“We Turks are entitled to the credit,” he said, “of bringing Bulgaria in on the side of the Central Powers. She would never have come to our assistance if we hadn’t given her that slice of land. By surrendering it immediately, and not waiting until the end of the war, we showed our good faith. It was very hard for us to do it, of course, especially to give up part of the city, of Adrianople, but it was worth the price. We really surrendered this territory in exchange for Constantinople, for if Bulgaria had not come in on our side we would have lost this city. Just think how enormously we have improved our position. We have had to keep more than 200,000 men at the Bulgarian frontier, to protect us against any possible attack from that quarter. We can now transfer all these troops to the Gallipoli Peninsula, and thus make it absolutely impossible that the Allies’ expedition can succeed. We are also greatly hampered at the Dardanelles by the lack of ammunition. But Bulgaria, Austria, and Germany are to make a joint attack on Serbia and will completely control that country in a few weeks, so we shall have a direct railroad line from Constantinople into Austria and Germany and can get all the war supplies which we need. With Bulgaria on our side no attack can be made on Constantinople from the north; we have created an impregnable bulwark against Russia. “I do not deny that the situation has caused us great anxiety. We were afraid that Greece and Bulgaria would join hands, and that would also bring in Rumania. Then Turkey would have been lost; they would have had us between a pair of pincers. But now we have only one task before us, that is to drive the English and French at the Dardanelles into the sea. With all the soldiers and all the ammunition which we need, we shall do this in a very short time. We gave up that piece of land because we saw that that was the way to win the war.” The outcome justified Enver’s prophecies in almost every detail. Three months after Bulgaria accepted the Teutonic bribe the Entente admitted defeat and withdrew its forces from the Dardanelles, and with this withdrawal Russia, which was the greatest potential source of strength to the Allied cause, and the country which, properly organised and supplied, might have brought the Allies a speedy triumph, disappeared as a vital factor in the war. When the British and French withdrew from Gallipoli they turned adrift this huge hulk of a country to flounder to anarchy, dissolution, and ruin.