Sir Robert Graves - On an Ottoman Mission to the No Man's Land of European Turkey

Sir Robert Windham Graves (1858-1934) was a British career diplomat. He was born in Parknasilla in Ireland and was educated at Marlborough College in Wiltshire. Graves began his career as a student interpreter in Constantinople in 1879 and entered the British foreign consular service soon thereafter, serving for many years in the Ottoman Empire. In 1912 he was a financial advisor to the Turkish Government and in this capacity, from February to May of that year, i.e. during the last months of Ottoman rule in the Balkans, he took part in a Turkish government mission to Kosovo and Albania, which he describes as the "No Man's Land of European Turkey." The following passages, recounting a harrowing journey in a hostile environment, are taken from his memoirs, "Storm Centres of the Near East" (London 1933).