The daily Alaskan., 1917-02-23
LOST BY TIMIDITY.
An Early British Naval Failure al
 the DardanelIes.
GOT HIS FLEET INTO A TRAP.

itated, Gave the Turks Time to Arm
 and Was eombarded Back to the Sea. 8 The unsuccessful campaign at Gal lipo1 when the forces of the allied powers failed in their attempt to reach Constantinople after Turkey had ar- rayed herself on the side of Germany recalls the time when Sir John Duck worth sailed through the Dardanelles and then turned round and sailed out again. It was in 1907, when Napoleon 1 was at war with more than half world and when England had on the throne a king with an infrm brain and a ministry called that of "all the tai ents," which in spite of It's name was wretchedly inefficient
 The French were trying to come to an understanding with the irresolute 1 Sultan Selim, which was greatly dis quieting to the czar since In view of the great victories of the Little Cor poral" in Prussia he could i'll afford to spare any forces from the Russian frontier. So he asked the British to send fleet to the sublime porte and compel Selim to make terms with Rus sia and England.
 Accordingly Sir John Duckworth was ordered to join Admiral Louis in the Aegean sea and lead the combined fleets up the Dardanelles to the Turk ish capital, where, after securing the safety of Mir. Arbuthnot, the British ambassador, he was to dictate terms to the sultan.
 It is harder to sail up the Darda- nelles than to sail out because there is powerful current that flows con stantly from the Black sea to the Aegean. There were no great steam cruisers then, and Sir John had to wait several days for favorable conditions. Meantime one of the largest of the ships, the Ajax, carrying seVenty-four guns, unaccountably blew up, and some 25O Englishmen were killed. On a February morning In 1907, however, seven battleships sailed into the mouth of the ancient Hellespont and bore their way up the strait They encountered only light and ineffect- ual fire from the forts. There was no effective preparation for defensive &C., ton on either the European or Asiatic side from the mouth of the Darda- nelles to the city of Constantine.
 Had Sir John given the sultan a twenty-four hour ultimatum and trained his guns on the citadel he need not have fired a shot. He would have accomplished the purpose for which he had come and could have sailed out with his ships unharmed and himself covered with glory. But he was seized with timidity and began uhaccouutably to negotiate and temporize.
 General Sebastiani, the clever agent of Napoleon at the sultan's court, en- couraged Duckworth's irresolution and led him on from day to day with spe- cious promises.
 Meanwhile men, women and chill dren, Christians and Mohammedans, were working day and night to erect suitable defenses along the famous waterway, until In no long time the whole shore, as well as the forts of the Dardanelles, was bristling with guns. Duckworth's opportunity had passed. He had made the fatal mistake of giv- ing the Turks time to find their leader
 For two weeks the parleyings went on, while the fleets officers through their glasses could see the constant ar rival of cannon, ammunition and troops. At last Sir John awoke to the fact that he was in trap and had barely time to get out. Fortunately the wind was in his favor, and the seven battleships began their ignominious re- treat
 What contrast between the coming in and the going out!
 For sixty miles they ran the gant-s let of a continual and heavy fire. It was incessant and galling in the sea of Marmora, and in the Dardanelles 1t was terrific. There stone balls, weigh ing 700 and 800 pounds, snapped the rigging, broke down the masts and crushed in the decks. The roll of the artillery was deafening, and the smoke hung over everything in dark, impene- trable folds.
 The humiliated admiral could do nothing but run, and as the current was with him he finally reached the Aegean. sea, although with badly bat tered fleet.
 It has always seemed curious to the reader of history that Duckworth es- .caped the fate of Admiral Byng, who was court martialed and shot fifty years before for just such another lamentable error of judgment The only explanation appears to be that this was a time of such multiplied fears and panics that even so serious a matter as this was soon forgotten in the more absorbing and importunate problem of national defense against the designs of Napoleon.-Youth's Con- panion.
 ,.r Cleopatra.
 Cleopatra means flame of her fa-