The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-01-10
GREAT POLITICAL EFFECT

GREAT POLITICAL EFFECT
 Politically a victory was expected to have a powerful effect upon the then neutral Balkan states, Greece, Bulgaria and Roumania. There was cited the possibility, now realized by Bulgaria s entrance into the war, of preventing the establishment of a Balkan link between the central powers and Turkey, and also of the possible opening of a land route to India
 In October, after the successful in- vasion of Servia by the Teutons and Bulgarians, and the reports that Ger man ammunition was on it's way to Turkey, a storm of bitter criticism of the governments Dardanelles campaign broke in England. Sir Edward Car son. attorney general, resigned from the cabinet, because of disagreement with his colleagues over the campaign, it was said, and Winston Churchill, first lord of the admiralty, the principal target of attack, also resigned. Churchill placed some of the blame on the shoulders of Admiral Lord Fisher, first sea lord. There also was complete reorganization of the French cabinet, which was generally attributed to the Balkan -Dardanelles situation.
 BLUNDER AFTER BLUNDER
 The sending of the fleet to force the Dardanelles without the co-opera- tion of land forces was generally con ceded to have been the big initial blum der of the campaign. The inadequacy of the land forces, which, after they were sent, was criticised, as another The governments assailants said the campaign should have been delayed un- til better preparations could be made
 Apologists for the government pointed to the fact that at least a large Tur- kish army had been prevented from op erating elsewhere, particularly in Egypt and the Caucasus. They argued also that the Balkan situation might have developed much sooner, had the effort not been made when it was
 z The campaign was marked by three major operations, one by the fleet alone and two by the land forces, assisted by the fleet. The net result was the conquest of the tip of the Gallipoli peninsula for a distance of three miles and a narrow segment of it's middle western coast about F miles in length and hardly a mile deep.
 THE FIRST DISASTER
 The first disaster came March 19 when mines blew up the French battleship Bou- vet and the British battleships Irresistible and Ocean, while they were attempting a dash for the Marrow, the Notifications of which they had bombarded for sev- eral weeks. Several other vessels were damaged at the same time and the fleet withdrew to the Aegean sea- On the same day it was announced that Admiral Garden, the British commander, had been replaced by Admiral De Robeck
 De Robeck continued the bombardment with an occasional dash into the straits by the ships until April. but 1t was not productive of any great results, according to accounts from the Turkish side. The Turks, however reported that with their r ~I-s1 I,f %~,sAe @f H. were able to damage many more allied vessels.
 Naval forces were landed March 24 at Seddul- Bahr, the tip of the peninsula, but they were not strong enough to hold their positions though they destroyed the for tifications Allied troops forced a landing on April 26 but in the meantime the Brit ish battleship Triumph had been sunk and the submarine Els went aground and fell victim to Turkish fire.
 The first contingent of British troops under the command of Gen. Sir Ian Ham ilton, relatively small in numb CTS, landed at Seddul-Bahr April 25, but not with out heavy losses French troops landed or the Asiastic side, but they stayed there only three days. The French sub seouently formed the left wing of the British on Seddul- Bahr. Meanwhile the general bombardment of Turkish posi- tions by the battleships was resumed AT ANZOE COVE
 Early in May other British troops land ed on the north side of the peninsula near Ari Burnu, which afterward came to be known as Anzac cove. Australian and New Zealand army corps which com prised the landing forces, had as their objective to cross the peninsula and cut the communications of the Turkish divi- sions at Seddul Bahr and storm the Turk | ish forts on the Galipoli side of the mar rows, thus opening the way for the safe entrance of the British fleet. They sus- tRined terrible losses during the landing I and troops found themselves in sort of 1 bowl whose rocky brim bristled with ma | chine guns. It was a case of entrench- ment immediately and almost from that moment the fighting settled down into trench warfare which was maintained until August 6, when endorsements land ed again with great casualties, in the fa- nous Anzac cove and Suvla bay positions l The western Anzac troops won a vic tory, capturing the Turkish positions be- fore them. but the failure of one of the divisions of the Suvla bay expedition to accomplish the task assigned to it pre- vented them from driving it home. Gen. eral Hamilton in a recent report said this operation failed partly through the use \ of untried troops under generals inexper- fenced in the new warfare and partly through the failure of the water supply. 1 The losses in the evacuation of the Suv- la bay and Anzac cove regions were de- clared by the British at the time to have been only three men wounded. making the total casualties in leaving the penin- sula four men.