What if Churchill didn't under-estimate the Turks at gallipoli?

I am not sure that it was POSSIBLE to stand up this operation in such a fast manor that the other side would have no clue. Pulling this off in WW2 would have been hard doing it with WW1 technology and equipment? Good luck. Add in trying to do this while fighting in France? Even harder.
 
I am not sure that it was POSSIBLE to stand up this operation in such a fast manor that the other side would have no clue. Pulling this off in WW2 would have been hard doing it with WW1 technology and equipment? Good luck. Add in trying to do this while fighting in France? Even harder.

I would say it's not so much the speed of the organisation that's the problem, but doing everything in series - the initial bombardment of the outer forts in November, the naval attack on the straights from mid-February to mid-March, and the landings in mid-April. Holding fire in November, and waiting until a combined offensive could be launched against the straits, using naval gunfire to supress the forts and landing forces to secure or destroy them, would probably have produced a victory, even with the problems caused by using civilian-manned trawlers rather than modified destroyers as minesweepers.
 

Garrison

Donor
There are 2 reasons I keep on hearing why Gallipoli was an embarassing defeat for the british. 1. Ataturk's Genius, 2. Churchill underestimating his enemies. Personally, I think the campaign could be a success, or it might fail, like in OTL, but with way more casualties for the turks and slightly less for the brits
I'm not sure there is a successful version of this battle for the British, because if you assess the Turks capabilities accurately it probably doesn't get launched in the first place.
 
I would say it's not so much the speed of the organisation that's the problem, but doing everything in series - the initial bombardment of the outer forts in November, the naval attack on the straights from mid-February to mid-March, and the landings in mid-April. Holding fire in November, and waiting until a combined offensive could be launched against the straits, using naval gunfire to supress the forts and landing forces to secure or destroy them, would probably have produced a victory, even with the problems caused by using civilian-manned trawlers rather than modified destroyers as minesweepers.

Sometimes I wonder what might have been accomplished if the British ignored the "sale" of the Goeben to Turkey, and sailed the entire Mediterranean squadron through the Dardanelles in mid August 1914. AIUI at that time the minefields were mostly the pre-war ones which the British naval attachés had knowledge of. I think in the cage-match conditions of the Sea of Marmara, the 3 I class battlecruisers, x4 armored cruisers and associated light cruisers/destroyers would easily have overwhelmed the Goeben, and subsequently made it impractical for Turkey to join the Central Powers.
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
Say the ships alone go ahead to ride or die, and the Ottoman government skips town for inland.

Inland to where? Inland to Thrace in Europe? Edirne/Adrianople? Or inland in Anatolia to Bursa or even Ankara?

Flight of govt leadership, and ship bombardments and fires would lead to mass panics and civilian flight from the city, making for a mess and prestige hit for Ottoman authorities.

The Ottoman authorities at that point could do a suing for peace in general, or fight on from their new inland capital.

If suing for peace in general, are they just saying unconditionally, or seeking terms, and likely to try to hold old for peace terms on a territorial status quo ante bellum basis (pre-war borders) or a territorial uti possedetis basis (everybody keeps what they got right now) or a set of extensive territorial concessions to the Entente based on what all expected the Entente could easily or inevitably seize? [the battle lines at this stage of 1915 had the Ottomans in control of most of their pre-war territory, in the Palestine theater, actually in occupation of some Egyptian Sinai, having only lost very small bits of land in northeast Anatolia along the border, and some of southeastern Iraq north of Basra and Kuwait]

If the Ottomans either seek general terms, or do not, but continue resistance for the time being, just from an inland capital, they could leave Constantinople bombarded and practically defenseless except for whatever pitiful batteries get suppressed there quickly by ship fire. Or, they could proclaim Constantinople an open city, to try to get it spared bombardment from that point on.

Continued bombardment and destruction of crowded Constantinople quarters when it's clear the city is defenseless could become a PR problem for Britain and the Entente, not just a martial embarrassment for the Ottomans, especially if the British Fleet continues with a destructive bombardment of residential quarters after an Ottoman proclamation of it as an "open city".

Of course the British might be a couple weeks from having sizable, self-sufficient landing parties at hand to take occupation of even an open city, because there will be plenty of infantry and police around.

Things could get messy, if the Ottomans, as a ruse of war, accepted a naval landing party from ships then bumrushed it to take hostages.

If the Ottoman government is running things from an inland capital, and the ships are dominating the straits, but it is still taking many weeks to assemble an adequate landing party to secure the shores of the straits, would the Ottomans in either Thrace or Anatolia or both use the time to rush concentrate artillery into coastal positions against the ships of the fleet and start striking them?
I am always interested in hearing more on a post-Gallipolli "success" endgame, or a post Turkish evacuation of Constantinople "endgame" or post-Allied securing of the straits with infantry or under their guns "endgame"...........and if it truly is *the end* for the Ottoman Empire or in any way subject to reversal, in whole, or in part. That would be a new, interesting departure for discussion.
 
Given the time and resources available, could any more have been done to the the SS River Clyde to help in her part in the landings?
 
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