10 
LAND &' WATER 
August 29, 1918 
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. 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. 
In the midst of all this excitement, there was one person ■ 
who was apparently not at all disturbed. Though ambas- 
sadors, generals, and poli- 
ticians might anticipate 
the worst calamities, 
Enver's voice was re- 
assuring 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 ex- 
periences in this campaign, 
as already described, had 
been far from glorious. 
Enver had left Constanti- 
nople in November to join 
his army an expectant 
conqueror ; he returned in 
the latter part of January, 
the commander of a 
thoroughly beaten and de- 
moralised 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 in- 
tended 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. A few days 
afterwards 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. 
Yet Enver's assurance did not satisfv 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 secreted in all the police stations and other places, 
ready to fire the town at a moment's notice. The Turks had 
particularly marked for dynamiting the Mosque of Santa 
Sophia. This building, which had been a Christian church cen- 
turies 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 Pro- 
gress," he told me, "who care for anything that is old. We 
all like new things ! " 
The Prince was fully in sympathy with 
the Allies and opposed to the Germans. 
This probably accounts for his tragic 
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 prepara- 
tions 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 Am- 
bassador I was personally 
accredited to the Sultan, 
and it would, obviously, 
be my duty, said Bedri, to 
go wherever the Sultan 
went. To this proposal 
1 entered a flat refusal. I 
informed Bedri that I 
thought that my respon- 
sibilities made it necessary 
for me to remain in Con- 
stantinople. 
Both Bedri and Djam- 
bolat 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 pro- 
tecting 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 pro- 
posed to Bedri and Djam- 
bolat that the three of us 
form a kind of a com- 
mittee to take control in 
the approaching crisis. 
They consented, and the 
three of us 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 
ofiices, 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 regard 
ing 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 agree- 
ment 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 ^ere all awaiting the triumphant arrival of the Allied 
Fleet. 
(To be continue J) 
Next week we shall publish Mr. Morgenthau's dramatic 
account of what he describes as the greatest blunder in history — 
the failure of the Allied Ships to force the passage of the 
Dardanelles. 
THE CROWN PRINCE OF TURKEY 
death. The ofUcer on the left is Colonel 
Djavid Bey, and on the right of the 
Crown Prince is Captain Nourey Bey. 
