Battle of Gallipoli
...antinople, establish supply lines into Russia via the Black Sea, and open up the way for a direct invasion into Austria Hungary. The execution of the campaign was botched from the very beginning. Churchill had initially conceived of Gallipoli as a naval campaign; he believed that the Royal Navy and some French ships under Sir Ian Hamilton could shell Constantinople from the Dardanelles and secure the victory on its own. But the straits were heavily mined, British and French ships were seriously damaged, and there was insufficient Army support to back up the invasion. The naval operation of February 1915 was aborted, and by the time that land forces reached Gallipoli in April, the Turks had mobilized under the command of Mustafa Kemal and the German general von Sanders. The landings at Suvla Bay and ANZAC Cove thus met with fierce resistance ...