Admiralty orders hostilities against Turkey

On 31 October 1914 at 5.05 p.m. the British Admiralty sent a short order to all ships: “Commence hostilities at once against Turkey. Acknowledge.” Great Britain had not yet declared war on the Ottoman Empire, and its ambassador was still in Constantinople. Even so, the Royal Navy was given a free hand.

The order was a response to the Ottoman fleet’s attack on Russian ports on the Black Sea and to the fruitless demands that Turkey send away the Germans from Goeben and Breslau. The deadline set by London had passed without a reply, and the Entente ambassadors had already asked for their passports. The First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, was in favour of a swift blow. On the back of the telegram with the British ultimatum he added in red pencil an instruction to examine the possibility of bombarding the forts of the Dardanelles, because “it is good to strike a quick blow”. His advisers were sceptical, believing that a bombardment would achieve little compared with the risk to the ships.

Churchill nevertheless got his way. On 1 November Vice-Admiral Sackville Carden, commanding the squadron at the entrance to the strait, was instructed to carry out a demonstration at long range, without exposing his ships. On the morning of 3 November the British battlecruisers Indomitable and Indefatigable and the French battleships Suffren and Vérité shelled the outer forts of the Dardanelles for some ten minutes or more. One shell hit the magazine of the fort by the village of Sedd el Bahr, which blew up. Several dozen Turkish soldiers were killed.

The bombardment was of little military importance, but it warned the Turks and their German advisers that the strait could become a target of attack. They began to strengthen its defences, above all the minefields. Great Britain formally declared war on the Ottoman Empire only on 5 November 1914, together with France.