Gallipoli Invasion Begins: ANZAC Forces Storm Turkish Shores

Allied forces waded ashore at Gallipoli on April 25, 1915, attempting to knock the Ottoman Empire out of World War I by seizing the Dardanelles strait and opening a supply route to Russia. The campaign was Winston Churchill's brainchild, conceived as an alternative to the deadlocked Western Front, and it began with near-total failure. Australian and New Zealand troops, the ANZACs, landed at the wrong beach on the Aegean coast, facing cliffs instead of the expected gentle slopes, while British and French forces at Cape Helles met devastating fire that pinned them to the shoreline. The strategic logic was sound on paper. Control of the Dardanelles would connect the Western Allies with Russia, allow the transfer of munitions and supplies, and potentially force the Ottoman Empire to sue for peace. A successful campaign might also bring wavering Balkan states into the war on the Allied side. But the execution was catastrophic. Naval attempts to force the strait in March had already failed when mines sank three battleships. The decision to land ground forces was a fallback that sacrificed tactical surprise for an assault on prepared positions. Ottoman defenders, commanded by the German general Liman von Sanders with Mustafa Kemal leading the critical 19th Division at Anzac Cove, fought with a tenacity that Allied planners had not anticipated. Kemal's legendary order to his troops, "I don't order you to attack, I order you to die," reflected the desperation of a defense that held by the narrowest of margins. The campaign devolved into trench warfare on cliff faces, with both sides suffering catastrophic casualties from combat, disease, and the brutal conditions of the Gallipoli peninsula. The Allies evacuated between December 1915 and January 1916, the only phase of the campaign executed with skill. Total Allied casualties exceeded 250,000; Ottoman losses were comparable. Churchill's political career was shattered for a decade. For Australia and New Zealand, Gallipoli became a national founding myth, the crucible in which colonial subjects forged distinct national identities through shared sacrifice. April 25, ANZAC Day, is the most solemn date on both nations' calendars. For Turkey, the defense of Gallipoli was the making of Mustafa Kemal, who would go on to found the Turkish Republic.