war on the 3ist without their connivance. The British and French ambassadors had already been instructed to follow their Russian colleague; on Nov. i they left Constantinople, and on the 3rd Adml. Garden bombarded the forts of the Dardanelles. Russian precipitation had, however, only hastened the end. Enver's troops had long been on the march toward the Suez Canal, and on Oct. 27 British outposts at El 'Arish and Nekhl had been withdrawn.
The entrance of Turkey into the war as Germany's ally was the first great diplomatic success achieved by either of the belligerent groups, and it did more than anything else to extend the sphere of the war and to increase in particular Great Britain's anxieties and obligations. Britain had little contact with Austria, and not much more with Bulgaria. Even Germany, apart from her naval ambitions, presented few points of direct conflict; they arose indirectly, either through the menace to Britain's allies in France and Belgium, or through the doors which Turkey now opened to German penetration. These led so far and in so many directions threatening British interests that, as they were gradually revealed in 1914-5, it seemed to many that they represented the original motive of Germany's aggression. Through Turkish dominions lay the overland route not merely to India but to Egypt and E. Africa; and both paths were strewn with inflammable material. Britain ruled over something like half the Mahommedans of the world, and for many of them the Sultan of Turkey as Caliph was their head. Even more dan- gerous might Germany's propaganda, backed by German military success, become in the midst of other discontented elements in India and in Egypt. With these under German and Turkish influence, the ferment might spread throughout the greater part of Asia and of Africa. Even the sea routes, on which the life of the Empire depended, would become unsafe when threatened on their flanks; for the problem has not yet been solved of how to command the sea in distant waters against an enemy holding the neighbouring lands and using the submarine. More immediately the entrance of Turkey into the war imposed upon Great Britain the task of defending the naval position in the eastern Mediter- ranean, the route through the Suez Canal, Egyptian territory, the Persian Gulf and the overland route to India against Turkish and Arab attacks. Incidentally it cut off Russia from her least indirect and irregular communication with her allies. Fortunate- ly, the action of Japan limited these anxieties and relieved the Entente of the greater part of the burden of eradicating German power in the Far East. A Japanese ultimatum, which had been expected a little earlier, was delivered to Germany on Aug. 15 demanding the unconditional surrender of Kiaochow; it expired on the 22nd, and next day Japan entered the war.
Turkey's intervention had an immediate effect upon the status of her former provinces held by Great Britain. Cyprus was annexed at once; a British protectorate was proclaimed over Egypt on Dec. 17 with the connivance of France, whose pro- tectorate over Morocco was recognized by Great Britain on the 24th, and on the i8th the Khedive 'Abbas II., who had thrown in his lot with his Turkish suzerain, was deposed in favour of his uncle Husein, who further received the title of Sultan. Egyp- tian opinion accepted the change, and Turkey's efforts to reconquer her lost dominions were frustrated by the necessities of self-defence in the Dardanelles and on all her Asiatic frontiers. Before the Russians could move across the Caucasus, divisions of the Indian army had sailed up the Shatt al 'Arab and begun that chequered advance which led them from Basra to Mosul. Not the least of the political effects of Turkey's action was to bring India into the war to a far greater extent than would have been possible had British participation been restricted to Euro- pean fronts. Over a million native Indian troops were eventually engaged, and they assisted materially in the conquest of Meso- potamia, Palestine, and Syria. Before long Arabia, too, turned against the Turks, and found in Turkey's participation in the war the opportunity to emancipate itself from Turkish rule.
Russia's Claims. For the moment, however, these were un- foreseen developments, and the more immediate effect of Tur- key's intervention was to bring within the sphere of apparently
practical politics ambitions which belonged to an older world. The breach which Russia had helped to precipitate opened up the prospect of giving effect to the deliberations of the Russian crown council of Feb. 6 1914. The subject was not apparently broached by Russia to her allies until they, for reasons of their own, had committed themselves to an enterprise which would render it possible for Russia to reap its fruits unless, indeed, it was really with an eye to securing Constantinople and the Straits by means of allied efforts that Russia despatched on Jan. 2 1915 an urgent request for some diversion to relieve Turkish pressure in the Caucasus. This is not the place to trace the growth of the Dardanelles expedition, which after the premature bombardment of Nov. 3, was keenly taken up by Mr. Churchill. The political and strategical motives for it seemed adequate. There remained no flank to turn on the western front; an un- broken line of trenches stretched from the North Sea to the Alps; and neither side could break the deadlock. On the other hand, the flank might be turned by sea power operating in the Dar- danelles, an enemy knocked out by the capture of Constantinople, communications restored with Russia, the Teutonic path barred to the East and to Egypt, and two if not three new allies found in Greece, Rumania, and Bulgaria, who uniting with Serbia and linking up Russia with a fourth potential recruit in Italy, might sweep upon Austria-Hungary and threaten an at- tack on Germany's southern frontiers which would destroy the bastions she had made on her eastern and western fronts.
Such was the prospect which Allied vision discerned and Russia proposed to convert into territorial substance. On March 4, when England and France had been committed to the enter- prise, Russia handed in a memorandum to the British and French ambassadors at Petrograd, in which she explained her ideas. Most of what was left of Turkey in Europe, including Constantinople, the western shores of the Bosporus, of the Sea of Marmora, and of the Dardanelles, and Thrace as far as the Enos-Midia line, was to become Russian territory. So, too, were the islands in the Sea of Marmora, Imbros and Tenedos outside the Dardanelles, and the coast of Asia Minor from the Bosporus to the mouth of the Sakaria and across to the gulf of Ismid. On the other hand, the middle zone of Persia, declared neutral by the agreement of 1907, was to be assigned to the British sphere of influence, while Arabia was to become inde- pendent. By March 20 both the British and French governments had signified their assent to these proposals. Russia was still the predominant partner in the military alliance, her armies were overrunning the Carpathians and the Bukovina, and the anticipated collapse of Austria discounted the need to respect Balkan susceptibilities.
The agreement was secret, but Russian secrets had a habit of leaking out to her enemies during the war. Nor, indeed, did British or French politicians conceal their conversion to the justice of Russia's demands, while they ignored in their com- ments the impression it would produce upon wavering minds in the Balkans. The effect was to give Turkey the unaccustomed part of champion of Balkan independence; for with Russian am- bitions fulfilled, no other Balkan power could have been more than a client State. Greece saw her aspirations more legitimate at least than those of Russia thwarted for ever by Allied com- plaisance; Bulgaria seemed to have struggled in vain under Stambolov to free herself from Russian tutelage, and to be doomed to perpetual servitude; Rumania lost hope of righting the wrong of 1878 and redeeming the Rumanians of Bessarabia; and only Serbia, which looked to the Adriatic, was content with this prospective Russian monopoly of the Black Sea and the Straits and dominance of the Aegean. The intervention of Turkey had given a predatory turn to the thoughts of the Entente; and, so far, the diplomacy of the war had tended to show an increasing disrespect for the liberties of little nations.
The war was not, however, making much progress on those lines. In the Near East Russia's difficulty lay not in securing her Allies' assent to her aspirations but in providing for their realization. This she was totally unable to do, and her contri- bution to the Dardanelles campaign, which was to have taken
