The provision of soldiers and sailors, then, trained from the early age of eight, was the first object of Germany’s peaceful and benign penetration.  As from the Pisgah height of the Pan-Turkish ideal she saw the promised land, but she had no idea of seeing it only, like Moses, and expiring without entering it, and her faith that she would enter it and possess it and organise it has been wonderfully justified.  She has not only penetrated, but has dominated; a year ago towns like Aleppo were crammed with German officers, while at Islahie there were separate wooden barracks for the exclusive use of German troops.  There is a military mission at Mamoura, where all the buildings are permanent erections solidly built of stone, for no merely temporary occupation is intended, and thousands of freight-cars with Belgian marks upon them throng the railways, and on some is the significant German title of ‘Military Headquarters of the Imperial Staff.’  There are troops in the Turkish army, to which is given the title of ‘Pasha formation,’ in compliment to Turkey, but the Pasha formations are under command of Baron Kress von Kressenstein, and are salted with German officers, N.C.O.’s, and privates, who, although in the Turkish army, retain their German uniforms.

This German leaven forms an instructional class for the remainder of the troops in these formations, who are Turkish.  The Germans are urged to respect Moslem customs and to show particular consideration for their religious observances.  Every German contingent arriving at Constantinople to join the Pasha formations finds quarters prepared on a ship, and when the troops leave for their ‘destination’ they take supplies from depots at the railway station which will last them two or three months.  They are enjoined to write war diaries, and are provided with handbooks on the military and geographical conditions in Mesopotamia, with maps, and with notes on the training and management of camels.  This looks as if they were intended for use against the English troops in Mesopotamia, but I cannot find that they have been identified there.  The greatest secrecy is observed with regard to those Pasha formations, and their constitution and movements are kept extremely well veiled.

Wireless stations have been set up in Asia Minor and Palestine, and these are under the command of Major Schlee.  A Turkish air-service was instituted, at the head of which was Major Serno, a Prussian officer, and Turkish aviators are now in training at Ostend, where they will very usefully defend their native country.  At Constantinople there is a naval school for Turkish engineers and mechanics in the arsenal, to help on the Pan-Turkish ideal, and with a view to that all the instructors are German:  a floating dock is in construction at Ismid, and the order has been placed with German firms.  It will be capable of accommodating ships of Dreadnought build, which is a new departure for the strictly Pan-Turkish ideal.