Bedri came to arrange the details of my departure. As Ambassador I was personally accredited to the Sultan, and it would obviously be my duty, said Bedri, to go wherever the Sultan went; the train was all ready, he added. He wished to know how many people I intended to take, so that sufficient space could be reserved. To this proposal I entered a flat refusal. I informed Bedri that I thought that my responsibilities made it necessary for me to remain in Constantinople. Only a neutral Ambassador, I said, could forestall massacres and the destruction of the city, and certainly I owed it to the civilised world to prevent, if I could, such calamities as these. If my position as Ambassador made it inevitable that I should follow the Sultan, I would resign and become honorary Consul-General. Both Bedri and Djambolat were much younger and less experienced men than I, and I therefore told them that they needed a man of maturer years to advise them in an international crisis of this kind. I was not only interested in protecting foreigners and American institutions, but I was also interested, on general humanitarian grounds, in safeguarding the Turkish population from the excesses that were generally expected. The several nationalities, many of them containing elements which were given to pillage and massacre, were causing great anxiety. I therefore proposed to Bedri and Djambolat that the three of us form a kind of committee to take control in the approaching crisis. They consented, and we sat down and decided on a course of action. We took a map of Constantinople and marked the districts which, under the existing rules of warfare, we agreed that the Allied fleet would have the right to bombard. Thus, we decided that the War Office, Marine Office, telegraph offices, railroad stations, and all public buildings could quite legitimately be made the targets for their guns. Then we marked out certain zones which we should insist on regarding as immune. The main residential section, and the part where all the Embassies are located, is Pera, the district on the north shore of the Golden Horn. This we marked as not subject to attack. We also delimited certain residential areas of Stamboul and Galata, the Turkish sections. I telegraphed to Washington, asking the State Department to obtain a ratification of these plans and an agreement to respect these zones of safety from the British and French Governments. I received a reply endorsing my action. All preparations had thus been made. At the station stood trains which were to take the Sultan and the Government and the Ambassadors to Asia Minor. They had steam up, ready to move at a minute’s notice. We were all awaiting the triumphant arrival of the Allied fleet. CHAPTER XVII ENVER AS THE MAN WHO DEMONSTRATED “THE VULNERABILITY OF THE BRITISH FLEET”--OLD-FASHIONED DEFENCES OF THE DARDANELLES