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.