When I returned to our Embassy I found that the news of the proposed deportation had been published. The amazement and despair that immediately resulted were unparalleled, even in that city of constant sensations. Europeans, by living for many years in the Levant, seem to acquire its emotions, particularly its susceptibility to fear and horror, greatly accentuated by their deprivation of the protection of their Embassies. A stream of frenzied people now began to pour into the Embassy. From their tears and cries one would have thought that they were immediately to be taken out and shot; that there was any possibility of being saved seemed hardly to occur to them. Yet all the time they insisted that I should get individual exemptions. One could not go because he had a dependent family; another had a sick child; another was ill himself. My ante-room was full of frantic mothers, asking me to secure exemption for their sons, and of wives who sought special treatment for their husbands. They made all kinds of impossible suggestions. I should resign my ambassadorship as a protest; I should even threaten Turkey with war by the United States! They constantly besieged my wife, who spent hours listening to their stories and comforting them. In all this exciting mass there were many who faced the situation with more courage. The day after my talk with Enver, Bedri, the Prefect of Police, began to arrest some of the victims. The next morning one of my callers made what would ordinarily have seemed to be an obvious suggestion. This visitor was a German. He told me that Germany would suffer greatly in reputation if the Turks carried out this plan; the world would not possibly be convinced that Germans had not devised the whole scheme. He said that I should call upon the German and Austrian Ambassadors; he was sure that they would support me in my pleas for decent treatment. As I had made appeals to Wangenheim several times before on behalf of foreigners, without success, I had hardly thought it worth while to ask his co-operation in this instance. Moreover, the plan of using non-combatants as a protective screen in warfare was such a familiar German device that I was not at all sure that the German Staff had not instigated the Turks. I decided, however, to adopt the advice of my German visitor and seek Wangenheim’s assistance. I must admit that I did this as a forlorn hope, but at least I thought it only fair to Wangenheim to give him a chance to help.