Then the officer stated his reasons. He was so certain that the British and French would return in the morning to finish their task that there was no question in his mind as to the propriety of discussing the ammunition matter.
"We'll hold out well enough to make them think that there is no end to our supply of ammunition," he said, "but it can't be done if they go about their work in real earnest. With our heavy pieces useless they can reduce the batteries on the other shore without trouble. The case looks hopeless. You had better take my advice."
Following the advice thus given, the correspondent rose early next morning and packed his few belongings, keeping, meanwhile, a watchful eye on the tower of Kale-Sultanie, where the flag, showing that the allied fleet was near, was usually hoisted. But the morning passed and still the danger signal did not appear. Evidently the allied fleet was not inclined to risk more such losses as those of the previous day, when the Bouvet, Irresistible, and Ocean went down and five other ships were badly damaged. Yet even with the eleven remaining ships, it appears from the Turkish admissions, the Dardanelles could have been forced on March 19, 1915.
The correspondent visited several of the batteries during the day. The damage done the day before was slight indeed, consisting mostly of large earth displacements from the parapets and traverses. Four guns were temporarily out of commission, but the general shortage of ammunition made these pieces negligible quantities anyway.
Although the British information system in this field of operations was efficient, it must have failed in this instance, for it seems certain that with seventeen shells the battery in question would have been easily disposed of, a channel could have been made through the mine field, and the way to Constantinople would have been open.
All this was realized in the Turkish capital. The court made arrangements to transfer to Akhissar Anatolia, and the German and Austro-Hungarian Embassies were ready to leave for this ancient seat of the Ottoman Government. The families of many German officers in the Turkish service left Constantinople. In short, everybody understood that a calamity was pending. What its exact nature was but a few knew.
Whatever truth there may have been in this particular story, there seems to be little doubt that the Turks were woefully short of ammunition. During the Balkan War it was reported on good authority that much of their ammunition was defective. When countries like France, England, and Russia hopelessly miscalculated the need of ammunition for modern warfare, it is not asking too much of us to believe that the Turks suffered in a worse degree.
Without direct or indirect communication with Germany, it is easy to imagine this condition of affairs getting steadily worse. At the beginning of the war, there seems to be good evidence, large quantities of all kinds of munitions and war supplies were rushed from Germany to Constantinople by way of Rumania and Bulgaria, but it was not long before the Rumanian Government, either of its own volition or in the face of threats by the allied powers, refused to permit these supplies to pass through her territory.
It became evident to the Allies that sooner or later the Germans would have to make an attempt to link up with the Turks. Thus, from one point of view, the operations at the Dardanelles became a race against Germany, with a common objective, Constantinople. Those who laid their money on the allied horse were confident of winning, figuring that long before the Germans were free of the French menace on the west and south and the Russian menace on the east, and so in a position to undertake an offensive against Serbia, the allied troops would have forced the Dardanelles, vanquished the Ottoman troops before the gates of Constantinople, and opened the Strait of the Dardanelles and the Bosporus.
So it was that when events did not transpire as expected, and the allied troops were still hanging desperately to their bases on Gallipoli Peninsula, when the Germans had subdued Serbia, and arrived in triumph in the capital of the Ottoman Empire via the Berlin to Constantinople Express, there was no longer any hope of starving the Turkish guns nor, having even forced the Dardanelles, any certainty of the capture of Constantinople. In other words, conditions had radically changed, and, even with better chances of success than were believed to exist, the game was no longer worth the candle.