The
Naval Attack
18th of March De
Roberc gave orders for a Naval Attack for the Allies Fleet on Dardanelles.
Same morning 18 battleships, accompanied by the smaller ships, entered the
Dardanelles in sumptuous way.
11:30 am
Battleships at the
first line such as Agamemnon, Queen Elisabeth, Lord Nelson and Inflexible
started firing at Turkish fortresses at the Narrows. This fire was heavy
supported by the accompanying ships Triumph and Prince George.
12;00 pm
Slightly after
12:00 pm French Battleships which were at the rear line suddenly passed in
front of British battleships and started firing to the fortresses at the
narrows.
12:30 pm
French battleship
Gouluas was hit and pulled to the shore at the entry of Dardanelles. British
battleship Inflexible was also hit and pulled back for repair work. In despite
of all its damage, Inflexible returned to fire line at 2:30 pm.
After this first
attack when many battleships got damaged, commander Robeck noticed that the defenses
at Dardanelles got weaker and he gave orders for the return of the
battleships to the Narrows. His plans was to send the mine sweeping ships to
clean the strait totally from the mines.
After these heavy bombardments, the conditions of the Turkish fortresses at the Narrows were
bad. Communication system was totally cut and nearly all cannons were hit and
destroyed.
While the
battleships were making their turns unexpected event changed the course of the
naval attack. One of the French battleships, Bouvet, sank in less then few
minutes after a great explosion and left 600 dead sailors behind. Although the
case of this disaster is never fully understood, Allies accepted that Bouvet's
ammunition depots was hit by a Turkish Cannon shell. On the other hand, the
Turks believed that Bouvet hit one of the 26 mines, laid by the Turkish mine
ship, just a day before the Naval Attack on Dardanelles.
Bouvet's sinking
changed the course of the attack. Starting from that point everything went
wrong for Allied forces whose mine sweeping ships, exposed to very heavy
cannon fire had to retreat 4:10 pm.
In the proximity
of Bouvet's sinking point, another British battleship, the Inflexible hit a
mine and seriously injured.
4:13 pm
British battleship
Irresistible put on a flag alarming that it had been torpedoed. this event
horrified the Allies because they thought that the mines at Erenkoy Bay had
been totally cleaned of mines.
The battleship Inflexible
was pulled out of Dardanelles and taken to nearby island of
Tenedos. The conditions of Sufren and Irresistible were also critical.
Sudden explosion
of battleship Ocean also followed these disasters. The Ocean started making
circles in the Ocean and its circular movements continued for hours. After
taking measurements for the safety of its sailors, Commander Keyes returned to
the region and made these ships sink. The casualty for the Turks were 40 dead,
70 wounded. Their eight cannons were destroyed and no ammunition was left. The
casualty on the Allies side was high. 700 soldiers lost their lives, 3
battleships sank and three were totally out of order. Although the reason for
this great defeat was argued for a long time, Allies never understood how the
1/3 of their fleet was lost during this Naval Attack. But soon, everyone would
learn the cause of this failure was the mines laid by Nusret Mayin Ship just a
day before the naval attack. The Naval attack which started in the morning in sumptuous
way ended in a tragic way for the Allies.
