December, leading the Russians to call for aid from Britain in January 1915. The Mesopotamian campaign began with a British landing to occupy the oil facilities in the Persian Gulf. The Ottomans prepared to attack Egypt in early 1915, to occupy the Suez Canal and cut the Mediterranean route to British India and the Far East. Prelude Allied strategy Field Marshal Lord Kitchener planned an amphibious landing near Alexandretta in Syria in 1914, to sever the capital from Syria, Palestine and Egypt. Vice Admiral Sir Richard Peirse, Commander-in-Chief, East Indies, ordered to Alexandretta on 13 December 1914 as the and the French cruiser Requin were performing similar operations. The Alexandretta landing was abandoned because it required more resources than France could allocate, and politically France did not want the British operating in their sphere of influence, a position to which Britain had agreed in 1912. By late 1914, static warfare had begun on the Western Front, with no prospect of a quick decisive victory and the Central Powers had closed the overland trade routes between Britain, France and Russia. The White Sea in the Arctic and the Sea of Okhotsk in the Far East were icebound in winter and the Baltic Sea was blockaded by the Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial German Navy). Ottoman belligerence closed the Dardanelles, the remaining supply route to Russia. In November 1914, the French Minister Aristide Briand proposed an attack on the Ottoman Empire but the idea was rejected and an attempt by the British to buy off the Ottomans also failed. On 2 January 1915, Grand Duke Nicholas of Russia appealed to Britain for assistance against the Ottoman Erzurum Offensive in the Caucasus and planning began for a naval demonstration in the Dardanelles, as a diversion. Winston Churchill, the First Lord of the Admiralty, proposed an invasion of Schleswig-Holstein by sea, drawing Denmark into the war and re-opening the Baltic Sea route to Russia and an attack on the Dardanelles, to control the Mediterranean-Black Sea supply route and to encourage Bulgaria and Romania to join the Allies. The urgency of the Russian appeal and disdain for the military power of the Ottoman Empire made a campaign in the Dardanelles appear feasible. On 11 January 1915, the commander of the British Mediterranean Squadron, Vice Admiral S. H. Carden proposed a plan for forcing the Dardanelles using battleships, submarines and minesweepers. On 13 February, the British War Council