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