Key of situation is Constantinople.
It should now be evident that there is much to be said for the view that the key to the present situation is Constantinople. We are dealing with world politics, with a world war which is being fought on the battlefields of Europe; but we are dealing with a world war whose results are not expected to develop in Europe proper. The key to this situation lies in Constantinople, and the Turk holds it.
Copyright, World's Work, January, 1915.
The outbreak of the Great War found the British navy in a high state of preparedness, and so preponderant in number of vessels and in weight of guns that the German Grand Fleet as a whole was content to remain behind the walls of Helgoland. Squadrons were sent out, however, to attack isolated British ships, and on August 28 the first naval battle of the war occurred in the Bight of Helgoland. Here British and German cruisers engaged in a struggle in which the honors were for a time even. The arrival of British dreadnoughts quickly turned the scale, and the German ships fled to the safety of their harbor. The Germans lost four large ships, while the British fleet lost none.
The German navy was revenged in November 3, when a fleet of warships met and sunk three British cruisers off the Coronel. On December 9, however, a British fleet, after a search of many days, came up with and sank three German cruisers, and severely damaged two others in the Battle of Falkland Islands.