The Strategic Chessboard of 1915

In early 1915, as the Great War entered its second year, a young British intelligence officer named T.E. Lawrence stared at a massive map covering an entire wall of his Cairo office. The map depicted the sprawling Ottoman Empire, a vast territory stretching from the Balkans to the Arabian Peninsula. Lawrence, then just 26 years old, was already developing ideas that would later make him famous – but his first strategic vision involved not the deserts of Arabia, but a little-known coastal town called Alexandretta (modern-day İskenderun).

The Ottoman Empire presented a peculiar military challenge. Though politically fragile, its geography offered remarkable natural defenses. The imperial capital Constantinople (Istanbul) sat protected by the narrow straits of the Dardanelles and Bosphorus. Anatolia’s mountainous terrain shielded the Turkish heartland. To the south, the Sinai Desert formed a formidable barrier between British Egypt and Ottoman Palestine. Only one weak point stood out to Lawrence’s keen eye: the Alexandretta basin in northwestern Syria.

The Alexandretta Gambit

Lawrence recognized Alexandretta’s unique advantages. The port offered one of the best natural harbors in the eastern Mediterranean, crucial for amphibious operations. More importantly, the surrounding terrain provided relatively flat access inland compared to other potential landing sites. But Lawrence saw beyond mere topography. His pre-war archaeological work in northern Syria had given him intimate knowledge of the region’s complex ethnic and political landscape.

The Alexandretta region sat at a volatile crossroads. To its north lay Turkish-dominated Anatolia; to the south, the Arab world. The area also bordered Armenian territories, where tensions with Ottoman authorities ran high. Lawrence believed a British landing here could spark simultaneous Arab and Armenian uprisings against Ottoman rule. He calculated that just 2,000-3,000 British troops could sever the empire in two, cutting off its Arab provinces from Anatolia.

The Ottoman Achilles’ Heel

The Turks themselves recognized Alexandretta’s vulnerability. In December 1914, a single British warship, HMS Doris, had humiliated Ottoman forces there. Unable to resist naval bombardment, the local commander had threatened to execute British prisoners – a violation of international conventions that forced Constantinople to back down. The incident revealed Turkish desperation to protect this strategic weak point.

Lawrence’s proposal gained traction in British military circles in early 1915. A January 5 memorandum (likely written by Lawrence) argued that German commanders in Syria “greatly feared” a northern landing, believing it would trigger widespread Arab defections. By mid-January, Lawrence wrote to his mentor David Hogarth that the plan had been approved. All that remained was to wait out the expected Turkish attack on the Suez Canal.

The French Obstruction

Just as the Alexandretta plan seemed poised for execution, political obstacles emerged. France, envisioning postwar control of Syria, insisted on participating in any operation in the region. With French forces tied up on the Western Front, this effectively vetoed British action. Lawrence fumed in a February letter: “In Syria, our enemy is not Turkey, but France.”

Simultaneously, British strategic attention shifted to the Dardanelles, championed by First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill. The allure of a direct strike at Constantinople proved irresistible to British leadership, despite Lawrence’s warnings about the straits’ formidable defenses.

The Gallipoli Disaster

The subsequent Gallipoli campaign, launched in April 1915, became one of the war’s greatest debacles. British planners chose the worst possible landing sites on the Gallipoli peninsula, where Ottoman forces under Mustafa Kemal (later Atatürk) pinned them on narrow beaches. The campaign would ultimately cost over 250,000 Allied casualties without achieving its objectives.

Lawrence watched in dismay as his Alexandretta proposal – which required a fraction of the troops committed at Gallipoli – was shelved. On April 26, he wrote despairingly to Hogarth: “The Arab affair is in the gutter…We had a great chance there. It is maddening.”

The Missed Arab Revolt

Unknown to Lawrence at the time, the Gallipoli diversion had consequences beyond military failure. In spring 1915, Emir Hussein of Mecca’s son Faisal (later Faisal I of Iraq) had been conducting secret negotiations with Arab nationalists in Damascus. They proposed a coordinated revolt against Ottoman rule, contingent on British support – particularly a landing at Alexandretta.

The “Damascus Protocol” outlined conditions for an Arab uprising, but with British forces bogged down at Gallipoli and Alexandretta abandoned, the opportunity passed. Arab units that might have joined the revolt were instead sent to die at Gallipoli, while the Ottoman government began its brutal deportation of Armenians – a genocide that claimed over a million lives.

Legacy of a Lost Opportunity

The Alexandretta gambit remains one of history’s great “what ifs.” Had it been attempted, the Middle Eastern theater might have concluded years earlier, potentially altering the war’s outcome and the region’s postwar settlement. Instead, the disastrous Gallipoli campaign extended the war, empowered Turkish nationalism under Mustafa Kemal, and set the stage for the modern Middle East’s troubled borders.

Lawrence would later achieve fame by helping spark the Arab Revolt in 1916, but always maintained that Alexandretta represented Britain’s best chance for a decisive victory against the Ottomans. The episode reveals his early strategic brilliance – and the consequences when political considerations override military logic. As Lawrence wrote bitterly in 1915, sometimes the greatest obstacles to victory come not from enemies, but from allies.