“That’s the torpedo that did it,” said Djevad. “You’ll see the wreck of the ship when you go down.”
The first fortification I visited was that of Anadolu Hamidié (that is, Asiatic Hamidié), located on the water’s edge just outside of Tchanak. My first impression was that I was in Germany. The officers were practically all Germans, and everywhere Germans were building up buttresses with sacks of sand and in other ways strengthening the emplacements. Here German, not Turkish, was the language heard on every side. Oberst Wehrle, who conducted me over these batteries, took the greatest delight in showing them. He had the simple pride of the artist in his work, and told me of the happiness that had come into his days when Germany had at last found herself at war. All his life, he said, he had spent in military practices, and, like most Germans, he had become tired of manœuvres, sham battles, and other forms of mimic hostilities. Yet he was approaching fifty, he had become a colonel, and he was fearful that his career would close without actual military experience—and then the splendid thing had happened, and here he was, fighting a real English enemy, firing real guns and shells! There was nothing brutal about Wehrle’s manners; he was a “gemütlich” gentleman from Baden, and thoroughly likeable; yet he was all aglow with the spirit of “Der Tag.” His attitude was simply that of a man who had spent his lifetime learning a trade and who now rejoiced at the chance of exercising it. But he furnished an illuminating light on the German military character and the forces that had really caused the war.
Feeling myself so completely in German country, I asked Colonel Wehrle why there were so few Turks on this side of the straits. “You won’t ask me that question this afternoon,” he said, smiling, “when you go over to the other side.”
The location of Anadolu Hamidié seemed ideal. It stands right at the water’s edge, and consists—or it did then—of ten guns, every one completely sweeping the Dardanelles. Walking upon the parapet, I had a clear view of the strait, Kum Kalé, at the entrance, about fifteen miles away, standing out conspicuously. No warship could enter these waters without immediately coming within complete sight of her gunners. Yet the fortress itself, to an unprofessional eye like my own, was not particularly impressive. The parapet and traverses were merely mounds of earth, and stand to-day practically as they were finished by their French constructors in 1837. There is a general belief that the Germans had completely modernised the Dardanelles defences, but this was not true at that time. The guns defending Fort Anadolu Hamidié were more than thirty years old, all being the Krupp model of 1885, and the rusted exteriors of some of them gave evidence of their age. Their extreme range was only about nine miles, while the range of the battleships opposing them was about ten miles, and that of the Queen Elizabeth was not far from eleven. The figures which I have given for Anadolu Hamidié apply also to practically all the guns at the other effective fortifications. So far as the advantage of range was concerned, therefore, the Allied fleet had a decided superiority, the Queen Elizabeth alone having them all practically at her mercy.
Nor did the fortifications contain very considerable stores of ammunition. At that time the European and American papers were printing stories that trainloads of shells and guns were coming by way of Rumania from Germany to the Dardanelles. From facts which I learned on this trip and subsequently, I am convinced that these reports were pure fiction. A number of “red heads”—that is, non-armour-piercing projectiles, useful only for fighting landing parties—had been brought from Adrianople and were reposing in Hamidié, at the time of my visit, but these were small in quantity, and of no value in fighting ships. I lay this stress upon Hamidié because this was the most important fortification in the Dardanelles. Throughout the whole bombardment it attracted more of the Allied fire than any other position, and it inflicted at least 60 per cent. of all the damage that was done to the attacking ships. It was Anadolu Hamidié which, in the great bombardment of March 18th, sank the Bouvet, the French battleship, and which in the course of the whole attack had disabled several other units. All its officers were Germans and 85 per cent. of the men on duty came from the crews of the Goeben and the Breslau.
Getting into the automobile, we sped along the military road to Dardanos, passing on the way the wreck of the Mesudie. The Dardanos battery was as completely Turkish as the Hamidié was German. The guns at Dardanos were somewhat more modern than those at Hamidié—they were the Krupp model of 1905. Here also was stationed the only new battery which the Germans had established up to the time of my visit; it consisted of several guns which they had taken from the German and Turkish warships then lying in the Bosphorus. A few days before our inspection the Allied fleet had entered the Bay of Erenkeui and had submitted Dardanos to a terrific bombardment, the evidences of which I saw on every hand. The land for nearly half a mile about seemed to have been completely churned up; it looked like photographs I had seen of the battlefields in France. The strange thing was, that, despite all this punishment, the batteries themselves remained intact; not a single gun, my guides told me, had been destroyed.
“After the war is over,” said General Mertens, “we are going to establish a big tourist resort here, build a hotel, and sell relics to you Americans. We shall not have to do much excavating to find them—the British fleet is doing that for us now.”
This sounded like a passing joke, yet the statement was literally true. Dardanos, where this emplacement is located, was one of the famous cities of the ancient world; in Homeric times it was part of the principality of Priam. Fragments of capitals and columns are still visible. And the shells from the Allied fleet were now ploughing up many relics which had been buried for thousands of years. One of my friends picked up a water-jug which had perhaps been used in the days of Troy. The effectiveness of modern gunfire in excavating these evidences of a long-lost civilisation was striking, though, unfortunately, the relics did not always come to the surface intact.
The Turkish Generals were extremely proud of the fight which this Dardanos battery had made against the British ships. They would lead me to the guns that had done particularly good service and pat them affectionately. For my benefit Djevad called out Lieutenant Hassan, the Turkish officer who had defended this position. He was a little fellow, with jet-black hair, black eyes, extremely modest and almost shrinking in the presence of these great Generals. Djevad patted Hassan on both cheeks, while another high Turkish officer stroked his hair; one would have thought that he was a faithful dog who had just performed some meritorious service.
“It is men like you of whom great heroes are made,” said General Djevad. He asked Hassan to describe the attack and the way it had been met. The embarrassed lieutenant quietly told his story, though he was moved almost to tears by the appreciation of his exalted chiefs.