THE DARDANELLES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 284, 10 May 1915, Page 7

THE DARDANELLES.

• COLONIAL POSITION". DECIDED POST OP HONOR. COMPLEX MOVE. DIFFICULT, HUT CLEVER. (By A. Spence, Military Strategist, in the Dune-din Star.) liappy New Zealanders! In tin- thick of it now (in one, of the most historic scenes oil earth, and locked in an operation which will have a whole chapter, a long chapter, and an important chapter all to itself when the historians sit down to write! Perhaps a dozen chapters, or a score, for this is a great movement

It is no foolish remark which the Daily Chronicle makes in saying that the .Australians and New Zealanders have been given the post of honor. They do threaten the back door of the Narrows, which, as the Chronicle truly says, must be the first main objective. The New Zcalandcrs are on the Aegean shore, almost i behind Maidos, and seven miles from it. They happen to be the northern or left wing. South of them are the Australians on tile beach behind Kilid Balir. They are the. left centre. The British encircle the cape at Sedd-el-Bahr, and are the pivot on which everything swings. Across the strait are the French at Kum Kale. They form the strategic right. The French right and the British centre have dillieult positions, and fast work cannot he expected from them for a while, but the Australians and the New Zenlanders form the wing which is likely to strike fastest and hardest. When the first news came on Saturday evening, it Ava-i a common thing to hear: "The boys will do all right; we always knew they would." There seemed to be a solcfmi, unboastful, patriotic fire behind the word and great faith in the boys." 11l will not he surprising to hear soon that the Otago howitzer battery has b--en doing something of importance, for the fiallipoli Peninsula is all hills and vales, and that is the place for howitzers, FIRST WAVE OF BOATS.

It is good to licgin a Rood story right from the beginning, ami the beginning is the landing in the shadows of the morning of Sunday, April 20. It was done by co-ordinated flash on six beaches at once, which seems a simple thin", until we consider how hard a landing in the iace of an active enemy may ne. Let it Ift hoped that no one imagines that it is only a case of swinging out boats and rafts and paddling along to the beach in any old way. Any old way will not do. There must be an efficient rush of thfc first line of boats, and accompanying the vanguard there must be a certain quantity of machine-guns, ammunition, surgical equipment, entrenching tools, and perhaps food. Let it lie remembered, further, that a howitzer or an ordinary field-gun and limber weighs something like two tons, and everything has to be lifted out of the ship with rapidity, setting the vanguard afloat instantaneously, and clearing the way for the next wave of boats. The boats of the vanguard must keep a certain order, or units will be hopelessly mixed on landing, and all company, regimental, and higher leading will be paralysed. If anything goes wrong with the vanguard, the casualty list rises last.

SECOND WAVE. Behind the vanguard conies a thicker scries of boats, lollowing, 'perhaps, at a quarter of a mile or more. It is the main guard. Here, again, the boats must keep some touch, or direction by the officers will 1 be lost, and a jumble ensues. The main guard carry forward a good quantity of artillery, and their lift in dead-weight is great. It is the purpose of the main guard to touch the beach in force just as the van has swept it with machine-gun and rifle fire. On the arrival of the main guard the guns of the att'aelcers usually begin to open. Horse or motor transport must reach the beach with them, or the guns are immobile and helpless. A certain quantity of engineers go with the main guard, too, steering a little behind them.

THE FINAL WAVE. ] Lastly comes the main hodv, covering tlx; sea with boats, and largely infantry. They lmtt in for sheer -fighting after the vanguard and main guard are established on shore, have shelled the enemy, and opened the first line of trendies" The complexity of launching the main hodv must lie embarrassing fur the staff and transport officers, not because they carry so much (lead-weight, hut because they are so numerous. Every boat presumably goes in charge of a subaltern, the platoons rowing side by side, half a mile may serve to separate them from .their predecessors, the main guard. UNDER FRIENDLY NTGIIT. Add to the foregoing complexities just a sentence or two, and we see it all: A landing on this scale is the largest in the annals of the British Army. It could never have been rehearsed.'and a military movement unrehearsed is about as perilous as putting on a new play in the same state. Chaos would be likely, but we see no trace of it. I do not suppose that the order of vanguards, main guards, and main bodies was exactly maintained—l do not see how it could have been without a rehearsal, which the circumstances made impossible—but the men got there somehow. Even here we are not done with the complexities. The transports must have had to lie out far at sea, and the rowing would l;e long. If the boats had been under lire all the way it would have been deadly, hut thin deadlines* was defeated l.v a simple expedient. The disembarkation was carried out before 'fhivlk'ht and when dawn came it is likclv 'that the boats of the vanguard were' almost on the beach. Entanglements of barbed "'ire, said to he (i/tv yards wide, on land, and patent devices extending into the water awaited them, but they trot past. ' "

1'EIIIXI) THEM THE FLEET. f Behind these complexities \v:is the ; licet. It must have been an inspiring situation in the grey hours of Sunday morning, when perhaps twenty battleships closed behind 11m- X,.\v Zealaudcr.s and Australians and ;; ave t i:,- cnei.iv-sr>iiM-tliin«f to remember. Thev won].! prepare tile way fur the vanguards, and still must cover all. liehind tile I'.ritish, at tile point el' (lie promontorv. Pie necessity for support in Lr lire from the sea. would lie greater, for it was here that the only local cheek was MiU'civd. The French licet was almost icrtainlv engaged in shelling Kmn Kale to assist its compatriots, and it mns| ik '> "'lien all joined in a miidil.y note of war. It will he for the 'licet to assist thi' Xcw Xca'amlcrs over the peninsula, toward.-; Maidos |m;. it must he remembered that, the ilecf cannot do impossibilities. It cannot drop .-hells into tile posterior sides of sleep valleys, and there will he occasion* v . hen I he New Zcalanders will have to fend for themselves. Ton much eiilhiisia.-in mud: liot lie set on the potential of 1 he Mlleen Klizaiieth, for. though she is a mi-'hlv one, she will never he able to dne, („.>

shells over the sides of steep hills unless they heave, her down, and not then in fact. In the .primitive mind there happens to be a certain admiration for (he gigantic, and we have already heard plenty of nonsense regarding this vessel. But, certainly, the licet is able to lire over the peninsula in general, for we see that a lar"e Turkish transport was sunk at Maidos.

HAVE KRUPPS RECiUNXED THE FORTS ? ITerr Von Krupp accMeiually let fall a word or two in a speech about February '2O, as to what he had been doing for the Dardanelles. The spcerh was made on the occasion of a visit paid by the King of Havana to Essen. The ironmaster remarked, inter alia, that the shell production of (lermany alone in l!)l:i was equivalent to the whole production of England, France, Russia, and Belgium, fie mentioned that (lermany would never be pinched for ordnance in any theatre of war, and hinted that the Dardanelles was being attended to, and that it would presumably be extensively regunned, D'AMADE, PRO-BRITISH UK. Now that the French tents have arisen on the Plains of Troy, and the blue coats (irmly hold Kum Kale (Sand Castle), is the time to'say one short word about their commander. (leueral D'Amade has, as we know, risen rapidly under the favorable eye of Cenci'af Joffre, and if he does as well on the nook of Asia which he holds as he did in Normandy in September last he will do very well indeed, lie is, of course. Sunto be attacked, by a Turkish army by and by, but that by the way. The excellent point about lliin is that he is a great admirer of Fmrlish people. English troops, and English ways. lb- has often been over in England, both at manoeuvres, and on private jaunts, so lie and .Sir lan Hamilton should pull along together capitally—quite an important consideration in every wav. War --even successful war—must try the tempers of commanders, so a strong predisposition to friendliness (such as (leneral D'Amade has) perhaps explains wliv he was chosen to a»t with Sir Tan.