THE DARDANELLES

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 126, 29 May 1915, Page 4

THE DARDANELLES

The Gallipoli Peninsula narrows in two places. One is the isthmus itself, where the Bulair line of Turkish forts runs from sea. to sea. The other narrow place is in a line between Gaba Tepe (wherethe Australasians landed, on the Gulf of Saros) and a point, near Mai dog, on tho Dardauelkfi skid just north o| The &«•

rows. This Gaba Tepe - Maidos line divides the Peninsula into two unequal parts. The smaller includes the whole southward extremity of the Peninsula, while the larger extends, on the other side of the Gaba Tepe-Maidos line, right back to the isthmian forts of Bulair. It should be added, to clarify the position, that the smaller (or southern) part is defended by an entrenched height, Achi Baba, elevation 730 feet; while the larger (or northern) one has, as its first rampart, similar high ground at Sari Bair, where the greatest altitude appears to be 950 feet. When the Australasians first landed at (Jaba Tepe, they attacked Sari Bair and won a positionr— which they entrenched and still hold — upon the foothills ; but a number of them were later transferred to thp. southern theatre, and that is why they figured in the Allies' attack on Achi Baba. The* reason is plain enough. As the southern area includes all the European forts commanding The Narrows, it is for the present the vital theatre, and the Allies find it more \urgent to capture Achr Baba— which covers the landward approach to The Narrows fortsj—than to take the other height, Sari Bair, against , which the Australasians first fixed their bayonets. So the remainder of the Australasian force is standing on the defensive at Sari Bair while the main army is invpsting Achi Baba, preliminary to breaking into Kilid Bahr and the other Narrows forts from the land side. An official statement lately published makes it "lear that attempts to carry Achi Baba by storm did not succeed, and that the capture must apparently proceed by the gradual measures of trench warfare. Thernfore it is likely to take some time to overcome Achi Baba and the forts it covers ; after that there will be Sari (Jair and the northern part of the Peninsula to conquer, and then the European mainland. Meanwhile, each side is using Mie deadly submarine to play upon the sea-communications of the other. In the Sea of Marmora our submarines are sinking some of the Turkish reinforcements. On the other hand, in the outer waters the Allied transports have to run Uie gauntlet over a voyage much longer than the Channel run, and the German submarines have already sunk two battleships. Evidently the Allies must be prepared to expend much time, men, and material, unless a contingency, more than once hinted at, comes to pass, viz., a shortage of the Turkish ammunition. A notable feat has been the repulse of the Turko-German crack division by the Australasian garrison opposite Sari Bair, which lost 500 men and killed 7000, and completely falsified the German notion that new formations canhoi face an attack in force.