Who fought in the Gallipoli Campaign?

The Gallipoli Campaign of 1915 was fought between the Allies, chiefly Britain, France and the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, and the defending Ottoman Empire.

Why did the Allies attack Gallipoli?

In the Gallipoli Campaign of 1915 the Allies hoped to force the Dardanelles strait, capture Constantinople, knock the Ottoman Empire out of the war and open a supply route to Russia.

How did the Gallipoli Campaign end?

The Gallipoli Campaign ended in failure for the Allies, who evacuated the peninsula in the winter of 1915 to 1916 after months of stalemate, though the withdrawal itself was carried out with very few losses.

Why is Gallipoli so important to Australia and New Zealand?

The Gallipoli Campaign of 1915 gave rise to the ANZAC legend, and the courage of the Australian and New Zealand soldiers is still honored each year on ANZAC Day, 25 April.

Who won the Battle of Gallipoli?

The Gallipoli campaign, which began in 1915, ended as an Ottoman success, as the defenders held the high ground and the Allies eventually evacuated the peninsula over the winter of 1915 and early 1916. It was a strategic failure for the Allies that damaged several reputations, including that of Winston Churchill.

How many people died at Gallipoli?

Exact figures are uncertain, but casualties across the whole Gallipoli campaign of 1915 are commonly estimated at around half a million killed, wounded and sick, roughly divided between the Allies and the Ottoman defenders.

Gallipoli, 1915: the Doomed Gamble for the Dardanelles

Brookes Series postcard, State Library of New South Wales, 1915, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

By the numbers
Side	Strength	Casualties	Killed
Allies (British Empire, ANZAC, France)	~489,000	~252,000	~56,000
Ottoman Empire	~315,000	~255,000	~87,000

Quick answer

The Ottoman Empire won the Gallipoli campaign, fought between April 1915 and January 1916, holding the peninsula against an Allied invasion that aimed to force the Dardanelles. What London had imagined as a swift knockout blow became one of the longest deadlocks of the First World War and gave birth to the ANZAC legend.¹

Before dawn on 25 April 1915, small boats slid toward a dark shore on the far edge of Europe. Thousands of young men from Britain, France, Australia and New Zealand crouched in the swell, rifles wet with spray, as the cliffs of the Gallipoli peninsula loomed ahead. Within minutes the water was churned by Ottoman machine guns firing down from the heights. What planners in London had imagined as a swift knockout blow against the Ottoman Empire was about to become one of the longest and most tragic deadlocks of the First World War.²

A Bold Plan on the Map

The idea was seductive on paper. By 1915 the Western Front had frozen into trenches, and the Allies looked for a way around the stalemate. If a fleet could force the narrow Dardanelles strait, it might sail up to Constantinople, knock the Ottoman Empire out of the war, and open a warm-water supply route to hard-pressed Russia. Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, was the plan's most energetic champion. The first attempt was purely naval, but in March 1915 the great warships ran into mines and shore batteries in the strait and several were sunk or crippled. The navy could not do it alone, so the decision was made to land an army on the peninsula and take the guns from behind.³

Dark locator map with a gold star in a glowing circle marking the approximate center of the fighting of the Gallipoli Campaign, the coasts, rivers and lakes of the region, and a small world map inset with the area boxed — The Gallipoli Campaign: the star marks the approximate center of the fighting, and the inset shows the area on a world map. Drawn for this article from Natural Earth data, with no modern borders. Location map: © Echoes of Battle (data: Natural Earth, public domain)

Photograph of a listing battleship low in the water, abandoned by its crew — The British battleship HMS Irresistible, abandoned and sinking after striking a mine in the Dardanelles on 18 March 1915. Public domain

The Landings and the ANZAC Beaches

On 25 April the Allies came ashore at several points. British forces landed near Cape Helles at the tip of the peninsula, while the French staged a diversionary landing at Kum Kale on the Asian shore before joining them at Helles. Farther north the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, the ANZACs, went ashore at a cove that would forever bear their name. Almost everywhere the defenders held the high ground. Men were cut down as they crossed the beaches, and those who survived clawed out shallow footholds beneath the cliffs. Ottoman resistance, stiffened by a determined officer named Mustafa Kemal who would later be known as Atatürk, was fiercer than the Allies had ever expected. Within days the invaders were pinned to narrow strips of coast, unable to break inland.⁴

Two maps of the Dardanelles strait and the Gallipoli peninsula with forts, minefields and landing beaches — The Dardanelles defenses in February and March 1915 and the Allied plan for the landings of April 1915, maps from the US Military Academy atlas. Public domain (US government work). Department of History, US Military Academy, West Point atlas.

They had come to end a war in a single stroke, and instead found the same trenches waiting for them beside the sea.

Stalemate Under a Burning Sun

What followed was months of misery. The same trench warfare the Allies had hoped to escape reappeared on the peninsula, only now under a scorching Mediterranean sun and among steep, waterless ridges. Flies swarmed over unburied dead, dysentery spread through the ranks, and fresh water had to be shipped in. A major new landing at Suvla Bay in August aimed to break the deadlock but bogged down as badly as the first. Both sides suffered terribly. Casualties across the whole campaign are commonly estimated at around half a million, killed, wounded and sick, roughly divided between the Allies and the Ottoman defenders. For all the sacrifice, the front barely moved, and the trench lines lay almost where the first days of fighting had drawn them.⁵

Photograph of soldiers in sun helmets crowded into a narrow sandbagged trench — British soldiers of the Royal Irish Fusiliers in a trench at Cape Helles, 1915, photographed by Ernest Brooks. Public domain

The Evacuation and the Legend

By late 1915 Allied commanders admitted the campaign could not succeed. The one operation carried out almost flawlessly was the withdrawal. Over the winter the troops slipped away under cover of darkness, from Suvla and Anzac in December 1915 and from Cape Helles in January 1916, using ruses to disguise their departure and suffering remarkably few losses. The last of them were gone by 9 January 1916. Gallipoli was a strategic failure that damaged reputations, Churchill among them, and it left a bitter mark on every nation involved. Yet from the ordeal grew something enduring. For Australia and New Zealand the courage and suffering of their soldiers became a founding national story, and ANZAC Day is still commemorated each year on 25 April. For modern Turkey, the defense of the peninsula became a moment of national pride and the making of Atatürk.⁶

The Ottoman Empire left the war with the armistice of Mudros on 30 October 1918, days before Germany signed its own; see how the First World War ended.