If you ask a historian "when was the Gallipoli war," they might gently correct you first. It wasn't actually its own separate war. It was a massive, bloody, and ultimately disastrous campaign within the larger framework of World War I. But for the families in Australia, New Zealand, Turkey, and Britain who lost sons there, it certainly felt like a war of its own.
The dates are etched into the national psyche of several countries. It kicked off in early 1915 and dragged on until the start of 1916. Specifically, the land invasion began on April 25, 1915. That date is now ANZAC Day. It’s a day of massive significance in the Southern Hemisphere. But the story actually starts months earlier with ships and big guns.
People often forget the naval phase.
Before a single soldier set foot on those jagged Turkish cliffs, the Allied powers—mostly Britain and France—tried to force their way through the Dardanelles with pure naval might. That started in February 1915. They thought they could just sail some battleships up to Constantinople (now Istanbul), knock the Ottoman Empire out of the war, and open a supply line to Russia. They were wrong. Dead wrong.
The failed naval start of the Gallipoli campaign
The British Admiralty, pushed heavily by a young Winston Churchill, thought the Ottoman defenses were "sick man of Europe" quality. They weren't. On February 19, 1915, the first long-range bombardment began. For a few weeks, it was a cat-and-mouse game of ships firing at forts and Turkish mobile batteries firing back.
The climax of this phase happened on March 18, 1915.
It was a disaster for the British and French fleets. They sailed into a literal minefield that they thought had been cleared. The Bouvet, the Irresistible, and the Ocean were all sunk. Others were badly damaged. Seeing their multi-million dollar battleships slipping under the waves, the commanders got cold feet. They decided they couldn't win by sea alone. They needed "boots on the ground."
This delay was a gift to the Ottoman defenders. While the Allies sat back to reorganize for a land invasion, the Ottoman 5th Army, led by German General Otto Liman von Sanders, had weeks to dig in. They built trenches, set up barbed wire, and sighted their machine guns. They were ready.
April 25: The landing that changed everything
When people ask when the Gallipoli war was at its peak, they are usually thinking of the landings. The Allied Mediterranean Expeditionary Force (MEF) struck at dawn.
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The British 29th Division landed at Cape Helles, the southern tip of the peninsula. It was a bloodbath. At "V" Beach, the soldiers coming off the SS River Clyde were mowed down so fast the water turned red. Honestly, it's hard to read the accounts from that morning without feeling sick.
Further north, the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) landed at a tiny cove. It’s called Anzac Cove now. They were supposed to land on a flat beach, but current or navigation errors pushed them toward steep, scrubby cliffs.
Imagine waking up, being shoved into a rowing boat, and then having to climb a vertical wall of dirt while people are shooting at you from the top. That was April 25.
The long, hot summer of 1915
By May, the war at Gallipoli had turned into a stalemate. It was exactly like the Western Front in France, just with more heat and less water. The trenches were sometimes only a few meters apart.
You had thousands of men living in holes in the ground. The flies were constant. They moved in black clouds over the food, the latrines, and the dead. Dysentery was rampant. Everyone was sick. By June and July, the heat was unbearable. Water had to be barged in from islands like Lemnos because the local wells were either poisoned or under sniper fire.
There were attempts to break the deadlock. The Third Battle of Krithia in June was a mess.
Then came the August Offensive.
The British tried a new landing at Suvla Bay to the north. At the same time, the ANZACs tried to take the high ground at Sari Bair. This was the time of the famous charge at The Nek, where Australian light horsemen were sent over the top in waves against Turkish machine guns. It was suicidal.
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Mustafa Kemal, the man who would later become Atatürk and lead modern Turkey, was the hero on the other side. He famously told his men: "I do not order you to fight, I order you to die. In the time which passes until we die, other troops and commanders can take our places." They held the ridge. The Allied offensive failed.
The hidden reality of the Ottoman defense
We often hear the Gallipoli story from the British or Australian perspective. But we have to look at what the Ottomans were going through. They were fighting for their homeland. For them, this wasn't an "expedition"—it was survival.
They suffered just as much, if not more, from the lack of supplies. Their medical facilities were often primitive. Yet, they fought with a tenacity that surprised the Allies. There was a weird sort of mutual respect that developed in those trenches. Men would throw cigarettes or tins of food across "no man's land" during unofficial truces.
When did the Gallipoli war finally end?
By the time November 1915 rolled around, the weather flipped. The blistering heat turned into freezing rain and then snow. Soldiers who had been sweating in shorts were now dying of frostbite.
The British government finally realized the campaign was a lost cause. Sir Ian Hamilton, the commander who had led the campaign, was replaced by Sir Charles Monro. Monro took one look at the situation and said they needed to leave.
The evacuation is widely considered the most successful part of the whole campaign.
It started in December 1915 at Suvla and Anzac Cove. They used "ghost guns"—rifles rigged with dripping water tins that would fire occasionally to make the Ottomans think the trenches were still full. By January 9, 1916, the last soldiers left Cape Helles.
Miraculously, they got away with almost zero casualties. After months of losing thousands of men to gain a few yards of dirt, they slipped away in the night without the Turks even realizing they were gone until the sun came up.
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Why the timing of Gallipoli matters today
The Gallipoli campaign lasted roughly 8 months, 2 weeks, and 1 day.
Total casualties were staggering. Around 250,000 on the Allied side and roughly the same for the Ottomans. That's half a million people killed, wounded, or missing in a tiny strip of land.
If you're trying to understand the impact, look at the timeline of national identity.
- For Australia and New Zealand: This was their "baptism of fire." It’s often cited as the moment these young nations stepped out from the shadow of the British Empire.
- For Turkey: It was a defining victory that paved the way for the Turkish War of Independence. It turned Mustafa Kemal into a national icon.
- For Britain: It was a political scandal that nearly ended Churchill's career. It proved that the war wasn't going to be won by clever "side-shows" in the East.
Key dates to remember
If you're studying this or just curious, these are the moments that defined the "when" of Gallipoli:
- February 19, 1915: The naval attack begins.
- March 18, 1915: The catastrophic failure of the Allied fleet to pass the Dardanelles.
- April 25, 1915: The infantry landings at Anzac Cove and Cape Helles.
- May 19, 1915: A massive Ottoman counter-attack that resulted in a temporary truce to bury the thousands of dead.
- August 6, 1915: The start of the August Offensive and the Suvla Bay landings.
- December 20, 1915: Completion of the evacuation from Anzac and Suvla.
- January 9, 1916: The final Allied troops leave Helles, ending the campaign.
The Gallipoli war was a tragedy of timing. If the navy had pushed through in March, or if the landings had happened faster, history might look different. But instead, it became a symbol of courage and incompetence in equal measure.
Honestly, the best way to understand the timeline isn't just through dates. It's through the seasons. The hope of a spring invasion, the sickness of a stagnant summer, the desperation of an autumn failure, and the relief of a winter escape.
How to explore Gallipoli history further
If you want to get deeper into the specifics, there are some incredible resources that move beyond the basic "when was it" question.
- Visit the Australian War Memorial website: They have digitized diaries from soldiers who were actually in those trenches. Reading a diary entry from July 1915 gives you a sense of the heat that no textbook can match.
- Check out the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC): You can search for specific soldiers. If you have a relative who fought there, seeing the date they "fell" connects you to the timeline in a very personal way.
- Read "Gallipoli" by Les Carlyon: It's a massive book, but it's arguably one of the best accounts of the campaign's atmosphere. He covers the political bungling in London alongside the grit of the front lines.
- Look at the Turkish perspective: Research the "Çanakkale Wars" (the Turkish name for Gallipoli). Seeing the maps from the Ottoman side helps explain why the Allied landings were so difficult to pull off.
The timeline of Gallipoli is a reminder that in war, a few weeks of hesitation can lead to months of stalemate and years of mourning. While the guns fell silent in January 1916, the echoes of those eight months are still heard every April.
To truly grasp the scale, look into the specific units from your local area that might have served. Many towns across the UK, Australia, and New Zealand have memorials listing the names of those who never came home from the peninsula. Mapping those names to the dates above—April for the landing, August for the offensive—provides a sobering look at how the campaign unfolded for individual communities.
For those planning a visit to the site in modern-day Turkey, the best time is late April for the services, though it is incredibly crowded. Early autumn offers a quieter period to reflect on the geography that made this campaign one of history's most difficult military operations.