battle so hopeless and so gallant that the word Gallipoli shall
always remind the world how man may triumph over the fear of death; how
with nothing but defeat and disaster before them, men may go to their
deaths as unconcernedly as in other days they go to their nightly sleep.

On November 5, 1914, Great Britain declared war upon Turkey.
Hostilities, however, had preceded the declaration. On November 3d the
combined French and British squadrons had bombarded the entrance forts.
This was merely intended to draw the fire of the forts and make an
estimate of their power. From that time on a blockade was maintained,
and on the 13th of December a submarine, commanded by Lieutenant
Holbrook, entered the straits and torpedoed the Turkish warship
Messoudieh, which was guarding the mine fields.

By the end of January the blockading fleet, through constant
reinforcement, had become very strong, and had seized the Island of
Tenedos and taken possession of Lemnos, which nominally belonged to
Greece, as bases for naval operations. On the 19th of February began the
great attack upon the forts at the entrance to the Dardanelles, which
attracted the attention of the world for nearly a year.

The expedition against the Dardanelles had been considered with the
greatest care, and approved by the naval authorities. That their
judgment was correct, however, is another question. The history of naval
warfare seems to make very plain that a ship, however powerful, is at a
tremendous disadvantage when attacking forts on land. The badly served
cannon of Alexandria fell, indeed, before a British fleet, but Gallipoli
had been fortified by German engineers, and its guns were the Krupp
cannon. The British fleet found itself opposed by unsurmountable
obstacles. Looking backward it seems possible, that if at the very start
Lord Kitchener had permitted a detachment of troops to accompany the
fleet, success might have been attained, but without the army the navy
was powerless.

The Peninsula of Gallipoli is a tongue of land about fifty miles long,
varying in width from twelve to two or three miles. It is a mass of
rocky hills so steep that in many places it is a matter of difficulty to
reach their tops. On it are a few villages, but there are no decent
roads and little cultivated land. On the southern shore of the
Dardanelles conditions are nearly the same. Here, the entrance is a flat
and marshy plain, but east of this plain are hills three thousan