Dardanelles debate: Britain wanted Turkey to remain neutral

AGAIN, Dr Pat Walsh (Letters, April 26) refuses to face up to the facts of how Britain declared war against Turkey in November 1914.

Not only does he not acknowledge the facts, he purposefully obfuscates them to marry his ideological aim of denigrating and tarnishing Britain’s declaration of war against Turkey (and by implication the Irishmen who fought for Britain).

Britain never provoked Turkey into launching its raid on Russian ports and ships. Britain wanted Turkey to remain neutral. These are the facts of the matter. No amount of supposition on Dr Pat Walsh’s part can change the course of events that occurred.

His charge sheet against Britain rests on the previous 14 years of conferences and treaty negotiations, but Dr Walsh plucks these belligerent soundings from British diplomatic history and denudes them of context and historical balance. He never mentioned that when Britain devised contingency plans in relation to the febrile Balkans and the Mediterranean in general, its navy consistently ruled out the possibility of an attack on Turkey and specifically on Gallipolli. It just goes to show how war changes expectations and demands.

The only evidence Dr Walsh has of British provocation of Turkey is their confiscation of the two battleships they were building for the Turkish navy. They didn’t offer compensation.

This was a mistake on Britain’s part. Why they didn’t remains unclear, but it gives ground to conspiracy theorists like Dr Walsh.

The fact that it was Winston Churchill who made the decision gives the conspiracy greater credence as he was the most belligerent government minister in relation to military matters and the British empire.

But Churchill was part of a British cabinet that was staunchly anti-war and was more than a counter to any imperial expansionist direction in British foreign policy.

The reason I think Churchill confiscated the battleships without compensation was the expectation that Turkey would side with Germany in the war eventually.

Churchill might have known (but I doubt it) about the secret military deal made between Germany and Turkey a few days before Britain entered the war on August 4, 1914.

But he did know about the intimate ties, commercial and military, that Turkey and Germany had fostered over the previous years. He knew of the historical antagonism between Russia and Turkey.

In this context and the context of the existential struggle that the Great War became, the confiscation of the battleships was the safest thing to do. No compensation was offered for the same reason – why give money to your very potential enemy?

The British government could have dangled compensation and delayed, but maybe Churchillian forcefulness would not have tolerated such nuances.

There was no ultimatum by Turkey to “give us compensation or we will go to war”. When Turkey attacked Russian ports and ships, it was done after Russia had suffered defeats in the war with Germany.

Britain could not have but joined Russia in its war against Turkey as both of them were fighting the war together already as allies and Turkey was a very real threat to Russian territory.

Mark Cronin

Delaney Park

Cork