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Foremost, we commemorate the military campaign of World War I, where Australian and New Zealand forces at dawn on April 25, 1915 landed on the Gallipoli peninsula, Turkey. This campaign, if it had been successful, would have allowed Allied vessels to pass through the Dardanelles, see the capture of Constantinople (present day Istanbul) and take Turkey out of the war. Instead, it ended in a defeat for the Allies, with horrendous losses on both sides.
Alan Bardos' guest post asks a significant question:
Could the Ottoman Empire have been bribed to make peace, during the First World War?
The Dardanelles campaign was intend to be a strategic masterstroke to bypass the stalemate of the Western Front. Instead it has become a byword for missed opportunity and tragedy. Perhaps the greatest of these is that it could have been avoided through a diplomatic master stroke.
When the Ottoman Empire entered the First World War, on the side of the Central Powers, its government was split over whether or not to join the war and indeed whose side to take. The decision to go to war had been hijacked by the proGerman Minister of War, Enver Pasha who provoked the Allies into declaring war on the Ottoman Empire, bypassing the rest of its leadership.
The Ottomans entry into the war put extra pressure on the already tottering Tsarist regime, by blocking access to her warm water ports in the Black sea and opened up a third front for them to fight in the Caucasus.
The Russian’s asked for help from her Allies and amidst fears that Russia might collapse and sign a separate peace, a plan was conceived to attack Turkey. However Captain Reginald ‘Blinker’ Hall, the Head of Naval Intelligence, developed a more subtle approach, exploiting the devision in the Ottoman Government.
At the end of January 1915, a few weeks ahead of the coming naval campaign, Hall dispatched agents instructed to offer the Ottomans a bribe of up to £4m to make peace. The agents focused their efforts on Talat Pasha, the Minister of the Interior, who was the only man in Constantinople (Istanbul) powerful enough to challenge Enver. He had no allegiance to either side in the war and was thought to be an opportunist who would bargain with whoever was most convenient to his purpose. He was also resentful of the number of posts that have been given to Germans in the Ottoman Army.
The Ottomans were also bankrupt after losing a series of colonial wars in the Balkans and North Africa. Talat was therefore receptive to the offer and entered into talks with Hall’s agents.
The negotiations dragged on to the end of February, when the Allied fleet began its attempt to force the Straits. The negotiations eventually concluded without a resolution 15th March 1915. Three days later the naval assault reached its climax with a failed attempt to force the Dardanelles States, at the cost of three battleships sunk and three others severely damaged.
The crux of the negotiations for the Ottomans was a guarantee that Constantinople would remain in their control, if they were to sign a peace treaty and without it the talks fell apart. No amount of money could compensate for the loose of their capital. And such a guarantee could not be given.
Constantinople had been promised to Russia when the Great Game in Central Asia was still afoot and by 1915, before the carnage of the Somme and the Russian revolution; it would probably have been considered a sensible and far sighted policy.
The Foreign Office took the view that it was inevitable that Russia would occupy Constantinople, so they might as well let them do it on their terms. To keep Russia onside and mitigate their threat to India, which was why Britain had entered into the Triple Entente Cordiale. The Foreign Secretary also thought it absurd that a great power like Russia did not have a warm water port.
There was also a more immediate need to keep Russia onside. It was hoped, in vain, that the Russian’s would support the British and French assault of the Strait splitting the Turkish forces. The Allies also did not want to give the Russians any reason to sign a separate peace. Reneging on the promise to give them Constantinople would have provided an excellent opportunity for them to do so. And that was the Allied reason for the demonstration in the Dardanelles to begin with.
January 1915.
The Western Front has descended into trench warfare. In the East an opportunity arises for the Allies to bypass the stalemate.
Desperate to preserve a truce in his sector of the front and with it the lives of his men, Johnny Swift a reckless former diplomat is caught warning the Germans of a trench raid.
Sir George Smyth, Swift’s former superior has negotiated a stay of execution. In return, Swift is dispatched to Constantinople on a perilous mission to bribe the Turkish government and open the backdoor into Germany.
This does not stop the disgraced diplomat enjoying the delights of the orient, while trying to negotiate the labyrinthine power struggles within the Turkish government.
Swift uses all his guile to complete his mission, but finds his efforts blocked by his old friend and nemesis Lazlo Breitner, now an official at the Austro-Hungarian Embassy.
The agent moves from the drinking dens at the crossroads of the world to the opening battles of the Gallipoli campaign - and with it a chance to redeem his reputation.
Meet the Author
There is still a great deal of mystery and debate surrounding many of the events of the First World War, which he explores in his historical fiction series. Through the eyes of Johnny Swift, a disgraced and degenerate diplomat and soldier.
The series starts with the pivotal event of the twentieth century. The Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The second book ‘The Dardanelles Conspiracy’ is based on an attempt by Naval Intelligence to bribe Turkey out of the First World War. In the third book Johnny will be employed as a useful idiot to flush out a traitor working to undermine the Allies.
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Where to Purchase
The Dardanelles Conspiracy: https://amzn.to/2OJ38mN
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