lanned upon which fortune beguilingly smiled--the
landing on the historic beaches of Gallipoli.

"Take, first, the attempt of the ships upon the Straits. In the light
of failure no doubt it must be written down a military folly. Ships
against forts had long been held a futile and unequal contest. But it
was not the forts that saved Constantinople. In the narrow gulf
leading to the Sea of Marmora no less than eight mine fields zigzagged
their venomous coils across the channel. The strong, unchanging
current of the Dardanelles, flowing steadily south, carried with it all
floating mines dropped in the upper reaches. Torpedo tubes ranged on
the shore discharged their missiles halfway across the Straits. Before
warships could enter these waters a lane had to be swept and kept.
Daily, therefore, the minesweepers steamed ahead of the fleet to clear
the necessary channel. But when thus engaged they became the target of
innumerable and hidden guns, secluded among the rocks, in gullies and
ruins and behind the shoulders of the hills, in every fold of the
landscape. To 'spot' these shy, retiring batteries was of course
imperative, but when spotted they vanished to some other coign of
vantage, equally inconspicuous, and continued to rain fire upon the
minesweepers. The warships poured cataracts of shell along the shores
and among the slopes, the sea trembled, and the earth quaked. Amid the
devastating uproar the trawlers swept and grappled and destroyed the
discovered mines, but almost as fast as they removed them others were
floated down to fill their places. Ships that ventured too far in
support of the sweepers, like the _Bouvet_ and the _Triumph_, perished;
the waterways were alleys of death. Progress indeed was made, but
progress at a cost too heavy, and wisdom decreed the abandonment of the
original plan.

"There remained another way. An army landed on the peninsula might
cross the narrow neck of land, demolish the batteries, and free the
minesweepers from their destructive fire. Could that be done, it was
thought the ships might yet force a passage into the broader waters and
approach within easy range of the Turkish capital. After long and
fatal delay the attempt was made. What might have been easily
accomplished a month or two earlier had increased hour by hour in
difficulty. Warned in good time of the coming danger, the Turks
converted Gallipoli, a natural fortress, into a position of
immeasurable stre