The Dardanelles Conspiracy by Alan Bardos (you can read anyone txt) 📕

Stolz blink. He had suddenly found himself the centre of attention and was slightly confused.

'He must mean you, Ernst,' Dolly shouted at Johnny.

'I’ve spent hours rummaging through boxes of receipts!' Stolz was still relating his anecdote, ignoring the conversation going on around him.

Johnny laughed at Stolz enjoying the spectacle of someone else suffering the consequences of his actions. Stolz glared realising that he was the butt of the joke, rather than the instigator and Johnny saw how he could make Stolz’s discomfort worse. ‘Perhaps we should have two cases of champagne sent along to the Austro-Hungarian embassy with an apology?’

‘What a splendid idea,’ Dolly banged the table and signalled to a waiter. ‘I will have it sent over straight away.’

‘What are you doing?’ Stolz asked, still apparently confused.

‘We drank some champagne belonging to the Austrian Ambassador on the way here – I’m sure it can’t have been the champagne you were looking for,’ Johnny said.

‘Well, what else could it have been? Do you know how much time I’ve wasted?’ Stolz pointed at the empty bottles on the table, in a sweeping motion of disgust. ‘I see your preparations for the front are following the same decadent pattern.'

‘Yes, we are soon to take on the pride of the British Empire and send it to the bottom of the sea,’ Kurt yelled in Stolz’s face, part excitement, part unease about what was coming. ‘While you are kissing the arse of Liman von Sanders.’

Stolz methodically wiped Kurt’s spittle from his face and drew himself up, gaining strength from the social humiliation.

‘It is always a fine thing to see such a bold example of the German fighting spirit, close up and quite personal, even at your wake. I just wonder if it will be so apparent when you are sober and facing the most powerful navy in the world, with only a few crumbling forts and some obsolete guns. You might as well put your shrouds on now, as you are going to be buried there. After all isn’t that what you volunteered for, hazardous service? While I’m at headquarters. I don’t imagine I look like quite such a joke now?’

For a moment no one could quite believe what they had heard. Then Dolly spoke quietly. ‘What the hell do you mean by that, Stolz, are you suggesting we can’t stop the Royal Navy?’

‘Even our illustrious Ambassador Herr von Wangenheim thinks that the British will succeed in forcing the Dardanelles Strait and you will be right in the firing line.’

Kurt roared with rage and stood up to challenge Stolz. Dolly put a hand out to stop him. ‘Forcing the Dardanelles Strait is impossible, Stolz. I have been there and seen our defences.’

‘Then why are the Royal Navy determined to try? They have a brave tradition of sacrifice and will throw ship after ship at our defences until they are pulverised. We estimate that it will take up to ten ships, but it will be done.’ Stolz relayed the facts simply and tonelessly.

‘Ten ships? Do you seriously believe that the British would sacrifice ten battleships? That is the talk of Embassy laymen sitting in smoke-filled rooms,’ Kurt said.

‘To gain Constantinople and open the route to Russia, with the impact that would have on the war? Yes, I believe they would sacrifice twice that number of ships.’ Stolz was enjoying the effect his words were having.

‘I’m sure that it won’t come to that and everything will all be resolved through negotiation,’ Johnny interjected.

Kurt looked at him, his fine Viking features outraged. ‘Have you changed sides, von Jager? You think this swine is right and we can’t beat them?’

Dolly pulled Kurt away. They were going to the front, and he to a smoke-filled room, ‘come on the backroom boys are all on the same side.’

Johnny desperately wanted to tell them that the negotiations he was involved in would stop the Royal Navy from attacking. He tried to ignore the shame he felt. He was serving his country. It was time to remember whose side he was on. They were the enemy and it was his duty to beat them.

‘Quite a performance,’ Stolz said after Kurt and Dolly were a safe distance away. ‘Perhaps we can have a quiet drink now?’

‘Yes, perhaps we could,’ Johnny agreed. He still had to maintain the pretence of being an ambitious diplomat.

Chapter 23

Johnny watched the blue trails of Talat's cigarette smoke gently circle into a thick cloud formation and sipped his Turkish coffee, enjoying the heady mix of aromas.

Talat looked business like in a black frock coat and the ubiquitous red fez, belying the anxiety on his face as he listened to the Grand Rabbi, read out London’s terms.

'The Dardanelles Strait are to be cleared of all mines and opened immediately to Allied shipping. The Ottoman Empire is to cease all hostilities with the Allied powers and withdraw from the war. Your alliance with Germany is to be ended and you’re to remain neutral.’

‘The British look at us with hungry eyes. They have taken Egypt and the Red Sea ports and have allied themselves with Russia, our oldest enemy.’ Talat paused to inhale the aromatic smoke of his cigarette. ‘Now you ask me to abandon my alliance with the Germans and make peace with our enemies.’

‘It was expedient for the Germans to enter into the alliance with the Ottoman Empire, why can we not return the courtesy and end that alliance when it is expedient for us to do so?’ The Grand Rabbi said mildly. ‘May I communicate your willingness to meet with the official British representatives, to discuss the terms in detail?’

Talat banged the telegraph machine on his desk and gave Johnny a murderous look that made his bowels heave.

'The British have begun their attack. They've shelled our forts at the month of the Dardanelles. While entering into negotiations with