Whether Djemal and Talaat were telling the truth in thus pleading ignorance I do not know; my opinion is that they were expecting some such outrage as this. But there is no question that the Grand Vizier, Saïd Halim, was genuinely grieved. When M. Bompard and Sir Louis Mallet called on him and demanded their passports he burst into tears. He begged them to delay; he was sure that the matter could be adjusted. The Grand Vizier was the only member of the Cabinet whom Enver and Talaat particularly wished to placate. As a prince of the royal house of Egypt, and as an extremely rich nobleman, his presence in the Cabinet, as I have already said, gave it a certain standing. This probably explains the message which I now received. Talaat asked me to call upon the Russian Ambassador and ask what amends Turkey could make that would satisfy the Czar. There is little likelihood that Talaat sincerely wished me to patch up the difficulties; his purpose was merely to show the Grand Vizier that he was attempting to meet his wishes and, in this way, to keep him in the Cabinet. I saw M. Giers, but found him in no submissive mood. He said that Turkey could make amends only by dismissing all the German officers in the Turkish Army and Navy; he had his instructions to leave at once and he should do so. However, he would wait long enough in Bulgaria to receive their reply, and, if they accepted his terms, he would come back. “Russia, herself, will guarantee that the Turkish fleet does not again come into the Black Sea,” said M. Giers grimly. Talaat called on me in the afternoon, saying that he had just had lunch with Wangenheim. The Cabinet had the Russian reply under consideration, he said. The Grand Vizier wished to have M. Giers’s terms put in writing; would I attempt to get it? By this time Garroni, the Italian Ambassador, had taken charge of Russian affairs, and I told Talaat that such negotiations were out of my hands, and that any further negotiations must be conducted through him. “Why don’t you drop your mask as messenger-boy of the Grand Vizier and talk to me as Talaat?” I asked. He laughed and said: “Well, Wangenheim, Enver, and I prefer that the war shall come now.” Bustány, Oskan, Mahmoud, and Djavid at once carried out their threats and resigned from the Cabinet, thus leaving the Government in the hands of Moslem Turks. The Grand Vizier, although he had threatened to resign, did not do so. He was exceedingly pompous and vain, and enjoyed the dignities of his office so much that, when it came to the final decision, he could not surrender them. Thus the net result of Turkey’s entrance into the war, so far as internal politics was concerned, was to put the nation entirely in the hands of the Committee of Union and Progress, which now controlled the Government in practically all its departments. Thus the idealistic organisation which had come into existence to give Turkey the blessings of democracy had ended by becoming a tool of Prussian autocracy.