LAND AND JV. A T E R. 
March 13, 1915. 
from four hundred feel above "the sea to nearly a 
thousand) there arc, perhaps, fifty or sixty, at 
least, in the confused jumble of these hills. 
It will be apparent from this, and from what 
follows, that if the Narrows, with their heavy 
fortifications, had stood at some such point as 
M M, the passage of the Straits would have been 
very much more difficult, even under modern con- 
ditions. No indirect fire could have reached the 
Asiatic shore from the open sea beyond, for the 
range would have been one of over twenty-five 
thousand yards, and only by the greatest good luck 
and with no precision in firing, however close the 
bombarding ship had lain inshore, could the Euro- 
pean shore even have been touched across the full 
breadth of the peninsula; while the high range 
C D, steep on the sea, would have compelled the 
bombarding ship to stand well out to allow for the 
trajectory of the shell to pass over heights so near 
the shore from a thousand to twelve hundred feet 
above the gun platform. But where the Narrows 
actually are, the conditions were far more favour- 
able. The line P, which represents the shortest 
range to the main works of Kilidbahr from the 
open sea, is a range of exactly eleven thousand 
yards, and even O Q, along to the Asiatic shore 
Deyond, is not fourteen thousand. It was possible, 
therefore, for the latest and most powerful of the 
British men-of-war to attack both shores by in- 
direct fire. 
Indirect fire signifies fire at an object invisible 
from the firing point and sustained only from 
calculation and through the directing of the range 
by a direct observation in the vicinity of the target, 
.ivhich direct observation is conveyed to the firing 
platform out of sight. 
It is clear from this that the reduction of the 
forts upon the Narrows from a gun platform such 
as that of a modern man-of-war, lying outside in 
the open sea, at, say, R, necessitated three develop- 
ments equally modern and unsuspected when the 
permanent works of the Dardanelles were 
designed. First, heavj guns operating with accu- 
racy at a range of over eleven thousand yards (up 
to over twenty thousand yards !^ from the vessel ; 
secondly, observation from the air above the target 
'to correct the fire; and, thirdly, wireless tele- 
graphy to convert the results of observation to the 
gun platform. It is these three quite recent 
developments in modern military and naval science 
that have permitted this great experiment. 
Between and P — that is, in the strip of 
land intervening between the Dardanelles and the 
Karrows and the open sea to the west — there lies a 
great lump of rather flat-topped hill called the 
UPasha Dagh. Its eastern slopes come down rather 
steep on to the Dardanelles, but its highest summit, 
at a point near P, marked by a cross, is only 653 
feet. The plateau slopes somewhat, and the slope 
down from its western edge towards the open sea 
is easy, broken only by a small ravine at V V. As 
a consequence of this disposition of the land, a 
man-of-war, with guns possessing an accurate 
range of fire at from eleven to fifteen thousand 
yards, can make sure of hitting the works at P, 
and, of course, can make still surer of hitting the 
worlfs at Q. If we represent the land and sea in 
section, it will be clear why this is the case. 
Drawn to scale, the slope of the Pasha Dagh 
has a comparatively flat summit, and its steep fall 
on to the Dardanelles may be represented by the 
sky line of the shaded portion in this diagram, the 
highest summit at X being no more than 653 feet 
above the water level A B. Supposing a ship to 
lie at about the point R, the trajectory of her fire 
will, roughly, be represented by the dotted line 
R P and R Q, topping well over the comparatively 
low-lying land in between, and reaching P in spite 
of its presence, which is under the steepish eastern 
slope of the Pasha Dagh, and, a fortiori, reaching 
easily the point Q beyond, the observation of the 
hits and the correction of the fire being made by 
hydroplanes above P and Q at S and T, which 
hydroplanes can, by wireless, report the results to 
the ship at R. 
Meanwhile, to support and emphasise the 
effect of this fire from the largest and newest naval 
gun platform in the open sea at R, you have a 
number of ships firing at somewhat shorter range 
further down the channel at positions round about 
lW, and these ships can also, to some extent, help 
to correct the fire of R by their observation of the 
hits as seen from the level. The guns upon the 
naval platform at R are to most of the larger guns 
in the forts along the Narrows, roughly, as the 
cube of 11 is to the cube of 15 — that is, they are 
more than one-third as powerful but much less 
than one-half as powerful. An 11-inch gun is in 
power to a 15-inch gun much as 13 is to 33. There 
seem to have been, over and above the 11-inch guns, 
which were the normal heaviest armament of the 
Turkish forts in the Narrows, two 14-inch guns 
upon the eastern side at Q. These more nearly 
approached in power the naval guns turned upon 
them, but they had no opportunity for indirect fire, 
because they did not know where the naval guns 
were in the sea outside, nor had they observation 
from the air (we may presume), nor were they 
mounted for firing westward, and, beyond all this, 
they had the difficulties of steep land immediately, 
in front of them, interfering with their high-angle 
fire. 
The permanent works upon the Narrows 
themselves would seem to be somewhat according 
to plan C. But, of course, the sketch is only 
approximate, because no map gives the exact })osi- 
tion of a permanent work. It is only obtainable by 
Secret Service in peace or direct observation in 
war. 
5 
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Pasha Dagh "'X. '*'*'*•*. 
Dardanelles 
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