Talaat’s statement that the German Chief of Staff, Bronssart, had really held up this train, was a valuable piece of information. I decided to look into the matter further, and, with this idea in my mind, I called next day on Wangenheim. The Turkish authorities, I said, had solemnly promised that they would treat their enemies decently, and certainly I could not tolerate any interference in the matter from the German Chief of Staff. Wangenheim had repeatedly told me that the Germans were looking to President Wilson as the peacemaker and I therefore used the same argument with him that I had urged on Talaat. Proceedings of this sort would not help his country when the day of the final settlement came! Here, I said, we have a strange situation; a so-called barbarous country, like Turkey, attempting to make civilized warfare and treat their Christian enemies with decency and kindness, and, on the other hand, a supposedly cultured and Christian nation, like Germany, which is trying to persuade them to revert to barbarism. “What sort of an impression do you think that will make on the American people?” I asked Wangenheim. He expressed a willingness to help and suggested, as my consideration for such help, that I should try to persuade the United States to insist on free commerce with Germany, so that his country could receive plentiful cargoes of copper, wheat, and cotton. This was a subject to which, as I shall relate, Wangenheim constantly returned. Despite Wangenheim’s promise I had practically no support from the German Embassy in my attempt to protect the foreign residents from Turkish ill treatment. I realized that, owing to my religion, there might be a feeling in certain quarters that I was not exerting all my energies in behalf of these Christian peoples and religious organizations--hospitals, schools, monasteries, and convents--and I naturally thought that it would strengthen my influence with the Turks if I could have the support of my most powerful Christian colleagues. I had a long discussion on this matter with Pallavicini, himself a Catholic and the representative of the greatest Catholic power. Pallavicini frankly told me that Wangenheim would do nothing that would annoy the Turks. There was then a constant fear that the English and French fleets would force the Dardanelles, capture Constantinople, and hand it over to Russia, and only the Turkish forces, said Pallavicini, could prevent such a calamity. The Germans, therefore, believed that they were dependent on the good graces of the Turkish Government, and would do nothing to antagonize them. Evidently Pallavicini wished me to believe that Wangenheim and he really desired to help. Yet this plea was hardly frank, for I knew all the time that Turkey, if the Germans had not constantly interfered, would have behaved decently. I found that the evil spirit was not the Turkish Government, but Von Bronssart, the German Chief of Staff. The fact that certain members of the Turkish