Churchill and the Gallipoli Campaign
How Churchill's ambitious plan to knock the Ottoman Empire out of World War I ended in catastrophe and nearly destroyed his career.
The Dardanelles Plan
By early 1915, the Western Front had ground to a stalemate. Trenches stretched from the English Channel to Switzerland, and each offensive produced horrifying casualties for negligible territorial gain. Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty at just forty years old, proposed a bold alternative: force the Dardanelles Strait with the Royal Navy, capture Constantinople, knock the Ottoman Empire out of the war, and open a supply route to Russia.
The strategic logic was not unreasonable. The Ottoman Empire was the weakest of the Central Powers. A successful strike could relieve pressure on Russia's southern flank, persuade wavering neutral states like Greece and Bulgaria to join the Allies, and break the deadlock without the grinding attrition of the Western Front. Lord Kitchener, the Secretary of State for War, initially supported the concept but was reluctant to commit ground troops, insisting the navy alone could force the strait.
Churchill pushed the plan with characteristic energy and conviction. On March 18, 1915, a combined British and French naval force attempted to force the Dardanelles. The attack was a disaster. Three battleships were sunk by mines and three more crippled. The naval commander, Admiral de Robeck, called off the assault. What had been conceived as a swift naval stroke now required a full-scale amphibious invasion.
