The fighting at Anafarta was the high point of the almost nine-month campaign, although the Allies continued half-hearted attacks throughout September and October. In the English-speaking world, most students of military history would be hard-pressed to identify the time, place, or antagonists of the Canakkale Campaign. However, they would readily recognize it by its English name—Gallipoli. The Allied troops who went ashore at Gallipoli believed they were fighting for democracy. Few Westerners realized (or at any rate admitted) that their Turkish opponents were fighting for an even higher ideal—they were defending their country. A significant portion of the Turkish soldiers who fought in the Canakkale Campaign were recruited from the towns and villages of the Gallipoli Peninsula. With their families close behind the battle lines, these soldiers were literally fighting for their homes. To them, the Allied soldiers were invaders who had come to defile their country and their Muslim faith.Deutschland uber Allah: the Ottomans Enter the War:In 1915, World War I was in its second year. On the Western Front, the inexorable meat grinder of trench warfare had replaced the early war of maneuver. Stalemated British, French, and German armies stared at each other across the scarred Belgian and French countryside. Meanwhile, on the Eastern Front, where operations of Austro-German and Russian armies still maintained some measure of fluidity, things were beginning to bog down there as well. The eyes of both sides turned south, toward the Ottoman Empire. With the Turks firmly in command of both the Dardanelles and Bosporus Straits, a vital supply route between Russia and Western Europe had been cut. Russia needed weapons and munitions from England and France. In turn, those two countries needed Russian food shipments. To England and France, Turkey seemed like the soft underbelly through which a serious blow could be delivered at Germany. The Germans, for their part, were looking for a place to divert British and French efforts and relieve some of the pressure on the Fatherland.Recommended: Why an F-22 Raptor Would Crush an F-35 in a ‘Dogfight’Recommended: Air War: Stealth F-22 Raptor vs. F-14 Tomcat (That Iran Still Flies)Recommended: A New Report Reveals Why There Won’t Be Any ‘New’ F-22 RaptorsFor more than a decade, the German and Ottoman empires had maintained close ties, especially in the military sphere. Shortly before the start of the war, a German military mission of almost 100 officers arrived in Turkey, invited there to overhaul the creaking Ottoman war machine. One of the most senior members of this mission was General Otto Liman von Sanders, who was destined to play a key role in the Gallipoli campaign. When the war started, Turkey initially maintained its neutrality. Then, in an act of either calculated effrontery or callous arrogance, England withheld two battleships it had been building for Turkey. The Turks’ indignation was understandable, since they had already paid for the battleships. Not only was England keeping the vessels, it also refused to return its client’s money.German warships soon entered the picture. On August 10, 1914, hotly pursued by combined British and French squadrons, two German vessels, Goeben and Breslau, took refuge in Turkish territorial waters. In a sham sale, Turkey acquired the ships from Germany. Re-flagged under Ottoman colors and bearing the new names Midilli and Yavuz, the two ships were still manned by their German crews, who went through the ridiculous charade of wearing fezzes and pretending to be Turks. A rueful pun made the rounds: “Deutschland uber Allah.”Turkey decided to enter the conflict on the German side. On October 27, the two newly acquired warships sailed into the Black Sea, bombarded several Russian cities on the north shore of the sea, and sank two merchant vessels. Although damage was minimal, Russia immediately declared war on Turkey. Great Britain and France quickly followed suit, and on November 3 combined British and French squadrons bombarded Turkish military installations near the entrance to the Dardanelles Straits, heavily damaging two small forts. Turkey, in turn, formally declared war on England and France. Another country had been drawn into the European bloodbath.Dardanelles Strait: Istambul’s Gate:The Ottoman Empire was separated into the European portion and the Asian portion by the narrow Sea of Marmara. The Dardanelles Straits formed the gates to that British lake, the Mediterranean Sea, while the Bosporus Straits guarded the entrance to the Black Sea, dominated by Russia. The Gallipoli Peninsula (anglicized name of the small town of Gelibolu on the European side of the Dardanelles) gave its name to the upcoming campaign in the English-speaking world. The Turks named the campaign after the town of Canakkale, on the Asian side of the straits.Hoping for a quick knockout blow, the British government planned to force the Dardanelles Straits, enter the Sea of Marmara and bombard the Turkish capital of Istanbul into submission. Original Allied plans drawn up by Winston Churchill, the British First Lord of the Admiralty, called for naval actions alone. However, six months of naval bombardments and raids by marine landing parties did not have much success. The British and French squadrons operated on predictable sailing patterns, and the Turks laid a series of mine fields across their routes. On March 18, Allied naval squadrons received a terrible mauling at the hands of the Turks, resulting in three Allied battleships sunk and three more crippled. The British abruptly changed tactics and placed the Army in charge of forcing the Dardanelles Straits. British General Sir Ian Hamilton was appointed to command the Mediterranean Expeditionary Forces, which included Australian and New Zealand (ANZAC) contingents as well as English.Liman von Sanders Takes Command;On March 24, the Turkish premier, Enver Pasha, offered Liman von Sanders command of the Fifth Army, which was being organized to defend the Dardanelles. A typical product of Prussian military upbringing—professional, aloof, and nonpolitical—Liman von Sanders readily accepted the offer and wasted no time departing for his new command. On March 26, he set up headquarters in the small port town of Gallipoli. Efforts to improve defenses at the strategic straits began at once. At the time, the Fifth Army was composed of five divisions deployed along both the European and the Asiatic coasts of the straits. Each division was made up of nine to 12 battalions, each numbering between 800 and 1,000 men. By the time of the Allied landings, another division, the 3rd, had arrived.The Asian side of the straits, characterized by low hills and large tracts of flatlands, was more susceptible to Allied landings. The coast of the Gallipoli Peninsula on the European side consisted of very mountainous terrain with steep slopes and deep ravines. Immediately behind the beaches, the landscape was dotted with small woods and thickets. Farther inland, the peninsula became flatter and more open for maneuver. Liman von Sanders considered the Asian shore the place most likely to see an Allied landing. It was, however, the most heavily defended sector of the Turkish defenses. The Gallipoli Peninsula, on the other hand, offered only a handful of likely places to land enemy troops. One of them was the southern tip of the peninsula at Sedd-el-Bahr, completely covered by the guns of British warships. After landing there, the next immediate Allied objective inland would be the Achi Baba ridge. From this ridge, the British would be able to put a large part of the Turkish defensive works under fire.Another likely landing place was on the north side of the Gulf of Saros, at Bulair. From this place to Maidos, the Gallipoli Peninsula is only approximately four miles wide. If the enemy could cut the peninsula along the line from the Gulf of Saros to Maidos, a considerable part of the Ottoman Fifth Army would be cut off and surrounded. In his memoirs, British Seaman Joseph Murray wrote, “No doubt the Turks were wondering exactly where and when we would strike; as invaders it was for us to choose the time and place. The Turks had to remain where they were, ready to defend their homeland.”Reorganizing the Turkish Fifth Army:Before Liman von Sanders took command of the Fifth Army, the Turkish troops were distributed evenly along the entire perimeter of the Gallipoli Peninsula, without any reserves allocated to halt the enemy in case they breached the shore defenses. Liman von Sanders completely reorganized Turkish deployment. He pulled back the bulk of his troops, leaving company- and platoon-sized detachments to watch the possible landing sites. Since he considered the Gulf of Saros the most likely landing location on the peninsula, Liman von Sanders repositioned the 5th and 7th Divisions close to it. The 9th Division was centered on the southern tip of the peninsula and the 19th Division was placed in strategic reserve in the center. The 3rd and 11th Divisions were allocated to defend the Asiatic side of the straights. By using internal lines of communication, Liman von Sanders would be able to rush reserves to the threatened sectors.To conceal Turkish redeployments, most movements were done during the night. Work on improving the roads began at once to prepare them for the higher traffic of supplies and reinforcements. To toughen up his troops, grown complacent in their previous static defensive positions, Liman von Sanders ordered them to conduct training marches and maneuvers. This training also had to be conducted at night to shield them from British warships, which would immediately rain shells on any group of Turks, however small.The Amphibious Assault Begins:In the early morning of April 25, Liman von Sanders began receiving reports that hostile landings were taking place. The 3rd and 11th Divisions defending the Asiatic side reported heavy fighting with the French troops landing around the Besika Bay. At the same time, British warships lying off Sedd-el-Bahr (called Cape Helles by the British) were laying down a heavy barrage covering the landing of British troops under fire from the Turkish 9th Division. More naval gunfire soon announced further enemy landings.Quickly dispatching the bulk of the 7th Division to the Bulair Ridge, Liman von Sanders hurried ahead of them, accompanied by his German adjutants. From the bare Bulair Ridge, they had a full view of the Gulf of Saros. While the British were heavily bombarding the area, they were not landing any troops there yet. Reports began filtering in. At the southern tip of the peninsula, the British were taking tremendous casualties but bringing in more and more troops. The Allies were not having any success against the 9th Division at Gaba Tepe. However, the British occupied the heights at Ari Burnu, to which the bulk of the reserve 19th Division under Lt. Col. Mustafa Kemal was hurrying.Liman von Sanders estimated that his 60,000 troops were facing upward of 90,000 Allies, supported by an incredible array of warships. The Turkish high command was amazed to count almost 200 Allied warships and transports facing them. By mid-afternoon, Liman von Sanders received news that the French landing at Besika Bay has been repulsed, and that it seemed to have been a diversion. The enemy actions at the Gulf of Saros appeared to be a mere demonstration as well. The Turkish defenders put up a very spirited fight against the invading Allies. In many places, the British troops hitting the beaches were mowed down under an unrelenting hail of Turkish bullets. Many small groups of Allied soldiers managed to penetrate the shore defenses and move inland, melting away along the mazes of ravines, gullies, and thickets.The fight was far from being one-sided, however. The full weight of British naval guns was brought to bear on Turkish positions. Rear Admiral R.J.B. Keyes recalled, “The enemy’s position was obliterated in sheets of flame and clouds of yellow smoke and dust from our high explosive. It seemed incredible that anyone could be left alive in the enemy’s position, but when the fire was lifted that ghastly tat-tat-tat of machine-gun fire broke out again, and took toll of anyone who moved.” A less exalted viewer was British midshipman H.M. Denham, who noted, “We opened fire on the Turks with twelve-pounders. I could see a dozen of them rush out of their trench, run fifty yards, lie flat with our men’s rifle bullet splashes all around them. When we directed our fire at them I saw a lot of heads, legs and arms go up in the air; however, they fought very bravely.”The Allied Foothold:The Allies had gained a foothold at the southern point of the Gallipoli Peninsula and were constantly bringing in reinforcements. The whole of the Turkish 9th Division under Colonel Sami Bei had been committed to the fight and still more troops were needed. Liman von Sanders ordered two battalions from the 7th Division to be moved there by boat from Maidos. He also sent three battalions from the 5th Division, in readiness at the Gulf of Saros, to Maidos to follow those of the 7th Division. The 19th Division, although holding its own at Gaba Tepe and Ari Burnu, was heavily engaged against Australian and New Zealand forces.Even though he suspected that the Allied movements at the Gulf of Saros were a feint, Liman von Sanders remained on the Bulair heights throughout the night. On the morning of April 26, he ordered units from the 5th and 7th Divisions, along with most of the field artillery of the two divisions, to Maidos for transportation to the southern tip of the peninsula. Meanwhile, he left his chief of staff, Lt. Col. Kazim Bei, in charge of the remaining troops at the Gulf of Saros. Bei had orders to send his remaining troops to Maidos if no enemy landing manifested itself the following day.Mustafa Kemal, leading his 19th Division, was one of those rare men whom providence places at exactly the right place at exactly the right time. On the morning of the Allied landings, Kemal’s division was held in reserve approximately five miles away from the shores. Its sister division, the 9th, bore the brunt of Allied assault, and its commander urgently requested reinforcements. Kemal personally took charge of one of his regiments, a company of cavalry and an artillery battery, and hurried forward. As he later described in his memoirs, Kemal stopped on a crest of a hill to wait for his troops to catch up. While he sat resting his horse, he spotted a group of retreating Turkish soldiers from the 9th Division. They informed him that they were out of ammunition and were being closely followed by the British. Kemal quickly saw a skirmish line of British soldiers climbing up the hill. He ordered the few 9th Division soldiers to fix bayonets and lie down. He later wrote, “As they did so, the enemy too lay down. We had won time.”The Turkish Counterattack;In the late morning, as more and more units from his 19th Division began arriving opposite the landing sites, Kemal organized a counterattack against the ANZAC positions. Leading toward the 57th Infantry Regiment, the 36-year-old officer addressed his men. “I don’t order you to attack,” he said. “I order you to die. By the time we are dead, other units and commanders will have come up to take our place.” While containing more that a little dramatic flair, Kemal’s orders reflected his correct estimation of the situation: hold at all costs.During April 25 and the next few days, the 57th Regiment lived up to its commander’s expectation—casualties were so heavy that the regiment practically ceased to exist. To recognize the sacrifice of men of the 57th Infantry Regiment, the Turkish government did not reconstitute the unit, retiring its number with honors. Throughout the day, Kemal continued feeding reinforcements into the maelstrom. The Australians and New Zealanders tenaciously clung to their slivers of shoreline, soaking up casualties themselves and dealing out even greater casualties to the counterattacking Turks. One of the Turkish regiments advancing on the left flank, the 77th, composed mainly of unsteady Arab recruits, broke and ran after suffering severe loses. Kemal quickly shifted a battalion from the right to plug the gap. By the time night mercifully fell, the bloodied beachheads, gullies, hilltops, and slopes were littered with the carnage of war. Corpses of fallen Turks, Australians, New Zealanders, British, and Arabs presented a nightmarish landscape. The moaning of wounded made it seem as if the hills themselves were crying out in anguish.While Kemal’s division suffered terrible losses, he scored a moral victory over the Allies. The casualties among the Australian and New Zealand soldiers were also so great that their brigade and divisional commanders convinced Maj. Gen. William Birdwood, commander of the Anzac contingent, to request that they be evacuated. The expedition’s commander, British General Sir Ian Hamilton, denied the request, instead advising, “You have got through the difficult business, now you have only to dig, dig, dig, until you are safe.” As ANZAC shovels bit into the rocky soil, the Allies lost the initiative.Containing the Beachhead:All through the fighting on April 25, Kemal managed to contain the Allied advance. For his role in events, he would be awarded the Turkish Order of Distinguished Service. Later, Kaiser Wilhelm II would award Kemal Germany’s Iron Cross. Extremely outspoken and nationalistic, Kemal soon came to disagree with the overall commander at Gallipoli, Liman von Sanders, who preferred to have German officers in key positions. Kemal’s attitude and language in addressing his Turkish and German superiors were not always the most politic. Despite multiple ruffled feathers, his personal courage and abilities were never in doubt, and on May 1 he was promoted to the rank of full colonel.Heavy fighting continued for the next two days. The Allies, intent on breaking through to the hinterland of the peninsula, threw more and more men into the fighting. For their part, the Turks were just as determined to push the invaders back into the sea. As the result, neither side gained their objectives. By the beginning of May, stationary warfare, reminiscent of Western Europe, had developed on the peninsula. Despite large quantities of blood shed on both sides, progress was measured in feet. Two distinct fronts soon took shape: at Sedd-el-Bahr (Cape Helles) and Ari Burnu (Anzac Cove).To minimize the effectiveness of British naval gunfire, Liman von Sanders ordered his troops in the first line to dig their trenches as close to the British as possible. With the opposing trench lines within a grenade’s throw from each other, British naval gunfire could just as easily hit a friend as a foe. However, the British ships still could rain heavy fire onto Turkish second and subsequent lines of defense. Turkish villages and small towns on the Gallipoli Peninsula were turned to rubble by British naval gunfire. The once-beautiful port town of Maidos was left in ruins. The town of Gallipoli was severely damaged. Krithia, located just one mile north of the battle lines at Sedd-el-Bahr, was reduced to a heap of rubble. Allied warships, cruising the waters of the Aegean Sea with impunity, were able to bring a punishing flanking fire across almost the entire peninsula. Especially hard hit were the Turkish flanks, resting on the Aegean Sea in the west and the Dardanelles in the east.The Defenders Resupply:The resupply situation of the Turkish Fifth Army was extremely difficult. The railhead nearest to the front lines was at a small town of Uzun-Kupru in Thrace (modern-day Bulgaria). Since the Turkish Army had no trucks, all supplies had to be moved by horse- and ox-drawn wagons, a journey of several days. The overwhelming majority of supplies coming to Gallipoli arrived by boat from the Asiatic mainland across the Sea of Marmara. As British and Australian submarines tried unsuccessfully to close the supply line, the Turkish Army continued the struggle. At the beginning of the campaign, even entrenching tools were hard to come by. During their attacks on the British trenches, Turkish infantrymen often carried away any digging implements they could capture and scavenged wood, bricks, and other materials from destroyed villages. Even sand bags were in short supply. When several thousand of them did arrive, large numbers of the precious items were used to patch up the ragged uniforms of the Turkish soldiers.Four more Turkish divisions—the 4th, 13th, 15th, and 16th—arrived to reinforce Liman von Sanders’s depleted command. These divisions brought several batteries of much-needed heavy artillery. Even though consisting mostly of older models, the guns proved invaluable in counteracting British artillery, which was being landed on the peninsula in increasing numbers. The Turkish Navy, particularly its two German-crewed ships, contributed two machine-gun detachments of 12 weapons each to the Gallipoli defenses.During the night of May 18, the newly arrived Turkish 2nd Division attacked the Allies at Ari Burnu. It succeeded in breaking through the first British trench line and reaching the second. However, the British immediately counterattacked and pushed the exhausted 2nd Division back to its starting position. Casualties on both sides were heavy, with the 2nd Division losing 9,000 men killed and wounded. In his memoirs, Liman von Sanders took the blame for the attack’s failures, citing insufficient artillery preparation and quantity of ammunition. British losses were significant as well, and British command requested a cease-fire to collect and bury their dead. Liman von Sanders agreed to halt the hostilities for one day on May 23.At the end of June, a provisional German company of 200 commissioned and noncommissioned officers joined the Fifth Army. However, the unfamiliar climate and Allied fire quickly reduced its numbers. Distributed in small groups along the whole front, the Germans nevertheless proved invaluable in supervising Turkish engineering and construction efforts. A significant weakness in Turkish positions was the gap between the Ari Burnu and Sedd-el-Bahr fronts. While the Turkish flanks at Sedd-el-Bahr were anchored on the water, the flanks at Ari Burnu were hanging in the air. Advancing through the Anafarta Valley, the Allies could threaten both Turkish fronts and cause them to give up their positions.The Allies Reinforce:At the beginning of August, five fresh British and ANZAC divisions were landed at Ari Burnu and Suvla Bay. In the evening of August 6, Liman von Sanders received alarming reports that a strong Allied force was moving north along the coast from Ari Burnu, aiming at the Anafarta Valley. Immediately, he moved troops from the Turkish 9th, 7th, and 12th Divisions to parry the new threat. As the forward elements of the 9th Division reached the Koja Chemen Mountain, they discovered that the British infantry was advancing up the opposite slope of the same mountain. In a brief and decisive counterattack, the Turks completely drove the British off the mountain. Leading from the front, German Colonel Hans Kannengiesser, commander of the 9th Division, was killed by a bullet through the chest.Heavy fighting for the hills around the Anafarta Valley continued through August 7, as the outnumbered Turkish soldiers from the 9th Division hung on waiting for reinforcements. After a grueling forced march, the 7th and 12th Divisions reached the threatened area the next day. Liman von Sanders appointed Kemal the overall commander of all Turkish forces on the Anafarta Front. His six divisions, centered on the two villages, Great and Little Anafarta, became known as the Anafartalar Group (“Anafartalar” in Turkish is plural for Anafarta). Throughout August 9, Kemal launched attack after attack at the British lines. In extremely bloody fighting, the Allies were pushed back to the coast in several places. Not lacking in bravery, the British and ANZAC troops tenaciously hung on to several key pieces of hilly terrain. On the evening of August 10, Kemal personally led another attack. After a difficult contest, the British were driven off all the dominating terrain at the head of the Anafarta Valley.During the attack on August 10, Kemal was hit in the chest by a spent piece of shrapnel. Fortunately for him, the shrapnel struck his pocket watch, leaving him unscathed. He later presented this watch to Liman von Sanders, who in turn gave Kemal his own watch, bearing his family’s coat of arms. On August 15, the Allies launched their own strong attack from Suvla Bay northeast toward the Kiretch Tepe Ridge. Their initial attack was a success, driving the Turks off a large portion of the ridge. A Turkish battalion composed largely of policemen from the Gallipoli Peninsula bore the brunt of the attack. It was almost completely annihilated, and its commander, Captain Kadri Bei, was killed.A Grinding Stalemate:Throughout August 16, the British continued heavy pressure on the beleaguered Turks. Turkish reinforcements were rushed forward and had to attack in daylight, in full view of supporting British warships. Turkish casualties from flanking naval gunfire were frightening, but the Allied ground advance was held up at all points. On August 21, the British launched another all-out attack against the Anafarta Valley. The fighting was as futile as it was bloody. The Allies made no progress, losing 15,000 men killed and 45,000 wounded. Turkish losses were equally frightening, forcing them to commit the last reserves, including the dismounted cavalry.Had the British been able to break through the Kiretch Tepe Ridge onto the wide Anafarta plain, the Turkish Fifth Army would have been outflanked and forced to stand and die or else fall back, ceding the Gallipoli Peninsula to the British. As it was, due to the incredible tenacity of the Mehmetciks (Turkish equivalent of American doughboys), the British merely extended the front lines at Ari Burnu. Liman von Sanders attributed their failure to the timidity of British commanders in waiting too long at the coast before pushing inland. The British, for their part, underestimated how quickly the Turks could rush reinforcements to the threatened sectors.On September 20, Kemal fell ill with malaria. Upset over real or imagined slights, he offered his resignation on September 27. While Liman von Sanders attempted to smooth over matters, Kemal remained unpersuaded. His relations with the German commander continued to deteriorate. On December 5, Liman von Sanders granted Kemal unconditional medical leave.The Allied Withdrawal:The fighting at Anafarta was the high point of the almost nine-month campaign, although the Allies continued half-hearted attacks throughout September and October. At the end of October, the Allied command began planning the evacuation of their troops from Gallipoli. An Austrian mortar battery arrived in mid-November, followed by an Austrian howitzer battery in December. The Austrian gunners, well-trained and -equipped, contributed significantly to the Turkish defenses in the later stage of the campaign. Along with approximately 500 Germans, the Austrian artillerymen were the only non-Turkish troops fighting the Allies at Gallipoli.Toward the end of November, the Turkish forces gathered for a decisive counteroffensive on the Allied positions. Their objective was to pierce the junction between the Ari Burnu and Anafarta fronts. Mock defensive positions were constructed behind the front and Turkish divisions assigned to participate in the attack were rotated back to practice offensive operations. However, before the offensive was launched, the Allies evacuated the Ari Burnu and Anafarta fronts. The Allied command planned and executed the withdrawal so skillfully that the Turks never realized what was about to happen. During the night of December 19, under covering fire from British warships, Allied land forces slipped away from the blood-soaked beaches. Liman von Sanders praised the Allied efforts: “The withdrawal had been prepared with extraordinary care and carried out with great skill.”While the Allies evacuated their men from Ari Burnu with hardly a loss, they had to leave behind a trove of supplies and war materiél: ammunition, tents, spare parts for cannons and machine guns, canned food, hand grenades, even a few small steamers and more than 60 rowboats. Supply-starved Turkish forces distributed the booty among all theaters of operation. Now Liman von Sanders was able to concentrate all of his forces against the only remaining Allied beachhead at Sedd-el-Bahr. The Turks kept up a steady pressure on the British lines, watchful for any further sign of withdrawal. When an Allied pullback was detected during the night of January 8, the Turks launched a determined effort to trap as many British troops as possible on the beaches. The British rear guard put up a spirited fight, aided by booby traps, land mines, and naval gunfire. In spite of losing many men, the Allies once again achieved an orderly withdrawal and evacuated Sedd-el-Bahr.By the morning of January 9, jubilant Turkish forces held the whole peninsula. An even greater amount of war booty had been abandoned on the southern tip of the peninsula. Ragged Turkish soldiers gleefully fell upon the riches the British left behind. Liman von Sanders recalled, “What the ragged and insufficiently nourished Turkish soldiers took away cannot be estimated. I tried to stop plundering by a dense line of sentinels, but the endeavor was in vain. During the ensuing time we saw the Turkish soldiers on the peninsula in the most incredible garments which they had made up from every kind of uniform. They even carried British gas masks for fun.”Counting Losses:During the height of the Dardanelles campaign, Liman von Sanders commanded 22 infantry divisions in the Fifth Army. Turkish losses amounted to 66,000 men killed and 152,000 wounded. Of those wounded, 42,000 soldiers were later returned to duty. Allied casualties reached upward of 200,000 men killed, wounded, or missing in action. The men evacuated from the Gallipoli beaches later were shipped to France, smack into the bloodbath of the Western Front trenches.As for Gallipoli, it would be difficult to find another location where so many men from so many nations fought and died in such a small place. Turks, Germans, British, Australians, New Zealanders, French, Indians, Senegalese, Arabs, Austrians, Gurkhas, and others were locked in mortal combat where bravery was never in short supply. Years later, while serving as the president of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal would write: “Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives … you are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side now here in this county of ours. You, the mothers, who sent their sons from faraway countries, wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well.”This article by Victor J. Kamenir originally appeared on the Warfare History Network.Image: Wikimedia Commons
September 1, 2019Read More
In a memoir that is part hymn to the constitution, the former secretary of defense offers only veiled criticism of the presidentJames Mattis listens as Donald Trump speaks to the media in the cabinet room in October 2018. Photograph: Leah Millis/ReutersJames Mattis was Donald Trump’s defense secretary for less than two years, resigning in December 2018. The general’s departure came with headlines but little surprise. His resignation letter omitted any praise for the commander-in-chief. “Because you have the right to have a secretary of defense whose views are better aligned with yours,” he wrote, “I believe it is right for me to step down.”Mattis had been on thin ice for a long time. At an infamous cabinet meeting in June 2017, Mattis praised the men and women of the military instead of gushing over the president. Just months later, a White House official told me Mattis had shown insufficient loyalty to Trump. But because North Korea was on the front burner – before “Little Rocket Man” had started sending Trump love letters – the president felt he needed generals around him. In the end, everyone in Trump’s orbit is expendable. Except Ivanka Trump.Call Sign Chaos, Mattis’s memoir, is a readable look at more than four decades as a marine. Co-written with Bing West, a former marine and Reagan Pentagon alumnus, the book spans Mattis’s career, from enlistment through retirement.It contains veiled disapproval of Trump and is sharper in expressing disagreements with his Oval Office predecessors.> Call Sign Chaos takes aim at bigotry and lauds the military service of migrants. It gives full-throated support for NatoOfficially, the book’s title derives from the call-sign bestowed when Mattis became a regimental commander, Chaos an acronym for “Colonel Has An Outstanding Solution”.Mattis comes across as plain-spoken and reflective, a fan of books and history. Abraham Lincoln and Gettysburg receive their due. As a younger man, however, Mattis was not above brawling. In other words, he’s interesting.He repeatedly expresses his regard for America’s institutions and its constitution even as he offers criticism, one thing which sets him apart from the 45th president.“I’ve developed a love affair with our constitution,” Mattis writes.He tells of getting into a fight in Montana with three other men. Then 19, he was rewarded with a brief jail sentence and a sheriff’s escort to a westbound freight train. His brush with the law became a formative experience.Mattis recalls that as a marine recruiter he was confronted with a prospect who had been arrested for a “single use of cocaine”. Channeling his inner Nick Saban on the value of “second chances”, Mattis pushed for a waiver. “There’s a huge difference,” he writes, “between making a mistake and letting that mistake define you.”As Mattis moved up the ranks, interaction with Congress, the White House and civilian Pentagon leadership became a norm, although not necessarily a welcome one. Mattis professes to prefer the field and his troops. DC was not his “cup of tea”. Yet he appears to have overcome that hurdle, to a point anyway, when he was appointed executive secretary to Bill Clinton’s defense chiefs, William Perry and William Cohen.“I gained an abiding respect for those with whom I served and from whom I also learned a new skill set,” he writes. “I had a front-row seat to policymaking as it was supposed to work.”As for congressional oversight and the power of the purse, Mattis “received a pragmatic introduction to article one of the constitution”, a reminder to the reader that it is Congress that is tasked with raising America’s armed forces.Mattis saw action in Afghanistan and Iraq. He blames Tommy Franks, head of US Central Command and an army general, for Osama bin Laden’s escape from Tora Bora, his refusal to deploy the marines a key cause of that debacle. As Mattis frames things: “We in the military missed the opportunity, not the president, who properly deferred to his senior military commander on how to carry out the mission.”But Iraq was a different story, and there Mattis places blame squarely on George W Bush for getting the US into the mess, and on Barack Obama and Joe Biden for the mode of the eventual pullback. As for going to war, Mattis observes: “Invading Iraq stunned me. Why were we fighting them again?”> For Mattis, Iran was an implacable foe. He also believes Tehran came to view the Obama administration as ‘impotent’In a chapter titled Incoherence, Mattis acidly mocks and quotes Bush 43’s Freedom Agenda. These days, Iraq is ranked “not free” by Freedom House. Irony abounds.He commends Obama for his intelligence and reserve and Biden for his warmth. Yet he tags them over the pullout from Iraq, Obama’s imaginary red line in Syria and their stance toward Iran. He does not mask his disapproval.For Mattis, Iran was an implacable foe. He also believes Tehran came to view the Obama administration as “impotent”. To the general, proof positive lay in the failure to respond to an Iranian plot to bomb Cafe Milano, a restaurant just miles from the White House, and assassinate the Saudi ambassador.Mattis also takes aim at WikiLeaks, describing it as “new kind of adversary” that “inflicted deep harm” to American interests. Unlike Trump, he never harbored any love for Julian Assange’s creation.To Mattis, American uncertainty and messianism can both have steep downsides. As he saw it, an absence of strategy would engender the sense that the US was “proving unreliable.”“I was disappointed and frustrated,” he writes. “Policymakers all too often failed to deliver clear direction.”Yet Mattis does not grapple with domestic political realities. Lives and treasure aside, Iraq cost the Republicans both houses of Congress in 2006 and paved the way for Obama. Furthermore, casualty counts in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin were factors in Hillary Clinton’s defeat. Not everything is about Russia.When it comes to Trump, Mattis flanks, avoiding a head-on clash. Call Sign Chaos takes aim at bigotry and lauds the military service of migrants. As in his resignation letter, Mattis gives full-throated support for Nato: “Nations with allies thrive, and those without wither.”In his epilogue, Mattis notes America’s political divide and full-throated tribalism. But he is optimistic. Call Sign Chaos ends thus: “E Pluribus Unum.”
September 1, 2019Read More
On July 21, 1987, a gigantic 414,000-ton supertanker entered the Persian Gulf with an unusually prominent escort—a U.S. Navy missile cruiser and three frigates.The narrow straits of the Persian Gulf had become a shooting gallery due to the Iran-Iraq War, still raging seven years after Iraq’s surprise invasion of Iran in 1980. As Iran counterattacked into Iraqi territory, Baghdad—supplied and armed by the Soviet Union, France, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia—began blasting Iranian oil tankers with missiles, often with assistance from U.S. surveillance assets.Iran retaliated by targeting Kuwaiti tankers with imported Chinese Silkworm missiles. Though terrifying, both side’s anti-ship missiles inflicted relatively little damage as the tankers were simply too bulky to be easily sunk. The same was not true for the frigate USS Stark, struck accidentally by an Iraqi Exocet missile in May 1987 that killed thirty-seven crew.But Washington had an axe to grind with Tehran, not Baghdad—and decided to respond to pleas for military escort from Kuwait. This led to the controversial policy of reflagging Kuwaiti tankers so they could be escorted by U.S. warships in Operation Earnest Will.The supertanker Bridgeton—formerly the Kuwaiti tanker al-Rekkah—was the first ship to receive a U.S. escort. Upon entering the narrow Straits of Hormuz, a flight of four Iranian Phantom jets swooped towards the Bridgeton convoy, but turned away at the last minute. On July 23, Tehran rumbled that tanker was carrying “prohibited goods” but made no obvious movesU.S. intelligence had learned of Iranian plans to attack the convoy with motorboats operated by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy. Indeed, the head of the IRGC had lobbied for such an attack but was vetoed by Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini. He had a subtler approach in mind.As the Bridgeton cruised eighteen miles west of Iran’s Farsi Island on the morning of July 24, she abruptly struck what resembled a spiked-ball chained to the sea floor—a variant of an old Soviet M-08 mine built by North Korea and exported to Iran. An explosion ripped a large hole the tanker’s port cargo tank, flooding five of her thirty-one compartments but not injuring any crew.The night before, IRGCN motorboats had lain three chains totaling sixty mines spaced a half-kilometer part along the convoy’s well-known path.Ironically, the Bridgeton, limping along at just six knots, effectively escorted the U.S. warships back to port, because the huge tanker was the only vessel likely to survive hitting another mine.The “Bridgeton incident” was an inauspicious start for Earnest Will—highlighting the Navy’s failure to plan for mines. Iranian Mir-Hossein Prime Minister Mousavi gloated it had dealt “an irreparable blow on America’s political and military prestige.”Cunningly, the minelaying was both clearly Iranian in origin, while being technically deniable. However, the tactic inspired France and the UK, and later Italy and the Netherlands, to deploy their own warships to the Gulf, including seven minesweepersThe U.S. Navy had few assets immediately at hand to deal with mines. Then, as today, mine warfare was a neglected branch. Weeks later, the Navy deployed the amphibious carrier USS Guadalcanal with RH-53D Sea Stallion minesweeping helicopters aboard. Eventually six ocean-going and five-riverine minesweepers joined Earnest Will, which at its peak involved as many as thirty U.S. Navy ships including carriers and the huge battleship Missouri.SEALs, Little Birds and Swift BoatsAs deploying U.S. mine-sweeping units ashore in Saudi Arabia or Kuwait proved politically prohibitive, Kuwait instead furnished two barges, Hercules and Wimbrown that the Pentagon promptly converted into mobile sea bases, complete with their own extensive self-defense weapons.The floating bases also hosted assets vital to a covert U.S. counter-offensive called Operation Prime Chance to catch the Iranians red-handed in the act. These included two Navy SEAL teams, six 64-foot-long Mark III “swift boats” and six tiny egg-shaped “Little Bird” helicopters from the Army’s elite 160th Special Operations Aviation regiment.On September 21, a trio of Little Bird choppers flying off the frigate Jarrett were assigned to shadow the Iranian tank landing ship Iran Ajr, suspected to have been converted for minelaying. An MH-6 helicopter equipped with a forward-looking infrared (FLIR) sensor and night-vision goggles led the way, escorted by two AH-6 gunships loaded with 7.62-millimeter miniguns and 2.75” rocket pods.Hovering stealthily 500 meters away, the helicopter crews recorded footage of the Iran Ajr’s crew deploying mines next to the Middle Shoals navigational buoy used by tankers. The Little Birds were ordered to open fire, and they raked the 614-ton vessel with their miniguns, causing the crew to take cover.However, Iranian sailors resumed deploying the mines a half-hour later. This time the night-vision-aided helicopter pilots unleashed a sustained barrage including rockets, killing three crew—and causing the remaining twenty-six to abandon ship.The following morning, Navy SEALs on Mark III boats rescued all but two of the Iranian sailors and boarded Iran Ajr. They found nine mines onboard and seized a logbook recording past minelaying activity, including maps showing the locations of those mines. Then the Navy towed Iran Ajr to deep water and blew her up.A trio of minigun-armed MH-6 helicopters tangled again with four Iranian ships approaching the sea base Hercules on October 8, including a corvette, a Swedish-built Boghammar and two Boston whaler type boats. The Boghammar’s crew fired Stinger missiles at the scout helicopters before being sunk by return fire. Eight Iranian crew were killed, and six more rescued from the water.When an Iranian missile struck the U.S.-flagged Sea Island City on October 16, injuring eighteen crew, Washington authorized a counterattack three days later called Operation Nimble Archer, resulting in the destruction of two Iranian oil platforms used to host IRGCN boats.But Iranian minelaying continued. On April 14, 1988, the crew of the frigate Samuel B. Roberts spotted three Iranian mines and realized she had unwittingly cruised into a minefield. While attempting to back out of danger, Roberts struck a mine which nearly split her in two and injured ten sailors. A heroic damage control effort saved the ship and her crew. Navy divers later identified additional mines in the area—with serial numbers identical to those on the Iran Ajr.Four days later, the U.S. launched a second retaliatory strike targeting two more Iranian oil platforms called Operation Praying Mantis. This time frigates and gunboats of the regular Iranian Navy counter attacked, resulting in the U.S. Navy’s largest foray since World War II, in which half of Iran’s surface combatants were sunk or crippled.This subdued Iranian naval operations thereafter. The Iran-Iraq war ended four months later—but sadly, not before one final tragic incident. On July 3, the U.S. Aegis missile cruiser Vincennes was skirmishing with Iranian fast boats, having unknowingly entered Iranian territorial waters, when her radar reported she was being approached by an Iranian F-14 Tomcat fighter. The cruiser fired two radar-guided SM-2 missiles at the contact—bringing down Iranian A300 airliner Flight 655, killing all 290 civilians aboard.Operation Earnest Will concluded September 26 when the USS Vandergrift escorted a final tanker into the Persian Gulf. The operatives involved in Prime Chance remained active, however, until June 1990.The Tanker War demonstrated how Iran could retaliate against foreign pressure through calibrated, and semi-deniable attacks on the valuable shipping passing through the narrow waters of the Gulf—even though the campaign failed to inflict substantial economic damage, or indeed sink many large ships. A less violent variant of this strategy has evidently been implemented by Tehran today in its harassment and sabotage of shipping in the Gulf. However, experience from the Tanker War suggested that even controlled, asymmetric harassment attacks may risk provoking a more destructive retaliation.Sébastien Roblin holds a master’s degree in conflict resolution from Georgetown University and served as a university instructor for the Peace Corps in China. He has also worked in education, editing, and refugee resettlement in France and the United States. He currently writes on security and military history for War Is Boring.Image: Wikimedia Commons.
September 1, 2019Read More
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