So ended an episode in which, from the strictly naval standpoint, and though our leaders in the Mediterranean were held free from blame, it must be admitted that the honours rested with the German admiral and the perspicacity of his advisers in Berlin. Whether or no the arrival at Constantinople of the _Goeben_ and _Breslau_ was the determining factor in the Turkish Government's policy; how, if they had been sunk by us, that Government might have acted; and the effect on the situation that they had created of a prompter and more drastic action on our own part--these matters can never probably be accurately determined. On the other hand, it is clear that, both in material and moral effect, their presence was an enormous asset to German diplomacy; and that, indirectly at any rate, our campaign in Gallipoli, with all its consequences, derived from them. On September 27th, Turkey closed the Dardanelles; on October 31st, she declared war; and, three days later, on instructions from the Admiralty, but without reference to the War Council, certain units of the Mediterranean Fleet shelled the outer forts of the Dardanelles. In the light of after events, this was {103} undoubtedly an error, but it was undertaken at the time with the purpose of ascertaining the effective range of the protecting Turkish guns. Now to obtain a fair picture of the operations at Gallipoli that were afterward undertaken--operations in the first place wholly naval, but finally predominantly military--it is necessary to return for a moment to London and to study the general background against which they must be viewed. Here, after all, were the two or three brains upon which, as a whole, our strategy depended; and it is interesting to note how the mechanism through which they acted had become moulded and modified by the stress of war. For it must be remembered that, after those admirable dispositions, long considered and provided for by the Committee of Imperial Defence, had been undertaken--after not only the navy and army, but every affected department had gone, as it were, to its war-stations--an era followed that is best to be described as the era of improvisation.