100 Events of the Gallipoli Campaign
March 1915
1 March 1915
Between 1 and 17 March, British fishing trawlers, equipped as minesweepers and with largely civilian crews, failed to successfully clear the Dardanelles of mines.
4 March 1915
Royal Marines sent ashore at Sedd-el-Bahr met strong resistance and have to be taken off. The battleship HMS Majestic shelled the village and, as was reported by one British naval officer, ‘in a few minutes there was in place of a village a smoking ruin’.
6 March 1915
The Turkish navy minelayer Nusrat set a line of twenty mines in Erenkoy Bay. This row of mines was responsible for sinking three British and French ships during the naval bombardment of the Dardanelles on 18 March.
7 March 1915
On 7 and 8 March British warships bombarded Kilid Bahr and Fort Dardanos with little result.
11 March 1915
General Sir Ian Hamilton, aged 62, was appointed to command a proposed Constantinople Expeditionary Force (later changed to Mediterranean Expeditionary Force) comprising the British 29th Division, the ANZAC Corps, the Royal Marine Division and a French Corps.
13 March 1915
Field Marshal Lord Kitchener gave General Hamilton his final instructions. Hamilton was told to undertake military operations ‘only in the event of the Fleet failing to get through after every effort has been exhausted’.
While protecting minesweepers, the cruiser HMS Amethyst was damaged by Turkish shell-fire. One shell hit a washroom full of stokers — ‘A shell burst right among them, so that the walls and roofs were plastered with flesh and blood’.
15 March 1915
On learning that the Dardanelles forts were short of ammunition, the British broke off secret negotiations with Turkey aimed at a Turkish withdrawal from the war. British agents had been authorised to offer Turkey up to £4 million for such a withdrawal.
18 March 1915
Eighteen British and French battleships, guarded by other warships, attacked the Dardanelles forts. One officer wrote that ‘it looked as if no human power could withstand such an array of might and power’. The attack failed. Three battleships were sunk and three disabled with a total loss of life of more than 700 sailors. The Turkish batteries were extremely low on shells and there was much apprehension on their part that the British and French would renew their naval attack the following day. However they did not renew the attack.
26 March 1915
Between 26 February and 3 March detachments of Royal Marines were landed at Turkish forts at Kum Kale on the mainland and at Sedd-el-Bahr on Gallipoli. They put many of the Turkish guns out of action.