Australians and New Zealanders for the Dardanelles

On 20 February 1915 the Secretary of State for War, Lord Kitchener, sent a telegram to General John Maxwell, commander of the British forces in Egypt. He instructed him to warn about 30,000 soldiers from Australia and New Zealand, under the command of General William Birdwood, to prepare for operations at the Dardanelles. The day before, British and French ships had begun bombarding the forts at the entrance to the strait.

Instead of the 29th Division

The order was the result of Kitchener’s change of mind. On 16 February members of the War Council had decided to send the 29th Division to Lemnos, the last division of the regular army left in Britain. On 19 February, however, Kitchener declared that after the Russian defeats on the Eastern Front he had to keep it in reserve in case of a German attack in France. He proposed instead the Dominion troops that had been stationed in Egypt since December 1914 and were training there.

Kitchener argued that the soldiers from Egypt would reach the Dardanelles sooner than any division from England. Egypt could do without them, because at the beginning of February the Turks had been repulsed from the Suez Canal and had withdrawn into Sinai. The whole Australian and New Zealand contingent numbered about 39,000 men, and about 30,000 without the cavalry. The Admiralty, for its part, pointed out that most of the transports would have to be sent from England anyway and that their voyage to Alexandria would take about three weeks. The admirals also doubted whether troops without combat experience would be enough for so difficult an operation.

The content of the order

The soldiers were to form two divisions: the 1st Australian Division of General William Bridges and the New Zealand and Australian Division of General Alexander Godley. Together they made up Birdwood’s corps, called after the initial letters of its English name ANZAC. Kitchener warned Maxwell that the transports would reach Alexandria about 9 March. He told him, however, to get in touch at once with Vice-Admiral Sackville Carden, commanding the fleet at the Dardanelles, because Carden might need troops earlier. Maxwell did not have to wait for the ships from England. He was to collect whatever he could on the spot and send part of the troops without delay to the island of Lemnos, where the fleet was setting up its base. That same day the Admiralty ordered several ships in the vicinity to be sent to Alexandria so that they could take on troops by 27 February.

What came next

For the time being the troops from Egypt were only to stand ready. It was not yet assumed that they would land on the Gallipoli peninsula. In London it was still hoped that the fleet would force its way through the strait on its own, and that the soldiers would be used to occupy its shores or for later operations at Constantinople. At the end of February Maxwell agreed to send the Australian 3rd Brigade to Lemnos, and it sailed from Alexandria on 2 March. Birdwood meanwhile sailed to the Dardanelles to confer with Carden and to view the strait from the deck of a warship. He returned to Egypt at the beginning of March convinced that the fleet alone would not manage and that a landing would be needed.

He was right. After the failed naval attack of 18 March, the British decided to put troops ashore on the Gallipoli peninsula. On 25 April 1915 Birdwood’s soldiers landed on its western coast, in a cove later named Anzac Cove. In Australia and New Zealand the day is still marked as Anzac Day.