3.3 The Aftermath of 18th March

On 19th March, the attack was not resumed.

Although everyone in the Navy was badly shaken by the proceedings of the day before and the loss of one third of the fleet, nobody wanted to give up. It had become clear however that the Narrows could not be taken as long as the minefields were not dealt with and to accomplish that, a complete reorganisation of the sweeper force was necessary. This task alone would take two weeks.

Nobody, apart from Keyes perhaps, could guess how close to a breakthrough they had been. The accidents of Bouvet and the other ships in Eren Keui Bay had in fact been caused by an unfortunate coincidence. Only a few days before the naval attack, the tiny Turkish vessel Nusret had managed to lay a new line of mines. Where the Allied commanders suspected much greater dangers, it was this string of mines which was entirely responsible for all the damage done. Apart from that, when the Allied fleet was ordered to break off the attack, the Turkish ammunition supplies had completely been exhausted. The German and Turkish officers who commanded the batteries in the forts had been close to despair, but their Allied counterparts were unaware of the precarious situation their opponents had to cope with.

On 19th March Hamilton sent a telegram to Kitchener, in which he expressed the opinion that success could only be obtained if a combined action of the Navy and the infantry was undertaken.

On 22nd March the different commanders had a meeting on board the Queen Elisabeth : the Navy was represented by De Robeck and Keyes, the infantry by Hamilton and Birdwood, who commanded the Anzac Corps. Soon it became clear that a new naval attack was impossible before 4th April, the day when new and better mine sweepers would be available. Hamilton declared he would at least need time until 14th April to organize a landing. When news of the meeting reached London the following day, Kitchener declared abruptly that the land forces would solve all the problems and nobody dared to contradict him.

The English started to work furiously to prepare a landing. A combined naval and infantry attack of this dimension had never been undertaken in the past and was therefore new to the military planners : not only was it necessary to train and equip the force that was still in Egypt, but the Greek islands that had been chosen to act as an operational base lacked any kind of infrastructure. It is no wonder that quite a number of mistakes were made, the consequences of which would only later become apparent.

Only on 11th April, did Hamilton's administrative staff arrive at Alexandria. They were refused any cooperation from Maxwell, the local commander, who was obsessed by a possible Turkish attack against Egypt. On the other hand, the preparations for the campaign were so immense, that after a couple of days, any form of secrecy proved to be an illusion.

Hamilton himself decided that the landing would take place on 25th April.