The Germans celebrated this great triumph in a way that was characteristically Teutonic. In their minds, January 17th, 1916, stands out as one of the great dates in the war. There was great rejoicing in Constantinople, for the first Balkan express--or, as the Germans called it, the Balkanzug--was due to arrive that afternoon. The railroad station was decorated with flags and flowers, and the whole German and Austrian population of Constantinople, including the Embassy staffs, assembled to welcome the incoming train. As it finally rolled into the station, thousands of “hochs” went up from as many raucous throats. Since that January 17th, 1916, the Balkanzug has run regularly from Berlin to Constantinople. The Germans believe that it is as permanent a feature of the new Germanic Empire as the line from Berlin to Hamburg. CHAPTER XXII THE TURK REVERTS TO THE ANCESTRAL TYPE The defeat of the English fleet at the Dardanelles had consequences which the world does not yet completely understand. The practical effect of the event, as I have said, was to isolate the Turkish Empire from all the world, excepting Germany and Austria. England, France, Russia, and Italy, which for a century had held a threatening hand over the Ottoman Empire, had now lost all power to influence or control. The Turks now perceived that a series of dazzling events had changed them from cringing dependents of the European Powers into free agents. For the first time in two centuries they could now live their national life according to their own inclinations and govern their peoples according to their own will. The first expression of this rejuvenated national life was an episode which, so far as I know, is the most terrible in the history of the world. New Turkey, freed from European tutelage, celebrated its national rebirth by murdering not far from a million of its own subjects. I can hardly exaggerate the effect which the repulse of the Allied fleet produced upon the Turks. They believed that they had won the really great decisive battle of the war. For several centuries, they said, the British fleet had victoriously sailed the seas, and, had now met its first serious reverse at the hands of the Turks. In the first moments of their pride the Young Turk leaders now saw visions of the complete resurrection of their Empire. What had for two centuries been a decaying nation had suddenly started on a new and glorious life. In their pride and arrogance the Turks began to look with disdain upon the people who had taught them what they knew of modern warfare, and nothing angered them so much as any suggestion that they owed any part of their success to their German allies.