END OF A GLORIOUS CHAPTER

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2677, 25 January 1916, Page 5

END OF A GLORIOUS CHAPTER

THE EVACUATION OF CAPE HELLES ; HOW THE TURKS WERE ! TRICKED . The following special message has been received from the New Zealand war correspondent (Mr. Malcolm Ross): Cairo, January 22, After the abandonment of Anzac and j Suvla, the Turks were more keenly on tho alert, and the evacuation of Helles was regarded as more difficult. Once ! again, nowever, brilliant British gen- ; eralship completely outwitted* the ; enemy. The operation lasted from December 29 to January 8, and though hampered by bad weather was a re- ; markablc Success. Unlike tho conditions at Anzac, there was no moon,- and ! the operation was carried out in com- 1 plete darkness. After tho Suvla and ■ Anzac affairs tho Turkish min-firg on : Holies was greatly increased, and one ; intensive bombardment of our trenches was the heaviest of the whole cam- : paign. The Turkish aeroplanes were I also enterprising, and took unusual risks. They came over in twos and threes; and several duels occurred in ; the air. The enemy guns from the ! Asiatic side maintained a desultory ; bombardment. Had the gunners known ; what was taking. iplace under cover j of the darkness they could have 'done ' great damage; but they missed their i opportunity. . The. French were taken away firSt, j During the last week no; French remained ashore except the gunners and a 1 French beach party. On the last night ' the British had still seven thousand ■ men ashore, and about fifty guns. I Ingenious Stratagems. General Birdwood came over in the ! morning and had a look- around. The i same. stratagems were adopted as at ; Anzac,. the men leaving the trenches in i batches so that in the early morning ! tho. front line was very th'iu, and was ; held by men who moved up and down j firing from the vacated loopholes. The : filial shots were fired by mechanical i guns. Tho rifles were fixed in em- : brasures, water dropping from one jam , tin into another fixed to the trigger, so : that when a certain weight; accumulated in.the latter the; gun-.weht off. De- ; tonators, fired by burning'candles, and : Vcrrey pistols,, also by. the water ; dodge, added to the illusion that our : trenches were still strongly held, though not a soul remained in them. : The Vcrrey pistols fired coloured rock- : ets which made tho Turks think wo : were about to attack. ' The final scenes were thrilling and ! picturesque. Great fires of petrolsoaked stores suddenly burst forth on : threo beaches, and at the Lancashire ' landing, magazines containing ten tons : of explosive broke the stillness with ai ; tremendous roar, making a scene of ap- ; palling' grandeur as they hurled flame : and great masses of material high into ; tho darkness. Turks Duped Again.

This showed the Turks that the evacuation. was proceeding, and immediately the ships in the Aegean saw a row of rod lights sprint* up all alone: the Turkish trenches, this being their signal that the British were leaving. The enemy, however, made the same mistake as at Suvla and Anzac, in thinking that the place was only lialf-evacu-ated, and they violently shelled our second line and the heaches. But by this time everyone had departed, and the guns and horses not removed had been' destroyed and killed. The fires burned for twenty-four hours.

On the following day picket boats, with shells dropping near them, went in and torpedoed the steamer River ■ Clvde, of' innnortal memory, and the ; old French battleship Massena, sunk by ; our Allies and used as a breakwater. ) Thus ended one of the most memor- ; able pages in British history.