The first large scale amphibious operations, ones that were to heavily influence theorists in the decades to come, were conducted as part of the Battle of Gallipoli in 1915 against the Ottoman Empire during World War I. The Gallipoli peninsula forms the northern bank of the Dardanelles, a strait that provided a sea route to what was then the Russian Empire, one of the Allied powers during the war. Intending to secure it, Russia's allies Britain and France launched a naval attack followed by an amphibious landing on the peninsula with the eventual aim of capturing the Ottoman capital of Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul). Although the naval attack was repelled and the land campaign failed, the campaign was the first modern amphibious landing, and featured air support, specialized landing craft and a naval bombardment.