Gallipoli Campaign Gallipoli Campaign The Gallipoli Campaign, also known as the Dardanelles Campaign, the Battle of Gallipoli, or the Battle of Çanakkale (), was a long unsuccessful campaign of the First World War that took place on the Gallipoli peninsula (Gelibolu in modern Turkey). The Allied powers Britain and France, sought to greatly weaken the Ottoman Empire by capturing control of the straits that provided a supply route to their ally Russia. The invaders launched a naval attack followed by an amphibious landing on the peninsula. They hoped to capture the Ottoman capital of Constantinople. The naval attack was repelled and after
Gallipoli the town of Gallipoli was besieged and captured by the Ottomans, making Gallipoli the first Ottoman stronghold in Europe, and the staging area for their expansion across the Balkans. It was recaptured for Byzantium by the Savoyard Crusade in 1366, but the beleaguered Byzantines were forced to hand it back in September 1376. The Greeks living there were allowed to continue their everyday life. In the 19th century, Gallipoli () was a district (kaymakamlik) in the Vilayet of Adrianople, with about thirty thousand inhabitants: comprising Greeks, Turks, Armenians and Jews. Gallipoli became a major encampment for British and French forces