Enver seemed particularly glad of this opportunity to discuss the situation. Immediately after breakfast he took me aside, and together we went up to the deck. The day was a beautiful sunny one, and the sky in the Marmora was that deep blue which we find only in this part of the world. What most impressed me was the intense quiet, the almost desolate inactivity of these silent waters. Our ship was almost the only one in sight, and this inland sea, which in ordinary times was one of the world’s greatest commercial highways, was now practically a primeval waste. The whole scene was merely a reflection of the great triumph which German diplomacy had accomplished in the Near East.
For nearly six months not a Russian merchant ship had passed through the straits. All the commerce of Rumania and Bulgaria, which had normally found its way to Europe across this inland sea, had long since disappeared. The ultimate significance of all this desolation was that Russia was blockaded and completely isolated from her allies. How much that one fact has meant in the history of the world for the last three years! And now England and France were seeking to overcome this disadvantage; to link up their own military resources with those of their great eastern ally, and to restore to the Dardanelles and the Marmora the thousands of ships that meant Russia’s existence as a military and economic, and even, as subsequent events have shown, as a political, Power. We were approaching the scene of one of the great crises of the war.
Would England and her allies succeed in this enterprise? Would their ships at the Dardanelles smash the fortifications, break through, and again make Russia a permanent force in the war? That was the main subject which Enver and I discussed, as for nearly three hours we walked up and down the deck. Enver again referred to the “silly panic” that had seized nearly all classes in the capital.
“Even though Bulgaria and Greece both turn against us,” he said, “we shall defend Constantinople to the end. We have plenty of guns, plenty of ammunition, and we have these on terra-firma, whereas the English and French batteries are floating ones. And the natural advantages of the straits are so great that the warships can make little progress against them. I do not care what other people may think. I have studied this problem more thoroughly than any of them, and I feel that I am right. As long as I am at the head of the War Department we shall not give up. Indeed, I do not know just what these English and French battleships are driving at. Suppose that they rush the Dardanelles, get here into the Marmora, and reach Constantinople, what good will that do them? They can bombard and destroy the city, I admit, but they cannot capture it, as they have no troops to land. Unless they do bring a large army, they will really be caught in a trap. They can perhaps stay here for two or three weeks, until their food and supplies are all exhausted, and then they will have to go back—rush the straits again, and again run the risk of annihilation. In the meantime we would have repaired the forts, brought in troops, and made ourselves ready for them. It seems to me to be a very foolish enterprise.”
I have already told how Enver had taken Napoleon as his model, and in this Dardanelles expedition he now apparently saw a Napoleonic opportunity. As we were pacing the deck he stopped a moment, looked at me earnestly, and said:
“I shall go down in history as the man who demonstrated the vulnerability of England and her fleet. I shall show that her Navy is not invincible. I was in England a few years before the war, and discussed England’s position with many of her leading men, such as Asquith, Churchill, Haldane. I told them that their course was wrong. Winston Churchill declared that England could defend herself with her Navy alone, and that she needed no large Army. I told Churchill that no great empire could last that did not have both an army and a navy. I found that Churchill’s opinion was the one that prevailed everywhere in England. There was only one man I met who agreed with me—that was Lord Roberts. Well, Churchill has now sent his fleet down here—perhaps to show me that his Navy can do all that he said it could do. Now we’ll see.”
Enver seemed to regard his naval expedition as a personal challenge from Mr. Churchill to himself—almost like a continuation of their argument in London.
“You, too, should have a large army,” said Enver, referring to the United States.
“I do not believe,” he went on, “that England is trying to force the Dardanelles because Russia has asked her to. When I was in England I discussed with Churchill the possibility of a general war. He asked me what Turkey would do in such a case, and said that, if we took Germany’s side, the British fleet would force the Dardanelles and capture Constantinople. Churchill is not trying to help Russia—he is carrying out the threat made to me at that time.”
Enver spoke with the utmost determination and conviction; he said that nearly all the damage inflicted on the outside forts had been repaired, and that the Turks had methods of defence the existence of which the enemy little suspected. He showed great bitterness against the English; he accused them of attempting to bribe Turkish officials, and even said that they had instigated attempts upon his own life. On the other hand, he displayed no particular friendliness toward the Germans. Wangenheim’s overbearing manners had caused him much irritation, and the Turks, he said, got on none too well with the German officers.