Page:The Rebirth Of Turkey 1923.pdf/98

 the British before Anaforta, that Kemal became a military hero in Germany and would have become the hero of his own country if Enver had not suppressed the story of Anaforta in Constantinople. Two years later, when it did leak out in the C. U. P. year-book for 1917, Enver confiscated the entire remaining issue of the year-book and had it destroyed. The British used to tell a story of Kemal's defense of Anaforta by way of showing that the Turks were better soldiers than the Germans. According to their version, Kemal at Anaforta telephoned his German superior, Limon von Sanders, for permission to attack immediately. Von Sanders refused permission and Kemal, tearing the telephone from the wall in a fit of anger, attacked on his own responsibility and won. The story is doubtless false, but it indicates the sort of legend which was growing up around a soldier who was, firstly, a Turk and who, secondly, looked upon Germans and British with equal coldness.

The ending of the British Dardanelles expedition, however, failed to impress either Greece or Bulgaria. It did impress Constantinople and when Ali Fethy Bey, Ottoman Minister at Sofia, not only supplied Bulgaria with the necessary promise of Macedonia but made over to it at once that bend in the Maritza River in which Karagatch, a suburb of Adrianople, lies, Bulgaria came in and the Enver Government found itself on the crest of a great wave of popularity. The Berlin-to-Bagdad highway was now complete and on the afternoon of January 17, 1916, the first express rolled into Constantinople direct from Berlin, while Sirkedji Station rang with cheers.