How the Allied assault on the Dardanelles failed, and why Türkiye, Australia and New Zealand each remember it as a founding moment.
Last reviewed on 27 September 2026.
The Gallipoli campaign of 1915–16 was the Allied attempt to force the Dardanelles, the narrow strait between the Gallipoli Peninsula (Gelibolu) and the Asian shore, and so reach Constantinople. It failed. It began with a naval assault that ended on 18 March 1915, went on through eight months of trench warfare after landings on 25 April, and closed with an evacuation completed in January 1916. In Türkiye it is known as the Battles of Çanakkale (Çanakkale Savaşları) and remembered as a defining national victory. In Australia and New Zealand it is the origin of Anzac Day. It also made the reputation of a divisional commander named Mustafa Kemal, later Atatürk. For visiting the battlefields today, see Çanakkale and Troy.
The Ottoman Empire entered the First World War on Germany's side in November 1914. By early 1915 the Western Front had settled into deadlock, and Russia was under pressure, including from an Ottoman offensive in the Caucasus. Several people in the British government, most prominently Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, argued for a strike at the Dardanelles. Forcing the strait would let the fleet shell Constantinople, might knock the Ottomans out of the war, and would open a sea route for supplies to Russia through the Black Sea. It might also bring hesitant Balkan states into the war on the Allied side. The underlying assumption was that the Ottoman state was weak and would collapse under direct pressure. That assumption proved badly wrong.
An Anglo-French fleet began bombarding the outer forts at the mouth of the strait on 19 February 1915. Minesweepers, many of them converted trawlers with civilian crews, struggled against the current and the fire of mobile Ottoman howitzers that the ships could not locate. The main attempt to break through the Narrows came on 18 March. A line of British and French battleships pushed into the strait to silence the forts at Kilitbahir and Çanakkale.
The attack went wrong in Erenköy Bay. On the night of 7–8 March the small Ottoman minelayer Nusret had laid a line of mines parallel to the shore, in water the Allies believed they had cleared. On 18 March the French battleship Bouvet struck a mine and sank in minutes with most of her crew. The British battleships Irresistible and Ocean were also mined and later sank, and several other ships, including the battlecruiser Inflexible and the French Gaulois and Suffren, were badly damaged. The fleet withdrew. The Allied commanders decided that the strait could not be forced by ships alone and that an army would have to take the peninsula first.
The pause between March and April gave the defenders time. The Ottoman Fifth Army was formed under the German general Otto Liman von Sanders, who spread his divisions across the likely landing zones and held reserves inland. The Allied Mediterranean Expeditionary Force under General Sir Ian Hamilton gathered at Mudros on the island of Lemnos. It included British, French, Australian, New Zealand and Indian troops, and a Newfoundland battalion arrived later.
The landings went in at dawn on 25 April at several points:
Lieutenant-Colonel Mustafa Kemal commanded the Ottoman 19th Division, held in reserve near Bigalı. When the Anzac landing began, he moved troops towards the high ground of the Sarı Bair range, whose summits include Conkbayırı, known to the Allies as Chunuk Bair. He committed the 57th Infantry Regiment to a counter-attack on his own initiative. In his later account he recalled telling his men that he was not ordering them to attack but to die, so that other units could take their place in the time they bought. The regiment was almost wiped out. Historians agree that these counter-attacks on 25 April were decisive in keeping the Anzacs off the ridge line.
A large Ottoman counter-attack against the Anzac perimeter on 19 May failed with very heavy losses. So many bodies lay between the lines that a truce was agreed on 24 May to bury the dead. Through the summer both sides dug in, with trench lines at places such as Quinn's Post only metres apart. Heat, flies and dysentery caused as many losses as combat.
Hamilton's plan to break the deadlock was a combined operation in early August. The Anzacs would attack out of their perimeter to seize the Sarı Bair heights by night, while a new British corps landed at Suvla Bay to the north to secure a base and link up. Diversionary attacks were made at Helles and at Lone Pine (Kanlısırt), where Australian troops captured Ottoman trenches on 6–9 August at great cost on both sides. On 7 August dismounted Australian Light Horse regiments attacked across a narrow ridge called the Nek and were cut down in successive waves.
On 8 August New Zealand troops, led by the Wellington Battalion, took the summit of Chunuk Bair, the only time Allied soldiers held a crest of the range. They were relieved by British battalions. At dawn on 10 August Mustafa Kemal, who had just been given command of the Anafarta sector, led a counter-attack that swept them off the summit. The Suvla landing of 6–7 August met little opposition at first. It stalled through confusion, inexperienced troops and hesitant command under Lieutenant-General Sir Frederick Stopford. Ottoman reinforcements occupied the surrounding hills, and later attacks at Scimitar Hill and Hill 60 in late August failed. The August offensive was the campaign's last real chance of success.
By October, London was losing faith in the operation. Hamilton was replaced by General Sir Charles Monro, who recommended withdrawal. Lord Kitchener, the Secretary of State for War, visited in November and agreed. Late that month a severe storm, followed by snow and frost, flooded trenches and caused thousands of cases of exposure and frostbite. Bulgaria's entry into the war on the Central Powers' side in October, and the defeat of Serbia that autumn, had also opened a rail link from Germany to Constantinople, so the defenders could now be supplied with heavier German guns and ammunition.
The evacuation was the best-executed part of the campaign. Suvla and Anzac were cleared on the nights of 18–20 December 1915, and Helles on 8–9 January 1916. Deception measures such as timed "drip rifles" that fired after the troops had left helped keep the defenders unaware, and losses during the withdrawal were very light. The Ottoman forces occupied the empty positions and captured large quantities of abandoned stores.
Casualty figures for Gallipoli vary a great deal between sources, and totals that combine killed, wounded, missing and sick are not always comparable. The figures below are the commonly cited orders of magnitude, not exact counts.
Total casualties are usually put at around a quarter of a million or more. Estimates of the dead range widely, from roughly 56,000 in older Western accounts to figures well above 80,000 in some Turkish studies. Many deaths were from disease.
Total Allied casualties are also usually given as roughly a quarter of a million or more. British and Empire deaths, excluding Australians and New Zealanders, are commonly estimated in the low tens of thousands, and French deaths at around ten thousand. Indian and French colonial troops also died there.
The Australian War Memorial gives about 8,700 Australian deaths. New Zealand's official histories give roughly 2,700–2,800 New Zealand deaths, a very high proportion of the troops the country sent.
For Türkiye, Çanakkale is a victory won by an empire that had lost almost every war of the previous generation. Soldiers from across Anatolia and the Arab provinces took part. The campaign gets a great deal of attention in school curricula and national commemoration, and the 18 March anniversary brings large ceremonies on the peninsula. The Çanakkale Martyrs' Memorial (Çanakkale Şehitleri Abidesi) near Morto Bay, a tall four-legged monument, is the main national site. Many smaller Turkish memorials and cemeteries stand along the ridges, including the 57th Regiment Memorial near Anzac.
The campaign also lifted Mustafa Kemal from an obscure staff officer to a known commander. Four years later he led the War of Independence, and he became the founder of the Republic (see Atatürk). Historians caution against reading all later history back into 1915, but the link between Gallipoli, Kemal's reputation and the national movement is part of how the Republic tells its own story. The victory also delayed the fall of the Ottoman capital to the Allies until the armistice of October 1918.
Australia had federated only in 1901, and New Zealand became a dominion in 1907. Gallipoli was the first major campaign for both, and it became central to national identity in each country. Anzac Day, 25 April, is a national day of remembrance in both countries, now covering all their wars. Dawn services recall the time of the first landing. On the peninsula, thousands of Australians and New Zealanders traditionally attend a dawn service at the Anzac Commemorative Site at North Beach, followed by services at Lone Pine and Chunuk Bair. Attendance is controlled and requires advance registration through the Australian and New Zealand authorities, so check their official guidance well ahead.
A widely quoted text of reconciliation is carved on a memorial at Anzac Cove, beginning "Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives…". It is attributed to Atatürk and was conveyed in 1934 by the Turkish interior minister, Şükrü Kaya. Historians have debated how closely the familiar English wording reflects Atatürk's own words. Its message, that the fallen of both sides lie together as sons of the same soil, is central to the unusually warm way the former enemies remember the campaign.
The peninsula is now a protected historic area (Çanakkale Savaşları Gelibolu Tarihi Alan), with Turkish, Commonwealth and French cemeteries and memorials spread along its ridges and beaches. It is best seen by car or on a guided tour from Çanakkale or Eceabat; see Çanakkale and Troy for practical detail and the Marmara region for the wider area.
| Allied name | Turkish name | What happened there |
|---|---|---|
| Anzac Cove / Ari Burnu | Arıburnu | Anzac landing, 25 April 1915 |
| Cape Helles | Seddülbahir | British landings; main southern front |
| Chunuk Bair | Conkbayırı | Mustafa Kemal's counter-attacks; held by New Zealanders on 8 August |
| Lone Pine | Kanlısırt | Australian attack, 6–9 August |
| Suvla Bay | Suvla Koyu / Anafartalar | British landing, 6–7 August |
| Krithia / Achi Baba | Kirte (Alçıtepe) / Alçı Tepe | Unreached objectives at Helles |
| The Narrows | Çanakkale Boğazı (narrowest point) | Forts at Kilitbahir and Çanakkale; 18 March naval battle |
The Ottoman Empire. The Allies failed to force the Dardanelles by sea in March 1915, failed to take the peninsula after landing in April and August, and withdrew completely by 9 January 1916. In Türkiye the campaign is remembered as the Çanakkale Victory.
Gallipoli is the Italian-derived name for Gelibolu, the peninsula and town on the European side of the strait. Turks name the battles after Çanakkale, the main town on the strait, and the Dardanelles are called the Çanakkale Strait (Çanakkale Boğazı) in Turkish.
Mustafa Kemal commanded the Ottoman 19th Division. On 25 April 1915 he counter-attacked the Anzac landing and kept the Allies off the heights around Conkbayırı (Chunuk Bair). In August he commanded the Anafarta sector and retook Chunuk Bair on 10 August. The campaign made his name.
Figures vary by source. Commonly cited estimates put total casualties on each side at roughly a quarter of a million or more, with well over 100,000 dead in all. They include about 8,700 Australians and roughly 2,700–2,800 New Zealanders. Estimates of Ottoman dead range from around 56,000 to more than 80,000.
Anzac Day, 25 April, marks the anniversary of the Australian and New Zealand landing at Gallipoli in 1915. It is a national day of remembrance in both countries. Dawn services are held at home and at the Anzac Commemorative Site on the peninsula, where attendance requires advance registration.
18 March is Martyrs' Day and the anniversary of the 1915 naval victory at Çanakkale, when the Allied fleet failed to force the Narrows and lost three battleships to mines. Ceremonies are held nationwide and at the Çanakkale Martyrs' Memorial. It is not a public holiday.