Mavi Boncuk |
In the beginning of February the Prime Minister of Greece Venitselos rejected an offer to strengthen the border with Bulgaria with one British and one French division, but in the light of the successful shelling of the Gallipoli fortifications he himself offered to send three Greek divisions for a strike on the Turkish positions from the rear with the subsequent capture of Constantinopol. Britain and France supported this proposal, but the Tzar’s government turned it down - Russia wanted the complete control over the straights, not wishing to share it with anybody. On the 3rd of March Nikolay II declared it to the British ambassador. In the middle of March the agreement on transfer of the straights to Russia right after the fall of Constantinopol was signed. The shelling of the Turkish forts lasted for nearly a month. It seemed they were doomed - the moral of the defenders of forts was extraordinarily low, there was no ammunition and food. The Turks were even short of mines for blocking of the straights and they began to collect and utilize Russian mines, which were brought from the Black Sea by streams. On the 18th of March the Turkish mines changed dramatically the situation in the heating battle - the French battleship "Bouvet" hit one of them and sunk. The British battleships "Ocean" and "Irresistible" incurred heavy damage from the mines and were scuttled in order to prevent their capture by the enemy. The Allies could not afford such losses. In the morning of the 19th of March from the forts of Gallipoli the Turkish and German artillerymen saw an empty horizon in front of themselves - the ships of the Allied squadron had gone. There was no limit to the triumph in the Turkish camp... It became clear to Allied command, that a naval effort would not be sufficient to capture the straights.
By the autumn of 1915 it had become clear, that the Turks, which outnumbered the Allies and fought for their land with an exclusive ferocity, would not retreat. There was no chance to break through the Turkish defense line as the battle had depleted the Allies – there were no reinforcements for the decimated troops on the bridgeheads. In addition to these problems of the Allies a new - Saloniki front – had appeared on the map of the Balkans. By the beginning of December it had become necessary to choose between the Saloniki and Gallipoli, and the French and Russian command informed the British that the Saloniki front could be abandoned under no circumstances.
The Russians also played a role in the outcome by failing to do their part to cause distractions on the Black Sea side of the Bosporus; they feared a British and French occupation of Constantinople more than they desired a Turkish defeat. The Central Powers’ offensive against Russia was temporarily weakened by the Gallipoli diversion, but the Allied failure to achieve their ends prompted the Bulgarians to enter the war on the side of Germany and Turkey.
The cold weather came in November, and the first frosts and snowfalls did not leave the Allies any choice – it was decided to evacuate the troops. In the beginning of January they left the Gallipoli coast.
More than 150 Russian-born soldiers and officers[2] participated in this battle in the ranks of the Australian army. Besides, many Russian Jews[3], amongst them - a hero of the Russo-Japanese war Joseph Trumpeldor[4], were there as well.
The defeat of the Allies seriously undermined the Russian war effort. In the summer of 1915 the Russian Army suffered several defeats and incurred huge losses. In many respects these failures were determined by insufficient material supply of the army, shortage of arms and ammunition. The success of the Gallipoli operation might have prevented it… The failure of the landing made the Allies look for an alternative sea route to Russia. There was a way around Scandinavia to the Northern Russian ports - Murmansk and Arkhangelsk. The problem was to some extent solved - largely through these ports Russia received about 25% of arms and military equipment, used by her during the WWI. However, the transportation of the cargoes delivered by sea went rather slowly, and by the moment of departure of the revolutionary Russia from the war huge amount of ammunition and military equipment had accumulated in her northern ports. To no lesser extent, the re-orientation at the use of the Northern way resulted in the Allied landing in the Russian North in 1918-1919, what led many Australians to Russia in the ranks of the British forces (and again under an initiative of Mr. Churchill).
For the Russians the word "Gallipoli" has a special meaning. Much more often, than the landing of the Allies aimed to aid them, the Russians recollect another sad landing: in 1920 the remnants of the White army, which had suffered a defeat in the Civil war, landed on this coast…
[1] Askold (Russian: Аскольд) was a protected cruiser built for the Imperial Russian Navy. She was named after the legendary Varangian Askold. Her thin, narrow hull and maximum speed of 23.8 knots (44.1 km/h) were considered impressive for the time. Askold had five thin funnels which gave it a unique silhouette for any vessel in the Imperial Russian Navy.
At the start of World War I, Askold was part of the Allied (British-French-Japanese) joint task force pursuing the German East Asia Squadron under Admiral Maximilian von Spee. In August 1914 she patrolled the area to the east of the Philippines, resupplying out of Hong Kong and Singapore. In September and October, she was assigned to escort duty in the Indian Ocean. Askold was then assigned to the Mediterranean Sea for operations off the coasts of Syria and Palestine for coastal bombardment and commerce raiding operations based from Beirut and Haifa.
In 1915, she was involved in operations against the Ottoman Navy and the Austrian Navy in Greece and Bulgaria, including support for troop landings in the Gallipoli Campaign. After the armistice with Germany in December 1917, Askold was demobilized and plans were made to place her in storage at Arkhangelsk. Askold was seized in Kola Bay in 1918 by the Royal Navy after the Russian Revolution and commissioned as the HMS Glory IV. She was based at Gareloch, Scotland but was used primarily as a depot ship.
[2] Natives of Russia participated in the first landing on the Gallipoli coast on the 25th of April 1915. There were John Amolin, Julajs Beern, Schija Fels, Alexander Hiltunen, Eleazar Margolin, Alfred Markowicz, Alexander Popoff, Marian Pshevolodskey, Edward Watson. Many of them were soon wounded. Generally, losses amongst Russians, as well as in the whole army, were heavy. During the campaign more than a half from them were wounded or put out of action by dysentery, rheumatism, influenza and other infectious illnesses. MORE
[3] Many Russian Jews took part in the Gallipoli battle. MORE
[4] A fomer officer of the Russian army Josef Vladimirovich Trumpeldor also took part in the Gallipoli battle. He was born in 1880 in Piatigorsk in a family of ex-soldier. In 1902 he volunteered to the army. He distinguished himself during the Russo-Japanese war ta Port-Arthur, lost a hand in a battle and spent a year in Japanese captivity. Trumpeldor was awarded for valor with four Orders (crosses) of Saint George, gold saber and promoted to an officer rank - a unique case for a unbaptised Jew in Russia. In 1902 he was received by the Tsarina. In 1912 he migrated to palestine and in the beginning of WW2 found himself in Alexandria along with 12,000 Jews who had mostly migrated from Russia. They had ben deported by Turks to Egypt as they had refused to accept the Turkish citizenship. Here he met a leader of the Russian Zionist movement V. Zhabotinsky who offered him to refer to the commander of the British forces in Egypt John Maxwell with a request to allow to form a Jewish Legion to fight against Turks in Palestine. The petition was handed on the 22nd of March 1915. maxwell declined the request referring to the ban on draft of foreigners into the British army. Instead of it he advised to form a transport unit out of volunteers to serve in any other sector of British fronts. Zhabotinsky turned it down but Trumpeldor agreed having said: "... from a soldier's point of view... so that to liberate Palestine we have to destroy Turks. And where to beat them, from south or north is already a technical question. Each front leads to Zion".
On the 23rd of May 1915 such a unit (Zion Mule Corps), which used mules as a transport means, was formed. There were many former soldiers of the Russian army in it. A British colonel Patterson was assigned to command it, Trumpeldor became his deputy. The unit consisted of 650 people, including 5 British and 5 Jewish officers. It headed towards the Gallipoi coast on the 17th of April 1915 and landed on the 25th of April in the thick of the first battles. The unit was divided into two ones - one joined the ANZACs, another - the 29th British division. The first half was soon sent back to Egypt, the second became the only transport unit on its bridgehead. MORE