Why not cut off Gallipoli?

Eparkhos

Eparkhos

Banned
This is probably a dumb question, but I don't know much about World War I.

I was reading the wiki article on the Gallipoli Invasion the other day, and I noticed that at its narrowest point the peninsula was only 8 kilometers wide. Obviously, ships can't be portaged over the peninsula, but why weren't Allied forces landed on the shores of the Gulf of Saros to cut off Turkish supply lines before the main landings?
 

naraic

The German general commanding the Turkish defense had 3 divisions (out of 7 on the peninsula) before the allied landings at Bulair which is where you are suggesting Allies land.

The obvious landing zone is only obvious if the enemy isn't there in force. I believe allied counter intelligence reinforced the suggestion that landings at Bulair was planned too.
 

I want to learn

I think the Turkish supply lines were by sea, not by land, so even if some portion of the Gallipoli peninsula was cut off from land routes to the rest of Turkey, Turkish defenders would still be adequately supplied due to their control of the Dardanelles and the Narrows. Since contesting these things was the whole point of the expedition anyway, it makes sense the Allies focused their army landings at points that would most directly allow them to contest these objectives.

I suppose you could argue that having a foothold on the coast interior to the Narrows would might give Allied light craft (TBs and submarines) a base to disrupt supply to Gallipoli by sea. I mean submarines infiltrated past the Narrows on a somewhat regular basis and torpedo boats probably could have too. But it still seem like a contrived way to accomplish the mission.
 
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Coulsdon Eagle

Monthly Donor
naraic said:
The German general commanding the Turkish defense had 3 divisions (out of 7 on the peninsula) before the allied landings at Bulair which is where you are suggesting Allies land.

The obvious landing zone is only obvious if the enemy isn't there in force. I believe allied counter intelligence reinforced the suggestion that landings at Bulair was planned too.
Click to expand...
That would be Freyberg's little swim.
 
Sarthak

Sarthak

Eparkhos said:
This is probably a dumb question, but I don't know much about World War I.

I was reading the wiki article on the Gallipoli Invasion the other day, and I noticed that at its narrowest point the peninsula was only 8 kilometers wide. Obviously, ships can't be portaged over the peninsula, but why weren't Allied forces landed on the shores of the Gulf of Saros to cut off Turkish supply lines before the main landings?
Click to expand...
Over a majority of Turkish supplies came by sea.
 

Dorknought

The RN charts were not good enough for this area and a surveying effort would alert the defences, not that they weren’t alert!
 
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