WW1 at sea.

2. Importance of the War at Sea
The range and power of the warring nations’ naval fleets, along with their
ambition to control the world’s waterways, were major reasons that World
War I spread so quickly.
Naval warfare had always been unpredictable (because of the role of
weather and other factors), but new technologies made it even more so.
Mines, torpedoes, and submarines introduced new threats that made even
the greatest warships vulnerable.
Compared to giant dreadnoughts, which took years to build and were
manned by hundreds of men, submarines were cheap and generally used a
crew of fewer than two dozen. Mines were cheaper still and, once laid,
required no crew at all.
However, both Britain and Germany were still deciding how best to use these
new naval forces, and both were reluctant to commit their main fleets to heavy
battles.
In World War I, naval power was more often used to maintain control of
trade routes than to capture new territory. As it turned out, great sea battles
between large surface fleets were rare in the war; instead, the submarine
came to own the seas, and Germany became the undisputed master at
employing this new technology.

3. The war at sea has it’s roots deep in
the Anglo-German naval race.
Germany had been building up their
naval fleet to rival Britain's much
superior Royal Navy. They mostly
were interested in overseas trade but
things changed when the British
launched the super battle ship known
as the Dreadnought in 1906. it was
faster, bigger and better in all ways
than any of the previous battleships.
All the great naval powers now had to
supplement their navy with
Dreadnoughts, all starting from zero.
When war started in 1914, Britain was
held to have won the race by people
looking just at the number and size of
the ships but on the other hand
German ships had better armour and
training was arguably better in the
German ships. Ultimately, there was
only one major naval battle of World
War 1, Jutland. Most people expected
the war at sea to be a confrontation
between the new Dreadnought battle
ships. In fact, submarines became a
key feature of the war at sea.

4. Why did focus shift from Infantry
(foot soldiers) to Navy (soldiers at sea)?
When fighting started at sea, a showdown was
expected between the battleships that both sides
had taken so much time and resources to create.
But that was not the case. The key objective was to
control the seas in order to stop supplies getting to
the enemy. The British blockade of German ports
which stopped supplies from reaching Germany was
very crucial in the allies victory over Germany. In
1915, Germany tried to enforce their own blockade
of Britain by using submarines to sink merchant
ships. This was highly effective as well.

5. New weapons at Sea
The Dreadnought
It was Admiral John Fisher, the First Sea
Lord, was the driving-force behind the
development of the Dreadnought that was
built at Portsmouth Dockyard between
October 1905 and December 1906. The
Dreadnought was the most heavily-armed
ship in history. She had ten 12-inch guns
(305 mm), whereas the previous record was
four 12-inch guns. The gun turrets were
situated higher than user and so facilitated
more accurate long-distance fire. In
addition to her 12-inch guns, the
Dreadnought also had twenty-four 3-inch
guns (76 mm) and five torpedo tubes below
water. In the waterline section of her hull,
the Dreadnought was armoured by plates
28 cm thick. The Dreadnought was the first
major warship driven solely by steam
turbines.
Germany, with less Dreadnoughts, was afraid that a
major naval engagement would see its whole navy
destroyed. It would also mean that all the money
and resources spent on building them would have
been wasted. So, the German navy basically stayed
in port, too scared to come out and fight, and the
British were too scared to go in after them. The
Dreadnought’s only notable engagement of the war
was the ramming and sinking of a German U-boat
near the Pentland Firth, Scot., in March 1915. The
one major fleet action - Jutland in 1916 - developed
when the Germans attempted to lure part of the
British fleet into a trap.

6. The war on land quickly spread to the sea, with
the first major battle on the water occurring on
August 28, 1914, in a corner of the North Sea
known as Helgoland Bight. The bight, a partly
enclosed patch of water on the north coast of
Germany, sheltered several German naval bases
and offered a good position from which Germany
could strike out at Britain. However, the cautious
German High Seas Fleet rarely sailed far from port.
The British conceived a plan to bait the Germans
into the open sea, where they would be
vulnerable. Under the plan, a small group of British
ships would venture into the bight until spotted by
German patrols and would then turn and flee out
to sea, where a larger British force would be
waiting. In spite of some minor mishaps, the plan
succeeded. The Germans were lured into open
water. After a battle that lasted nearly eight hours,
Germany lost three cruisers and 1,200 men, while
Britain lost only thirty-five sailors and not a single
ship. This early defeat intimidated Kaiser Wilhelm
II, who insisted that the German navy, of which he
was very proud, be kept off the open seas and
used primarily as a defensive weapon.
Battle at the Bight (Helligoland)

7. The recently appointed commander of the
German High Seas Fleet, Reinhard Scheer, had
returned to the policy of making sorties (brief
trips to enemy territory) against the British
coast. Confident that his codes were secure,
Scheer sortied with the entire High Seas Fleet,
expecting that the only serious threat he
would meet was Admiral Beatty's battle cruiser
team based on the Forth. Unfortunately for his
plan, the Royal Navy knew he was coming (the
British could read German coded messages,
and were aware of Scheer's plan) and the
Grand Fleet sailed only minutes after the High
Seas Fleet. This battle of 1916 falls into five
main phases.
The second phase saw Admiral Beatty flee
north, pursued by the German
Dreadnoughts. So far, both sides thought the
battle was going to plan, although a design
flaw led to the destruction of two British battle
cruisers
The first came when Admiral Beatty,
commanding the British battle cruisers
encountered their weaker German equivalent
under Admiral Hipper, (31 May) and chased
them south towards the main German fleet.
Now, in the third phase the Germans got a
nasty surprise. Thinking themselves involved
in a chase that would end with the destruction
of the British battle cruisers, they found
themselves under bombardment from Admiral
John Jellicoe's battle fleet, which they had
thought to be too far north to intervene.

8. The British Grand Fleet under admiral John Jellicoe on her way to meet the Imperial
German Navy's fleet for the Battle of Jutland in the North Sea on May 31, 1916.

9. Finally, in the last phase of the battle, in
a night of intense fighting, the retreat of
the German battleships was covered by
their lighter ships, while Jellicoe lost time
after turning to avoid a potential torpedo
attack.
The Germans lost one battle cruiser, one
pre-Dreadnought, four light cruisers and
five destroyers, while the British lost
three battle cruisers, four armoured
cruisers, and eight destroyers. However,
many of the surviving German heavy
ships had suffered serious damage, and
one result of the battle was to increase
the British dominance in heavy ships.
The end of the battle and loses incurred.
Jutland was the last, and largest, of the great battleship battles. Neither submarines or aircraft
played any part in the battle, despite the plans of both sides. Never again did battle fleets
meet again in such numbers. While the Royal Navy suffered more loses, the battle effectively
ended any threat from the High Seas Fleet, which now knew it could not contest control of the
North Sea with the Royal Navy.
The great fleet which Kaiser Wilhelm II had been obsessed with, and which had done so much
to sour relations between Britain and Germany had proved to be a blunted weapon.

10. Enter the submarine and torpedo
Submarines armed with torpedoes were a
new type of weapon at the time, and while
many military leaders viewed them with
skepticism , they proved quite effective.
Germans recognized that their warships
were still far inferior to those of Britain.
They therefore relied on the edge their
submarines gave them over un-suspecting
British Navy.
During September and October 1914,
German U-boats sank four British armored
cruisers and warships, killing more than
2,000 sailors. British naval commanders
quickly became wary of this threat and
therefore kept their fleet well clear of the
waters of the North Sea. Though Britain did
have a submarine fleet of its own, British
naval leaders generally considered
submarines to be “cowardly weapons” and
discouraged their use.
U-boat is the English version of the German
word U-Boot a shortening of Unterseeboot,
which means "undersea boat”

11. The U-boat Campaign
The Germans' most formidable naval
weapon was the U-boat, a submarine far
more sophisticated than those built by other
nations at the time. The typical U-boat was
214 feet long, carried 35 men and 12
torpedoes, and could travel underwater for
two hours at a time. In the first few years of
World War I, the U-boats took a terrible toll
on Allied shipping. In the early stages of the
war, the Germans concentrated their
torpedo attacks on allied warships. When
the allies learned to protect their warships
the Germans attacked allied merchant ships
instead.
Downing of the “Britannic” Lusitania
A notable early casualty of this campaign was the British owned liner Lusitania sailing to
Liverpool from New York. On May 7 1915, the Lusitania was torpedoed without warning just
off the coast of Ireland. Of the 1,959 passengers, 1,198 were killed, including 128 Americans.
The German government maintained that the Lusitania was carrying munitions, but the U.S.
demanded reparations and an end to German attacks on unarmed passenger and merchant
ships. Two years later, in 1917, the USA cited the U-boat campaign as one of its reasons for
declaring war on Germany.

12. Unrestricted U-boat
Campaign
As early as 1915, Admiral von Pohl had wanted neutral
shipping in the so-called ‘war zone’ (the English
Channel and the rest of the water around the United
Kingdom) attacked. In February 1915 then, Admiral
von Pohl's plans were realized: The seas around the
British isles were declared a war zone by the German
government and any ship found there on or after 18th
February faced sinking without warning. Germany
announced that it would start a commerce war against
those nations trading with Britain. Amongst others,
America sent a strongly worded note to Berlin to state
in very blunt terms that Germany would be held
responsible for any American ship that was sunk. After
sinking of the Lusitania, fearing American entry into
the war, the Germans called off the restricted u-boat
warfare at the end of 1915. The plan was reprised in
February 1917 in a desperate attempt to starve Britain
out of the war. Unrestricted U-boat warfare began
for the first time in history. By May it was beginning to
work since Britain had lost so many ships, that it was
down to 6 weeks supply of wheat.

13. Combating the U-boats.
Birth of Decoy ships
In 1915, Britain was in desperate need for a countermeasure against the U-boat. The
problem was to lure the U-boat to stay on the surface rather than seeking safety in the
deep of the sea. The solution to this problem was the creation of one of the closest
guarded secrets of the war: the Q-Ship. This "U-Boot-Falle" (U-boat trap) was an old
looking tramp steamer with hidden guns and torpedoes. Because of its load of wooden
caskets, wood or cork, it very nearly was unsinkable. The idea was to lure the U-boat
to attack the Q-Ship with its deck gun at close range as torpedoes would not sink the
vessel. In a split of a second the guns would be revealed and the U-boat would be in a
deadly cross fire leading to it being sunk.

14. Horned mines were round metal
containers packed with explosives. They
were spiked (had horns) which triggered an
explosion if they came into contact with
any underwater vessel. However u-boats
started surfacing at night and sailing over
water to avoid these underwater mines
The first depth charges were developed by the
British in World War I for use against German
submarines or U-boats, beginning in late 1915. They
were steel canisters, the size of an oil drum, filled with
TNT explosives. They were dropped off the side of a ship,
on top of where the crew estimated the enemy
submarines were. The canister sank and exploded at a
depth that was preset by the use of a hydrostatic valve.
The charges often did not hit the submarines but the
shock of the explosions still damaged the submarines by
loosening the submarine enough to create leaks and
forcing the submarine to surface. Then the naval ship
could use its guns, or ram the submarine. Between 1915
and the end of 1917, depth charges destroyed only nine
U-boats.

15. Convoy System
In response to the damage brought on Allied
shipping by the German campaign of
'unrestricted submarine warfare', the Royal
Navy introduced a convoy system in June 1917.
As the below photograph illustrates, it worked
by providing escort vessels for individual ships.
These escorts not only guarded against surface
gunfire attacks, but also dropped depth
charges in areas where German 'U-boats' were
known to operate. The convoy system resulted
in a rapid decrease in German attacks on Allied
shipping during the last 17 months of the war.
This was most probably the most successful
cause of action that yielded results out of all
the measures taken to defeat the u-boats.
Britain introduced its convoy system.
Under the new arrangements, a convoy of
10 to 50 merchant ships—along with,
possibly, a troopship carrying arms and
soldiers—might be escorted by a cruiser, six
destroyers, 11 armed trawlers and a pair of
torpedo boats with aerial reconnaissance
equipment that could detect the movement
of underwater submarines.

16. Another “cowardly weapon” played a major role
in the war at sea—mines. Sea mines were used
to block enemy movements through tight areas,
like the English Channel Some were deployed
across the entrances to enemy harbors to make
the harbors dangerous to use. They were used to
deny easy sea movement to enemy ships, forcing
the enemy to move slowly or face the chance of
destruction. A major minefield - the North Sea
Mine Barrage - was laid between Scotland and
Norway in an attempt to block the movements of
the German submarine fleet. During World War I,
Germany laid more than 43,000 mines which
claimed 497 merchant . The British alone lost 44
warships and 225 auxiliaries to mines. The loss
of the cruiser HMS Hampshire was especially
damaging, as the casualties included the British
Secretary of War, Lord Kitchener.
HMS Audacious crew board lifeboats to
be taken aboard RMS Olympic, October,
1914. The Audacious was a British
battleship, sunk by a German naval mine
off the northern coast of Donegal, Ireland.
Mining the North Sea
A minesweeper is a small naval warship
equipped with mechanical or electrical devices,
known as "sweeps", for disabling mines in
minesweeping. Minesweepers keep waterways
clear for shipping.
VOCAB

19. The Terrain
The Eastern Front covered a far larger area, stretching at times for over 1,000 miles,
basically north-to-south and hundreds of miles east-to-west. A solid trench system
similar to the Western Front never materialized because neither side had the
manpower to cover such a distance in depth. This resulted in more a war of maneuver,
whereby attackers might penetrate 50 or 60 miles before being stopped.
What Was Different About The Eastern Front?
The fighting on the Eastern Front was mainly
between the Central Powers (the German and
Austro-Hungarian Empires) and the Russian
Empire. Later, Bulgaria and the Ottoman
Empire joined the Central Powers and Romania
joined Russia. There were several factors which
changed the nature of fighting on the Eastern
Front when compared to the Western Front:
The Russian Empire
Russia's infrastructure was poor but their army was extremely stubborn and
persevering. Russian manpower reserves were sufficient to replace even the heaviest
losses. Although Russia initially fielded a huge and well-trained army, her factories
could not keep up with demand and, even when they finally geared up around 1916,
there weren't enough roads and railroads to keep the army supplied most of the time.

20. The Austro-Hungarian Empire
The Empire of Austria-Hungary was in
decline. Many of her soldiers came from
provinces and states that yearned for
freedom and thus had little loyalty to the
empire. Thus their army faced ethnic
liabilities. This, combined with poor
leadership, resulted in low morale.
The German Empire
The German Army was trained to fight a
war of maneuver, had strong leaders and
a good infrastructure for supply. This
enabled them to succeed even when
outnumbered. The German army
repeatedly proved able to smash the
Russian defenses
The Start of War
The Eastern half of the Great War began on August 17, 1914, when Russian
General Pavel Rennenkampf's First Army invaded Eastern Prussia in a full scale
offensive. Two days later, General Alexander Samsonov's Second Army attacked
around the right flank of the German Eighth Army commanded by General
Friedrich von Prittwitz. This was achieved despite the fact that Second Army was
fighting at two-thirds strength due to the slow Russian mobilization. Prittwitz, who
was certain that he could not hold against the two armies facing him, was
immediately relieved of duty and replaced by Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg
and his new Chief-of-Staff, Erich Ludendorf. Along with Colonel Maximilian
Hoffmann, Prittwitz's deputy chief of operations at East Prussian Army
Headquarters, they planned a counteroffensive against the Russians.

22. WW1: Russian 8-inch guns advancing to positions.

23. German defeat at
Gumbinnen
Russia's invasion into
German territory was two-
branched. General
Samsonov had begun to
take his Second Army into
the south-western corner
of East Prussia whilst
General Rennenkampf
advanced into its north-
east with the First
Army. The two armies
planned to combine in
assaulting General
Prittwitz's German Eighth
Army, Rennenkampf in a
frontal attack while
Samsonov engulfed
Prittwitz from the rear.
Prittwitz, shaken by the
defeat at Gumbinnen and
fearful of encirclement,
ordered a retreat.
Enter Hindenberg
and Ludendorf.
Upon his arrival in East
Prussia on 23 August
Hindenburg immediately
reversed Prittwitz's
decision to withdraw,
choosing instead to
authorise a plan of action
prepared. Hoffmann
proposed a ploy whereby
cavalry troops would be
employed as a screen at
Vistula, the intention being
to confuse Rennenkampf
who had chosen to pause
at Gumbinnen. Samsonov
was similarly unaware of
Hoffmann's plan or of its
execution .At last, on 28
August, Samsonov finally
became aware of the peril
he faced.
Capture of Samsonov’s
army
It was too late for Samsonov's forces,
as they scattered - many throwing
down their weapons and running -
directly into the encircling German
forces.
95,000 Russians troops were captured
in the action; an estimated 30,000
were killed or wounded, and of his
original 150,000 total, only around
10,000 of Samsonov's men
escaped. The Germans suffered
fewer than 20,000 casualties and, in
addition to prisoners captured over
500 guns.
Samsonov, lost in the surrounding
forests with his aides, shot himself,
unable to face reporting the scale of
the disaster to the Tsar, Nicholas
II. His body was subsequently found
by German search parties and
accorded a military burial.

24. WW1: Captured Russian soldiers at the Tilsit train. Sixty trains were required to
transport captured equipment to Germany.

25. Tannenberg: was typical of Eastern Front warfare in many important respects:
1. First it demonstrated that the German army enjoyed a marked
superiority over the Russian. The Germans were more mobile,
better disciplined. They had much more efficient Staff work and
planning and their weaponry was superior.
2. The campaigns in the east were often campaigns of
maneuver The front was not frozen into the kind of siege
war f are on a gigantic scale that characterized the Western
front.
3. On the Eastern front, decisive tactical victories were possible:
One hallmark of a truly decisive victory is always the capture of
large numbers of prisoners—at Tannenberg for example, The
Germans captured or destroyed Samsonov’s entire army; These
kinds of decisive tactical results were impossible to achieve in
the West.

26. Meanwhile, still in 1914…..
In the south of Poland, Austrian Chief-of-Staff Conrad von
Hoetzendorf launched his own attack northward toward Warsaw.
Russia had much more success against Austria-Hungary, driving the
Austrians back across the Carpathian Mountains and occupying the
Austro-Hungarian province of Galacia.
In 1915…..
At the beginning of 1915, the Austrians were unable to do much
against the Russians in Galacia. So Germany took over command of the
entire Eastern Front and shifted troops to bolster their southern
neighbors. The German and Austrian troops launched a major offensive in
May and drove the Russians back more than 200 miles from the
Carpathian Mountains in two weeks-- an unimaginable feat on the
Western Front. The Russians had to make a strategic withdrawal, partly
due to the deficiencies of supplies and ammunition, before they managed
to make a stand, now back in their own territory. The Central Powers had
captured Russian Poland, Lithuania and most of Latvia and parts of
Russian Ukraine.

27. 1916
By 1916, Russians were better supplied. While Germany
was occupied in the west by their massive offensive against
the French at Verdun and then fighting fo against the British
Somme offensive, Russia attacked the Austro-Hungarians
and, once again drove them out of Galacia. The Habsburg
army, too, was distracted from the conflict with Russia by
war with Italy in the south. Russian forces under General
Aleksei Brusilov launched a new attack on the southern
part of the Eastern Front in June. Thanks to a combination
of tactical innovation and Austro-Hungarian incompetence,
the surprise 'Brusilov offensive' was the most successful
Russian operation of the entire war. In addition, Romania
entered the war on the side of the Allies, extending the
Eastern Front hundreds of miles south. Germany, Austria-
Hungary along with Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire
counterattacked against Romania, which collapsed and the
Central Powers gained control of her vast coal and wheat
fields. Late 1916 also saw mutinies and revolts in several
countries as soldiers became disillusioned with the war and
the unimaginable loss of life. Russia, especially, edged closer
to revolution.

28. The Big Bad Russian Wolves
In the winter of 1916-1917, the Eastern Front stretched for more than a
thousand miles from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Black Sea in the south.
During that winter, half-starved Russian wolves converged on both the German
and Russian lines in the northern part of the front in the Vilnius-Minsk region.
As their desperation increased beyond their fear of humans, the wolves started
attacking individuals but were soon attacking groups of soldiers so viciously
and often that something had to be done. The soldiers tried poisoning them,
shooting them with their rifles and machine guns and even using grenades
against them, but the large and powerful Russian wolves were so hungry, fresh
wolf packs simply replaced those that were killed.
The situation grew so severe that the Russian and German soldiers convinced
their commanders to allow temporary truce negotiations to enable them to
deal with the animals more effectively. Once the terms were worked out, the
fighting stopped and the two sides discussed how to resolve the situation.
Finally, a coordinated effort was made and gradually the packs were rounded
up. Hundreds of wolves were killed during the process while the rest scattered,
leaving the area once and for all to the humans. The problem was solved, the
truce was called off and the soldiers got back to killing each other properly.

29. 1917
1917 was the year of the Russian
collapse. Her armies mutinied, the
Tsar abdicated and a provisional
government tried to hold things
together. A final Russian offensive
was tried, but the soldiers wouldn't
stand for it and open civil war swept
Russia as the Germans continued to
advance. In November, the
Communist Bolsheviks took control
and began negotiations with the
Germans and fighting stopped in
December.

30. RussiaExitstheWar START HERE
March 8, 1917 Riots in
Petrograd develop into
the beginning of the
February Revolution.
The people were not
pleased with how the
government handled
the scarcity of food and
fuel. They wanted ‘out'
of the war.
March 15 Tsar Nicholas II abdicates
leaving his throne to a temporary
government. This government
supported Russia's continued
participation in World War I, but
they still could not solve the
situation with the food shortages
that were affecting the country
April 16 Lenin arrives in
Petrograd on a train provided
by Germany. Germany had
quickly recognized an
opportunity and made
arrangements to help Russian
revolutionaries in Europe such
as Vladimir Lenin, to get back
to Russia in order to fuel the
ensuing chaos there.
On July 1, Russian
forces opened several
new offensives along
the eastern front—an
action that Russian
minister of war
Alexander Kerensky
ordered as part of an
effort to boost morale
in the army. On the
same day, however, a
huge antiwar rally
clogged the streets of
Petrograd.
November 6–7
Bolshevik (October)
Revolution . The
Bolsheviks seized total
control of the country
with the help of the
military.
November 8
Lenin declares
peace, though
sporadic fighting
continues .
November 26
Bolsheviks call for
end to hostilities on
all fronts .
December
15 Russian
cease-fire
declared .

31. 1918
On March 3, 1918, the Treaty of Brest-
Litovsk was concluded, officially ending the
war on the Eastern Front. As far as
concessions to Germany, its terms didn't
survive the year, but it did affirm the
independence of Finland, Lithuania, Latvia,
Estonia and Ukraine. Poland was not
included, which caused riots and animosity
of Poles to the Central Powers. (That treaty
was annulled by the Armistice of November
11, and the new government in Moscow
eventually re-established its presence in all
of the previously held lands). This freed up
substantial German soldiers to transfer to
the Western Front to support the massive
German Spring Offensive, but still tied up a
million Germans till the end of the war. The
Spring Offensive made spectacular gains in
France but the arrival of American soldiers
eventually offset any German advantage in
numbers.

32. What was it all about?
The Gallipoli Campaign of 1915-16, also known as the Battle of
Gallipoli or the Dardanelles Campaign, was an unsuccessful
attempt by the Allied Powers to control the sea route from
Europe to Russia during World War 1. The Gallipoli peninsula is
located in the south of Turkey. In 1915, the allied commanders
decided to try to attack Germany by attacking her ally, Turkey.
Allied soldiers, mainly from Australia and New Zealand, were
sent to the Peninsula while British ships tried to force a way
through the Dardanelles.
Peninsula from paene "almost" and insula "island”
is a piece of land that is bordered by water on three
sides. (almost an island)

33. What did the British hope to achieve?
On November 25th 1914, Winston Churchill suggested his plan for
a new war front in the Dardanelles to the British government’s
War Council. On January 15th 1915, the War Council gave its
agreement and British troops in Egypt were put on alert….
It’s aims were;
1. To create a new war front . Creating another front would force
the Germans to split their army still further as they would need
to support Turkey. That would leave their lines weakened in the
west or east and there the Allies would have a weakened army to
fight against.
2. The British hoped to link up with the Russians in order to relieve
the pressure on the eastern front.
3. To capture Constantinople, the capital of Turkey and therefore
knock out Turkey out of the war(Churchill considered Turkey
the sick man of Europe and the weakest of those who fought
against the Allies) and possibly persuade the neutral Balkan
states to join the Allies.

35. The naval attack began on 18th March.
Admiral Carden – head of the British
fleet opened up the attack on Turkish
positions in the Dardanelles. Bad
weather caused delays and the attack
was abandoned after three battleships
had been sunk and three others
damaged since the Turks had heavily
mined the water. They had to retreat.
British and ANZAC troops were put on
standby in Egypt. Lieutenant-General
Birdwood, commanded the Australian
and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC)
based in Egypt. Military assistance was
required, but by the time troops began
to land on 25 April, the Turks had had
ample time to prepare adequate
fortifications and the defending armies
were now six times larger than when the
campaign began.

36. In the wake of the failed naval attack,
preparations began for large-scale troop
landings on the Gallipoli Peninsula nick-
named “The Gallipoli Landings”. On April
25, 1915, the Allies launched their
invasion of the Gallipoli Peninsula.
Despite suffering heavy casualties, they
managed to establish two beachheads:
at Helles on the peninsula’s southern tip,
and at Gaba Tepe on the Aegean coast.
(The Gaba Tepe was later dubbed Anzac
Cove, in honor of the Australian and New
Zealand troops who fought so valiantly
against determined Turkish defenders to
establish the beachhead there.)
View of the beach at Gaba Tepe where the allied
troops landed in the Gallipoli Campaign

38. Bogged down in trenches again….

39. Poor Organisation
The British did not practice and
used out-dated maps. Their
minesweepers also failed to
remove Turkish mines. Splitting the
army and navy operations was also
a recipe for failure.
Lack of surprise
The Turks knew well in advanced of the planned
landings after the events at the Dardanelles. They
therefore prepared and strengthened their
defenses while the British spent weeks organising
the landings.
Lack of support
The Gallipoli campaign got little
support from the armed forces.
Sir john French actual refused
to withdraw troops from the
Western front. Kitchener
believed the war would be
warn on the Western front and
not on the East.
Over-ambitious
The plan had little chance of success from
the beginning. It was highly unlikely that the
aims of the campaign would be achieved i.e.
capture of Constantinople and creation of a
new war front.
Why was the
Gallipoli
campaign such a
huge failure?