Final decision to attack the Dardanelles

On 28 January 1915 the British War Council finally resolved that the fleet would attack the Dardanelles. Two weeks earlier the Council had instructed the Admiralty to prepare an expedition, but had postponed the decision to launch it. Now that decision was taken. The ships were to force the Straits on their own, without land forces, and reach Constantinople.

Fisher’s opposition

Throughout the second half of January preparations went ahead at full steam, but the First Sea Lord, Admiral John Fisher, opposed them ever more loudly. On 25 January he sent the Prime Minister, H. H. Asquith, a memorandum warning against dispersing the fleet’s strength. The Royal Navy’s superiority over the German fleet in the North Sea was in his view too valuable to be exposed to losses in bombarding coasts. The Dardanelles expedition also drew ships away from other, larger plans that Fisher had in mind, above all from an operation in the Baltic. The First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, replied with a memorandum of his own, and Fisher’s memorandum was not shown to the other members of the Council.

Meanwhile Churchill sought the support of the Allies. On 26 January the French Minister of Marine, Victor Augagneur, came to London. He judged the plan sound, and France soon promised to send its own squadron of battleships to the Dardanelles. Russia, whose appeal for help had started the whole affair, also gave its consent.

The meeting of 28 January

Just before the Council met, Asquith invited Churchill and Fisher to his study and heard them both. He sided with Churchill. When Churchill raised the Dardanelles at the meeting, Fisher said that he had not understood the matter would be discussed that day, and that the Prime Minister knew his views. When he realised that a final decision was about to be taken, he rose from the table and made for the door, intending to resign. He was stopped by the Secretary of State for War, Lord Kitchener. Kitchener took him to the window and argued that he was the only opponent of the plan and that it was his duty to go on directing the work of the Admiralty. Fisher reluctantly returned to his seat.

The other members of the Council had no doubts. Kitchener considered the naval attack a matter of great importance and stressed once again that it could be broken off if it failed. Arthur Balfour, the former Prime Minister from the opposition Conservative Party, who sat on the Council, listed the advantages: taking the Straits would cut the Turkish army in two, place Constantinople under Allied control and open the way for Russian grain. The Foreign Secretary, Edward Grey, hoped that success would decide the attitude of Bulgaria and the other Balkan states.

Fisher’s consent

In the afternoon Churchill met Fisher in private and spent a long time persuading him to direct the operation. Fisher finally agreed. He later explained to the commission investigating the course of the expedition that once he had decided, he went the whole hog. That same day Churchill informed the Council that the Admiralty would undertake the attack. The plan of Vice-Admiral Sackville Carden, commanding the squadron at the Dardanelles, became an order.

The decision of 28 January rested on the assumption that ships alone would suffice. Kitchener did not intend to send troops for the time being, and no one gave a clear answer to the question of what to do if the fleet were held up in the Straits. The first battleships opened fire on the forts at the entrance to the Dardanelles on 19 February 1915.