On March 16, at 9 a.m., some British _estafettes_ handed to the Sultan, in his palace at Yildiz-Kiosk, and to the Sublime Porte a note of General Milne, commanding the Allied troops in Asia Minor and the town of Constantinople. It stated that at 10 a.m., with the agreement of the Italian, French, and British High Commissioners, and according to the orders of the British Imperial Headquarters, the Allied contingents would occupy the offices of the Minister of War and the Minister of Marine, the prefecture, the post and telegraph offices, the town gates, and the new bridge of Galata. In fact, the town had been occupied at daybreak by the Allied troops. The note added that for a short time the political administration would be left to the Turks, but under the control of Allied officers. Martial law was proclaimed, and, in case of resistance, force would be resorted to. The Ottoman Government gave no answer, and an hour later all the measures mentioned by General Milne were carried out. As these operations took a whole day, all the means of transport and communication were temporarily stopped. At the War Office the soldiers on duty attempted to resist the British forces. A skirmish ensued, in which two British soldiers were killed, and an officer and three soldiers wounded; nine Turks, including an officer, were killed, and a few more wounded. At the same hour a Greek destroyer steamed into the Golden Horn, and cast anchor opposite the Patriarch’s palace. Before this, General Milne had had a few deputies and senators arrested, together with a few men considered as having a share in the Nationalist movement, such as Kutchuk Jemal Pasha, ex-War Minister in the Ali Riza Cabinet; Jevad Pasha, formerly head of the staff; Tchourouk Soulou Mahmoud Pasha, a senator; Dr. Essad Pasha; Galatali Shefket Pasha, commanding the Straits forces; Reouf Bey, Kara Vassif Bey, Shevket Bey, Hassan Tahsin Bey, Nouman Ousta Effendi, Sheref Bey, deputies. Reouf Bey and Kara Vassif Bey were considered as representing in the Turkish Parliament Mustafa Kemal Pasha and the people who ensured the transmission of his orders. All these men were arrested illegally and brutally, with the consent of the French Governor, though they had always evinced much sympathy for France, under the pretext that they corresponded with the national army; and yet their intervention might have had favourable consequences. Among the men arrested that night, Jemal, Jevad, and Mahmoud Pasha, all three former Ministers, were insulted and sent to prison in their nightclothes, with their arms bound. Their doors and windows were broken open, and their Moslem wives were threatened in the harem. Some children of thirteen or fourteen were also arrested and thrashed. Eight Turkish soldiers on duty at Shahzade-Bashi were killed in the morning while they lay asleep on their camp-beds, and the censorship probably suppressed other deeds of the same kind.