Dominic Sandbrook

So basically, it's just going to be tougher than they thought.

Takes them a week, they finally knock out these outer forts, they clear some of the minefields.

Churchill is thrilled with all this.

He's sitting next to Asquith's daughter Violet at a dinner.

He says, I love this war.

I know it is smashing and shattering the lives of thousands every moment, and yet I can't help it, I enjoy every second of it.

So people may reflect on those words when we get into the suffering of some of the troops at Gallipoli.

And he says, this operation of mine is going brilliantly.

Soon the Royal Naval Division will be marching into Constantinople.

That will make them sit up, the swine who snarled at the Naval Division.

He's talking about the people who said they were useless at Antwerp.

And in fact, Churchill is so giddy now that three days after this, so the 25th of February, so that's six days after the operation began,

He goes to the war council and he says, we will be in Constantinople by the end of March.

We will be able to capture and destroy all Turkish forces in Europe.

And we will eliminate Turkey as a military factor in the war.

Some chicken, some neck.

I mean, absolutely insane from Churchill.

The next phase is scheduled for mid-March, and this is the full-scale attack on the inner forts inside the Straits.

Now, at this point, one of the big flaws in Churchill's scheme has become apparent.

And this is, he has forgotten that there's another side in this, which is the Ottomans.