure of the naval assault, the idea that land forces could advance around the backs of the Dardanelles forts and capture Constantinople gained support as an alternative and on 25 April, the Gallipoli campaign commenced.