September 12, 1918 
LAND &> WATER 
13 
These guns date from 1905. 
garU entered the War and Serbia was overwhelmed 
that the Germans reinforced the Dardanelles. Now 
of a man's hand had been knocked out. But not a 
single gun had been even sHghtly damaged. Eight men 
had been killed, including Lieutenant Hassan, and about 
forty had been wounded. That was the extent of the 
destruction. 
"It was the optical illusion that saved Dardanos'," one 
of the Germans remarked. 
Again getting into the autpmobUe, we rode along the 
shore, my host calling my attention to the mine-fields, which 
stretched from 
Chanak south- 
ward about 
seven mUes. In 
this area the 
Germans and 
Turks had scat- 
tered nearly4oo 
mines. They 
told me with a 
good deal of 
gusto that the 
Russians had 
furnished a con- 
siderable num- 
ber of these 
destructive en- 
g i n e s. Day 
after day Rus- 
sian destroyers 
sowed mines at 
the Black Sea 
(entrance to the 
Bosphorus, 
hoping that 
they would float 
down stream 
and fulfil their 
appointed task. 
Every morning 
Turkish and 
German minesweepers would go up, fish out these mines, 
and place them in the Dardanelles. 
The batterj' at Erenkeui had also been subjected to a 
heavy bombardment, but it had suffered little. Unhke 
Dardanos, it was situated back of a hill, completely shut 
out from view. In order to fortify this spot, I was told, 
the Turks had been compelled practically to dismantle tha 
fortifications of 
the In n,e r 
Straits — that 
section of the 
stream which 
extends from 
Chanak to 
Point Nagara. 
This was the 
reason why this 
latter part of 
the Dardanelles 
was now prac- 
tically unforti- 
fied. The guns 
that had been 
moved for this 
purpose were 
old-style Krupp 
pieces of the 
model of 1885. 
South of 
Erenkeui, o n 
the hills border- 
ing the road, 
the Germans 
had introduced 
an ' innovation. 
They had found 
several Krupp howitzers left over from the Bulgarian war 
and had installed them on concrete foundations. Each 
battery had four or five of these emplacements, so that, as 
I approached them, I found several substantial bases that 
apparently had no guns. I was mystified further at the 
sight of a herd of buffaloes — I think I counted sixteen en- 
gaged in the operation — hauling one of these howitzers from 
one emplacement to another. This, it seems, was part of 
the plan of defence. As soon as the dropping shells indicated 
that the fleet had obtained the range, the howitzer would 
be moved, with the aid of buffalo teams, to another concrete 
emplacement. 
FORT DARDANOS 
It was not until Bui- I this Strait is a^ completely fortified as Heligoland. 
I 
Probably all the fleets of the world could not force 
the passage with its present-day fortiflcations. 
THE BATTLESHIP "AGAMEMNON" 
From Turkish headquarters Hr. Morgenthau could see the Plains o( Troy,'and, out at sea, the " Agamemnon.' 
"We have even a better trick than that," remarked one of 
the officers. They called out a sergeant, and recounted his 
achievement. This soldier was the custodian of a contrap- 
tion which, at a distance, looked like a real gun ; but wluch, 
when I examined it near at hand, was apparently an elongated 
section of sewer pipe. Back of a hill, entirely hidden from 
the fleet, was placed the gun with wliich this sergeant had 
co-operated. The two were connected by telephone. When 
the command came to fire, the gunner in charge of the 
howitzer would 
discharge h i s 
shell, while the 
man in charge 
of the sewer 
pipe would 
burn several 
pounds of black 
powder and 
send forth a 
c o n s p i c u ous 
cloud of inky 
smoke. Not un- 
naturally, the 
Englishmen 
and Frenchmen 
on the ships 
would centre! 
all their atten- 
tion upon that 
spot. The space 
around this 
burlesque gun 
was pock- 
marked with 
shell holes ; the 
sergeant in 
charge, I was 
told, had at- 
tracted more 
than 500 shots, 
while the real artillery piece still remained intact and 
undetected. 
From Erenkeui we motored back to General Djevad's 
headquarters, where we had lunch. Djevad took me up to 
an observation post, and there, before my eyes, I had the 
beautiful blue expanse of the JEgesm. I could see the 
entrances to the Dardanelles, Sedd-ul-Bahr and Kum Kale 
. standing like 
the guardians 
of a gateway, 
with the rip- 
pling sunny 
waters stretch- 
i n g between. 
Naturally rfhis 
prospect 
brought to 
mind a thous- 
and historic 
and legendary 
associations, for 
there is probab- 
ly no single spot 
in the world 
more crowded 
with poetry 
and romance. 
E V i d e n t ly 
my Turkish es- 
cort. General 
Djevad, felt the 
spell, for he 
took a telescope 
and pointed at 
a bleak ex- 
panse. 
"Those are the Plains of Troy," he said. "And the river 
that you see winding in and out," he added, "we Turks call 
it the Mendere, but Homer knew it as the Scamander. Back 
of us, only a few miles away, is Mount Ida." 
Then he turned his glass out to sea, and again asked me 
to look at an indicated spot. I immediately brought within 
view a magnificent -English warship, all stripped for battle, 
quietly steaming along like a man walking on patrol duty. 
"That," said General Djevad, "is the Agamemnon!" 
"Shall I fire a shot at her?" he asked me. 
"Yes, if you'll promise me not to hit her," I answered. 
(To be continued) 
