AMBASSADOR MORGENTHAU'S STORY
CHAPTER IX
GERMANY CLOSES THE DARDANELLES AND SO SEPARATES RUSSIA FROM HER ALLIES
On September 27th, Sir Louis Mallet, the British Ambassador, entered my office
in a considerably disturbed state of mind. The Khedive of Egypt had just left
me, and I began to talk to Sir Louis about Egyptian matters.
"Let's discuss that some other time," he said. "I have something far more
important to tell you. They have closed the Dardanelles."
By "they" he meant, of course, not the Turkish Government, the only power which
had the legal right to take this drastic step, but the actual ruling powers in
Turkey, the Germans. Sir Louis had good reason for bringing me this piece of
news, since this was an outrage against the United States as well as against the
Allies. He asked me to go with him and make a joint protest. I suggested,
however, that it would be better for us to act separately and I immediately
started for the house of the Grand Vizier.
When I arrived a cabinet conference was in session, and, as I sat in the
anteroom, I could hear several voices in excited discussion. Among them all I
could distinctly distinguish the familiar tones of Talaat, Enver, Djavid, the
Minister of Finance, and other members of the Government. It was quite plain,
from all that I could overhear through the thin partitions, that these nominal
rulers of Turkey were almost as exasperated the closing as were Sir Louis Mallet
and myself.
The Grand Vizier came out in answer to my request. He presented a pitiable
sight. He was, in title at least, the most important official of the Turkish
Government, the mouthpiece of the Sultan himself, yet now he presented a picture
of abject helplessness and fear. His face was blanched and he was trembling from
head to foot. He was so overcome by his emotions that he could hardly speak;
when I asked him whether the news was true that the Dardanelles had been closed,
he finally stammered out that it was.
"You know this means war," I said, and I protested as strongly as I could in the
name of the United States.
All the time that we were talking I could hear the loud tones of Talaat and his
associates in the interior apartment. The Grand Vizier excused himself and went
back into the room. He then sent out Djavid to discuss the matter with me.
"It's all a surprise to us," were Djavid's first words---this statement being a
complete admission that the Cabinet had had nothing to do with it. I repeated
that the United States would not submit to closing the Dardanelles; Turkey was
at peace, the Sultan had no legal right to shut the strait to merchant ships
except in case of war. I said that an American ship, laden with supplies and
stores for the American Embassy, was outside at that moment waiting to come in.
Djavid suggested that I have this vessel unload her cargo at Smyrna: the Turkish
Government, he obligingly added, would pay the cost of transporting it overland
to Constantinople. This proposal, of course, was a ridiculous evasion of the
issue and I brushed it aside.
Djavid then said that the Cabinet proposed to investigate the matter; that, in
fact, they were discussing it at that moment. He told me how it had happened. A
Turkish torpedo boat had passed through the Dardanelles and attempted to enter
the Aegean. The British warships stationed outside hailed the ship, examined it,
and found that there were German sailors on board. The English Admiral at once
ordered the vessel to go back; this, under the circumstances, he had a right to
do. Weber Pasha, the German general who was then in charge of the
fortifications, did not consult the Turks but immediately gave orders to close
the strait. Wangenheim had already boasted to me, as I have said, that the
Dardanelles could be closed in thirty minutes and the Germans now made good his
words. Down went the mines and the nets; the lights in the lighthouses were
extinguished; signals were put up, notifying all ships that there was "no
thoroughfare" and the deed, the most high-handed which the Germans had yet
committed, was done. And here I found these Turkish statesmen, who alone had
authority over this indispensable strip of water, trembling and stammering with
fear, running hither and yon like a lot of frightened rabbits, appalled at the
enormity of the German act, yet apparently powerless to take any decisive
action. I certainly had a graphic picture of the extremities to which Teutonic
bullying had reduced the present rulers of the Turkish Empire. And at the same
moment before my mind rose the figure of the Sultan, whose signature was
essential to close legally these waters, quietly dozing at his palace, entirely
oblivious of the whole transaction.
Though Djavid informed me that the Cabinet might decide to reopen the
Dardanelles, it did not do so. This great passageway has now remained closed for
more than four years, from September 27, 1914. I saw, of course, precisely what
this action signified. That month of September had been a disillusioning one for
the Germans. The French had beaten back the invasion and had driven the German
armies to entrenchments along the Aisne. The Russians were sweeping triumphantly
through Galicia; already they had captured Lemberg and it seemed not improbable
that they would soon cross the Carpathians into Austria-Hungary. In those days
Pallavicini, the Austrian Ambassador, was a discouraged, lamentable figure. He
confided to me his fears for the future, telling me that the German programme of
a short, decisive war had clearly failed and that it was now quite evident that
Germany could win, if she could win at all, which was exceedingly doubtful, only
after a protracted struggle. I have described how Wangenheim, while preparing
the Turkish army and navy for any eventualities, was simply holding Turkey in
his hand, intending actively to use her forces only in case Germany failed to
crush France and Russia in the first campaign. Now that that failure was
manifest, Wangenheim was instructed to use the Turkish Empire as an active ally.
Hitherto, this nation of 20,000,000 had been a passive partner, held back by
Wangenheim until Germany had decided that it would be necessary to pay the price
of letting her into the war as a real participant. The time had come when
Germany needed the Turkish army, and the outward sign that the situation had
changed was the closing of the Dardanelles. Thus Wangenheim had accomplished the
task for which he had been working, and in this act had fittingly crowned his
achievement of bringing in the Goeben and the Breslau. Few Americans realize,
even to-day, what an overwhelming influence this act wielded upon future
military operations. Yet the fact that the war has lasted for so many years is
explained by this closing of the Dardanelles.
For this is the element in the situation that separated Russia from her allies,
that, in less than a year, led to her defeat and collapse, which, in turn, was
the reason why the Russian revolution became possible. The map discloses that
this enormous land of Russia has just four ways of reaching the seas. One is by
way of the Baltic, and this the German fleet had already closed. Another is
Archangel, on the Arctic Ocean, a port which is frozen over several months in
the year, and which connects with the heart of Russia only by a long,
single-track railroad. Another is the Pacific port of Vladivostok, also ice
bound for three months, which in connection with Russia only by the thin line of
the Siberian railway, 5,000 miles long. The fourth passage was that of the
Dardanelles; in fact, this was the only practicable one. This was the narrow
gate through which the surplus products of 175,000,000 people reached Europe,
and nine tenths of all Russian exports and imports had gone this way for years.
By suddenly closing it, Germany destroyed Russia both as an economic and a
military power. By shutting off the exports of Russian grain, she deprived
Russia of the financial power essential to successful warfare. What was perhaps
even more fatal, she prevented England and France from getting munitions to the
Russian battle front in sufficient quantity to stem the German onslaught. As
soon as the Dardanelles was closed, Russia had to fall back on Archangel and
Vladivostok for such supplies as she could get from these ports. The cause of
the military collapse of Russia in 1915 is now well known; the soldiers simply
had no ammunition with which to fight. The first half of the year 1918 Germany
spent in an unsuccessful attempt to drive a "wedge" between the French and
English armies on the western front; to separate one ally from another and so
obtain a position where she could attack each one separately. Yet the task of
undoing the Franco-Russian treaty, and driving such a "wedge" between Russia and
her western associates, proved to have been an easy one. It was simply a matter,
as I have described, of controlling a corrupt and degenerate government, getting
possession, while she was still at peace, of her main executives, her army, her
navy, her resources, and then, at the proper moment, ignoring the nominal rulers
and closing a little strip of water about twenty miles long and two or three
wide! It did not cost a single human life or the firing of a single gun, yet, in
a twinkling, Germany accomplished what probably three million men, opposed to a
well-equipped Russian force, could not have brought to pass. It was one of the
most dramatic military triumphs of the war, and it was all the work of German
propaganda, German penetration, and German diplomacy.
In the days following this bottling up of Russia, the Bosphorus began to look
like a harbour which has been suddenly stricken with the plague. Hundreds of
ships arrived from Russia, Rumania, and Bulgaria, loaded with grain, lumber, and
other products, only to discover that they could go no farther. There were not
docks enough to accommodate them, and they had to swing out into the stream,
drop anchor, and await developments. The waters were a cluster of masts and
smoke stacks, and the crowded vessels became so dense that a motor boat had
difficulty in picking its way through the tangled forest. The Turks held out
hopes that they might reopen the water way, and for this reason these vessels,
constantly increasing in number, waited patiently for a month or so. Then one by
one they turned around, pointed their noses toward the Black Sea, and
lugubriously started for their home ports. In a few weeks the Bosphorus and
adjoining waters had become a desolate waste. What for years had been one of the
most animated shipping ports in the world, was ruffled only by an occasional
launch, or a tiny Turkish caïque, or now and then a little sailing vessel. And
for an accurate idea of what this meant, from a military standpoint, we need
only call to mind the Russian battle front in the next year. There the peasants
were fighting German artillery with their unprotected bodies, having few rifles
and few heavy guns, while mountains of useless ammunition were piling up in
their distant Arctic and Pacific ports, with no railroads to take them to the
field of action.
Continue >
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TABLE OF CONTENTS  Introduction
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Chapter XVI
Chapter XVII
Chapter XVIII
Chapter XIX
Chapter XX
Chapter XXI
Chapter XXII
Chapter XXIII
Chapter XXIV
Chapter XXV
Chapter XXVI
Chapter XXVII
Chapter XXVIII
Chapter XXIX
PLACE YOUR ORDER
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