CO129-414 - Governor Sir May - 1914 [10-11] — Page 281

Paraphrase of CYPHER Telegram

From SECRETARY OF STATE

Το GOVERNOR, HONGKONG.

Date 30th October, 1914.

277

The following statement concerning relations with Turkey

should be held in readiness for issue on receipt of instructions from

me

•

(Begins):-

The attitude adopted by the Turkish Government in regard to the German Men-of-War "Goeben" and "Breslau" aroused great misgiving in London, Paris and St.Petersburg. These ships were flying from the French and British Fleets in the Mediterranean and took refuge in the Dardanelles where by the rules of international law and under Turkish treaties they should have been laid up by the Turkish Government and their crews detained until the close of the war, or made to leave for

the open sea at the end of twenty four hours.

Instead the ships were allowed to remain in shelter and to exercise on a (? basis of) belligerent rights, and then it was sudden- ly announced that they had been purchased by Turkey who retained the

German crews and dismissed the British Admiral from his executive com-

mand of the Turkish Fleet.

At the same time the passage of the Dardanelles was sown

with mines and all British merchant vessels in those waters or coming

through from the Black Sea were held up, first on the pretext that their cargoes were wanted for troops whom Turkey was mobilizing, and then that the presence of mines rendered it unsafe for the vessels to

proceed. This was not only totally unjustifiable interference on the

part of a neutral state with the trade of Great Britain involving both

shippers and merchants in heavy losses but it paralysed the movements of all British shipping in the Black Sea, amounting at the time to sixty or seventy vessels, since not only was it impossible to get

through into the Mediterranean, but there was nothing to prevent the

"Goeben" and "Breslau" passing into the Black Sea and destroying all

the shipping collected there. The Dardanelles have now been closed in