A new and possibly momentous chapter has opened in the history of the War by the attempt to force the Dardanelles.  At the end of February the Allied Fleet bombarded the forts at the entrance, and landed a party of bluejackets.  Since then these naval operations have been resumed, and our new crack battleship Queen Elizabeth has joined in the attack.  We have not got through the Narrows, and some sceptical critics are asking what we should do if we got through to Constantinople, without a land force.  It is a great scheme, if it comes off; and the “only begetter” of it, if report is true, is Mr. Winston Churchill, the strategist of the Antwerp expedition, who now aspires to be the Dardanelson of our age.  Anyhow, the Sultan, lured on by the Imperial William o’ the Wisp, is already capable of envying even his predecessor: 

  Abdul!  I would that I had shared your plight,
    Or Europe seen my heels,
  Before the hour when Allah bound me tight
    To WILLIAM’S chariot-wheels!

Germany, always generous with other people’s property, has begun to hint to Italy possibilities of compensation in the shape of certain portions of Austro-Hungarian territory.  She has also declared that she is “fighting for the independence of the small nations,” including, of course, Belgium.  In further evidence of her humanity she has taken to spraying our soldiers in the West with flaming petrol and squirting boiling pitch over our Russian allies.  It is positively a desecration of the word devil to apply it to the Germans whether on land, on or under water, or in the air.

We have begun to “push” on the Western front, and Neuve Chapelle has been captured, after a fierce battle and at terrible cost.  Air raids are becoming common in East Anglia and U-boats unpleasantly active in the North Sea.  Let us take off our hats to the mine-sweepers and trawlers, the new and splendid auxiliaries of the Royal Navy.  Grimsby is indeed a “name to resound for ages” for what its fishermen have done and are doing in the war against mine and submarine: 

  Soles in the Silver Pit—­an’ there we’ll let ’em lie;
  Cod on the Dogger—­oh, we’ll fetch ’em by an’ by;
  War on the water—­an’ it’s time to serve an’ die,
    For there’s wild work doin’ on the North Sea ground. 
  An’ it’s “Wake up, Johnnie!” they want you at the trawlin’
  (With your long sea-boots and your tarry old tarpaulin);
  All across the bitter seas duty comes a-callin’
    In the Winter’s weather off the North Sea ground. 
  It’s well we’ve learned to laugh at fear—­the sea has taught us how;
  It’s well we’ve shaken hands with death—­we’ll not be strangers now,
  With death in every climbin’ wave before the trawler’s bow,
    An’ the black spawn swimmin’ on the North Sea ground.

[Illustration:  WILLIAM O’ THE WISP]