SUBMARINE PANIC

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2542, 17 August 1915, Page 6

SUBMARINE PANIC

IN CONSTANTINOPLE AN. EYE-WITNESS ON Ell'S EXPLOITS 1 TURKEY "IN EXTREMIS" Wo give below a translation nearly in full from the Manchester "Guardian" of a long and interesting message that appeared in tho Italian journal "Stampa" on June 20 from ita late special correspondent in Constantinople, Sig'nor Carlo Searfoglio. Tho detailed and vivid description of tho appearanco and exploits of tho British submarine off Constantinople is said to be the first account by an eyewitness to be published among the Western Allies. The granting of the Victoria Cross to Lieutenant Commander Nasmith for .these exploits lias been announced in our columns. Tho writer points to the stoppago of sea transport by the submarine activity, ami particularly the stoppago of coal supplies from the Black Sea coast by the Russian .fleet, as powerful factors , in breaking down the defence of the Dardanelles. Dedeagatch, June. Perhaps a week before the Italian declaration of war I met a Turk of moderate views, legal adviser to some court of cassation or other Ottoman histitut'on, and I observed that lie was disturbed in mind. "Calm yourself," I eaid to him. "This morning's communique is not so serious; it gives 407 wounded—a largo number, but nothing to despair about." "You don't know," he answered, "what 107 wounded means in a Turkish' communique. Remember that in the day of Sarikamish the General Staff confessed to 315, and then calculate." It was true, • and I knew it perfectly, so I made no further objection. In fact, precisely as the two army corps lost by the tactical genius of Enver Pasha at Sarikamish had been whittled down to 315 wounded, just as the -10,000 prisoners announced on tho day of the landing on •Qallipoli had been leel through the city in a triumphal procession containing exactly 19 captives, so the wounded on that niemorablo clay .swelled from 407 to 9000, who in two convoys arrived in the silent and terrified city, which asked itself how many of those good soldiers had, alas been left on the road. The Turkish Losses. I call this day memorable because it was then that the Ottomans began to uitderstand that they had brought down upon themselves an implacable enemy against whom nothing could help them. It was a day of melancholy. The tram service was partially suspended, because almost all the rolling stoelc was employed in transporting the wounded. They went by, closed and silent, with blind* down, and each vehicle as it came up along that tortuous alley-way, the Grand Rue de Pera, carried 30 human remnants, voiceless, breathless, scorched by tho sun and parched with thirst on the arid rock 6 of Gallipoli, wounded with hideous wounds, produced by the huge projectiles of the naval artillery. Coal was beginning to 'fall short. Proof of the presence of submarines in tho Sea of Marmora had been furnished to tho city by the sinking of the Pelenki Deria. A feeling that the end was near was spreading everywhere. How many* wounded wero there in tho city up to the day of any departure ? (The writer left Constantinople soon after May 21 and retired to Dedeagatch.) I could not swear. Favourable estimates varied from 30,000 to 40,000; hostile put the number at 60,000 or more. But it we add to these figures the number of the 'killed, the total Turkish losses in the defence of the Dardanelles may securely bo placed somewhere between 80,000 and 10.0,000 men put out of action up to 11 or 20 days ago. This was due to the terrible superiority of tho Allies in artillery and the awful conditions under which the defenders had to fight/ bombarded as they aro on three sides and forced to receivo the fire, of tho French and English ships rather in their reserves and rear communications than in their front. It will at onco be seen that such a proportion cannot long bo kept up by an army which numbered only 400.000 men at the beginning of tho war, and which has to guard the capital and the Thracian Peninsula and to fight simultaneously on two fronts, on the Dardanelles and in the Armenian provinces, on the two sides of the Empire. I The Submarine Exploits. Meanwhile the truth was making way, and the public of Stamboul ascertained with its own eyes the fact whicli at Pera among Europeans and Levantines had | been common knowledge for more than a month,' namely that a squadron of English and French submarines was in command of the Sea of Marmora and the passage of the Dardanelles. A transport laden with wounded coming from Gallipoli was lipid up by a submarine off Makrikoye, a short dstance from San Stefano," that is to say only a few kilometres from Stamboul. After a carcful examination, which proved that the freight fully justlied tho Red Cross ensign which, the vessel was flying, the officers had returned to their ship, in view of the coast, and the submarne went below the surface. The commander of the torpedo-boat destroyer Palenki Deria, the "Tiger of tho Sea," which was at Makrikoye, came out of harbour at full steam to pursue the audacious foe; but before she was a kilo-, metro from the slioro a torpedo struck her side and sunk her in a few scconds under the eyes of tho bathers of Makrikoye, who had gathered on tho beach to witness the sinking of the submarine. The effect in the city was disastrous. The communique which followed tho ■event increased the suspicions and alarm of the public; it called the fino destroyer a gunboat, and gave no indication of.the locality, leaving it to be supposed that tho event liad occurred anywhere but in the Sea of Marmora, at tho gates ot Constantinople. Now the masts of tho sunken vessel were and aro to be clearly seen from San Stefano and even from Stamboul. There was daily talk, of steamers sunk before arriving at their ( destinations,and assuredly there is some truth in it;; firstly, beeauso as I now learn, the fact has several times been mentioned in the Anglo-French communiques; secondly, because the number of steamers employed In the transport of troops has during this hist month of the war gradually been reduced to three, tho Stamboul, the Bosphorus, antl tho Mahmoud Chevket Pasha. Fugitives from, the Isles of Marmora (a group situated at tho mouth of the Dardanelles) related in tho city that submarines were continually cruising about the islands, where, they had made their base. ' The Stoppage of Coal. In spite of this the transport of reinforcements by sea continued under constantly increasing difficulties. Tho Russian fleet was all the time stationed off the mouth of the Bosphorus, and daily bombarded some point on tho coast. Up to the time of my leaving Constantinople there existed in tho Bosphorus no trace of .mines; navigation went on as usual. A minefield only existed at the mouth of tho Black Sea Canal, and could present no serious obstacle. Of internal fortifications • the Bosphorus possesses only Kavak, four grass-grown forts, visible at a great distance and incapable of holding out more than a few hours. The only bulwark of the Turkish fleet, the Goeben, has been practically useless since the beginning of the war. And to tliinlc that if Turkey went to war it was on account of the Goeben! ■ But this blockade is the thing which will deliver Turkey into the hands of tho patient and persevering. Lour ago I reported that Turkey could only proloag her defence on condition that she constructed a road or railway to connect Constantinople with the source of her' conl simply. Now she has given up both enterprises, for. reasons which I cannot explain. On the day I left the Government had begun to commandeer the small stores of the city gasworks. At tlie same time half tho already much reduced store of tho Constantinople-Dedeagatch Railway was requisitioned. With the end of'the coal supply came also the end of communications with the interior. A "Live Thing" in the Harbour, The Jlecea Railway brought in with its tot train Uio romnanta of tho Aslatio bM >tl>, sJtiu jwd,

6th Army ■ Corps, that is the defence of Smyrna, the camp at IConia, and the troops of Djemal Bey, which were to carry out the attack on Egypt. Of these troops from Syria, the last at Turkey's command, some, were massed in*tho transports which still remained, the Stamboul, the Bosphorus, and the Mahmoud Chevket. 'l'ho last two were moored at the Top Haue wharf at Galata, ami the Stamboul, still empty, was anchored in mid-channel at the mouth of the harbour. This happened two days after the (Italian) declaration of war. I was at a window in Pera watching what went on in the harbour just below me and in the courtyard of Top Hane, occupied by two batteries of old 77 dismountable Knipp guns.

All at once a razor-blade shot into the harbour, and tho people began to run hither and thither on tile quay, making strange and grotesque gestures. It was an extraordinary spectacle. The razorblade came from the open sea and coursed across the harbour like a thing of intelligence, slightly raised above the water, which it cut through leaving only two thin streaks of foam to right and left. In spite of the mad, freakish rapidity of its course, which gave it the appearance of some devilish and deadly animal, it took a good minute to traverse the wide entrance of the Golden Horn; and indeed its speed was more apparent than real. Tho soldiers on the Mahmoud and tho Bosphorus began foolishly to discharge their rifles into the water. Then a bunch of humanity dressed in yellow garments jumped into the sea; another followed; others jumped on the quay, which in a short time was crowded with panicstricken soldiers. When the Torpedo Burst. But the live thing in the harbour pursued its course. In a wide sweep it passed behind the Stamboul whose crew were jumping into the water; and lo! behind the defenceless, abandoned vessel . there arose a white cone of form, and a mighty wave ran over the harbour, so that all the boats began to danco at their anchorages like mad things; everyone oried out at onco, and the Galata bridge with all tho trams and wagons upon it began to tug at the caissons which support it, as a rearing horse tugs at his tethers. But tho thing in the harbour paused not a second, and, continuing its furious course, completed the wide curve and went up tho Bosphorus, disappearing in a few seconds behind the point of Amutk■lin. At this moment there was a fresh outcry, and the two batteries of 77 at my feet fired at once; one shell struck the Stamboul, which was not wanting it at all, and another a steamer of the Cliirket Hairie, which was anchored outside Seraglio Point and had wounded on board. It wis a vision and nothing more. Some thirty or forty marvellous seconds. But the impression in the city was prodigious, oven though the Stamboul wan not completely, sunk by tho torpedo. About an hour later tho Mahmoud Cliewlcet anil the Bosphorus emptied of troops, pnssed th« bridge and sought refugo in the recesses of the Golden Horn. The surface of the water beyond the bridge was cleared of certain -wreckage. A pair of destroyers set out in a vain chase in the Bosph'orus; and in front of the bridge were accumulated a number of fascines to defend it from possible torpedoes. But the incident sufficed finally to destroy the 'J'urkish nerve. »; ■ ■ • Turkey "In Extremis," It was then decided to break off all transport to tho Dardanelles by sea. The troops liavo since then been oonveyed to Qallipoli overland—by train as far as Pandemia (so long as tho Coal holds out), and from Pandemia on foot. This means that there can have been no serious transport of wounded or of provisions, tho Pandemia line being scarcely adequate to tho transport of men and munitions. Tho coal is at an end, that is all. Such 19 tho present condition of Turkey from the military point of view. Nor is that all. When I left, people wero fighting outside the bakers' shops for a picce of dirty bread. There was 110 coal to oarry the graiu from Anatolia, no coal to work the mills in Constantinople. Bread could only be obtained, by means of n, "vesika" from the police. The train by which I travelled distributed bread to the famished villages all along tho line. 1 It will be Been, then, that Turkey is in extremis. 'The desperate resistance-in Qallipoli cann'ot and should not deceive anvonc.' It only occupied a front of some twenty or thirty thousand- men on a tongue of I'ock, and to this is due tho length of the operations and the brilliant Turkish defence; but, be tliat as-it may, it has sufficed in one or two months to exhaust completely an. organism which is ilacking in all internal resources. All honour to the Turkish army; it has made a fine defence and won'- back the honour it lost in the Balkan Wnr. Bnt it can do no more than this. The pear is ripe; the coasts are undefended, and attack on any point, of the coast of Asia will oblige Turkey to cry "Aman."