Naval operations in the Dardanelles campaign

Naval operations in the Dardanelles campaign
Part of the Gallipoli campaign
French battleship Bouvet sinking
The final moments of the French battleship Bouvet, 18 March 1915
Date19 February – 18 March 1915
Location
Result Ottoman victory
Belligerents
Commanders and leaders
Strength
  • Various mines and forts
  • 2 pre-dreadnoughts
  • Minelayers
  • 1 coastal defence ship
  • 1 battlecruiser
  • 3 cruisers
  • 2 torpedo cruisers
  • 8 destroyers
Casualties and losses
  • 1 battlecruiser heavily damaged
  • 3 pre-dreadnoughts sunk
  • 3 pre-dreadnoughts heavily damaged
  • 1 cruiser damaged
  • 700 killed (ship complements on March 18)
  • 1 minelayer
  • 1 pre-dreadnought sunk
  • 1 coastal defence ship sunk
  • 1 cruiser sunk
  • 1 torpedo cruiser damaged
  • 40 killed
  • wounded (on land, 18 March)

The naval operations in the Dardanelles campaign (17 February 1915 – 9 January 1916) took place against the Ottoman Empire during the First World War. Ships of the Royal Navy, French Marine nationale, Imperial Russian Navy (Российский императорский флот) and the Royal Australian Navy, attempted to force a passage through the Dardanelles Straits, a narrow, 41-mile-long (66 km) waterway connecting the Mediterranean Sea with the Sea of Marmara and the Black Sea further north.

The naval operations were defeated by the Ottoman defenders, mainly through use of naval mines. The Allies conducted the Gallipoli campaign, a land invasion of the Gallipoli peninsula to eliminate the Ottoman artillery along the straits before resuming naval operations. The Allies also passed submarines through the Dardanelles to attack Ottoman shipping in the Sea of Marmara.


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