Importance of the War at SeaThe range and power of the warring nations’ naval fleets, along with their ambition to control the world’s waterways, were major reasons that World War I spread so quickly. Naval warfare had always been unpredictable (because of the role of weather and other factors), but new technologies made it even more so. Mines, torpedoes, and submarines introduced new threats that made even the greatest warships vulnerable. Compared to giant dreadnoughts, which took years to build and were manned by hundreds of men, submarines were cheap and generally used a crew of fewer than two dozen. Mines were cheaper still and, once laid, required no crew at all. However, both Britain and Germany were still deciding how best to use these new naval forces, and both were reluctant to commit their main fleets to heavy battles. In World War I, naval power was more often used to maintain control of trade routes than to capture new territory. As it turned out, great sea battles between large surface fleets were rare in the war; instead, the submarine came to own the seas, and Germany became the undisputed master at employing this new technology.

The war at sea has it’s roots deep in the Anglo-German naval race. Germany had been building up their naval fleet to rival Britain's much superior Royal Navy. They mostly were interested in overseas trade but things changed when the British launched the super battle ship known as the Dreadnought in 1906. it was faster, bigger and better in all ways than any of the previous battleships. All the great naval powers now had to supplement their navy with Dreadnoughts, all starting from zero. When war started in 1914, Britain was held to have won the race by people looking just at the number and size of the ships but on the other hand German ships had better armour and training was arguably better in the German ships. Ultimately, there was only one major naval battle of World War 1, Jutland. Most people expected the war at sea to be a confrontation between the new Dreadnought battle ships. In fact, submarines became a key feature of the war at sea.

Why did focus shift from Infantry (foot soldiers) to Navy (soldiers at sea)?

When fighting started at sea, a showdown was expected between the battleships that both sides had taken so much time and resources to create. But that was not the case. The key objective was to control the seas in order to stop supplies getting to the enemy. The British blockade of German ports which stopped supplies from reaching Germany was very crucial in the allies victory over Germany. In 1915, Germany tried to enforce their own blockade of Britain by using submarines to sink merchant ships. This was highly effective as well.

New weapons at Sea

The DreadnoughtIt was Admiral John Fisher, the First Sea Lord, was the driving-force behind the development of the Dreadnought that was built at Portsmouth Dockyard between October 1905 and December 1906. The Dreadnought was the most heavily-armed ship in history. She had ten 12-inch guns (305 mm), whereas the previous record was four 12-inch guns. The gun turrets were situated higher than user and so facilitated more accurate long-distance fire. In addition to her 12-inch guns, the Dreadnought also had twenty-four 3-inch guns (76 mm) and five torpedo tubes below water. In the waterline section of her hull, the Dreadnought was armoured by plates 28 cm thick. The Dreadnought was the first major warship driven solely by steam turbines.

Germany, with less Dreadnoughts, was afraid that a major naval engagement would see its whole navy destroyed. It would also mean that all the money and resources spent on building them would have been wasted. So, the German navy basically stayed in port, too scared to come out and fight, and the British were too scared to go in after them. The Dreadnought’s only notable engagement of the war was the ramming and sinking of a German U-boat near the Pentland Firth, Scot., in March 1915. The one major fleet action - Jutland in 1916 - developed when the Germans attempted to lure part of the British fleet into a trap.

The war on land quickly spread to the sea, with the first major battle on the water occurring on August 28, 1914, in a corner of the North Sea known as Helgoland Bight. The bight, a partly enclosed patch of water on the north coast of Germany, sheltered several German naval bases and offered a good position from which Germany could strike out at Britain. However, the cautious German High Seas Fleet rarely sailed far from port. The British conceived a plan to bait the Germans into the open sea, where they would be vulnerable. Under the plan, a small group of British ships would venture into the bight until spotted by German patrols and would then turn and flee out to sea, where a larger British force would be waiting. In spite of some minor mishaps, the plan succeeded. The Germans were lured into open water. After a battle that lasted nearly eight hours, Germany lost three cruisers and 1,200 men, while Britain lost only thirty-five sailors and not a single ship. This early defeat intimidated Kaiser Wilhelm II, who insisted that the German navy, of which he was very proud, be kept off the open seas and used primarily as a defensive weapon.

Battle at the Bight (Helligoland)

The recently appointed commander of the German High Seas Fleet, Reinhard Scheer, had returned to the policy of making sorties (brief trips to enemy territory) against the British coast. Confident that his codes were secure, Scheer sortied with the entire High Seas Fleet, expecting that the only serious threat he would meet was Admiral Beatty's battle cruiser team based on the Forth. Unfortunately for his plan, the Royal Navy knew he was coming (the British could read German coded messages, and were aware of Scheer's plan) and the Grand Fleet sailed only minutes after the High Seas Fleet. This battle of 1916 falls into five main phases.

The second phase saw Admiral Beatty flee north, pursued by the German Dreadnoughts. So far, both sides thought the battle was going to plan, although a design flaw led to the destruction of two British battle cruisers

The first came when Admiral Beatty, commanding the British battle cruisers encountered their weaker German equivalent under Admiral Hipper, (31 May) and chased them south towards the main German fleet.

Now, in the third phase the Germans got a nasty surprise. Thinking themselves involved in a chase that would end with the destruction of the British battle cruisers, they found themselves under bombardment from Admiral John Jellicoe's battle fleet, which they had thought to be too far north to intervene.

The British Grand Fleet under admiral John Jellicoe on her way to meet the Imperial German Navy's fleet for the Battle of Jutland in the North Sea on May 31, 1916.

Finally, in the last phase of the battle, in a night of intense fighting, the retreat of the German battleships was covered by their lighter ships, while Jellicoe lost time after turning to avoid a potential torpedo attack.The Germans lost one battle cruiser, one pre-Dreadnought, four light cruisers and five destroyers, while the British lost three battle cruisers, four armouredcruisers, and eight destroyers. However, many of the surviving German heavy ships had suffered serious damage, and one result of the battle was to increase the British dominance in heavy ships.

The end of the battle and loses incurred.

Jutland was the last, and largest, of the great battleship battles. Neither submarines or aircraft played any part in the battle, despite the plans of both sides. Never again did battle fleets meet again in such numbers. While the Royal Navy suffered more loses, the battle effectively ended any threat from the High Seas Fleet, which now knew it could not contest control of the North Sea with the Royal Navy.The great fleet which Kaiser Wilhelm II had been obsessed with, and which had done so much to sour relations between Britain and Germany had proved to be a blunted weapon.

Enter the submarine and torpedoSubmarines armed with torpedoes were a new type of weapon at the time, and while many military leaders viewed them with skepticism , they proved quite effective. Germans recognized that their warships were still far inferior to those of Britain. They therefore relied on the edge their submarines gave them over un-suspecting British Navy.During September and October 1914, German U-boats sank four British armored cruisers and warships, killing more than 2,000 sailors. British naval commanders quickly became wary of this threat and therefore kept their fleet well clear of the waters of the North Sea. Though Britain did have a submarine fleet of its own, British naval leaders generally considered submarines to be “cowardly weapons” and discouraged their use.

U-boat is the English version of the German word U-Boot a shortening of Unterseeboot, which means "undersea boat”

The U-boat CampaignThe Germans' most formidable naval weapon was the U-boat, a submarine far more sophisticated than those built by other nations at the time. The typical U-boat was 214 feet long, carried 35 men and 12 torpedoes, and could travel underwater for two hours at a time. In the first few years of World War I, the U-boats took a terrible toll on Allied shipping. In the early stages of the war, the Germans concentrated their torpedo attacks on allied warships. When the allies learned to protect their warships the Germans attacked allied merchant ships instead.

Downing of the “Britannic” LusitaniaA notable early casualty of this campaign was the British owned liner Lusitania sailing to Liverpool from New York. On May 7 1915, the Lusitania was torpedoed without warning just off the coast of Ireland. Of the 1,959 passengers, 1,198 were killed, including 128 Americans. The German government maintained that the Lusitania was carrying munitions, but the U.S. demanded reparations and an end to German attacks on unarmed passenger and merchant ships. Two years later, in 1917, the USA cited the U-boat campaign as one of its reasons for declaring war on Germany.

Unrestricted U-boat CampaignAs early as 1915, Admiral von Pohl had wanted neutral shipping in the so-called ‘war zone’ (the English Channel and the rest of the water around the United Kingdom) attacked. In February 1915 then, Admiral von Pohl's plans were realized: The seas around the British isles were declared a war zone by the German government and any ship found there on or after 18th February faced sinking without warning. Germany announced that it would start a commerce war against those nations trading with Britain. Amongst others, America sent a strongly worded note to Berlin to state in very blunt terms that Germany would be held responsible for any American ship that was sunk. After sinking of the Lusitania, fearing American entry into the war, the Germans called off the restricted u-boat warfare at the end of 1915. The plan was reprised in February 1917 in a desperate attempt to starve Britain

out of the war. Unrestricted U-boat warfare began for the first time in history. By May it was beginning to work since Britain had lost so many ships, that it was down to 6 weeks supply of wheat.

Combating the U-boats.Birth of Decoy shipsIn 1915, Britain was in desperate need for a countermeasure against the U-boat. The problem was to lure the U-boat to stay on the surface rather than seeking safety in the deep of the sea. The solution to this problem was the creation of one of the closest

guarded secrets of the war: the Q-Ship. This "U-Boot-Falle" (U-boat trap) was an old

looking tramp steamer with hidden guns and torpedoes. Because of its load of wooden caskets, wood or cork, it very nearly was unsinkable. The idea was to lure the U-boat to attack the Q-Ship with its deck gun at close range as torpedoes would not sink the vessel. In a split of a second the guns would be revealed and the U-boat would be in a deadly cross fire leading to it being sunk.

Horned mines were round metal

containers packed with explosives. They were spiked (had horns) which triggered an explosion if they came into contact with any underwater vessel. However u-boats started surfacing at night and sailing over water to avoid these underwater mines

The first depth charges were developed by the

British in World War I for use against German submarines or U-boats, beginning in late 1915. They were steel canisters, the size of an oil drum, filled with TNT explosives. They were dropped off the side of a ship, on top of where the crew estimated the enemy submarines were. The canister sank and exploded at a depth that was preset by the use of a hydrostatic valve. The charges often did not hit the submarines but the shock of the explosions still damaged the submarines by loosening the submarine enough to create leaks and forcing the submarine to surface. Then the naval ship could use its guns, or ram the submarine. Between 1915 and the end of 1917, depth charges destroyed only nine U-boats.

Convoy SystemIn response to the damage brought on Allied shipping by the German campaign of 'unrestricted submarine warfare', the Royal Navy introduced a convoy system in June 1917. As the below photograph illustrates, it worked by providing escort vessels for individual ships. These escorts not only guarded against surface gunfire attacks, but also dropped depth charges in areas where German 'U-boats' were known to operate. The convoy system resulted in a rapid decrease in German attacks on Allied shipping during the last 17 months of the war. This was most probably the most successful cause of action that yielded results out of all the measures taken to defeat the u-boats.

Britain introduced its convoy system.

Under the new arrangements, a convoy of 10 to 50 merchant ships—along with, possibly, a troopship carrying arms and soldiers—might be escorted by a cruiser, six destroyers, 11 armed trawlers and a pair of torpedo boats with aerial reconnaissance equipment that could detect the movement of underwater submarines.

Another “cowardly weapon” played a major role in the war at sea—mines. Sea mines were used to block enemy movements through tight areas, like the English Channel Some were deployed across the entrances to enemy harbors to make the harbors dangerous to use. They were used to deny easy sea movement to enemy ships, forcing the enemy to move slowly or face the chance of destruction. A major minefield - the North Sea Mine Barrage - was laid between Scotland and Norway in an attempt to block the movements of the German submarine fleet. During World War I, Germany laid more than 43,000 mines which claimed 497 merchant . The British alone lost 44 warships and 225 auxiliaries to mines. The loss of the cruiser HMS Hampshire was especially damaging, as the casualties included the British Secretary of War, Lord Kitchener.

HMS Audacious crew board lifeboats to be taken aboard RMS Olympic, October, 1914. The Audacious was a British battleship, sunk by a German naval mine off the northern coast of Donegal, Ireland.

Mining the North Sea

A minesweeper is a small naval warship equipped with mechanical or electrical devices, known as "sweeps", for disabling mines in minesweeping. Minesweepers keep waterways clear for shipping.

VOCAB

The TerrainThe Eastern Front covered a far larger area, stretching at times for over 1,000 miles, basically north-to-south and hundreds of miles east-to-west. A solid trench system similar to the Western Front never materialized because neither side had the manpower to cover such a distance in depth. This resulted in more a war of maneuver, whereby attackers might penetrate 50 or 60 miles before being stopped.

What Was Different About The Eastern Front?

The fighting on the Eastern Front was mainly between the Central Powers (the German and Austro-Hungarian Empires) and the Russian Empire. Later, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers and Romania joined Russia. There were several factors which changed the nature of fighting on the Eastern Front when compared to the Western Front:

The Russian EmpireRussia's infrastructure was poor but their army was extremely stubborn and persevering. Russian manpower reserves were sufficient to replace even the heaviest losses. Although Russia initially fielded a huge and well-trained army, her factories could not keep up with demand and, even when they finally geared up around 1916, there weren't enough roads and railroads to keep the army supplied most of the time.

The Austro-Hungarian EmpireThe Empire of Austria-Hungary was in decline. Many of her soldiers came from provinces and states that yearned for freedom and thus had little loyalty to the empire. Thus their army faced ethnic liabilities. This, combined with poor leadership, resulted in low morale.

The German EmpireThe German Army was trained to fight a war of maneuver, had strong leaders and a good infrastructure for supply. This enabled them to succeed even when outnumbered. The German army repeatedly proved able to smash the Russian defenses

The Start of WarThe Eastern half of the Great War began on August 17, 1914, when Russian General Pavel Rennenkampf's First Army invaded Eastern Prussia in a full scale offensive. Two days later, General Alexander Samsonov's Second Army attacked around the right flank of the German Eighth Army commanded by General Friedrich von Prittwitz. This was achieved despite the fact that Second Army was fighting at two-thirds strength due to the slow Russian mobilization. Prittwitz, who was certain that he could not hold against the two armies facing him, was immediately relieved of duty and replaced by Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg and his new Chief-of-Staff, Erich Ludendorf. Along with Colonel Maximilian Hoffmann, Prittwitz's deputy chief of operations at East Prussian Army Headquarters, they planned a counteroffensive against the Russians.

WW1: Russian 8-inch guns advancing to positions.

German defeat at GumbinnenRussia's invasion into German territory was two-branched. General Samsonov had begun to take his Second Army into the south-western corner of East Prussia whilst General Rennenkampfadvanced into its north-east with the First Army. The two armies planned to combine in assaulting General Prittwitz's German Eighth Army, Rennenkampf in a frontal attack while Samsonov engulfed Prittwitz from the rear. Prittwitz, shaken by the defeat at Gumbinnen and fearful of encirclement, ordered a retreat.

Enter Hindenbergand Ludendorf.Upon his arrival in East Prussia on 23 August Hindenburg immediately reversed Prittwitz'sdecision to withdraw, choosing instead to authorise a plan of action prepared. Hoffmann proposed a ploy whereby cavalry troops would be employed as a screen at Vistula, the intention being to confuse Rennenkampfwho had chosen to pause at Gumbinnen. Samsonov was similarly unaware of Hoffmann's plan or of its execution .At last, on 28 August, Samsonov finally became aware of the peril he faced.

Capture of Samsonov’sarmyIt was too late for Samsonov's forces, as they scattered - many throwing down their weapons and running -directly into the encircling German forces.95,000 Russians troops were captured in the action; an estimated 30,000 were killed or wounded, and of his original 150,000 total, only around 10,000 of Samsonov's men escaped. The Germans suffered fewer than 20,000 casualties and, in addition to prisoners captured over 500 guns.Samsonov, lost in the surrounding forests with his aides, shot himself, unable to face reporting the scale of the disaster to the Tsar, Nicholas II. His body was subsequently found by German search parties and accorded a military burial.

WW1: Captured Russian soldiers at the Tilsit train. Sixty trains were required to transport captured equipment to Germany.

Tannenberg: was typical of Eastern Front warfare in many important respects:

1. First it demonstrated that the German army enjoyed a marked superiority over the Russian. The Germans were more mobile, better disciplined. They had much more efficient Staff work and planning and their weaponry was superior.

2. The campaigns in the east were often campaigns of maneuver The front was not frozen into the kind of siege war f are on a gigantic scale that characterized the Western front.

3. On the Eastern front, decisive tactical victories were possible: One hallmark of a truly decisive victory is always the capture of large numbers of prisoners—at Tannenberg for example, The Germans captured or destroyed Samsonov’s entire army; These kinds of decisive tactical results were impossible to achieve in the West.

Meanwhile, still in 1914…..In the south of Poland, Austrian Chief-of-Staff Conrad von Hoetzendorf launched his own attack northward toward Warsaw. Russia had much more success against Austria-Hungary, driving the Austrians back across the Carpathian Mountains and occupying the Austro-Hungarian province of Galacia.

In 1915…..At the beginning of 1915, the Austrians were unable to do much

against the Russians in Galacia. So Germany took over command of the entire Eastern Front and shifted troops to bolster their southern neighbors. The German and Austrian troops launched a major offensive in May and drove the Russians back more than 200 miles from the Carpathian Mountains in two weeks-- an unimaginable feat on the Western Front. The Russians had to make a strategic withdrawal, partly due to the deficiencies of supplies and ammunition, before they managed to make a stand, now back in their own territory. The Central Powers had captured Russian Poland, Lithuania and most of Latvia and parts of Russian Ukraine.

1916By 1916, Russians were better supplied. While Germany was occupied in the west by their massive offensive against the French at Verdun and then fighting fo against the British Somme offensive, Russia attacked the Austro-Hungarians and, once again drove them out of Galacia. The Habsburg army, too, was distracted from the conflict with Russia by war with Italy in the south. Russian forces under General Aleksei Brusilov launched a new attack on the southern part of the Eastern Front in June. Thanks to a combination of tactical innovation and Austro-Hungarian incompetence, the surprise 'Brusilov offensive' was the most successful Russian operation of the entire war. In addition, Romania entered the war on the side of the Allies, extending the Eastern Front hundreds of miles south. Germany, Austria-Hungary along with Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire counterattacked against Romania, which collapsed and the Central Powers gained control of her vast coal and wheat fields. Late 1916 also saw mutinies and revolts in several countries as soldiers became disillusioned with the war and the unimaginable loss of life. Russia, especially, edged closer to revolution.

The Big Bad Russian WolvesIn the winter of 1916-1917, the Eastern Front stretched for more than a thousand miles from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Black Sea in the south. During that winter, half-starved Russian wolves converged on both the German and Russian lines in the northern part of the front in the Vilnius-Minsk region. As their desperation increased beyond their fear of humans, the wolves started attacking individuals but were soon attacking groups of soldiers so viciously and often that something had to be done. The soldiers tried poisoning them, shooting them with their rifles and machine guns and even using grenades against them, but the large and powerful Russian wolves were so hungry, fresh wolf packs simply replaced those that were killed.The situation grew so severe that the Russian and German soldiers convinced their commanders to allow temporary truce negotiations to enable them to deal with the animals more effectively. Once the terms were worked out, the fighting stopped and the two sides discussed how to resolve the situation. Finally, a coordinated effort was made and gradually the packs were rounded up. Hundreds of wolves were killed during the process while the rest scattered, leaving the area once and for all to the humans. The problem was solved, the truce was called off and the soldiers got back to killing each other properly.

19171917 was the year of the Russian collapse. Her armies mutinied, the Tsar abdicated and a provisional government tried to hold things together. A final Russian offensive was tried, but the soldiers wouldn't stand for it and open civil war swept Russia as the Germans continued to advance. In November, the Communist Bolsheviks took control and began negotiations with the Germans and fighting stopped in December.

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March 8, 1917 Riots in Petrograd develop into

the beginning of the February Revolution. The people were not pleased with how the government handled

the scarcity of food and fuel. They wanted ‘out'

of the war.

March 15 Tsar Nicholas II abdicates leaving his throne to a temporary

government. This government supported Russia's continued

participation in World War I, but they still could not solve the

situation with the food shortages that were affecting the country

April 16 Lenin arrives in Petrograd on a train provided

by Germany. Germany had quickly recognized an opportunity and made

arrangements to help Russian revolutionaries in Europe such as Vladimir Lenin, to get back to Russia in order to fuel the

ensuing chaos there.

On July 1, Russian forces opened several new offensives along the eastern front—an

action that Russian minister of war

Alexander Kerenskyordered as part of an effort to boost morale

in the army. On the same day, however, a

huge antiwar rally clogged the streets of

Petrograd.

November 6–7 Bolshevik (October)

Revolution . The Bolsheviks seized total control of the country with the help of the

military.

November 8 Lenin declares peace, though

sporadic fighting continues .

November 26 Bolsheviks call for

end to hostilities on all fronts .

December 15 Russian cease-fire declared .

1918On March 3, 1918, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was concluded, officially ending the war on the Eastern Front. As far as concessions to Germany, its terms didn't survive the year, but it did affirm the independence of Finland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Ukraine. Poland was not included, which caused riots and animosity of Poles to the Central Powers. (That treaty was annulled by the Armistice of November 11, and the new government in Moscow eventually re-established its presence in all of the previously held lands). This freed up substantial German soldiers to transfer to the Western Front to support the massive German Spring Offensive, but still tied up a million Germans till the end of the war. The Spring Offensive made spectacular gains in France but the arrival of American soldiers eventually offset any German advantage in numbers.

What was it all about? The Gallipoli Campaign of 1915-16, also known as the Battle of Gallipoli or the Dardanelles Campaign, was an unsuccessful attempt by the Allied Powers to control the sea route from Europe to Russia during World War 1. The Gallipoli peninsula is located in the south of Turkey. In 1915, the allied commanders decided to try to attack Germany by attacking her ally, Turkey. Allied soldiers, mainly from Australia and New Zealand, were sent to the Peninsula while British ships tried to force a way through the Dardanelles.

Peninsula from paene "almost" and insula "island” is a piece of land that is bordered by water on three sides. (almost an island)

What did the British hope to achieve?

On November 25th 1914, Winston Churchill suggested his plan for a new war front in the Dardanelles to the British government’s War Council. On January 15th 1915, the War Council gave its agreement and British troops in Egypt were put on alert….It’s aims were;1. To create a new war front . Creating another front would force

the Germans to split their army still further as they would need to support Turkey. That would leave their lines weakened in the west or east and there the Allies would have a weakened army to fight against.

2. The British hoped to link up with the Russians in order to relieve the pressure on the eastern front.

3. To capture Constantinople, the capital of Turkey and therefore knock out Turkey out of the war(Churchill considered Turkey the sick man of Europe and the weakest of those who fought against the Allies) and possibly persuade the neutral Balkan states to join the Allies.

The naval attack began on 18th March. Admiral Carden – head of the British fleet opened up the attack on Turkish positions in the Dardanelles. Bad weather caused delays and the attack was abandoned after three battleships had been sunk and three others damaged since the Turks had heavily mined the water. They had to retreat.

British and ANZAC troops were put on standby in Egypt. Lieutenant-General Birdwood, commanded the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) based in Egypt. Military assistance was required, but by the time troops began to land on 25 April, the Turks had had ample time to prepare adequate fortifications and the defending armies were now six times larger than when the campaign began.

In the wake of the failed naval attack, preparations began for large-scale troop landings on the Gallipoli Peninsula nick-named “The Gallipoli Landings”. On April 25, 1915, the Allies launched their invasion of the Gallipoli Peninsula. Despite suffering heavy casualties, they managed to establish two beachheads: at Helles on the peninsula’s southern tip, and at Gaba Tepe on the Aegean coast. (The Gaba Tepe was later dubbed Anzac Cove, in honor of the Australian and New Zealand troops who fought so valiantly against determined Turkish defenders to establish the beachhead there.)

View of the beach at Gaba Tepe where the allied troops landed in the Gallipoli Campaign

Bogged down in trenches again….

Poor OrganisationThe British did not practice and used out-dated maps. Their minesweepers also failed to remove Turkish mines. Splitting the army and navy operations was also a recipe for failure.

Lack of surprise The Turks knew well in advanced of the planned landings after the events at the Dardanelles. They therefore prepared and strengthened their defenses while the British spent weeks organisingthe landings.

Lack of support The Gallipoli campaign got little support from the armed forces. Sir john French actual refused to withdraw troops from the Western front. Kitchener believed the war would be warn on the Western front and not on the East.

Over-ambitiousThe plan had little chance of success from the beginning. It was highly unlikely that the aims of the campaign would be achieved i.e. capture of Constantinople and creation of a new war front.

Why was the Gallipoli campaign such a huge failure?