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A child soldier guarding the Dardanelles, points to a sinking folded paper boat. He stands on the northern, European side; a Turkish flag flies on the southern, Asian side. He wears a Turkish fez and what may be a German naval blouse. German officers, sailors, and artillery crews supplemented the Turkish defenders of the Dardanelles. On March 18, 1915, the Turks sank or badly damaged some of the French and British warships trying to break through to Constantinople, leading the Allies to end their attempt to force the Dardanelles.
An Italian postcard of the Industry of War. Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany squeezes gold from France and Belgium, filling sacks of money he provides to his ally Emperor Franz Josef of Austria-Hungary who feeds his guns to fire at Tsar Nicholas of Russia who vomits up troops. On the bottom right, Serbia, Montenegro, and Japan join the battle against Germany and Austria-Hungary. To the left, Great Britain flees to its ships. King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy surveys it all, serenely neutral until May 1915. Germany taxed Belgium and occupied France heavily during its occupation, in money, in food and other necessities, and in human life and labor. Austria-Hungary borrowed heavily from Germany to support its war effort. The enormous manpower of Russia was a source of consolation for its allies, and of trepidation to its enemies. Some suspected Great Britain would take its small army and return to its ships, home, and empire.
Weihnachten im Unterstand 1916 (Christmas in the dugout 1916)A well built shelter with stove and chimney, towels drying on a line, a table decorated with greens and three small Christmas trees, two wine bottles.Original Austrian pencil sketch by Karl, 1916. © John M. Shea
Map showing the territorial gains (darker shades) of Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro, and Greece, primarily at the expense of Turkey, agreed in the Treaty of Bucharest following the Second Balkan War. Despite its gains, Bulgaria also lost territory to both Romania and Turkey.
Chosen Boy, a 1918 watercolor by Paul Klee. From Paul Klee: Early and Late Years: 1894-1940. © 2013 Moeller Fine Art
"In early March, Bedri [Prefect of Police at Constantinople] and Djambolat, who was Director of Public Safety, came to see me. At that time the exodus from the capital had begun; Turkish women and children were being moved to the interior; all the banks had been compelled to send their gold into Asia Minor; the archives of the Sublime Porte had already been carried to Eski-Shehr; and practically all the ambassadors and their suites, as well as most of the government officials, had made their preparations to leave. . . .At the station stood the trains which were to take the Sultan and the Government and the ambassadors to Asia Minor. They had steam up, ready to move at a moment's notice. We were all awaiting the triumphant arrival of the Allied fleet.Chapter XVIIWhen the situation had reached this exciting stage, Enver asked me to visit the Dardanelles. . . ." ((1), more)
"The Russians have burned nearly all the surrounding villages. In one village the inhabitants locked themselves into their huts to keep out the Russians. The Russians boarded up the doors from the outside and set fire to the huts. There is no longer any doubt that we will have to surrender. Betrayal and hunger have exhausted us.As of yesterday, soldiers are getting better food rations to prepare them for the march. They are mere shadows, not people, they are skeletons, not men. The peasants have had everything taken from them, so as not to leave anything for the Russians. This was done ruthlessly, without any compassion. An act unworthy of the civilized Catholic nation that we are. It was cruel to give such an order, but those executing it were crueller still. How generous of them to leave the peasants their lives!" ((2), more)
"March 16th [1915].- At lunch, when a shell landed somewhere behind C Company's Mess dug-out, we all stopped feeding, and then went on again. The Quail said, 'How like rabbits we get in these burrows, munching until we hear a noise and then stopping, and then, after a pause, munching again.' The Daily News has a wonderful effort by 'our Military Correspondent' who talks of 'awaiting with great expectation the news of the column which is advancing on Lille from L'Epinette.' L'Epinette was apparently a little private affair of the South Staffords.These trenches were as bad as was expected." ((3), more)
"The epidemics had started in the second half of December 1914 and reached their peak in February and March 1915, when innumerable corpses were piled up on all sides. The Russian Minister reported: 'The dying lie on straw alongside the dead in outhouses and fields.' . . . It is estimated that over 400,000 people were infected and some 100,000 civilians died, as well as 30,000-35,000 soldiers and 30,000 prisoners of war. . . . Schools closed down, and on 9 March the supreme command banned military and civilian transport for the 16-31 March period except for medical purposes." ((4), more)
"The scheme was to attack in three squadrons successively. The first blow was given by the four most powerful ships — Queen Elizabeth, Inflexible, Lord Nelson, and Agamemnon — which poured heavy shell at long range into the forts at Chanak and Kilid Bahr, while the Triumph and Prince George bombarded Fort Dardanus on the Asiatic coast, and Fort Soghandere, opposite it upon the Peninsula. . . . At about 12.30 the second squadron, consisting of the four French ships [Bouvet, Suffren, Gaulois, and Charlemagne] came up into action . . .[The third squadron of six British ships then advanced as the French line withdrew to allow the strongest and first line to go forward. The Turkish forts, which had been silent, resumed fire.]Most of the ships suffered, and as the Bouvet moved down channel with her companion ships, she was struck by three big shells in quick succession. The blows were immediately followed by a vast explosion. It was disputed whether this was due to a shell bursting in her magazine, or to a torpedo fired from the Asiatic coast or, as the Admiralty report said, to a mine drifting down the current.. . . At 4 o'clock the Irresistible drew away with a heavy list. . . . A quarter of an hour after she sank, the Ocean was struck in a similar manner (6.50 p.m.) and sank with great rapidity. . . . Many of the other ships were struck by shell. The Inflexible and Gaulois suffered especially, and only just crawled back to be beached, . . ." ((5), more)
(1) Excerpt from the memoir of Henry Morgenthau, American Ambassador to Turkey from 1913 to 1916. As the Allied naval attempt to force the Dardanelles continued, many in the government and Constantinople expected the Anglo-French fleet to succeed. Turkish War Minister Enver was one of the few who did not, and he invited Ambassador Morgenthau to join him on a visit to the Dardanelles where he would explain his conviction. The morning of March 15, Morgenthau, Enver, the Turkish Minister of Justice, and others sailed across the Sea of Marmora to Gallipoli. 'The sublime porte' is a reference to the gate leading to the government buildings in Constantinople and a metonym for the Turkish government.
Ambassador Morgenthau's Story by Henry Morgenthau, pp. 199 through 202, copyright © 1918, by Doubleday, Page & Company, publisher: Doubleday, Page & Company, publication date: 1918
(2) Entry for March 15, 1915 by Helena Jabłońska, a Polish Austro-Hungarian who was in the besieged fortress city of Przemyśl. A widow, she rented rooms to garrison soldiers. The Russians had first besieged the city after their victory in the Galician battles in August and September, 1914, a siege that was briefly broken, but not lifted. By March 1915, the Austro-Hungarian defense was nearing its end. The 'march' is the one the defeated soldiers will make to prisoner-of-war camps in Russia after the city falls.
Intimate Voices from the First World War by Svetlana Palmer and Sarah Wallis, page 81, copyright © 2003 by Svetlana Palmer and Sarah Wallis, publisher: Harper Collins Publishers, publication date: 2003
(3) Entry for March 16, 1915 from the writings — diaries, letters, and memoirs — of Captain J.C. Dunn, Medical Officer of the Second Battalion His Majesty's Twenty-Third Foot, The Royal Welch Fusiliers. Troops rotated in and out of the front-line trenches. Early in the war, expecting to advance and leave their trenches behind, many troops saw little advantage to improving their own trenches which they would soon turn over to others.
The War the Infantry Knew 1914-1919 by Captain J.C. Dunn, pp. 124, 125, copyright © The Royal Welch Fusiliers 1987, publisher: Abacus (Little, Brown and Company, UK), publication date: 1994
(4) Cholera, spotted typhus, and dysentery raged through Serbia and Turkey in the winter of 1914-15, taking a particularly heavy toll in a Serbia that had defeated Austria-Hungary in its three 1914 invasions of Serbia. Although the invader had suffered nearly 275,000 casualties, Serbia had over 163,000 casualties from its army of 250,000, 69,000 of whom had died.
Serbia's Great War 1914-1918 by Andrej Mitrovic, page 111, copyright © Andrej Mitrovic, 2007, publisher: Purdue University Press, publication date: 2007
(5) Excerpt from an account of the Allied naval campaign in the Dardanelles by Henry Woodd Nevinson, a British writer describing some of the events of March 18, 1915, the last day the Anglo-French fleet tried to 'Force the Straits' to seize Constantinople. The French pre-Dreadnought battleship Bouvet had actually struck a mine, one of a line unknown to the Allies, that had been laid across an inlet, rather than across the Strait. Bouvet sank in minutes; 639 men were lost with her. The failure of the naval assault would lead to the April invasion of the Gallipoli Peninsula on the north side of the Dardanelles.
The Great Events of the Great War in Seven Volumes by Charles F. Horne, Vol. III, 1915, pp. 89, 90, copyright © 1920 by The National Alumnia, publisher: The National Alumni, publication date: 1920
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