June 27, 19 1 8 
Land & Water 
L- 
" Scorpion " : American Embassy Guardship 
say GoU Strafe England, and all the time the motive j5ov\er 
of this infamous campaign was German money. 
But Germany was doing more than poisoning the Turkish 
mind ; she was appropriating Turkey's military' resources. 
I have already described how, in January, 1914, the Kaiser 
had taken over the Turkish Army and rehabilitated it in 
preparation for the European war. He now proceeded to do 
the same thing with the Turkish Navy. In August Wangen- 
heim boasted to me that "we now control both tlie Turkish 
Army and Navy." At the time the Gocben and Breslau 
arrived, an English mission, headed by Admiral Limpus, was 
hard at work restor- 
ing the Turkish Navy. 
Soon afterwards Lim- 
pus and his associates 
were unceremoniously 
dismissed ; not the 
most ordinary courte- 
sies were shown them. 
The English naval 
officer- quietly and 
unobs rvedly left Con- 
stantino :e for Eng- 
land — all except the 
Admiral himself, who 
had to remain longer 
b lause of his 
daughter's illness. 
Night after night 
whole carloads of Ger- 
mans landed at 
Constantinople from 
Berlin ; there were , 
finally 3,800 men, most of them sent to man the Turkish Navy 
and to manufacture ammunition. They filled the cafes every, 
night, and they paraded the streets of Constantinople in the 
small hours of the morning, howling and singing German pat- 
riotic songs. Many of them were skilled mechanics, who im- 
mediately got to work repairing the destroyers and other 
ships and putting them in shape for war. The British firms of 
Armstrong and Vickers had a splendid dock in Constantinople, 
which the Germans appropriated. All day and night v o 
could hear this work going on, and we could hardly sleep be- 
cause of the hubbub of riveting and hammering. Wangen- 
heim now found an- 
other opportunity for 
instilling more poison 
into the minds of 
Enver, Talaat, and 
Djemal. The German 
workers, he declared, 
had found that the 
Turkish ships were in 
a desperate state of 
disrepair, and for this 
he naturally bleimed 
the English naval 
mission. He said that 
England had delibe- 
rately ^ let the Turkish 
Navy go to decay ; 
this was all part of 
England's plot to ruin 
Turkey ! " Look ! " he 
would exclaim, " see 
what we Germans 
have done for the Turkish Army, and see what the English 
have done for your ships ! " As a matter of fact, all this 
was untrue : Admiral Limpus had worked hard and con- 
scientiously to improve the Navy and had accomplished 
excellent results. 
All this time the Germans were strengthening the forti- 
fications at the Dardanelles. As September lengthened into 
October, the Sublime Porte practically ceased to be the head- 
quarters of the Ottoman Empire. I really think that the 
most powerful seat of authority at that time was a German 
merchant ship, the General. It was moored in the Golden 
Horn, near the Galata Bridge, and a permanent stairway had 
been built, leading to its deck. I knew well one of the most 
frequent visitors to this ship ; he used to come to the Embassy 
and entertain me with stories of what was going on. 
The General was practically a German club or hotel. The 
officers of the Goeben and the Breslau and other German 
officers who had been sent to command the Turkish ships 
ate and slept on board. Admiral Souchon, who htid brought 
the German cruisers to Constantinople, presided over these 
gatherings. Souchon was a man of French Huguenot ex- 
traction ; he was a short, dapper, clean-cut sailor, very 
energetic and alert. To the German passion for command 
and thoroughness he added much of the Gallic geniality and 
buoyancy. Naturally he gave much liveliness to the evening 
parties on the General, and the beer and champagne whirli 
were liberally dispensed on these occasions loosened the 
tongues of his fellow officers. Their conversation showed 
that they entertained no illusions as to who really controlled 
the Turkish Navy. Night after night their impatience lor 
action grew ; thc\' kept declaring that li Turkey did not 
presently attack the Russians, they would force her to do so. 
They would relate how they had sent German ships into the 
Black Sza, in the hope 
Shipping at the Golden Horn 
of provoking the Rus- 
sian fleet to some 
action that would 
make war inevitable. 
Toward the end of 
October my friend 
told me that hostili- 
ties could not much 
longer be avoided ; 
the Turkish fleet had 
been fitted for action, 
everything was ready, 
and the impetuosity 
of these hot-headed 
German officers could 
not much longer Be 
restrained. 
On September 27th, 
Sir Louis Mallet, the 
British Ambassador, 
entered my office in 
a considerably disl„ii c;! state of mind. The Khedive of 
Egypt had just left and 1 began to talk to Sir Louis about 
Egyptian matters. 
"Let's discuss that some other time," he said.- "I have 
something far more important to tell you. They have 
closed the Dardancl es." 
By "they" he meant, of course, not the Turkish Govern- 
ment, the only power which had the legal right to take this 
drastic rtep. but the actual ruling powers in Turkey, the 
Germans 5'r Louis had good reason for bringing me this 
piece of r.ivs, for this was an outrage against the United 
States as well as 
against the Allies. He 
asked me to go with 
him and make a joint 
protest. I suggested, 
however, that it would 
be better for us to act 
separately, and im- 
mediately I started for 
the House of the 
Grand Vizier. 
When I arrived a 
Cabinet conference 
was in session, and, as 
I sat in the ante- 
room, I could hear 
several voices in ex- 
cited discussion. I 
could distinctly dis- 
tinguish Talaat, 
Enver, Djavid, and 
other familiar mem- 
bers of the government. It was quite plain, from the tone 
of the proceedings, that these nominal rulers of Turkey were 
almost as worked up over the closing as were Sir Louis 
Mallet and myself. 
The Grand Vizier came out in answer to my request. He 
presented a pitiable sight. His face was blanched and he 
was-trembling from head to foot. When I asked him whether 
the news was true he stammered out that it was. 
"You know this means war," I said, and J protested as 
strongly as I could in the name of the United States. 
All the time that we were talking I could hear the loud 
tones of Talaat and his associates in the interior apartment. 
The Grand Vizier excused himself and went back into the 
room. He then sent out Djavid, the Minister of Finance, to 
discuss the matter with me. 
"It's all a surprise to us," were Djavid's first words — this 
statement being a complete admission that the Cabinet had 
had nothing to do with it. I repeated that the United States 
would not submit to closing the Dardanelles ; that Turkey 
was at peace ; that she had no legal right to shut the Straits 
to mercantile ships except in case of war. I said that an 
American ship, laden with supplies and stores for the American 
