I have often speculated on what would have happened if the English battle cruisers, which pursued the _Breslau_ and the _Goeben_ up to the mouth of the Dardanelles, had not been too gentlemanly to violate international law. Suppose that they had entered the Strait, attacked the German cruisers in the Marmora, and sunk them. They could have done this, and, knowing all that we know now, such an action would have been justified. Not improbably the destruction would have kept Turkey out of the war. For the arrival of these cruisers made it inevitable that Turkey, when the proper moment came, should join her forces with Germany. With them the Turkish navy became stronger than the Russian Black Sea Fleet and thus made it certain that Russia could make no attack on Constantinople. The _Goeben_ and the _Breslau_, therefore, practically gave the Ottoman and German naval forces control of the Black Sea. Moreover, these two ships could easily dominate Constantinople, and thus they furnished the means by which the German navy, if the occasion should arise, could terrorize the Turks. I am convinced that, when the judicious historian reviews this war and its consequences, he will say that the passage of the Strait by these German ships made it inevitable that Turkey should join Germany at the moment that Germany desired her assistance, and that it likewise sealed the doom of the Turkish Empire. There were men in the Turkish Cabinet who perceived this, even then. The story was told in Constantinople--though I do not vouch for it as authentic history--that the cabinet meeting at which this momentous decision had been made had not been altogether harmonious. The Grand Vizier and Djemal, it was said, objected to the fictitious “sale,” and demanded that it should not be completed. When the discussion had reached its height Enver, who was playing Germany’s game, announced that he had already practically completed the transaction. In the silence that followed his statement this young Napoleon pulled out his pistol and laid it on the table. “If any one here wishes to question this purchase,” he said quietly and icily, “I am ready to meet him.” A few weeks after the _Goeben_ and the _Breslau_ had [Illustration: BARON VON WANGENHEIM, GERMAN AMBASSADOR TO TURKEY He was personally selected by the Kaiser to bring Turkey into line with Germany and transform that country into an ally of Germany in the forthcoming war--a task at which he succeeded. Wangenheim represented German diplomacy in its most ruthless and most shameless aspects. He believed with Bismarck that a patriotic German must stand ready to sacrifice for Kaiser and Fatherland not only his life, but his honour as well. With wonderful skill he manipulated the desperate adventurers who controlled Turkey in 1914 into instruments of Germany. ] [Illustration: DJEMAL PASHA, MINISTER OF MARINE