*

trade brought not only grains of all sorts, but many others of the most essential of the raw materials of commerce and industry. The southern shore, now lying almost fallow under the paralysing effects of Turkish rule, was then peopled by a long line of busy Greek colonies, engaged in active trade with the interior. All the coast is fringed by vegetation almost subtropical in its luxuriance; it supplied an inexhaustible treasure of timber, easily shipped from hill-sides running down to the water's edge. Mineral resources were abundant and largely exploited; the country is to Homer the birthplace of silver'; and the Chalybes among the eastern valleys were the most famous iron-workers of antiquity. At the extreme eastern end is Colchis, with the goldbearing Phasis, where the earliest explorers sought the Golden Fleece. In the north-east is the Sea of Azoff, the great breeding place of the tunny, whose pickled flesh, exported from Sinope and Byzantium, formed the staple food of a large part of the Mediterranean peoples. Moreover the Euxine was one of the chief sources of an indispensable implement of ancient industry, slaves. And finally we have to remember that from immemorial ages a caravan route has run from Central Asia through northern Persia to Trebizond; † and many a Persian rug in our drawing-rooms has come on camels' backs and across the Black Sea just as eastern carpets came three thousand years ago, no doubt, to Troy and Mycenæ. And all this trade has one outlet only to the west; it must pass through the narrow portal of the Hellespont. Geographical conditions preclude any alternative.

Into this country of vast potential wealth the progressive nations of the west have been pressing since the earliest dawn of history. The nations of the Black Sea area have never been enterprising sailors or merchants. They have always hitherto been content to allow the mercantile countries to come to them, and traffic with them at their own gates. Thus there has never, till quite recent days, been any pressure to force the Straits

*The July isotherm is only a degree or two less than that of Alexandria, and is combined with a summer rainfall (June-August), varying from two to over four inches, while the Egyptian summer is rainless.

† Within the last few years the construction of a harbour at Batum has diverted the final stage to the north-east.

from within. We are apt to forget how short a time has elapsed since Russia made good her footing on the shores of the Black Sea. It was only in 1794 that she conquered the site where Odessa now stands; the town itself was founded in the early years of the last century. It is the appearance of a nation seeking exit instead of entrance which forms the only material alteration of the Black Sea problem in modern days.

It is only in the direction of their length, that is as a water-way, that the Straits have played any important part in history, economic, political, or strategic. In a transverse direction they have been only secondary. No . great route of trade has ever crossed them. The produce of the plains and valleys on either side comes to the ports on their shores only to be shipped up or down their length to more distant regions. All the neighbouring countries are accessible to cheap carriage by sea; and with this method expensive transport over hills and uplands can never compete. Nor have the Straits ever been taken as a military line of defence or served as a political frontier. The command of one of the main arteries of the world has at all times been too valuable for division; and when, at rare intervals, two powers have, in the course of war, found themselves face to face across the narrow water, the position has always been one of unstable equilibrium, and the weaker on either shore has had to give way to the stronger on the other. No settlement which ignores this cardinal fact can have any chance of permanence.

Armies have crossed, of course, sometimes on a large scale, and with notable pomp and circumstance, but not against military opposition. Even the crossing of the Turks in 1356 was, as we shall see, virtually unopposed. The two most famous military passages, those of Xerxes in 480 and of Alexander in 334 B.C., were indeed only possible because both sides of the Straits were in friendly hands. The former was rather a spectacle than a military operation. We read in the immortal narrative of Herodotus of the bridging of the Straits from Abydos to Sestos; how the first bridge was destroyed by a storm, how Xerxes' wrath was aroused, how the disobedient Hellespont was scourged with three hundred strokes of the lash, and a pair of fetters let down into the water,

while all the time the 'salt river' was insulted for revolting against its master, who will pass over thee whether thou wilt or not.' Then, when the Egyptian and Phenician engineers had at last completed the bridge and the passage was prepared, Xerxes reviewed his army from a throne set on the hills of Abydos, and called for a sham fight between the ships.

'And seeing all the Hellespont covered with the ships, and all the shores and the plains of Abydos full of men, Xerxes pronounced himself a happy man, and after that he fell to weeping, saying in answer to Artabanos' question, "Yea, for after I had reckoned up, it came into my mind to feel pity at the thought how brief was the whole life of man, seeing that of these multitudes not one will be alive when a hundred years have gone by."'... 'Next day they waited for the sun, desiring to see him rise, and in the meantime they offered all kinds of incense upon the bridges and strewed the way with branches of myrtle. Then, as the sun was rising, Xerxes made libation from a golden cup into the sea, and prayed to the sun, that no accident might befall him such as should cause him to cease from subduing Europe, until he had come to its furthest limits. . . . And his army crossed over in seven days and seven nights, going on continuously without any pause.'*

This is not to be taken as mere childish vanity or oriental ostentation. It was evidently a carefully prepared and well executed piece of acting on the most conspicuous stage of the ancient world; and it had its definite purpose. It was intended to impress upon the Greeks the belief that the force which was marching to attack them was something superhuman. It was in fact an early instance of 'frightfulness' on an imposing scale; it doubtless had its effect in inducing the ready submission of many Greek states, and lost nothing in its psychological results because the display had none of the savagery which, till a few months ago, was associated only with the barbarians of the Orient.

Another dramatic crossing was that of Alexander on his way to the battle of the Granicus and the overthrow of Persia. The passage was in itself so unimportant as a military operation that Alexander left the transport of

* Macaulay's translation, abridged.

the troops to his chief of the staff, Parmenion, and went on pilgrimage to Troy. Passing down the peninsula to the town of Elæus, where now stands what we know as 'de Tott's battery,' he paid his devotions at the tumulus which stands near by, and which was known to antiquity as the tomb of Protesilaus, the first hero to fall in the landing of the Achaian army. Thence he crossed to the European side, to the sand-spit of Kum-kale. Here stood the great tumulus of unknown age, still a landmark to all who enter the Straits, and sacred to the Greeks as the tomb of Achilles. From Achilles Alexander claimed, through his mother, direct descent, and to his tomb he paid especial honour, anointing it with oil and running round it naked, 'as the manner is.' After due devotion at the temple of Athena in Ilium itself he turned northwards to rejoin his army, now safely brought across from Sestos, and encamped in the rolling plain of Arisbe, a few miles to the east of Abydos. The whole episode was again a carefully planned display, only it was intended to emphasise the piety and self-restraint of the Greek in contrast with the blasphemous ostentation of the Persian.

When Xerxes insulted the Hellespont by telling it that it was only a 'salt river,' he was in fact very near the scientific fact. The Hellespont is the course of a submerged river valley, and still preserves the main characteristic of its origin in the superficial* current which runs down it with an average speed of 11⁄2 knots, sometimes attaining in the Narrows a maximum of five to about six statute miles an hour. To the effect of the current must be added the equally important though less regular influence of the wind, which for nine months out of the twelve blows with the current from the N.-E., often with great violence.

When current and wind are both at their height, no sailing ship, even of the best modern type, can beat up against them; for the vessels of the ancients, which probably could not sail on a wind, the passage upwards was even at the best of times a difficult matter. It

* Hydrostatic conditions, due to the lower salinity of the Black Sea, produce an under current from the Egean inwards; but this heavier water never comes to the surface.

would have been impossible, but for two mitigating circumstances; firstly, that the N.-E. winds do not usually blow throughout the 24 hours, but rise in the morning, attain their greatest power at midday, and drop again in the evening; and secondly, that the various promontories along the shore of the Straits set up eddies of the current which run faintly upwards along the shores of the principal bays. By taking advantage of these, sailing ships can creep slowly up from point to point, and await a favourable breeze strong enough to carry them past the chief headlands; but the passage eastwards is for them at best a slow and tedious business, and may mean a delay of days or even weeks before the more critical points can be rounded.

It

These then were the conditions under which the command of the Straits had to be exercised. It will be seen at once that they are all against those who come from the west, while they greatly facilitate the return passage from the east; they are all in favour of the defence so long as there is no pressure from the east, and such pressure has never yet effectually come. is possible to distinguish very clearly three stages in the development of the defence, corresponding to the growth of man's control of material power. We may conveniently distinguish them as the Trojan, the Athenian, and the Turkish stages. Each had a different method, and therefore a different site. The Trojan system was one of passive control by possession of the shores; it was exercised at the very mouth of the Straits. The second or Athenian method was control by navies; for this purpose harbours were needed, and the point of command moved to the two opposite harbours of Sestos and Abydos, at the northern end of the Narrows. The third or Turkish method was control by artillery; and for this purpose the narrowest point in the whole strait was naturally chosen for the two castles of Chanak and Kilid-ul-bahr. Let us deal in order with the history of the three stages.

Of the first, the Trojan, we have already spoken. The object of the fortress of Troy can only have been negative; it prevented the merchant ships of the west from sailing upwards, and so brought the Euxine trade