And then he made a statement which indicated what really lay back of his protest. I have thought of it many times in the last three years. The scene is indelibly impressed on my mind. There we sat on our horses; the silent, ancient forest of Belgrade lay around us, while in the distance the Black Sea glistened in the afternoon sun. Wangenheim suddenly became quiet and extremely earnest. He looked in my eyes and said:
“I don’t think that the United States realises what a serious matter this is. The sale of these ships might be the cause that would bring on a European war.”
This conversation took place on June 13; this was about six weeks before the conflagration broke out. Wangenheim knew perfectly well that Germany was rushing preparations for this great conflict, and he also knew that the preparations were not yet entirely complete. Like all the German Ambassadors, Wangenheim had received instructions not to let any crisis arise that would precipitate war until all these preparations had been finished. He had no objection to the expulsion of the Greeks, for that in itself was part of these preparations; he was much disturbed, however, over the prospect that the Greeks might succeed in arming themselves and disturbing existing conditions in the Balkans. At that moment the Balkans were a smouldering volcano. Europe had gone through two Balkan wars without becoming generally involved, and Wangenheim knew that another would set the whole continent ablaze. He knew that war was coming, but he did not want it just then. He was simply attempting to influence me at that moment to gain a little more time for Germany.
He went so far as to ask me to cable personally to the President, explain the seriousness of the situation, and to call his attention to the telegrams that had gone to the State Department on the proposed sale of the ships. I regarded his suggestion as an impertinent one and declined to act upon it.
To Djemal and the other Turkish officials who kept pressing me I suggested that their Ambassador in Washington should directly take up the matter with the President. They acted on this advice, but the Greeks again got ahead of them. At two o’clock, June 22nd, the Greek chargé d’affaires at Washington and Commander Tsouklas, of the Greek Navy, called upon the President and arranged the sale. As they left the President’s office the Turkish Ambassador entered—just fifteen minutes too late!
I presume that Mr. Wilson consented to the sale because he knew that Turkey was preparing to attack Greece and believed that the Idaho and Mississippi would prevent such an attack and so preserve peace in the Balkans.
Acting under the authorisation of Congress, the Administration sold these ships on July 8, 1914, to Fred J. Gauntlett for $12,535,276.98. Congress immediately voted the money realised from the sale to the construction of a great modern dreadnought, the California. Mr. Gauntlett transferred the ships to the Greek Government. Rechristened the Kilkis and the Lemnos, these battleships immediately took their places as the most powerful vessels in the Greek Navy, and the enthusiasm of the Greeks in obtaining them was unbounded.
By this time we had moved from the Embassy to our summer home on the Bosphorus. All the summer Embassies were located there, and a more beautiful spot I have never seen. Our house was a three-storey building, something in the Venetian style; behind it the cliff rose abruptly, with several terraced gardens towering one above the other. The building stood so near the shore and the waters of the Bosphorus rushed by so rapidly that when we sat outside, especially on a moonlight night, we had almost a complete illusion that we were sitting on the deck of a fast sailing-ship. In the daytime the Bosphorus, here little more than a mile wide, was alive with gaily-coloured craft. I recall this animated scene with particular vividness because I retain in my mind the contrast it presented a few months afterward, when Turkey’s entrance into the war had the immediate result of closing this strait. Day by day the huge Russian steamships, on their way from Black Sea ports to Smyrna, Alexandria, and other cities, made clear the importance of this little strip of water, and explained the bloody contests of the European nations, extending over a thousand years, for its possession. However, these early summer months were peaceful; all the Ambassadors and Ministers and their families were thrown constantly together; here daily gathered the representatives of all the Powers that for the last three years have been grappling in history’s bloodiest war, all then apparently friends, sitting around the same dining-tables, walking arm-in-arm upon the porches. The Ambassador of one Power would most graciously escort into dinner the wife of another whose country was perhaps the most antagonistic to his own. Little groups would form after dinner; the Grand Vizier would hold an impromptu reception in one corner, Cabinet Ministers would be whispering in another; a group of Ambassadors would discuss the Greek situation out on the porch; the Turkish officials would glance quizzically upon the animated scene and perhaps comment quietly in their own tongue; the Russian Ambassador would glide about the room, pick out someone whom he wished to talk to, lock arms and push him into a corner for a surreptitious tête-à-tête. Meanwhile our sons and daughters, the junior members of the diplomatic corps, and the officers of the several stationaires, dancing and flirting, seemed to think that the whole proceeding had been arranged solely for their amusement. And to realise while all this was going on that neither the Grand Vizier nor any of the other high Turkish officials would leave the house without outriders and bodyguards to protect them from assassination—whatever other emotions such a vibrating atmosphere might arouse, it was certainly alive with interest. I felt also that there was something electric about it all; war was ever the favourite topic of conversation; everyone seemed to realise that this peaceful, frivolous life was transitory, and that at any moment might come the spark that was to set everything aflame.
Yet, when the crisis came, it produced no immediate sensation. On June 29th we heard of the assassination of the Grand Duke of Austria and his consort. Everybody received the news calmly; there was, indeed, a stunned feeling that something momentous had happened, but there was practically no excitement. A day or two after this tragedy I had a long talk with Talaat on diplomatic matters; he made no reference at all to this event. I think now that we were all affected by a kind of emotional paralysis—as we were nearer the centre than most people, we certainly realised the dangers in the situation. In a day or two our tongues seemed to have been loosened, for we began to talk—and to talk war. When I saw von Mutius, the German chargé, and Weitz, the diplomat-correspondent of the Frankfürter Zeitung, they also discussed the impending conflict, and again they gave their forecast a characteristically Germanic touch; when war came, they said, of course the United States would take advantage of it to get all the Mexican and South American trade!
When I called upon Pallavicini to express my condolences over the Grand Duke’s death, he received me with the most stately solemnity. He was conscious that he was representing the imperial family, and his grief seemed to be personal; one would think that he had lost his own son. I expressed my abhorrence and that of my nation for the deed, and our sympathy with the aged Emperor.