GATE OF PETROGRAD

Evening Post, Volume XCIV, Issue 67, 17 September 1917, Page 2

GATE OF PETROGRAD

KRONSTADT THE IMPREGNABLE

In the following article in the Daily Express Mr. Max Pemberton describes the famous fortress; of which possession has been taken by the extreme Socialists of Russia. The fortress figures in Mr. Pembei;ton's popular noveK "The Impregnable City."

Of Kronstadt—perhaps the first of all the naval. fortresses—a young Russian soldier once said to me, "There is not in. all the world another citadel such as this ; there is not one stamped out of tile earth so clearly a work of God unmistakable for the defence of the Empire." Truly the soldier, spoke well. If 'you take a map of the Gulf of Finland you will ace. at the head of it the V-shaped' bay, into which the mouths of thu Neva open, and i, beyond them a little way the city of Petrograd itself, rising above the inarshe*.

A casual glance at the lie of the city would seem to say that an enemy ship rhight steam right up to it, there being only a puny island across the mouth of the bay. and that running narrowly from north-west to south-east. It! is that island which has been Petrograd's salvation during the war. Approach it and you will see the domes and spires'of a considerable, city, hear the roar of a great arsenal, observe nil the activities of a splendid military harbour, and many witnesses to commercial vitality. But you will also 6ee, if there bo any authority with an "Open Sesame," the forts and bastions of. onu of the mightiest, strongholds, in the world. For half a century or more Russia has worked to make that low, rakish island impregnable.

To the north, where the sea appears wide and the fairway good, she hae built a monstrous dyke of granite, which all the navies in the world could not,puss while the guns of Kronstadt are manned. To the south, by which waterway you pass, there Is a spit of «and running', out from Oranienbaum to the fort of Kronstadt and leaving a channel for ships but three hundred yards wide. HIDDEN FORTS. On this channel the fire of mighty guns i can be converged from practically every point of the compass. North and south and east and west are the hidden forts, sometimes but black shapes hardly rising above the surface of the sea —elsewhere, bastions of colossal strength looking down proudly upan the still waters. The town itself ie a seething hive of industry •—the great arsenal of Russia, her door to the Baltic, the rampart of Peter's city. The German fleet -might have.blown Petrograd to the skies long ago but for Kronstadt But thb Dardanelles have proved the impotence of ships when opposed by land forts whose gunners know their business. Quoting my young Russian friend again, I do not wonder that in asking me to observe the nature of the place enthusiasm should have moved him toheroics. . ■

"You will see," said he, "how the island filling into the neck of the gulf becomes a vast 'and natural wedge which enemy ships may- never pass. If they come by the north side there is.the groat boom which a hundred navvies could not destroy. If they attack us by the south channel there are the guns of all the forts, a tremendous armament which would crumble cities to the dust. No, my friend, you may search all seas and you will never find another citadel like this. She is impregAsble—the terrible gate of my country."