FOOTNOTES:
[47] Under Art. II of the Anglo-Japanese Agreement, signed on July 13, 1911, it was agreed that if the two contracting parties should conduct a war in common, they should make peace in mutual agreement, etc.
BRITISH APPROVAL.
The Official Press Bureau issued the following on August 17:—
"The Governments of Great Britain and Japan, having been in communication with each other, are of opinion that it is necessary for each to take action to protect the general interest in the Far East contemplated by the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, keeping specially in view the independence and integrity of China, and provided for in that Agreement.
"It is understood that the action of Japan will not extend to the Pacific Ocean beyond the China Seas, except in so far as it may be necessary to protect Japanese shipping lines in the Pacific, nor beyond Asiatic waters westward of the China Seas, nor to any foreign territory except territory in German occupation on the Continent of Eastern Asia."
DECLARATION OF COMMON POLICY.
On September 5, 1914, the British Official Press Bureau issued the following statement from the Foreign Office:—
DECLARATION.
The undersigned duly authorised thereto by the respective Governments hereby declare as follows:—
The British, French, and Russian Governments mutually engage not to conclude peace separately during the present war. The three Governments agree that when terms of peace come to be discussed no one of the Allies will demand terms of peace without the previous agreement of each of the other Allies. In faith whereof the undersigned have signed this Declaration and have affixed thereto their seals.
Done at London in triplicate, the 5th day of September, 1914.
E. Grey, His Britannic Majesty's Secretary of
State for Foreign Affairs.
Paul Cambon, Ambassador Extraordinary and
Plenipotentiary of the French Republic.
Benckendorff, Ambassador Extraordinary and
Plenipotentiary of His Majesty the Emperor of Russia.
TURKEY JOINS GERMANY.
Directly war broke out the Turkish Army was mobilised, under the supreme command of Enver Pasha, who was entirely in German hands.[48] Although the Turkish Government had declared their intention of preserving their neutrality, they took no steps to ensure its maintenance. They forfeited their ability to do so by the admission of the German warships, "Goeben" and "Breslau," which, fleeing from the Allied Fleets, had entered the Dardanelles on August 10.
Instead of interning these war vessels with their crews, as they were repeatedly asked to do by the Allied Governments, the Turkish Government allowed the German Admiral and his men to remain on board, and while this was the case the German Government were in a position to force the hand of the Turkish Government whenever it suited them to do so.
In pursuance of a long-prepared policy, the greatest pressure was exercised by Germany to force Turkey into hostilities. German success in the European War was said to be assured; the perpetual menace to Turkey from Russia might, it was suggested, be averted by an alliance with Germany and Austria; Egypt might be recovered for the Empire; India and other Moslem countries would rise against Christian rule, to the great advantage of the Caliphate of Constantinople; Turkey would emerge from the War the one great power of the East, even as Germany would be the one great power of the West. Such was the substance of German misrepresentations.
Enver Pasha, dominated by a quasi-Napoleonic ideal, and by the conviction of the superiority of German arms, proved a most active agent on behalf of Germany.
A strong German element was imported into the remainder of the Turkish Fleet, even before the British Naval Mission, which had been reduced to impotence by order of the Minister of Marine, was recalled by His Majesty's Government. Large numbers of Germans were imported from Germany to be employed in the forts of the Dardanelles and Bosphorus, and at other crucial points.
Numerous German merchant vessels served as bases of communication, and as auxiliaries to what had become in effect the German Black Sea Fleet. Secret communications with the German General Staff were established by means of the "Corcovado," which was anchored opposite the German Embassy at Therapia. The German Military Mission in Turkey acted in closest touch with the Turkish Militarist Party. They were the main organisers of those military preparations in Syria which directly menaced Egypt.
Emissaries of Enver Pasha bribed and organised the Bedouins on the frontier; the Syrian towns were full of German officers, who provided large sums of money for suborning the local chiefs. The Khedive of Egypt, who was in Constantinople, was himself a party to the conspiracy, and arrangements were actually made with the German Embassy for his presence with a military expedition across the frontier. All the Turkish newspapers in Constantinople and most of the provincial papers became German organs; they glorified every real or imaginary success of Germany or Austria, and minimised everything favourable to the Allies.
Millions of money were consigned from Germany to the German Embassy in Constantinople, and delivered under military guard at the Deutsche Bank. At one time these sums amounted to £4,000,000. A definite arrangement was arrived at between the Germans and a group of Turkish Ministers, including Enver Pasha, Talaat Bey and Djemal Pasha, that Turkey should declare war as soon as the financial provision should have attained a stated figure.
The final point was reached when Odessa and other Russian ports in the Black Sea were attacked by the Turkish Fleet on October 29, 1914. It is now certain that the actual orders for these attacks were given by the German Admiral on the evening of October 27.
On October 30 the Russian Ambassador asked for his passports and there was nothing left but for the British and French Ambassadors to demand theirs on the same day. The Russian Ambassador left Constantinople on October 31, while the British and French Ambassadors left the following evening.[49]
Thenceforward the Turks, at the instigation of the Germans, unsuccessfully endeavoured to raise Mahomedans in all countries against Great Britain and her Allies. The Sultan of Turkey, misusing his position as Padishah and Titular Head of the Moslems, gave a perverted history of the events and proclaimed a Holy War. The Sultan, in his speech from the Throne on December 14, 1914 (at which ceremony the ex-Khedive of Egypt was present), said:—
"We were just in the best way to give reforms in the interior a fresh impetus when suddenly the great crisis broke out. While our Government was firmly resolved to observe the strictest neutrality, our Fleet was attacked in the Black Sea by the Russian Fleet. England and France then began actual hostilities by sending troops to our frontiers. Therefore I declared a state of war. These Powers, as a necessity, compelled us to resist by armed force the policy of destruction which at all times was pursued against the Islamic world by England, Russia, and France, and assumed the character of a religious persecution. In conformity with the Fetwas I called all Moslems to a Holy War against these Powers and those who would help them."[50]
What the Moslems of India thought of the situation is succinctly shown by a speech delivered on October 1, 1914, by the Agha Khan, the spiritual head of the Khoja community of Mahomedans and President of the All-India Moslem League.[51] He said he had always been convinced that Germany was the most dangerous enemy of Turkey and other Moslem countries, for she was the Power most anxious to enter by "peaceful penetration" Asia Minor and Southern Persia. But she had been posing for years past as a sort of protector of Islam—though Heaven forbid that they should have such an immoral protector.