I see plenty of misinformation above -
The Australian War Memorial has this to say introducing the bloody Gallipoli landings.The Gallipoli campaign was intended to force Germany’s ally, Turkey, out of the war. It began as a naval campaign, with British battleships sent to attack Constantinople (now Istanbul). This failed when the warships were unable to force a way through the straits known as the Dardanelles. A third of the battleships were sunk or disabled on a single day, 18 March 1915. Could the AWM say any less?
Most of the lost battleships were old.
And for a start – it was not Turkey !!–
we were fighting the
Ottoman Empire who as the AWM says were an ally of Germany.
I think Australians are capable of grasping the following sketch history from early WWI.
The Ottoman Navy lead by the German battlecruiser SMS Goeben and the light cruiser SMS Breslau had already attacked the Black Sea coast of Russia in October 1914.
The Ottomans had a large army advised by the German General Otto Liman von Sanders and in Jan-Feb 1915 had attempted a raid on the Suez Canal. The Ottomans Army engaged in dozens of operations during the war from the Caucasus to Iraq and Egypt generally tied up many Allied troops that could have been otherwise employed fighting Germany in France.
A quick search on www will find the many Ottoman engagements listed all linked.
Seizing the Dardanelles was a worthwhile war aim which the Allies had the forces to achieve and had the entire March-April 1915 campaign been better administered from the top the war could likely have been shortened.
here is a wiki link that has lots of detailed reading explaining the entire campaign.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallipoli_campaignInteresting that there were more French troops there than Australians.
