HMS Abercrombie (1914)
This picture shows the stark, uncluttered layout of
the 14 inch monitors. Note the side bulges and the high gunnery control tower
at the top of the tripod mast. Her 14 inch main armament was manufactured by
Bethlehem Steel for battle cruisers to be delivered to Greece, which became redundant
when war broke out. Abercrombie had quite an active war in the Mediterranean,
covering the Gallipoli operations and various Allied operations in the Aegean.
On one occasion she managed to fire her anti-aircraft gun into a store on
petrol on deck, causing a sever fire. Luckily the damage was minor.
HMS Humber
This picture shows Humber in her original configuration.
Later she had a second turret with a single 6 inch gun mounted on the after
deck, and the 4,5 inch howitzers were moved onto the upper deck. It is easy to
see that her designers intended her for riverine use only. Any sort of sea
would swamp the lower decks, and her lack of draft would cause her to skid
sideways in a crosswind. However her low profile made her a difficult target
and she and her sisters all survived the war with no serious damage.
While the first two monitors were active on the coast of
Africa events of far greater importance were taking place in the Dardanelles.
It was to prove one of the most disastrous actions ever undertaken by British
arms. After Troubridge had been sent home in disgrace for letting Goeben escape,
Admiral, Sir Sackville Carden, was placed in command of the force which was to
find her, if she dared to emerge from her Turkish lair, and sink her and her
consort. His task was not an easy one.
The Narrows, the passage leading from the Aegean to the Sea
of Marmora was protected by powerful forts on Cape Helles and Kum Kale and by
further batteries of heavy guns at Kephez and Chanak points. Even more
dangerous than these was a dense minefield consisting of almost 400 moored
mines in the channel which was less than 1 mile wide.
The Straits are dominated by hilly, broken country and are
only about 5 miles wide at their widest point. Ships in the Straits are liable
to shelling from the forts at the entrance and from others established at
strategic points along the shoreline. The forts themselves were venerable
structures, but around them had been built, with German advice and help, modern
well-designed earthworks concealing heavy guns which could survive anything
short of a direct hit on the gun itself. In the hillsides looking down on the
Straits were concealed mobile batteries of field guns and howitzers. These were
not big enough to damage heavily armoured ships much, but they could be fatal
to unarmoured vessels such as trawlers or destroyers. There were also powerful
mobile searchlights to spot for the guns at night. Through the Straits runs a
current of anything from 2 to 4 knots, constantly running out into the
Mediterranean. This current runs strongly in the centre, but is weak or
nonexistent near the shores, especially the southern (Asiatic) shore. There
could scarcely be a more suitable stretch of water for defensive mining.
The Narrows of the Dardanelles had been mined before the
war, in mid-1914, but merchant ships were allowed to pass through a clear
channel, accompanied by a Turkish pilot. In September of that year however a
British patrol intercepted a Turkish destroyer just outside the Narrows and
found German sailors on board. The resulting diplomatic incident caused the
Turks to close the gap in the minefields and declare the Narrows closed,
cutting Russia off from the Mediterranean. On 31 October Turkey joined the war
on the German side. Immediately the minefields were reinforced, and the shore
based heavy artillery and mobile field guns were increased in number. Their
crews were rapidly stiffened by newly arrived German artillery specialists.
More powerful searchlights were sent to cover the minefields and keep away
sweepers. The old battleship Messudieh was sent into the Narrows to provide extra
protection and fire power. Carden made two attempts to destroy forts guarding
the entrance, doing considerable damage, but failing to silence them
completely. The protective earthworks, reinforced with German help, ensured
that although the guns might be dismounted and the gunners evacuated during a
daylight bombardment, it was a relatively simple matter to restore them during
the hours of darkness. Only a direct hit on the gun itself would effectively
destroy it. The only notable Allied success was the sinking of Messudieh by the
submarine B-11, which managed to dive below the mines and stem the current in
the Narrows, although her underwater speed was only 4 knots.
By the end of January 1915 the War Cabinet had determined to
adopt a more aggressive policy with the hope of forcing Turkey out of the war
altogether. A fleet of ten British and four French old pre-dreadnought
battleships would force the Narrows and steam towards Constantinople, protected
by minesweepers and destroyers. The entrance forts would be silenced by their
guns, supported by the great 15 inch main armament of Queen Elizabeth, the
navy’s most modern and formidable battleship, which had been sent out by the
Admiralty to provide support. She was not allowed to penetrate the Straits themselves
– that would be too risky – but she could bombard from far off. Unfortunately
accurate long-range indirect gunfire was impossible without good spotting from
the air, and this, for various reasons, was not available. Carden had proposed
this scheme and it was endorsed by the War Cabinet in the face of opposition
from Fisher, the First Sea Lord who correctly foresaw the danger from mines and
the problems associated with attacking coastal artillery from the sea.
The attacks on the forts commenced on 19 February, and by
25th most of the guns in the outer forts had been destroyed by the ship’s
bombardment and by Royal Marine landing parties. The fleets were now able to
move into the mouth of the Straits and silence the inner forts guarding the
entrance to the Narrows. This was less successful, once again the Turkish
gunners took cover when they were being hit by naval gunfire, only to emerge as
soon as it ceased, furthermore, as the ships entered the restricted waters,
they came within range of the mobile field guns. These could not do severe
damage to heavy ships but they did make matters extremely difficult for the
intruders, and forced the unarmoured destroyers to keep moving so as to avoid
being hit. Firing on the inner forts at long range did little damage to them
and it was clear that the warships would have to get closer for their assault
to be effective.
The first section of the Strait was clear of mines, but to
move further in and tackle the second pair of forts at the entrance to the
Narrows themselves at close range, the minefields would have to be swept. To do
this, North Sea trawlers had been provided, and these were given light armour
to protect them from small arms fire. They were manned by their regular RNMR
(Royal Naval Minesweeping Reserve) crews. It had originally been intended to
supplement these with “mine bumpers” – cargo ships with reinforced hulls filled
with concrete which would clear a path for each capital ship by steaming
through the field blowing up mines as they went. These were not eventually
provided. (Strangely the British did not make much use of reinforced mine
bumpers to protect capital ships in either world war. The Germans used them,
calling them Speerbrechers, extensively in both). The trawlers had to battle
against the strong currents in the Straits, so that their speed over the land
was only 2 or 3 knots making them easy targets for guns on shore. To give them
some protection from shore batteries, the sweepers were detailed to work at
night and were supported by destroyers and a light cruiser. On 1 March they set
off on their first mission. Before they reached the minefield they were
detected from the shore, and illuminated by brilliant searchlights, making them
an excellent target for the shore based field guns. No trawlers were hit, but
the fisherman crews hastily withdrew. They had not been trained for work under
fire and were badly shaken by the experience. Who can blame them? Their little
ships were almost stationary in the strong current, and a single hit from the 4
inch or 6 inch field guns would have proved fatal. Three more attempts were
made, but with no result. A different tactic was then port to try to silence
the tried. This time the trawlers steamed up stream as fast as they could go,
with their sweeping gear stowed, then turned and swept down with the current. A
handful of mines were recovered, but some of the crews were so scared,
especially when they had to turn round and deploy their sweeps under fire, that
they did not attempt to sweep at all. After two weeks of failure the regular
navy was becoming disillusioned with the fishermen-sweepers. One trawler had
been sunk and several damaged, but no one had been killed and there were open
accusations of cowardice levelled at the RNMR. On 13 March one final attempt
was made with the sweeper crews stiffened with Royal Navy volunteers and
supported again by fire from a battleship. This was even more disastrous. The
supporting cruiser Amethyst was badly hit, suffering twenty-four men killed,
and several trawlers were severely damaged, also suffering casualties. A few
mines were swept, and some more were found floating free in the Straits.
Possibly these had been deliberately floated down by the Turks. They were
easily dealt with and in future operations small picket boats operated
alongside major ships to deal with any more “floaters”. This was a pretty high
risk operation for the picket boat’s crews, exposed as they were to the fire of
field guns on shore. Some of them were actually fitted with explosive sweeping
wires and seem to have accounted for several mines.
By this point Carden was coming under severe pressure from
Churchill who urged him to make progress regardless of casualties. After all,
he argued, thousands were dying on the western front and the Dardanelles operation
could relieve pressure on the hard-pressed troops in France. It was well worth
hundreds of casualties among the minesweepers to force the passage and achieve
their objective. The minesweeper crews, not unnaturally, did not agree.
The unfortunate Carden fell sick and was replaced by Admiral
de Robeck, who had been his second in command. He resolved to continue the
attack but to use a new tactic, devised by Carden, of making a daylight attack
on the shore batteries and to sweep the minefields as he went. He intended to
use his full force now consisting of thirteen British and four French
battleships, and one dreadnought battle cruiser. The battleships were all
pre-dreadnoughts except for the super dreadnought Queen Elizabeth, still
attempting to make her indirect fire from outside the Narrows effective. A
heavy bombardment at long range would attempt to silence the shore batteries
and suppress the guns in the forts, then a second wave of battleships would
steam close to the forts and complete their destruction, covering the passage
of trawlers into the minefields. The warships could then follow the sweepers
and force their way right through the Narrows. Some of the attendant destroyers
were adapted to carry light sweeping gear.
The action took place on 18 March. At first things went as
planned, the armada steamed into the straight and advanced towards the forts on
Kephez Point, Turkish shore batteries replied vigorously, but the only ship
badly damaged was the French Gaulois, which had to be beached. Gradually the
warships got the better of the shore guns, and things were going according to
plan when the advancing second line of battleships, steaming close to the forts
to blast them at close range, suffered a series of appalling disasters. Bouvet
(French) and Irresistible (British) were sunk by mines where there should have
been none, and the battle cruiser Inflexible was severely damaged by gunfire.
Shortly afterwards the battleship Ocean was disabled by gunfire and a mine
strike and had to be abandoned. Once again, to the disgust of the naval
officers present, the trawlers fled from the scene under heavy bombardment. Two
of them had tried to deploy their sweeps and steam upstream. They dealt with
three moored mines, but fire from the shore was too much for them and they
abandoned their attempt in spite of orders and encouragement shouted from the
picket boats and destroyers. It was impossible now for the battleships to
proceed into the Narrows and de Robeck had no alternative to withdrawing his
battered force. What had happened was that a Turkish mine expert, Lieutenant
Colonel Geehl, had anticipated a close range attack on the inner forts and had
taken a small fast steamer Nousret down the Narrows and laid a small field of
twenty mines in exactly the right position. Hence an insignificant little
civilian craft had brought about the sinking of three major warships and the
disablement of a dreadnought battle cruiser. From that day on de Robeck was
determined that no further attempt could be made to force a passage into the
Sea of Marmora, until at least the European shore was held by the Allies. The
Admiralty supported him and the scene was set for the even greater disaster of
the landings on the Gallipoli Peninsula.
This sorry performance made the navy keener than ever on the
idea of the monitors. If big gun monitors, such as the 14 inch, 12 inch and 15
inch vessels then being built, had been available to get close to the coastal
guns, things might have gone differently, or so it was argued in Whitehall. The
monitor’s big guns could have been brought to bear on the forts from close
range, as they could operate in shallow water, close under the enemy guns, and
their mine defences and shallow draft would have at least reduced the
possibility of their sharing Ocean’s fate. Monitors must be got to the Aegean
as quickly as possible.
Humber, it will be recalled, had remained at Malta while her
sisters were making their way down the African coast. A small ship with only
three 6 inch guns and two howitzers she seems to have been overlooked, in any
case her mission had been to act as a river craft when the march up the Danube
began. Then the great events taking place at Gallipoli brought a sudden change.
General, Sir Ian Hamilton, who had arrived just in time to
witness the events of the 18 March, and was to command military operations on
land, had agreed with de Robeck that the army would have to occupy the northern
shore and destroy the enemy forts once and for all before any further naval
assault on the Narrows could be contemplated. Churchill, as First Lord of the
Admiralty objected strongly to this scheme and ordered de Robeck to resume his
naval offensive but the order was countermanded at the insistence of Fisher.
75,000 troops had been earmarked for landing at Gallipoli, consisting of
Australians and New Zealanders then training in Egypt, the British 29th
Division and a French North African Division. Hamilton had been assured that
his task would be easy. The whole peninsular would be swept by naval gunfire,
the Turks would put up only a token resistance as the bulk of their troops
would be busy elsewhere and the affair would be over in a few weeks. It appears
that no one had taken the trouble to find out that the ground on which the army
would be fighting was rugged and desolate, rising in places to 1,000 feet in
height and ideal for defensive warfare. The Turkish army was indeed ill
equipped and poorly trained, but it was stiffened by highly professional German
officers and supplied with some excellent German weapons, especially machine
guns and artillery. In command was the redoubtable General Otto von Sanders.
The Allied army took some time to organise itself, giving
von Sanders the opportunity to make an excellent job of fortifying the
peninsular. The landings took place on 25 April, gradually and with terrible
losses, the troops battled their way inland constantly supported by the guns of
the fleet. It soon became clear, however, that naval support, critical as it
was to the campaign, could not be maintained. For the first month all went well
for the fleet, although their bombardment of the enemy positions ashore was not
nearly as effective as everyone had hoped, due to the rugged terrain and the
excellent defences built by the Turks. Commodore Roger Keyes, Chief of Staff to
de Robeck, who was the strongest advocate of a further attempt to force the
Narrows by the now much increased Allied fleet, confessed to being ashamed of
the relative inactivity of the navy while so many soldiers were dying ashore.
Then, on the 12 May the battleship Goliath, lying just 100 yards off-shore and
waiting to be allocated a new target, noticed an unfamiliar looking destroyer
approaching her during the night. The officer of the watch challenged the
stranger, but he was too late. The ship was the Turkish destroyer Muavenet, her
German captain had skilfully brought her down the Narrows, close inshore on the
European side and she let loose three torpedoes at close range. Goliath rolled
over and turned turtle, rapidly sinking. There was a strong current running at
an estimated 4-5 knots so men attempting to swim ashore were all carried away
and drowned. Out of 750 men on board only 180 were saved by boats from nearby
ships. This disaster set off an almighty row in the Admiralty. Fisher, who had
always disliked the whole idea of the Dardanelles campaign, was in a fever of
worry about the possibility of Queen Elizabeth, the super dreadnought,
suffering the same fate. Churchill pacified him by agreeing to withdraw Queen
Elizabeth and replace her as soon as possible with 14 inch monitors. This was
set in hand, but as soon as the War Office heard of it Lord Kitchener objected
violently. “If she goes,” he said, “we may have to consider . . . whether the
troops had better be pulled back to Alexandria”. The navy, it seemed to him,
was deserting the army in its hour of need. Fisher was adamant and stated that
if Queen Elizabeth did not sail that very night he himself would walk out of
the Admiralty. Tempers were temporarily cooled by the promise of sending still
more monitors and bringing home some more battleships, but this had the effect
of annoying Fisher again as he had hoped to use the monitors for his scheme for
a landing on Germany’s Baltic coast. He resigned in a fury and played no
further part in the war.
The navy’s problems were only just beginning however, on 17
May U.21 had been sighted passing through the Straits of Gibraltar. Admiral de
Robeck was informed but seems to have taken no new precautions. On 25th the old
battleship Triumph was standing off Anzac Beach in full view of both armies.
She suddenly rolled over and sank, a victim of the first of U.21’s torpedoes.
The Turks in their trenches shouted and danced for joy as she went down,
mercifully with the loss of only fifty-six men. The following day Majestic,
another ancient battleship, was preparing to fire on the Turkish trenches when
a seaman said to an officer “Look Sir, there is a submarine’s conning tower.”
“Yes” he replied, “and here comes the torpedo.” The old battleship rolled over and
lay in the shallow water, her hull just awash. The Allies had clearly lost
control of the waters close to the peninsula. The following day a German
officer, looking down from the heights, was astonished to see the water which
had once been alive with British warships almost deserted. The fleet had
retired to safe anchorages around Murdros Island leaving the hard-pressed
troops ashore almost without heavy gun support. It was whispered in the
trenches that the navy had run away.
Then someone remembered Humber. She was at Malta, she was
expendable, there didn’t seem to be much prospect of sending her up the Danube
and if she could replace the heavy warships withdrawn she would at least be
better than nothing. At the same time some cruisers, hastily fitted with
anti-torpedo bulges, were pressed into the bombardment squadron and sent to
cruise off the peninsula. On 4 June Humber started to bombard an especially
troublesome nest of Turkish artillery hidden among the olive trees in a ravine
called Axmah. Her intervention was most welcome to the beleaguered troops on
shore and she was able to provide effective bombardment with her 6 inch guns
and also use the two 4.5 inch howitzers for high trajectory fire into ravines
and trenches. There was a problem the following day when a premature detonation
damaged one of her forward guns, but she remained in action until December,
becoming a bit of a favourite with the Anzac troops, who were short of
artillery of their own, and were constantly pestered by Turkish guns hidden in
olive groves which enfiladed the beaches over which all their reinforcements
and supplies had to travel. Working very close to the shore she was often fired
on by enemy field guns, but never seriously damaged. After the loss of the
three battleships, the bombardment squadrons of monitors and cruisers were
careful to deploy their torpedo nets and were not troubled by enemy submarines
or destroyers. They put up an impressive performance.
The bitter rows in London about the deployment of Queen
Elizabeth, and the possibility of attacks on the German coast had resulted in
the dispatch of the first of the specially built 14 inch monitors, the four
“Generals” with the American built 14 inch guns, to join the makeshift fleet
supporting the Dardanelles operation. Their departure was delayed by the need
to replace the wrongly designed propellers and correct other faults found on
trials. They were so slow and underpowered that they had to be towed for most
of the 3,000 mile voyage. Abercrombie, towed by the old cruiser Thesus set off
on 24 June, Havelock, Raglan and Roberts leaving a few days later also under
tow. They arrived at Murdros in late July, and the sight of their massive
turrets must have put new heart into troops on shore.
As soon as she arrived Abercrombie targeted ammunition dumps
on shore at Eren Keui on the Asiatic shore, the Turks replied and she was hit
by a heavy shell which luckily did not explode. Her own fire seems to have been
ineffective, possibly because of lack of proper spotting from aircraft. It had
always been intended that large monitors should carry their own spotter planes,
but these were found to be a nuisance because they were a fire hazard, and
because they had to be removed every time the guns were fired as the shock
damaged them. Roberts joined Abercrombie in mid-July and she was tasked to
destroy heavy gun batteries on the Asiatic shore, near Kum Kale, which were
able to fire on the flank of the troops trying to force their way forward up
the Cape Helles peninsula. To do this she anchored off Rabbit Island. This was
to be a favourite berth for monitors for many months, it was over 10 miles from
their target, well within range of the 14 inch guns but hidden behind the
island and far enough away from the enemy to be almost immune from counter
fire. The monitor’s own fire was indirect, they could not see their targets,
but aiming marks on the island enabled the guns to be correctly aligned. The
Turkish batteries were never totally destroyed, but their fire was much
reduced. Occasionally aircraft attempted to bomb the monitors but they did
little damage.
On 6 and 7 August the Allies landed reinforcements at Sulva
Bay, this action was supported by the final two 14 inch monitors, Havelock and
Raglan and by some of the small monitors which had now arrived on the scene
straight from their builders. Once again the main targets were mobile Turkish
batteries and troop concentrations. Naval support was critical to the success
of the landing, although on one occasion a naval gun, firing prematurely,
landed a shell among British troops causing four casualties. Havelock moved
into Sulva Bay itself, giving direct close fire support to troops, but it soon
became clear that ammunition expenditure was becoming excessive and had to be
curtailed. It seems that the process of spotting and communication between the
ships and observers on land and in the air during these operations left
something to be desired. The lessons being learnt at almost the same time by
Severn and Mersey about developing very close relations between the airmen and
the gun crews, working out easily understood codes and keeping the spotter’s
job as simple as possible, were not so easy to apply in the complicated
situation of the Gallipoli campaign. Frequently the monitors operated very close
to the shore in support of ground forces, and were in range of Turkish guns.
Most of these were 75mm (approximately 12lb.) which could do little damage to
the ships. Splinters could of course kill crewmen in the open, but only on rare
occasions was anyone needed on deck during firing operations. There were some
bigger guns as well, but Turkish shooting was not the best and no serious
damage was done. Occasionally very long range bombardment was called for, and
for this the ships would be heeled over by flooding the anti-torpedo bulges so
as to give extra elevation. This put extra strain on the guns and turrets
reducing the life of the gun barrels, so the technique had to be used
sparingly.
As 1915 progressed stalemate developed on the peninsula. The
Sulva landings had broadened the Allied front but had been contained by the
Turks, who held firm on the high ground. Also the 14 inch monitors were
starting to show some weaknesses, especially in their steering engines and, in
some cases, in their much abused gun barrels. A repair ship, Reliance, was at
Murdros and worked hard to keep them in action. It was obvious that the
monitors would never be able to force a passage up the Narrows as they could
barely stem the current. In the autumn, as more of the small monitors appeared
on the scene, a re-organisation of naval forces was undertaken and four
bombardment divisions were formed comprising:
The four 14 inch monitors.
Ten 9.2 inch small monitors M15-M23 + M28.
Five 6 inch monitors M29-M33 + Humber.
Four bulged cruisers.
Gradually, with experience, the fire of the big monitors
became more effective. Roberts remained off Rabbit Island, Abercrombie
supported the left flank of the Cape Helles beachhead, firing on batteries on
the slopes of Achi Baba. Her accurate and effective fire drew heartening
compliments from senior army officers. Havelock seems to have specialised in
long range bombardment, firing right over the peninsula, on one occasion
hitting an armaments dump 17,000 yards away eleven times out of fifteen shots.
Raglan continued to support the Sulva Bay position then moved off on another
mission.
Serbia was being threatened by Bulgaria and an Allied
contingent was landed to support the Serbs. A small naval squadron was
dispatched to the Aegean in support, Raglan’s heavy guns were considered a
useful addition to the cruisers and destroyers involved, but in the end there
was very little fighting (see map 4).
Although it became plain to most observers by the end of the
summer of 1915 that the land battle at Gallipoli was making no progress, the
momentum of the campaign caused it to drag on until December and more and more
monitors of various kinds started to appear as the campaign progressed. The
small monitors being faster and handier than the heavy gun ships were particularly
effective at harassing the coastline of European Turkey. The 9.2 inch guns, old
as they were, proved to be most accurate and effective weapons, although their
recoil was such that the little ships lurched violently each time they were
fired. They were invaluable in suppressing enemy counter fire aimed at their
big sisters and in firing at long range at enemy ships in the Narrows. Their
9.2 and 6 inch ammunition was not in such short supply as 14 inch so they could
be more liberally used. One exciting side show action was carried out against
Bulgaria during October when the 9.2’s of M15, M19 and M28 bombarded Bulgarian
railway installations and barracks at Dedeagatch. Much damage was done and the
Bulgarians, fearing an Allied invasion, were forced to adopt a defensive
posture in place of supporting their Allies against Serbia.
In spite of their relative simplicity the small monitors did
present some problems for the fleet’s engineers. The diesel engine ships often
suffered funnel fires due to hot exhaust gasses setting fire to soot deposits
in the funnels, although the results of these could be alarming they were
seldom serious. M19 suffered a more serious problem when she was moored
alongside Abercrombie and joining in a bombardment of the slopes on Achi Baba.
Suddenly she appeared to be in the middle of a colossal explosion and chunks of
metal rained down all round her. What had happened was that a shell had
exploded inside the bore of her gun blowing it to pieces and setting fire to
the magazine. Acting promptly and coolly the crew flooded the magazine and got
the fire under control. Two men had been killed and another injured by a
fragment which came in through the slits in the armoured conning tower, six
others suffered serious burns. The ship managed to limp to Malta where she was
repaired. Another casualty was M30, patrolling off Smyrna (Izmura) in Asiatic
Turkey. She was hit by a well concealed heavy gun onshore and caught fire. This
time the fire spread to the fuel and she had to be abandoned. Her guns were
eventually recovered and the hull was blown up.
In December the eventual abandonment of the Dardanelles
commenced and it was completed by the 8 January. The withdrawal had become
strategically inevitable. The army was making almost no progress on land, and
losses were mounting steadily, not just from enemy action, but from the bitter
cold and freezing rain storms which started in October and grew steadily worse.
Bulgaria’s entry into the war meant that there was even less prospect than
before of a thrust up the Danube to attack the flank of the Austrian army.
Hamilton, who had gloomily forecast that half his men would be lost if the
force was evacuated, was relieved of his command. His replacement, General, Sir
Charles Monro, arrived fresh from the western front, made no secret of his
belief that the whole Gallipoli affair was a waste of time and of resources
desperately needed elsewhere. Commodore Roger Keyes still believed that a last
attempt to force the Narrows should be made by the fleet reinforced by fast
minesweepers, but now that Arthur Balfour had taken over the Admiralty from
Churchill, and de Roebeck remained staunchly opposed to any such venture,
Keyes’s appeals fell on deaf ears.
In sharp contrast to most of the campaign, the evacuation was
brilliantly handled with rifles and artillery arranged to continue firing after
the troops had withdrawn so as to disguise the fact that the withdrawal was
taking place. Almost all the monitors, including two of the new 12 inch ships
which had just arrived from Britain, together with the bulged cruisers, had
been assembled to cover the final evacuation from the beaches and the whole
operation was completed without a hitch and with minimal casualties. Of the
half a million men involved in the Gallipoli expedition almost half had been
wounded or became sick, 50,000 died.
This ill-conceived campaign had shown up very well the
strengths and weaknesses of the big gun monitors. They had provided useful fire
cover and destroyed some important enemy installations but their interventions
had not been in any way decisive and their co-ordination with ground forces had
not always been good. They were so slow that they were utterly useless for the
operation which it had been hoped they could perform – forcing the Narrows.
Furthermore their appetite for heavy ammunition was a serious embarrassment on
this station, distant as it was from Great Britain. For most of the campaign
the 14 inch monitors had to be limited to two or three rounds per day. Land
battles in the 1914-1918 war were won by using massed artillery pouring
thousands of rounds down in a hail of fire on enemy positions, and this could
not be achieved using the great guns of the monitors on this distant
battlefield. Introduced as a cheap, quickly constructed force which would allow
Britain to project military might overseas and carry the battle to the enemy,
these limitations of the monitors must have been a sore disappointment to
everyone involved. Conversely the small monitors had been reasonably successful.
Their guns had been effective, especially the old 9.2s and because they were
small and readily mobile they had done everything that could be expected of
them, effectively harassing enemy lines of communication and making movement by
land or water along the coastline extremely difficult. They were also useful
for patrolling the narrow seas between Greece and Turkey, keeping a lookout for
suspicious movements, a task for which they were to be used extensively in
later campaigns.
