In all this I saw no particular promise of an early peace. Yet I thought that I should lay these facts before the President. I therefore applied to Washington for a leave of absence, which was granted.
I had my farewell interview with Enver and Talaat on the thirteenth of January. Both men were in their most delightful mood. Evidently both were turning over in their minds, as was I, all the momentous events that had taken place in Turkey, and in the world, since my first meeting with them two years before. Then Talaat and Enver were merely desperate adventurers who had reached high position by assassination and intrigue; their position was insecure, for at any moment another revolution might plunge them into the obscurity from which they had sprung. But now they were the unquestioned despots of the Ottoman Empire, the allies of the then strongest military power in the world, the conquerors—absurdly enough they so regarded themselves—of the British navy. At this moment of their great triumph—the Allied expedition to the Dardanelles had evacuated its positions only two weeks before—both Talaat and Enver regarded their country again as a world power.
"I hear you are going home to spend a lot of money and reëlect your President," said Talaat—this being a jocular reference to the fact that I was the Chairman of the Finance Committee of the Democratic National Committee. "That's very foolish; why don't you stay here and give it to Turkey?" We need it more than your people do."
"But we hope you are coming back soon," he added, in the polite (and insincere) manner of the oriental. You and we have really grown up together; you came here
