British and French commanders completed operational planning for landings at Gallipoli, intended to seize the Dardanelles and knock the Ottoman Empire out of the war. The subsequent campaign, launched weeks later, became a byword for military miscalculation and colonial sacrifice, particularly for Australian and New Zealand troops.
After a naval attempt to force the Dardanelles failed in mid-March 1915, British commander Ian Hamilton and his staff shifted to planning a land invasion of the Gallipoli peninsula. The strategic prize was enormous: control of the straits would open a supply route to Russia and potentially topple the Ottoman Empire, shortening the war.
The planning was rushed and underresourced. Maps were poor, intelligence on Ottoman defenses was thin, and troops including the newly formed Australian and New Zealand Army Corps had little amphibious training. Commanders debated landing sites along beaches that would soon bear names like Anzac Cove.
When the landings finally came in April, the campaign bogged down into eight months of trench warfare on cliffs and ridges, costing roughly 130,000 lives on both sides. For Australia and New Zealand, the ill-fated campaign became a founding national memory, commemorated annually on Anzac Day, transforming military disaster into a story of endurance and sacrifice.