the German ships at Messina, enforcing neutrality and occasionally reminding them that they could remain in port only twenty-four hours. England had ships stationed at the Gulf of Otranto, the head of the Adriatic, to cut them off in case they sought to escape into the Austrian port of Pola. The British Navy also stood guard at Gibraltar and Suez, the only other exits that apparently offered the possibility of escape. There was only one other place in which the _Goeben_ and the _Breslau_ might find a safe and friendly reception. That was Constantinople. Apparently the British Navy dismissed this as an impossibility. At that time, early in August, international law had not entirely disappeared as the guiding conduct of nations. Turkey was then a neutral country, and, despite the many evidences of German domination, she seemed likely to maintain her neutrality. The Treaty of Paris, which was signed in 1856, as well as the Treaty of London, signed in 1871, provided that warships should not use the Dardanelles except on the special permission of the Sultan, which permission could be granted only in times of peace. In practice the Government had seldom given this permission except for ceremonial occasions. In the existing conditions it would have amounted virtually to an unfriendly act for the Sultan to have removed the ban against war vessels in the Dardanelles, and to permit the _Goeben_ and the _Breslau_ to remain in Turkish waters for more than twenty-four hours would have been nothing less than a declaration of war. It is, perhaps, not surprising that the British in the early days of August, 1914, when Germany had not completely made clear her official opinion that “international law had ceased to exist,” regarded these treaty stipulations as barring the German ships from the Dardanelles and Constantinople. Relying upon the sanctity of these international regulations, the British Navy had shut off every point through which these German ships could have escaped to safety--except the entrance to the Dardanelles. Had England, immediately on the declaration of war, rushed a powerful squadron to this vital spot, how different the history of the last three years might have been! * * * * *