James Baquet

The Gallipoli Campaign of 1915-1916 is also known as the Dardanelles Campaign, as Gallipoli is a peninsula located along the Dardanelles, a waterway anciently known as the Hellespont. That strait separates Asian Turkey from European Turkey, and connects the Sea of Marmara and ultimately the Black Sea to the Aegean and thus the Mediterranean Sea.

This is not incidental, as the World War I Allied powers of Britain and France were attempting to wrest control of the Dardanelles from the Ottoman Empire, which had control of Turkey. The strait was an important means of transport into Russia, the third member of the group of Allies referred to together as the “Triple Entente.”

The plan was to launch a naval assault and follow it up with an amphibious landing on the peninsula. But the naval attack was repelled, and eight months of fruitless fighting rendered the invasion impossible. The Ottomans sustained nearly 165,000 casualties during the campaign; the Allies closer to 190,000. It was a humiliating defeat for the Allies, as the Dardanelles was not secured for Allied shipping.

It was, however, the only major victory of the crumbling Ottoman Empire. The four-year Turkish War of Independence followed shortly after the war, and just eight years after Gallipoli, the Republic of Turkey was declared. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, a field marshal at Gallipoli, became the founder and first president of the republic.

On the other hand, April 25, the day of the landings, is still celebrated as “ANZAC Day,” commemorating the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps who saw their first action while fighting for Great Britain. Their valiant efforts are a point of pride for both countries, which have since become fully autonomous members of the Commonwealth of Nations.

Although the campaign was widely seen as a failure for the Allies (though some historians considered it to be more of a stalemate), strategists learned lessons from the mistakes that were made. These observations were to become important in World War II in planning for the Normandy Landings and the operations in the Pacific Theater.

Vocabulary:

Which words above mean:

1. take away by force

2. embarrassing

3. deadlock, situation in which no progress can be made

4. useless, nonproductive

5. operations with a specific objective

6. self-governing

7. involving both land and sea

8. strip of land with water on three sides

9. area of operations

10. caused to become