August 29, 1918 
LAND 6s? WATER 
9 
The Turkish Conspiracy 
By HENkY MORGENTHAU 
The Opening of the Dardanelles Adventure 
7 'HERE was no knowledge in this coimtry, at the time of the Dardanelles adventure, of the 
state of feeling inside Turkey at the time, but Mr. Morgenthau, in Constantinople, was able to 
see the confusion and fear into which the Country, and especially the capital, Constantinople, were 
thrown by the certainty that the Allied fleet would succeed in forcing the Strait. The state 
of mind induced among the Turks and their Gennan mentors is admirably pictured in this article. 
WANGENHEIM showed great anxiety over the 
proposei removal of the Government to Eski- 
Shehr. In early January, when every one was 
expecting the arrival of the Allied Fleet, pre- 
parations had been made for moving the Govern- 
ment 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 Govern- 
ment to Asia Minor. Should the Allies capture Constanti- 
nople, 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, ou the other hand, refused 
to adopt this suggestion because they feared an attack from 
Bulgaria. Wangenlieim and Pallavicini now found them- 
selves b.?tween two fires. If they stayed in Constantinople, 
they would, naturally, become prisoners of the English and 
French ; if they went to Eski-Shehr, it was not unlikely that 
they would become prisoners of the Turks. 
It all seems so strange now, this conviction that was upper- 
most 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. Practi- 
cally all were on hand this afternoon. The first great bombard- 
ment of the Deirdanelles 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 Bul- 
garian Minister, Kiihlmann, and Scharfenberg, First Sec- 
retary of the German Embassy, and it was the unanimous 
opinion that the Allied attack would succeed. I particularly 
remember Kuhlmann'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 bokibarded and that a few stray shots might easily 
set fire to 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. 
And in all this exciternent 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 
ENVER AT HIS DESK IN THE MINISTRY OF WAR 
He was the only person- ol importance who believed that the Turks could keep the Allied Fleet from passing the Dardanelles 
