The expedition against the Dardanelles had been considered with the greatest care, and approved by the naval authorities.  That their judgment was correct, however, is another question.  The history of naval warfare seems to make very plain that a ship, however powerful, is at a tremendous disadvantage when attacking forts on land.  The badly served cannon of Alexandria fell, indeed, before a British fleet, but Gallipoli had been fortified by German engineers, and its guns were the Krupp cannon.  The British fleet found itself opposed by unsurmountable obstacles.  Looking backward it seems possible, that if at the very start Lord Kitchener had permitted a detachment of troops to accompany the fleet, success might have been attained, but without the army the navy was powerless.

The Peninsula of Gallipoli is a tongue of land about fifty miles long, varying in width from twelve to two or three miles.  It is a mass of rocky hills so steep that in many places it is a matter of difficulty to reach their tops.  On it are a few villages, but there are no decent roads and little cultivated land.  On the southern shore of the Dardanelles conditions are nearly the same.  Here, the entrance is a flat and marshy plain, but east of this plain are hills three thousand feet high.  The high ground overhangs the sea passage on both sides, and with the exception of narrow bits of beach at their base, presents almost no opportunity for landing.

A strong current continually sifts down the straits from the Sea of Marmora.

Forts were placed at the entrance on both the north and south side, but they were not heavily armed and were merely outposts.  Fourteen miles from the mouth the straits become quite narrow, making a sharp turn directly north and then resuming their original direction.  The channel thus makes a sharp double bend.  At the entrance to the strait, known as the Narrows, were powerful fortresses, and the slopes were studded with batteries.  Along both sides of the channel the low ground was lined with batteries.  It was possible to attack the forts at fairly long range, but there was no room to bring any large number of ships into action at the same time.

[Illustration:  Map of the gallipoli peninsula

Showing the various landing-places, with inset of the Sari-Bair Region.]

At the time of the Gallipoli adventure there were probably nearly half a million of men available for a defense of the straits, men well armed and well trained under German leadership.  The first step was comparatively easy.  The operations against the other forts began at 8 A.M. on Friday, the 19th of February.  The ships engaged were the Inflexible, the Agamemnon, the Cornwallis, the Vengeance and the Triumph from the British fleet, and the Bouvet, Suffren, and the Gaulois from the French, all under the command of Vice-Admiral Sackville Carden.  The French squadron was under Rear-Admiral Gueprette.  A flotilla of destroyers accompanied the fleet, and airplanes were sent up to guide the fire of the battleships.