July 
I I 
I918 
Land & Water 
liiiiiiiiiirif 
III 
♦ e- 
i 
The Ministry of War 
This was the headquarters of Enver Patha. It was in this building that Enver gave Mr. Morgenthau his promise not to illtreat enemy aliens. "Will 
n be modem i" asked the American Ambassador. " No— not modern," said Enver, probably thinking of Belgium, "that is the mcst Kntbaric sjstrm of nil — 
yoo 
Torkey will simply try to be decent !" 
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 heartfelt issue. Naturally, 
in the next few months I saw much of Bedri ; he was con- 
stantly 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 pro- 
voking, half jocular; we were always trying to outwit each 
other — I attehipting 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, anfl 
not particularly iH-natured, Jbut 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. 
The plans had been changed, he answered; the seven 
o'clock train could not go. This was the one that had been 
arranged to take the unofficial residents. Only the nine 
o'clock train, the one provided to take the diplomatic forces 
to Dedeagatch, would be permitted to leave. This fact that 
we had two groups of passengers, one of which could go 
and the other of which could not, naturally caused great 
commotion; the British and French Ambassadors did not 
wish to leave their nationals behind, and tlie 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 
stat?rnent. 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 arrang- 
ing 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 dis- 
arrange the general schedule and might cause accidents. 
I recognised all this as mere Turkish evasion and I knew 
that the order had come from a higher source than Bedri ; 
still nothing cou\d be done. 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 passage-way, 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 collectcci, 
watched the whole pandemonium with 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 Englishnvin 
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, another handed me a small boy, and one of the British 
secretaries made me the custodian of his dog. Meanwhile, 
Sir Louis Mallet became obstreperous and refused to leave ; 
he had an idea that he should stay there until the last British 
subject had safely left 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. Moreover, I suggested that he remain 
at Dedeagatch for a few days and await the arrival of his 
fellow British. If I did not succeed in getting them out 
of the country, then he .could return. 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 his private car, almost buried in 
a mass of trunks, satchels, boxes and diplomatic pouches, 
surrounded by his embassy staff, and sympathetically 
watched by his first 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 prac- 
tically 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 civilised 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 afiens. Finally, I 
succeeded in making arrangements for them to leave the 
following day. Bedri, in more complaisant mood, spent 
that afternoon at the Embassy visaing passports; we both 
went to the station in the evening and started the tram 
safely to 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 afterwards learned, was extremely touch- 
ing. 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 several 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 care- 
fully considered the whole matter of English and French 
residents in Turkey ; 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, they could pursue 
their usual business in peace, and, so long as they behaved 
themselves, they would not be molested. Talaat said that 
the Turks, by their treatment of their resident enemies, 
proposed to show the world that they were not a race of 
