8 
Land & Water 
August 2 2, 19 18 
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. Mean- 
while the domestic situation 
was deplorable ; all o v e r 
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 de- 
Guns of the " Suffren " in Action against the Dardanelles 
In March, 191;, the Allied fleet attempted to re-open the Dardanelles. Had this attempt 
succeeded the War would have been ended long ago in Germany's defeat. From a 
naval point of view there was apparently no reason why it should not have succeeded. 
stroyed all business ; th^ Treasury was in a more ex- 
hausted state than normally, for the closing of the 
Dardanelles 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 tl^ey 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 jt was 
hopeless to contest. 
Wangenheim and nearly all the German military and 
naval forces not only regarded the forcing of '^ the Dar- 
danelles 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 
a.nd 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 ist, the Turkish Government had made prepara- 
tions 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 
The Red Crescent 
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. Wangen- 
heim showed the fear, which was then the prevaiHng 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 character- 
istic 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 con- 
vinced 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 amia- 
ble 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. Morgen- 
thau 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 inspec- 
tion, 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 Constan- 
tinople was feverishly await- 
ing the British dreadnoughts, 
the British Cabinet in London 
was merely considering the 
advisabiUty of such an enter- 
prise. 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 Rus- 
sians in the Caucasus. 
Though an encouraging reply 
was immediately sent to this 
request, it was not until 
January 28th that the British 
It here marks a landing place for aviators. The building is a Turkish field hospital. Cabinet definitely issued 
