I had another practical reason for returning home, and that was to give the President and the State Department, by word of mouth, such first-hand information as I possessed on the European situation. It was especially important to give them the latest side lights on the subject of peace. In the latter part of 1915 and the early part of 1916 this was the uppermost topic in Constantinople. Enver Pasha was constantly asking me to intercede with the President to end the war. Several times he intimated that Turkey was war-weary and that its salvation depended on getting an early peace. I have already described the conditions that prevailed a few months after the outbreak of the war, but, by the end of 1915, they were infinitely worse. When Turkey decided on the deportation and massacre of her subject peoples, especially the Armenians and Greeks, she had signed her own economic death warrant. These were the people, as I have already said, who controlled her industries and her finances and developed her agriculture, and the material consequences of this great national crime now began to be everywhere apparent. The farms were lying uncultivated and daily thousands of peasants were dying of starvation. As the Armenians and Greeks were the largest taxpayers, their annihilation greatly reduced the state revenues, and the fact that practically all Turkish ports were blockaded had shut off customs collections. The mere statement that Turkey was barely taking in money enough to pay the interest on her debt, to say nothing of ordinary expenses and war expenses, gives a fair idea of her advanced degree of exhaustion. In these facts Turkey had abundant reasons for desiring a speedy peace. Besides this, Enver and the ruling party feared a revolution, unless the war quickly came to an end. As I wrote the State Department about this time, “These men are willing to do almost anything to retain their power.” Still I did not take Enver’s importunities for peace any too seriously. “Are you speaking for yourself and your party in this matter,” I asked him, “or do you really speak for Germany also? I cannot submit a proposition from you unless the Germans are back of you. Have you consulted them about this?” “No,” Enver replied, “but I know how they feel.” “That is not sufficient,” I answered. “You had better communicate with them directly through the German Embassy. I would not be willing to submit a proposition that was not indorsed by all the Teutonic Allies.” Enver thought that it would be almost useless to discuss the matter with the German Ambassador. He said, however, that he was just leaving for Orsova, a town on the Hungarian and Rumanian frontier, where he was to have a conference with Falkenhayn, at that time the German Chief-of-Staff. Falkenhayn, said Enver, was the important man; he would take up the question of peace with him. “Why do you think that it is a good time to discuss peace now?” I asked.