And these that had come in were only the slightly wounded, only those who were still able to move. What of those who have been stricken down by cholera on the road? What of those mangled and maimed by shrapnel and splinters of shell, mortally wounded by bullet and bayonet?
With no adequate preparations for the sick and wounded here at the base of operations, is it likely that the field hospitals were adequately supplied? Foreigners, Christians, are doing the work now which should have been done before by the Army authorities. It seems as if they, childlike, were only too pleased to shift that burden of responsibility on to other shoulders while they yet prated of victory.
Victory? With Thrace conquered by Bulgaria, Macedonia occupied by Serbs, the Montenegrins before Scutari, and Greeks holding Saloniki and Monastir!
Victory? With the remnant of the Ottoman Army hard-pressed behind the lines of Chatalja, and thousands dying by the road!
As in those May days of 1453, at the Feast of Pentecost, Constantinople awoke from sloth and inefficiency to find an enemy hammering at the gates, so that day, at Bairam, the Turkish Feast of Pentecost, the enemy was hammering at the outer gate, the lines of Chatalja, and this would not have happened but for sloth and inefficiency. In the meantime the hospitals were crowded, here in Constantinople thousands were dying on the road, or lying dead on the fields of Thrace and Macedonia, and the enemy’s guns were pounding on the last defences of a “Passing Empire.”
CHAPTER IV
The Mosque of St. Sophia and its beauties, and some legends that attach to it—The present state of its courts—The Sea of Marmora and an historical pageant: Genoese, Venetians, Khairreddin Barbarossa and his victories—The story of stout Sir Thomas Bentinck—The Palace of Justinian and its story: Theophane and her husbands—The Mosque of Achmet—At-meïdan, the former Hippodrome, and its story—Justin, Justinian and Theodora, and the Blues and Greens—Justinian II and his doings—Some reflections on modern history.
