Lieutenant-General Erich Weber as an advisor to the Ottoman GHQ and at the end of August 1914, Vice-Admiral Guido von Usedom, several specialists and were sent to reinforce the forts on the Dardanelles and Bosphorus. In September, Usedom was made Inspector-General of Coast Defences and Mines and Vice-Admiral Johannes Merten relieved Weber at Chanak with a marine detachment to operate the modern guns. By mid-September, the German advisers reported that the guns in the Narrows had been refurbished and were serviceable. By October, most of the guns in the main batteries had German crews, operating as training units but able to man the guns in an emergency. Plans were made to build more defensive works in the Intermediate Zone and to bring in mobile howitzers and quick-firers dismounted from older Ottoman ships. Several heavy howitzers arrived in October but the poor standard of training of the Ottoman gunners, obsolete armaments and the chronic ammunition shortage, which Usedom reported was sufficient only to defend against one serious attack, led him to base the defence of the straits on minefields. Three more lines of mines had been laid before Usedom arrived and another were searched out, serviced and laid in early November. Cover of the minefields was increased with small quick-firers and four more searchlights. By March 1915, there were ten lines of mines and When the Ottoman Empire went to war on 29 October 1914, the defences of the Straits had been much improved but the Intermediate Defences were still inadequately organised and lacking in guns, searchlights and mines. On 3 November, the outer forts were bombarded by Allied ships, which galvanised the Ottoman defenders into reducing their obstructionism against the German advisers. The fortress commander, Jevad Pasha, wrote later that he had to improve the defences at all costs. The short bombardment had been extraordinarily successful, destroying the forts at Sedd el Bahr with two shots, that exploded the magazine and dismounted the guns. The Ottoman and German defenders concluded that the Outer Defences could be demolished by ships firing from beyond the range of the Ottoman reply. The forts were repaired but not reinforced and the main effort was directed to protecting the minefield and Inner Defences. Naval operations Forcing the straits On 3 November 1914, Churchill ordered an attack on the Dardanelles following the opening of hostilities between Ottoman and Russian empires. The battlecruisers of the Mediterranean Squadron,