The German officers and crews greatly enjoyed this farcical pretence that the _Goeben_ and the _Breslau_ were Turkish ships. They took particular delight in dressing themselves up in Turkish uniforms and Turkish fezzes, thereby presenting to the world conclusive evidence that these loyal soldiers of the Kaiser were now parts of the Sultan’s Navy. One day the _Goeben_ sailed up the Bosphorus, halted in front of the Russian Embassy, and dropped anchor. Then the officers and men lined the deck in full view of the enemy Ambassador. All solemnly removed their Turkish fezzes and put on German caps. The band played “_Deutschland uber Alles_,” the “Watch on the Rhine,” and other German songs, the German sailors singing loudly to the accompaniment. When they had spent an hour or two serenading the Russian Ambassador, the officers and crews removed their German caps and again put on their Turkish fezzes. The _Goeben_ then picked up her anchor and started south to her station, leaving in the ears of the Russian diplomat the gradually dying strains of German war songs as the cruiser disappeared down stream. I have often speculated on what would have happened if the English battle-cruisers, which pursued the _Breslau_ and _Goeben_ up to the mouth of the Dardanelles, had not been too gentlemanly to have violated international law. Suppose that they had entered the Strait, attacked the German cruisers in the Marmora, and sunk them. They could have done this, and, knowing all that we know now, such an action would have been justified. Not improbably the destruction would have kept Turkey out of the war. For, the arrival of these cruisers made it inevitable that Turkey should join her forces with Germany’s when the proper moment came. With them the Turkish Navy became stronger than the Russian Black Sea Fleet, and thus made it certain that Russia could make no attack on Constantinople. The _Goeben_ and the _Breslau_, that is, practically gave the Ottoman-German naval forces control of the Black Sea. Moreover, these two ships could easily dominate Constantinople, and thus furnish the means by which the German Navy, if the occasion arose, could terrorise the Turks. I am convinced that, when the judicious historian reviews this war and its consequences, he will say that the passage of the Strait by these German ships made it inevitable that Turkey should join Germany at the moment that Germany desired her assistance, and that they likewise sealed the doom of the Turkish Empire. There were men in the Turkish Cabinet who perceived this, even then. The story was told in Constantinople--though I do not vouch for it as authentic history--that the Cabinet Meeting at which this momentous decision had been made had not been altogether harmonious. The Grand Vizier and Djemal, it was said, objected to the fictitious “sale,” and demanded that it should be made a real one. When the discussion had reached its height Enver, who