manner in which Germany expresses her yearning to
impoverish herself for the sake of Turkey.

All this reorganisation of the Turkish army was of course a very
expensive affair, and required skilful financing, and it was necessary
to get the whole of Turkey's exchequer arrangements into German hands. A
series of financial regulations was promulgated. The Finance Minister,
during 1916, was still Turkish, but the official immediately under him
was a German. He was authorised to deposit with the Controllers of the
Ottoman National Debt German Imperial Bills of LT30,000,000, and to
issue German paper money to the like amount. This arrangement insures
the circulation of the German notes, which are redeemable by Turkey in
_gold_ two years after the declaration of peace. Gold is declared to be
the standard currency, and no creditor is obliged to accept in payment
of a debt more than 300 piastres in silver or fifty in nickel. And since
there is no gold in currency (for it has been all called in, and
penalties of death have been authorised for hoarders) it follows that
this and other issues of German paper will filter right through the
Empire. At the same time a German expert, Dr. Kautz, was appointed to
start banks throughout Turkey in order to free the peasants from the
Turkish village usurer, and in consequence enslave them to the German
banks. Similarly a German was put at the head of the Ottoman
Agricultural Bank. These new branches worked very well, but it is
pleasant to think that one such was started by the Deutsche Bank at
Bagdad in October 1916, which now has its shutters up. Before this, as
we learn from the _Oesterreichischer Volkswirt_ (June 1916), Germany had
issued other gold notes, in payment for gold from Turkey, which is
retainable in Berlin till six months after the end of the war. (It is
reasonable to wonder whether it will not be retained rather longer than
that.) These gold notes were accepted willingly at first by the public,
but the increase in their number (by the second issue) has caused them
to be viewed with justifiable suspicion, and the depreciation in them
continues. But the Turkish public has no redress except by hoarding
gold, which is a penal offence. That these arrangements have not
particularly helped Turkish credit may be gathered from the fact that
the Turkish gold L1, nominally 100 piastres, was very soon worth 280
piastres in the German paper standard, and it now fetches a great deal
more.