In mentioning a Greek army, Mr. Churchill justly relied upon M. Venizelos, at that time by far the ablest personality in the Near East, entirely friendly to ourselves, and Premier of Greece, which he had saved from chaos and greatly extended in territory by his policy of the preceding five or six years. But Mr. Churchill forgot to take account of two important factors. After the Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913, King Constantine’s imaginative but unwarlike people had acclaimed him both as the Napoleon of the Near East and as the “Bulgar-slayer,” a title borrowed from Byzantine history. Priding himself upon these insignia of a military fame little justified by his military achievements from 1897 onward, the King of Greece posed as the plain, straightforward soldier, and, perhaps to his credit, from the first refused approval of a Dardanelles campaign, though he professed himself willing to lead his whole army along the coast through Thrace to the City. The profession was made the more easily through his consciousness that the offer would not be accepted.[7] For the other factor forgotten by Mr. Churchill was the certain refusal of the Tsar to allow a single Greek soldier to advance a yard towards the long-cherished prize of Constantinople and the Straits. [Sidenote: TURKEY DECLARES WAR] Turkish hesitation continued up to the end of October, when the war party under Enver Pasha, Minister of War, gained a dubious predominance by sending out the Turkish fleet, which rapidly returned, asserting that the ships had been fired upon by Russians (Oct. 28)--an assertion believed by few. On the 29th, Turkish torpedo boats (at first reported as the _Goeben_ and _Breslau_) bombarded Odessa and Theodosia, and a swarm of Bedouins invaded the Sinai Peninsula. Turkey declared war on the 31st. Sir Louis Mallet left Constantinople on November 1, and on the 5th England formally declared war upon Turkey. CHAPTER II THE INCEPTION The breach with Turkey, so pregnant with evil destiny, did not attract much attention in England at the moment. All thoughts were then fixed upon the struggle of our thin and almost exhausted line to hold Ypres and check the enemy’s straining endeavour to command the Channel coast by occupying Dunkirk, Calais, and Boulogne. The Turk’s military reputation had fallen low in the Balkan War of 1912, and few realised how greatly his power had been re-established under Enver and the German military mission. Egypt was the only obvious point of danger, and the desert of Sinai appeared a sufficient protection against an unscientific and poverty-stricken foe; or, if the desert were penetrated, the Canal, though itself the point to be protected, was trusted to protect itself. On November 8, however, some troops from India seized Fao, at the mouth of the Tigris-Euphrates, and, with reinforcements, occupied Basrah on the 23rd, thus inaugurating that Mesopotamian expedition which, after terrible vicissitudes, reached Bagdad early in March 1917.