Upon him, upon more than almost any diplomatic representative of Germany, depended the success of the Kaiser’s conspiracy for world domination. This German diplomat came to Constantinople with a single purpose. For twenty years the German Government had been cultivating the Turkish Empire. All this time the Kaiser had been preparing for a world war, and in this war it was destined that Turkey should play an almost decisive part. Unless Germany should obtain the Ottoman Empire as its ally, there was little chance that she could succeed in a general European war. When France had made her alliance with Russia, this placed the man-power, 170,000,000, on her side, in the event of a war with Germany. For more than twenty years Germany had striven diplomatically to detach Russia from this French alliance, but had failed. There was only one way in which Germany could make valueless the Franco-Russian alliance; this was by obtaining Turkey as an ally. With Turkey on her side, Germany could close the Dardanelles, the only practical line of communication between Russia and her Western allies. This simple act would deprive the Czar’s army of war munitions, destroy Russia economically by stopping her grain exports, her greatest source of wealth, and thus detach Russia from her partners in the world war. Thus Wangenheim’s mission was to make it absolutely certain that Turkey should join Germany in the great contest that was impending. Wangenheim believed that, should he succeed in accomplishing this task, he would reap the reward which for years had represented his final goal--the Chancellorship of the Empire. His skill at establishing personal relations with the Turks gave him a great advantage over his rivals. Wangenheim had precisely that combination of force, persuasiveness, geniality, and brutality needed in dealing with the Turkish character. I have emphasised his Prussian qualities; yet Wangenheim was a Prussian not by birth but by development; he was a native of Thuringia, and, together with all the push, ambition, and overbearing traits of the Prussian, he had some of the softer characteristics which we associate with Southern Germany. He had one conspicuous quality, which is not Prussian at all--that is, tact; and for the most part he succeeded in keeping his less agreeable tendencies under the surface and showing only his more ingratiating side. He dominated not so much by brute strength as by a mixture of force and amiability; externally he was not a bully; his manner was more insinuating than coercive; he won by persuasiveness, not by the mailed fist, but we who knew him well understood that back of all his gentleness there lurked a terrific, remorseless ambition. Yet the impression left was not one of brutality, but of excessive animal spirits and good nature. Indeed, Wangenheim had in combination the jovial enthusiasm of a college student, the rapacity of a Prussian official, and the happy-go-lucky qualities of a man of the world. I