Ready for the Start
Bölcke and His Brother Max in France (August, 1916)
July 15, 1916
Early in the morning I rode to the Great Headquarters and reported to Enver Pasha, who personally gave me the Iron Crescent. Enver, who is still young, impressed me as a very agreeable, energetic, man. Then I went through the Bazar, with an interpreter. This is a network of streets, alleys and loopholes, in which everything imaginable is sold. Then went to the Agia Sofia, the largest mosque, and to the Sultan Ahmed, which has been changed to a barracks.
In the afternoon I went to the General (the ship on which the German naval officers live). In the evening we were in the Petit Champ, a little garden in which a German naval band played.
My valet amuses me. He is very unhappy, because he cannot feel at home, and is being cheated right and left by the people. He had pictured Turkey to be an entirely different sort of a place. He was very indignant because the merchants start at three o’clock, at night, to go through the streets selling their wares.