before she was ordered north to the Dardanelles to relieve the battleship on 20 December. Over the coming months, the Triple Entente amassed a large fleet tasked with breaking through the Ottoman defenses that guarded the straits. During this period, before the start of major offensive operations, the Anglo-French fleet alternated between anchorages at Tenedos and Mudros Bay on the island of Lemnos, and it was tasked with patrolling the entrance to the straits to ensure that Goeben—which had by then been transferred to the Ottoman Navy as Yavuz Sultan Selim—did not attempt to sortie. On 1 February 1915, the ships sailed to Sigri on the island of Lesbos. Dardanelles campaign By mid-February 1915, the French and British had assembled a fleet of four French and twelve British battleships, including Bouvet, to lead the assault on the Dardanelles. The plan called for Ottoman defenses to be neutralized to allow the fleet to enter the Sea of Marmara and attack Constantinople directly. The first stage of the attack began on 19 February, which saw Bouvet and Suffren, together with the British battlecruiser and the pre-dreadnought battleships , , and , bombard the coastal defenses protecting the entrance of the straits. During the bombardment, Bouvet assisted the battleship Suffren by sending firing corrections via radio while Gaulois provided counter-battery fire to suppress the Ottoman coastal artillery. Another attempt was made six days later, with Bouvet again spotting for Gaulois; this attack was more successful, and the French and British battleships silenced the outer fortresses, allowing minesweepers to enter the area and begin clearing the minefields protecting the straits. The French division steamed into the Gulf of Saros on the Aegean coast of the Gallipoli Peninsula on 1 March to scout Ottoman positions in the area. They then covered the British battleships as they bombarded Ottoman positions in the straits on 5 March, before taking their turn the next day, when they attacked the fortification at Dardanus. On 18 March, the French and British squadrons made another attack on the straits, directed at the inner ring of fortresses that guarded the narrowest part of the Dardanelles. The larger British contingent, commanded by Rear Admiral John de Robeck, was to make the initial attack at longer range, led by the powerful dreadnought battleship ; once the batteries were reduced, the French ships, under Guépratte, were to enter the straits and attack at closer range.