HOW WE FAILED AT THE "NARROWS."
As far back as November 3, 1914, a British and French squadron of battleships and battle cruisers shelled the forts which guard the entrance to the Dardanelles both on the Gallipoli and the Asiatic side. The attack was not long sustained; each ship only fired about twenty rounds. The forts replied, but most of the shots fell short. The sole object of this brief bombardment was to get the range of the forts. A spectator noticed that while the firing continued a heavy haze of smoke hung over the Turkish positions, and columns of dust rose high into the air, making "spotting" very difficult.
Three months elapsed before the real attack began. On February 9, 1915, five British warships, the Inflexible, Agamemnon, Cornwallis, Vengeance, and Triumph, along with the French cruisers Bouvet, Suffren, and Gaulois, and a flotilla of destroyers, turned their guns on the entrance forts once more. Behind the battle line lay the Ark Royal, a mother ship for seaplanes. The aircraft which ascended from her decks carried observers, whose duty it was to direct the gunnery. Long-range firing began at eight in the morning, and before long the forts seemed to be smothered in bursting shells. Hits were frequently made both on the forts at Cape Helles and at Kum Kale, on the opposite shore; but what happened to the low earthworks of the batteries at Sedd-el-Bahr was difficult to ascertain. The forts did not reply, and Admiral Carden, who was in command of the bombarding fleet, thought that they must be out of action. Shortly before three in the afternoon he ordered six of his ships to close in, and bring all their guns to bear on the forts. As they did so the silent batteries awoke to life, and shells fell fast and thick around the attacking vessels. The Turkish fire, however, was badly aimed, and not a single ship was hit. By sundown the Gallipoli batteries were again silent; but Kum Kale was still firing when dusk began to fall, and Admiral Carden had to withdraw his fleet for the night.
Next day there was bad weather, which continued for a week, and the attack could not be resumed until the 25th. The Queen Elizabeth, Agamemnon, Irresistible, and Gaulois pounded the forts at such a long range that the guns on shore could not reach them. At the end of an hour and a half the Queen Elizabeth had silenced the forts at Cape Helles, but not before the Agamemnon had been struck by a shell which killed eight men and wounded five others. Under the protection of the super-Dreadnought's fire, the Vengeance and Cornwallis now steamed in to complete the destruction of the forts. Meanwhile the Irresistible and the Gaulois had severely hammered the Kum Kale batteries and the Suffren and Charlemagne were told off to put the finishing touches to the work of their bigger sisters. By 5.15 that evening all the forts at the entrance to the Dardanelles were rubbish heaps. The Turkish gunners had fought pluckily for seven hours against overwhelming odds, and their defeat brought them no discredit. So far, the naval attack had been quite successful.
When the ships ceased fire North Sea trawlers began the business of mine-sweeping. As you know, it is dangerous and difficult work; but it was admirably done, and by the morning of the 26th the first four miles of the straits were clear of mines, and all was ready for an attack on the inner forts. The Albion, Vengeance, and Majestic now steamed up the straits to the limit of the mine-swept waters, and began to bombard Fort Dardanos, on the Asiatic side. The fort replied, as also did certain concealed batteries at various points along the shore. Once more the aim of the Turkish gunners was uncertain, and the ships suffered no damage. The guns of the ships dispersed several bodies of troops behind the forts.
Meanwhile landing-parties of Royal Marines were sent ashore to blow up the forts which had been silenced on the previous day. Everywhere, except at Kum Kale, this was successfully done. The parties which landed on the Asiatic side were stubbornly resisted. They fought a hot little fight with the Turks, and had to fall back to their boats with a few casualties. Next day the Turks falsely announced that they had everywhere beaten off our landing-parties with heavy loss.
The entrance to the straits was now in our hands; but its capture was only the beginning of the task. I have already told you that the main defences of the Dardanelles consist of the clustering forts and batteries on both sides of the bottle neck known as the Narrows. Our ships had now to deal not only with these forts and batteries, but with drifting mines and hidden torpedo tubes. Their hour of trial was fast approaching. Strong and bitterly cold northerly winds postponed the attack until 4th March; but in the meantime the trawlers, under cover of the destroyers, swept another five miles of the straits up to within a mile and a half of the beginning of the Narrows.
On 4th March the ships were again in action, and another attempt was made by the Marines to land at Kum Kale. Once more they found a strong body of Turks awaiting them, and had to retire to their boats with a loss of nineteen killed, twenty-five wounded, and three missing. Many of the men were killed by snipers concealed in the ruins or in trees. A midshipman of the Ocean tells us that a sergeant of Marines was found pierced by fourteen bullets. His comrades searched round until they found a German concealed in a wood exactly opposite to the wounded man. "He was put up against a tree and shot without a word."
Next day a squadron of battleships and cruisers began the bombardment of Smyrna, the chief city of Asia Minor, and one of the greatest ports in the Turkish Empire. Some thirty-two hits were made on the forts, which made no reply. The attack was renewed on several of the following days, but with no result. Probably it was never intended to be serious, and was only made to distract the attention of the enemy.
On the morning of 6th March the forts at the Narrows were assaulted by ships well up the straits. The attacking vessels were frequently hit by shells, but no serious damage was done, and there was no loss of life. The bombardment from the inside of the straits was not the main attack. That was made by the Queen Elizabeth, Agamemnon, and Ocean from the Gulf of Saros. The ships lay off the point of Gaba Tepe, and, under the direction of aeroplanes, hurled their shells on to the forts at Chanak, which you will see on the Asiatic side of the Narrows, twelve miles away. The great 15-inch guns of "Big Lizzie," as the bluejackets dubbed the monster battleship, fired twenty-nine rounds, and played havoc with the forts. A shell from the "Lizzie" blew up the powder magazine of one of the batteries. You must not suppose that the ships in the Gulf of Saros went unmolested. The Turks had concealed guns on the heights of the peninsula, and with them they made good practice. The "Lizzie" was hit three times.
The attack now seemed to be proceeding favourably. Every day newspaper readers at home expected to hear that the forts at the Narrows had been silenced, and that the guns of the fleet were within range of Constantinople. Little real progress, however, was being made. Often when forts ceased fire we flattered ourselves with the belief that they had been destroyed. What had really happened was that the heavy fumes from our shells had driven the gunners out of their casemates. As soon as the air became clear again they returned to work their guns once more. Even at Sedd-el-Bahr and Kum Kale our success was not complete. We had blown up the forts, but we had not occupied the ground on both sides of the entrance, and the Turks had strongly entrenched themselves near at hand, and had mounted guns, which were able to continue the resistance.
On the night of 13th March the small light cruiser Amethyst performed a very daring feat. She dashed into the Narrows, and attempted to rush through. Concealed batteries opened fire on her, and she was hit several times at close range. Before she could run back into safety some fifty of her men had been knocked over. At home it was reported that she had actually succeeded in passing the forts, and everybody hoped that the beginning of the end was in sight. By this time an enormous number of vessels of all sorts and sizes had been mustered. Never before had such a fleet been seen in Eastern waters. Amongst the newcomers was the Russian cruiser Askold, which our sailors called "the packet of Woodbines," because of her five slim funnels. On 18th March Admiral Robeck, who had succeeded Admiral Carden in command of the fleet, felt that the time had come for a big effort.
Thursday, 18th March, broke bright and clear, with a light wind and a calm sea. At a quarter to eleven the Queen Elizabeth, Inflexible, Agamemnon, and Lord Nelson, supported by the Triumph and Swiftsure, steamed up the bright blue waters of the straits, and began firing at long range on the batteries on both sides of the Narrows. Forts, batteries, howitzers, and field guns replied, and after the bombardment had lasted an hour and a half, a French squadron of four ships, including the Bouvet, steamed in to attack the enemy at close range. Ten ships were now hurling their missiles on the forts, and under this terrific bombardment they were powerless to reply. Then a British squadron of six ships came up to push the attack home. As this squadron steamed towards Chanak, the French ships were withdrawn from the narrow waters, in order to make room for the newcomers. Suddenly, while this movement was going on, the forts began to fire again. It was now clear that they had not been seriously injured by our heavy bombardment.
As the Bouvet retired an officer on a British destroyer saw three shells strike her. Almost at the same moment she blew up with a terrific explosion, and was hidden in a dense cloud of smoke. In three minutes she heeled over and disappeared. A consort rushed to her assistance, only to find bubbles rising to the surface, and a pall of black smoke slowly lifting. Out of her crew of 630, only 64 were saved. At first it was thought that the enemy's shells had destroyed her, but the real cause of the disaster was a floating mine. The Turks, seeing the narrow waterway full of ships, had dropped mines in the channel, and the current had swept them along on their mission of destruction.
This grave misfortune led to no slackening of the bombardment. An hour and a half later the Irresistible, a British battleship, thirteen years old, also fouled a mine. She began to list heavily, and slowly dragged her way from the firing line towards the entrance to the straits. At ten minutes to six she sank, but happily not until our destroyers had taken off nearly all her ship's company. The rescue of the Irresistible's crew was a very gallant and skilful bit of work, for the destroyers were under Turkish fire all the time. A midshipman named Hugh Dixon did splendid service in picking up officers and men while shells were falling round his boat. He afterwards received the Distinguished Service Cross.
