New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915: April-September, 1915Various
History
New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915: April-September, 1915
Various
World War, 1914-1918
The British casualties in personnel are not heavy, considering the scale
of the operations; but practically the whole of the crew of the Bouvet
were lost with the ship, an internal explosion having apparently
supervened on the explosion of the mine.
The Queen and Implacable, which were dispatched from England to replace
ships' casualties in anticipation of this operation, are due to arrive
immediately, thus bringing the British fleet up to its original
strength.
The operations are continuing, ample naval and military forces being
available on the spot.
On the 16th inst., Vice Admiral Carden, who has been incapacitated by
illness, was succeeded in the chief command by Rear Admiral John Michael
de Robeck, with acting rank of Vice Admiral.
THE SCENE IN THE STRAIT.
_The London Times publishes this story of an eyewitness:_
TENEDOS, (Aegina,) March 18.
This is not so much an account of the five hours' heavy engagement
between the Turkish forts and the allied ships which has been fought
actually within the Dardanelles today as an impression of the
bombardment as seen at a distance of fifteen miles or so from the top of
a high, steep hill called Mount St. Elias, at the northern end of
Tenedos.
Over the ridge of Kum Kale you plainly see, like a great blue lake, the
first reach of the Dardanelles up to the narrow neck between Chanak and
Kilid Bahr. It was up and down in this stretch of water that the largest
vessels of the allied fleet steamed today for over four hours, hurling,
with sheets of orange flame from their heavy guns, a constant succession
of shells on the forts that guard the Narrows at Chanak, while the
Turkish batteries, with a frequency that lessened as the day went on,
flashed back at them in reply, with the difference that, while the
effects of the Allies' shells were continually manifest in the columns
of smoke and dust that were signs of the damage they had wrought, a
great number of the enemy's shots fell in the sea hundreds of yards from
the bombarding ships, sending torrents of water towering harmlessly into
the air.
Not that the successes of the day have been won without cost. I saw
several ships, French and British, struck by shells that raised volumes
of white smoke, and one of the French squadron is toiling slowly home at
this moment down by the head and with a list to port, while, so far as
one could make out with a glass, several boatloads of men were being
taken off her.
The ships left their stations between the Turkish and Asiatic coasts and
Tenedos early this morning and by 11 they were steaming in line up the
Dardanelles.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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