Germany -- Foreign relations -- Turkey; Turkey -- Foreign relations -- Germany; World War, 1914-1918 -- Turkey
In the morning we started again. We now had fairly arrived in the
Dardanelles, and from Gallipoli we had a sail of nearly twenty-five
miles to Tchanak Kalé. For the most part this section of the strait is
uninteresting and, from a military point of view, it is unimportant. The
stream is about two miles wide, both sides are low-lying and marshy, and
only a few scrambling villages show any signs of life. I was told that
there were a few ancient fortifications, their rusty guns pointing
toward the Marmora, the emplacements having been erected there in the
early part of the nineteenth century for the purpose of preventing
hostile ships entering from the north. These fortifications, however,
were so inconspicuous that I could not see them; my hosts informed me
that they had no fighting power, and that, indeed, there was nothing in
the northern part of the straits, from Point Nagara to the Marmora, that
could offer resistance to any modern fleet. The chief interest which I
found in this part of the Dardanelles was purely historic and legendary.
The ancient town of Lampsacus appeared in the modern Lapsaki, just
across from Gallipoli, and Nagara Point is the site of the ancient
Abydos, from which village Leander used to swim nightly across the
Hellespont to Hero--a feat which was repeated about one hundred years
ago by Lord Byron. Here also Xerxes crossed from Asia to Greece on a
bridge of boats, embarking on that famous expedition which was to make
him master of mankind. The spirit of Xerxes, I thought, as I passed the
scene of his exploit, is still quite active in the world! The Germans
and Turks had found a less romantic use for this,
[Illustration: THE RED CRESCENT
It here marks a Turkish Field Hospital, as a warning to aviators not to
bomb.]
[Illustration: ENVER PASHA
“I shall go down in history,” this Turkish leader told Mr.
Morgenthau “as the man who demonstrated the vulnerability of
England and her fleet. I shall show that her navy is not
invincible.”
]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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