Why has nothing been done to reopen the Strait of Hormuz?
The answer is simple – as his advisers will have told Donald Trump before he attacked Iran, it is almost impossible to clear a passage through a minefield when the shoreline is held by the enemy, without being prepared to take significant casualties. And this, it seems, the US is not prepared to do.
It is one thing to bomb a less technologically sophisticated enemy from the air, but quite another to get involved in a real fight at sea level with an opponent who has been planning this form of asymmetric warfare for a very long time.
History gives a stark lesson on why America needs to tread warily – a page from the First World War.
It was March 1915. The ‘straits’ concerned were the Dardanelles – the narrow passage linking the Mediterranean to the Black Sea and giving access to Istanbul. The Turks were the defenders, the British and the French the attackers.
They were in the middle of a shooting war. A vital waterway, which would normally be open for the world’s commerce, was closed because of the actions of Turkey, the bordering power. The coastline was heavily defended, and there was a high probability that mines had been laid to block the channel.
A decision was made by the British and French that the straits were to be reopened by force – and a very considerable force was assembled for that purpose.
It comprised no fewer than 14 ‘capital’ ships (in those days ‘battleships’ and ‘battlecruisers’) supported by escorts and a large force of minesweepers.
The plan was a good one. The capital ships would stand off in clear water and bombard the shore defences. When these had been silenced, the minesweepers would go ahead and sweep another clear area.
The capital ships would then move forward again into swept water and recommence their bombardment – successive waves of big ships moving up, but always into water which had been swept for mines. In this way, the whole channel would be cleared, and the straits reopened.
The big push commenced on 18 March 1915. To start with, it all went well. Four capital ships – HM Ships Queen Elizabeth, Agamemnon, Lord Nelson and Inflexible formed the first attacking line.
The second line was composed of four French ships, FS Gaulois, Charlemagne, Bouvet and Suffren. They, in turn, were to be supported by six more British ships, HM Ships Ocean, Irresistible, Albion, Vengeance, Swiftsure and Majestic, which would form a third line to pass through and relieve the French in line two.
The bombardment was started by the RN ships in line one at 11am. By 12.20pm, the French ships of line two had steamed through the first line to take up their advanced positions.
By 1.45pm, the fire from the shore batteries had slackened under the onslaught of the guns of the eight capital ships, and it was deemed safe enough to send in the minesweepers for the next phase. The third line of six ships was also called up to move the force forward.
