As the war progressed Turkey joined the Central Powers, Germany and Austria – Hungary. Turkeys move stemmed partly from its failure to supress revolution of the Balkans, partly from its century old fear of Russian designs upon the Dardanelles, the gateway out of the Black Sea. In early 1914 the war minister Enver Pasha had invited General Liman von Sanders the head of the German military mission to Constantinople(Istanbul) to reorganise the Turkish army. Enver Pasha went onto conclude a secret pact with Germany just before the war.

Turkey waited for two months then declared war and sent a force to its frontier with Russia in the Caucasus. In brutal weather 100,000 Turks pushed back Russian troops. Russia appealed to France and Britain for help and as the new year dawned counterattacked defeating the Turks decisively at Sarikamis. The tsars appeal struck a chord in England. Lord Kitchener was nervous that the Suez Canal might be vulnerable to a Turkish assault and was looking for a way out of the deadlock on the Western front. He and Winstan Churchill the first lord of the admiralty were convinced that the way forward was to strike at Germanys ally Turkey and to get a supply route to Russia. Both ere sure that the navy could do this job without drawing any troops away from the Western front.

In March 1915 a Franco- British naval squadron tried to force its way through the Dardanelles into the sea of Marmara from where the allied war ships could bring their guns to bear on Constantinople. They failed to make it through. Three ships one French and 2 British were sunk and another three damaged by unsuspected mines. In London the War Council came to the conclusion that land forces were needed after all. There were troops already the area in Egypt- raw Australian and New Zealand soldiers soon to be known as Anzaks. Plans were hurriedly drawn up for a Mediterranean Expeditionary force assembled on the island of Lemnos. It included British Australian French and New Zealand troops and was put under the command of General Sir Ian Hamilton poet and novelist and hero of the North West Frontier.The Turks guessed a land assault was imminant and took positions on the cliffs and hills along the Gallipolli peninsula. The commander prayed for a weeks grace and he got a month.He bought up 6 divisions 84000 men. The Turks had a brilliant commander Mustafa Kemal who later founded the Turkish Republic.

The Mediterraen Expeditionary Force (MEF) was 75000 strong. The plan was to attempt a difficult operation in the sea on beaches backed in many places by cliffs. Battleships and cruisers would bring the troops from Lemnos to positions offshore from where towing boats each pulling three barges would take them to their beaches. The Anzacs would take the northern sector, a beach adjoining the headland called Gaba Tepe.

On the Gallipoli beaches the Anzacs and the British dug in. On 26th March the French were withdrawn from Kum Kale and redeployed on Cape Helles with the British.The conditions that developed rivalled anything in the trenches of the Western Fronts. In appalling heat, without shade and on iron hard land, the troups were destroyed by disease inaction and hopeless assaults. After three months did the British government attempt to break the deadlock by sending another five divisions.

In the autumn the rains set in and winter approached and the frost claimed their first victims, the allies ordered an evacuation. Trenches were booby trapped and rigged so that they appeared to be fully manned. Guns were fixed to fire automatically. This was the only success of the allies in a dismal campaign.In nine months 46000 had died on the allied side for nothing gained.