Page:Ambassador Morgenthau's Story.djvu/260

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AMBASSADOR MORGENTHAU'S STORY

pleasing and cordial manners; as he spoke excellent German I had no need of an interpreter. I was much impressed by the deference with which the German officers treated him; that he was the Commander-in-Chief in this theatre of war, and that the generals of the Kaiser were his subordinates, was made plainly apparent. As we passed into his office, Djevad stopped in front of a piece of a torpedo, mounted in the middle of the hall, evidently as a souvenir.

"There is the great criminal!" he said, calling my attention to the relic.

About this time the newspapers were hailing the exploit of an English submarine, which had sailed from England to the Dardanelles, passed under the mine field, and torpedoed the Turkish warship Mesudié.

"That's the torpedo that did it!" said Djevad. "You'll see the wreck of the ship when you go down."

The first fortification I visited was that of Anadolu Hamidié (that is, Asiatic Hamidié) located on the water's edge just outside of Tchanak. My first impression was that I was in Germany. The officers were practically all Germans and everywhere Germans were building buttresses with sacks of sand and in other ways strengthening the emplacements. Here German, not Turkish, was the language heard on every side. Colonel Wehrle, who conducted me over these batteries, took the greatest delight in showing them. He had the simple pride of the artist in his work, and told me of the happiness that had come into his days when Germany had at last found herself at war. All his life, he said, he had spent in military practices, and, like most Germans, he had become tired of manoeuvres, sham battles, and other forms of mimic hostilities. Yet he