Although at the opening of the war Turkey had ordered a general mobilization, her conduct did not first arouse particular suspicion. With the arrival in the Dardanelles of the German cruisers Goehen and Breslau, which had ran ntlet of the Mediterranean crews. Throughout August she was making feverish preparation for war, especi in Whence a descent upon splined. \t the outhreal war Great Britain had definitely red Turkey that, if she remained neutral, her independence and integrity would be respected during war and in the terms of peace. But Turkey's Govern ment was in the hands of the Young Turks and they in the nds of Germany. On October the Dardanelles were closed to all foreign shipping—a blow at Russia's trade. On the 14th it became known that the captain of the Goeben had been appointed commander-in-chief of the Turkish fleet, and on the 28th the Goeben with one or two Turkish battleships, sallied forth into the Black Sea and without warning or provocation of any kind attacked Theodosia and Sebastopol. A more treacherous act could hardly be conceived. Turkey had indeed' fallen low under German management. The British, French and Russian Ambassadors left Constantinople on November 1, and a dignified statement was issued in London enumerating the many violations of neutrality committed by Turkey and Great Britain's efforts to keep the peace. During November and December there was some fighting along the mountains southward of the Black Sea in the direction of Erzerum, between Russian and Turkish forces, the intensity of which it is difficult to gauge, and some naval skirmishing in the Black Sea, the Goeben being severely jured by Russian men-of-war which approached under cover of fog. The threatened descent upgvpt has not yet materializ~ On the other hand Great in on November 6 formally annexed Cyprus which she had administered since 1878 for Turkey; declared a protectorate over Fygypt on December 17, with Tussein Kamel, uncle the ex-Khedive as Sultan, and Colonel Sir Arthur MeMahon, Secretary of India, as High Commissioner; and, by brilliant little expedition—of Indian troops and marines in the Persian Gulf, had by December captured the best part of the rich country surrounding—the Original from
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