The defection of Bulgaria had the effect of an unexpected cold douche on Enver and Talaat; who, after the Turkish occupation of Batoum and capture of Baku, had been dreaming of a Greater Turkey that was to include the Maritza basin, most of the Dobrudja, and the whole of the Caucasus from the Black Sea to the Caspian, with a sphere of influence extending eastward to Bokhara and Samarkand. Agents and gramophone records were carrying the voice of Enver all over the Moslem world.
When the Balkan Railway was cut and daily reports of German retreats in France continued to arrive, even the Young Turk politicians began to desert the rotten ship of state. The opposition groups—the Liberal, the Navy, and the Khoja parties—raised their heads and began to intrigue for a complete surrender to the Allies. Djambolat Bey, the Minister of the Interior, resigned. Rahmi Bey, the powerful Vali of Smyrna, who throughout the war had shown every consideration to the Entente subjects in his vilayet, came to Constantinople with the avowed intention of working an immediate peace. Talaat was for bargain and compromise. Only Enver Pasha and his personal followers remained faithful to their German friends. The Sultan's chance had come.
Colonel Newcombe decided on an audacious plan of action. He wrote a convincing memorandum, which suggested that if Turkey now sued for a separate peace she would obtain better terms than if she waited until Germany was thoroughly beaten. This memorandum, originally the draft of a proposed proclamation to the Turkish army, was taken by Miss Whittaker to a Committee politician of her acquaintance. Eventually one copy of it was given to Fethi Bey, the new Minister of the Interior, and another passed through the hands of the Sultan's dentist to the Sultan himself.
A week earlier—on September the twenty-ninth—the Young Turk Cabinet had met to consider the Bulgarian demand for an armistice; and the Grand Vizier, who arrived from Germany by the last Balkan express that passed through Sofia, offered his resignation. At the time nobody could form an alternative ministry so Talaat again took up the reins of power.
The Sultan and the Minister of the Interior received their copies of Colonel Newcombe's memorandum on October the fifth. During the intervening days it had become more and more plain that Germany was doomed to defeat. The Sultan and the Peace parties, therefore, only wanted a suitable bludgeon for a coup de grâce to the Ministry.
They found it in this purely unofficial communication from an escaped prisoner of war. Colonel Newcombe's memorandum was produced and discussed at a stormy council of the Committee of Union and Progress, which resulted in the definite resignation of Talaat and Enver. Tewfik Pasha, Izzet Pasha, and other Opposition leaders were called into consulation by the Sultan.
From being a hunted fugitive Colonel Newcombe suddenly found himself a person of consequence. As a special favour he was asked not to carry out his plans for escaping from Turkey, because the Ottoman Government believed he would be useful in arranging an armistice. He met the Vali of Smyrna at the Tokatlian Hotel, and there the British prisoner and the high Turkish official shook hands and discussed the changing international situation.
On October the sixteenth Colonel Newcombe, accompanied by Miss Whittaker, went by appointment to the house of a politician, where he met the new Minister of the Interior, the Vali of Smyrna, and other notabilities. Over the dinner table the mighty questions of peace and war were then debated by an escaped prisoner of war and a prominent Minister of the country in which he was technically still a captive.
Colonel Newcombe explained that though he worked for Allied and not Turkish interests, his friendly advice was that the Ottoman Government should sue immediately for a separate armistice; because whereas Germany wanted to keep a weak Turkey whom she could dominate, the Allies' principle of the rights of nationality forbade any idea of complete domination.
The Turks' attitude at this curious meeting was summed up in remarks made by the Minister of the Interior: