Search

The article is devoted to the early phase of the career of Martin Eric Nasmith (1883–1965) and is an attempt to summarise his achievements during three underwater patrols in the Dardanelles and the Sea of Marmara in 1915. Those missions brought him the appellation of the most effective British submariner of WW1. In Anglophone historiography, all the books and articles related to this subject constitute a one-sided narrative based solely on British sources. Thus, the author has made the first attempt in western historiography to compare the British and Turkish points of view. Although a few such efforts have been made in Tur- key, their results are not widely known to western historians, and in some cases, they raise objections. The decision to take up this challenge came from an awareness that Nasmith’s view of the situation at the moment when he was personally observing the effects of his attacks could not be complete and entirely objective. He could not have known that some of the vessels he had sunk in shallow coastal waters were salvaged by the Turks and restored to service. The article gives detailed coverage of the attacks conducted by Nasmith on Ottoman warships, steam-powered merchant ships and land targets, during all three patrols of the “E11” submarine. As a result of his research, the author was able to draw attention to the fact that the results of “E11”’s second patrol were incomparably more favourable than those of the first one (for which Nasmith was awarded the Victoria Cross), both in terms of losses inflicted on the Ottoman Navy and on the transport fleet. In the case of the latter, the total tonnage of definitively sunken steam-powered vessels was more than 470 percent higher. While Nasmith claimed that he had sunk at least 122 Ottoman vessels during all three patrols, Turkish sources indicate that the total number of warships and steam-powered transport ships definitively destroyed by him did not exceed fifteen.

Since the beginning of the WWI Royal Navy suffered from many heavy defeats which evoked a strong wave of public criticism against the Board of Admiralty for its inability. Having been worried about his position, the first lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill tried to look for a way out of a difficult situation. As the German navy was strong enough to fight a successful war on the open sea, he attempted a mixed land and naval action put into operation. He expected his Fleet would be successful while being helped with the Army. Such circumstances as well as heavy losses on the western front inclined Mr. Herbert Asquith’s cabinet to look for an auxiliary front which would bring some relief for British Expeditionary Forces in France. After long discussions that were held over military and political situation at the turn of 1914, the Army and Navy high commands, the War Council and the government decided to launch an attack on the Turkish straits by ships. According to Vice Admiral Sackville Hamilton Cardens’ plan the naval attack on the strait of Dardanelles was put in operation. However, after heavy assaults it failed. The author of the paper is trying to explore the complicated political and military issues which helped Churchill-Carden’s plan to be developed, accepted by the state’s authority, and many far reaching consequences which it brought in the end.