French troops landing at Gallipoli
The Gallipoli campaign was an amphibious landing in the Dardanelles Strait in modern Turkey, that sought to knock the Ottoman Empire out of WW I. The landings were exceptionally daring for the time, but they failed to achieve their objectives. The Gallipoli campaign lasted from April 1915 to January 1918, it cost tens of thousands of lives and it was was regarded as a complete failure for the allies. Why did the allies fail to achieve their objectives? The Gallipoli campaign was hampered by poor planning, inadequate intelligence and stubborn Turkish resistance.
The British and the French were appalled by the bloody battles on the western front. They wanted a way that would allow them to attack the Central Powers and in this way to provide some relief for the hard-pressed British and French troops in Flanders and Northern France. The British suggested that the allies use their naval superiority to inflict a decisive defeat on the Ottoman Empire. The idea of seizing the Dardanelles Straits was soon mooted after the Ottoman Turks joined the war on the side of the Central Powers.[4] The British believed that their navy, by far the strongest in the world would be able to land a decisive blow against the Turks. The British navy argued that the allies land a large force of soldiers on the Straits. They would then be in a position to launch an attack on the Ottoman Capital of Constantinople. Another one of the objectives of the campaign were to secure a sea route to Russian and to protect its southern Black Sea flank. It would also allow the western allies to supply the Russian army with badly needed arms and equipment.
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