Dominic Sandbrook

There are mortars, there are artillery, there are underwater mines.

So it's going to be very difficult just to get your ships through the straits up from the Aegean and get them outside Constantinople.

So actually, British sort of contingency plans had been talking about doing this for years.

And they had always said, you know, it's much too risky.

It wouldn't work.

And in fact, in 1911, Churchill himself had said, it is no longer possible to force the Dardanelles and nobody should expose a modern fleet to such peril.

So he himself had seen how difficult it would be.

But now, as we've already mentioned, he looks at the Western Front, he looks at the stalemate in France and Flanders, and he says, well, anything would be better than this.

He says to Asquith, the Prime Minister, anything would be better than sending out armies to chew barbed wire in Flanders.

I mean, you can see the force of that argument, can't you?

Of course.

However, you can also see the counter-arguments.

You can, yes.

So anyway, Churchill gets this request from Grand Duke Nicolai.

He says, brilliant.

Well, this is the opportunity we need.

He sends a telegram to the commander of the Eastern Mediterranean Fleet, who's a guy called Vice Admiral Sackville Carden.

Would this work?

Could we send some old ships, send them up the straits?

Could this be done?