Ambassador Morgenthau's Story

The destruction of the Armenian race in 1915 involved certain difficulties that had not impeded the operations of the Turks in the massacres of 1895 and other years. In these ea...

Talaat, the leading man in this band of usurpers, really had remarkable personal qualities. Naturally Talaat’s life and character proved interesting to me, for I had for years b...

I suppose that there is no phase of the Armenian question which has aroused more interest than this: Had the Germans any part in it? To what extent was the Kaiser responsible fo...

All this time I was bringing pressure upon Enver also. The Minister of War, as I have already indicated, was a different type of man from Talaat. He concealed his real feelings...

On the second of May, 1915, Enver sent his aide to the American Embassy, bringing a message which he requested me to transmit to the French and British governments. About a week...

But even in March, 1914, the Germans had pretty well tightened their hold on Turkey. Liman von Sanders, who had arrived in December, had become the predominant influence in the...

The withdrawal of the Allied fleet from the Dardanelles had consequences which the world does not yet completely understand. The practical effect of the event, as I have said, w...

Probably one thing that stimulated this German desire for peace was the situation at the Dardanelles. In early January, when Wangenheim persuaded me to write my letter to Washin...

Soon after the bombardment of Odessa I was closeted with Enver, discussing the subject which was then uppermost in the minds of all the foreigners in Turkey. How would the Gover...

When I began writing these reminiscences of my ambassadorship, Germany’s schemes in the Turkish Empire and the Near East seemed to have achieved a temporary success. The Central...

It was some time before the story of the Armenian atrocities reached the American Embassy in all its horrible details. In January and February fragmentary reports began to filte...

When the situation had reached this exciting stage, Enver asked me to visit the Dardanelles. He still insisted that the fortifications were impregnable and he could not understa...

Again getting into the automobile, we rode along the shore, my host calling my attention to the mine fields, which stretched from Tchanak southward about seven miles. In this ar...

All this time I was increasing my knowledge of the modern German character, as illustrated in Wangenheim and his associates. In the early days of the war, the Germans showed the...

In early November, 1914, the railroad station at Haidar Pasha was the scene of a great demonstration. Djemal, the Minister of Marine, one of the three men who were then most pow...

On August 10th, I went out on a little launch to meet the _Sicilia_, a small Italian ship which had just arrived from Venice. I was especially interested in this vessel because...

My failure to stop the destruction of the Armenians had made Turkey for me a place of horror, and I found intolerable my further daily association with men who, however gracious...

Another question, which had been under discussion for several months, now became involved in the Turkish international situation. That was the matter of the capitulations. These...

Our train drew into the Berlin station on the evening of February 2, 1916. The date is worth mentioning, for that marked an important crisis in German-American relations. Almost...

Talaat’s statement that the German Chief of Staff, Bronssart, had really held up this train, was a valuable piece of information. I decided to look into the matter further, and,...

The failure of the Allied fleet at the Dardanelles did not definitely settle the fate of Constantinople. Naturally the Turks and the Germans felt immensely relieved when the fle...

In those August and September days Germany had no intention of precipitating Turkey immediately into the war. As I then had a deep interest in the welfare of the Turkish people...

The Gallipoli deportation gives some idea of my difficulties in attempting to fulfil my duty as the representative of Allied interests in the Ottoman Empire. Yet, despite these...

The Turkish province of Van lies in the remote northeastern corner of Asia Minor; it touches the frontiers of Persia on the east and its northern boundary looks toward the Cauca...

But there was one quarter in which this transaction produced no appreciable gloom. That was the German Embassy. This great “success” fairly intoxicated the impressionable Wangen...

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 t...

But we were all then in a highly nervous state, because we knew that Germany was working hard to produce a _casus belli_. Souchon frequently sent the _Goeben_ and the _Breslau_...

In reading the August newspapers, which described the mobilizations in Europe, I was particularly struck with the emphasis which they laid upon the splendid spirit that was over...

All through that eventful August and September Wangenheim continued his almost irresponsible behaviour--now blandly boastful, now depressed, always nervous and high strung, ingr...