The Dandarnelles Disaster (15 page)

Authors: Dan Van der Vat

BOOK: The Dandarnelles Disaster

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Holbrook dived and turned to escape, only to discover that the glass of the boat's compass was fogged. He steered blind and bumped along the bottom, using the periscope fleetingly to try and locate his position. After nine hours submerged, the
B11
returned to base with only minor damage. Holbrook won the first VC of the submarine service for his unprecedented stroke, and every other crew member received a high decoration. A month later the French submarine
Saphir
tried to repeat the exploit, but ran aground and was lost.

The British war leadership in general and Churchill in particular were
casting about at the end of 1914 for a way of using their huge naval margin in secondary ships, without weakening the Grand Fleet in the North Sea, for a blow against the Central Powers and their allies, who enjoyed the advantage of internal lines of communication all the way across Europe. The traditional British tactic, whether on the individual battlefield or in a war against a continental enemy, was the flank attack, a classic example being the campaign in the Iberian peninsula against Napoleonic France.

Theoretically there were five possibilities for exploiting Britain's overwhelming maritime advantage:

â¢Â Â A move against Germany in the north by British warships and Russian troops, focused on the Baltic (but the Russians were heavily engaged elsewhere against the Germans, Austrians and Turks).

â¢Â Â A drive up the Adriatic against the Austrians and their fleet (impossible without Italian support and dangerous because of submarines).

â¢Â Â A landing at Salonica to take the pressure off isolated Serbia (out of the question without Greek participation, which was unavailable so long as Bulgaria's intentions remained unknown).

â¢Â Â A northward thrust by the BEF in Belgium, supported by naval guns, to expel the Germans from the captured ports, including Zeebrugge and Ostend.

â¢Â Â A combined operation against the Turks at the Dardanelles aimed at Constantinople (or something less ambitious against Alexandretta).

Kitchener, Sir John French, commanding the BEF, and his staff insisted that all freshly raised and trained British troops must be sent to the Western Front â even as they admitted that there was no foreseeable chance of a strategic decision there. If there were to be such a development it would have to come on the Eastern Front, where there was enormous room for manoeuvre and huge reserves of manpower â but a shortage of munitions, thanks to the closure of the Dardanelles. French favoured the Belgian coast option, Fisher and Churchill the Baltic, while France believed a knockout blow against the Germans on the Marne was still possible, given the necessary reinforcements.

We saw how the War Council finally got around to considering what to do about Turkey at its first wartime meeting on 25 November 1914, when an attack on Gallipoli and the Dardanelles was considered. The minds of Britain's war leaders were drawn back to the question at the turn of the year. On 30 December the Russian commander-in-chief, Grand Duke

Nicholas, told Sir George Buchanan, the British ambassador to Petrograd (formerly and now St Petersburg), that his armies were under pressure from the Turks in the Caucasus. He asked for help, in the form of a diversionary âdemonstration' against Turkey. Buchanan informed Grey, the Foreign Secretary, of this request on New Year's Day in a telegram that arrived on 2 January 1915. Grey forwarded it to Kitchener, who showed it to Churchill on a visit to the First Lord's office. Prior to this development, Churchill's opinion had been in favour of Fisher's idea of an intervention in the Baltic, seizing the German Frisian island of Borkum as a base for naval operations. Clearly now the Russians were in no position to mount a large invasion of north Germany.

Faced with Churchill's proposal to respond to the Grand Duke's call for help with a combined operation at the Dardanelles, including a landing at Gallipoli, Kitchener suggested a demonstration at the Dardanelles by the navy alone, deploying what was to become his mantra in the coming weeks: âWe have no troops to land anywhere.' Churchill therefore eventually decided on a purely naval operation. Kitchener sent a telegram to the Grand Duke via the Foreign Office, committing Britain to a demonstration at the Dardanelles. It was not shown to Churchill, or even to the Prime Minister apparently, as noted in a curious paragraph in the first report of the Dardanelles Commission, published early in 1917: âMr Asquith thinks that he did not see this telegram before it was sent, but it must not be by any means inferred on that account that he would not have approved of its dispatch if he had seen it'! The available evidence suggests that Kitchener had only a demonstration in mind, and not the all-out naval attempt to force the strait which Churchill was to make of it: he still had no troops to offer. Kitchener's aim was merely to deter or distract the Turks from sending more troops to the Caucasus against the Russians.

The idea was discussed by the Admiralty War Group of senior admirals on 3 January amid general pessimism, shared at this stage by Churchill himself, who was still thinking about the Baltic. The old admirals reluctantly endorsed a naval demonstration. Fisher favoured all or nothing: a full-blown Dardanelles strategy â provided the Russians and the Balkan armies (Serbs, Greeks, Bulgarians, Romanians) joined in with enough troops to overwhelm Gallipoli and march on Constantinople: âBut as the great Napoleon said, “CELERITY” â without it â “FAILURE”!' Fisher's memoranda, notes, minutes and letters were full of exclamations, capital letters and underlinings, often in green ink. Maurice Hankey, secretary to the War Council, had suggested in more measured tones a similar
campaign in a memorandum to Asquith, the Prime Minister, as recently as 28 December; Fisher used this to underpin his own plan for a combined operation. Lloyd George was also in favour, writing a paper of his own in support. Balfour and Grey too agreed.