Vice-Admiral Souchon knew his Greeks and his Turks better than we did. He coaled his ships at the small island of Denusa in the Cyclades with the direct connivance of King Constantine, who had arranged for coal to be sent over from Syra, and ignored a formal message from the Sublime Porte forbidding him to pass the Dardanelles. He was confident that the Turks, still anxious to sit upon the fence until the safer side were disclosed, would not dare to fire upon him, and he was justified in his confidence. He steamed through the Narrows unmolested and anchored before Constantinople. There a telegram was handed to him from the Kaiser: “His Majesty sends you his acknowledgments.” One must allow that the Imperial congratulations were worthily bestowed. Souchon had done for Germany a greater service than had any of her generals or admirals or diplomats; he had definitely committed Turkey to the side of the Central Powers. * * * * * If of all words of tongue and pen The saddest are “It might have been,” More sad are these we daily see, “It is, but hadn’t ought to be.” —_Bret Harte_. For the escape of the _Goeben_ and _Breslau_, the Royal Navy was responsible, but for the consequences which grew out of that escape the responsibility rests upon _La haute Politique_ at home. The naval failure might have been retrieved within forty-eight hours had our Foreign Office understood the hesitating Turkish mind, and had realised that Souchon’s breach of the Dardanelles Convention—which bars the Straits to foreign warships—had brought to us a Heaven-sent opportunity to cut the bonds of gold and intrigue which bound the Turkish Government to that of Germany. Every Englishman in Constantinople expected that a pursuing English squadron of overwhelming power would immediately appear off the Turkish capital and insist upon the surrender or destruction of the German trespassers. Just as Souchon had passed the Dardanelles unmolested, so Milne with his three battle cruisers—had orders been sent to him—might have passed them on the day following. The Turks own no argument but force, and the greater force would have appeared to them to be the better argument. Milne, had he been permitted by the British Foreign Office, could have followed the _Goeben_ and _Breslau_ to Constantinople and sunk them there before the eyes of the world. Had he done so, the history of the war would have been very different. Upon the Cabinet at home must rest the eternal responsibility for not seeing and not seizing the finest and least hazardous opportunity that has been offered to us of determining by one bold stroke the course of the war. The three English battle cruisers could not have seized Constantinople any more effectively than the English Squadron, without military co-operation, could have seized it seven months later had it succeeded