Free Gallipoli by Peter Fitzsimons Page A

colourful, and a heightened sense of patriotism begins to mount.
    But who, exactly, is our enemy in this chaos? Russia, as always. The Greeks, no doubt. Bulgaria, for sure. But England is our friend in the sea, is she not? And Germany our friend on land, helping our army to reorganise. The French have surely been a help to us too. Can we, a Muslim people, trust a Christian state?
    Lively and loud debates rage, fuelled by what little information the people have at hand.
    On 4 August, the Minister of War, General Enver, had announced, ‘All men between twenty and forty years old: To Arms!’ 52 And he did mean all men. Conscription is the order of the day. Men born in 1891, 1892 and 1893 are already under arms. To bolster their numbers, all men born in the years 1875 to 1890 are being drafted as the active reserve. And those born from 1868 to 1874 are drafted as the territorial reserve. In order to bring the army to full wartime readiness, the General Staff estimates it needs some 460,000 drafted men and 14,500 officers, as well as a pool of about one million men available for recruitment should the need arise.
    The question of adequate supply of everything is fraught. And so, the initial mobilisation order requires that ‘when departing for his military service, each conscript needed to bring staples such as bread, dried food stuff and sugar, sufficient to feed himself for five days’. 53
    Through all this, though, the Ottoman leadership officially maintains ‘neutrality’.
    A neutral call to arms?
    An ‘armed neutrality’, yes.
    The men joke about it over coffee and backgammon. The women matter-of-factly maintain that the will of Allah will dictate what is best for the fatherland, and what is best for them. They busy themselves with their children, chores and prayers. ‘ Allah selamet versin . – May Allah bring Peace,’ they mutter to themselves in the morning as they roll up the family mattresses, sweep the floor, soak the beans, tend the garden, leave the dough to prove and think of their young sons going off to do their rightful duty all too soon.
    8 AUGUST 1914, KITCHENER’S MOB MASSES
    And now the posters begin to appear all over London hoardings, calling for volunteers for the ‘New Army’. They are soon to be referred to as ‘Kitchener’s Mob’, for the facts that the face soon appearing on those posters is that of Lord Kitchener and the men enrolled really are seen by the regulars as an inexperienced, unprofessional mob.
    As to those regulars, they have already been formed into a British Expeditionary Force, which on this very day gets its mobilisation orders to depart for France on the morrow. In the words of one of the Highlander troops, their job will be to ‘gie a wee bit stiffening to the French troops’. 54 Most are desperately hoping to be given a chance to kill Germans.
    EARLY EVENING, 10 AUGUST 1914, CONSTANTINOPLE, A SON HAS BEEN BORN TO US
    Another night. Another meeting. This is between Colonel Hans Kannengiesser of the German Military Mission and the Ottoman Minister of War, Enver. Suddenly, there is something of a commotion outside. Someone wishes to interrupt their conversation?

    â€˜Lord Kitchener Wants You’ recruitment poster, 1914 (AWM ARTV0485)
    It proves to be the very pushy German nobleman officer Lieutenant-Colonel Friedrich Freiherr Kress von Kressenstein, who has news that cannot wait, and which – he bristles with righteous authority and glares through his rimless glasses – needs an urgent decision. ‘Fort Çanakkale,’ Kressenstein says, ‘states that the German warships Goeben and Breslau are lying at the entrance to the Dardanelles and request permission to enter. The fortress asks for immediate instructions to be sent as to the procedure for the commanders of the Kum Kale and Sedd-el-Bahr.’ 55
    Enver prevaricates, which is unlike him. He knows he requested Goeben , but that was