THE DARDANELLES

Evening Star, Issue 23380, 25 September 1939, Page 8

THE DARDANELLES

A BACK DOOR ID EUROPE 172-MILE-LONG BOTTLENECK The Straits of the Dardanelles is the southern exit of one of the most strategic waterways of the Eastern Hemisphere. The Dardanelles, the Sea of Marmora, and the Strait of the Bosporus together form a 172-mile-Jong bottleneck cutting through western Turkey and joining Europe’s two busiest seas, the Black and the Mediterranean. The Dardanelles has spelled victory and defeat since the days of its fame as the Hellespont, when Xerxes crossed it on - his bridge of boats. INTERNATIONAL IMPORTANCE. Only through these' Straits can world shipping reach the oil and lumber ports of Rumania and the lower Danube, the grain ports of the Russian Ukraine, and the traditional trade of Istanbul (Constantinople). Of the four Black Sea coast countries —Turkev, Bulgaria, Rumania, and the U.S.S.R.—two have no ports except those reached through the Dardanelles. The international importance of Dardanelles shipping is indicated by ships making port in Chanak, first har hour encountered at the southern end of the Straits. In a sample year, only 5 per cent, of the tonnage was carried by Turkish vessels. Two dozen other countries, including the United States, sent their flags into Turkey’s port, but 6S per cent, of the commerce was carried by Great Britain, Italy, Greece. Norway, and Soviet Russia. BY DOUBLE DOORS. The varied shipping passes through a natural “ toll gate ” so important that history has recorded continual warfare for its control since Agamemnon, one thousand two hundred years before Christ, led his Greeks against the walls of Troy near the Dardanelles southern shore. Flowing through the crack between Europe and Asia, the Straits separate the Black Sea from the Mediterranean by double doors with a vestibule in between. . The southern door is' the Strait of the Dardanelles, 35 miles of winding waterway, narrowing from four miles to 7-l()ths of a mile across. The vesti- - bule is the Sea of Marmora, about the size of Lake Champlain. The northern door is the 17-mile Strait of the Bosporus, shorter and narrower than its southern counterpart, diminishing from H miles to a third of that width. The two straits give this water corridor a total of 52 miles—more than the length of the Panama , Canal—where the shores are not over four miles apart, A fort anywhere along the 52 miles of narrows would have a greater patrol value than Gibraltar, which must overlook a nine-mile roach of water. One of the most-discussed campaigns of the World War was that of the Allies in the attempt to dislodge Turkish forces from the hilly Gallipoli Peninsula on the north-west side of the Dardanelles. Seeking to open the Straits for communication with Rumania and Russia, the British, French, Australian, New Zealand, and Indian divisions laid siege to the strategic waterway in April, 1915, for a ninemonth stalemate. They withdrew iby night the following January, leaving the Turks still firmly entrenched, although with a dangerous scarcity or ammunition. NEUTRAL. • The stopper was pulled out of the Straits bottleneck by neutralising its waters, much as the Panama and the Suez Canals are proclaimed neutrai. and the internationalised sections of the Rhine and the Danube. Neutral status was established by treaty in 1920. In July, 1935, however, Turkey received official sanction on plans to refortity the Straits from the “ interested States ” which had signed the original convention. These were Bulgaria, France, Greece, Italy, Japan, •Rumania, 1 Soviet Russia, Turkey, United Kingdom,' and Yugoslavia. Except during those 16 demilitarised years Turkey has ruled the Dardanelles since 1453. when Constantinople (Istanbul). the Unconquerable, was conquered by the latest Asiatic invaders of Europe. Since the World War, 97 per cent, of Turkey is confined to Asia, but the European 3 per cent, gives that country both sides of the Straits, and power to control one of the strategic cross-roads of world history. , , For where the Straits guard they great north-south water route from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean, a lure to adventurers since Jason braved it with his Argonauts there, too, passes the great land route from Europe to Asia. To-day’s railway to Bagdad follows the trail marked by camel caravans which se-tved world trade until Da Gama found another route and De Lesseps made still another. i