ON THE WAY TO THE GOLDEN HORN.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 285, 11 May 1915, Page 8

ON THE WAY TO THE GOLDEN HORN.

THE 15in. GUNS OF OUR MOST POWERFUL DREADNOUGHT. TURNING MOVEMENT. Progress with the work of clearing the Dardanelles has proceeded rapidly, but not more rapidly than was expected by those who had some knowledge of the composition of the squadron under Admiral Garden. The Admiralty have now announced that the Queen Elizabeth has boon sent out to assist in the. w'ortv of demolishing the Turco-German forts ivith her loin, guns, and thus much that otherwise would have appeared mysterious is explained. If, for example, it had merely been stated that "the attack was resinned at 10 a.m. and a British battleship concentrated with great accuracy on Fort A, putting both its guns out of action by about 11.SO a.m.," many people would have been puzzled to account for such a phenomenon. The silencing of a fort of the strength of that at Cape Hellas in ninety minutes, while the other three at the entrance to the Dardanelles resisted for more than seven hours, would have required some explanation. It is, perhaps, partly for experimental purposes that the Queen Elizabeth, our latest, largest, and most expensive battleship, has been sent to join the Allied squadron that is nibbling its way' through to Constantinople. The lain, gun is untried under actual war conditions; no other fleet in the world lias yet a ship in service carrying a gun of this size, and, as Mr. Churchill confessed a year ago, wo ordered the whole of the lain, guns for the Queen Elizabeth and her four sister ships without waiting to make an experimental gun.

10001b SHELLS. Apart from this the Queen Elizabeth can be more profitably employed iit the moment in the Aegean than in the North Sea. Our Grand Fleet was strong enough to deal with the German High Seas Fleet during the months of last autumn before the Queen Elizabeth \vn3 completed for service. It is equally strong now, and the great l'JOOlb shells of the loin, guns will do more to end the war by knocking at the gateway of Constantinople than by silently threatening the unbudging battleships under von Ingenohl. It cannot be too emphatically repeated that this attack 011 the Dardanelles is 110 mere diversion. It is a great turning movement round the enemy's flank, and it is so both physically and morally. Admiral Carden was sent to the Dardanelles, not by Mr. Churchill because lie thought the Navy ought to do something spectacular, but by the Board of Admiralty, in accordance with the sound principle of naval strategy that sea power can outflank anything. Just as the Germans were outflanked 011 the Belgian coast by Rear-Admiral Hood's little squadron of monitors and destroyers, so they are outflanked in the Aegean.

The moral effect of the fall of Con- 1 stantinople it is not in my province to-, discuss, but that effect will be produced solely because we hold the command of the sea, solely because our flanking movement is unchallenged by any active fleet of the enemy. The mention in the official report of landing parties from the Vengeance and Irresistible, which completed the work of demolishing the forts at the entrance to the straits, is an interesting foreshadowing of what is to come. The time a British fleet passed through the Dardanelles was in 1878, and Sir Geoffrey Phippa Hornby, who was in command, reported to the authorities that unless the Gallipoli Peninsula was in friendly hands great difficulty would be experienced, even if the fleet succeeded in passing through, ill keeping the route opened to supply ships, colliers, and other craft auxiliary to the work'of the fleet. The difliculty exists no less to-day and must bo overcome. THE FRENCH SHIPS.

It will be noticed th.it the latest oili::ial report on the operations mentions several ships in addition to the Queen Elizabeth which did not figure in the first report. One of these, the old French battleship Charlemagne is worth particular attention. Tt is announced that the Suffren and the Charlemagne advanced to within 2000 yards of two of the forts, which were armed with 10.2 in. and !t.2in. guns, the projectiles of both of which can penetrate ten inches of steel plating at 3000 yards. The Suffren and the Charlemagne, however, belong to that periwd of French naval architecture when enormously heavy armoured protection was given to the shies of the ship. The Charlemagne has a belt lSJin. thick, tin? Sult'ren's belt being 12in. Compared to the six inches of the British Albion and Vengeance, of the flin. belt of the Majestic and Irresistible, thin protection is abnormal. Admiral Carden cojild quite safely send the two French ships in to reconnoitre, for he knew that by all the formulae and theories of shells and armour the Turkish shells, if the forts were only shamming dead, ought to bounce off the thick hides of the French ships as did the Russian shells off the old armored batteries that bomfcaidad gigjurn ft the firiiuca.