Comments on: Target: Constantinople!

By: Brett Holman

Brett Holman — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 09:54:13 +0000

Alex:

I thought that too. But I couldn’t find any evidence (in my admittedly brief trawl) that anyone was thinking about cutting supply lines across the straits at the time, or even claimed that in retrospect. Of course, the Allies were hoping for a quick knock-out blow, and the effects on the Turkish armies in Asia would take a long time to manifest. But it might have been thought that the prospect of losing the empire to the Russians and British would make the Turks cave.

Turkey entered the war in October 1914 so diplomacy wasn’t a factor.

Alan:

I’ve got Prior’s book now. He addresses the exodus from Constantinople I mention in my post, but calls it a rational reaction to the possibility of bombardment rather than panic. And notes that much the same happened in Paris a few months earlier but nobody suggests that France was about to surrender. He also argues that the Turkish guns were not running low on ammo, and that the naval attempts to pierce the straits were exceedingly stupid …

By: Erik Lund

Erik Lund — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 16:58:18 +0000

What I understand from my Oscar Parkes is that not all areas of a battleship are equally well protected, and that aft of the forward bulwark, they aren’t protected at all, and this is nearly equally true of the far stern. As a result, naval architects epected sinking to ensue –eventually– if the bow and stern were riddled by shell fragments. It’s an issue of waterlogging resulting in hull working, so it would not happen during a battle, but could easily occur during the return to port.

By: Chris Williams

Chris Williams — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 20:08:56 +0000

Were they planning to force the Bosporous (which is north of Constantinople)? Even parking in the Golden Horn would be a bit hardcore: you could bring Constantinople under fire from the middle of the Sea of Mamora, so why bother?

By: Alex

Alex — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 18:17:38 +0000

“Field” arty? 75 or 105mm? How exactly?

By: Erik Lund

Erik Lund — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 16:39:51 +0000

The idea of taking a fleet of battleships through a long strait less than a mile wide in places, and none too wide even at the greatest (IIRC) is, and was, _insane._ Battleships might carry a great deal of armour, but they are eminently sinkable by a battery of field artillery, given time. The fact that the whole discussion ignores the point that the Bosphorus would have been an even toughter nut to crack suggests that no-one has really thought this through.
I’m glad to hear that someone finally has.

By: Alan Allport

Alan Allport — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 14:52:00 +0000

Robin Prior's new book seeks to demolish the myth of a 'turning point that almost turned', apparently.

By: Alex

Alex — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 10:09:28 +0000

There was also, presumably, the recognition that such Turkish industry as there was at the time was concentrated around the capital, and that getting into the Straits would cut off communication between the European and Asian parts of Turkey, i.e. also cutting off any help from the Central Powers. Arguably the operation might have succeeded; there were only about 50 mines in the Straits, and the RN later got its minesweeping better organised, and the Turks were close to running out of ammunition for the big guns after the 18th.

It’s also worth pointing out that Turkey only very narrowly came down on the side of the Central Powers in the first place, and they may have hoped for something more of a “diplomatic-military operation” to strengthen the pro-Allied faction than the epic struggle it turned into.

By: Brett Holman

Brett Holman — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 09:19:49 +0000

I think the aerial knock-out blow did owe something to naval strategy. (I talk about this a bit in the thesis.) The idea of a decisive battle was Mahanian, except that it wouldn’t be directed against the enemy air fleet but the enemy people. That part is a bit more Corbettian, or a guerre de course, but much faster. I did a post on this area many moons ago: http://airminded.org/2006/02/23/the-bolt-from-the-blue-and-the-knock-out-blow/

By: JDK

JDK — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 13:19:28 +0000

I think they were hoping for a re-run of ‘The Shortest War’ ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Zanzibar_War ). Send gunboats, foreigners quit.

Apparently there were theories that different foreigners had different degrees of stiffness, but the RN was superior to all, dontcherknow.

In modern English use, I’d tend to distinguish between ‘morale’ and ‘moral’ ’self-belief’ vs ‘rightness’. Which of us is being pedantic, old fashioned or wrong? (There, that’s poisoned the well…)

By: Jakob

Jakob — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 12:37:17 +0000

Is the naval parallel to the knock-out blow the idea of a decisive battle to destroy an enemy’s fleet-in-being? Jellicoe being able to lose the war in an afternoon and all that. I don’t know my Mahan or my naval history well enough to say. Although I suppose in all cases this is a case of navies fighting one another rather than striking a blow at the civilian populace.