What better way to break the deadlock of the western front? The entente had the naval clout of the british, and gallipoli showed they clearly weren't afraid of dangerous naval invasions too. So they appear to have had the means, the courage, and the impetus. Were they scared of gallipoli 2, or was their man/naval power too bruised after Jutland and the numerous land massacres? What stopped the british sailing up to the german coast with a few thousand troops and sticking it to Jerry? Thanks in advance <3
The Royal Navy had multiple plans for such an invasion, at multiple points in the war. The first, for an invasion of the German islands of Sylt and Borkum, were based on work done pre-war by Admiral Lewis Bayly. In August 1914, Churchill (the civilian head of the RN) ordered preparations to commence for an invasion of Sylt, to occur on the 1st March 1915. Admiral Fisher, the military head of the RN, was also a supporter of this invasion, as a stepping stone to his own pet project. He saw Sylt as the bait in a trap for the German High Seas Fleet. With this destroyed, there would be nothing preventing the RN from operating in the Baltic. The RN would simply move in, pick up a million Russian troops from St Petersburg and the Baltic States, and land them on the Pomeranian coast, a short jaunt from Berlin. To this end, he began construction on a number of ships that would be useful in such a case - monitors, the Courageous class large light cruisers, and some of the first true landing craft. However, Gallipoli meant that both the Baltic and Sylt plans were cancelled. Ships, men and materiel that was earmarked for these invasions was instead diverted to the Mediterranean. An invasion on the Flanders coast, which was at a much earlier state of planning, would also be cancelled for the same reason.
After the evacuation of Gallipoli, plans for an invasion of Flanders became more of a priority. Admiral Reginald Bacon, head of the RN's Dover Patrol, was a major figure in these plans as the leader of the main RN force at the mouth of the Channel. He was an able technical officer, with some experience in amphibious operations - he had supervised the landing and installation of a naval 12in gun to allow the British to duel with German coastal batteries. In Autumn 1915, he produced a plan for an assault on the port of Ostend. Nine thousand men would be landed in Ostend Harbour by commandeered fishing trawlers. Artillery support would be provided by seven monitors, themselves carrying additional reinforcements. However, this plan never made it off the drawing board, as the Germans emplaced a new coastal battery in a position to shell the harbour. While it was cancelled, the plan did result in some enthusiasm for an invasion from the Army, and Field Marshal Haig invited Bacon to come up with a new plan. This would ultimately become Operation Hush, a plan to land the 1st Division, supported by nine tanks, on the Flanders coast, west of Ostend. To land the troops, three huge lighters were constructed, each capable of carrying a brigade of troops, three tanks, plus supplies and field guns. Each lighter would be pushed to shore by two of the Dover Patrol's monitors. A lot of work was done to ensure that this landing was a success. The slope of the beach was worked out using a submarine and aerial photographs. A seawall lay inland of the beach, and methods were worked out to get the tanks over the seawall. Methods for communication between the beach, the fleet, and the Army were worked out in exhausting detail. By July 1917, the operation was ready to go, with the troops ready at Le Clipon in France, and the lighters ready to move to France to load them. All that was needed was for a breakthrough to occur in the Third Battle of Ypres - otherwise, the troops would be stranded behind German lines, with no hope of reinforcement. However, the 5th Army bogged down in fierce fighting at Passchendaele, and with the arrival of worsening weather as the autumn wore on, Hush would be cancelled on the 15th October. In 1918 the RN did carry out several raids on German-held ports in Belgium. These aimed to close Zeebrugge and Ostend to German submarines, but were ultimately of limited effect.
For more information on these, see these two things I've written about the same topic:
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