Once decided upon, it was highly essential that the combined operation should begin without further delay. But it was now found that the army transports had been loaded, so to speak, up-side-down, with guns and munitions buried under tents and supplies. Sending them back to Alexandria for reloading involved a six weeks' delay, though Lord Kitchener wired, "I think you had better know at once that I regard such postponement as far too long." The landing on the tip of the Gallipoli Peninsula, which was nearest the forts in the Straits and said to be the only feasible place, actually began on April 25, and was achieved under the guns of the fleet, and by almost unexampled feats of heroism by boats' crews and the first parties on shore.
Henceforth the navy played a subordinate though not insignificant part in the campaign. "By our navy we went there and were kept there," writes Mr. John Masefield in Gallipoli, "and by our navy we came away. During the nine months of our hold on the peninsula over 300,000 men were brought by the navy from places three, four, or even six thousand miles away. During the operations some half of these were removed by our navy, as sick and wounded, to ports from 800 to 3000 miles away. Every day, for 11 months, ships of our navy moved up and down the Gallipoli coast bombarding the Turk positions. Every day during the operations our navy kept our armies in food, drink and supplies. Every day, in all that time, if weather permitted, ships of our navy cruised in the Narrows and off Constantinople, and the seaplanes of our navy raided and scouted within the Turk lines."
On May 12 the predreadnought Goliath was torpedoed by a Turkish destroyer; and on May 25-26 the German submarine U 23, which had made the long voyage by way of Gibraltar, sank the Triumph and the Majestic. It was upon a forewarning of this attack that Admiral Fisher, according to his own statement, resigned as a protest against the retention of the Queen Elizabeth and other capital units in this unpromising field. British and French submarines, on the other hand, worked their way into the Sea of Marmora, entered the harbor of Constantinople, and inflicted heavy losses, including two Turkish battleships, 8 transports, and 197 supply vessels.
So almost unprecedented were the problems of a naval attack on the Dardanelles that it appears rash to condemn either the initiation or the conduct of an operation that ended in failure when seemingly on the verge of success. Clearly, the campaign was handicapped by lack of unanimous support and whole-hearted faith on the part of authorities at home. It was not thoroughly thought out at the start, and was subjected to trying delays. No advantage was ever taken of the invaluable factor of surprise. Even so, it was not wholly barren of results. It undoubtedly relieved Russia, kept Bulgaria neutral for at least five months, and immobilized 300,000 Turks, according to Lord Kitchener's estimate, for nine months' time. Nevertheless, the final failure was a tremendous blow to Allied prestige. Upon the withdrawal, in January of 1916, some of the troops were transferred to Salonika; and it is noteworthy that in Macedonia, as at Gallipoli, the army was dependent on the navy for the transport of troops, munitions, and in fact virtually everything needed in the campaign.
Aside from the Dardanelles failure, the naval situation at the end of 1915 was such as to give assurance to the Western Powers. They had converted potential control of the sea into actual control, save in limited areas on the enemies' sea frontiers. Germany had lost her cruisers and her colonies, and her shipping had been destroyed or driven from the seas. Though losses from submarines averaged 150,000 tons a month in 1915, they had not yet caused genuine alarm. The German fleet was still a menace, but, in spite of attrition warfare, the Grand Fleet was decidedly stronger than in 1914.
REFERENCES
British Official Naval History, Sir Julian Corbett, London, 1920.
The Grand Fleet, Admiral Jellicoe, London, 1918.
The British Navy in Battle, Arthur H. Pollen, London, 1919.
My Memoirs, Admiral van Tirpitz, 1919.