LAND 6? WATER 
September 5, 1918 
The Turkish Conspiracy 
By HENRY MORGENTHAU 
A Detailed Account of the Dardanelles Defences 
n~^HIS is the first authentic account yet published of the nature of the Dardanelles 
M. ' fortifications at the time of the Allied naval attack on thd' Straits. Mr. Morgenthau, in 
company ivith a party of Turkish notables, visited and inspected the defences of the Dardanelles. 
This was located at the tip o{ the Gallipoli 
peninsula, and, with Kum Kale on the Asiatic 
side, guarded the entrance to the Dardanelles. 
WHEN 
the sit- 
uation 
had 
reached 
this exciting stage, 
Enver asked me to 
visit the Dardanelles. 
He still insisted that 
the fortifications were 
impregnable, and he 
could not understand, 
he said, the panic 
which was then 
ragirtg in Constanti- 
nople. He had visited 
the Dardanelles him- 
self, had inspected 
every gun and every 
emplacement, and 
was entirely confident 
that his soldiers could 
hold off the AUied 
Fleet indefinitely. 
He had taken Talaat 
down, and by doing 
so he had consider- 
ably eased the states- « 
man's fears. It was Enver's conviction that if I could visit 
the fortifications I would be persuaded that the fleets could 
never get through, and that I would thus be able to give such 
assurances to the people that the prevailing excitement would 
subside. I disregarded certain natural doubts as to whether 
an Ambassador should expose himself to the dangers of such 
a situation — the ships were bombarding nearly every day — 
, and promptly accepted Enver's invitation. 
On the morning of the 15th, we left Constantinople on the 
Yuruk. Enver himself accompanied us as far as Pandemia, 
an Asiatic town on the Sea of Marmora. The party included 
several other notables : Ibrahim Bey, the Minister of Justice, 
Husni Pasha, the general who had commanded the army 
wloich had deposed Abdul Hamid in the Young Turk revolu- 
tion, and Senator Cherif Djafer Pasha, an Arab and a direct 
descendant of the Prophet. A particularly congenial com- 
panion was Fuad Pasha, an old field-marshal, who had led 
an adventurous career ; despite his age, he had an immense 
capacity for enjoyment, was a huge feeder and a capacious 
drinker, and had as many stories to tell of exile, battle, apd 
hair-breadth escapes as Othello. All of these men were 
much older than Enver, and all of them were descended of 
far more distinguished lineage, yet they treated this stripling 
with tlie utmost deference. 
Enver seemed particularly glad of this opportunity to 
discuss the situation. Immediately after breakfast, he took 
me aside, and together we went up to the deck. The day 
was a beautiful sunny one, and the sky in the Marmora was 
that deep blue which we find only in this part of the world. 
What most impressed me was the intense quiet, the almost 
desolate inactivity of these silent waters. Our ship was 
almost the only one in sight, and this inland sea, which in 
ordinary times was one of the world's greatest commercial 
highways, was now practically a primeval waste. The whole 
scene was merely a reflection of the great triumph which 
German diplomacy had accomplished in the Near East. 
For nearly six months not a Russian merchant ship had 
passed through the Straits. All the commerce of Rumania 
and Bulgaria, which had normally found its way to Europe 
across this inland sea, had long since disappeared. The 
ultimate significance of all this desolation was that Russia 
was blockaded and completely isolated from her allies. How 
much that one fact has meant in the history of the world 
for the last three years ! And how England and France 
were seeking to overcome this disadvantage ; to hnk up 
their own military resources with those of their great Eastern 
SEDD-UL-BAHR FORTIFICATION 
The Allied fleets completely'demolished these 
batteries in late February and early March, 
1915, and so gained an entrance to the Straits. 
ally, and to restore 
to the Dardanelles 
and the Marmora the 
thousands of ships 
that meant Russia's 
existence as a mili- 
tary and economic, 
and even, as subse- 
quent events have ■ 
shown, as a political 
power. We were 
approaching the scene 
of one of the great 
crises of the war. 
Would England 
and her alhes succeed 
in this enterprise ? 
Would their ships at 
the Dardanelles smash 
the fortifications, 
break through, and 
again make Russia a 
permanent force in 
the war ? That was 
the main subject 
which Enver and I 
discussed, as for 
nearly three hours we 
walked up, and down the deck. Enver again referred to the 
"silly panic" that had seized nearly all classes in the capital. 
•'Even though Bulgaria and Greece both turn against us," he 
said, "we shall defend Constantinople to the end. We have 
plenty of guns, plenty of ammunition, and we have these on 
terra firma, whereas the English and French batteries are 
floating ones. And the natural advantages of the Straits are 
so great that the warships can make little progress against 
them. I do not care what other people may think. I have 
studied this problem more thoroughly than any of them, 
and I feel that I am right. As long as I am at the head of 
the War Department, we shall not give up. Indeed, I do not 
know just what these English and French battleships are 
driving at. Suppose that they rush the Dardanelles, get 
here into the Marmora, and reach Constantinople; what 
good will that do them ? They can bombard and destroy 
the city, I admit ; but they cannot capture it, as they have 
no troops to land. Unless they do bring a large army, they 
will really be caught in a trap. They can perhaps stay here 
for two or three weeks until their food and supplies are all 
exhausted, and then they will have to go back — rush the 
Straits again, and again run the risk of annihilation. In 
the meantime, we would have repaired the forts, brought in 
troops, and made ourselves ready for them. "It seems to 
me to be a very foolish enterprise." 
I have already told how Enver had taken Napoleon as his 
model, and in this Dardanelles expedition he now apparently 
saw a Napoleonic opportunity. As we were pacing the 
deck, he stopped a moment, looked at me earnestly, and said : 
"I shall go down, in history as the man who demonstrated 
the vulnerability of England and her Fleet. I shall show 
that her Navy is not invincible. I was in England a few years 
before the war, and discussed England's position with many 
of her leading men, such as Asquith, Churchill, Haldane. 
I told them that their course was wrong. Winston Churchill 
declared that England could defend herself with her Navy 
alone, and that she needed no large army. I told Churchill 
that no great empire could last that did not have both an 
.army and a navy. I found that Churchill's opinion was the 
one that prevailed everj'where in England. There was only 
one man I met who agreed with me ; that was Lord Roberts. 
Well, Churchill has now sent his fleet down here — perhaps to 
show me that his navy can do all that he said it could do. 
Now we'll see." Enver seemed to regard this naval expedi- 
tion as a personal challenge from Mr. Churchill to himself— 
almost hke a continuation of their argument in London. 
