The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-05-03
ION TO CONSTANTINOPLE"
Ny G. l.. BALES

An associated Press dispatch of yester- day morning began thus; Activities in the east and operations at the Dardan- elles are main features of the war news" The Dardanelles is the fated gateway to ancient and famed Constantinople. With renewed effort the allied fleet is again di- recting every resource and energy toward taking and passing that strategic point, and the watch-word among both land forces and sea forces is "On to Constanti- nople.'
 The moving of heaven and earth in general, and of Turkish forts in particu- lar, are incidents of one herculean effort
 to reach Constantinople, but not the first, nor the second, nor even the third effort to accomplish the same result. Time after time this spot on the worlds map has been the exposure of the eyes of nations and
 world powers-the objective point of armies and navies. Constantinople has been the center from which boundary lines of kingdoms and empires have been
 marked out It has been the place from which crusades have started and where dogmas creeds and religions nave Waned and died. It has been the place where Kings, popes ana potentateS hd'e poei made and unmade.
 Twenty-Five hundred years ago-6oS $.
 Ca Greek colony padded through the | then innocent waters of the Dardanelles
 in their cypress wood "Mayfiower," with
 the breath of Zeus in their sails, and land
 ed upon one of the most magnincent
 places in the world--the present site ol | Constantinople. They had consulted the
 Delphian oracle and the voice of Apollo
 had directed them to this destination. They dropped anchor hauled down thelr sails erected a new altar to Zeus, anu
 called their camp Byzantium.
 A thousand years later-SS A. D--Coh- tsntine selected the then old and 1apleo
 Byzantium as the new capital or ims ns l Roman empire. Julius Caesar wished, 4V | years before to make ancient Troy, just across from Byzantium, on the Asiatlc 1, side the capital of the Roman world, pu' | public sentiment and the murmurihss | of would-be conspirators stayed ms naho | After Caesars untimely death, Mark
 Antony planned to transfer the capi'a'
 from the proud old seven -hilled city to Alexandria in Egypt, for reasons pest
 known to Cleopatra and himself; the N battle of Actum decided the question |l otherwise. But when Constantine hau carried his battle standard emblazoneo
 with the Christian cross-aho III no.
 signo vinces'-to victory, he moved eastward and planted that same cross
 where today floats or trembles the Star and Crescent" emblem or the Mohammedan Turk.
 Constantine called into requisition the artistic and material resources or the Graeco ?Roman world make clty worthy of its predestined fortunes Mutitudes crowded in. drawn by i'm, perial invitation and the attractions ol court so that almost in a day ancient Byzantium grew into great metrop- olis-the city of Constantine.
 Scarcely had Constantine bequeathec his regal city to his successor when 1us beyond the southeastern gates of the city was heard the wild battle cry of the Sa' racen hordes, 'On to Constantinople. Al intervals from the seventh to the four teenth century the same cry would ad vance toward the boundary line betweer
 Europe and Asia. but was as often driver