From the Dardanelles to Oran

Studies of the Royal Navy in War and Peace, 1915–1914

Arthur J. Marder

• Publisher: Seaforth Publishing
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781473849259
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

This collection of thought-provoking essays by arguably the 20th century's greatest naval historian was first published in 1974, but their continuing relevance fully justifies this reprint. It opens with a stimulating reappraisal of the naval attack on the Dardanelles, the success of which would have made the disastrous Gallipoli land campaign that followed completely unnecessary. Marder identifies a number of relatively minor issues that made a failure of what was in reality a great strategic opportunity to shorten the war. Other chapters cover what the Royal Navy did and did not learn from the Great War, and Churchill's controversial time at the Admiralty before he became Prime minister in 1940, while Marder's analysis of the inter-war Ethiopian Crisis asking whether military aggression can be countered by sanctions has powerful echoes of current political concerns. The final essay looks at one of the most contentious episodes of the Second World War, the British pre-emptive strike on the fleet of their one-time allies at Oran after the French surrender in 1940.Because Marder's view of history emphasises the human dimension over abstract forces, his work is always approachable in style and of as much interest to the layman as the professional historian. This book is no exception.

Chapter One

The Dardanelles Revisited

Further Thoughts on the Naval Prelude¹

(Chart 1)

THIS chapter is not concerned with the genesis of the Dardanelles campaign (although I consider it the one imaginative strategic idea of the war on the Allied side) or the preliminary moves. Its scope is the naval facets of the opening phase of the operation, from the initial bombardment of 19 February to 25 April, when the Army took over the principal role, with the thrust on what went wrong and why, and some second-guessing on what might have been done. The naval side of the Dardanelles is second only to Jutland in the longevity and passion of the controversy which it has aroused among naval historians. It must always be a fascinating subject, if a tragic one from the British point of view, for there are so many points and aspects on which there can never be any cast-iron verdicts.

Two fundamental errors preceded the actual commencement of the operation. The naval bombardment of the outer defences of the Dardanelles by the battle cruiser Inflexible on 3 November 1914 did scant damage, but it prompted the Turks immediately to accelerate their programme for strengthening the coast defences of the Straits by multiplying the gun defences, laying additional minefields, adding searchlights, and so forth. The second basic error was the conception that slow minesweeping trawlers could clear a passage up to and through the Narrows to enable the fleet to reach the Marmora. This will be treated in detail below. Many critics at the time and since have asserted that the gravest error of all was the conception of a purely naval enterprise, which stemmed from the badly worded War Council recommendation of 13 January 1915 (the Navy should ‘bombard and take the Gallipoli Peninsula, with Constantinople as its objective’), which was accepted by the Admiralty on 28 January. It is a fact that the Navy would have preferred to wait until troops were available and a combined assault could be mounted. ‘From Lord Fisher [First Sea Lord] downwards every naval officer in the Admiralty who is in the secret believes that the Navy cannot take [i.e. pass?] the Dardanelles without troops. The First Lord [Churchill] still professes to believe that they can do it with ships …’² But was there a need for troops? The essential purpose of this chapter is to show that the Navy might well have succeeded by itself in forcing the Straits and knocking the Turks out of the war. The first opportunity presented itself early in March, the second and more promising, in mid-April.

The Turkish defences at the Dardanelles consisted of four principal elements: the forts, the minefields (and minefield and mobile howitzer batteries), torpedoes, and floating mines. The last two were of secondary importance, though the moored mines exercised an influence on Vice-Admiral de Robeck’s decisions after 18 March. The torpedo defences of the Straits consisted of only three 18-inch tubes (two torpedoes available for each tube) housed in a shed on the pier at Kilid Bahr; only one of them could fire a torpedo across the mile width of the Narrows (the other two, barely half-way). ‘The tubes at Kilid Bahr were, however, never located by the seaplanes and reports were frequently being received that more torpedo tubes were being placed. There was, therefore, no certainty as to the strength of the torpedo defences and no apparent reason why, by the use of concrete under-water positions, numbers of hidden and completely protected torpedo positions should not have existed. Moreover, few ships had nets; these were at best an uncertain protection and a great danger to the propellers underway.’³ This uncertainty was not relieved by the fact that the Turks fired no torpedoes during the operation.

It was known that the Turks had about 35 Ramis-type floating mines (the explosive was 165 lb. of TNT). They sent 16 of them down on 1, 7, and 17 March without achieving any success. On 18 March a small steamer was standing by just above the Narrows with some 20 mines on board, but none was laid. The Navy had picked up a sample and discovered that a light surface sweep could deal with them by chopping off the float, and so sinking the mine. ‘It was considered quite possible that the Turks might wait until the Fleet was committed to a break through and then launch floating mines in large numbers…. It is difficult to estimate what would have been the effect of a hundred or so floating mines amongst the Fleet once committed to a break through.’⁴ It is, in fact, likely that they would all have been decapitated by the surface sweeps before they reached the battleships. The losses on 18 March, we shall see, were attributed to floating mines.

This left the forts and the minefields. The intention at first was to overcome the forts with naval gunfire, then sweep up the mines, and thereby open the way for the fleet to reach Constantinople. A naval bombardment on 25 February silenced the forts at each side of the entrance to the Straits. Then came the bombardment of the intermediate defences in the first days of March: the thirty-six mobile howitzers (mainly 5.9-inch) and twenty-four mortars (mostly 8.2-inch). Incapable of hitting a moving target, their function was to hit any anchored ships they could reach, thus keeping them on the move. They were not intended to protect the minefields, which task was assigned to the minefield batteries (see below). Although the bombardment of the intermediate defences was not decisive, on 5 March the fleet initiated the next phase, whose objective was the silencing of the forts at the Narrows with their fixed batteries of heavy guns. The most modern were 35-cal. hand-loaded Krupp guns of 1885: two 14-inch and six 9.4-inch on the European side, and three 14-inch and eight 9.4-inch on the Asiatic side. They took 4–5 minutes to load by hand, compared to 45 seconds for the 12-inch guns of the battleships, loaded by hydraulic machinery, and 10 seconds for their 6-inch. The ships had the further advantage that, whereas the elementary fire-control system of the forts was not designed to hit a moving target, the ships accurately allowed for the current and their movement between salvoes. In short, the improved gun-power in recent years was entirely to the advantage of the fleet in a duel with these forts.

At the same time the Fleet, which had concentrated before the war on gunnery and torpedo practices for a fleet action, worked under certain disadvantages, as it had never practised firing at shore targets (and did not do so until the 1920s). Also, although the fire of the Turkish mobile howitzer batteries from concealed positions on both sides of the Straits, abreast of the ships, was never more than an irritation, by preventing the ships from anchoring it made accurate fire more difficult. This, in turn, necessitated the expenditure of more ammunition than could be spared. In the next place, only direct hits could destroy the guns of a fort: the possibility of achieving this at 12,000 yards was estimated by the Mitchell Committee at no better than 2 to 3 per cent. This, too, pointed to the need for a plentiful supply of ammunition that was not available before April. Finally, the capital ships themselves, apart from the dreadnought Queen Elizabeth and the battle cruiser Inflexible, were old, pre-dreadnought units, not fitted with the most modern gunnery appliances, and with crews composed mainly of reservists and young ratings.

The Narrows forts could have been silenced by ships attacking from inside the Straits by direct fire.⁵ The gunlayers could see the target but required air spotting to correct the range, which was not possible from a ship, or ground position, at right angles to the line of fire. The alternative was to attack the forts by ships firing over the Gallipoli peninsula–that is, indirect fire–with a flank-spotting battleship inside the Straits, in sight of the forts, to spot for range, and an aircraft to spot for direction. (Using a battleship inside the Straits to spot for range was a refinement, but it was not necessary, as an aircraft could give both range and direction corrections.) Firing over the peninsula was the more promising way, since the weaknesses of the gun defences at the Narrows lay in their vulnerability to indirect fire over the peninsula, though only the flagship, the Queen Elizabeth, had sufficient range for this. Firing from the direction of Gaba Tepe, she could bombard the forts with accuracy, given efficient aircraft spotting and sufficient ammunition, since she could anchor outside the range of the howitzers. The guns of the forts, designed on the expectation of attack from inside the Straits, would present almost a broadside target to indirect fire over the peninsula. This was ‘about four times as favourable as the “end on” target presented when attacking from inside the Straits. The forts were further unprotected against an attack of this description from the rear.’⁶ The European forts were particularly vulnerable.

With indirect firing, as in the case of a ship off Gaba Tepe firing over the peninsula, air spotting for direction was highly desirable. The gunlayer could not see the target, and had to lay his gun on some object believed to be in the right direction, and then shift by sight-setting to right, or to left, as necessary, when he received corrections from the spotting aircraft. This elementary consideration must have been well known to any competent gunnery specialist, yet no tests or practices of battleships firing with aircraft spotting were carried out during the seventeen days between the arrival of the seaplane carrier Ark Royal at Tenedos on 17 February with six seaplanes and the time of the Queen Elizabeth firing over the peninsula on 5 March. Group-Captain Williamson stresses that the detachment of a battleship or two and a few gunnery officers to carry out essential spotting tests on a shore target, for which an unoccupied Aegean island could have been used, would not have impaired fleet efficiency or operations in any way. Such exercises were all the more necessary because the seaplanes were so few and could be used only in favourable weather. (They were generally unable to rise in any but smooth water.) The Aegean weather in March was a definite limitation, although, as it happens, four of the first five days of the month had perfect flying weather. The heavy and cumbersome floats over-taxed the low-powered engines, and we were constantly pre-occupied with keeping our machines in the air’, writes Williamson. Also, the wireless gear was somewhat unreliable. But such disadvantages were largely counterbalanced by the enemy having no aircraft and no antiaircraft guns, whereas usually the seaplanes were able to fly at sufficient height to be untroubled by rifle fire. In addition to tests it was equally important to conserve flying hours for the all-important bombardment of the Narrows forts, especially in view of the many warnings of the limitations of the seaplanes. Machines were not getting off, or were unable to reach a satisfactory altitude, or were being forced to return with engine trouble.

But, as noted, there were no spotting tests to see what the seaplanes could do for the ships, and to ensure that their spotting would be reliable by correcting any problems that might be uncovered.⁷ And instead of expending flying hours in essential work and reaching top efficiency in spotting, there were reconnaissance flights which contributed nothing to the success of the campaign. This policy culminated on 4 March, when, on the Admiral’s instructions, the Ark Royal (she had moved up to the Dardanelles entrance) had aircraft flying for seven hours of precious flying time over the demolition parties, supported by marines, which had been put ashore after the outer forts had been silenced. This resulted in most of the aircraft being temporarily out of action when most required. It was ‘an unnecessary and useless job’, Williamson claims. ‘The whole affair was a waste of time and effort’, and the result was fiasco on the crucial day.⁸

That very evening (4 March), the Ark Royal received orders that an aircraft would be required to spot for the Queen Elizabeth the next morning, when she was to fire over the peninsula at the forts defending the Narrows. Williamson regards the mismanagement of the spotting for the Queen Elizabeth on 5 March as a crucial point–that, had, say, four aircraft been prepared days before and held in constant readiness ‘for the one job on which everything depended’, anything would have been possible. The morning of the 5th was a disaster. The Ark Royal joined the Queen Elizabeth off Gaba Tepe. Lieutenant-Commander Williamson was to do the spotting, and his Captain told him to take any machine and any pilot he liked.⁹ He took the best one available; his own special machine had been hit and damaged on the ‘useless job’ on the 4th. (Contrary to Admiralty regulations, on the way out from England he had altered this machine, exchanging the positions of pilot and observer to give the latter the best possible view for spotting.) Had they not ‘wasted’ those seven hours the day before, he would have had his own good aircraft. At the appointed time on the 5th the aircraft was hoisted out. Williamson has recorded:

It was a perfect day, with just the right amount of wind for taking off from the water, and we were soon in the air. It was an exhilarating moment. There below was the Queen Elizabeth with her eight 15-inch guns ready to fire and trained on the coast. The conditions were ideal; stationary ships and stationary target, only eight miles apart, and perfect visibility. I believed that there was every prospect of destroying the Forts, and that the Fleet would be able to go through the Straits and accomplish the object of the campaign by appearing off Constantinople. Few junior officers have ever been in a position so favourable and of such importance, and I was thrilled with confident expectation. We soon reached 3,000-ft. and were ready to cross the peninsula to the target … Then it happened. In a moment the machine was out of control and we were hurtling towards the sea.

The propeller had broken up (the cause remains a mystery); the machine hit the water and practically disintegrated. Williamson and his pilot miraculously survived and were picked up by a destroyer. Another machine was sent up, but the pilot, unable to gain much altitude, was wounded by a rifle bullet and had to return. A third machine was able to signal only one spotting correction.

The negligible assistance of the seaplanes in spotting fall of shots was the immediate cause of the failure of the Queen Elizabeth’s indirect fire at 14,000 yards range, since her gunlayers, unable to see the forts, were wholly dependent on aircraft for direction spotting. Seventeen shells out of thirty-three fired landed inside the forts and did some damage, but no guns were hit. (With only seventeen shells on target nobody could expect a gun to be hit, owing to the inevitable Scatter’ for range.) The fire had, however, taken the Turks by complete surprise and had, as a Turkish captain of...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Introduction
• Preface
• Abbreviations
• Contents
• List of illustrations
• List of Charts
• Chapter I: The Dardanelles Revisited: Further Thoughts on the Naval Prelude
• Chapter II: The Influence of History on Sea Power: the Royal Navy and the Lessons of 1914–1918
• Chapter III: The Roual Navy and the Ethiopian Crisis of 1935–1936
• Chapter IV: ‘Winston is Back’: Churchill at the Admiralty, 1939–40
• Chapter V: Oran, 3 July 1940: Mistaken Judgement, Tragic Misunderstanding, or Cruel Necessity ?