On the morning of March 15, 1915, the small British cruiser Amethyst made a dash into the Narrows, which when reported led the British and French public to believe that the defense had been forced, but, as a matter of fact, this exploit was a bit of stratagem, being only designed to draw the fire of concealed batteries.
On March 18, 1915, "The Great Effort" was made to force the defenses with naval operations, all previous work having been preliminary. The battleships Agamemnon, Prince George, Queen Elizabeth, Lord Nelson, Triumph, and Inflexible steamed right up to the Narrows. Four of them bombarded Chanak and a battery which lay opposite it, and the forts at Saghandere, Kephez Point, and Dardanos were kept busy by the Triumph and the Prince George. After the fleet had been at it for an hour and a half they received the support of the four French ships which steamed in close and attacked the forts at a shorter range. When the forts ceased firing the six battleships Ocean, Swiftsure, Majestic, Albion, Irresistible, and Vengeance came in and tried to carry the attack further. While the French squadron maneuvered to allow freedom of action for this newer British squadron the Turkish guns resumed fire. Then came the first of a series of disasters. Three shells struck the Bouvet, and she soon began to keel over. When the underwater part of her hull came into view it was seen that she had been hit underneath, probably by one of the mines which the Turks had floated toward the crowded ships. She sank almost immediately, carrying the greater part of her crew down with her. Only two hours later another mine did damage to the Irresistible, and she left the line, listing heavily. While she floated and while she was under heavy fire from Turkish guns a destroyer took off her crew. She sank just before six o'clock. Not fifteen minutes later the Ocean became the third victim of a floating mine, and she also went to the bottom. Destroyers rescued many of her crew from the water. The guns from the forts were also able to do damage; the Gaulois had been hit again and again, with the result that she had a hole in her hull and her upper works were damaged badly. Fire had broken out on the Inflexible, and a number of her officers and crew had been either killed or wounded. The day ended with the forts still able to return a lively fire to all attacks, and "The Great Attempt" on the part of the allied fleets had failed.
On the other end of the passage there had also been some naval operations, when, on March 28, 1915, the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian navy had bombarded the forts on the Bosphorous. Smyrna was again attacked on April 6, 1915. The operations of allied submarines were the next phases of the attack on the Dardanelles to be reported. The E-5 grounded near Kephez Point on April 17, 1915, but before she could be captured by the Turks picket boats from the allied fleet rescued her crew and then destroyed her. It was just two months now since the naval operations had begun at the Dardanelles; it was seen then that all attempts to take them by naval operations alone must fail as did the attack of March 18, 1915.
CHAPTER XVII
GERMAN RAIDERS AND SUBMARINES
The next important event in the naval history of the war occurred in far-distant waters. On March 10, 1915, there ended the wonderful career of the German auxiliary cruiser Prinz Eitel Friedrich, Captain Thierichens, which on that date put in at the American port of Newport News, Va., for repairs, after making the harbor in spite of the watch kept on it by British cruisers. She brought with her more than 500 persons, 200 of them being her own crew, and the remainder being passengers and crews of French, British, Russian, and American ships that had been her victims in her roving over 30,000 miles of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans since leaving Tsing-tau seven months before.
She had sent eight merchant ships to the bottom, one of them being the William P. Frye, an American vessel carrying wheat, three British ships, three flying the French flag, and one Russian ship. Their total tonnage came to 18,245. The fact that she had sunk an American ship on the high seas opened up still another diplomatic controversy between Germany and the United States, which cannot be treated here.
When she left Tsing-tau she took as her crew the men from the German gunboats Tiger and Luchs, and had their four 4.1-inch and some of their one-pounder guns as her armament. Soon afterward she stopped the British ship Schargost and expected to refill her coal bunkers from those of the merchantman, but in this she was disappointed, for those of the latter were almost empty. Her next victim was a French sailing vessel, Jean, and on board this was found a pleasant surprise for the German raider, for the vessel was laden with coal. Captain Thierichens had her towed 1,500 miles, to Easter Island, where the coal was transferred to the bunkers of the Eitel Friedrich, and the crews of her first three victims were put ashore. These marooned men were burdens to the white inhabitants of the island, for there was not too much food for the extra forty-eight mouths. Finally, on February 26, 1915, the Swedish ship Nordic saw them signaling from the island and took them off, landing them at Panama on the day after the Prinz Eitel Friedrich entered Newport News.
By the beginning of December, 1914, the German raider was in the South Atlantic, and while there heard wireless messages exchanged between the ships of the British fleet that took part in the battle off the Falkland Islands. The bark Isabella Browne, flying the Russian flag, was the next ship overtaken by the Eitel Friedrich, on January 26, 1915. She was boarded and all of her provisions and stores were removed to the German ship; after her crew and their personal effects were taken aboard the German ship she was dynamited and sank. On that same morning the French ship Pierre Loti was sighted, and while the Prinz Eitel Friedrich put an end to her, after first taking off her crew, the captive crew of the Isabella Browne was sent below, but was allowed to come on deck to watch the sinking of the French ship. The American ship William P. Frye was sunk soon afterward, and her crew, also, was made part of the party on board the raider. After sinking the French bark Jacobsen the Prinz Eitel Friedrich stopped the Thalasia on February 8, 1915, and let her go on her way, but on February 18 the British ships Cindracoe and Mary Ada Scott were sunk. On the 19th the French steamer Floride was overtaken off the coast of Brazil; all persons aboard her were transferred to the German ship and most of her provisions were also taken aboard the latter; the Floride, the largest steamer destroyed by the German ship, was set afire and left to burn. On February 20, 1915, the British ship Willerby was overtaken and nearly sank the Prinz Eitel Friedrich before being boarded. As the German ship passed across the stern of the other at a short distance the British captain, knowing that the end of his own ship was near, decided to take his captor down with him. He tried to ram the German ship with the stern of his ship, but failed in the attempt.