Never once did they vouchsafe an answer to this. The German has an extraordinary capacity for seeing no further than his particular goal. He is a creature of cries “To Paris!” “To Calais!” “To Warsaw!” “To Egypt!”; and when he finds himself baulked he forgets his object, just as a child forgets a toy when something more interesting presents itself. One and all, however, admitted that there was no chance of the Germans getting to Paris. Their contention was--and it must be remembered that many of them had been fighting in the West--that they had effectually walled off the English and French armies and rendered them to all intents and purposes impotent, thus enabling themselves together with their allies--Austrian, Turkish, Bulgarian, and Arabian--to operate freely on the Eastern front. As I have said, my instructions were to find out what were the German plans in the East. With this object I mingled freely with as many Germans and Turks as possible. I lost no opportunity of entering into conversation with anyone who showed the least inclination to converse. Fortunately I speak French perfectly, and German almost as well. French enabled me to talk to the Turks, and my German permitted me to “get close,” as the Americans say, not only to the German soldiers, but to officers and civilians, who are stationed at, or are passing through, Constantinople on their way to Asia Minor. It appears to be part of the German economic plan to turn Turkey into a great German dependency, and to force the Turk to cultivate the soil, which in some places is the richest in the world. The true humour of the situation will develop when the Turk discovers what he has let himself in for. As to the German military plans, they are, so far as I could gather, three in number. My own view is that they will attempt the whole three simultaneously, and then allow them to develop as fortune may decide. These plans are (1) the Baghdad-Persia-India plan; (2) the Caucasus plan, with which to tackle the Russians; (3) Egypt and the Suez Canal plan. One afternoon a German said to me, “If the English and French only knew, the proper place to kill Germans is between Nieuport in Belgium and Mülhausen in Alsace; but owing to their inferior staff work, lack of munitions, fear of our guns, gas, mines, and machine-guns, they leave us comparatively quiet in the Western theatre, and enable us to menace the line of communication to India and the ridiculous Townshend Expedition, which will never get to Baghdad.”