At first sight the interior of the peninsula from Suvla Bay southwards looks like a choppy sea which has been suddenly frozen. If, however, we look closely at the map on page 168, we shall be able to make out three prominent features. Running right across the toe of the peninsula from sea to sea, at a distance of three and a half miles from Cape Helles, is a ridge which rises in its highest part to the Achi Baba peak, 591 feet above sea level. Big guns on this ridge command all the toe of the peninsula, which is hollowed out something like the bowl of a spoon, so that only the outer edges can be shelled directly from the sea. The inside of the bowl is not level, but is filled up with numerous spurs and gullies.
Now look at the forts of the Narrows. Behind them is a plateau--the Kilid Bahr plateau--which rises in the peak of Pasha Dagh to a height of 700 feet above the level of the sea, and extends westwards for about five miles. The Achi Baba ridge, you observe, is the buttress and outlying defence of this plateau on the south. To the north-west of the plateau you see a network of high hills with very steep sides and deep ravines. This is the Sari Bair mountain, which forms the buttress and outlying defence of the Kilid Bahr plateau on the north. Some of its peaks are nearly 800 feet high.
I have already told you that the forts at the Narrows are the real defence of the Dardanelles. We had already failed to capture them by a naval attack. If, however, we could reach the Kilid Bahr plateau by land, we could attack the forts from the rear--the side on which they are least capable of resistance. But, as you notice, nature has made this plateau very difficult of access. An invader from the south must first carry the Achi Baba ridge before he can reach it, and if he lands south of Suvla Point he must fight his way across the Sari Bair.
You have already gathered that the peninsula is difficult to traverse even in times of peace; the few dwellers on it make most of their journeys from point to point by water. Except in a few valleys, there are no cultivated fields; and save for a few cypress and olive groves, the whole peninsula consists of bare or scrub-covered hills and ravines filled with jungle. Amidst the rocks flourish many strange and beautiful flowers. Water is scarce, and the villages and hamlets are few and far between.