

On April 25, 1915, troops from across the British Empire as well as France went ashore on the Gallipoli Peninsula in Turkey, beginning the land offensive of the Gallipoli Campaign (also called the Dardanelles Campaign), which would end in high casualties and evacuation for them eight months later.

With trench warfare causing stagnation in the fight on the Western Front, the British and French decided to launch an attack against the Ottoman Empire, one of the Central Powers. The plan was to use naval power to break through the Dardanelles, a straight connecting the Mediterranean to the Black Sea, and then capture the Turkish capital of Constantinople (Istanbul). The naval attack began in February and March, but hidden mines made the British and French ships withdraw in failure.

After a month’s delay due to supply problems, the land offensive began on April 25, with 78,000 British and French troops landing at Cape Helles (at the tip of the peninsula) and what would become known as Anzac Cove (further north and named for the Australian and New Zealand troops that landed there). Some landings were met with fierce resistance and high casualties, while others were accomplished without much opposition.



But once the troops came ashore, little progress was made, and attempts to push forward were halted by the Turks and their German allies, leaving the Anglo-French forces trapped not far from their landing beaches. Despite renewed offensives (most notably at Suvla Bay in August) and reinforcements over the coming months, both sides settled into a high-casualty stalemate from within a system of trenches, where sickness and disease were rampant. Finally, in October, the commanding officer, British general Ian Hamilton, was replaced, and the new general, Charles Monro, decided to evacuate by sea despite estimates that an evacuation would result in extremely high casualties.

Amazingly, however, the British and French were able to evacuate some one hundred thousand men secretly and with very limited casualties, making the evacuation arguably the most successful part of the whole campaign. They evacuated Anzac Cove and Suvla Bay in December 1915, and Cape Helles in January 1916. By the time they left, the Allied Powers had sustained some 200,000 casualties (killed, injured, or sick) and the Turks had suffered at least 87,000 deaths, with many more than that in other casualties.

Did you have a family member who served at Gallipoli? Tell us about them! Or learn more about the campaign on Fold3 in our British Commonwealth Military Collection.