THE DARDANELLES.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 14 October 1922, Page 6

THE DARDANELLES.

♦ : it is interesting to read the past History ot the- Straits, and it is easy to understand why Great Britain, and her aines insist that the terms with Turkey must provide for the free passage of ships between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. The following extract from an Australian writer's summary oi events leading up to the present time .sets out fh© position clearly : —By the "Ancient Rule of the Ottoman Empire," dating from the time when the Black Se-a was a Turkish lake wholly enclosed by Turkish territory, the Straits, which give access to it from the Mediterranean and then also passed through exclusively Turkish territory, were closed to foreign ships of war and merchantmen equally. In 1774 Russia, and in 1878 Roum'ania and Bulgaria, acquired certain coast territory on the Black Sea, and. the Straits have been opened to the passage of merchantmen in time of peace. The exclusion of war vessels, however, from the Straits while the Porte was at peace was accepted by treaty between Britain and Turkey in 1809, and subsequently by the Great Powers and Turkey in the Treaty of Paris (ending the Crimean War), and the Straits Convention, 1856. The principle was readopted by the Treaty of London, 1871, which, however, entitled the Sultan to open the Straits to war vessels of friendly or allied Powers in case he should judge it- necessary in order to secure the observance of lh« subsisting provisions of the Treaty of Paris, 1856. This provision was afteri wards confirmed by the Treaty of Berlin, 1878, Lord Salisbury inserting a declaration, which he explained in the House of Commons in 1885 as i reserving Britain's right to pass the Straits, if in any circumstances the ' Sultan should not be „ acting independently, but under pressure from some other Power, in opening t he Straits "to foreign war vessels. The closure of the , Dardanelles and Bosphoius in the , Great War was effected while Turkey I was still at peace by the arrival of the German war vessels Goeben and Breslau off Constantinople on August 10, 1914, and their subsequent violation of Turkish neutrality, which resulted in declaration of war by Britain against Turkey on November 5, 1914.