vetoed by the French. Wemyss continued a campaign promoting the chances of success. He had been present when de Robeck assumed command from Carden and was more senior but had been commanding the base at Mudros whereas de Robeck was with the fleet. Churchill had preferentially chosen de Robeck. On 7 December, it was decided by Cabinet to abandon the campaign. Submarine operations British submarine attacks had commenced in 1914, before the campaign proper had started. On 13 December, the submarine (Lieutenant-Commander Norman Holbrook) had entered the straits, avoiding five lines of mines and torpedoed the Ottoman battleship , built in 1874, which was anchored as a floating fort in Sari Sighlar Bay, south of Çanakkale. Mesûdiye capsized in ten minutes, trapping many of the 673-man crew. Lying in shoal water, the hull remained above the surface so most men were rescued by cutting holes in the hull but 37 men were killed. The sinking was a triumph for the Royal Navy. Holbrook was awarded the Victoria Cross—the first Royal Navy VC of the war—and all twelve other crew members received awards. Coupled with the naval bombardment of the outer defences on 3 November, this success encouraged the British to pursue the campaign. The first French submarine operation also preceded the start of the campaign; on 15 January 1915, the French submarine negotiated the Narrows, passing the ten lines of mines before running aground at Nagara Point. Various accounts claim she was either mined, sunk by shellfire or scuttled, leaving fourteen crew dead and thirteen prisoners of war. On 17 April, the British submarine attempted to pass the straits but having dived too deep, was caught in a current and ran aground near Kepez Point, the southern tip of Sarı Sıĝlar Bay, under the guns of the Dardanos battery. Seven of the crew were killed and the remainder were captured. The beached E15 was a valuable prize for the Ottomans and the British went to great lengths to deny it to them and managed to sink it after numerous attempts. The first submarine to pass the straits was the Australian (Lieutenant-Commander Henry Stoker) which got through on the night of 24/25 April. The army landings at Cape Helles and Anzac Cove began at dawn on 25 April. Although AE2 sank one Ottoman destroyer, thought to be a cruiser, the submarine was thwarted by defective torpedoes in several other attacks. On