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The Dardanelles Campaign and the Contending Strategies for War



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Sevtap Demirci

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DOI:10.17265/2328-2134/2017.05.002

The idea that WWI was a global conflict is generally accepted by the scholarly community. The Great War, as it is otherwise called, deserves to be remembered not only by the European nations but also by the rest of the world countries whose destinies were shaped by it or because of it. It would not be wrong to suggest that the WWI, as far as the Ottomans were concerned, was a history of European armies in non-European military stages. The historiography of World War I is often limited to English sources seemingly due to the negligence of Ottoman sources, but most probably caused by the language barrier[s] and/or the Eurocentric approach to history. Or in Erikson’s words, the “resultant historiography tends to tell the story from an overwhelmingly European perspective, which in many ways reflected what the European Powers perceived rather than what actually occurred” (Erickson, 2008, p. 10). It is my opinion that the wider use of Ottoman archives and Turkish narratives would provide a more balanced analysis and that a holistic understanding of the events that unfolded requires special attention to the Ottoman perspective. This paper suggests an analysis of the Dardanelles conflict from a strategic perspective, with special reference to British and Ottoman policies and their part played in the transition from peace to war; the ensuing political turmoil that led to an open conflict between Britain and the Ottoman Empire.

Ottoman Empire, Great War, Gallipoli campaign, Dardanelles, Young Turks, Allies