D-Day at Gallipoli

April 25, 1915

Despite mixed success in the naval bombardment and marine mine clearing, the decision is taken to proceed with a pet project of Sir Winston Churchill, the First Lord of the Admiralty.

Plans were made to transfer troops from large naval vessels to rowboats,which would be towed ashore by whatever smaller ships were available.  The troops used were largely untrained and untested imports from Australia,New Zealand and the Far East.  (In a remarkable example of the survival of of the British sea-going tradition, two of the rowboats were commanded by 13-year old English boys, cadets who were already ear-marked for careers as naval officers.)  After an early morning bombardment, troops began to move ashore without benefit of accurate maps or intelligence on Turkish troop deployments.  The landing ground chosen for them is a small area surrounded on three sides by steep hillsides.

At first the location was sparsely defended, the Turks having dismissed the ground as being unfit for an invasion force.  But before the invading force could reach the heights, the Turkish Army was assembling.

Down the coast, nearer the tip of the peninsula, events were not going much better for the English troops landed there.  Barbed wire and fortified entrenchments made advance almost impossible.  Still they did advance, taking very heavy losses.  Altogether, casualties numbered around 4,000 out of and invading force of 30,000.  This carnage inflicted by something like 300 desperately dug-in defenders.  The military planners were learning hard lessons of sea-born invasion tactics in the age of the machine gun.  Eventually the British fell into the same trap as had sprung in western European theater and began to fortify shallow, hard won positions.  They would be held throughout the summer at great cost without having much effect on the war.

Gas Attack

April 22, 1915

The Allies are getting restless for renewed battle in the West.  The Germans have been experimenting with a new idea for prosecuting war, poisonous gasses.  At first they try a tear gas formulation, that seems to have little effect.  Today, they open the first battle to use the terrible weapon based on chlorine gas near Ypres on the far west end of the battle line.  The Germans are bringing to bear their world leading chemical industry, another example of the modern concept of total war.  Due to difficulties in delivery and gas masks soon developed by the allies, gas was never an important weapon in the war, but for a few thousand French and Algerian troops, it certainly brought a cruel and painful death.

The front is held due largely to the extraordinary courage of Second Lieutenant Kestell-Cornish, who with four comrades, held off the German infantry advance planned to take place through the cloud of poison gas.