EFFECTIVE SHOOTING

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 57, 9 March 1915, Page 7

EFFECTIVE SHOOTING

BOMBARDMENT OF THE DARDANELLES DEFENCE OF CONSTANTINOPLE

TROOPS BEING HURRIED TO THE CITY I A FRENCH SUCCESS HAND-TO-HAND FIGHTING RUSSIAN REPORTS GREAT BATTLE DEVELOPING

Realising the grave position in which Constantinople stands at the present time as a consequence of the continued successful bombardment of the Turkish defences of the •Dardanelles by the Allied fleet, the Turks are hurrying troopß to the capital, the defence of which has been entrusted to General yon Sanders, the German officer who headed the commission sent to Turkey before the war to reorganise the Turkish military system. The accuracy of the Allies' fire has apparently been magnificent, as will be seen by a perusal of the cable messages published below. Bulgaria, so the Havas Agency states, has secretly mobilised three divisions of troops, including one sent to an ' unknown destination — Adrianople is suggested—while a Bill providing for a credit of £8,000,000 for military expenses is at present before the Chamber of Deputies. The Havas Agency is a German concern, and the story may or may not be true. According to a correspondent, the success of the Allies' bombardment of the Dardanelles has been received with elation by Bulgarians and Rumanians. However/ in this 1 instance popular feeling may have to be subordinated to political exigencies, and so far back as Jnmtary last the Athens correspondent of the London Daily Mail stated: "The Turco-Bulgarian Entente appears complete/ Reports from Paris are to the effect that the Allied troops are still just more than holding their own generally, that in a hand-to-hand fight near Munster j in Alsace, the Germans lost heavily, and that the sound of heavy gunfire coming from the direction of Ypres has been heard at Roulers, which is in the occupation of the Germans, and is situated some ten miles east of the position held by the British at Ypres. Petrograd messages report continued successes by, the 'Russians in Poland, Galicia, and the Carpathians. On the left bank of the River Vistula, in the region of the Pilica, a great battle is developing. The Crown Council of Greece decided in favour of infer.vention on the side of the Entente, but the King favours neutrality, and the Premier has resigned.