Gallipoli Campaign

The Gallipoli Campaign grew from Allied attempts to force the Dardanelles, threaten Constantinople and reopen a maritime supply route to Russia. Naval attacks in early 1915 failed to break the Ottoman defences and minefields, leading to landings on the Gallipoli peninsula in April under the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force commanded by General Sir Ian Hamilton.

British, French, Australian, New Zealand and other Allied troops established exposed bridgeheads but could not achieve the decisive advance expected by the planners. Ottoman forces, including units associated with Mustafa Kemal, contained repeated assaults in difficult terrain. After months of heavy casualties, disease and stalemate, the Allied forces evacuated the peninsula by January 1916.

Gallipoli is a major setting for First World War fiction about the Dardanelles, ANZAC experience, Ottoman defence and Allied strategic failure. Alan Bardos’s The Dardanelles Conspiracy links the campaign to the preceding attempt to use clandestine diplomacy to persuade the Ottoman government to leave the war.