“That,” said General Djevad, “is the Agamemnon! Shall I fire a shot at her?” he asked me.
“Yes, if you’ll promise me not to hit her,” I answered.
We lunched at headquarters, where we were joined by Admiral Usedom, General Mertens, and General Pomiankowsky, the Austrian Military Attaché at Constantinople. The chief note in the conversation was one of absolute confidence in the future. Whatever the diplomats and politicians in Constantinople may have thought, these men, Turks and Germans, had no expectation—at least, their conversation betrayed none—that the Allied fleets would pass their defences. What they seemed to hope for above everything was that their enemies would make another attack.
“If we could only get a chance at the Queen Elizabeth!” said one eager German, referring to the greatest ship in the British Navy, then lying off the entrance.
As the Rhein wine began to disappear, their eagerness for the combat increased.
“If the damn fools would only make a landing!” exclaimed one—I quote his precise words.
The Turkish and German officers, indeed, seemed to vie with each other in expressing their readiness for the fray. Probably a good deal of this was bravado, intended for my consumption—indeed, I had private information that their real estimate of the situation was much less reassuring. Now, however, they declared that the war had presented no real opportunity for the German and English Navies to measure swords, and for this reason the Germans at the Dardanelles welcomed this chance to try the issue.
Having visited all the important places on the Anatolian side, we took a launch and sailed over to the Gallipoli Peninsula. We almost had a disastrous experience on this trip. As we approached the Gallipoli shore, our helmsman was asked if he knew the location of the minefield and if he could steer through the channel. He said “yes,” and then steered directly for the mines! Fortunately the other men noticed the mistake in time, and so we arrived safely at Kilid-ul-Bahr. The batteries here were of about the same character as those on the other side; they formed one of the main defences of the straits. Here everything, so far as a layman could judge, was in excellent condition, barring the fact that the artillery pieces were of old design and the ammunition not at all plentiful.
The batteries showed signs of a heavy bombardment. None had been destroyed, but shell-holes surrounded the fortification. My Turkish and German friends looked at these evidences of destruction rather seriously, and they were outspoken in their admiration for the accuracy of the Allied fire.