hundreds of American religious, charitable, and educational institutions, practically stood on American territory and looked upon the American Embassy as their guardian. Several nations had their own post offices, as they did not care to submit their mail to the Ottoman postal service. Turkey likewise did not have unlimited power of taxation over foreigners. It could not even increase their customs taxes without the consent of the foreign powers. In 1914 it could impose only 11 per cent. in tariff dues, and was attempting to secure the right to increase the amount to 14. We have always regarded England as the only free-trade country, overlooking the fact that this limitation in Turkey’s customs dues had practically made the Ottoman Empire an unwilling follower of Cobden. Turkey was thus prohibited by the Powers from developing any industries of her own; instead, she was forced to take large quantities of inferior articles from Europe. Against these restrictions Turkish statesmen had protested for years, declaring that they constituted an insult to their pride as a nation and also interfered with their progress. However, the agreement was a bi-lateral one, and Turkey could not change it without the consent of all the contracting powers. Yet certainly the present moment, when both the Entente and the Central Powers were cultivating Turkey, served to furnish a valuable opportunity to make the change. And so, as soon as the Germans had begun their march toward Paris, the air was filled with reports that Turkey intended to abrogate the capitulations. Rumour said that Germany had consented, as part of the consideration for Turkish aid in the war, and that England had agreed to the abrogation, as part of her payment for Turkish neutrality. Neither of these reports was true. What was manifest, however, was the panic which the mere suggestion of abrogation produced on the foreign population. The idea of becoming subject to the Turkish laws and perhaps being thrown into Turkish prisons made their flesh creep—and with good reason.

About this time I had a long conference with Enver. He asked me to call at his residence, as he was laid up with an infected toe, the result of a surgical operation. I thus had an illuminating glimpse of the Minister of War en famille. Certainly this humble man of the people had risen in the world. His house, which was in one of the quietest and most aristocratic parts of the city, was a splendid old building, very large and very elaborate. I was ushered through a series of four or five halls, and as I went by one door the Imperial Princess, Enver’s wife, slightly opened it and peeked through at me. Farther on another Turkish lady opened her door and also obtained a fleeting glimpse of the Ambassadorial figure. I was finally escorted into a beautiful room in which Enver lay reclining on a semi-sofa. He had on a long silk dressing gown and his stockinged feet hung languidly over the edge of the divan. He looked much younger than in his uniform; he was an extremely neat and well-groomed object, with a pale, smooth face, made even more striking by his black hair, and with delicate white hands, and long, tapering fingers. He might easily have passed for under thirty, and, in fact, he was not much over that age. He had at hand a violin, and a piano near by also testified to his musical taste. The room was splendidly tapestried; perhaps its most conspicuous feature was a daïs upon which stood a golden chair; this was the marriage throne of Enver’s imperial wife. As I glanced around at all this luxury, I must admit that a few uncharitable thoughts came to mind and that I could not help pondering a question which was then being generally asked in Constantinople. Where did Enver get the money for this expensive establishment? He had no fortune of his own—his parents had been wretchedly poor, and his salary as a cabinet minister was only about $8,000. His wife had a moderate allowance as an imperial princess, but she had no private resources. Enver had never engaged in business, he had been a revolutionist, military leader, and politician all his life. But here he was living at a rate that demanded a very large income. In other ways Enver was giving evidences of great and sudden prosperity, and already I had heard much of his investments in real estate, which were the talk of the town.

Enver wished to discuss the capitulations. He practically said that the Cabinet had decided on the abrogation, and he wished to know the attitude of the United States. He added that certainly a country which had fought for its independence as we had would sympathize with Turkey’s attempt to shake off these shackles. We had helped Japan free herself from similar burdens and wouldn’t we now help Turkey? Certainly Turkey was as civilized a nation as Japan?

I answered that I thought that the United States might consent to abandon the capitulations in so far as they were economic. It was my opinion that Turkey should control her customs duties and be permitted to levy the same taxes on foreigners as on her own citizens. So long as the Turkish courts and Turkish prisons maintained their present standards, however, we could never agree to give up the judicial capitulations. Turkey should reform the abuses of her courts; then, after they had established European ideas in the administration of justice, the matter could be discussed. Enver replied that Turkey would be willing to have mixed tribunals and to have the United States designate some of the judges, but I suggested that, inasmuch as American judges did not know the Turkish language or Turkish law, his scheme involved great practical difficulties. I also told him that the American schools and colleges were very dear to Americans, and that we would never consent to subjecting them to Turkish jurisdiction.

Despite the protests of all the ambassadors, the Cabinet issued its notification that the capitulations would be abrogated on October 1st. This abrogation was all a part of the Young Turks’ plan to free themselves from foreign tutelage and to create a new country on the basis of “Turkey for the Turks.” It represented, as I shall show, what was the central point of Turkish policy, not only in the empire’s relations to foreign powers, but to her subject peoples. England’s position on this question was about the same as our own; the British Government would consent to the modification of the economic restrictions, but not the others. Wangenheim was greatly disturbed, and I think that his foreign office reprimanded him for letting the abrogation take place, because he blandly asked me to announce that I was the responsible person! As October 1st approached, the foreigners in Turkey were in a high state of apprehension. The Dardanelles had been closed, shutting them off from Europe, and now they felt that they were to be left to the mercy of Turkish courts and Turkish prisons. Inasmuch as it was the habit in Turkish prisons to herd the innocent with the guilty, and to place in the same room with murderers, people who had been charged, with minor offenses, but not convicted of them, and to bastinado recalcitrant witnesses, the fears of the foreign residents may well be imagined. The educational institutions were also apprehensive, and in their interest I now appealed to Enver. He assured me that the Turks had no hostile intention toward Americans. I replied that he should show in unmistakable fashion that Americans would not be harmed.

“All right,” he answered. “What would you suggest?”

“Why not ostentatiously visit Robert College on October 1st, the day the capitulations are abrogated?” I said.

The idea was rather a unique one, for in all the history of this institution an important Turkish official had never entered its doors. But I knew enough of the Turkish character to understand that an open, ceremonious visit by Enver would cause a public sensation. News of it would reach the farthest limits of the Turkish Empire, and it was certain that the Turks would interpret it as meaning that one of the two most powerful men in Turkey had taken this and other American institutions under his patronage. Such a visit would exercise a greater protective influence over American colleges and schools in Turkey than an army corps. I was therefore greatly pleased when Enver promptly adopted my suggestion.

On the day that the capitulations were abrogated, Enver appeared at the American Embassy with two autos, one for himself and me, and the other for his adjutants, all of whom were dressed in full uniform. I was pleased that Enver had made the proceeding so spectacular, for I wished it to have the widest publicity. On the ride up to the college I told Enver all about these American institutions and what they were doing for Turkey. He really knew very little about them, and, like most Turks, he half suspected that they concealed a political purpose.

“We Americans are not looking for material advantages in Turkey,” I said. “We merely demand that you treat kindly our children, these colleges, for which all the people in the United States have the warmest affection.”

I told him that Mr. Cleveland H. Dodge, President of the trustees of Robert College, and Mr. Charles R. Crane, President of the trustees of the Women’s College, were intimate friends of President Wilson. “These,” I added, “represent what is best in America and the fine altruistic spirit which in our country accumulates wealth and then uses it to found colleges and schools. In establishing these institutions in Turkey they are trying, not to convert your people to Christianity, but to help train them in the sciences and arts and so prepare to make them better citizens. Americans feel that the Bible lands have given them their religion and they wish to repay with the best thing America has—its education.” I then told him about Mrs. Russell Sage and Miss Helen Gould, who had made large gifts to the Women’s College.

“But where do these people get all the money for such benefactions?” Enver asked.

I then entertained him for an hour or so with a few pages from our own “American Nights.” I told him how Jay Gould had arrived in New York, a penniless and ragged boy, with a mousetrap which he had invented, and how he had died, almost thirty years afterward, leaving a fortune of about $100,000,000. I told him how Commodore Vanderbilt had started life as a ferryman and had become America’s greatest railroad “magnate”; how Rockefeller had begun his career sitting on a high stool in a Cleveland commission house, earning six dollars a week, and had created the greatest fortune that had ever been accumulated by a single man in the world’s history. I told him how the Dodges had become our great “copper kings” and the Cranes our great manufacturers of iron pipe. Enver found these stories more thrilling than any that had ever come out of Bagdad, and I found afterward that he had retold them so frequently that they had reached almost all the important people in Constantinople.

Enver was immensely impressed also by what I said about the American institutions. He went through all the buildings and expressed his enthusiasm at everything he saw, and he even suggested that he would like to send his brother there. He took tea with Mrs. Gates, wife of President Gates, discussed most intelligently the courses, and asked if we could not introduce the study of agriculture. The teachers he met seemed to be a great revelation.

“I expected to find these missionaries as they are pictured in the Berlin newspapers,” he said, “with long hair and hanging jaws, and hands clasped constantly in a prayerful attitude. But here is Dr. Gates, talking Turkish like a native and acting like a man of the world. I am more than pleased, and thank you for bringing me.”

We all saw Enver that afternoon in his most delightful aspect. My idea that this visit in itself would protect the colleges from disturbance proved to have been a happy one. The Turkish Empire has been a tumultuous place in the last four years, but the American colleges have had no difficulties, either with the Turkish Government or with the Turkish populace.

This visit was only an agreeable interlude in events of the most exciting character. Enver, amiable as he could be on occasion, had deliberately determined to put Turkey in the war on Germany’s side. Germany had now reached the point where she no longer concealed her intentions. Once before, when I had interfered in the interest of peace, Wangenheim had encouraged my action. The reason, as I have indicated, was that, at that time, Germany had wished Turkey to keep out of the war, for the German General Staff expected to win without her help. But now Wangenheim wanted Turkey in. As I was not working in Germany’s interest, but as I was anxious to protect American institutions, I still kept urging Enver and Talaat to keep out. This made Wangenheim angry. “I thought that you were a neutral?” he now exclaimed.

“I thought that you were—in Turkey,” I answered.

Toward the end of October, Wangenheim was leaving nothing undone to start hostilities; all he needed now was a favourable occasion.

Even after Germany had closed the Dardanelles, the German Ambassador’s task was not an easy one. Talaat was not yet entirely convinced that his best policy was war, and, as I have already said, there was still plenty of pro-Ally sympathy in official quarters. It was Talaat’s plan not to seize all the cabinet offices at once,

but gradually to elbow his way into undisputed control. At this crisis the most popularly respected members of the Ministry were Djavid, Minister of Finance, a man who was Jewish by race, but a Mohammedan by religion; Mahmoud Pasha, Minister of Public Works, a Circassian; Bustány Effendi, Minister of Commerce and Agriculture, a Christian Arab; and Oskan Effendi, Minister of Posts and Telegraphs, an Armenian—and a Christian, of course. All these leaders, as well as the Grand Vizier, openly opposed war and all now informed Talaat and Enver that they would resign if Germany succeeded in her intrigues. Thus the atmosphere was exciting; how tense the situation was a single episode will show. Sir Louis Mallet, the British Ambassador, had accepted an invitation to dine at the American Embassy on October 20th, but he sent word at the last moment that he was ill and could not come. I called on the Ambassador an hour or two afterward and found him in his garden, apparently in the best of health. Sir Louis smiled and said that his illness had been purely political. He had received a letter telling him that he was to be assassinated that evening, this letter informing him of the precise spot where the tragedy was to take place, and the time. He therefore thought that he had better stay indoors. As I had no doubt that some such crime had been planned, I offered Sir Louis the protection of our Embassy. I gave him the key to the back gate of the garden; and, with Lord Wellesley, one of his secretaries—a descendant of the Duke of Wellington—I made all arrangements for his escape to our quarters in case a flight became necessary. Our two embassies were so located that, in the event of an attack, he might go unobserved from the back gate of his to the back gate of ours. “These people are relapsing into the Middle Ages,” said Sir Louis, “when it was quite the thing to throw ambassadors into dungeons,” and I think that he anticipated that the present Turks might treat him in the same way. I at once went to the Grand Vizier and informed him of the situation, insisting that nothing less than a visit from Talaat to Sir Louis, assuring him of his safety, would undo the harm already done. I could make this demand with propriety, as we had already made arrangements to take over British interests when the break came. Within two hours Talaat made such a visit. Though one of the Turkish newspapers was printing scurrilous attacks on Sir Louis he was personally very popular with the Turks, and the Grand Vizier expressed his amazement and regret—and he was entirely sincere—that such threats had been made.

CHAPTER XI

GERMANY FORCES TURKEY INTO THE WAR

BUT we were all then in a highly nervous state, because we knew that Germany was working hard to produce a casus belli. Souchon frequently sent the Goeben and the Breslau to manœuvre in the Black Sea, hoping that the Russian fleet would attack. There were several pending situations that might end in war. Turkish and Russian troops were having occasional skirmishes on the Persian and Caucasian frontier. On October 29th, Bedouin troops crossed the Egyptian border and had a little collision with British soldiers. On this same day I had a long talk with Talaat. I called in the interest of the British Ambassador, to tell him about the Bedouins crossing into Egypt. “I suppose,” Sir Louis wrote me, “that this means war; you might mention this news to Talaat and impress upon him the possible results of this mad act.” Already Sir Louis had had difficulties with Turkey over this matter. When he had protested to the Grand Vizier about the Turkish troops near the Egyptian frontier, the Turkish statesman had pointedly replied that Turkey recognized no such thing as an Egyptian frontier. By this he meant, of course, that Egypt itself was Turkish territory and that the English occupation was a temporary usurpation. When I brought this Egyptian situation to Talaat’s attention he said that no Ottoman Bedouins had crossed into Egypt. The Turks had been building wells on the Sinai peninsula to use in case war broke out with England; England was destroying these wells and the Bedouins, said Talaat, had interfered to stop this destruction.

At this meeting Talaat frankly told me that Turkey had decided to side with the Germans and to sink or swim with them. He went again over the familiar grounds, and added that if Germany won—and Talaat said that he was convinced that Germany would win—the Kaiser would get his revenge on Turkey if Turkey had not helped him to obtain this victory. Talaat frankly admitted that fear—the motive, which, as I have said, is the one that chiefly inspires Turkish acts—was driving Turkey into a German alliance. He analyzed the whole situation most dispassionately; he said that nations could not afford such emotions as gratitude, or hate, or affection; the only guide to action should be cold-blooded policy.

“At this moment,” said Talaat, “it is for our interest to side with Germany; if, a month from now, it is our interest to embrace France and England we shall do that just as readily.”

“Russia is our greatest enemy,” he continued; “and we are afraid of her. If now, while Germany is attacking Russia, we can give her a good strong kick, and so make her powerless to injure us for some time, it is Turkey’s duty to administer that kick!”

And then turning to me with a half-melancholy, half-defiant smile, he summed up the whole situation.

“Ich mit die Deutschen,” he said, in his broken German.

Because the Cabinet was so divided, however, the Germans themselves had to push Turkey over the precipice. The evening following my talk with Talaat, most fateful news came from Russia. Three Turkish torpedo boats had entered the harbour of Odessa, had sunk the Russian gunboat Donetz, killing a part of the crew, and had damaged two Russian dreadnaughts. They also sank the French ship Portugal, killing two of the crew and wounding two others. They then turned their shells on the town and destroyed a sugar factory, with some loss of life. German officers commanded these Turkish vessels; there were very few Turks on board, as the Turkish crews had been given a holiday for the Turkish religious festival of Bairam. The act was simply a wanton and unprovoked one; the Germans raided the town deliberately, in order to make war inevitable. The German officers on the General, as my friend had told me, were constantly threatening to commit some such act, if Turkey did not do so; well, now they had done it. When this news reached Constantinople, Djemal was playing cards at the Cercle d’Orient. As Djemal was Minister of Marine, this attack, had it been an official act of Turkey, could have been made only on his orders. When someone called him from the card table to tell him the news, Djemal was much excited. “I know nothing about it,” he replied. “It has not been done by my orders.” On the evening of the 29th I had another talk with Talaat. He told me that he had known nothing of this attack beforehand and that the whole responsibility rested with the German, Admiral Souchon.

Whether Djemal and Talaat were telling the truth in thus pleading ignorance I do not know; my opinion is that they were expecting some such outrage as this. But there is no question that the Grand Vizier, Saïd Halim, was genuinely grieved. When M. Bompard and Sir Louis Mallet called on him and demanded their passports, he burst into tears. He begged them to delay; he was sure that the matter could be adjusted. The Grand Vizier was the only member of the Cabinet whom Enver and Talaat particularly wished to placate. As a prince of the royal house of Egypt and as an extremely rich nobleman, his presence in the Cabinet, as I have already said, gave it a certain standing. This probably explains the message which I now received. Talaat asked me to call upon the Russian Ambassador and ask what amends Turkey could make that would satisfy the Czar. There is little likelihood that Talaat sincerely wished me to patch up the difficulty; his purpose was merely to show the Grand Vizier that he was attempting to meet his wishes, and, in this way, to keep him in the Cabinet. I saw M. Giers, but found him in no submissive mood. He said that Turkey could make amends only by dismissing all the German officers in the Turkish army and navy; he had his instructions to leave at once and he intended to do so. However, he would wait long enough in Bulgaria to receive their reply, and, if they accepted his terms, he would come back.

“Russia, herself, will guarantee that the Turkish fleet does not again come into the Black Sea,” said M. Giers, grimly. Talaat called on me in the afternoon, saying that he had just had lunch with Wangenheim. The Cabinet had the Russian reply under consideration, he said; the Grand Vizier wished to have M. Giers’s terms put in writing; would I attempt to get it? By this time Garroni, the Italian Ambassador, had taken charge of Russian affairs, and I told Talaat that such negotiations were out of my hands and that any further negotiations must be conducted through him.

“Why don’t you drop your mask as messenger boy of the Grand Vizier and talk to me as Talaat?” I asked.

He laughed and said: “Well, Wangenheim, Enver, and I prefer that the war shall come now.”

Bustány, Oskan, Mahmoud, and Djavid at once carried out their threats and resigned from the Cabinet, thus leaving the government in the hands of Moslem Turks. The Grand Vizier, although he had threatened to resign, did not do so; he was exceedingly pompous and vain, and enjoyed the dignities of his office so much that, when it came to the final decision, he could not surrender them. Thus the net result of Turkey’s entrance into the war, so far as internal politics was concerned, was to put the nation entirely in the hands of the Committee of Union and Progress, which now controlled the Government in practically all its departments. Thus the idealistic organization which had come into existence to give Turkey the blessings of democracy had ended by becoming a tool of Prussian autocracy.

One final picture I have of these exciting days. On the evening of the 30th I called at the British Embassy. British residents were already streaming in large numbers to my office for protection, and fears of ill treatment, even the massacre of foreigners, filled everybody’s mind. Amid all this tension I found one imperturbable figure. Sir Louis was sitting in the chancery, before a huge fireplace, with large piles of documents heaped about him in a semi-circle. Secretaries and clerks were constantly entering, their arms full of papers, which they added to the accumulations already surrounding the Ambassador. Sir Louis would take up document after document, glance through it and almost invariably drop it into the fire. These papers contained the embassy records for probably a hundred years. In them were written the great achievements of a long line of distinguished ambassadors. They contained the story of all the diplomatic triumphs in Turkey of Stratford de Redcliffe, the “Great Elchi,” as the Turks called him, who, for the greater part of almost fifty years, from 1810 to 1858, practically ruled the Turkish Empire in the interest of England. The records of other great British ambassadors at the Sublime Porte now went, one by one, into Sir Louis Mallet’s fire. The long story of British ascendency in Turkey had reached its close. The twenty-years’ campaign of the Kaiser to destroy England’s influence and to become England’s successor had finally triumphed, and the blaze in Sir Louis’s chancery was really the funeral pyre of England’s vanished power in Turkey. As I looked upon this dignified and yet somewhat pensive diplomat, sitting there amid all the splendours of the British Embassy, I naturally thought of how once the sultans had bowed with fear and awe before the majesty of England, in the days when Prussia and Germany were little more than names. Yet the British Ambassador, as is usually the case with British diplomatic and military figures, was quiet and self-possessed. We sat there before his fire and discussed the details of his departure. He gave me a list of the English residents who were to leave and those who were to stay, and I made final arrangements with Sir Louis for taking over British interests. Distressing in many ways as was this collapse of British influence in Turkey, the honour of Great Britain and that of her ambassador was still secure. Sir Louis had not purchased Turkish officials with money, as had Wangenheim; he had not corrupted the Turkish press, trampled on every remaining vestige of international law, fraternized with a gang of political desperadoes, and conducted a ceaseless campaign of misrepresentations and lies against his enemy. The diplomatic game that had ended in England’s defeat was one which English statesmen were not qualified to play. It called for talents such as only a Wangenheim possessed—it needed that German statecraft which, in accordance with Bismarck’s maxim, was ready to sacrifice for the Fatherland “not only life but honour.”

CHAPTER XII

THE TURKS ATTEMPT TO TREAT ALIEN ENEMIES DECENTLY BUT THE GERMANS INSIST ON PERSECUTING THEM

SOON after the bombardment of Odessa I was closeted with Enver, discussing the subject which was then uppermost in the minds of all the foreigners in Turkey. How would the Government treat its resident enemies? Would it intern them, establish concentration camps, pursue them with German malignity, and perhaps apply the favourite Turkish measure with Christians—torture and massacre? Thousands of enemy subjects were then living in the Ottoman Empire; many of them had spent their whole lives there; others had even been born on Ottoman soil. All these people, when Turkey entered the war, had every reason to expect the harshest kind of treatment. It is no exaggeration to say that most of them lived in constant fear of murder. The Dardanelles had been closed, so that there was little chance that outside help could reach these aliens; the capitulatory rights, under which they had lived for centuries, had been abrogated. There was really nothing between the foreign residents and destruction except the American flag. The state of war had now made me, as American Ambassador, the protector of all British, French, Serbian, and Belgian subjects. I realized from the beginning that my task would be a difficult one. On one hand were the Germans, urging their well-known ideas of repression and brutality, while on the other were the Turks, with their traditional aversion to Christians and their natural instinct to maltreat those who are helplessly placed in their power.

Yet I had certain strong arguments on my side and I now had called upon Enver for the purpose of laying them before him. Turkey desired the good opinion of the United States, and hoped, after the war, to find support among American financiers. At that time all the embassies in Constantinople took it for granted that the United States would be the peacemaker; if Turkey expected us to be her friend, I now told Enver, she would have to treat enemy foreigners in a civilized way.

“You hope to be reinstated as a world power,” I said. “You must remember that the civilized world will carefully watch you; your future status will depend on how you conduct yourself in war.” The ruling classes among the Turks, including Enver, realized that the outside world regarded them as a people who had no respect for the sacredness of human life or the finer emotions and they keenly resented this attitude. I now reminded Enver that Turkey had a splendid opportunity to disprove all these criticisms. “The world may say you are barbarians,” I argued; “show by the way you treat these alien enemies that you are not. Only in this way can you be freed permanently from the ignominy of the capitulations. Prove that you are worthy of being emancipated from foreign tutelage. Be civilized—be modern!”

In view of what was happening in Belgium and northern France at that moment, my use of the word “modern,” was a little unfortunate. Enver quickly saw the point. Up to this time he had maintained his usual attitude of erect and dignified composure, and his face, as always, had been attentive, imperturbable, almost expressionless. Now in a flash his whole bearing changed. His countenance broke into a cynical smile, he leaned over, brought his fist down on the table, and said:

“Modern! No; however Turkey shall wage war, at least we shall not be ‘modern.’ That is the most barbaric system of all. We shall simply try to be decent!”

Naturally I construed this as a promise; I understood the changeableness of the Turkish character well enough, however, to know that more than a promise was necessary. The Germans were constantly prodding the Turkish officials, persuading them to adopt the favourite German plan against enemy aliens. Germany has revived many of the principles of ancient and medieval warfare, one of her most barbaric resurrections from the past being this practice of keeping certain representatives of the population, preferably people of distinction and influence, as hostages for the “good behaviour” of others. At this moment the German military staff was urging the Turks to keep foreign residents for this purpose. Just as the Germans held non-combatants in Belgium as security for the “friendliness” of the Belgians, and placed Belgian women and children at the head of their advancing armies, so the Germans in Turkey were now planning to use French and British residents as part of their protective system against the Allied fleet. That this sinister influence was constantly at work I well knew; therefore it was necessary that I should meet it immediately, and, if possible, gain the upper hand at the very start. I decided that the departure of the Entente diplomats and residents from Constantinople would really put to the test my ability to protect the foreign residents. If all the French and English who really wished to leave could safely get out of Turkey, I believed that this demonstration would have a restraining influence, not only upon the Germans, but upon the underlings of the Turkish official world.

As soon as I arrived at the railroad station, the day following the break, I saw that my task was to be a difficult one. I had arranged with the Turkish authorities for two trains; one for the English and French residents, which was to leave at seven o’clock, and one for the diplomats and their staff, which was to go at nine. But the arrangement was not working according to schedule. The station was a surging mass of excited and frightened people; the police were there in full force, pushing the crowds back; the scene was an indescribable mixture of soldiers, gendarmes, diplomats, baggage, and Turkish functionaries.

One of the most conspicuous figures was Bedri Bey, prefect of police, a lawyer politician, who had recently been elevated to this position, and who keenly realized the importance of his new office. Bedri was an intimate friend and political subordinate of Talaat and one of his most valuable tools. He ranked high in the Committee of Union and Progress, and aspired ultimately to obtain a cabinet position. Perhaps his most impelling motive was his hatred of foreigners and foreign influence. In his eyes Turkey was the land exclusively of the Turks; he despised all the other elements in its population, and he particularly resented the control which the foreign embassies had for years exerted in the domestic concerns of his country. Indeed, there were few men in Turkey with whom the permanent abolition of the capitulations was such a serious matter. Naturally in the next few months I saw much of Bedri; he was constantly crossing my path, taking an almost malicious pleasure in interfering with every move which I made in the interest of the foreigners. His attitude was half provoking, half jocular; we were always trying to outwit each other—I attempting to protect the French and British, Bedri always turning up as an obstacle to my efforts; the fight for the foreigners, indeed, almost degenerated into a personal duel between the Prefect of Police and the American Embassy. Bedri was capable, well educated, very agile, and not particularly ill-natured, but he loved to toy with a helpless foreigner. Naturally, he found his occupation this evening a congenial one.

“What’s all the trouble about?” I asked Bedri.

“We have changed our minds,” he said, and his manner showed that the change had not been displeasing to him. “We shall let the train go that is to take the ambassadors and their staffs. But we have decided not to let the unofficial classes leave—the train that was to take them will not go.”

My staff and I had worked hard to get this safe passage for the enemy nationals. Now apparently some influence had negatived our efforts. This sudden change in plans was producing the utmost confusion and consternation. At the station there were two groups of passengers, one of which could go and the other of which could not. The British and French ambassadors did not wish to leave their nationals behind, and the latter refused to believe that their train, which the Turkish officials had definitely promised, would not start sometime that evening. I immediately called up Enver, who substantiated Bedri’s statement. Turkey had many subjects in Egypt, he said, whose situation was causing great anxiety. Before the French and English residents could leave Turkey, assurances must be given that the rights of Turkish subjects in these countries would be protected. I had no difficulty in arranging this detail, for Sir Louis Mallet immediately gave the necessary assurances. However, this did not settle the matter; indeed, it had been little more than a pretext. Bedri still refused to let the train start; the order holding it up, he said, could not be rescinded, for that would now disarrange the general schedule and might cause accidents. I recognized all this as mere Turkish evasion and I knew that the order had come from a higher source than Bedri; still nothing could be done at that moment. Moreover, Bedri would let no one get on the diplomatic train until I had personally identified him. So I had to stand at a little gate, and pass upon each applicant. Everyone, whether he belonged to the diplomatic corps or not, attempted to force himself through this narrow passageway, and we had an old-fashioned Brooklyn Bridge crush on a small scale. People were running in all directions, checking baggage, purchasing tickets, arguing with officials, consoling distracted women and frightened children, while Bedri, calm and collected, watched the whole pandemonium with an unsympathetic smile. Hats were knocked off, clothing was torn, and, to add to the confusion, Mallet, the British Ambassador, became involved in a set-to with an officious Turk—the Englishman winning first honours easily; and I caught a glimpse of Bompard, the French Ambassador, vigorously shaking a Turkish policeman. One lady dropped her baby in my arms, later another handed me a small boy, and still later, when I was standing at the gate, identifying Turkey’s departing guests, one of the British secretaries made me the custodian of his dog. Meanwhile, Sir Louis Mallet became obstreperous and refused to leave.

“I shall stay here,” he said, “until the last British subject leaves Turkey.”

But I told him that he was no longer the protector of the British; that I, as American Ambassador, had assumed this responsibility; and that I could hardly assert myself in this capacity if he remained in Constantinople.

“Certainly,” I said, “the Turks would not recognize me as in charge of British interests if you remain here.”

Moreover, I suggested that he remain at Dedeagatch for a few days, and await the arrival of his fellow British. Sir Louis reluctantly accepted my point of view and boarded the train. As the train left the station I caught my final glimpse of the British Ambassador, sitting in a private car, almost buried in a mass of trunks, satchels, boxes, and diplomatic pouches, surrounded by his embassy staff, and sympathetically watched by his secretary’s dog.

The unofficial foreigners remained in the station several hours, hoping that, at the last moment, they would be permitted to go. Bedri, however, was inexorable. Their position was almost desperate. They had given up their quarters in Constantinople, and now found themselves practically stranded. Some were taken in by friends for the night, others found accommodations

in hotels. But their situation caused the utmost anxiety. Evidently, despite all official promises, Turkey was determined to keep these foreign residents as hostages. On the one hand were Enver and Talaat, telling me that they intended to conduct their war in a humane manner, and, on the other, were their underlings, such as Bedri, behaving in a fashion that negatived all these civilized pretensions. The fact was that the officials were quarrelling among themselves about the treatment of foreigners; and the German General Staff was telling the Cabinet that they were making a great mistake in showing any leniency to their enemy aliens. Finally, I succeeded in making arrangements for them to leave the following day. Bedri, in more complaisant mood, spent that afternoon at the embassy, viséing passports; we both went to the station in the evening and started the train safely toward Dedeagatch. I gave a box of candy—”Turkish Delights,” to each one of the fifty women and children on the train; it altogether was a happy party and they made no attempt to hide their relief at leaving Turkey. At Dedeagatch they met the diplomatic corps, and the reunion that took place, I afterward learned, was extremely touching. I was made happy by receiving many testimonials of their gratitude, in particular a letter, signed by more than a hundred, expressing their thanks to Mrs. Morgenthau, the embassy staff, and myself.

There were still many who wished to go and next day I called on Talaat in their behalf. I found him in one of his most gracious moods. The Cabinet, he said, had carefully considered the whole matter of English and French residents in Turkey, and my arguments, he added, had greatly influenced them. They had reached the formal decision that enemy aliens could leave or remain, as they preferred. There would be no concentration camps, civilians could pursue their usual business in peace, and, so long as they behaved themselves, they would not be molested.

“We propose to show,” said Talaat, “by our treatment of aliens, that we are not a race of barbarians.”

In return for this promise he asked a favour of me: would I not see that Turkey was praised in the American and European press for this decision?

After returning to the embassy I immediately sent for Mr. Theron Damon, correspondent of the Associated Press, Doctor Lederer, correspondent of the Berliner Tageblatt, and Doctor Sandler, who represented the Paris Herald, and gave them interviews, praising the attitude of Turkey toward the foreign residents. I also cabled the news to Washington, London, and Paris and to all our consuls.

Hardly had I finished with the correspondents when I again received alarming news. I had arranged for another train that evening, and I now heard that the Turks were refusing to visé the passports of those whose departure I had provided for. This news, coming right after Talaat’s explicit promise, was naturally disturbing. I immediately started for the railroad station, and the sight which I saw there increased my anger at the Minister of the Interior. A mass of distracted people filled the inclosure; the women were weeping, and the children were screaming, while a platoon of Turkish soldiers, commanded by an undersized popinjay of a major, was driving everybody out of the station with the flat sides of their guns. Bedri, as usual, was there, and as usual, he was clearly enjoying the confusion; certain of the passengers, he told me, had not paid their income tax, and, for this reason, they would not be permitted to leave. I announced that I would be personally responsible for this payment.

“I can’t get ahead of you, Mr. Ambassador, can I?” said Bedri, with a laugh. From this we all thought that my offer had settled the matter and that the train would leave according to schedule. But then suddenly, came another order holding it up again.

Since I had just had a promise from Talaat I decided to find that functionary and learn what all this meant. I jumped into my automobile and went to the Sublime Porte, where he usually had his headquarters. Finding no one there, I told the chauffeur to drive directly to Talaat’s house. Sometime before I had visited Enver in his domestic surroundings and this occasion now gave me the opportunity to compare his manner of life with that of his more powerful associate. The contrast was a startling one. I had found Enver living in luxury, in one of the most aristocratic parts of the town, while now I was driving to one of the poorer sections. We came to a narrow street, bordered by little rough, unpainted wooden houses; only one thing distinguished this thoroughfare from all others in Constantinople and suggested that it was the abiding place of the most powerful man in the Turkish Empire. At either end stood a policeman, letting no one enter who could not give a satisfactory reason for doing so. Our auto, like all others, was stopped, but we were promptly permitted to pass when we explained who we were. As contrasted with Enver’s palace, with its innumerable rooms and gorgeous furniture, Talaat’s house was an old, rickety, wooden, three-story building. All this, I afterward learned, was part of the setting which Talaat had staged for his career. Like many an American politician, he had found his position as a man of “the people” a valuable political asset, and he knew that a sudden display of prosperity and ostentation would weaken his influence with the Union and Progress Committee, most of whose members, like himself, had risen from the lower walks of life. The contents of the house were quite in keeping with the exterior. There were no suggestions of Oriental magnificence. The furniture was cheap; a few coarse prints hung on the walls, and one or two well-worn rugs were scattered on the floor. On one side stood a wooden table, and on this rested a telegraph instrument—once Talaat’s means of earning a living, and now a means by which he communicated with his associates. In the present troubled conditions in Turkey Talaat sometimes preferred to do his own telegraphing!

Amid these surroundings I awaited for a few minutes the entrance of the Big Boss of Turkey. In due time a door opened at the other end of the room, and a huge, lumbering, gaily-decorated figure entered. I was startled by the contrast which this Talaat presented to the one who had become such a familiar figure to me at the Sublime Porte. It was no longer the Talaat of the European clothes and the thin veneer of European manners; the man whom I now saw looked like a real Bulgarian gypsy. Talaat wore the usual red Turkish fez; the rest of his bulky form was clothed in thick gray pajamas; and from this combination protruded a rotund, smiling face. His mood was half genial, half deprecating; Talaat well understood what pressing business had led me to invade his domestic privacy, and his behaviour now resembled that of the unrepentant bad boy in school. He came and sat down with a good-natured grin, and began to make excuses. Quietly the door opened again, and a hesitating little girl was pushed into the room, bringing a tray of cigarettes and coffee. Presently I saw that a young woman, apparently about twenty-five years old, was standing back of the child, urging her to enter. Here, then, were Talaat’s wife and adopted daughter; I had already discovered that, while Turkish women never enter society or act as hostesses, they are extremely inquisitive about their husbands’ guests, and like to get surreptitious glimpses of them. Evidently Madame Talaat, on this occasion, was not satisfied with her preliminary view, for, a few minutes afterward, she appeared at a window directly opposite me, but entirely unseen by her husband, who was facing in the other direction, and there she remained very quiet and very observant for several minutes. As she was in the house, she was unveiled; her face was handsome and intelligent; and it was quite apparent that she enjoyed this close-range view of an American ambassador.

“Well, Talaat,” I said, realizing that the time had come for plain speaking, “don’t you know how foolishly you are acting? You told me a few hours ago that you had decided to treat the French and English decently and you asked me to publish this news in the American and foreign press. I at once called in the newspaper men and told them how splendidly you were behaving. And this at your own request! The whole world will be reading about it to-morrow. Now you are doing your best to counteract all my efforts in your behalf; here you have repudiated your first promise to be decent. Are you going to keep the promises you made me? Will you stick to them, or do you intend to keep changing your mind all the time? Now let’s have a real understanding. The thing we Americans particularly pride ourselves on is keeping our word. We do it as individuals and as a nation. We refuse to deal with people as equals who do not do this. You might as well understand now that we can do no business with each other unless I can depend on your promises.”

“Now, this isn’t my fault,” Talaat answered. “The Germans are to blame for stopping that train. The German Chief of Staff has just returned and is making a big fuss, saying that we are too easy with the French and English and that we must not let them go away. He says that we must keep them for hostages. It was his interference that did this.”

That was precisely what I had suspected. Talaat had given me his promise, then Bronssart, head of the German Staff, had practically countermanded his orders. Talaat’s admission gave me the opening which I had wished for. By this time my relations with Talaat had become so friendly that I could talk to him with the utmost frankness.

“Now, Talaat,” I said, “you have got to have someone to advise you in your relations with foreigners. You must make up your mind whether you want me or the German Staff. Don’t you think you will make a mistake if you place yourself entirely in the hands of the Germans? The time may come when you will need me against them.”

“What do you mean by that?” he asked, watching for my answer with intense curiosity.

“The Germans are sure to ask you to do many things you don’t want to do. If you can tell them that the American Ambassador objects, my support may prove useful to you. Besides, you know you all expect peace in a few months. You know that the Germans really care nothing for Turkey, and certainly you have no claims on the Allies for assistance. There is only one nation in the world that you can look to as a disinterested friend and that is the United States.”

This fact was so apparent that I hardly needed to argue it in any great detail. However, I had another argument that struck still nearer home. Already the struggle between the war department and the civil powers had started. I knew that Talaat, although he was Minister of the Interior, and a civilian, was determined not to sacrifice a tittle of his authority to Enver, the Germans, and the representatives of the military.

“If you let the Germans win this point to-day,” I said, “you are practically in their power. You are now the head of affairs, but you are still a civilian. Are you going to let the military, represented by Enver and the German staff, overrule your orders? Apparently that is what has happened to-day. If you submit to it, you will find that they will be running things from now on. The Germans will put this country under martial law; then where will you civilians be?”

I could see that this argument was having its effect on Talaat. He remained quiet for a few moments, evidently pondering my remarks. Then he said, with the utmost deliberation,

“I am going to help you.”

He turned around to his table and began working his telegraph instrument. I shall never forget the picture; this huge Turk, sitting there in his gray pajamas and his red fez, working industriously his own telegraph key, his young wife gazing at him through a little window and the late afternoon sun streaming into the room. Evidently the ruler of Turkey was having his troubles, and, as the argument went on over the telegraph, Talaat would bang his key with increasing irritation. He told me that the pompous major at the station insisted on having Enver’s written orders—since orders over the wire might easily be counterfeited. It took Talaat some time to locate Enver, and then the dispute apparently started all over again. A piece of news which Talaat received at that moment over the wire almost ruined my case. After a prolonged thumping of his instrument, in the course of which Talaat’s face lost its geniality and became almost savage, he turned to me and said:

“The English bombarded the Dardanelles this morning and killed two Turks!”

And then he added:

“We intend to kill three Christians for every Moslem killed!”

For a moment I thought that everything was lost. Talaat’s face reflected only one emotion—hatred of the English. Afterward, when reading the Cromer report on the Dardanelles, I found that the British Committee stigmatized this early attack as a mistake, since it gave the Turks an early warning of their plans. I can testify that it was a mistake for another reason, for I now found that these few strange shots almost destroyed my plans to get the foreign residents out of Turkey. Talaat was enraged, and I had to go over much of the