Was there, then, no “Holy War” at all? Did Wangenheim’s “big thing” really fail? Whenever I think of this burlesque “Jihad” a particular scene in the American Embassy comes to my mind. On one side of the table sits Enver, most peacefully sipping tea and eating cakes, and on the other side is myself, engaged in the same unwarlike occupation. It is November 14th, the day after the Sultan has declared his Holy War; there have been meetings at the mosques and other places, at which the declaration has been read and fiery speeches made. Enver now assures me that absolutely no harm will come to Americans; in fact, that there will be no massacres anyway. While he is talking, one of my secretaries comes in and tells me that a little mob is making demonstrations against certain foreign establishments. It has assailed an Austrian shop which has unwisely kept up its sign saying that it has “English clothes” for sale. I ask Enver what this means; he answers that it is all a mistake, there is no intention of attacking anybody. A little while after he leaves I am informed that the mob has attacked the Bon Marché, a French dry-goods store, and is heading directly for the British Embassy. I at once call Enver on the telephone; it is all right, he says, nothing will happen to the Embassy. A minute or two after, the mob immediately wheels about and starts for Tokatlians, the most important restaurant in Constantinople. The fact that this is conducted by an Armenian makes it fair game. Six men who have poles, with hooks at the end, break all the mirrors and windows, others take the marble tops of the tables and smash them to bits. In a few minutes the place has been completely gutted.

This demonstration comprised the “Holy War,” so far as Constantinople understood it. Such was the inglorious end of Germany’s attempt to arouse 300,000,000 Mohammedans against the Christian world! Only one definite result did the Kaiser accomplish by spreading this inciting literature. It aroused in the Mohammedan soul all that intense hatred of the Christian which is the fundamental fact in his strange emotional nature, and thus started passions aflame that afterward spent themselves in the massacres of the Armenians and other subject peoples.

CHAPTER XV

DJEMAL, A TROUBLESOME MARK ANTONY—AN EARLY GERMAN ATTEMPT TO GET A GERMAN PEACE

his departure was not entirely disinterested. The fact was that most of them were exceedingly glad to see him go. He had been a thorn in the side of Talaat and Enver for some time, and they were perfectly content that he should exercise his imperious and stubborn nature against the Syrians, Armenians, and other non-Moslem elements in the Mediterranean provinces. Djemal was not a popular man in Constantinople. The other members of the triumvirate, in addition to their less desirable qualities, had certain attractive traits—Talaat his rough virility and spontaneous good nature, Enver his courage and personal graciousness—but there was little about Djemal that was pleasing. An American physician who had specialised in the study of physiognomy had found Djemal a fascinating subject. He told me that he had never seen a face that so combined ferocity with great power and penetration. Enver, as his history showed, could be cruel and bloodthirsty, but he hid his more insidious qualities under a face that was bland, unruffled, and even agreeable. Djemal, however, did not disguise his tendencies, for his face clearly pictured the inner soul. His eyes were black and piercing; their sharpness, the rapidity and keenness with which they darted from one object to another, taking in apparently everything with a few lightning-like glances, signalised cunning, remorselessness, and selfishness to an extreme degree. Even his laugh, which disclosed all his white teeth, was unpleasant and animal-like. His black hair and black beard, contrasting with his pale face, only heightened this impression. At first, Djemal’s figure seemed somewhat insignificant—he was undersized, almost stumpy, and somewhat stoop-shouldered; as soon as he began to move, however, it was evident that his body was full of energy. Whenever he shook your hand, gripping you with a vice-like grasp and looking at you with those roving, penetrating eyes, the man’s personal force became impressive.

Yet, after a momentary meeting, I was not surprised to hear that Djemal was a man with whom assassination and judicial murder were all part of the day’s work. Like all the Young Turks, his origin had been extremely humble. He had joined the Committee of Union and Progress in the early days, and his personal power, as well as his relentlessness, had rapidly made him one of the leaders. After the murder of Nazim, Djemal had become Military Governor of Constantinople, his chief duty in this post being to remove from the scene the opponents of the ruling powers. This congenial task he performed with great skill, and the reign of terror that resulted was largely Djemal’s handiwork. Subsequently Djemal became Minister of Marine, but he could not work harmoniously in the Cabinet; he was always a troublesome partner. In the days preceding the break with the Entente he was popularly regarded as a Francophile. Whatever feeling Djemal may have entertained toward the Entente, he made little attempt to conceal his detestation of the Germans. It is said that he would swear at them in their presence—in Turkish, of course—and he was one of the few important Turkish officials who never came under their influence. The fact was that Djemal represented that tendency which was rapidly gaining the ascendancy in Turkish policy—Pan-Turkism. He despised the subject peoples of the Ottoman country—Arabs, Greeks, Armenians, Circassians, Jews; his ambition was to Turkify the whole Empire. His personal ambition brought him into frequent conflict with Enver and Talaat; they told me many times that they could not control him. It was for this reason that, as I have said, they were glad to see him go—not that they really expected him to capture the Suez Canal and drive out the English. Incidentally this appointment fairly indicated the incongruous organisation that then existed in Turkey. As Minister of Marine, Djemal’s real place was at the navy department; instead of that, the head of the navy was sent to lead an army over the burning sands of Syria and Sinai.

Yet Djemal’s expedition represented Turkey’s most spectacular attempt to assert its military power against the Allies. As Djemal moved out of the station, the whole Turkish populace felt that an historic moment had arrived. Turkey in less than a century had lost the greater part of her dominions, and nothing had more pained the national pride than the English occupation of Egypt. All during this occupation, Turkish suzerainty had been recognised; as soon as Turkey declared war on Great Britain, however, the British had ended this fiction and had formally taken over this great province. Djemal’s expedition was Turkey’s reply to this act of England. The real purpose of the war, the Turkish people had been told, was to restore the vanishing empire of the Osmans, and to this great undertaking the recovery of Egypt was merely the first step. The Turks also knew that, under English administration, Egypt had become a prosperous country, and that it would, therefore, yield great treasure to the conqueror. It is no wonder that the huzzahs of the Turkish people followed the departing Djemal.

About the same time, Enver left to take command of Turkey’s other great military enterprise—the attack on Russia through the Caucasus. Here also were Turkish provinces to be “redeemed.” After the war of 1878, Turkey had been compelled to cede to Russia certain rich territories between the Caspian and the Black Sea, inhabited chiefly by Armenians, and it was this country which Enver now proposed to reconquer. But Enver had no ovation on his leaving. He went away quietly and unobserved. With the departure of these two men the war was now fairly on.

Despite these martial enterprises, other than warlike preparations were now under way in Constantinople. At that time—in the latter part of 1914—its external characteristics suggested nothing but war, yet now it suddenly became the great headquarters of peace. The English fleet was constantly threatening the Dardanelles, and every day Turkish troops were passing through the streets. Yet these activities did not chiefly engage the attention of the German Embassy. Wangenheim was thinking of one thing, and one thing only; this fire-eating German suddenly became a man of peace. For he now learned that the greatest service which a German Ambassador could render his Emperor would be to end the war on terms that would save Germany from exhaustion, and even from ruin; to obtain a settlement that would reintroduce his Fatherland to the society of nations.

In November Wangenheim began discussing this subject. It was part of Germany’s system, he told me, not only to be completely prepared for war, but also for peace. “A wise general, when he begins his campaign, always has at hand his plans for a retreat, in case he is defeated,” said the German Ambassador. “This principle applies just the same to a nation beginning war. There is only one certainty about war—and that is that it must end some time. So, when we plan war, we must consider also a campaign for peace.”

But Wangenheim was interested then in something more tangible than this philosophic principle. Germany had immediate reasons for desiring the end of hostilities, and Wangenheim discussed them frankly and cynically. He said that Germany had prepared for only a short war because she had expected to crush France and Russia in two brief campaigns, lasting not longer than six months. Clearly this plan had failed, and there was little likelihood that Germany would win the war. Wangenheim told me this in so many words. Germany, he added, would make a great mistake if she persisted in fighting the war to exhaustion, for such a fight would mean the permanent loss of her colonies, her mercantile marine, and her whole economic and commercial status. “If we don’t get Paris in thirty days, we are beaten,” Wangenheim had told me in August, and, though his attitude changed somewhat after the battle of the Marne, he made no attempt to conceal the fact that the great rush campaign had collapsed, that all the Germans could now look forward to was a tedious, exhausting war, and that all which they could obtain from the existing situation would be a drawn battle. “We have made a mistake this time,” Wangenheim said, “in not laying in supplies for a protracted struggle; it was an error, however, that we shall not repeat; next time we shall store up enough copper and cotton to last for five years.”

Wangenheim had another reason for wishing an immediate peace, and it was a reason which shed much light upon the shamelessness of German diplomacy. The preparation which Turkey was making for the conquest of Egypt caused this German Ambassador much annoyance and anxiety. The interest and energy which the Turks had manifested in this enterprise were particularly causing him concern. Naturally I thought at first that Wangenheim was worried that Turkey would lose, yet he confided to me that his real fear was that their ally would succeed. A victorious Turkish campaign in Egypt, Wangenheim explained, might seriously interfere with Germany’s plans. Should Turkey conquer Egypt, naturally Turkey would insist at the peace table on retaining this great province, and would expect Germany to support her in this claim. But Germany had no intention then of promoting the re-establishment of the Turkish Empire. At that time she hoped to reach an understanding with England, the basis of which was to be something in the nature of a division of interests in the East. Germany desired above all to obtain Mesopotamia as an indispensable part of her Hamburg-Bagdad scheme. In return for this, she was prepared to give her endorsement to England’s annexation of Egypt. Thus it was Germany’s plan at that time that she and England should divide Turkey’s two fairest dominions. This was one of the proposals which Germany intended to bring forth in the peace conference which Wangenheim was now scheming for, and clearly Turkey’s conquest of Egypt would have presented complications in the way of carrying out this plan. On the morality of Germany’s attitude to her ally, Turkey, it is hardly necessary to comment. The whole thing was all of a piece with Germany’s policy of “realism” in foreign relations.

Nearly all German classes, in the latter part of 1914 and the early part of 1915, were anxiously looking for peace, and they turned to Constantinople as the most promising spot where peace negotiations might most favourably be started. The Germans took it for granted that President Wilson would be the

peacemaker; indeed, they never for a moment thought of anyone else in this capacity. The only point that remained for consideration was the best way to approach the President. Such negotiations would most likely be conducted through one of the American Ambassadors in Europe. Obviously Germany had no means of access to the American Ambassadors in the great enemy capitals, and other circumstances induced them to turn to the American Ambassador in Turkey.

At this time a German diplomat appeared in Constantinople who has figured much in recent history—Dr. Richard von Kühlmann, at present Minister for Foreign Affairs. In the last five years Dr. von Kühlmann has seemed to appear in that particular part of the world where important confidential diplomatic negotiations are being conducted by the German Empire. Prince Lichnowsky has recently described his activities in London in 1913 and 1914, and he has figured even more conspicuously in the recent peace treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Soon after the war started, Dr. von Kühlmann came to Constantinople as Conseiller of the German Embassy, succeeding von Mutius, who had been called to the Colours. For one reason his appointment was appropriate, for Kühlmann had been born in Constantinople, and had spent his early life there, his father having been president of the Anatolian railway. He therefore understood the Turks as only a man can who has lived with them for many years. Personally he proved to be an interesting addition to the diplomatic colony. He impressed me as not a particularly aggressive, but a very entertaining, man; he apparently wished to become friendly with the American Embassy, and he possessed a certain attraction for us all, as he had just come from the trenches and gave us many vivid pictures of life at the front. At that time we were all keenly interested in modern warfare, and Kühlmann’s details of trench fighting held us spellbound many an afternoon and evening. His other favourite topic of conversation was Welt-Politik, and on all foreign matters he struck me as remarkably well-informed. At that time we did not regard von Kühlmann as an important man, yet the industry with which he attended to his business arrested everyone’s attention even then. Soon, however, I began to have a feeling that he was exerting a powerful influence in a quiet, velvety kind of way. He said little, but I realised that he was listening to everything and storing all kinds of information away in his mind. He was apparently Wangenheim’s closest confidant, and the man upon whom the Ambassador was depending for his contact with the German Foreign Office. About the middle of December von Kühlmann left for Berlin, where he stayed about two weeks. On his return, in the early part of January, 1915, there was a noticeable change in the atmosphere of the German Embassy. Up to that time Wangenheim had discussed peace negotiations more or less informally, but now he took up the matter specifically. I gathered that Kühlmann had been called to Berlin to receive all the latest details on this subject, and that he had come back with the definite instructions that Wangenheim should move at once. In all my talks with the German Ambassador on peace Kühlmann was always hovering in the background; at one most important conference he was present, though he participated hardly at all in the conversation, but his rôle, as usual, was that of a subordinate and quietly eager listener.

Wangenheim now informed me that January, 1915, would be an excellent time to end the war. Italy had not yet entered, though there was every reason to believe that she would do so by spring. Bulgaria and Rumania were still holding aloof, though no one expected that their waiting attitude would last for ever. France and England were preparing for the first of the “spring offensives,” and the Germans had no assurance that it would not succeed; indeed, they much feared that the German armies would meet disaster. The British and French warships were gathering at the Dardanelles, and the German General Staff and practically all military and naval experts in Constantinople believed that the Allied fleets could force their way through and capture the city. Most Turks by this time were sick of the war, and Germany always had in mind that Turkey would make a separate peace. Afterward I discovered that whenever the military situation looked ominous to Germany she was always thinking about peace, but that if the situation improved she would immediately become warlike again; it was a case of sick-devil, well-devil. Yet, badly as Wangenheim wanted peace in January, 1915, it was quite apparent that he was not thinking of a permanent peace. The greatest obstacle to peace at that time was the fact that Germany showed no signs that she regretted her crimes, and there was not the slightest evidence of the sackcloth in Wangenheim’s attitude now. Germany had made a bad guess, that was all. What Wangenheim and the other Germans saw in the situation was that their stock of wheat, cotton, and copper was inadequate for a protracted struggle. In my notes of my conversations with Wangenheim I find him frequently using such phrases as the “next war,” “next time,” and, in confidently looking forward to another greater world cataclysm than the present, he merely reflected the attitude of the dominant junker-military class. The Germans apparently wanted a reconciliation—a kind of an armistice—that would give their generals and industrial leaders time to prepare for the next conflict. At that time, nearly four years ago, Germany was moving for practically the same kind of peace negotiations which she has suggested many times since and is suggesting now. Wangenheim’s plan was that representatives of the warring Powers should gather around a table and settle things on the principle of “give and take.” He said that there was no sense in demanding that each side state its terms in advance.

“For both sides to state their terms in advance would ruin the whole thing,” he said. “What would we do? Germany, of course, would make claims that the other side would regard as ridiculously extravagant. The Entente would state terms that would put all Germany in a rage. As a result, both sides would get so angry that there would be no conference. No—if we really want to end this war we must have an armistice. Once we stop fighting, we shall not go at it again. History presents no instance in a great war where an armistice has not resulted in peace. It will be so in this case.”

Yet, from Wangenheim’s conversation I did obtain a slight inkling of Germany’s terms. The matter of Egypt and Mesopotamia, set forth above, was one of them. Wangenheim was quite insistent that Germany must have permanent naval bases in Belgium with which her navy could at all times threaten England with blockade, and so make sure “the freedom of the seas.” Germany wanted coaling rights everywhere; this demand looks absurd, because Germany has always possessed such rights in peace times. She might give France a piece of Lorraine, and a part of Belgium—perhaps Brussels—in return for the payment of an indemnity.

Wangenheim requested that I should place Germany’s case before the American Government. My letter to Washington is dated January, 1915. It went fully into the internal situation which then prevailed and gave the reasons why Germany and Turkey desired peace.

A particularly interesting part of this incident was that Germany was apparently ignoring Austria. Pallavicini, the Austrian Ambassador, knew nothing of the pending negotiations until I myself informed him of them. In thus ignoring his ally, the German Ambassador meant no personal disrespect; he was merely treating him precisely as his Foreign Office was treating Vienna—not as an equal, but practically as a retainer. The world is familiar enough with Germany’s military and diplomatic absorption of Austria-Hungary. But that Wangenheim should have made so important a move as to attempt peace negotiations, and have left it to Pallavicini to learn about it through a third party, shows that, as far back as January, 1915, the Austro-Hungarian Empire had ceased to be an independent nation.

Nothing came of this proposal, of course. Our Government declined to take action, evidently not regarding the time as opportune. Both Germany and Turkey, as I shall tell, recurred to this subject afterward. This particular negotiation ended in the latter part of March, when Kühlmann left Constantinople to become Minister at The Hague. He came and paid his farewell call at the American Embassy, as charming, as entertaining, and as debonair as ever. His last words, as he shook my hand and left the building, were—subsequent events have naturally caused me to remember them:

“We shall have peace within three months, Excellency!”

This little scene took place and this happy forecast was made in March, 1915!

CHAPTER XVI

THE TURKS PREPARE TO FLEE FROM CONSTANTINOPLE AND ESTABLISH A NEW CAPITAL IN ASIA MINOR—THE ALLIED FLEET BOMBARDING THE DARDANELLES

The situation of Turkey, when these first rumours of an Allied bombardment reached us, was fairly desperate. On all hands there were evidences of the fear and panic that had seized not only the populace, but the official classes. Calamities from all sides were apparently closing in on the country. Up to January 1, 1915, Turkey had done nothing to justify her participation in the war; on the contrary, she had met defeat practically everywhere. Djemal, as already recorded, had left Constantinople as the prospective “Conqueror of Egypt,” but his expedition had proved to be a bloody and humiliating failure. Enver’s attempt to redeem the Caucasus from Russian rule had resulted in an even more frightful military disaster. He had ignored the advice of the Germans, which was to let the Russians advance to Sivas and make his stand there, and, instead, he had boldly attempted to gain Russian territory in the Caucasus. This army had been defeated at every point, but the military reverses did not end its sufferings. The Turks had a most inadequate medical or sanitary service; typhus and dysentery broke out in all the camps, the deaths from these diseases reaching 100,000 men. Dreadful stories were constantly coming in telling of the sufferings of these soldiers. That England was preparing an invasion of Mesopotamia was well known, and no one at that time had any reason to believe that it would not succeed. Every day the Turks expected the news that the Bulgarians had declared war and were marching on Constantinople, and they knew that such an attack would necessarily bring in Rumania and Greece. It was no diplomatic secret that Italy was waiting only for the arrival of warm weather to join the Allies. At this moment the Russian fleet was bombarding Trebizond, on the Black Sea, and was daily expected at the entrance to the Bosphorus. Meanwhile the domestic situation was deplorable; all over Turkey thousands of the populace were daily dying of starvation; practically all able-bodied men had been taken into the army, so that only a few were left to till the fields; the criminal requisitions had almost destroyed all business; the Treasury was in a more exhausted state than normally, for the closing of the Dardanelles and the blockading of the Mediterranean ports had stopped all imports and customs dues; and the increasing wrath of the people seemed likely any day to break out against Talaat and his associates. And now, surrounded by increasing troubles on every hand, the Turks learned that this mighty armada of England and her allies was approaching, determined to destroy the defences and capture the city. At that time there was no force which the Turks feared so greatly as they feared the British fleet. Its tradition of several centuries of uninterrupted victories had completely seized their imagination. It seemed to them superhuman—the one overwhelming power which it was hopeless to contest.

Wangenheim and also nearly all of the German military and naval forces not only regarded the forcing of the Dardanelles as possible, but they believed it to be inevitable. The possibility of British success was one of the most familiar topics of discussion, and the weight of opinion, both lay and professional, inclined in favour of the Allied fleets. Talaat told me that an attempt to force the strait would succeed—it only depended on England’s willingness to sacrifice a few ships. The real reason why Turkey had sent a force against Egypt, Talaat added, was to divert England from making an attack on the Gallipoli Peninsula. The state of mind that existed is shown by the fact that on January 1st the Turkish Government had made preparations for two trains, one of which was to take the Sultan and his suite to Asia Minor, while the other was intended for Wangenheim, Pallavicini, and the rest of the diplomatic corps. On January 2nd I had an illuminating talk with Pallavicini. He showed me a certificate given him by Bedri, the Prefect of Police, passing him and his secretaries and servants on one of these emergency trains. He also had seat tickets for himself and all of his suite. He said that each train would have only three cars, so that it could make great speed; he had been told to have everything ready to start at an hour’s notice. Wangenheim made little attempt to conceal his apprehensions. He told me that he had made all preparations to send his wife to Berlin, and he invited Mrs. Morgenthau to accompany her, so that she, too, could be removed from the danger zone. Wangenheim showed the fear, which was then the prevailing one, that a successful bombardment would lead to fires and massacres in Constantinople, as well as in the rest of Turkey. In anticipation of such disturbances he made a characteristic suggestion. Should the fleet pass the Dardanelles, he said, the life of no Englishman in Turkey would be safe—they would all be massacred. As it was so difficult to tell an Englishman from an American, he proposed that I should give the Americans a distinctive button to wear, which would protect them from Turkish violence. As I was convinced that Wangenheim’s real purpose was to arrange some sure means of identifying the English, and of so subjecting them to Turkish ill-treatment, I refused to act on this amiable suggestion.

Another incident illustrates the nervous tension which prevailed in those January days. As I noticed that some shutters at the British Embassy were open, Mrs. Morgenthau and I went up to investigate. In the early days we had sealed this building, which had been left in my charge, and this was the first time we had broken the seals to enter. About two hours after we returned from this tour of inspection, Wangenheim came into my office in one of his now familiar agitated moods. It had been reported, he said, that Mrs. Morgenthau and I had been up to the Embassy getting it ready for the British Admiral, who expected soon to take possession!

All this seems a little absurd now, for, in fact, the Allied fleets made no attack at that time. At the very moment when the whole of Constantinople was feverishly awaiting the British dreadnoughts, the British Cabinet in London was merely considering the advisability of such an enterprise. The record shows that Petrograd, on January 2nd, telegraphed the British Government, asking that some kind of a demonstration be made against the Turks, who were pressing the Russians in the Caucasus. Though an encouraging reply was immediately sent to this request, it was not until January 28th that the British Cabinet definitely issued orders for an attack on the Dardanelles. It is no longer a secret that there was no unanimous confidence in the success of such an undertaking. Admiral Carden recorded his belief that the strait “could not be rushed, but that extended operations with a large number of ships might succeed.” The penalty of failure, he added, would be the great loss that England would suffer in prestige and influence in the East; how true this prophecy proved I shall have occasion to show. Up to this time one of the fundamental and generally accepted axioms of naval operations had been that warships should not attempt to attack fixed land fortifications. But the Germans had demonstrated the power of mobile guns against fortresses in their destruction of the emplacements at Liège and Namur, and there was a belief in some quarters in England that these events had modified this naval principle. Mr. Churchill, at that time at the head of the Admiralty, placed great confidence in the destructive power of a new superdreadnought which had just been finished—the Queen Elizabeth—and which was then on its way to join the Mediterranean fleet.

We in Constantinople knew nothing about these deliberations then, but the result became apparent in the latter part of February. On the afternoon of the 19th, Pallavicini, the Austrian Ambassador, came to me with important news. The Marquis was a man of great personal dignity, yet it was apparent that he was this day exceedingly nervous, and, indeed, he made no attempt to conceal his apprehension. The Allied fleets, he said, had reopened their attack on the Dardanelles, and this time their bombardment had been extremely ferocious. At that time things were going badly for the Austrians; the Russian armies were advancing victoriously; Serbia had hurled the Austrians over the frontier, and the European Press was filled with prognostications of the break-up of the Austrian Empire. Pallavicini’s attitude this afternoon was a perfect reflection of the dangers that were then encompassing his country. He was a sensitive and proud man—proud of his Emperor and proud of what he regarded as the great Austro-Hungarian Empire—and he now appeared to be overburdened by the fear that this extensive Hapsburg fabric, which had withstood the assaults of so many centuries, was rapidly being overwhelmed with ruin. Like most human beings, Pallavicini yearned for sympathy; he could obtain none from Wangenheim, who seldom took him into his confidence and consistently treated him as the representative of a nation that was compelled to submit to the overlordship of Germany. Perhaps that was the reason why the Austrian Ambassador used to pour out his heart to me. And now this Allied bombardment of the Dardanelles came as the culmination of all his troubles. At this time the Central Powers believed that they had Russia bottled up; that, because they had sealed the Dardanelles, she could neither get her wheat to market nor import the munitions needed for carrying on the war. Germany and Austria thus had a strangle-hold on their gigantic foe, and, if this condition could be maintained indefinitely, the collapse of Russia would be inevitable. At present, it is true, the Czar’s forces were making a victorious campaign, and this in itself was sufficiently alarming to Austria; but their present supplies of war materials would ultimately be exhausted, and then their great superiority in men would help them little, and they would inevitably go to pieces; But should Russia get Constantinople, with the control of the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus, she could obtain all the munitions needed for warfare on the largest scale, and the defeat of the Central Powers might immediately follow, and such a defeat, Pallavicini well understood, would be far more serious for Austria than for Germany. Wangenheim had told me that it was Germany’s plan, in case the Austro-Hungarian Empire disintegrated, to incorporate her 12,000,000 Germans in the Hohenzollern domain, and Pallavicini, of course, was familiar with this danger. The Allied attack on the Dardanelles thus meant to Pallavicini the extinction of his country, for if we are properly to understand his state of mind we must remember that he firmly believed, as did almost all the other important men in Constantinople, that such an attack would succeed.

Wangenheim’s existence was made miserable by this same haunting conviction. As I have already shown, the bottling-up of Russia was almost exclusively the German Ambassador’s performance. He had brought the Goeben and the Breslau into Constantinople, and by this manœuvre had precipitated Turkey into the war. The forcing of the strait would mean more than the transformation of Russia into a permanent and powerful participant in the war; it meant—and this was by no means an unimportant consideration with Wangenheim—the undoing of his great personal achievement. Yet Wangenheim showed his apprehensions quite differently from Pallavicini. In true German fashion, he resorted to threats and bravado. He gave no external signs of depression, but his whole body tingled with rage. He was not deploring his fate; he was looking for ways of striking back. He would sit in my office, smoking with his usual energy, and tell me all the terrible things which he proposed to do to his enemy. The thing that particularly preyed upon Wangenheim’s mind was the exposed position of the German Embassy. It stood on a high hill, one of the most conspicuous buildings in the town, a perfect target for an enterprising English admiral. Almost the first object the British fleet would sight, as it entered the Bosphorus, would be this yellow monument of the Hohenzollerns, and the temptation to shell it might prove irresistible.

“Let them dare destroy that Embassy!” Wangenheim said. “I’ll get even with them! If they fire a single shot at it we’ll blow up the French and the English Embassies! Go tell the Admiral that, won’t you? Tell him also that we have the dynamite ready to do it!”

Wangenheim also showed great anxiety over the proposed removal of the Government to Eski-Shehr. In early January, when everyone was expecting the arrival of the Allied fleet, preparations had been made for moving the Government to Asia Minor; and now again, at the first rumbling of the British and French guns, the special trains were prepared once more. Wangenheim and Pallavicini both told me of their unwillingness to accompany the Sultan and the Government to Asia Minor. Should the Allies capture Constantinople, the Ambassadors of the Central Powers would find themselves cut off from their home countries and completely in the hands of the Turks. “The Turks could then hold us as hostages,” said Wangenheim. They urged Talaat to establish the emergency Government at Adrianople, from which town they could motor in and out of Constantinople, and then, in case the city were captured, they could make their escape home. The Turks, on the other hand, refused to adopt this suggestion because they feared an attack from Bulgaria. Wangenheim and Pallavicini now found themselves between two fires. If they stayed in Constantinople they would naturally become prisoners of the English and French; on the other hand, if they went to Eski-Shehr, it was not unlikely that they would become prisoners of the Turks. Many evidences of the flimsy basis on which rested the German and Turkish alliance had come to my attention, but this was about the most illuminating. Wangenheim knew, as did everybody else, that, in case the French and English captured Constantinople, the Turks would vent their rage not mainly against the Entente, but against the Germans who had enticed them into the war.

It all seems so strange now, this conviction that was uppermost in the minds of everybody then—that the success of the Allied fleets against the Dardanelles was inevitable and that the capture of Constantinople was a matter of only a few days. I recall an animated discussion that took place at the American Embassy on the afternoon of February 24th. The occasion was Mrs. Morgenthau’s weekly reception—meetings which furnished almost the only opportunity in those days for the foregathering of the diplomats. Practically all were on hand this afternoon. The first great bombardment of the Dardanelles had taken place five days before; this had practically destroyed the fortifications at the mouth of the strait. There was naturally only one subject of discussion: Would the Allied fleets get through? What would happen if they did? Everybody expressed an opinion, Wangenheim, Pallavicini, Garroni, the Italian Ambassador, D’Anckarsvard, the Swedish Minister, Koloucheff, the Bulgarian Minister, Kühlmann, and Scharfenberg, First Secretary of the German Embassy, and it was the unanimous opinion that the Allied attack would succeed. I particularly remember Kühlmann’s attitude. He discussed the capture of Constantinople almost as though it was something which had taken place already. The Persian Ambassador showed great anxiety; his Embassy stood not far from the Sublime Porte. He told me that he feared that the latter building would be bombarded and that a few stray shots might easily set afire his own residence, and he asked if he might move his archives to the American Embassy. The wildest rumours were afloat; we were told that the Standard Oil agent at the Dardanelles had counted seventeen transports loaded with troops, that the warships had already fired 800 shots and had levelled all the hills at the entrance, and that Talaat’s bodyguard had been shot—the implication being that the bullet had missed its intended victim. It was said that the whole Turkish populace was aflame with the fear that the English and the French, when they reached the city, would celebrate the event by a wholesale attack on Turkish women. The latter reports were, of course, absurd; they were merely characteristic rumours set afloat by the Germans and their Turkish associates. The fact is that the great mass of the people in Constantinople were probably praying that the Allied attack would succeed, and so release them from the control of the political gang that then ruled the country.

And in all this excitement there was one lonely and despondent figure—this was Talaat. Whenever I saw him in those critical days, he was the picture of desolation and defeat. The Turks, like most primitive peoples, wear their emotions on the surface, and with them the transition from exultation to despair is a short one. The thunder of the British guns at the strait apparently spelled doom to Talaat. The letter-carrier of Adrianople seemed to have reached the end of his career. He again confided to me his expectation that the English would capture the Turkish capital, and once more he said that he was sorry that Turkey had entered the war. Talaat well knew what would happen as soon as the Allied fleet entered the Sea of Marmora. According to the report of the Cromer Commission, Lord Kitchener, in giving his assent to a purely naval expedition, had relied upon a revolution in Turkey to make the enterprise successful. Lord Kitchener has been much criticised for his part in the Dardanelles attack; I owe it to his memory, however, to say that on this point he was absolutely right. Had the Allied fleets once passed the defences at the strait, the administration of the Young Turks would have come to a bloody end. As soon as the guns began to fire, placards appeared on the hoardings denouncing Talaat and his associates as responsible for all the woes that had come to Turkey. Bedri, the Prefect of Police, was busy collecting all the unemployed young men and sending them out of the city; his purpose was to free Constantinople of all who might start a revolution against the Young Turks. It was a common report that Bedri feared this revolution much more than he feared the British fleet. And this was the same Nemesis that was every moment now pursuing Talaat.

A single episode illustrates the nervous excitement that prevailed. Dr. Lederer, the correspondent of the Berliner Tageblatt, made a short visit to the Dardanelles, and, on his return, reported to certain ladies of the diplomatic circle that the German officers had told him that they were wearing their shrouds, as they expected any minute to be buried there. This statement went around the city like wildfire, and Dr. Lederer was threatened with arrest for making it. He appealed to me for help; I took him to Wangenheim, who refused to have anything to do with him. Lederer, he said, was an Austrian subject, although he represented a German newspaper. His anger at Lederer for this indiscretion was extreme. But I finally succeeded in getting the unpopular journalist into the Austrian Embassy, where he was harboured for the night. In a few days, Lederer had to leave town.

In the midst of all this excitement there was one person who was apparently not at all disturbed. Though ambassadors, generals, and politicians might anticipate the worst calamities, Enver’s voice was reassuring and quiet. The man’s coolness and really courageous spirit never shone to better advantage. In late December and January, when the city had its first fright over the bombardment, Enver was fighting the Russians in the Caucasus. His experiences in this campaign, as already described, had been far from glorious. Enver had left Constantinople in November to join his army an expectant conqueror; he returned in the latter part of January, the commander of a thoroughly beaten and demoralised force. Such a disastrous experience would have utterly ruined almost any other military leader, and that Enver felt his reverses keenly was evident from the way in which he kept himself from public view. I had my first glimpse of him, after his return, at a concert given for the benefit of the Red Crescent. At this affair Enver sat far back in a box, as though he intended to keep as much as possible out of sight; it was quite apparent that he was uncertain as to the cordiality of his reception by the public. All the important people in Constantinople, the Crown Prince, the members of the Cabinet, and the Ambassadors attended this function, and, in accordance with the usual custom, the Crown Prince sent for these dignitaries, one after another, for a few words of greeting and congratulation. After that the visiting from box to box became general. The heir to the throne sent for Enver as well as the rest, and this recognition evidently gave him a new courage, for he began to mingle with the diplomats, who also treated him with the utmost cordiality and courtesy. Enver apparently regarded this favourable notice as having re-established his standing, and now once more he assumed a leading part in the crisis. A few days afterward he discussed the situation with me. He was much astonished, he said, at the fear that so generally prevailed, and he was disgusted at the preparations that had been made to send away the Sultan and the Government and practically leave the city a prey to the English. He did not believe that the Allied fleets could force the Dardanelles; he had recently inspected all the fortifications and he had every confidence in their ability to resist successfully. Even though the ships did get through, he insisted that Constantinople should be defended to the last man.

Yet Enver’s assurance did not satisfy his associates. They had made all their arrangements for the British fleet. If, in spite of the most heroic resistance the Turkish armies could make, it still seemed likely that the Allies were about to capture the city, the ruling Powers had their final plans all prepared. They proposed to do to this great capital precisely what the Russians did to Moscow, when Napoleon appeared before it.

“They will never capture an existing city,” they told me, “only a heap of ashes.” As a matter of fact, this was no idle threat. I was told that cans of petroleum had been already stored in all the police stations and other places, ready to fire the town at a moment’s notice. As Constantinople is largely built of wood, this would have been no very difficult task. But they were determined to destroy more than these temporary structures; the plans aimed at the beautiful architectural monuments built by the Christians long before the Turkish occupation. The Turks had particularly marked for dynamiting the Mosque of Santa Sophia. This building, which had been a Christian church centuries before it became a Mohammedan mosque, is one of the most magnificent structures of the vanished Byzantine Empire. Naturally the suggestion of such an act of vandalism aroused us all, and I made a plea to Talaat that Santa Sophia should be spared. He treated the proposed destruction lightly.

“There are not six men in the Committee of Union and Progress,” he told me, “who care for anything that is old. We all like new things!”

That was all the satisfaction I obtained in this matter at that time.

Enver’s insistence that the Dardanelles could resist caused his associates to lose confidence in his judgment. About a year afterward, Bedri Bey, the Prefect of Police, gave me additional details. While Enver was still in the Caucasus, Bedri said, Talaat had called a conference, a kind of council of war, on the Dardanelles. This had been attended by Liman von Sanders, the German General who had reorganised the Turkish Army; Usedom, the German Admiral who was the Inspector-General of the Ottoman coast defences, and Bronsart, the German Chief of Staff of the Turkish Army, and several others. Every man present gave it as his opinion that the British and French fleets could force the strait; the only subject of dispute, said Bedri, was whether it would take the ships eight or twenty hours to reach Constantinople after they had destroyed the defences. Enver’s position was well understood, but this council decided to ignore him and to make the preparations without his knowledge—to eliminate the Minister of War, at least temporarily, from their deliberations.

In early March, Bedri and Djambolat, who was Director of Public Safety, came to see me. At that time the exodus from the capital had begun; Turkish women and children were being moved into the interior; all the banks had been compelled to send their gold into Asia Minor; the archives of the Sublime Porte had already been carried to Eski-Shehr, and practically all the Ambassadors and their suites, as well as most of the Government officials, had made their preparations to leave. Many of Constantinople’s finest works of art had been buried in cellars or covered for protection, the Director of the Museum being one of the six Turks to whom Talaat had referred as liking “old things.”

Bedri came to arrange the details of my departure. As Ambassador I was personally accredited to the Sultan, and it would obviously be my duty, said Bedri, to go wherever the Sultan went; the train was all ready, he added. He wished to know how many people I intended to take, so that sufficient space could be reserved. To this proposal I entered a flat refusal. I informed Bedri that I thought that my responsibilities made it necessary for me to remain in Constantinople. Only a neutral Ambassador, I said, could forestall massacres and the destruction of the city, and certainly I owed it to the civilised world to prevent, if I could, such calamities as these. If my position as Ambassador made it inevitable that I should follow the Sultan, I would resign and become honorary Consul-General.

Both Bedri and Djambolat were much younger and less experienced men than I, and I therefore told them that they needed a man of maturer years to advise them in an international crisis of this kind. I was not only interested in protecting foreigners and American institutions, but I was also interested, on general humanitarian grounds, in safeguarding the Turkish population from the excesses that were generally expected. The several nationalities, many of them containing elements which were given to pillage and massacre, were causing great anxiety. I therefore proposed to Bedri and Djambolat that the three of us form a kind of committee to take control in the approaching crisis. They consented, and we sat down and decided on a course of action. We took a map of Constantinople and marked the districts which, under the existing rules of warfare, we agreed that the Allied fleet would have the right to bombard. Thus, we decided that the War Office, Marine Office, telegraph offices, railroad stations, and all public buildings could quite legitimately be made the targets for their guns. Then we marked out certain zones which we should insist on regarding as immune. The main residential section, and the part where all the Embassies are located, is Pera, the district on the north shore of the Golden Horn. This we marked as not subject to attack. We also delimited certain residential areas of Stamboul and Galata, the Turkish sections. I telegraphed to Washington, asking the State Department to obtain a ratification of these plans and an agreement to respect these zones of safety from the British and French Governments. I received a reply endorsing my action.

All preparations had thus been made. At the station stood trains which were to take the Sultan and the Government and the Ambassadors to Asia Minor. They had steam up, ready to move at a minute’s notice. We were all awaiting the triumphant arrival of the Allied fleet.

CHAPTER XVII

ENVER AS THE MAN WHO DEMONSTRATED “THE VULNERABILITY OF THE BRITISH FLEET”—OLD-FASHIONED DEFENCES OF THE DARDANELLES

Enver seemed particularly glad of this opportunity to discuss the situation. Immediately after breakfast he took me aside, and together we went up to the deck. The day was a beautiful sunny one, and the sky in the Marmora was that deep blue which we find only in this part of the world. What most impressed me was the intense quiet, the almost desolate inactivity of these silent waters. Our ship was almost the only one in sight, and this inland sea, which in ordinary times was one of the world’s greatest commercial highways, was now practically a primeval waste. The whole scene was merely a reflection of the great triumph which German diplomacy had accomplished in the Near East.

For nearly six months not a Russian merchant ship had passed through the straits. All the commerce of Rumania and Bulgaria, which had normally found its way to Europe across this inland sea, had long since disappeared. The ultimate significance of all this desolation was that Russia was blockaded and completely isolated from her allies. How much that one fact has meant in the history of the world for the last three years! And now England and France were seeking to overcome this disadvantage; to link up their own military resources with those of their great eastern ally, and to restore to the Dardanelles and the Marmora the thousands of ships that meant Russia’s existence as a military and economic, and even, as subsequent events have shown, as a political, Power. We were approaching the scene of one of the great crises of the war.

Would England and her allies succeed in this enterprise? Would their ships at the Dardanelles smash the fortifications, break through, and again make Russia a permanent force in the war? That was the main subject which Enver and I discussed, as for nearly three hours we walked up and down the deck. Enver again referred to the “silly panic” that had seized nearly all classes in the capital.

“Even though Bulgaria and Greece both turn against us,” he said, “we shall defend Constantinople to the end. We have plenty of guns, plenty of ammunition, and we have these on terra-firma, whereas the English and French batteries are floating ones. And the natural advantages of the straits are so great that the warships can make little progress against them. I do not care what other people may think. I have studied this problem more thoroughly than any of them, and I feel that I am right. As long as I am at the head of the War Department we shall not give up. Indeed, I do not know just what these English and French battleships are driving at. Suppose that they rush the Dardanelles, get here into the Marmora, and reach Constantinople, what good will that do them? They can bombard and destroy the city, I admit, but they cannot capture it, as they have no troops to land. Unless they do bring a large army, they will really be caught in a trap. They can perhaps stay here for two or three weeks, until their food and supplies are all exhausted, and then they will have to go back—rush the straits again, and again run the risk of annihilation. In the meantime we would have repaired the forts, brought in troops, and made ourselves ready for them. It seems to me to be a very foolish enterprise.”

I have already told how Enver had taken Napoleon as his model, and in this Dardanelles expedition he now apparently saw a Napoleonic opportunity. As we were pacing the deck he stopped a moment, looked at me earnestly, and said:

“I shall go down in history as the man who demonstrated the vulnerability of England and her fleet. I shall show that her Navy is not invincible. I was in England a few years before the war, and discussed England’s position with many of her leading men, such as Asquith, Churchill, Haldane. I told them that their course was wrong. Winston Churchill declared that England could defend herself with her Navy alone, and that she needed no large Army. I told Churchill that no great empire could last that did not have both an army and a navy. I found that Churchill’s opinion was the one that prevailed everywhere in England. There was only one man I met who agreed with me—that was Lord Roberts. Well, Churchill has now sent his fleet down here—perhaps to show me that his Navy can do all that he said it could do. Now we’ll see.”

Enver seemed to regard his naval expedition as a personal challenge from Mr. Churchill to himself—almost like a continuation of their argument in London.

“You, too, should have a large army,” said Enver, referring to the United States.

“I do not believe,” he went on, “that England is trying to force the Dardanelles because Russia has asked her to. When I was in England I discussed with Churchill the possibility of a general war. He asked me what Turkey would do in such a case, and said that, if we took Germany’s side, the British fleet would force the Dardanelles and capture Constantinople. Churchill is not trying to help Russia—he is carrying out the threat made to me at that time.”

Enver spoke with the utmost determination and conviction; he said that nearly all the damage inflicted on the outside forts had been repaired, and that the Turks had methods of defence the existence of which the enemy little suspected. He showed great bitterness against the English; he accused them of attempting to bribe Turkish officials, and even said that they had instigated attempts upon his own life. On the other hand, he displayed no particular friendliness toward the Germans. Wangenheim’s overbearing manners had caused him much irritation, and the Turks, he said, got on none too well with the German officers.

“The Turks and Germans,” he added, “care nothing for each other. We are with them because it is our interest to be with them; they are with us because that is their interest. Germany will back Turkey just so long as that helps Germany; Turkey will back Germany just so long as that helps Turkey.”

Enver seemed much impressed at the close of our interview with the intimate personal relations which we had established with each other. He apparently believed that he, the great Enver, the Napoleon of the Turkish Revolution, had unbended in discussing his nation’s affairs with a mere Ambassador; colossal vanity, as I have before remarked, was one of his strong points.

“You know,” he said, “that there is no one in Germany with whom the Emperor talks as intimately as I have talked with you to-day.”

We reached Panderma about two o’clock. Here Enver and his auto were put ashore, and our party started again, our boat arriving at Gallipoli late in the afternoon. We anchored in the harbour and spent the night on board. All the evening we could hear the guns bombarding the fortifications, but these reminders of war and death did not affect the spirits of my Turkish hosts. The occasion was for them a great lark; they had spent several months in hard, exacting work, and now they behaved like boys suddenly let out for a vacation. They made jokes, told stories, sang the queerest kinds of songs, and played childish pranks upon each other. The venerable Fuad, despite his nearly ninety years, developed great qualities as an entertainer, and the fact that his associates made him the butt of most of their horse-play apparently only added to his enjoyment of the occasion. The amusement reached its height when one of his friends surreptitiously poured him a glass of eau-de-cologne. The old gentleman looked at the new drink a moment and then diluted it with water. I was told that the proper way of testing raki, the popular Turkish tipple, is by mixing it with water; if it turns white under this treatment it is the real thing, and may be safely drunk. Apparently water has the same effect upon eau-de-cologne, for the contents of Fuad’s glass, after this test, turned white. The old gentleman, therefore, poured the whole thing down his throat without a grimace—much to the hilarious entertainment of his tormentors.

In the morning we started again. We had now fairly arrived in the Dardanelles, and from Gallipoli we had a sail of nearly twenty-five miles to Tchanak Kalé. For the most part this section of the strait is uninteresting, and, from a military point of view, it is unimportant. The stream is about two miles wide, both sides are low-lying and marshy, and only a few scrambling villages show any signs of life. I was told that there were a few ancient fortifications, their rusty guns pointing toward the Marmora, the emplacements having been erected there in the early part of the nineteenth century for the purpose of preventing hostile ships entering from the north. These fortifications, however, were so inconspicuous that I could not see them. My hosts informed me that they had no fighting power, and that, indeed, there was nothing in the northern part of the straits, from Point Nagara to the Marmora, that could offer resistance to any modern fleet.

The chief interest which I found in this part of the Dardanelles was purely historic and legendary. The ancient town of Lampsacus appeared in the modern Lapsaki, just across from Gallipoli, and Nagara Point is the site of the ancient Abydos, from which village Leander used to swim nightly across the Hellespont to Hero—a feat which was repeated about one hundred years ago by Lord Byron. Here, also, Xerxes crossed from Asia to Greece on a bridge of boats, embarking on that famous expedition which was to make him master of the world. The tribe of Xerxes, I thought, as I passed the scene of his exploit, is not yet entirely extinct! The Germans and Turks had found a less romantic use for this, the narrowest part of the Dardanelles, for here they had stretched a cable and anti-submarine barrage of mines and nets—a device which, as I shall describe, did not keep the English and French underwater boats out of the Marmora and the Bosphorus. It was not until we rounded this historic point of Nagara that the dull monotony of flat shores gave place to a more diversified landscape. On the European side the cliffs now began to descend precipitously to the water, reminding me of our own Palisades along the Hudson, and I obtained glimpses of the hills and mountain ridges that afterward proved such tragical stumbling-blocks to the valiant Allied armies. The configuration of the land south of Nagara, with its many hills and ridges, made it plain why the military engineers had selected this stretch of the Dardanelles as the section best adapted to defence.

Our boat was now approaching what was perhaps the most commanding point in the whole strait, the city of Tchanak, or, to give it its modern European name, of Dardanelles. In normal times this was a thriving port of 16,000 people, its houses built of wood, the headquarters of a considerable trade in wool and other products, and for centuries it has been an important military station. Now, excepting for the soldiers, it was deserted, the large civilian population having been moved into Anatolia. The British fleet, we were told, had bombarded this city; yet this statement seemed hardly probable, for I saw only a single house that had been hit, evidently by a stray shell which had been aimed at the near-by fortifications.

Djevad Pasha, the Turkish Commander-in-Chief at the Dardanelles, met us and escorted our party to headquarters. Djevad was a man of culture and of pleasing and cordial manners; as he spoke excellent German, I had no need of an interpreter. I was much impressed by the deference with which the German officers treated him. That he was the Commander-in-Chief in this theatre of war, and that the Generals of the Kaiser were his subordinates, was made plainly apparent. As we passed into his office, Djevad stopped in front of a piece of a torpedo, mounted in the middle of the hall, evidently as a souvenir.

“There is the great criminal!” he said, calling my attention to the relic.

About this time the newspapers were hailing the exploit of an English submarine, which had sailed from England to the Dardanelles, passed under the minefield, and torpedoed the Turkish warship Mesudie.

“That’s the torpedo that did it,” said Djevad. “You’ll see the wreck of the ship when you go down.”

The first fortification I visited was that of Anadolu Hamidié (that is, Asiatic Hamidié), located on the water’s edge just outside of Tchanak. My first impression was that I was in Germany. The officers were practically all Germans, and everywhere Germans were building up buttresses with sacks of sand and in other ways strengthening the emplacements. Here German, not Turkish, was the language heard on every side. Oberst Wehrle, who conducted me over these batteries, took the greatest delight in showing them. He had the simple pride of the artist in his work, and told me of the happiness that had come into his days when Germany had at last found herself at war. All his life, he said, he had spent in military practices, and, like most Germans, he had become tired of manœuvres, sham battles, and other forms of mimic hostilities. Yet he was approaching fifty, he had become a colonel, and he was fearful that his career would close without actual military experience—and then the splendid thing had happened, and here he was, fighting a real English enemy, firing real guns and shells! There was nothing brutal about Wehrle’s manners; he was a “gemütlich” gentleman from Baden, and thoroughly likeable; yet he was all aglow with the spirit of “Der Tag.” His attitude was simply that of a man who had spent his lifetime learning a trade and who now rejoiced at the chance of exercising it. But he furnished an illuminating light on the German military character and the forces that had really caused the war.

Feeling myself so completely in German country, I asked Colonel Wehrle why there were so few Turks on this side of the straits. “You won’t ask me that question this afternoon,” he said, smiling, “when you go over to the other side.”

The location of Anadolu Hamidié seemed ideal. It stands right at the water’s edge, and consists—or it did then—of ten guns, every one completely sweeping the Dardanelles. Walking upon the parapet, I had a clear view of the strait, Kum Kalé, at the entrance, about fifteen miles away, standing out conspicuously. No warship could enter these waters without immediately coming within complete sight of her gunners. Yet the fortress itself, to an unprofessional eye like my own, was not particularly impressive. The parapet and traverses were merely mounds of earth, and stand to-day practically as they were finished by their French constructors in 1837. There is a general belief that the Germans had completely modernised the Dardanelles defences, but this was not true at that time. The guns defending Fort Anadolu Hamidié were more than thirty years old, all being the Krupp model of 1885, and the rusted exteriors of some of them gave evidence of their age. Their extreme range was only about nine miles, while the range of the battleships opposing them was about ten miles, and that of the Queen Elizabeth was not far from eleven. The figures which I have given for Anadolu Hamidié apply also to practically all the guns at the other effective fortifications. So far as the advantage of range was concerned, therefore, the Allied fleet had a decided superiority, the Queen Elizabeth alone having them all practically at her mercy.

Nor did the fortifications contain very considerable stores of ammunition. At that time the European and American papers were printing stories that trainloads of shells and guns were coming by way of Rumania from Germany to the Dardanelles. From facts which I learned on this trip and subsequently, I am convinced that these reports were pure fiction. A number of “red heads”—that is, non-armour-piercing projectiles, useful only for fighting landing parties—had been brought from Adrianople and were reposing in Hamidié, at the time of my visit, but these were small in quantity, and of no value in fighting ships. I lay this stress upon Hamidié because this was the most important fortification in the Dardanelles. Throughout the whole bombardment it attracted more of the Allied fire than any other position, and it inflicted at least 60 per cent. of all the damage that was done to the attacking ships. It was Anadolu Hamidié which, in the great bombardment of March 18th, sank the Bouvet, the French battleship, and which in the course of the whole attack had disabled several other units. All its officers were Germans and 85 per cent. of the men on duty came from the crews of the Goeben and the Breslau.