Abdul Hamid 304 A characteristic view of the Armenian country 305 Fishing village on Lake Van 312 Refugees at Van crowding around a public oven, hoping to get bread 313 Kaiser William II, in the uniform of a Turkish Field Marshal 328 Interior of the Armenian church at Urfa 329 Armenian soldiers 336 Those who fell by the wayside 337 A view of Harpoot 337 View of Urfa 368 A relic of the Armenian massacres at Erzingan 368 The funeral of Baron von Wangenheim 369 AMBASSADOR MORGENTHAU’S STORY CHAPTER I A GERMAN SUPERMAN AT CONSTANTINOPLE When I began writing these reminiscences of my ambassadorship, Germany’s schemes in the Turkish Empire and the Near East seemed to have achieved a temporary success. The Central Powers had apparently disintegrated Russia, transformed the Baltic and the Black seas into German lakes, and had obtained a new route to the East by way of the Caucasus. For the time being Germany dominated Serbia, Bulgaria, Rumania, and Turkey, and regarded her aspirations for a new Teutonic Empire, extending from the North Sea to the Persian Gulf, as practically realized. The world now knows, though it did not clearly understand this fact in 1914, that Germany precipitated the war to destroy Serbia, seize control of the Balkan nations, transform Turkey into a vassal state, and thus obtain a huge oriental empire that would form the basis for unlimited world dominion. Did these German aggressions in the East mean that this extensive programme had succeeded?