Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1915-03-06
THE EPIC OF THE DARDANELLES
Where the French and English Fleet Fighting Its Way Toward
the Golden Horn the Destines of Nations, Empires, Even
Continents Have Been Turned in New Directions.
BY RAYMOND G. FULLER.

TNEIE epic of the Dardaneles began in the
J. NEUROLOGICAL ages and is not ended. Much
of the worlds history has passed either
through or across the winding strait which
separates Europe and Asia and yet seems to
form a connection between them. If only
the earlier name of this water-strip were of
Latin derivation, then with classical author
ity we might call the Dardanelles bridge,
but the Hellespont was Greek for Helle's Sea.
Nevertheless, not only great armies but
whole civilizations have crossed the Heles-
pontine Channel. Far-reaching racial move
ments and conflicts before history emerged
from the vagueness of the remote past con-
centred or touched at this point. Since then
heroic records have there been written CT
vast enterprises, some that succeeded and
some that failed, for the making and unmak-
ing of nations the building and destruction
OF empires the conquest of continents.
Hardly anywhere else has geography more
Importantly made history. The place is as
sociated with the Argonautic legend which
commentaries the first great maritime un-
dertaknE of ancient times; with the Trojan
War and the ancestry of the Romans
(through Dardanus, whose name appears in
that of the Dardanelles); with the long strug-
gle between Greece and Persia, each for self
preservation and world supremacy; with sig
nifcant commercial events and conditions in
the Middle Ages.
The Destinies of Nations
Nearing the modern age we find the Otto
man Turks, in the latter half of the l4th
century, crossing the bridge between the con-
tlnents and establishing themselves in Eu-
rope. BY 1900 their empire covered the whole
Balkan peninsula, and extended north be-
yond the Danube. The fall of Constantinople
in 1853 marked the end of the Roman En-
pire of the East, The fleet of Mohammed H.
prior to the actual siege, occupied the whole
channel between the Aegean and the Bos-
porus and transferred land forces, with pro-
visions and military stores, from the Asiatic
bases to European soil. 1t was that year
that the Janizaries won their first fame in
Europe Since the invasion the diminishing
Turkish Empire has been prolific source of
international plots, jealouses and wars, it's
disposition constituting the troublesome
eastern Question" which has not yet been
downed Russia's designs on Constantinople,
from the time of Catherine the Great have
hardly been the least productive cause of
squabbles among the nations of Europe,
With the gateway from the Mediterranean
to the Black Sea I'm the control of the Turks
the nations of Western and Central Europe
in the 18th and 10th centuries found the last
of their accustomed trade routes to the
Orient virtually closed to their merchant
ships. A new impetus was given to explora-
ton in the necessity of finding nom -Mediter-
ranean routes. Diaz, Vasco da Cana and
Columbus spread their sails. A revolution
was wrought I'm the economic conditions of
the world. Commerce ceased to be MedIter-
ranean and became oceanic. 1t was greater
treasure house OF trade that the Turks had
locked against the West by their capture of
Constantnople. The golden fleece of Colchis, |
very likely, represented the spoils OF the East |
in the early periods of commercial enter |
prise and the very name of the beautiful |
curved harbor of Constantinople, "the Golden |
Horn" suggests the fact that the city was
the centre of the worlds commerce during |
the Middle Ages.
American Warship the First Through
The Turks were not long in fortifying the |
Dardanelles, and in recent decades 1t has
ranked among the strongest OF military |
strongholds The 40-mile meandering course /
of the channel, cutting a rocky tableland a .
thousand feet high, conspires to make It's
passage a formidable undertaking to unwel-
come forces.
The American frigate George Washington
was the first war vessel to defy the line OF
forts. The exploit bears date Of 1900 Cap
tain William Bainbridge. after service in
Tripoll, sailed into the Dardanelles with a
party OF Tripolitan envoys on a mission to
the Sublime Porte His ship was halted at
the hrst fort guarding the entrance 10 the
strait. The Turks demanded passports but
CAPTAIN Bainbridge had none. The United