HOW WE LOST THE TURKS.

Taranaki Daily News, 22 January 1918, Page 6

HOW WE LOST THE TURKS.

I AMERICAN DIPLOMAT'S DIS- ! CLOSURES. Life in Constantinople during the summer of 1915, when tlui Allies were hammering at the gates of Gallipoli and German intrigue governed Turkish misrule and outwitted British diplomacy is described by an American diplomat, Mr. Lewis Einstein, a former United States Minister Plenipotentiary and late special .agent at the American Embassy, in his diary. The blunders ot Great Britain in relation to Turkey are pointed out with convincing logic by this American, whose sympathies were profoundly pro-Ally. He believes that with only a little skilful handling Turkey would have been glad to become our Ally. As a Turkish diplomat, Djevad, said to the writer: — 'He thought the British made & great mistake not to work with the committee —with all its faults it had energy and power, and a country like Turkey was not ripe for party government. " , . After all, the Turks prefer the English to other foreigners. I told him that the Young Turk treatment of Greeks and Armenians had given great offence. He asked why this would not have been over-looked, in the same way as London over-looked Russian atrocities in Persia.

BRITISH ERRORS. "He had been much impressed when, after every kind of horror, Grey declared he was without information on the subject. Djevad gave the usual Turk argument for the war—the necessity of seizing the opportune moment to flgHt Russia, and also to wipe out the stigma of the Balkan war. I asked what Turkeywould gain from it. 'Nothing,' lie said. 'All we ask of Germany is that she should not be beaten.' "After the revolution they (the English) held Turkey in their haiids. They erred over Adrianople during the second Balkan war, when Asquith declared the Turks would not be allowed to stay there, and last August, when they seized itlie two Turkish Dreadnoughts and the money with them, instead of sending them here under British officers to control the straits; when they let in the Geehen and the fleet failed to follow and sink her in the Dardanelles; when they did not deliver an ultimatum to Turkey to dismiss the German officers and crew. Then they blundered when they did not attack the Dardanelles while the forts were still unprepared."

ENVER'S DREAM. The writer frequented the club where the Germans were always to be foitnd when the situation looked favorable for their side, and he savs:— "At the club the men who govern gamble vlaily—Talaat plays poker and the Grand Vizier billiards. Wangenheim. the German Ambassador, played bridge with the Turks, 'but not with the Ausf.rians. It is odd," says the writer, "how little the Austrians and Germans mix. Each sit at separate tables, and not once have I seen them talking together. "Weitz (Watigenhcinvs shadow) informs everyone that at the German Embassy a golden book is kept or the records of everyone. And if' Germany is victorious there will be many scores to pay." How subtle and delicate is German diplomacy! But this is what the author calls "Deutsehland über Allah." Enver Pasha is described as strangely Anzlophobe, and the writer adds: "Those who know him best, believe he aspires to a crown and aims to establish his own dvnast.v after the present Sultan has passed aw.iv. The Rnljarian Minister calls him the 'Pronhet of the Pronbet.' and 011 either side of his desk at the War Office hangs no.*raits of Napoleon and Frederick the Great,"