The narrow passage of water called the Dardanelles separates the peninsula of Gallipoli and the Asiatic shore of Turkey. It connects the AEgean Sea and the Sea of Marmora, which in turn, through the Bosphorus, connects with the Black Sea. Curiously enough this tremendously important waterway, the only warm sea outlet of Russia, had been closed against that country by the action of the very powers now fighting desperately to smash it open. The Black Sea was a Turkish lake in the seventeenth century but in the century following the growth of Russia in that part of Europe made the question of the control of the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles one of supreme importance to her. Thus we find, in the so-called "will" of Peter the Great, among other injunctions he lays upon his successors, an admonition never to rest until Constantinople had been wrested from the Turk. But whether this "will" is authentic or not, Russian policy has steadily kept that object in view. The Crimean War was an attempt by France and England to stem the almost resistless tide of Russian expanse toward the southwest. Russian control of Constantinople was regarded as the chief danger that threatened the western powers and, in 1856, by the Treaty of Paris, not only was the strength of the Russian Black Sea fleet expressly limited, but the Dardanelles were closed against the passage of Russia's warships into the Mediterranean. France and England revived what they called "an ancient rule of the Ottoman Empire, in virtue of which it has at all times been prohibited for ships of war of foreign powers to enter the Straits of the Dardanelles and of the Bosphorus." Turkey was of no mind to leave the enforcement of this "ancient rule" to the powers. She began the construction of more elaborate fortifications commanding both the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles. German advice, especially after the Franco-Prussian War, was asked and obtained and Krupp sent some of his gigantic pieces for the defense of the narrow waters. This German cooperation with the Turks in the strengthening of those positions through all the years that have intervened is significant. CHAPTER VI FORTIFICATIONS AND STRENGTH--FIRST MOVEMENTS