BY THE MAN WHO DINED WITH THE KAISER.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 165, 14 April 1916, Page 3 (Supplement)

BY THE MAN WHO DINED WITH THE KAISER.

THE MOST DANGEROUS PART OF MY MISSION. ATTEMPT TO DISCOVER GERMAN PLANS. GENERAL TOWNSHEND'S POSI= TION. THE GERMAN LOCUSTS. From the London "Daily Mail." The most dangerous portion of my Journey, if I except the close surveillance of the Kaiser's detective bodyguard at Nish, was when I left Constantinople for a time to travel as far as I could get along the Baghdad railway. My instructions from the "Daily ■Mail" were to endeavour to the best of my ability to find out the German plans in the East. For this purpose I mingled during my first nine days in Constantinople with as many Germans and Turks as possible. lam fortunate in the ability to speak French perfectly and German almost as perfectly. French was useful for talking to Turks, and my German, which is rather better than the average, enabled me to "get ■close.as the Americans say, not only to German soldiers but to the whole tribe of Germans who are passing for various purposes through Constantinople on their way to Asia Min•or. Part of the German economic plan is to turn Turkey into a Areat German dependency and to force the lazy Turks to a proper cultivation of a :soil that in some places is the richest in the world. Now what are the German military plans? I believe them to be three. I believe it '.s possible that they will attempt the whole three simultaneously or allow the three to develop as fortune, success, or failure may decide.

There is the Baghdad-Persia-India plan: there is the Caucasus plan, with which to tackle the Russians, and there in the Egypt and Suez Canal plan. WHERE TO KILL GERMANS. A German said to me: "It" the English and French cnly knew it, the proper place to kill Germans is between Nienport, in Belgium, and Mulhausen, in Alsace; but owing to their inferior staff work and i,ack of munitions, fear of our guns, gas, mines, and machine guns, they leave us comparatively quiet in the western western theatre, and enable us to menace the line of communication to India and the ridiculous Townshend expediton, which will never get to Baghdad." One afternoon, when taking coffee at the Nachim Pasha Hotel, I met a pleasant old Turk who spoke French extremely well, the Vali of Baghdad (a sort of justice of the peace, I believe), who had come .to report to the Germans on the condition of the Turkish and English forces. He said to me practically what Enver said—that the English were again too late. "We were very frightened when we heard they were coming," lie remarked, "for defences were in a bad condition, and we had nothing but a few old guns. Our spies, however, told us that General Townshend's force was a srnail one, and we therefore took courage and held them in check until we could get our reinforcements. Now," he continued, "thanks to Allah, they \ ill never reach our holy city. Their relief force is too late.' The German authorities in Constantinople are naturally pressed by the Baghdad people to send every available man to Baghdad, whereas the Turks' immediate wish is to get down to the Suez Canal and regain their fair province of Egypt and the Nile. All the Turkish sentiment, combined with German hatred of England, is towards an immediate advance on the Canal. People in England tell mo that it is impossible. They believe that it is only "bluff." My opinion, which may be worth nothing, formed after talking with scores of German and Turkish travellers in Constantinople and Asia Minor, is that unless there are rreat combined efforts in France by the English and the French and in the Caucasus by the Russians, the Germans and Turks may achieve at Hast one of their three objects, possibly two. perhaps all three.

WISE AND WILY IIINS. The ('.( terminiiig factors are pressure by the hated English Navy and greater activity in France, Belgium, and Russia. At four o'clock every afternoon the German officers, who were constantly arriving from Berlin at the Pera Palace Hotel to get their instructions, removed their military clothes and appeared in multi. Why? The German officer loves a uniform as mreii as an English officer seems to dislike it. "We must not give the Turks the impression that we are a (light of German locusts," said one young waggish Bavarian lieutenant to nu' "We do not want the Galata Bridge to look like Enter den Linden ;tl: the time, so as soon as we have finished our duty we go about as civ!Tians." They are wise. Constantinople is already German euogh. The German newspapers printed in the Mty, the crews of the Goohc-n and Breslan. r.nd of the submarines (all •these, however, wear the Turkish fe:-c i. md the swarms of miscellaneous Germans should be enough to arouse the unfortunate Turk to the fact that little by littl" he is being plucked alive. .My own impression is that whatever may be the nr.;;it ot ihe war the Germans are getting u; h •i hold on the Near East that it " II he impossible to drive them out. .Money i scarce in Germany, i» ut the Germans seem to have p'ent., ol it to spend in Turkey .iud Asia Minor. START!Nit- FOB ■ * \• > A I) Kaidar ■ - " >aUon is n 1 ti-,1 < ;j J i' ' rtiHg-plaee for all t .e . f adventures in 'be " Hail Pa* ; r -• 1 . a mere villat!(. iir i: a of A' ora. The sta-

tion stands out in one of the most beautiful positions of any building of its kind in the world. The heart of every patriotic Teuton thrills as he struts about theg reat hall and reads the various notices in his native tnogue. The rest of the world lias a good deal to learn from German rail, way stations, and this one at Haidar Pasha is an object lessoD in cleanliness to the Turks.

I have said that now began the most dangerous part of my journey. My dark appearance, coupled with my habitual wearing of the fez, cause me, fortunately, to attract less attention than I otherwise would. Enver Pasha's German aide-de-camp, with whom 1 had struck up a slight acquaintance after my first visit, very kindly obliged The Daily Mail correspondent with the offcial directions of how to get to Baghdad, the places at which to stop, the prices to ay at the so-called hotels, and so forth. They are an example of German thoroughness, and are in French, because, although the Germans now swarm in Turksey and Asia Minor, the only language possible for a visiting traveller in out-of-the-way places who does not know Turkish, is French. There is less danger in secret service work among crawls than in small p'aces. In Constantinople I was onlyone 0 fthousands of strangers passing to and fro at this strange time in the history of the Turkish capital. But the arrival of a stranger in a village sets every local busybody talking and wondering, and this brings one into conflict with some blundering minor official, who, in his zealous desire to show authority, may really stumble upon some weakness in one's doeumants that will get 0110 into trouble. Such a thing had happened to me already. My first attempt to get to Constantinople was through Holland by way of Cologne, Dtisseldorf, and Munich. At Dusscllorf, a most unfortunate incident with a lesser official occurred. The station master, with a lieutenant and two soldiers, asked all the passengers to leave the train and come to the Kommandatur (police station), there to be searched. Most unfortunately there was in my pocket an envelope addressed to me on which my name was spelt slightly differently from the form in which it appeared on my passport. Officialdim was aroused. The passport and' envelope were handed from one to the other, and I was politely detained for twenty-four hours and then deported to the Dutch frontier. I feared worse trouble, but there was not, nor is there ever, anything incriminating upon my person or in-my baggage. I returned to England, and Lord Northcliffe suggested a different route, which I followel successfully.

WHERE OUR PRISONERS ARE

I was anxious to get as far as possible along the Baghdad railway in orocr not only to look at the line itself but to discuss* with passengers en route. People in strange countries become companionable, and I nave often found that there is more to be learned in a railway carriage than anywhere else. There is a bond of sympathy between travellers that causes them after a few hours to be communicative.

I wanted to get to Aleppo, but 1 came to the contusion that I should probably never return if I penetrated too far on the road to Baghdad.

From Haidar Pasha one goes to Eskishehr, which is the junction for the Caucasus railway via Angora. Angora is, I believe, the place where English prisoners are confined. I have no evidence of this beyond something 1 heard while the train was waiting at Eskisliehr. I knowf or a fact that French prisoners are at Angora. Later on, at Konia, I saw some three hundred French prisoners, totally neglected, I regret to say, with little food and dying like flies. The sanitary condition of their camp is beyond description. The Turks are not naturally cruel, ton, fining their atrocities to the Armenians only. Turkish prisoners in Turkish prisons are not well treated. They are sued carelessly and neglected. It should be remembered l that the food shortage extends throughoct the whole area of the German operations, except as regards the German soldiers. Even at the bcaetiful station of Haidar Pasha 1 could not got a mouthful of bread or even a buscuit. The only refreshment was unlimited German beer produced in a local German bivwery. A LUCKY ESCAPE. The trainful of people proceeding along the Baghdad railway was typical of the German invasion of the East There were two merchants from Hamburg, going to bring back Persian products. They especially talked about copper. I had to sleep in the same room with one of them and was fearfully afraid that I might talk in my sleep in English, and indeed when a Turk came to wake me in the morning at Konia i inadvertently called out "Come in.'' The good Hamburger was lying Hat on bis back and snoring heavily,, and I thanked ni\ lucky stars for the fact. That Hamburger gave me a good impression of of sea power. The English are scarecelv popular in Berlin, but the feelings of the Berliners are mild by comparison with those of the inhab.tants of the uesolate port of Hamburg I see it here admitted that a great many articles are passing through th 3 British Fleet into Germany, and on?> ahs evidence of hat in many ways in Germany. But, on the other nana these articles have to meet the onsumptive power of seventy millions 1 people. A little is doled out now and then to the Austrians, though n<>t much, and I suppose that .'en the Turkish officials get some to keen them in good temper. The rest, of cout./e,' goes to the army, which is never slu rt of anything. The Germans are speeding up the Turkish agriculturists everywhere. The country between Constantinople and Konia is for the most part fertile, with palms and olives, :md is typically Orion, tal. At all the smaller stations the German non-commissioned 1 officers who are teaching the 1 urks to extract the utmost from the soil come to ' ;ne i t ilk with their friends in the tra n, vhc arrival of which k the chief local event of the dav. The trains, which are well equipped," travel slowly and stop for n considerable time at each station, [hero are no express trains on the Baghdad railwav. 1 will not 1 roulu- the reader with the thousand and one evidences of the German exodus 11» ihe I'.a -t. I hero are commercial travellers, railway engineers, military men of every rank, and civil servants a remarkable demonstration oi Pan-Germanism. 1 have real", that von Maekensen will take charge of the Tuikisli-German u-rco at Aleppo, the ba.-e for the expedition to the Suez Canal. At present Djainal I'asha, formerly Turkish Minuter of Marine, is i ncommand. Travellers who had come Irom Aleppo told me that the combined 1 urkish and German forces there numbered eighty thousand, but 1 do not guarantee the aceiiraev of the figure.

Wlidlato gworYtrao I ke ot tl* w S What 1 do know is that there is a ueneral air of activity everywhere, and long trains full ol new railway and telegrapii materia!, lines, small bridges, am! "numbers of new locomotives, the plodding, persistent Prussian is prod(lincr his Turkish slaves into such act on as lias never before been Known

to them. It is impossible to conceive that the higher Turkish authorities really believe that they will ever shake off the yoke. There is a great amount of light railway rolling stock to be seen en route, and I was assured that it is for the construction of the railway that will cross the desert to bring the TurkishGerman armies face to face with the British 011 the Canal.

At Baghdad is old von dor Goltz Pasha, ona of the oldest generals, with one of the youngest staffs. They say in Constantinople that the old man is merely a figurehead, btu he is extremelv popular with the voting nun arounu 1 him.

1 have said that at K onia, for reasons I cannot here explain, 1 thought it advisable to run no further risk, and so 1 returned once more to Constantinople, and went from there after a few days to Nish, where, you will remember, it was my good fortune to see the Kaiser at close quarters. 1 had further adventures beiore reaching London.