The mixture of cowardice, lack of conscience, and lack of foresight of which our Government has been guilty in Armenian affairs is quite enough to undermine completely the political loyalty of any thinking man who has any regard for humanity and civilisation. Every German cannot be expected to bear as light-heartedly as the diplomats of Pera the shame of having history point to the fact that the annihilation, with every refinement of cruelty, of a people of high social development, numbering over one and a half million, was contemporaneous with Germany's greatest power in Turkey. In long confidential reports to my paper I made perfectly clear to them the whole position with regard to the Armenian persecutions and the brutal jingoistic spirit of the Young Turks apparent in them. The Foreign Office, too, took notice of these reports. But I saw no trace of the fruits of this knowledge in the attitude of my paper. The determination never to re-enter the editorial offices of that paper came to me on that dramatic occasion when my wife hurled her denunciation of Germany in my teeth. I at least owe a personal debt of gratitude to the poor murdered and tortured Armenians, for it is to them I owe my moral and political enfranchisement. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 1: This and other works on the subject came to my notice for the first time a few days before going to press. Before that (in Turkey, Austria, and Germany) they were quite unprocurable.] CHAPTER IV The tide of war--Enver's offensive for the "liberation of the Caucasus"--The Dardanelles Campaign; the fate of Constantinople twice hangs in the balance--Nervous tension in international Pera--Bulgaria's attitude--Turkish rancour against her former enemy--German illusions of a separate peace with Russia--King Ferdinand's time-serving--Lack of munitions in the Dardanelles--A mysterious death: a political murder?--The evacuation of Gallipoli--The Turkish version of victory--Constantinople unreleased--Kut-el-Amara--Propaganda for the "Holy War"--A prisoner of repute--Loyalty of Anglo-Indian officers--Turkish communiqués and their worth--The fall of Erzerum--Official lies--The treatment of prisoners--Political speculation with prisoners of war--Treatment of enemy subjects--Stagnation and lassitude in the summer of 1916--The Greeks in Turkey--Dread of Greek massacres--Rumania's entry--Terrible disappointment--The three phases of the war for Turkey. It will be necessary to devote a few lines to a review of the principal features of the war, so far as it affected the life of the Turkish capital, in order to have a military and political background for what I saw among the Turks during my twenty months' stay in their country. To that I will add a short description of the economic situation.