Behind the Headlines

Northern Advocate, 22 April 1939, Page 1 (Supplement)

Behind the Headlines

APES, MEN AND GUNS AT GIBRALTAR

STRATEGIC GIBRALTAR Captured by Sir George Hooke on July 24, 1704, the strategic Rock of Gibraltar has remained British ever since. This peculiar sugarioaf promontory was greatly sought after before the arrival of aeroplanes, as it looked ( out over the narrow straits separating the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. Realising this advantage, Britain established a network of guns in and on the rock, maintaining a military force always at hand. Since the Groat War, however, the value of such naval bases has been questioned and it is openly argued that Gibraltar, as the security of the British Empire, no longer stands supreme or impregnable. Measuring 22 miles along its base, the rock has a maximum breadth of threequarters of a mile. The town is in the north-west corner, on a narrow sandy flat. In addition to its armed inhabitants, Gibraltar boasts one of the world’s most curious species of monkeys, a tailless ape, which survives in the midst of a network of galleries from which shells can be poured down into the straits below. THE MODERN HELLENES Rich in historic legend, Greece stands out as the next possible acquisition by dictator-driven nations. Once world-dominant themselves, the Greeks have become a minor nation, although their hilly territory would be an important possession as a connecting link between Western Europe and the Eastern countries. Originally called the Hellenes, or by the Romans, Graeci, the Greeks formed themselves into cities about 1000 B.C. This period of their history is in some doubt and only broad indications can be gained of their early movements. It appears that each small province or city-state was governed by its own aristocratic king, sometimes joining with other provinces to form leagues, such as Arcadia and Boerotia, Athens was the first city to make herself nation-dom-inant. From the resultant sense of unity grew up the world’s paramount sports meeting, the Olympic Games. In the Eighth Cehtury, the Greeks began to coionise, opening up a new era of commerce in the Meditteranean. Athens became the city of culture and democracy, while Sparta developed as the great military zone. From the new empire arose codes such as were never

before known in the world—the code of written law, on the basis of which, the constitution of many countries of to-day has been founded. Before its downfall in the early A.D. centuries, Greece went through an amazing period of cultural development, some of the world’s most outstanding literature, art, sculpture and scientific theory and research having been dedicated from the Greeks.

GREAT WAR BURIAL GROUND IN THE NEWS Forty-five miles long, the Dardanelles, connecting link between Europe and Asia, has seen much bloodshed in old and recent times and may see more before the world-conquerors have realised or withdrawn their ambitions. Famed in history with such incidents as the drawing of Xerxes’ boats across the narrowest part in 480 8.C., the Dardanelles stand out as one of the most important military possessions on the European-Asiatic map. In 1841 a treaty was signed whereby no foreign ship of war should go through the Dardanelles without first gaining permission from Turkey. In 1878 a British fleet passed through to protect Constantinople from Russia and in 1891 the Sultan permitted vessels of the Russian, 1 volunteer fleet, even when carrying soldiers and convicts, to pass through. Along the shores of the Dardanelles were fought some of the most costly battles of the Great War, and it is there that many British colonials lie buried to-day.

MIDDLE SEA IN MODERN DRAMA Steeped in historic legend, abounding in the colourful pageant of romance handed down through many generations, scene of numerous battles, abode of restfulness in which the world’s greatest poets have found recluse, the Mediterranean Sea is to-day the rendezvous for ugly grey battleships, cold aerial posts and the symbolic flutter of flags from a multitude of nations. Across its perpetually blue waters to-day the British fleet is steaming, armed for war, while on the ’ shores of this former worldtfringing sea the eyes of Great Powers are fixed on strategic points. Almost entirely landlocked, the Mediterranean Sea was once the battleground of worldconquerors, for to them, the world was the Mediterranean and the Mediterranean the world. On the west, it connects with the Atlantic by the narrow strait of Gibralter, while its eastern outlet- is by the Dardanelles to the Black Sea. A man-made connecting lifik, the Suez Canal, acts as a south-eastern outlet and communication means with the New World. Volcanoes such as Etna, Vesuvius and Stromboli dominate the skyline, while the most noticeable feature .of the topography of the sea is the long peninsula of Italy, whose legendary foot and heel stretch more than half way across the water-way.