on the scene the work of destruction instantly
recommenced. After four days of bombardment by sea and land, and from
the air, and a rapid series of what can only be described as
wholesale butcheries, the ancient capital of the Sultan shared the
fate of Berlin and Vienna, and after four centuries and a half the
Turkish dominion in Europe died in its first stronghold.

Meanwhile one of the wings of the Franco-Italian army had made a
descent upon Gallipoli, and after forty-eight hours' incessant
fighting had compelled the remnant of the Turkish army, which it thus
cut off from Constantinople, to take refuge on the Turkish and
British men-of-war under the protection of the guns of the fleet. In
view of the overwhelming numbers of the enemy, and the terrible
effectiveness of the war-balloons, it was decided that any attempt to
retake Constantinople, or even to continue to hold the Dardanelles,
could only result in further disaster.

The forts of the Dardanelles were therefore evacuated and blown up,
and the British and Turkish fleet, with the remains of the Turkish
army on board, steamed southward to Alexandria to join forces with
the British Squadron that was holding the northern approaches to the
Suez Canal. There the Turkish troops were landed, and the Allied
fleets prepared for the naval battle which the release of the Russian
Black Sea Squadron, through the opening of the Dardanelles, was
considered to have rendered inevitable.

Five days later was fought a second battle of the Nile, a battle
compared with which the former conflict, momentous as it had been,
would have seemed but child's play. On the one side Admiral
Beresford, in command of the Mediterranean Squadron, had collected
every available ship and torpedo-boat to do battle for the defence of
the all-important Suez Canal, and opposed to him was an immense
armament formed by the junction of the Russian Black Sea Squadron
with the Franco-Italian fleet, or rather those portions of it which
had survived the attacks, or eluded the vigilance of the British
Admiral.

The battle, fought almost on the ancient battle-ground of Nelson and
Collingwood, was incomparably the greatest sea-fight in the history
of war.

The fleet under Admiral Beresford's command consisted of fifty-five
battleships of the first and second class, forty-six armoured and
seventy-two unarmoured cruisers, fifty-four gunboats, and two hundred
and seventy torpedo-boats; while the Franco-Italian