The British & French Fleet at Gallipoli

The Battle of 18 March (A total absence of the Spirit of Nelson)

from "Gallipoli" by Les Carlyon ISBN 0-7329-1128-1. The British and French ships left their anchorages around Tenedos and steamed towards the Dardanelles at 10.45 am, a gentleman's hour for combat. The sun was bright and the water ..,listened under a blue sky blotched with the odd high cloud. The grey-blue haze over the mouth of the Dardanelles began to lift. The few sailors above deck could see snow-topped mountains in Asia Minor and, to the left, along the edge of the channel, the Kilitbahir plateau, sulky and ghost-like.

De Robeck's main force comprised 17 battleships, all pre-dreadnought bar the Queen Elizabeth, and the battle cruiser Inflexible. Cruisers, destroyers and minesweepers attended them, equerries buzzing back and forth. The idea was to silence first the forts at the Narrows and the batteries protecting the five lines of mines at Kephez Bay. The minesweepers would then clear the Kephez mines, working through the night. The next day, the 19th, the battleships would steam on to Sari Sighlar Bay, about two-and-half miles below the Narrows. From there they would demolish the Narrows forts at close range. Then, after the five lines of mines at the Narrows had been swept, on into the Marmara and into another battle, somewhere between the Narrows and Constantinople, with the Goeben and the Breslau.

De Robeck went forth with his ships in three lines. Line A comprised the Queen Elizabeth, the Agamemnon, the Lord Nelson the Inflexible. The Prince George flanked this line on the European side and the Triumph on the Asian coast. About a mile astern came the French squadron: Gaulois, Charlemagne, Bouvet and Suffren. Flanking those were the Majestic and the Swiftsure. The third line comprised Vengeance, Irresistible, Albion and Ocean. De Robert held the battleships Canopus and Cornwallis in reserve.

The first line steamed forward slowly under fire from the Turkish mobile batteries, which did little harm. Just after 11 am, Line A by now deep into Eren Keui Bay, opened up on the Narrow forts. The Queen Elizabeth pounded the two forts at Canakkale, the other three the forts around Kilitbahir. The Prince George and the Triumph from the flanks fired at the batteries under the Kilitbahir plateau and on the Asian heights. The Narrows forts fell silent and a pall of smoke rose over Canakkale.

just after noon, de Robeck, on Queen Elizabeth, decided t, engage the Narrows forts at closer range. He ordered the French squadron to slip through the British line and steam a half-mile ahead of it. The forts on either side opened a heavy fire on the French. The ten battleships inside the straits eventually silenced the fire but all took hits. Gaulois was holed below the waterline, Agamemnon had taken perhaps a dozen hits, and the Inflexible's foretop was smashed. Casualties, however, were few - maybe a dozen across the whole fleet - and the ships kept firing.

The Turks couldn't keep firing. Their guns were buried under debris; others had jammed or been dismounted. Communications had broken down. The air was full of smoke and dust. As the official account of the Turkish General Staff put it, 'the situation had become very critical'. The British and French had not come close to destroying the batteries and forts: the batteries were too well hidden and the battleships were not yet close enough to the forts. But by 1.25 pm the fleet had temporarily silenced most of the guns. De Robeck decided to withdraw the French squadron and bring up Vengeance, Irresistible, Albion, Ocean, Swiftsure and Majestic.

The French squadron turned to starboard, into the widest part of Eren Keul on the Asian side. Suffren turned first followed by Bouvet. At 1.54 pm, in the words of de Robeck's report to the Admiralty, the Bouvet was

"seen to be in distress; large volume black smoke suddenly appeared on the starboard quarter, and before any assistance could be rendered she heeled over and sank in 36 fathoms north of Eren Keui village in under three minutes. Explosion of Bouvet appeared to be an internal one".

It happened so quickly that the Bouvet, capsized and with jets of smoke and steam blasting out of her, plunged downwards with her engines still running. More than six hundred men, including the captain, went down with her; ships' boats picked up several dozen survivors. One was carried so deep by the suction from the ship that blood burst through his ears and nose.

The probability is that the Bouvet sank in less than the three minutes mentioned by de Robeck. The near certainty is that she hit one of Hakki Bey's mines. The British at first thought that either a shell had struck her magazine or that she had been hit by a torpedo fired from a mobile tube that the Turks were known to have. There was also speculation that the Turks were using the current to float mines down the channel. A Turkish observer in the Asian hills wrote that he thought the Bouvet had hit a mine. But he mentioned second, more violent, explosion. 'We believed that a shell from Mejidiye [fort] had blown up the magazine.' As the Bouvet died, so Turkish morale soared.

The heavy guns at the Narrows opened up again. The six battle-ships in the channel crept closer as they fired back. The forts fell silent again. De Robeck sent in the minesweepers and three mines were brought up. But when the trawlers came under fire, they turned and left the channel; two didn't even bother to put their sweeps out.

Just after 4 pm the Inflexible, which had taken several heavy hits to her tops from the Turkish guns, left the line, struck a mine with her bow and lurched to starboard. Thirty men were killed. The Inflexible was near where the Bouvet sank. The cruiser Phaeton, with Ian Hamilton on board, and an escort of destroyers attended her as she left the straits and headed for Tenedos. Around the same time Irresistible began to list to starboard. She flew a green flag, suggesting that she thought she had been torpedoed, but she too had probably hit a mine. She was on the same line as Bouvet and Inflexible. A destroyer took the Irresistible crew off. The battleship was drifting towards the shore and an easy target for Turkish gunners.

De Robeck sent Keyes in a destroyer to see what could be done to salvage the Irresistible. The Ocean and Swiftsure were still close by. Keyes came alongside around 5.20 pm as the Irresistible was being rocked by Turkish shellfire.

He signalled the Ocean: 'The admiral directs you to take Irresistible in tow.' The Ocean signalled back that the water was too shallow for her to do so, which was not true. Ocean steamed up and down, sending thunderous salvoes at the Turkish guns. Keyes told the Ocean and Swiftsure to withdraw.
Then, at 6.05 pm, the Ocean struck a mine. She was on the same line as Bouvet, Inflexible and Irresistible. Her steering gear jammed. She began to turn a crazy circle. Destroyers took her crew off. The Turkish gunners now had two easy targets.

Keyes returned to de Robeck and obtained permission to torpedo the Irresistible and, after a brief meal, the intrepid commodore steamed back into the straits in a destroyer.

Commander Roger Keyes RN

He cruised up and down for four hours, and found nothing. All was quiet on the darkened battlefield. Keyes' imagination became fevered.

"Except for the searchlights there seemed to be no sign of life, and I had the almost indelible impression that we were in the presence of a beaten foe. I thought he was beaten at 2 pm. I knew he was beaten at 4 pm - and at midnight I knew with still greater clarity that he was absolutely beaten; and it only remained for us to organise a proper sweeping force and devise some means of dealing with drifting mines to reap the fruits of our efforts. I felt that the guns of the forts and batteries and the concealed howitzers and mobile field guns were no longer a menace. Mines moored and drifting must, and could, be overcome".

Every navy needs a Roger Keyes, just as every army needs a George Patton. They provide the Homeric stuff; they make war seem grander than a trip to the abattoir. All that really matters is that such people never become supreme commanders. Keyes had a buccaneering spirit that was at odds with the caution of de Robeck. Throughout the Gallipoli campaign that was to come, Keyes wanted to try things when others wanted to do nothing.

On the night of March 18, however, Keyes was wrong about the Turks. Compared with the fleet, they had taken few casualties and most of their guns were intact. By the medieval rules, they had won the day: they were still in possession of the field. But Keyes was also right about the Turks for reasons he could not have been aware of: they were running out of ammunition.

The British and French losses for the day amounted to about 700 sailors killed. Three battleships - Bouvet, Irresistible and Ocean - were on the bottom. Three other ships were crippled. The Inflexible had been run aground at Tenedos. Gaulois had been beached in the Rabbit Island group nearby. Suffren, another French ship, had been badly damaged by shell fire. By any sensible assessment, the day had ended, as Aspinall was to write, in 'complete failure' for the Allied fleet.

The Turkish account said that eight of their 176 guns had been hit. Forty men had been killed and 70 wounded. In short, fewer Turks had died than when a British shell hit the magazine at Seddulbahir on November 3. The Turkish account concedes that ammunition was running low. The official German account says the medium howitzers and minefield batteries had fired half their shells. The Narrows forts had fired most of their high-explosive shells. There were only ten left at Kilitbahir. And there was no reserve of mines.

The mines: they were still everything. If de Robeck was to return, as the Turks and Germans were sure he would, he had still to find a way of clearing the mines. He told Churchill on March 20 that he was reorganising his armada of minesweepers. The tone of the cable suggested the attack would resume as quickly as possible. The day before he wrote to Hamilton that he was preparing for another 'go'. Churchill told him he was sending four ships, immediately to replace those lost.

Constantinople expected another 'go'. According to Morgenthau, no-one there believed the Allies would accept defeat after the sinking of just three ships. All the Allies had to do was steel themselves to the loss of a few more. No grit, no glory. And there was the Turks' problem with ammunition. The neutrality of Bulgaria and Rumania cut Turkey off from her allies. And, ammunition had to come from Constantinople. An Associated Press journalist who witnessed the March 18 battle told Morgenthau that the Turks felt they could only hold out for a few hours if the fleet returned on March 19. Talat, according to Morgenthau, had two cars, one of which was loaded with spare tyres and cans of petrol, parked on the Asian side of the city, ready for a 'protracted journey'.

De Robeck on March 23 telegraphed the Admiralty that, in effect, the Carden plan had been tossed out and that the navy would need the army before it could get to Canakkale, let alone Constantinople. De Robeck had been commanding Churchill's 'dispensable' navy for a week and he was confused. In his sailor's mind, just about the worst thing a commander could do was to keep losing ships. On the night of March 18 he wrote: 'After losing so many ships I shall obviously find myself superseded tomorrow morning.'

Now, with this cable of March 23, Gallipoli had become a joint operation - and of the worst sort. There was a navy commander and an army commander, but no supreme commander. Instead of being planned for months in London, down to the last artillery shell and the last bandage, this venture was being cobbled up on the spot, and only after another enterprise, the naval attack, had failed. The original numbers now made no sense. Hamilton had been given 75,000 troops to keep order in Constantinople and maybe make brief sorties ashore at the Dardanelles. Were 75,000 enough to invade the Dardanelles and knock out the batteries and howitzers along two coastlines? And, worst of all, surprise had been lost. When there were no signs of a resumption of the naval attack, the Turks began to sense there would be a landing. When the harbours at Lemnos and Alexandria became clogged with troop transports, they knew there was going to be a landing.

Cabinet hadn't ordered this combined operation; neither had the War Council, the Admiralty or the Imperial General Staff. It had just happened. Another annex, a huge one this time, was being tacked on to the hayshed. All through, the adventure had lacked methodical planning; at this moment it also seemed to lack resolution, to be as soft and windblown as the haze over the Dardanelles.

In Constantinople, late in the afternoon of March 24, Enver called in von Sanders and asked him to take command of the Dardanelles defences. Von Sanders was very methodical.