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BRAW LADDIES AMIDST THE CLASH OF THE EMPIRES

5

Navies to reach Constantinople,then the

capital of the Ottoman Empire, and so

possibly force theTurks out of the war.

The main British champion for this

was the First Lord of the Admiralty,

Winston Churchill. He won Cabinet

support on 13 January 1915 for a purely

naval attack through the Dardanelles

using older but heavily gunned

battleships to attack and destroy the

Turkish forts on the peninsula.

Churchill clinched the issue by

offering the services of the Navy’s latest

dreadnought the mighty HMS

Queen

Elizabeth,

which would test her 15-inch

guns against the enemy targets.

At that time there was little up-to-

date intelligence about the strength

of the Turkish defences; all that was

known was that British warships had

successfully bombarded the entrance

to the Dardanelles in November 1914,

causing panic amongst the Turkish

defenders. The planners in

L

ondon

did not know that the attack had

encouraged the Turks, under German

command, to increase their minefields

and to strengthen the Gallipoli defences

with modern mobile howitzers.

THE 12-INCH GUNS OF THE ROYAL NAVY BATTLESHIP HMS CANOPUS

FIRE AT TURKISH BATTERIES DU

R

ING OPERATIONS IN THE

DARDANELLES DURING 1915