with all of Asia Minor behind him in which to maneuvre, he traded territory for time whenever the Greeks showed an inclination to move. Luckily for Angora, the Greeks sat waiting on the Allies and attempted little movement after their first rush ended.
Thus hemmed about with enemies, the Nationalist Party had won a clean-cut political victory by installing its Parliamentary majority in Constantinople, and its troops had penetrated into the very suburbs of the capital in search of surrendered munitions with which to re-equip themselves. Although the Mudros armistice had been torn up at the Greek occupation of Smyrna and a state of war again existed, Angora was in close telegraphic communication with Rauf Bey, the leader of its Parliamentary majority in Constantinople. Indeed, with the British Navy commanding those sections of its perimeter which were not in the occupation of enemy Armies, Angora's wire to Constantinople constituted its only means of communication with the West.
But on the night of March 15-16, 1920, General Milne isolated Constantinople from Anatolia, conducted a series of lightning raids at midnight in Stamboul, arrested Rauf Bey and many of his colleagues for deportation to Malta, and not only cut off Angora from the legal Parliamentary machinery which it had spent eight months in building up, but cut it off from any means of effective communication with the West. This was a staggering blow. Angora immediately ordered the arrest of the few British officers who remained in Asia Minor, chief among them Lord Rawlinson's brother who was
