squadron reached the narrowing portion of the Straits opposite Kephez Point, and resumed the bombardment at 2.36 p.m. It was plain that the forts had not been silenced, for the batteries at Dardanus and Suandere, and one each near Chanak and Kilid Bahr, reopened their fire. Yet much damage had been wrought. A German officer in one of the Hamidieh batteries afterwards wrote that the barracks and other buildings were reduced to heaps of ruins, and he acknowledged that one gun was completely destroyed. Under the cover of the British fire the mine-sweepers continued their perilous work. They were in charge of Commander William Mellor, R.N., of whom the Admiralty afterwards wrote that "he displayed conspicuous gallantry, always being to the fore in a picket-boat in the most exposed positions, encouraging his sweepers and setting a fine example." It was still hoped that the passage might be won.

But the Turks had not failed to draw conclusions from the loss of the Bouvet.

They

were dropping more Leon torpedoes into the swift current, and at 4.5 one of these struck the Irresistible, a battleship of the Formidable class, thirteen years old, with a displacement of 15,000 tons and a principal armament of four 12-inch guns. She quitted the line, listing heavily, and slowly dragged her way towards the entrance to the Straits. She did not sink until 5.50 p.m., and meanwhile practically all her crew had been rescued. Captain Christopher Powell Metcalfe, R.N., was the chief instrument in saving life on this occasion. He skilfully brought the destroyer Wear alongside the Irresistible under a heavy fire, and saved most of the crew. He had over 600 rescued men on board when he left the Straits. He received the Distinguished Service Order. Upon Midshipman Hugh Dixon, who saved several officers and men in the Queen Elizabeth's picket-boat while shells were falling all around, the Distinguished Service Cross was bestowed.

At 6.5 p.m. the Ocean, a battleship fifteen years old, with a displacement of 12,950 tons

COMMANDER EDWARD UNWIN, R.N.

and a principal armament of four 12-inch guns, also sank in deep water, having been struck in similar fashion by a mine. The Ocean went to the bottom very quickly, but nearly all the crew were fortunately saved.

Nor was this the sum of the damage. The Gaulois had been badly hit by the Turkish guns, and her bows were torn open. The Inflexible was hit in her fore-top by a shell which killed or wounded several men. At a later hour she was also struck by a mine, though this fact was not made public for many weeks. She made her way with great difficulty to Tenedos, and it was feared that she would sink. The episode produced many remarkable deeds of gallantry on the part of her officers and crew, which were fittingly described by the Admiralty as follows:

Lieutenant-Commander Acheson, with Acting SubLieutenant Alfred E. B. Giles, Chief E.R.A. 2nd Class Robert Snowdon, and Stoker 1st Class Thomas Davidson, went down into the fore magazine and shell room of H.M.S. Inflexible when the parties working in these places had been driven out by fumes, caused by the explosion of a mine under the ship; they closed valves and water-tight doors, lights being out, the shell room having two feet of water in it, rising quickly, and the magazine flooding slowly.

The fumes were beginning to take effect on Acting SubLieutenant Giles, but neither he nor the others left until

ordered to do so by Lieutenant-Commander Acheson, who was the last to leave the shell room.

During the time H.M.S. Inflexible was steaming to Tenedos, the engine-room being in semi-darkness and great heat, the ship in possible danger of sinking on passage, a high standard of discipline was called for in the Engineer Department, a call which was more than Engineer-Commander Harry Lashmore, C.B. responsible for the discipline of the engine-room department, was in the starboard engine-room throughout the passage, and set a fine example to his men.

met.

Engineer-Lieutenant-Commander Lester was in the port engine-room carrying out the same duties as Engineer-Commander Lashmore did in the starboard engine-room.

Engineer-Lieutenant Parry went twice through the thick fumes to the refrigerator, flat to see if the doors and valves were closed; he also closed the escape hatch from the submerged flat, fumes and vapour coming up the trunk at the time.

Surgeon Langford brought up the wounded from the fore distributing station in the dark. Fumes permeated the place, rendering five men unconscious. Surgeon Langford, though partially overcome by the fumes, continued his work.

Able Seaman Smedley, though wounded himself, carried a wounded Petty Officer down from the fore top after it had been struck by a shel! ; he subsequently went aloft twice more, and started for a third attempt.

Engine Room Artificer Runalls escaped up the trunk from the fore air compressor room with difficulty, helped up his stoker, and closed the W.T. door of the trunk before he feli insensible.

Chief Sick Berth Steward Hamlin, though partially overcome by fumes, assisted Surgeon Langford while the Inflexible was proceeding to Tenedos.

come out into the Black Sea, but was repelled. A large Turkish four-masted sailing ship, which was vainly trying to seek refuge within the Bosphorus, was destroyed. On April 15 the Majestic and Swiftsure bombarded an observation post at Gaba Tepe, on the Gallipoli Peninsula, afterwards one of the landing places of the Australians and New Zealanders. Various warships crossed the Gulf of Xeros, and harried the Turkish camp at Enos, near the new Bulgarian frontier. Repeated visits were paid to Enos, with the object of conveying the impression that the port might be selected as the principal landing place of the Expeditionary Force.

One night the incredible happened. A littleo improvised Turkish torpedo-boat of 97 tons, named the Dhair Hissar, slipped out of Smyrna and got loose in the Aegean. She carried a crew of 34, of whom seven were Germans, men from the Goeben. For a whole month this tiny craft lurked in odd corners of the coast of Asia Minor and escaped detection. On April 16 she thought her chance had come when she saw a British transport, the Manitou, and tried to torpedo her. The attempt failed, but the Manitou had lowered boats, two of which capsized, as a result of which 51 men were drowned. One of the boats came to grief through the breaking of a davit, and the other was overturned through overcrowding. The Manitou signalled for help, and light cruisers and destroyers swarmed forth in search of the Dhair Hissar. She was seen near the Gulf of Smyrna, and instantly chased until she beached herself in the Bay of Kalamuti, on the Island of Chios, on April 18.

British submarines were constantly at work in the Straits, and on April 17 E 15 grounded near Kephez Point. The officers and crew, numbering 20, were taken prisoners, for it was impossible either to fight the vessel or to get her off. She was not much injured, however,

and it was feared that she might be salved by the Turks. Lieutenant MacArthur, R.N., conducted two very daring reconnaissances in submarine B 6, both being made under heavy fire. For this action he was rewarded with the Distinguished Service Cross. As a result

of his report, it was decided to attempt to destroy E 15. During the night of April 18 Commander Eric Robinson, who had already won the V.C. for his valour near Kum Kale, took into the Straits the picket-boats of the Majestic and the Triumph. The party approached the stranded submarine, and at short range fired torpedoes. The torpedo actually successful was fired by Lieutenant Claud Herbert Godwin, R.N., who was in charge of the Majestic's picket-boat. He He was afterwards decorated with the D.S.O. The exploit was performed within 200 yards of the forts, which had discovered the presence of the little expedition, and poured in a tremendous fire. The Majestic's picket-boat was sunk, but the other boat rescued all the crew. This brilliant feat was accomplished with the loss of one man, who was fatally wounded. The unlucky submarine was rendered useless by the torpedo. Other officers who received the Distinguished Service Cross for their courageous work that night were Lieutenant Arthur Cyril BrookeWebb, R.N.R., and Midshipman John Blaxland Woolley, R.N.

Such is a broad chronicle of the unsupported naval attack upon the Dardanelles. Sir Ian Hamilton, after a hurried visit to Egypt to supervise the fresh loading of the transports, had returned to Lemnos on April 7, bringing with him the remainder of his staff, who had followed from London. The next act of the immense and tragic drama of the Dardanelles began on April 25, when in the still mists of dawn flotillas packed with troops moved silently towards the desolate beaches of the Gallipoli Peninsula.

W

HEN a country is suddenly plunged into war it does not require much foresight to perceive that an enhanced supply of ammuni

tion will be one of the most important requirements, and the most obvious way of obtaining it is to increase the output of the State arsenals and place large orders with the private firms that make shells and explosives. This, the course adopted by the British Government, would probably have sufficed for a war of moderate dimensions, or even, with good fortune, for a great one conducted on the old lines, but it proved inadequate for a widespread conflict in which the expenditure of ammunition surpassed all the anticipations of the closest students of warfare. It may, indeed, be said that none of the armies that took the field fully expected such a prodigal outpouring of shells as actually occurred. Even the Germans, if the testimony of Field-Marshal von Moltke and Herr Dernburg is to be accepted, found themselves short of munitions in the early stages of the fighting, though, of course, they claimed that matters were readily put right by means of their wonderful industrial organization. The Boer War, the last important campaign of which our War Office had practical exVol. V. Part 63.

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perience, afforded no guidance, for during the whole of the two and three-quarters years for which it lasted the amount of ammunition used was not much more than was spent by our artillery alone in a fortnight in and around Neuve Chapelle; and if at the beginning of the war anyone had dared to prophesy in Whitehall that within a year one combatant in the assault of a single fortress would, as did the Germans at Przemysl, fire 700,000 shells in four hours-a quantity which, according to the standards of previous wars, might have been thought adequate for a siege of six months-his imagination would have been admired more highly than his intelligence. But even this record was surpassed at the beginning of the great offensive in Champagne in September, for if the German papers can be believed, one portion of the front there received in three days over 50,000,000 shots from the guns of the Allies.

We have described in an earlier chapter of this volume (pp. 308-312) how the supply of ammunition, and especially of high explosives. became in the spring of 1915 the most urgent British problem of the war. A series of disturbing indications culminated in May in the revelation by the military correspondent of