Gallipoli

The Ottoman Campaign

Edward J. Erickson

• Editorial: Pen & Sword
• Año: 2010
• ISBN:
  9781844687725
• Categoría: Geschichte
• Categoría: Erster Weltkrieg

A "superb new book on the Ottoman perspective of Gallipoli" from the military historian and Gulf War veteran ( Great War Forum ). The Ottoman Army won a historic victory over the Allied forces at Gallipoli in 1915. This was one of the most decisive and clear-cut campaigns of the Great War. Yet the performance of the Ottomans, the victors, has often received less attention than that of the Allied army they defeated. In this perceptive study, Edward Erickson concentrates on the Ottoman side of the campaign. He looks in detail at the Ottoman Army—its structure, tactics and deployment—and at the conduct of the commanders who served it so well. His pioneering work complements the extensive literature on other aspects of the Gallipoli battle, in particular those accounts that have focused on the experience of the British, Australians and New Zealanders. This highly original reassessment of the campaign will be essential reading for students of the Great War, especially the conflict in the Middle East. "Erickson's analysis of the battle itself is insightful and detailed and his writing style is extremely engaging and easily maintains the reader's interest."—War History Online "This detailed appraisal of the Gallipoli campaign from the victorious Ottoman perspective is essential reading."—Military Historical Society

Chapter 1

Ottoman Preparations, 1912–24 April 1915

Introduction

The first phase of the Ottoman campaign for the defense of the Gallipoli Peninsula begins in 1912 with the efforts to fortify the Dardanelles strait against threats to the peninsula from the Bulgarian army and Greek navy in the Balkan Wars of 1912/13. The Dardanelles defenses consisted of fortifications dating back to the seventeenth century. Serious construction of the modern fortifications began in the late nineteenth century and consisted of a number of concrete and earth embrasured gun positions on both sides of the strait. Before 1912, these installations fell under the command of the Çanakkale Strait Forces and Fortification Command, one of a number of Ottoman fortresses defending strategic points.¹ In the winter of 1912–1913 the command was actively engaged in combat operations during the First Balkan War. In the post-war reorganization of the Ottoman army in 1913–1914, the Strait command was renamed the Çanakkale Fortified Area Command, but continued to maintain its artillery brigades and command of all of the forts on both sides of the Dardanelles. The place name Çanakkale (known to the British as Chanak in 1915) is used throughout this book as an exception to the general usage of English place names because of its significance as the Turkish name of the campaign (Çanakkale Cephesi)

When the Ottoman army mobilized in August 1914, its tactical units began to prepare for war under the dynamic training guidance of a revived military machine. Soon thereafter the army deployed mobile tactical ground forces to the strait and the peninsula. These units were continually reinforced after a brief Royal Navy bombardment in November and vigorously prepared the defenses to repel an allied amphibious invasion. As the Empire entered the First World War defensive planning was modified using the plans developed in 1912, to include a larger defensive area and the reinforcement of the command by the Ottoman army’s III Corps.² After very heavy naval attacks on the strait in February and March 1915, the Ottoman high command activated the Fifth Army on the peninsula and a new XV Corps in Asia. When the allied amphibious assault occurred on 25 April it was met by well-trained, well-led, and well-prepared infantry divisions of the Ottoman army. This came as a shock and a surprise to the allies, who had expected an easy victory over what they had perceived to be a rag-tag poorly led army. This phase ended on 25 April 1915, when the allies invaded the beaches of the Gallipoli Peninsula and Kum Kale in Asia.

The Dardanelles in the Balkan Wars³

The Dardanelles strait was the most heavily fortified point in the Ottoman Empire and its defensive works dated back hundreds of years. During the 1880s work began, under mostly German direction, to modernize the fortifications against a naval attack on the strait.⁴ The defenses until the Balkan Wars of 1912/13 were composed entirely of coastal defense guns, underwater minefields and searchlights oriented on the strait itself and presented a thin ribbon of forts along the water’s edge. In the fall of 1912 the strategic situation changed and, against the threat of a Greek amphibious invasion, the Ottoman general staff ordered a more comprehensive fortification of the entire Gallipoli Peninsula itself. Moreover, a corps-level command was created on the peninsula to construct and occupy the defensive works that would guard the strait’s fortifications against an enemy landing in their rear.⁵

The Gallipoli historiography largely ignores the fact that the Dardanelles defenses were given a thorough workout during the First Balkan War (1912–1913). In fact, it was during this war that the Ottomans put together the basic defensive plans and concepts used subsequently to defend the peninsula in 1915 against the British. Prior to the Balkan Wars the peninsula was a sleepy garrison backwater for the Ottoman army’s 5th Infantry Division and Çanakkale Fortress Command. However, in the Balkan Wars the Ottomans deployed a greatly reinforced army to defend the Gallipoli Peninsula. This was brought about when the victorious Bulgarian army reached the Sea of Marmara and cut off the peninsula on 12 October 1912. The Ottomans reorganized their forces by placing the Dardanelles strait and the peninsula under the independent command of the Çanakkale Strait Forces and Fortification Command.⁶ The general staff rushed the regular 27th Infantry Division, a provisional infantry division, and the Afyon, Çanakkale, and Edremit Reserve Infantry Divisions to the peninsula. The newly organized headquarters also commanded the Menderes Detachment (Menderes Mufrezesi), a provisional cavalry brigade, and three independent batteries of artillery. The preexisting fortress command of three heavy coastal artillery regiments was absorbed into the new force. Altogether for the defense of the peninsula in 1912, the Ottomans had 40,000 men armed with 27,000 rifles, 38 machine-guns, and 102 cannon (not counting coastal artillery).⁷

Command of the Çanakkale Strait Forces and Fortification Command was given to Brigadier General Fahri Pasha, who quickly created the basic defensive plan and layout for the peninsula by establishing four primary defensive groups: one guarding the beaches of the lower peninsula, one guarding the narrow neck of the peninsula (at Bulair), one guarding the Asian beaches, while one remained in immediate reserve. Fahri stationed two of the three reserve infantry divisions in beach defense roles on the peninsula, placed the 27th Division at Bulair and the Menderes Detachment along the Asiatic shore. He kept his third reserve division as a general army reserve at Maidos (modern Eceabat). Thus, by the end of the year, the general configuration of the Ottoman defense was established (this general layout would be repeated in 1915). Map 1.1 shows this deployment.

Fahri assigned the Çanakkale Reserve Division, composed of men from Gallipoli, Çanakkale (Chanak) and the villages of the peninsula itself, to the southernmost tip of the peninsula (the area later known as the Cape Helles front). He stationed the Edremit Reserve Division on its right flank (covering the area later known as Anzac and Suvla Bay). The Ottoman reserve infantry divisions were much weaker than its regular infantry divisions and together were approximately same strength as the Ottoman 9th Infantry Division, which later defended the peninsula in 1915. These two divisions constructed battalion-sized strong points on the key terrain features overlooking the beaches. The beaches themselves were covered by company sized elements and the divisional artilleries were positioned centrally to support the divisional sectors. In reserve the Afyon Reserve Division lay in garrison at Maidos and was prepared to support either the Çanakkale or the Edremit divisions. The reserve soldiers began to dig trenches and gun pits and developed a road and communications network, and rehearsed counterattack plans. The Australians would later discover what they called ‘the Balkan Pits’⁸ in their sector in 1915, which were the remnants of these defensive preparations. Across the strait near the ruins of Troy in Asia, the Menderes Detachment had grown to divisional strength and began similar defensive preparations at Kum Kale and the adjacent coastlines. In the peninsula’s neck the 27th Infantry Division faced the Bulgarians, who had closed on the Ottoman Bulair lines in early February 1915. Although defending the peninsula from the north, the 27th Division fulfilled a similar mission in the area, which would be defended by the 7th Infantry Division in 1915.⁹ Serving on the Bulair lines as chief of operations (1nci Şube Müdürü) was Staff Major Mustafa Kemal (later and more famously known as Atatürk).¹⁰ Finally, Fahri established a provisional army corps headquarters at Maidos to command and control the mobile divisions on the peninsula and the Menderes Detachment in Asia. This command arrangement was formalized as the Provisional Forces Command during the armistice that brought combat operations to a halt in December 1912. Although the anticipated amphibious invasion by the Greeks never materialized, there was a pitched battle on the neck of the peninsula during the First Balkan War.

Map 1.1
Gallipoli defenses, 1912. The general operational configuration into a Saros Bay/isthmus group, a peninsula group and an Asian group is clearly apparent, as is the central positioning of an operational reserve at Eceabat (Maidos). In 1915, Mustafa Kemal’s 19th Division would occupy the positions that the Afyon Division occupied in 1912.

In early 1913, the Bulgarian high command massed their Fourth Army, composed of about 92,000 officers and men, north of the Bulair lines.¹¹ The armistice expired at 7 pm on 3 February 1913 and the Bulgarian 7th Infantry Division moved forward the next morning closing on the Bulair lines on 6 February. The Bulgarians did not know that the Ottomans were, themselves, planning to conduct an amphibious invasion of their own in the Sea of Marmara with the objective of encircling the Fourth Army. Fahri’s Gallipoli forces were ordered to conduct a supporting attack, which would serve to distract the Bulgarians from the coast. He planned a simple and direct attack out of the Bulair lines using the 27th Division on the right and a provisional infantry division on the left. Releasing the Afyon Reserve Division from its role as the operational reserve, Fahri intended to use it as his second echelon in the attack. Altogether he could mass over 20,000 men for the attack. Planning was meticulous and Ottoman commanders down to regimental level had ample time to organize their operations. The Ottomans estimated that they would face two enemy infantry regiments supported by four artillery batteries. To better control operations Fahri positioned himself immediately behind his attacking divisions. The attacking Ottoman regiments began moving forward at 5.30 am on 8 February and the attack was launched as scheduled at 8 am.

Unfortunately the Turks faced the 2 infantry regiments of the recently arrived 1st Brigade of the Bulgarian 7th Division supported by not just 4 but 14 artillery batteries (78 guns) with 6 more batteries in general support. This was a notable intelligence failure and when 15,000 Ottoman soldiers charged across the open terrain of the narrow peninsula neck on an attack frontage of only 2,600m there were met by rifle and machine-gun fire and a terrible barrage of artillery shells. They were slaughtered in the thousands and perhaps as many as 6,000 died in the doomed attack.¹² Although some Ottomans actually punched through and reached the Bulgarian artillery batteries, the attack was both hopeless and pointless. By noon the catastrophic assault was finished as were Fahri’s offensive operations for the remainder of the First Balkan War. However, in the Second Balkan War, Fahri’s force, now refitted and designated as the Gallipoli Field Army broke out of the peninsula to assist in the recapture of the city of Edirne (Adrianople). Major Mustafa Kemal was active in the successful planning of these operations. After the Treaty of London ended the Second Balkan War in 1913, the troops remaining on the peninsula were sent home and it returned to its normal peacetime routines.

The Çanakkale Fortified Area Command, 1914¹³

After the Balkan Wars, the defense of the Dardanelles returned to the hands of the commander of the Çanakkale Fortified Area Command. This was a fortress command that had control over the string of elderly forts and command of a brigade of three heavy artillery regiments. The forts and guns were clustered at the mouth of the Dardanelles and at the narrows and, in times of peace, were manned at very low levels. This would change in the summer of 1914 and, although the Ottoman Empire would not enter the war until November 1914, the army on the Gallipoli Peninsula was active much earlier.

In the spring of 1913, great tension existed between the Ottoman Empire and Greece over the status of the residual Muslim population living in newly Greek-occupied western Thrace. War seemed probable and the Ottoman III Corps was ordered to plan for movement to the peninsula while the Ottoman V Corps was ordered to occupy the famous Çatalca lines. The actual reactivation of the defensive plans for the peninsula began as early as 31 July 1914, when operations conducted by Greek warships and aircraft near the mouth of the Dardanelles alarmed the Ottoman general staff.¹⁴ The War Ministry issued a special limited mobilization order at 11.45 am on that day that alerted the fortress commander to begin preparations for war and to expect reinforcements.¹⁵ The III Corps chief of staff, German Lieutenant Colonel Perrinet von Thauvenay, arrived on the night of 8/9 August and began to update the defensive plans the next day. The plans called for the Ottoman III Corps to reinforce the fortress and to provide the troops to defend the peninsula.¹⁶ They were based on the 1913 defensive plan for the peninsula but with a significant change. The northern limit of the 1913 plan was the narrow peninsula neck at Bulair (simply because of the presence of the Bulgarian army). In truth the best landing beaches in the region lay just to the north of Bulair in Saros Bay (a fact that would bedevil Liman von Sanders during the entire campaign). This vulnerability caused the Ottoman general staff to assign the entire Saros Bay coastline to the fortress command for defensive planning purposes. In early August 1914, the fortress command revised its war plan so that three major operational groups would defend the Gallipoli Peninsula: one in Asia (unchanged from 1913), one on the peninsula south of Bulair (unchanged from 1913) and one in the new Saros Bay sector.¹⁷ On 12 August, Enver Pasha alerted the fortress that, although the Empire had purchased the Yavuz Sultan Selim (ex-SMS Goeben) and Midilli (ex-SMS Breslau), the British might attack through the strait to get at the ships.¹⁸

Neither the fortress nor the III Corps was ready for war in early August 1914. Nevertheless, as a result of the July crisis but separate from their concerns about Greece, the Ottoman general staff decided to conduct national military mobilization as a precautionary measure, even though the Empire was not yet at war. At 1 am on 2 August 1914, the Ottoman General Staff sent mobilization orders to the commander of the III Corps in Rodosto (modern Tekirdağ).¹⁹ The following day, which was the first numbered day of mobilization (3 August), the III Corps began its preparations for war.²⁰ However, its initial strength returns of about 15,000 officers and men reflected the low condition of peacetime readiness that the Ottoman army operated under.²¹ Nevertheless, by 21 August the corps was at full strength with 12,937 men in the 7th Division, 13,061 men in the 8th Division and 2,907 men assigned to the corps troop units. In fact, the III Corps was the only corps of thirteen Ottoman army corps to mobilize within its time requirement of twenty days. On 22 August the regiments and battalions of the corps began to move from home garrisons to staging areas surrounding Rodosto for training and shaking out.

Upon mobilization, the plans called for the III Corps to detach the 9th Division to the Çanakkale Fortified Area Command for beach defense and mobile reserve operations. Technically, it still remained under the command of III Corps, but for all intents and purposes, the division fell under the operational control of the fortress commander. On 27 August, the 9th Infantry Division commander began conversations with the commander of the fortress concerning the deployment of his division to the Gallipoli Peninsula and by mid-September 1914, the division was moving into observa...