The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1915-07-14
WHERE ATHENS LOST
DARDANELLES SCENE OF DE-
FEAT BY SPARTANS

Grew CAUGHT ON Shore
With the .Athenian Ships Moored
Near the Beach Their Crews Were
Slain While Eating Breakfast on
the Shore-A Glimpse Into An
cient History.
In the fighting at the Dardanelles
the British have lost six battleshlps.
They are the Ocean and Irresistible,
sunk by mines in the battle of March
IS; the Goliath, sunk by a Turkish
destroyer in April; the Triumph and
| Majestic. torpedoed by German sub
marine in May, and the Agamemnon,
| which presumably met the same fate
about the same time.
This is a larger number of ships of
the line than the British navy has
lost in any action since the defeats
by the Dutch in the middle of the
seventeenth century, and a larger
number of ironclaes than any navy
has ever lost, with the exception OF
the Russian losses in the battle OF
the sea of Japan in 1905. Added to
the disabling of the armored vessels
by gunfre in the battle Of March IL,
| and the loss of some smaller vessels
at various times, these losses have
! given the British people great
shock.
It is a coincidence that these
losses by the greatest of modern
navies have occurred almost within
sight of the spot which saw the ruin
of the greatest sea. power OF ancient
| times. The Athenian navy, which
was founded by Themistocles, saved
Europe by its victory over the Per
slams 1T Salamis in 480 B. c., and
ruled the Aegean and the Mediter-
ranean, despite occasional defeats,
until the disaster at Aigospctamo1
Goat Rivers) near the present vii
lage of Jumaikoi, in the Dardanelles,
in 405 B. L.
One of the ironies OF the disaster
which made Sparta the leading power
among the Greek states, was the fact
that it was not a naval battle, nor
indeed a battle at all. The crews OF
| the fleet were caught while eating
breakfast on shore. The most effec-
| tive navy of the ancient world was
| ruined finally when its sailors were
surprised on the beach with theiI
ships drawn up in rows on the
strand, whence they could not be
launched. Treachery contributed
largely to the disaster, and party pol
itics and it's accompanying disloyalty
had weakened the Athenians serious
ly before it occurred.
Warships Depended on Oars.
The standard battleship of thost
days was the trireme, wooden shll
with a single mast and a square sal
which was of very little use in the
propulsion of the vessel. The mo-
/ tive power was furnished by rowers
of which each ship carried $50. 1r
the Athenian fleet these came mostly
from the lower orders Of citizens
/ though there were a considerable
number of foreign mercenaries serV'
ing among them, and in the latter
/ part of the war a few slaves. The
galley slaves of tradition, however
were in the main a latter institution
The oarsmen worked three rows Of
oars, and the exact arrangement o1
these is something over which schol
ars have argued in vain. No modern
shipbuilder could construct trireme
except by accident. Besides the oars
men, each vessel carried from ten tc
twenty heavy armed soldiers IN case
of a fight at close quarters, but the
accented method of warfare was ram
ming with heavy bronze or lror
beak fitted to the prov of the ship.
The Athenians, who made grea
advances in the naval warfare o.
their time, developed intricate ma
noeuvres looking to the disabling o.
the enemy's ships or the destruction
of the tactical efficiency of his squad
ron, but the ram was the principa
weapon by which naval battles were
decided.
| A feature of the trireme was it:
very small space for supplies. Wa'
fleets kept close to shore in those
DAYS for the excellent reason tha'
they had to land frequently to gel
food and water. When there wa:
urgent necessity a few days foo6
could be taken along in transports
but a voyage straight across the oper
sea was next to impossible for a large
fleet. This made naval strategy easy
for a defending fleet had only TO p1cR
out an easy harbor on the coast line
and wait, with the moral certalnt!
that its opponent would be along II
the course of time.
Athens as a Sea Power.
| The Athenian fleet had been SUI
preme in the earlier stages Of the
! Pelopcnnesian war, but after the
great defeat at Syracuse in AIS B
c., when more than two hundred tri
remes and about fifty thousand meI
were lost, their sea power was crush
ed for the moment, and their allies
revolted and joined the enemy. For.
tunately it did not take long to bullo
a fleet in those days, but when the
war was resumed on the ocean the
| Athenians were no longer masters Of
the strategic situation from Rome tc
the Isthmus of Suez, as they hao
been in the earlier part of the war
but had to fight for the control OF the
Aegean Sea at their very doors, ano
of the Hellespont and Bosporus
Then, as now, the Hellespont Oar
danelles) was of Importance on &C
count of the wheat crop of the Crl'
mea and adjacent regions. The
Athenians needed the strait free tc
import the grain on which their eli.
population lived.
After several years Of fighting
with the honors about even, the
Athenians and Spartans both lost
their best commanders. Alcibiades
the Athenian general, was over
thrown by political enemies on strong
suspicion OF treachery, strengthened
by the fact that he had once before
been guilty. Lysander, the Spartan
| admiral. was removed from office by
| his oDponents, and konon and kal-