# Could the gallipoli Operation Have Worked? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 20, 2009, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-gallipoli-operation-have-worked/510886 "2009-09-20T23:21:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2009, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-gallipoli-operation-have-worked/510886/41 "2009-10-02T13:36:04Z")
How did the British discourage sniping when they had set up their own sniper and scouting schools by 1915? Famous British snipers from the early years of the war, like Penberthy and Hesketh-Pritchard, were instrumental in setting up these schools. The Lovatt Scouts, the first dedicated sharpshooting unit, were formed in 1900 (and popularised the use of the Ghillie suit)! ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2009, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-gallipoli-operation-have-worked/510886/42 "2009-10-02T15:48:54Z")
I mean, defeating Turkey by opening up the Bosporus was probably agood thing. But how significant was it to the war as a whole? Turey was a minor ally of Germany, and could the British have followed up by invading the Austrian Empire (via the Black Sea)? I guess I dn’t see how Gallipoli (if won by the British and French) would have been all that decisive. Was the Black Sea all that strategic? ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2009, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-gallipoli-operation-have-worked/510886/43 "2009-10-02T16:14:26Z")
It would have been significant. If Turkey had dropped out of the war, or at least lost the Dardanelles, it would have given the Russian Black Sea Fleet access to the Mediterranean, and allowed supply convoys to get from Britain and France to Russia year round without worrying about the ice that was a problem with the northern route. ---
**Author:** ![Icerigger](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icerigger/32/432_2.png) [@Icerigger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icerigger)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2009, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-gallipoli-operation-have-worked/510886/44 "2009-10-02T16:27:59Z")
Question. They lost battleships to Turkish guns, did they not? ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2009, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-gallipoli-operation-have-worked/510886/45 "2009-10-02T17:30:00Z")
_Blinks in raw amazement_ Dear the the lovely Cicero, Please change your usename. You are a complete insult to the memeory of that august statement. Sir, I am grossly insulted by the complete disaster of your posts It is utterly obvious that you have no concept of te geography and are not in any way remotely comprehending my writing. Wihle there are in fact difficulties to overcome (as I have not attempted to create an entire, complete ), it’s obvious from the fact that you repeatedly bring up completely the wrong issues clearly shopws that you simply are arguing without paying attention. At this time, I see no prpose to continuing to argue, since you will simply repeat your previous irrelevent objections. ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2009, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-gallipoli-operation-have-worked/510886/46 "2009-10-02T23:46:01Z")
> [@Cicero](#): > > Just a very slight nitpick, the Australian Light Horse weren’t really cavalry- they were mounted infantry intended to fight dismounted (though at Beersheeba this clearly didn’t happen during the charge. > > As regards pilots not getting parachutes to stop them bailing out ( **Martini Enfield** ) and **Askance** then indicating no air force did issue them, it seems that the main reason they weren’t issued was that parachutes at that time were too bulky for scout aircraft. The German airforce started selectively issuing parachutes in the spring of 1918 and the British shortly thereafter. I didn’t say that no air force issued them, only that the British didn’t. I thought it was fairly well known that the Germans were issuing them in 1918, but apparently not. As for the British not encouraging sniping, at least in the **early stages** of the War: _The Lee-Enfield_, by Ian Skennerton discusses Lee-Enfield sniper rifles in minute detail and mentions they were initially deployed by the British to counter German snipers (ie, they weren’t being used to pick off German officers, but to pick off German snipers), and most of the early British sniper rifles were civilian target arms until the end of 1915 or so. I’m well aware the British did indeed set up sniper schools and develop military sniper rifles, but at the opening of the war- the period we’re talking about- the British did not start taking the idea of “sniping” seriously until the Germans started using theirs to devastating effect. The Australians employed Snipers at Gallipoli with good effect, however. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2009, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-gallipoli-operation-have-worked/510886/47 "2009-10-03T02:31:11Z")
> [@Martini\_Enfield](#): > > …the British did not start taking the idea of “sniping” seriously until the Germans started using theirs to devastating effect. Not sporting, wot? > [@](#): > > The Australians employed Snipers at Gallipoli with good effect, however. (sniff) What can one expect from a the whelps of criminals? 😉 > [@Icerigger](#): > > Question. They lost battleships to Turkish guns, did they not? France’s Bouvet and GB’s Irresistible and Ocean were all lost to mines, though the Turkish guns damaged many ships heavily. The Allies did not come close to “forcing” the Strait and the very idea that the Turks would surrender if they had was based on what I see as a racist notion that “wogs”\* didn’t really have any fight in them compared with proper English and French\* men, though the latter were still suspiciously non-English. - - [Wog - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wog) ‘The saying “The wogs begin at Calais” was originated by George Wigg, Labour MP for Dudley, in 1949. In a parliamentary debate the Burmese, Wigg shouted at the Tory benches, “The Honourable Gentleman and his friends think they are all ‘wogs’. Indeed, the Right Honourable Member for Woodford [i.e. Winston Churchill] thinks that the ‘wogs’ begin at Calais.”’ Which seems even more fitting 34 years before. ---
**Author:** ![Cicero](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cicero/32/3594_2.png) [@Cicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cicero)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2009, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-gallipoli-operation-have-worked/510886/48 "2009-10-03T12:21:05Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > _Blinks in raw amazement_ > > Dear the the lovely Cicero, > > Please change your usename. You are a complete insult to the memeory of that august statement. > > Sir, I am grossly insulted by the complete disaster of your posts It is utterly obvious that you have no concept of te geography and are not in any way remotely comprehending my writing. Wihle there are in fact difficulties to overcome (as I have not attempted to create an entire, complete ), it’s obvious from the fact that you repeatedly bring up completely the wrong issues clearly shopws that you simply are arguing without paying attention. At this time, I see no prpose to continuing to argue, since you will simply repeat your previous irrelevent objections. I have cited what I believe to be what could have happened. you have given opinions. I will not invest any more time in researching the answers to your posts. Have a nice day. ---
**Author:** ![Cicero](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cicero/32/3594_2.png) [@Cicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cicero)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2009, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-gallipoli-operation-have-worked/510886/49 "2009-10-03T12:22:29Z")
> [@Icerigger](#): > > Question. They lost battleships to Turkish guns, did they not? Most of them were lost to mines rather than guns. ---
**Author:** ![Cicero](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cicero/32/3594_2.png) [@Cicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cicero)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2009, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-gallipoli-operation-have-worked/510886/50 "2009-10-03T12:27:27Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > It would have been significant. If Turkey had dropped out of the war, or at least lost the Dardanelles, it would have given the Russian Black Sea Fleet access to the Mediterranean, and allowed supply convoys to get from Britain and France to Russia year round without worrying about the ice that was a problem with the northern route. I’d tend to disagree here. The thought at the time was that knocking Turkey out would knock out one of the props of the German empire (at least Churchill thought that way) . it was the other way- Germany was propping up Turkey. The Russian Fleet was virtually irrelevant. The idea of the convoys is interesting however. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2009, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-gallipoli-operation-have-worked/510886/51 "2009-10-03T17:55:46Z")
> [@Cicero](#): > > The Russian Fleet was virtually irrelevant. At the beginning of the war, the Black Sea Fleet consisted of six dreadnoughts, ten battleships, nine cruisers, nineteen destroyers, and ten submarines, along with other smaller ships. It was virtually irrelevant during the war because the Turks controlled the Turkish Straits, so it was bottled up in the Black Sea (although it did do significant stuff there, mining the straits and the area around the Bulgarian city of Varna, attacking the Turkish fleet during the Galliopoli Operation, and supporting the Caucasian campaign). If it had been able to get out of the Black Sea, it undoubtedly could have done more. ---
**Author:** ![Cicero](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cicero/32/3594_2.png) [@Cicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cicero)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2009, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-gallipoli-operation-have-worked/510886/52 "2009-10-04T03:12:19Z")
Like at the Battle of Tsushima? That aside, the Russian Navy remained irrelevant while it was bottled up in the Black Sea. And what could it have done that the British navy did not do? ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2009, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-gallipoli-operation-have-worked/510886/53 "2009-10-04T03:32:24Z")
The Russians had reformed their navy after the Battle of Tsushima (which had also been ten years prior, and due to bad circumstances the Russians had found themselves in as much as anything else). And while you say “The Russian navy remained irrelevant while it was bottled up in the Black Sea”, we’re discussing what the benefits would have been if Turkey had been knocked out of the war and the Black Sea Fleet had access to the Med. And what it could have done was freed up the British fleet to act elsewhere and commit more forces to the anti-submarine warfare in the Atlantic, by bottling up the Austro-Hungarian navy and giving naval support to Serbia and Italy. ---
**Author:** ![Cicero](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cicero/32/3594_2.png) [@Cicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cicero)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2009, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-gallipoli-operation-have-worked/510886/54 "2009-10-04T04:47:03Z")
We may have to disagree here. I don’t believe that the Russian ships could have assisted a great deal- the Austro- Hungarian Navy was bottled up by the French and Italian navies anyway. The British were short of destroyers for anti submarine warfare, not capital ships. And that crunch did not really come until 1917 (and later) by which time the American Navy had joined the Allies - well after the Gallipoli campaign had ended. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2009, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-gallipoli-operation-have-worked/510886/55 "2009-10-04T05:29:26Z")
A recommended documentary on the subject: _Gallipoli_ by Tolga Örnek > [@](#): > > Tolga Örnek draws on the diaries, letters, and documents of average soldiers in order to emphasize the historical importance of Gallipoli [http://www.boulevardmovies.com/Gallipoli-Documentary-DVD-p-16562.html](http://www.boulevardmovies.com/Gallipoli-Documentary-DVD-p-16562.html) After checking it, one can see that British historians were interviewed and they constantly mention that it was not only a lack of intelligence that doomed the effort. But also that they \*\*had \*\*intelligence that discouraged such an attack. Guys like Churchill and Lord Kitchener decided to ignore those warnings. ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2009, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-gallipoli-operation-have-worked/510886/56 "2009-10-08T17:54:35Z")
If I recall reading, Russia was still in the early stages of building up it’s railroad and factory infrastructure in the Nineteen-teens. (This “schedule” of build up may have helped convinced Germany that it’s “better now than later” in supporting Austria against Russia & Serbia.) Russia had the manpower to fight Germany and Austria simultaneously, but they needed more guns, ammo, and food (and time) to properly equip all those troops. Opening up a supply route to Russia via the Black Sea (the Artic ports of Murmansk and Archangel were not “built up” enough to handle the needed volume of shipping) would have, according to some speculation I have read, possibly postponed Russia’s collapse into revolution (compared to the historical timeline). ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2009, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-gallipoli-operation-have-worked/510886/57 "2009-10-09T02:15:08Z")
> [@Cicero](#): > > There was nothing to stop the Turks rearming the Narrows and laying more mines to bottle up the ships. Well, yeah, there was–the fact that they were running out of mines, and ammuntion also. If the British battle fleet had gotten through, it would have been an easy matter to pinch off the narrow neck of land at the base of the isthmus, and prevent resupply, at least on the Aegean side. > [@Cicero](#): > > The concept that the Turks would immediately surrender on the appearance of these ships belongs to a bygone era. Well, the _Turks_ certainly thought that they would immediately surrender. They were cleaning out their archives and gold reserves when it looked like the British would get through, and even had a special train lined up to evacuate the government, the sultan, and his harem. The Turkish general staff and Otto von Sanders both agreed afterwards that the city’s defenses were pathetic, and that it would have fallen. Furthermore, Bulgaria and Greece were poised to enter the war on the Allied side and attack Turkey by land, in order to feed on the carcass. The land attack on Gallipoli was close to hopeless, but the attempt by the navy to force the Dardanelles had every chance of success if it would have been pursued a bit more diligently. It certainly was a better alternative than feeding more men into the meat grinder in France. ---
**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2009, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-gallipoli-operation-have-worked/510886/58 "2009-10-09T17:49:44Z")
The British did not have the benefit of hindsight, and did not know the state of Turkish forces. They had suffered at the hands of Turkish warships, some of which had been commanded by German officers. They also had to believe that the Dardanelles were better defended than they were -they certainly could not affird to get bottled up in the Black Sea if the situation in the North Sea became critical. Above all the British would have been concerned about maritime losses because they were aware of German capacity at sea elsewhere - we now know after Jutland and the full length of the war that the German fleet never emerged as a credible threat, however the British did not know that, since the Jutland battle had not yet ocurred. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-gallipoli-operation-have-worked/510886.md?page=2)