GERMANY CLOSES THE DARDANELLES AND SO SEPARATES RUSSIA FROM HER ALLIES
On September 27th Sir Louis Mallet, the British Ambassador, entered my office in a considerably disturbed state of mind. The Khedive of Egypt had just left me, and I began to talk to Sir Louis about Egyptian matters.
“Let’s discuss that some other time,” he said. “I have something far more important to tell you. They have closed the Dardanelles.”
By “they” he meant, of course, not the Turkish Government, the only Power which had the legal right to take this drastic step, but the actual ruling powers in Turkey, the Germans. Sir Louis had good reason for bringing me this piece of news, since this was an outrage against the United States as well as against the Allies. He asked me to go with him and make a joint protest. I suggested, however, that it would be better for us to act separately, and I immediately started for the House of the Grand Vizier.
When I arrived a Cabinet conference was in session, and, as I sat in the ante-room, I could hear several voices in excited discussion. Among them all I could distinctly distinguish the familiar tones of Talaat, Enver, Djavid, and other members of the Government. It was quite plain, from all that I could overhear through the thin partitions, that these nominal rulers of Turkey were almost as worked up over the closing as were Sir Louis Mallet and myself.
The Grand Vizier came out in answer to my request. He presented a pitiable sight. This was, in title at least, the most important official of the Turkish Government, the mouthpiece of the Sultan himself, yet now he presented a picture of abject helplessness and fear. His face was blanched and he was trembling from head to foot. He was so overcome with his emotions that he could hardly speak. When I asked him whether the news was true that the Dardanelles had been closed he finally stammered out that it was.
“You know this means war,” I said, and I protested as strongly as I could in the name of the United States.
All the time that we were talking I could hear the loud tones{69} of Talaat and his associates in the interior apartment. The Grand Vizier excused himself and went back into the room. He then sent out Djavid, the Minister of Finance, to discuss the matter with me.
“It’s all a surprise to us,” were Djavid’s first words—this statement being a complete admission that the Cabinet had had nothing to do with it. I repeated that the United States would not submit to closing the Dardanelles; since Turkey was at peace she had no legal right to shut the Straits to merchant ships, except in case of war. I said that an American ship laden with supplies and stores for the American Embassy was outside at that moment waiting to come in. Djavid suggested that I have this vessel unload her cargo at Smyrna; that the Turkish Government, he obligingly added, would pay the cost of transporting it overland to Constantinople. This proposal, of course, was a ridiculous evasion of the issue, and I brushed it aside.
Djavid then said that the Cabinet proposed to investigate the matter, and, in fact, they were discussing it at that moment. He told me how it had happened. A Turkish torpedo-boat had passed through the Dardanelles and attempted to enter the ?gean. The British warships stationed outside hailed the ship, examined it, and found that there were German sailors on board. The English admiral at once ordered the vessel to go back; this, under the circumstances, he had a right to do. Weber Pasha, the German general who was then in charge of the fortifications, did not consult the Turks, but he immediately gave orders to close the Straits. Wangenheim had already boasted to me, as I have said, that the Dardanelles could be closed in thirty minutes, and the Germans now made good his words. Down went the mines and the nets; the lights in the lighthouses were extinguished; signals were put up notifying all ships that there was “no thoroughfare,” and the deed, the most high-handed which the Germans had yet committed, was done. And here I found these Turkish statesmen, who alone had authority over this indispensable strip of water, trembling and stammering with fear, running hither and yon like a lot of frightened rabbits, appalled at the enormity of the German act, yet apparently powerless to take any decisive action. I certainly had a graphic picture of the extremities to which Teutonic bullying had reduced the present rulers of the Turkish Empire. And at the same moment before my mind rose the figure of the Sultan, whose signature was essential to close legally these waters, quietly dozing at his palace, entirely oblivious of the whole transaction.
Though Djavid informed me that the Cabinet might decide{70} to reopen the Dardanelles, it never did so. This great passage-way has remained closed from September 27, 1914, to the present time. I saw, of course, precisely what this action signified. That month of September had been a disillusioning one for the Germans. The French had beaten back the invasion and had driven the German armies to entrenchments along the Aisne. The Russians were sweeping triumphantly through Galicia; already they had captured Lemburg, and it seemed not improbable that they would soon cross the Carpathians to Austria-Hungary. In those days Pallavicini, the Austrian Ambassador, was a discouraged, lamentable figure. He confided to me his fears for the future, telling me that the German programme of a short, decisive war had clearly failed and that............