So you see that unless the ships were supported by land forces sufficient to hold at least one of the shores of the straits, all the efforts of the fleet were likely to prove fruitless. Nevertheless an unsupported naval attack was decided upon, and this was the first of the many costly mistakes which were made at the Dardanelles. When our ships began bombarding the forts, the Turks and their German advisers knew that we should have to make a land attack sooner or later. With feverish haste they therefore began to dig trenches and make gun pits on the Gallipoli peninsula. Thus, the Turks were afforded a breathing space in which to make any future land operations doubly difficult.
CHAPTER XXII.
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.