From the fall of Kut-el-Amara up to the time of Rumania's entry into the war, there were no important episodes of a military or political nature from the particular point of view of Turkey. (The Arabian catastrophe I will deal with in another connection.) With the ebb and flow of war and constant anxiety about Russia's movements, time passed slowly enough. It was well known that the Turkish offensive was already considerably weakened and the lack of means of transport was an open secret. Starvation and spotted fever raged at the Front as well as in the interior and the capital. Asiatic cholera even made its appearance in European Pera, but was fortunately successfully combated by vaccination. Further decisive Russian victories on the west and the Gulf of Alexandretta were expected after the fall of Ersindjian, for the ambition and personal hatred against the Turks of the Grand Duke Nicolai Nicolajivitch, commanding the armies in Armenia, would probably stop short at nothing less than complete overthrow of the enemy. Simple-minded souls, whose geography was not their strong point, reckoned how long it would take the Russians to get from Anatolia and when the conquest of Constantinople would take place. The less optimistic among those who were panting for final emancipation from the Young Turkish military yoke set their hopes on the entry of Rumania. In all circles Rumania's probable attitude was fairly clear, and no one ever doubted that she would be drawn into the war. In consequence of the new operations after Rumania's declaration of war, the revival of the offensive in Macedonia, and the events in Athens, all eyes were turned again to the ever-doubtful Greece. The Greek element, Ottoman and Hellenic combined, in Constantinople alone may be reckoned at several hundred thousand. Never were sympathies so great for Venizelos, never was the spirit of the Irredenta so outspoken as among the Greeks in Turkey, who had been the dupes since 1909 of every possible kind of Young Turkish intrigue. In contrast to the Armenians, the great mass of whom thought and felt as loyal Ottoman citizens right up to the very end when Talaat and Enver's policy of extermination set in against them--in contrast to these absolutely helpless and therefore all the more easy victims to the Turkish national lust of persecution, the attitude of the Greek citizens was all the more marked.