2O2	Egypt
Kaiser and the Khalif was being started. But all that
could have been dealt with by an Anglophil Egyptian
Government as measures for the maintenance of
neutrality.
Meantime, the Turks began to threaten invasion from
Syria (September, 1914). When our Government
inquired what so many Turkish troops were doing on the
frontiers of Egypt, the Ottoman Government replied by
asking what so many British troops were doing in a
province of the Empire, In fact, the Turks can claim to
have had the best of these preliminary manoeuvres for
position.
But such diplomatic amenities had little to do with the
actualities that were soon imperiously calling on either
side for action. Unfortunately, our enemies began acting
while we were still attitudinising. German diplomacy had
already decided that if Cairo and the Canal were secured
by our sea-power to be a strong point and a stage in the
British line of communication, Constantinople and its
isthmus should be seized by their sea-power as a strong
point and stage on the line of communication between
the Central Powers and Asia. The danger that we might
encircle them by joining hands with Russia through the
Straits was indeed far more deadly to them than any
damage they could do to us by blocking the Canal and
diverting our communications round the Cape.
The secret acceptance by the British Government
(1912-13) of the Russian Empire's claim to Constanti-
nople had been followed very naturally by a secret de-
fensive alliance between the German and Turkish
Governments. But concluding these secret diplomatic
decisions, which were, of course, only ^<c secrets "• in so
far as the public on either side were concerned, was one
thing; carrying them into effect against public opinion