Nusret

On March 8th, Lt Colonel Geehl had taken the small Nusret steamer down to Eren Keui Bay where he laid a new line of 20 mines. He did this as he had noted that in the previous day a number of British warships had used the sheltered bay to manoeuvre and hide from Turkish guns. Somehow, in the ten days between laying these mines and the assault on the 18th, the majority had laid undiscovered. The poor weather, the relative paucity of aerial reconnaissance and the volunteer minesweepers who were focussed more on clearing the main channel had all conspired to overlook. These mines were almost certainly the ones that had caused such havoc to the British and French naval assault on the 18th of March. Had they been cleared then the course of the entire campaign may well have been very different indeed.

The Gallipoli Campaign