“We shall have peace within three months, Excellency!”
This little scene took place and this happy forecast was made in March, 1915!
CHAPTER XVI
THE TURKS PREPARE TO FLEE FROM CONSTANTINOPLE AND ESTABLISH A NEW CAPITAL IN ASIA MINOR—THE ALLIED FLEET BOMBARDING THE DARDANELLES
Probably one thing that stimulated this German desire for peace was the situation at the Dardanelles. In early January, when Wangenheim persuaded me to write my letter to Washington, Constantinople was in a state of the utmost excitement. It was reported that the Allies had assembled a fleet of forty warships at the mouth of the Dardanelles and that they intended to attempt the forcing of the strait. What made the situation particularly tense was the belief, which then generally prevailed in Constantinople, that such an attempt would succeed. Wangenheim shared this belief, and so, in a modified form, did von der Goltz, who probably knew as much about the Dardanelles defences as any other man, as he had for years been Turkey’s military instructor. I find in my diary von der Goltz’s precise opinion on this point as reported to me by Wangenheim, and I quote it exactly as written at that time: “Although he thought it was almost impossible to force the Dardanelles, still, if England thought it an important move of the general war, they could, by sacrificing ten ships, force the entrance, and do it very fast, and be up in the Marmora within ten hours from the time they forced it.”
The very day that Wangenheim gave me this expert opinion of von der Goltz, he asked me to store several cases of his valuables in the American Embassy. Evidently he was making preparations for his own departure.
Reading the Cromer Report on the Dardanelles bombardment, I find that Admiral Sir John Fisher, then First Sea Lord, placed the price of success at twelve ships. Evidently von der Goltz and Fisher did not differ materially in their estimates.
The situation of Turkey, when these first rumours of an Allied bombardment reached us, was fairly desperate. On all hands there were evidences of the fear and panic that had seized not only the populace, but the official classes. Calamities from all sides were apparently closing in on the country. Up to January 1, 1915, Turkey had done nothing to justify her participation in the war; on the contrary, she had met defeat practically everywhere. Djemal, as already recorded, had left Constantinople as the prospective “Conqueror of Egypt,” but his expedition had proved to be a bloody and humiliating failure. Enver’s attempt to redeem the Caucasus from Russian rule had resulted in an even more frightful military disaster. He had ignored the advice of the Germans, which was to let the Russians advance to Sivas and make his stand there, and, instead, he had boldly attempted to gain Russian territory in the Caucasus. This army had been defeated at every point, but the military reverses did not end its sufferings. The Turks had a most inadequate medical or sanitary service; typhus and dysentery broke out in all the camps, the deaths from these diseases reaching 100,000 men. Dreadful stories were constantly coming in telling of the sufferings of these soldiers. That England was preparing an invasion of Mesopotamia was well known, and no one at that time had any reason to believe that it would not succeed. Every day the Turks expected the news that the Bulgarians had declared war and were marching on Constantinople, and they knew that such an attack would necessarily bring in Rumania and Greece. It was no diplomatic secret that Italy was waiting only for the arrival of warm weather to join the Allies. At this moment the Russian fleet was bombarding Trebizond, on the Black Sea, and was daily expected at the entrance to the Bosphorus. Meanwhile the domestic situation was deplorable; all over Turkey thousands of the populace were daily dying of starvation; practically all able-bodied men had been taken into the army, so that only a few were left to till the fields; the criminal requisitions had almost destroyed all business; the Treasury was in a more exhausted state than normally, for the closing of the Dardanelles and the blockading of the Mediterranean ports had stopped all imports and customs dues; and the increasing wrath of the people seemed likely any day to break out against Talaat and his associates. And now, surrounded by increasing troubles on every hand, the Turks learned that this mighty armada of England and her allies was approaching, determined to destroy the defences and capture the city. At that time there was no force which the Turks feared so greatly as they feared the British fleet. Its tradition of several centuries of uninterrupted victories had completely seized their imagination. It seemed to them superhuman—the one overwhelming power which it was hopeless to contest.
Wangenheim and also nearly all of the German military and naval forces not only regarded the forcing of the Dardanelles as possible, but they believed it to be inevitable. The possibility of British success was one of the most familiar topics of discussion, and the weight of opinion, both lay and professional, inclined in favour of the Allied fleets. Talaat told me that an attempt to force the strait would succeed—it only depended on England’s willingness to sacrifice a few ships. The real reason why Turkey had sent a force against Egypt, Talaat added, was to divert England from making an attack on the Gallipoli Peninsula. The state of mind that existed is shown by the fact that on January 1st the Turkish Government had made preparations for two trains, one of which was to take the Sultan and his suite to Asia Minor, while the other was intended for Wangenheim, Pallavicini, and the rest of the diplomatic corps. On January 2nd I had an illuminating talk with Pallavicini. He showed me a certificate given him by Bedri, the Prefect of Police, passing him and his secretaries and servants on one of these emergency trains. He also had seat tickets for himself and all of his suite. He said that each train would have only three cars, so that it could make great speed; he had been told to have everything ready to start at an hour’s notice. Wangenheim made little attempt to conceal his apprehensions. He told me that he had made all preparations to send his wife to Berlin, and he invited Mrs. Morgenthau to accompany her, so that she, too, could be removed from the danger zone. Wangenheim showed the fear, which was then the prevailing one, that a successful bombardment would lead to fires and massacres in Constantinople, as well as in the rest of Turkey. In anticipation of such disturbances he made a characteristic suggestion. Should the fleet pass the Dardanelles, he said, the life of no Englishman in Turkey would be safe—they would all be massacred. As it was so difficult to tell an Englishman from an American, he proposed that I should give the Americans a distinctive button to wear, which would protect them from Turkish violence. As I was convinced that Wangenheim’s real purpose was to arrange some sure means of identifying the English, and of so subjecting them to Turkish ill-treatment, I refused to act on this amiable suggestion.
Another incident illustrates the nervous tension which prevailed in those January days. As I noticed that some shutters at the British Embassy were open, Mrs. Morgenthau and I went up to investigate. In the early days we had sealed this building, which had been left in my charge, and this was the first time we had broken the seals to enter. About two hours after we returned from this tour of inspection, Wangenheim came into my office in one of his now familiar agitated moods. It had been reported, he said, that Mrs. Morgenthau and I had been up to the Embassy getting it ready for the British Admiral, who expected soon to take possession!
All this seems a little absurd now, for, in fact, the Allied fleets made no attack at that time. At the very moment when the whole of Constantinople was feverishly awaiting the British dreadnoughts, the British Cabinet in London was merely considering the advisability of such an enterprise. The record shows that Petrograd, on January 2nd, telegraphed the British Government, asking that some kind of a demonstration be made against the Turks, who were pressing the Russians in the Caucasus. Though an encouraging reply was immediately sent to this request, it was not until January 28th that the British Cabinet definitely issued orders for an attack on the Dardanelles. It is no longer a secret that there was no unanimous confidence in the success of such an undertaking. Admiral Carden recorded his belief that the strait “could not be rushed, but that extended operations with a large number of ships might succeed.” The penalty of failure, he added, would be the great loss that England would suffer in prestige and influence in the East; how true this prophecy proved I shall have occasion to show. Up to this time one of the fundamental and generally accepted axioms of naval operations had been that warships should not attempt to attack fixed land fortifications. But the Germans had demonstrated the power of mobile guns against fortresses in their destruction of the emplacements at Liège and Namur, and there was a belief in some quarters in England that these events had modified this naval principle. Mr. Churchill, at that time at the head of the Admiralty, placed great confidence in the destructive power of a new superdreadnought which had just been finished—the Queen Elizabeth—and which was then on its way to join the Mediterranean fleet.