The principal object of my visit to Constantinople was to find out from the Turks what were the German plans. I determined to take the bull by the horns, and accordingly called at the Turkish Foreign office to see Halil Bey, the Foreign Minister. It must be remembered that I was in possession of a personal introduction to him from the Turkish Ambassador in Vienna. After four unsuccessful attempts, I succeeded in seeing him by reason of my credentials, which have enabled me to gather so much valuable information. The Foreign Office, like every other Government department, is infested with Germans. Halil Bey, who received me courteously, is a prosperous-looking Turk, who might be described as fat. He was frankly pro-German. “What we Turks need,” he remarked, “is German business initiative. We do not possess it yet. Look what Germany did for Roumania; she has reorganised her and set her on her feet. Roumania is now rich and prosperous, and full of enterprise. The Germans are with us only for the duration of the war,” he added, “and they will help Turkey to become a wealthy nation. See what they are doing for us in Anatolia. There we have 200 German non-commissioned officers teaching the people modern farming.” I decided that Halil Bey was an optimist, and a very poor student of history. Also an equally bad judge of German character. My object in seeking out Halil Bey, however, was not so much to obtain his own opinions, as to get an introduction to Enver Pasha. I pressed the Foreign Minister very hard. “It is my desire,” I said, “to have a few words with the Napoleon of the Balkans.” “That,” he replied, “is very difficult. Twenty or thirty Austrian and German journalists have been here, but the Minister of War has been so occupied that he has been unable to see any of them; but I will try,” he added, and taking up the telephone he called up the War Minister, and had some laughing conversation with him in Turkish, the nature of which I did not understand. So far as I was concerned, it was obviously satisfactory, and I was told to go to the War Office on the following morning, when Enver Pasha would grant me an audience. The Turkish War Office stands on the top of a hill in the very heart of Stamboul, the native quarter of the city. It is a huge squat building surrounded by a railing some five yards high. The hill commands a magnificent view of Stamboul and the Sea of Marmora; but to a poor and over-tired journalist, unable to procure a carriage, who has for half-an-hour toiled laboriously up the hill to reach his goal, the glories of nature are somewhat discounted.