62 km north of this strait,just beyond Istanbul,lies the Black Sea with total access to Russia and beyond .
Winston Churchill,then lord of the Admiralty in Britain,decided that it should take no more than a month to take control of this narrow southern section and then Istanbul,giving the allies total control of traffic to their ally Russia.
The British government even issued invasion troops British pound notes especially modified to be acceptable/ exchangeable by suppliers of services in Istanbul.
The plan was for the ANZAC troops to launch from,a Greek (now Turkish) island clearly visible from the mainland just a couple of km away and to take the strategic high points in the vicinity.
At the same time British troops were to land at another strategic beach 50 km away to take another high point.
All well on paper,....however ,on a very foggy day in April 1915,led by a tugboat captain from UK ,they landed up at ANZAC COVE instead of the flat beach (named Brighton beach) approximately 1,2 km long originally envisaged,just a km away.
The result was an early morning (4:30am) attack on a narrow (no more than 200m wide) beach with a virtually unassailable slope,now known as ANZAC COVE.
Initially they were pleasantly surprised at the lack of much resistance at this point,and proceeded to bath in the water and begin to construct a pier and bring in supplies.
Eventually the troop ships disembarked into shallow waters ,but eventually became backed up and landed up sending a couple of hundred troops to watery deaths when they stepped off into much deeper water with their 30kg packs including a months supply of food,weapons and digging utensils.
They landed at 4:30 am and by 9am,after the few Turkish troops in the vicinity had emptied their ammo and skedaddled the allied troops relaxed and made the vital mistake of not pressing on and taking the initiative.
Big mistake,.........long story so I'll break it up a little.
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