Battle of Gallipoli

The Middle Eastern theatre of World War I was the scene of action between 29 October 1914, and 30 October 1918. The combatants were the Ottoman... Empire, with some assistance from the other Central Powers, and primarily the British and the Russians among the Allies of World War I. There were five main campaigns: the Sinai and Palestine Campaign, the Mesopotamian Campaign, the Caucasus Campaign, the Persian Campaign, and the Gallipoli Campaign. There were the minor North African Campaign, the Arab Campaign, and South Arabia Campaign. Besides the regular forces both sides used asymmetrical forces in the region. Participating on the Allied side were Arabs who participated in the Arab Revolt, and Armenian militia who participated in the Armenian Resistance. The Armenian volunteer units and Armenian militia formed the Armenian Corps of the Democratic Republic of Armenia in 1918. This theatre encompassed the largest territory of all the theatres of the war. The Russian participation ended with the Armistice of Erzincan and the revolutionary Russian government eventually withdrew from the war with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk .
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The Battle of Sari Bair , also known as the August Offensive, was the final attempt made by the British in August 1915 to seize control of the... Gallipoli peninsula from the Ottoman Empire during First World War. The Battle of Gallipoli had raged on two fronts, Anzac and Helles, for three months since the invasion of 25 April 1915. With the Anzac landing a tense stalemate, the Allies had attempted to carry the offensive on the Helles battlefield at enormous cost for little gain. In August, the British command proposed a new operation to reinvigorate the campaign by capturing the Sari Bair ridge, the high ground that dominated the middle of the peninsula above the Anzac landing. The main operation started on 6 August with a fresh landing 5 miles north of Anzac at Suvla Bay in conjunction with the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps mounting an attack north into the rugged country alongside the Sari Bair range with the aim of capturing the high ground and linking with the Suvla landing. At Helles, the British and French were now to remain largely on the defensive.
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The landing at Anzac Cove was part of the amphibious invasion of the Gallipoli Peninsula by Australian and New Zealand forces on 25 April 1915. The... landing, north of Gaba Tepe on the Aegean coast of the Peninsula, was made by soldiers of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps and was the first significant combat of the war for these two countries. Another landing was made several miles to the south west at Cape Helles by British and French troops. The purpose of the invasion was to overtake the Ottoman forts that controlled the passage of the Dardanelles straits. The Anzac Cove landing went awry when those members of the leadership cadre with the knowledge of the operational plan were either killed or evacuated wounded leaving the organisation at the beachhead in chaos and so, what was planned as a swift operation became a protracted and bloody eight-month struggle. In that period the frontline of the Anzac battlefield remained little changed from the ground captured on the first day of the landing, a space less than three-quarters of a square mile in size—home to over 20,000 men.
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The landing at Cape Helles was part of the amphibious invasion of the Gallipoli peninsula by British and French forces on 25 April 1915 during the... First World War. Helles, at the foot of the peninsula, was the main landing area. With the support of the guns of the Royal Navy, a British division was to advance 6 miles along the peninsula on the first day and seize the heights of Achi Baba. From there they went on to capture the forts that guarded the straits of the Dardanelles. Another landing was made to the north at Gaba Tepe by the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps . The Helles landing was mismanaged by the British commander, Major General Aylmer Hunter-Weston. The two main beaches became bloodbaths, despite the meagre defences, while the landings at other sites were not exploited. Although the British managed to gain a foothold ashore, their plans were in disarray. For the next two months they staged a number of costly battles in attempt to reach the objectives that they had intended to take on the first day. In each battle they inched closer but they never managed to get there.
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The naval operations in the Dardanelles Campaign of the First World War were mainly carried out by the Royal Navy with substantial support from the... French and minor contributions from Russia and Australia. The Dardanelles Campaign began as a purely naval operation. When that failed to overcome Ottoman defences, an invasion of the Gallipoli peninsula was launched in which naval forces were heavily involved. Throughout the campaign, attempts were made by submarines to pass through the Dardanelles and disrupt Ottoman Empire shipping in the Sea of Marmara. At the outbreak of the First World War, the Ottoman Empire was an unaligned power. While Britain had a long history of interest in the region, Germany had been most active in cultivating a relationship with the Ottomans. At the outbreak of war, the British confiscated two battleships constructed for the Ottoman Empire which were still in British shipyards. In response, Germany made a gift of two ships, the battlecruiser SMS Goeben and the light cruiser SMS Breslau, as replacements. While still operated by their German crews, these ships, renamed Yavuz Sultan Selim and Midilli respectively, became the backbone of the Ottoman navy.
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