Ambassador Morgenthau's Story

By this time the American people have probably become convinced that the Germans deliberately planned the conquest of the world. Yet they hesitate to convict on circumstantial evidence and for this reason all eye witnesses to this, the greatest crime in modern history, should volunteer their testimony.

I have therefore laid aside any scruples I had as to the propriety of disclosing to my fellow countrymen the facts which I learned while representing them in Turkey. I acquired this knowledge as the servant of the American people, and it is their property as much as it is mine.

I greatly regret that I have been obliged to omit an account of the splendid activities of the American Missionary and Educational Institutions in Turkey, but to do justice to this subject would require a book by itself. I have had to omit the story of the Jews in Turkey for the same reasons.

My thanks are due to my friend, Mr. Burton J. Hendrick, for the invaluable assistance he has rendered in the preparation of the book.

HENRY MORGENTHAU.

October, 1918.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. A German superman at Constantinople 3

II. The “Boss System” in the Ottoman Empire and how it proved useful to Germany 20

III. “The personal representative of the Kaiser.” Wangenheim opposes the sale of American warships to Greece 41

IV. Germany mobilizes the Turkish army 61

V. Wangenheim smuggles the Goeben and the Breslau through the Dardanelles 68

VI. Wangenheim tells the American Ambassador how the Kaiser started the war 82

VII. Germany’s plans for new territories, coaling stations, and indemnities 90

VIII. A classic instance of German propaganda 96

IX. Germany closes the Dardanelles and so separates Russia from her Allies 105

X. Turkey’s abrogation of the capitulations. Enver living in a palace, with plenty of money and an imperial bride 112

XI. Germany forces Turkey into the war 123

XII. The Turks attempt to treat alien enemies decently, but the Germans insist on persecuting them 130

XIII. The invasion of the Notre Dame de Sion School 147

XIV. Wangenheim and the Bethlehem Steel Company. A “Holy War” that was made in Germany 157

XV. Djemal, a troublesome Mark Antony. The first German attempt to get a German peace 171

XVI. The Turks prepare to flee from Constantinople and establish a new capital in Asia Minor. The Allied fleet bombarding the Dardanelles 184

XVII. Enver as the man who demonstrated “the vulnerability of the British fleet.” Old-fashioned defenses of the Dardanelles 202

XVIII. The Allied armada sails away, though on the brink of victory 217

XIX. A fight for three thousand civilians 232

XX. More adventures of the foreign residents 253

XXI. Bulgaria on the auction block 262

XXII. The Turk reverts to the ancestral type 274

XXIII. The “Revolution” at Van 293

XXIV. The murder of a nation 301

XXV. Talaat tells why he deports the Armenians 326

XXVI. Enver Pasha discusses the Armenians 343

XXVII. “I shall do nothing for the Armenians,” says the German Ambassador 364

XXVIII. Enver again moves for peace. Farewell to the Sultan and to Turkey 385

XXIX. Von Jagow, Zimmermann, and German-Americans 397

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Henry Morgenthau Frontispiece

FACING PAGE

Mrs. Henry Morgenthau with Soeur Jeanne 8

Constantinople from the American Embassy 9

Beylerbey palace on the Bosphorus 16

The American Embassy at Constantinople 16

Henry Morgenthau, American Ambassador to Turkey, 1913-1916 17

Talaat Pasha, ex-Grand Vizier of Turkey 48

Turkish infantry and cavalry 49

Bustány Effendi 56