By that time General Birdwood had definite experience to guide him; for, in obedience to Mr. Churchill’s orders, Admiral Carden had on February 19 begun to execute his detailed plan for forcing the Straits by naval power alone. The scene of our narrative accordingly shifts from the Council Chambers of Whitehall to that famous channel which, like a broad, deep river, divides the European from the Asiatic coast. Celebrated beyond all other waters of the world by legend and history, and by one of mankind’s noblest poems, it is haunted by almost overwhelming memories, to which the great tragedy here described has added new. At the very entrance, where the passage is three miles broad, you see upon your right hand the flat and gently curving beach upon which Agamemnon tied his ships for the prolonged siege of a low hill, formed even in his time of ruined and piled-up cities. It rises, still quite visible from the opposite shore, above the marshes where Simois and Scamander unite their small and immortal streams.
Vandyk]
GENERAL SIR WILLIAM BIRDWOOD
Steering north-east, a vessel beats up against the swirling eddies of a tideless current, always pouring down against her bows, with a force that varies from three knots to four, and even to five in the centre when the wind drives it on. Sailors have told me that they believe an undercurrent passes the water back; else, they think, it could not perpetually run so strong. What was the experience of submarine officers like Lieutenant Holbrook, who, on December 13, 1914, groped his way below the surface and through the mines till he emerged near the entrance to the Sea of Marmora, and destroyed the Turkish warship Messoudieh, I do not know. But it seems probable that enough water is poured into the Black Sea by the Dnieper, Dniester, and Don, rivers of the Steppes, to account for a rapid current, not to speak of the glacier streams issuing from the snows of the Caucasus beyond the magic Phasis. All the more likely is the current to be swift since the waters from the shores of Azoff, the Euxine, and Marmora are discharged down a constricted funnel, which at the narrowest point, between Chanak and Kilid Bahr, is hardly more than three-quarters of a mile across. At Chanak, as a ship makes its way against the stream, the strait turns north from north-east for about four miles, and at the point of Nagara (the old Abydos) the channel becomes again almost as narrow as at Chanak. That part of the strait between Chanak and Nagara (both on the Asiatic side) is called especially “The Narrows,” and it forms, as it were, “The Gut” of the whole salt river. Here Xerxes stretched his bridge of boats, having chained and flogged the turbulent waters. Here Alexander crossed upon his way to India. Seven hundred years later the Goths crossed here, and the Turks here entered Europe, a century before they stormed the city of Constantine, which still retained the traditions of the classic world. Beyond the Narrows the strait runs north-east again with a channel about two miles broad for some twenty miles, until between Gallipoli and Chardak it begins to widen gradually into the Sea of Marmora. The total length of the strait from Cape Helles to Gallipoli is between thirty-five and forty miles. The Asiatic side is the coast of the ancient Troad, rising to high hills when the plain of Troy is passed. On the European side the long promontory or peninsula of Gallipoli precludes the channel from issuing into the Gulf of Xeros at the neck of Bulair, or lower down into the Ægean Sea. It is the south-western third of that peninsula which is the scene of the present tragic episode in history. There is no railway on either side of the strait. A coast road is marked from Kum Kali (at the entrance on the Asiatic side) up to Chanak; but it is probably of the usual Turkish quality, as were all roads upon the peninsula. Along both coasts the inhabitants in peace-time communicate chiefly by water, in spite of the current.
THE ISLAND OF LEMNOS
The small island of Tenedos lies about fifteen miles south-west from Kum Kali, and the domed hill at the farther end of the island stands up like a large haycock, visible not only from the Trojan plain, but from all the surrounding seas and islands. The town is a pleasant and well-built place, serviceable to the French for the purchase of extra luxuries in the months following; and as Turkey had refused to yield the island to Greece at the end of the Balkan Wars of 1912–1913, it had been seized by the Allies as a station for watching the mouth of the strait. From epic times, however, it was known as an untrustworthy anchorage, and for a naval base the Allies occupied the great harbour of Mudros upon the island of Lemnos, sixty miles from the scene of action. The greater part of this island is bare of trees, and barren but for patches of cultivation around the scattered villages. In summer the low hills are scorched to a pale brown, and, for an Ægean island, the country possesses little beauty or interest apart from the hot springs for which it was consecrated to the god of fire.[59] But into the centre of the southern coast runs a deep and broad inlet, protected at its entrance by two small islands, and affording space and anchorage enough for a vast navy. Its size is indeed excessive; for when the wind sweeps down from the north-east across the dismal and dusty town of Mudros, it can raise such a storm in the harbour that pinnaces and smaller boats have trouble in lying alongside the ships, and in loading up or unloading. There are, of course, no docks or wharves, though our sailors subsequently constructed a few small piers and landing-stages. All supplies, including most of the water, had to be brought from the remote base at Alexandria; but the harbour became, none the less, invaluable as a secure port for our navy and transports, a forwarding station for supply and ammunition, the headquarters of the Communication and Transport departments, and an advanced hospital base. The use of it was granted by the Greek Government under Venizelos; for the island had fallen into Greek possession in consequence of the Balkan Wars; and King Constantine appears to have acquiesced graciously in a concession which could not be refused.
SHIPS OF THE FLEET
In this vast harbour, and upon the open roadstead of Tenedos, Admiral Carden had gathered a large fleet by the middle of February. Ships were collected from various parts of the world (the Triumph had lately come from China);[60] but Gibraltar, Malta, and Egypt supplied most of them. At Lord Fisher’s own suggestion the super-Dreadnought Queen Elizabeth had been added to the pre-Dreadnought ships upon which Mr. Churchill had originally depended. The Inflexible was also a “Dreadnought” battle-cruiser (she had shared in the Falkland Islands battle of December 8, 1914), and the sister ships Agamemnon and Lord Nelson, which Lord Fisher also added a little later than the rest of the fleet, were generally regarded as fit to fight in line with “Dreadnoughts.” The French Admiralty, at our request, also supplied a few ships, though of old types, which have an overhampered and top-heavy appearance. The most important units in the fleet as concentrated at that time may be tabulated thus:
British.