_The London Times publishes this story of an eyewitness:_
TENEDOS, (Aegina,) March 18.
This is not so much an account of the five hours' heavy engagement
between the Turkish forts and the allied ships which has been fought
actually within the Dardanelles today as an impression of the
bombardment as seen at a distance of fifteen miles or so from the top of
a high, steep hill called Mount St. Elias, at the northern end of
Tenedos.
Over the ridge of Kum Kale you plainly see, like a great blue lake, the
first reach of the Dardanelles up to the narrow neck between Chanak and
Kilid Bahr. It was up and down in this stretch of water that the largest
vessels of the allied fleet steamed today for over four hours, hurling,
with sheets of orange flame from their heavy guns, a constant succession
of shells on the forts that guard the Narrows at Chanak, while the
Turkish batteries, with a frequency that lessened as the day went on,
flashed back at them in reply, with the difference that, while the
effects of the Allies' shells were continually manifest in the columns
of smoke and dust that were signs of the damage they had wrought, a
great number of the enemy's shots fell in the sea hundreds of yards from
the bombarding ships, sending torrents of water towering harmlessly into
the air.
Not that the successes of the day have been won without cost. I saw
several ships, French and British, struck by shells that raised volumes
of white smoke, and one of the French squadron is toiling slowly home at
this moment down by the head and with a list to port, while, so far as
one could make out with a glass, several boatloads of men were being
taken off her.
The ships left their stations between the Turkish and Asiatic coasts and
Tenedos early this morning and by 11 they were steaming in line up the
Dardanelles.
It was 11:45 when the first notable hit was made by an English ship. I
could see eight vessels, apparently all battleships, lying in line from
the entrance up the strait. The ship furthest up appeared to be the
Queen Elizabeth, and I think it was she that fired the shot which
exploded the powder magazine at Chanak. A great balloon of white smoke
sprang up in the midst of the magazine which leaped out from a fierce,
red flame, and reached a great height. When the flame had disappeared
the dense smoke continued to grow till it must have been a column
hundreds of feet high.
[Illustration: [map of the Dardanelles]]
In the five minutes that followed this shot three more shells from the
Queen Elizabeth fell practically on the same spot, and two minutes later
yet another by the side of the smoking ruins.
There were now eight battleships, all pre-dreadnoughts, left at Tenedos,
and at noon six of them started off in line a-head toward the strait.
The English ships already within were passing further up and went out of
sight.
The bombarding ships were steaming constantly up and down, turning at
each end of the stretch, which is about a couple of miles long.
A long thin veil of black smoke was drifting slowly westward from the
fighting. At about 1:30 Erenkeui Village, standing high on the Asiatic
side, received a couple of shells. At 1:45 a division of eight
destroyers in line steamed into the entrance of the strait, and a little
later the last two battleships from Tenedos joined, the Dublin
patrolling outside. An hour later the most striking effect was produced
by a shell falling on a fort at Kilid Bahr, which evidently exploded
another magazine. A huge mass of heavy jet-black smoke gradually rose
till it towered high above the cliffs on the European and Asiatic sides.
It ballooned slowly out like a gigantic genie rising from a fisherman's
bottle.
By now the action was slackening, and at 3:45 five ships were slowly
steaming homeward from the entrance. At 4:30 there were still eight
vessels in the strait, but the forts had practically ceased to fire. The
action was over for the day.
The result had been the apparent silencing of several Turkish batteries,
and those terrific explosions at the forts at Chanak and Kilid Bahr, the
ultimate effect of which remains to be seen when the attack is renewed
tonight. For Chanak is burning.