German officers and men in large numbers were now pouring into Constantinople to help the Turkish army and navy in the coming campaign. Germany was practically taking over the control of the fleet as well as of the army, and it was thought that Turkey would thus be able to meet the Greek navy on the open sea. Turkey, too, apparently counted on the fact that if she declared war the Balkan States would quarrel among themselves. On the contrary, it was held in Triple Entente circles that the Balkan Alliance against her, which had been so successful in the first war, would be once again called into existence.
Moreover, the intervention of Turkey into the sphere of hostilities, although nominally directed against Greece only, would have been regarded as a declaration of war by the Powers of the Triple Entente. They would have lent the Balkan Powers the support of their fleets in the Mediterranean, in which case they would soon have disposed of all the Turkish and German ships.
The British Government was fully aware, as were all the other Allies, of the gravity of the situation, and of the fact that attempts would be made to create trouble in Egypt, in India, and elsewhere. They warned Turkey that in starting on any such campaign she would be signing her own death-warrant.
The suggestion that an attempt would be made to stir up an insurrection in Egypt was certainly plausible, though it may be pointed out that the German diplomatists at the same time made another suggestion which, if carried out, would have been equally effective or ineffective. Although England is practically mistress of Egypt, Egypt is nevertheless in all strictness not British territory, but Turkish territory, administered by British officials. It might, therefore, have been argued with some show of reasonableness that any movement of troops against Egypt on the part of Turkey could not be construed by us in an unfriendly sense, as Turkey would, after all, merely be moving troops from one part of her own territories to another.
The second German suggestion was that the Turkish Army Corps at Bagdad might be moved towards the Persian Gulf with the object of quelling the risings in the neighbourhood of Koweit, which is in an almost perpetual state of unrest. It happens that the Persian Gulf has always admittedly been an English sphere of influence, and that the small Province of Koweit, governed by a Sheik, was not unconnected with the proposed termination of the Bagdad Railway. The status of the Sheik of Koweit has always been obscure and was supposed to have been "regulated" by the Anglo-Turkish agreement, the details of which were under discussion when war broke out. It might conceivably be urged that here again Turkey could move masses of troops to another part of her own territory and thus strike indirectly on Great Britain.
In reply to these statements and the dishonourable implications which they conveyed, both the Turkish Ambassadors in London and Paris and the Turkish Department for Foreign Affairs at Constantinople gave explicit assurances that Turkey would not take any step inconsistent with her neutrality. It must be remembered that ever since the revolution in 1908, Turkey had received very little practical assistance from Germany, apart from the tinkering with her army. The best advisory officials and all the money were supplied to the Ottoman Government by France and Great Britain. Further, it was believed that, even in the face of German bribes and threats, Turkey would hold back if only out of regard for the stability of her rather precarious empire of Thrace in Asia Minor. In view of a possible Turkish participation in the war, Russia had taken the precautionary measure of massing, it was said, more than half a million troops on the Turkish frontier; and if the Turks had intervened on behalf of Germany, it was believed that Roumania and Greece would take the field on behalf of England, France, and Russia. The position of Bulgaria was fully realised to be more doubtful, as out of all the countries constituting the Balkan League, Bulgaria had profited least as the result of the campaign in 1912-13; and she had vainly appealed for some kind of "compensation" to both groups of the Great Powers.
On September 4th, Roumania, it was announced for the first time, had joined the Great Powers in warning Turkey that a breach of her neutrality would be fraught with disastrous consequences to the Ottoman Empire. In view of the questions at issue between Turkey and Greece, delegates met at the Roumanian capital, Bucharest, to discuss matters. On September 6th, however, the Ambassadors representing France, England, and Russia at Constantinople deemed it advisable once more to warn the Austrian Government, and it was stated that many European families in Constantinople were beginning to leave the city, as it seemed probable that war was about to be declared. It was clear from the diplomatic intelligence which came through that the Turkish Government had itself decided for neutrality, but was being swayed in its decision by the German Ambassador at Constantinople, Baron von Wanggenheim.
It need hardly be added that during this period of grave tension, German Press agents were busy in the Balkans generally. Extraordinary reports were sent to the newspapers in Athens, Sofia, and Bucharest, with the customary object of showing that Germany was winning in every direction and would eventually be the strongest Power in Europe. The German Minister in Athens declared at the end of August that no German port had been blockaded by the British Fleet, and that the North Sea was still open for German commerce.