Ian Hamilton to command the Mediterranean force

At about ten in the morning of 12 March 1915 the Secretary of State for War, Lord Kitchener, summoned General Ian Hamilton to his office. As Hamilton recorded in his diary, Kitchener wrote something at his desk for a moment, then raised his head and announced in a matter-of-fact tone: “We are sending a military force to support the fleet now at the Dardanelles, and you are to have command.” So was born the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, which six weeks later landed on the Gallipoli peninsula.

Choosing a commander

The 62-year-old Hamilton had been born on Corfu and was one of the most experienced British generals. He had fought in Afghanistan, at Majuba in 1881 he was wounded and taken prisoner by the Boers, and in the Second Boer War he was Kitchener’s chief of staff. In 1904–1905 he observed the Russo-Japanese War with the Japanese army, and before the war he had been inspector-general of overseas forces and commander in the Mediterranean. From August 1914 he had commanded the forces intended to defend Britain against invasion.

Sending a senior general to the Dardanelles had been discussed since the beginning of March. On 4 March the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, wrote to Kitchener that the Admiralty would like Hamilton to take command, and urged that the new commander should be on the spot as soon as possible. On 10 March, after many weeks of argument, Kitchener told the War Council that he would send the 29th Division to the Mediterranean. The next day he informed the General Staff of Hamilton’s appointment. General Walter Braithwaite became his chief of staff.

The conversation with Kitchener

Kitchener listed the forces Hamilton was to receive. They were General William Birdwood’s Australians and New Zealanders, about 30,000 men, the 29th Division, the Royal Naval Division and General Albert d’Amade’s French division. Altogether this came to about 80,000 soldiers. The 29th Division, however, he regarded only as a loan. The command in France demanded it for itself, and Hamilton was to return it as soon as it was no longer needed.

The minister was full of optimism. He hoped that the army would not have to land at all, because the fleet would force the straits on its own, and then Constantinople would fall. When the Director of Military Operations, General Charles Callwell, outlined a Greek plan for taking Gallipoli which assumed the use of about 150,000 men, Kitchener declared that half would be enough, because the Turks were busy elsewhere. He estimated the Turkish forces on the peninsula at 40,000. He believed that the southern tip of Gallipoli was open to a landing, because ships could shell it from two sides. About the enemy, the terrain and the plan of operations Hamilton learned almost nothing.

Meagre instructions

On the morning of 13 March Hamilton went to Kitchener a second time for his written instructions. They were very general. The army was not to go into action until the fleet had exhausted every means of breaking through on its own. No serious operation was to be undertaken before the arrival of the 29th Division. A landing on the Asian shore of the straits was inadvisable. One provision, however, was firm: once the forcing of the straits had begun, there could be no question of abandoning the attempt. According to Hamilton’s diary the draft instructions were headed “Constantinople Expeditionary Force”. The general asked not to tempt fate, and the name was changed to the more modest Mediterranean one.

All the knowledge of the enemy consisted of a 1912 handbook on the Turkish army, a pre-war report on the Dardanelles defences and a map that proved inaccurate. Nor did Hamilton have time to assemble his full staff. The officers responsible for personnel and supply were not ready to leave, so he set off with the general staff officers only. The British official history judged this division of the staff a mistake whose effects were felt throughout the campaign.

On the afternoon of 13 March Hamilton left London by special train. Via Dover and Calais he reached Marseilles, where the fast cruiser Phaeton was waiting for him. He arrived at the Dardanelles on 17 March, the day before the great attack by the fleet.