The Toledo chronicle. [volume] (Toledo, Tama County, Iowa) 1873-1924, 1878-02-28
The first Turkish fort is on the adjoin-
ing cape of Nagara-Rurun.n

i NC uESb L uTklSn IOIb Is Oh tuc duJOlQ-
ing cape of Nagara-Burun.''
sThe straits then turn directly to the
south, and here is their narrowest part,
not quite two thousand meters wide,
between the Castles of the Darda-
nelles' at Tchanak- Kalessi, on the Ash
attic, and Kilid- -Bahri, on the Roumel-
ian side. The old Notifications consist
mainly of towers and brick walls, which
shortly before the outbreak of the war
were armed with big gums of very old
pattern, some with stone projectiles. A
short time ago some of these walls were
pulled down, especially those to the
south of Tchanak- -Kalessi, iii order to
lay down the huge Krupp guns pre-
sented by Herr Krupp to the late Sultan
Abdul Aziz. The Castle of Tchanak-
Kalessi commands the whole of the
southern part of the Dardanelles up to
the Egean Sea; and it is therefore the
central point of all the maritime de-
fences between Ktim-Kaleh on the south
and Gallipoli on the north.
Beside the above castle three batteries
|-Medjdie, Kische-Burun and Niagara
Burun-have been recently armed with
Krupp guns of various calibers and
twenty and six-and-thirty-pounders.
Kilid-Bahri, ON the European shore,
formerly also had an imposing park of
artillery consisting of old guns, which,
however, were of but little practical
use. Some of them bore the arms of
the Venetian Republic, and there was
an immense quantity of stone projec-
tiles. These have all been removed,
and most of the cannon have been re-
placed by Krupp guns, which are stated
to be fifteen in number. There are
also In the neighborhood of Kilid-Bahri
three shore batteries: Dermen Tabia,
with eleven guns Gncluding FIVE
Krupps); Tchan-Tabia, with seven
guns, and Boali-Tabia, with twenty old
twelve and six-and-thirty Founders.
"In proceeding southwark from the
Castles of the Dardanelles, one per-
ceives on the Asiatic side lofty and
commanding shore, which has hitherto
not been fortified, the site of the an
cient Dardania, which has given its
name to the straits. At the southern
entrance to the Hellespont are the two
forts of Kum-Kaleh and Sedil-Bahri,
the former on the coast of the Troad.
and the latter at the extreme souther-
ly end of the Thracian Chersonese
These forts were erected by Sultan
Mohammed w. in 1859. and they have
lately been strengthened by several
batteries on the Roumelian shore.
Their position is not, on the whole, so
favorable from military point of view
as that of the Castles of the Darda-
nelles, and Sedil- -Bahri, from its isolat-
ed position, might easily be threatened
by a land force coming from the shores
of the Egean.
"As to the question of the possibili-
ty of forcing passage through the
straits, the writer thinks that such an
undertaking, though not absolutely
impossible, could in the present state
of the Notifications not be carried out
by an iron-clad fleet without losing sew
eral of its ships. He believes, howev-
er, that owing to the strength of the
current, especially when north wind
is blowing, it would be scarcely possi-
BILE to close up the channel by means of
tOrpedOes.h