Completed. Tons. Guns.
Queen Elizabeth 1915 27,500 8 15-in. 12 6-in.
Inflexible 1908 17,250 8 12-in. 16 4-in.
Agamemnon 1908 16,500 4 12-in. 10 9·2-in.
Lord Nelson 1908 16,500 4 12-in. 10 9·2-in.
Irresistible 1901 15,000 4 12-in. 12 6-in.
Majestic 1895 14,900 4 12-in. 12 6-in.
Prince George 1896 14,900 4 12-in. 12 6-in.
Cornwallis 1904 14,900 4 12-in. 12 6-in.
Vengeance 1901 12,950 4 12-in. 12 6-in.
Albion 1902 12,950 4 12-in. 12 6-in.
Ocean 1900 12,950 4 12-in. 12 6-in.
Canopus 1899 12,950 4 12-in. 12 6-in.
Triumph 1904 11,800 4 10-in. 14 7·5-in.
Swiftsure 1904 11,800 4 10-in. 14 7·5-in.
French.
Suffren 1903 12,520 4 12-in. 10 6·4-in.
Bouvet 1898 12,007 2 12-in. {2 10·8-in.
{8 5·5-in.
Gaulois 1899 11,080 4 12-in. 10 5·5-in.
Charlemagne 1898 11,000 4 12-in. 10 5·5-in.[61]

To these main fighting ships were added four light cruisers (the Amethyst, Sapphire, Dublin, and Doris), two destroyer depôts, sixteen destroyers, six submarines, twenty-one mine-sweeping trawlers, and a seaplane ship (the Ark Royal) accommodating six seaplanes; besides from the French navy six torpedo-boats and fourteen mine-sweepers.

Out of this fleet, Admiral Carden selected the British ships Inflexible, Agamemnon, Cornwallis, Triumph, and Vengeance, together with the French ships (under Admiral Guépratte) Suffren, Bouvet, and Gaulois, covered by a large number of destroyers, for the first attack upon the outer forts. Orders for washing and clean clothes (to avoid septic wounds) were issued on February 18, and next morning, in clear and calm weather, “General Quarters” was sounded. The firing began at eight, and the first scene in the drama of the Dardanelles Expedition was enacted.[62]

The main forts to be destroyed were four in number; two on either side the entrance. One stood on the cliff of Cape Helles, just to the left or south-west of the shelving amphitheatre afterwards celebrated as V Beach. Another lay low down, on the right of the same beach, close in front of the medieval castle of Seddel Bahr, where still one sees lying in heaps or scattered over the ground huge cannon-balls of stone, such as were hurled at Duckworth’s fleet more than a century before. Upon the Asiatic side stood the fort of Kum Kali, at the very mouth of the strait, not far from the cliff village of Yenishehr, and separated from the plain of Troy by the river Mendere, near neighbour to the Simois and Scamander conjoined. About a mile down the coast, close beside Yenishehr village, is the remaining fort of Orkhanieh. None of these forts was heavily armed. The largest guns appear to have been 10·2 inch (six on Seddel Bahr, and four on Kum Kali), and when our squadron drew their fire, as before narrated, on November 3, 1914, their extreme range was found to be 12,500 yards.

FIRST NAVAL ACTION

Throughout the morning Admiral Carden concentrated his bombardment upon these forts at long range, and they made no reply. Hoping that he had silenced or utterly destroyed them, he advanced six ships to closer range in the afternoon, and then the reply came in earnest, though the shooting was poor. At sunset he withdrew the ships, though Kum Kali was still firing. In evidence, he admitted that “the result of the day’s action showed apparently that the effect of long range bombardment by direct fire on modern earthwork forts is slight.”[63] It was a lesson repeated time after time throughout the campaign. The big naval shells threw up stones and earth as from volcanoes, and caused great alarm. But the alarm was temporary, and the effect, whether on earthworks or trenches, usually disappointing. For naval guns, constructed to strike visible objects at long range with marvellous accuracy, have too flat a trajectory for the plunging fire (as of howitzers) which devastates earthworks and trenches. It was with heavy howitzers that the Germans destroyed the forts of Liége, Namur, and Antwerp, and, owing to this obvious difference in the weapons employed, Mr. Churchill’s expectation of crushing the Dardanelles defences by the big guns of the Queen Elizabeth and the Inflexible was frustrated.[64]

Nevertheless, after a few days of driving rain and heavy sea (a common event at this season, which might have been anticipated), Admiral Carden renewed the bombardment on February 25, employing the Queen Elizabeth, Irresistible, Agamemnon, and Gaulois. The Queen Elizabeth, firing beyond the enemy’s range, assisted in silencing the powerful batteries on Cape Helles, and though the Agamemnon was severely struck at about 11,000 yards range, the subsidiary ships Cornwallis, Vengeance, Triumph, Albion, Suffren, and Charlemagne stood in closer, and by the evening compelled all the outer forts to cease fire. Next day landing-parties of marines were put ashore to complete their destruction; which they did, though at Kum Kali they were driven back to their boats with some loss. The story that marines had tea at Krithia and climbed Achi Baba for the view—places soon to acquire such ill-omened fame—is mythical. But certainly they met with no opposition on the Peninsula, and if a large military force had then been available, the gallant but appalling events of the landing two months later would never have occurred. Had not the War Council persisted in the design of a solely naval attack, even after their resolve had begun to waver, a large military force might have been available, either then, or to co-operate with a similar naval movement only a week or two later.

SUBSEQUENT NAVAL ACTIONS

Stormy weather delayed further attack till March 4, when a squadron, including the Triumph, Albion, Lord Nelson, and Ocean, passed up the strait to a position beyond the village of Erenkeui, conspicuous upon a mountain-side of the Asiatic coast, and bombarded Fort Dardanus. The fort stands upon Kephez Point, which projects as though to defend the very entrance of the Narrows. Over the top of the promontory the houses and mosques of Chanak and Kilid Bahr could be plainly seen, where those towns face each other across the narrowest part of the passage. Of the eight lines of mine-field drawn across the strait, five lay between Kephez Point and Chanak. Day and night our mine-sweeping trawlers were engaged upon them, and considerable praise must be given to the courage and endurance of their crews, who for the most part had been North Sea fishermen before the expedition. Their service throughout, whether for mine-sweeping or transport, was of very high value. It almost justified the remark made to me by a skipper whom I had met before on the Dogger Bank: “If the Kayser had knowed as we’d got trawlers, he would never have declared war!”

A similar advance to engage the forts at Dardanus, and, after those were thought to be silenced, the forts at Chanak and Kilid Bahr, was made next day, and again, in stronger force, on March 6.[65] The Prince George, Albion, Vengeance, Majestic, and Suffren were employed, and suffered damage, though without loss of life. At the same time, on the 6th, the Queen Elizabeth, stationed off Gaba Tepe on the outer coast, flung her vast shells clear over the Peninsula into the Chanak forts, her fire being directed by aeroplanes. She was supported by the Agamemnon and Ocean, and there were high hopes of thus crushing out the big guns defending the Narrows, some of which were believed to be 14-inch. Nevertheless, when the four French battleships advanced up the strait on the following day (March 7), supported at long range by the Agamemnon and her sister ship Lord Nelson, the Chanak forts replied with an effective and damaging fire. It was impossible to say when a fort was really out of action. After long silence, the Turkish and German gunners frequently returned and reopened fire, as though nothing had happened. In his evidence, Admiral Carden stated that when the demolition parties landed after the bombardment of the outer forts, they found 70 per cent. of the guns apparently intact upon their mountings, although their magazines were blown up and their electrical or other communications destroyed.[66] Still worse than these disappointing results was the opportunity left to the enemy of moving, not only bodies of men, but field-guns and heavy howitzers from one point of the Peninsula and Asiatic coast to another, and opening fire upon the ships from concealed and unexpected positions. Our landing-parties of marines also suffered considerably from the advantage thus given to the enemy, as happened to a body which landed at Kum Kali for the second time on March 4. All such dangers and hindrances would have been removed if the navy had been supported by sufficient military force to occupy the ground behind the ships as they advanced.