Reluctant Partner: The Complete Story of the French Participation in the Dardanelles Expedition of 1915

No campaign in the Great War has been the subject of such intense and prolonged attention and controversy as the one in the Dardanelles. The general perception is that it was an operation involving troops from Britain and the Empire. The role of the French is barely mentioned if at all. As junior partners the French contribution does not compare to that of the British, but it was nevertheless significant. Over the course of the ten-month operation, the French government sent to the Dardanelles six pre-dreadnought battleships, four cruisers, and a host of auxiliary vessels that included minesweepers and submarines.
Additionally, it supplied a total of 79,000 troops, supported by artillery and high explosive shells. The purpose of this study is to concentrate on the activity of the French so as give a more rounded picture of the story. The main factor influencing the French decision to join the British-led expedition to the Dardanelles was to protect their interest in the Near East.
France’s economic and cultural ties in the Ottoman Empire were deep and of long standing, and it wanted to ensure that the British did not establish themselves in an area it coveted. Assuming that victory was a forgone conclusion, the Allies focused their early attention on the future dismemberment of Turkey rather than on attending to the needs of the campaign itself. It was a lesson for which they would pay dearly.
25 photographs, maps