By the middle of February, 1915, the Allies completed the arrangement for the naval attack on the Dardanelles. The military part of the campaign in these regions is treated in the chapter on the "Campaign in the Dardanelles"; hence we must confine ourselves at present to the general naval affairs. The naval operations began with the concentration in the adjacent waters of a powerful fleet consisting of both French and British ships. The ships engaged were the _Queen Elizabeth_, with her main battery of 15-inch guns, the _Inflexible_, veteran of the fight off the Falkland Islands, the _Agamemnon, Cornwallis, Triumph_, and _Vengeance_. In addition to these British ships there were the French battleships _Suffren, Gaulois_, and _Bouvet_, and a fleet of destroyers. The senior British officer was Vice Admiral Sackville Carden, and the French commander was Admiral Guepratte. A new "mother ship" for a squadron of seaplanes was also part of the naval force; this was the ship _Ark Royal_. At eight in the morning on February 19, 1915, this powerful fleet started "The Great Attempt." After bombarding the Turkish forts till three in the afternoon without receiving a single reply from the guns of the forts, the warships ceased firing and went in closer to the shore, the allied commanders believing that the forts had not replied because they all had been put out of action. The fallacy of this belief was discovered when, at the shortened range, shells began to fall about the ships. None was hit; when dusk came on they retired. Stormy weather prevented further action on the part of the warships for almost a week, but on February 25, 1915, they resumed their bombardment. The _Irresistible_ and _Albion_ had by then joined the other British ships, and the _Charlemagne_ had augmented the French force. At ten o'clock in the morning of February 25, 1915, the _Queen Elizabeth, Gaulois, Irresistible_, and _Agamemnon_ began to fire on the forts Sedd-el-Bahr, Orkanieh, Kum Kale, and Cape Hellas--the outer forts--at long range, and drew replies from the Turkish guns. It was out of all compliance with naval tradition for warships to stand and engage land fortifications, for lessons learned by naval authorities from the Spanish-American and Russo-Japanese wars had established precedents which prohibited it. But here the larger warships were carrying heavier guns than those in the forts. Whereas the _Queen Elizabeth_ carried 15-inch guns, the largest of the Turkish guns measured only 10.2 inches.