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Show FORCING STRAITS DIFFICULT TASK Waterway From Mediterranean Mediterran-ean to Constantinople Better Defended Than Allies Thought. GAIN LITTLE HEADWAY Prodigious Amount of Ammunition Am-munition Used Has Led Thus Far to Small Results. (Correapondence of The Associated Press ) Chanah KaJeasJ (Dardanelles i March in. The fir-t phase of the efforts ef-forts of the British and French to force the Dardanelles demonstrated tint this task la far more difficult than v as supposed at Hist according to Turkish opinion The heavy bombardments bom-bardments on March '. and 7 of de-fenae de-fenae VOrJca near this towu. and Kalld Bahr. as well a. tii, futile, attempts to clear the channel f mines the Dighl of March Hi-11, show that tho waterwa from the Mediterranean to Constantinople la better defended than British and French authorities rna have fchOUght Within the last six days the works giving entrance to the inner Dardanelles Darda-nelles have not been bombarded and during the last two nights no serious attempt at mine clearing has been made Allies Face Formidable Task. W hile it is true that the allies have -in i eeded In silencing the torts at Kum Kale and Sidd E Ba.hr and two positions Sf minor importance near there, it would be fallacious for the allies to assume thai this had lessened materially the proportions of their task. The positions at Kum Kale and Sidd El Bahr were reduced easily bei suae it waa possible to take them under enfiladed tire in addition addi-tion a slight advantage In range made ! it possible for the British to throw bo greal a weigh! of metal into these forts that almoel from the rirst there was little chance that the Turks could hold them. But the allies have gained little b this thus far Todaj Turkish infan- tr holds the -round about the sllenc-ed sllenc-ed batteries. n attefnpl bj the al-lies al-lies on March to occupy Kum Kale and Sold Bl Bahr ended in a rout of the landing party, of whom seventy or eighty were Killed in action, ;in.l others drowned Losses of Turks. The losses of the Turks were t Sidd El Bahr. four killed, fourteen wounded; at Kum Kale, two killed twenty-one wounded The landing pnrtv of the allies was supported b a heay (ire from the British ships, which ventured so close to the shore that even their machine puus would be brought into play Two other attempts at-tempts to laud troops were made With uo greater aucceas Meanwhile the expenditure uf ammunition am-munition by the French and British has been prodigious The Associate. I Tress correspondent ha? been able to ascertain, himself, that it has led to small results On Martll 8-7 the allies threw Into fori Medljeh and works about Killd Bahr no less than 354 shells, most of them of the largest caliber without doing any serious dam age Onlj one man was slightly hurt by a flying clod oi earth. Sheila thrown m the direction of fort Hami dieh. on the Asiatic shore near this town, proved equally harmless As the result of about 300 heavy shells and over Ton lighter projectiles thrown into fort DardanuS, during the last two weoks, one man has been killed and onp severely wounded '1 he damage to the fortifications consists in the bending of a small armor plate, which j for a time interfered with the manipu lation of the piece whose crew It projects. pro-jects. The Associated Presa correspondent corre-spondent says that during his stay in the fire zone the British and Ffencn have fired more than 4600 shells at the positions. On the whole the fire of the British, especially, has been well directed, taking the artilleryman's artillery-man's point of view. Long Range Guns Whatever BUCCesa the British and French have attained, so far, is attributed at-tributed here to the longer range of i their heavy guns and the fact that unmolested un-molested by the Turkish gunners owing ow-ing to a shorter range of the pieces in the forts the have been able to literally cause a rain of shells. The ships never anchored but kept circling cir-cling about and when the shells from ithe Turkish forts fell at all near, succeeding suc-ceeding most of the time in getting I out of range. In spite of this, Turk ish gunners have made very good j scores during the last fourteen davs. obliging lour of the allies' vessels io leave for repairs. In the main, the fire of the allies have been rather si altered and un methodical. The ships entered the hay north of Kum Kale and Sidd El Bahr and usually begin to fire in all directions. For this the batteries o the Turks are responsible Each dav the British vessels dia oer that the piece has shifted from the point where it was thought they iiad been silenced on the previous day I N'o sooner is the British vessel within range than an avalanche of sheila be-gins be-gins to fall c lose about it Thifi to -ceaaltatea first of all that the batteries bat-teries must be found and an attempt made to silence them In this man I ner the allies are obliged to begin each da anew a labor they though' I eliminated. Hardly, however, has I battery position been discovered and (the flm Shells fired In it- direction, than the pieces are taken to other parts of the hills to repeat from there tlv ir most annoying work. Artillery Technique Handicap. In dealing with this the allies are also handicapped considerably by a ; matter of artillerv technique. The J.irge guns on battleships are "flat trajectory" pieces that is to say thei I are designed to he used principally against an object more or less on the j level on which the gun itself is located loca-ted The result of this is that the Turklsh batteries on the elevation can not be taken under i very effective i ir The British shells strike either ei-ther near the i rest on which the guns stand or go over it. The gun used here, on the other hand, being a hi trajectory ' piece, is able to drop Its shells upon the deck of th" vessel tbe most vulnerable part of a ship Apparentlv realizing this, the allies on March 6 began an indirect firing from the Gulf of Saros, hoping to reduce re-duce thereby the works at Kilid Bahr. Tho attempt led to a totally new fea ture in naval warfare. While the Queen Elizabeth, one of England s larrest ships, threw shells over the p-nmsula, a Turkish battery ;ilso took up indirect fire and the German gun tera of the Turkish battery obliged the British vessel to withdraw in a damaged condition. Before that the Turks had discovered discov-ered that a surveyors notice on an elevation 900 feet high was serving to direct the fire of the Queen Elisabeth. Elisa-beth. The sign was promptly removed re-moved and then the shells lell wild It is thought here that the German officers of-ficers and non-commissioned officers are entirely responsible for the showing show-ing made bv the Turkish batteries Kum Kale and Sir Sidd Bl Bahr have been silenced, but by their elimination elimina-tion the real problem before the allies al-lies has merely been brought nearer, according to the opinion of officers here. Moreover the silencing of the fortfl near this town and Kilid Bahr across the -trait would mean that but part of the work had been begun |