Cover -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Dedication -- Table of Contents -- List of illustrations -- Preface -- Acknowledgements -- List of abbreviations -- Maps -- Illustrations -- Introduction -- Part A -- Evolution -- Chapter One -- 'The English Palace' -- The early embassy -- Home ownership8212;and its woes -- The difficult birth of the Smith-Barry embassy -- Mixed reviews and another fire -- The embassy 'fleet' -- Chapter Two -- Diplomats -- The ambassador -- The domestic family -- The official family -- The importance of size -- Chapter Three -- Dragomans -- Raising the cry for 'natural-born Englishmen' -- Oriental secretary and fi rst dragoman: "two bad public servants instead of one good one" -- The weakening of the dragomanate -- Levantine rearguard -- No career for the dragomans -- Chapter Four -- Consuls -- Creation of the network -- Trading consuls, and Levantines -- Hornby's Supreme Consular Court -- The founding of the Levant Service -- Political consuls -- The consulate-general: controversy and contraction -- "The step-child of the Foreign Office" -- Chapter Five -- Communications -- "Ye surest, and most speedy conveyance you can" -- The consequences of poor communications -- Reducing the need for good communications -- Searching for improvements -- "The telegraph frenzy" -- Part B -- Twentieth Century Role -- Introduction to Part B -- Chapter Six -- Foreigners and Sailors, 19148211;24 -- The British Section, 19148211;18 -- The British High Commission, 19188211;24 -- Chapter Seven -- Reluctantly to Ankara, 19248211;38 -- A dragomanate by any other name -- An 'embassy' in spite of everything -- Ankara in spite of everything -- Mosul 19268212;"disposing of the Turk" -- Two-centre embassy -- Making bricks without straw -- Political reporting and intelligence gathering -- Losing the monopoly of bilateral agreements -- Chapter Eight -- Embassy at War, 19398211;44 -- Negotiating the Anglo-Turkish alliance -- Following up the treaty -- Militarization of the embassy -- Frustrating SOE -- Struggling to coordinate propaganda -- Juggling high-level visitors -- Scripting a spy fi lm: the 'Cicero' affair -- Chapter Nine -- Business as Usual, 19458211;74 -- Return to peacetime mode -- NATO, payments, and planes -- A typical medium-sized post -- Cyprus: "the main preoccupation of the Embassy" -- Still juggling high-level visitors -- Chapter Ten -- Business above all? 19748211;2008 -- Trouble with trucks -- Still a 'comprehensive post' -- Drugs and immigrants -- Two-centre embassy once more -- Conclusion -- Appendices -- 1 British ambassadors to Turkey, 15838211;2008 -- 2 Turkish ambassadors to Britain, 17938211;2008 -- 3 Royal instructions to Lord Chandos, 29 December 1680 -- 4 British consular posts and consular officers in the Ottoman Empire, 1852 -- 5 Comparative statement of extraordinary expenses of HM Embassy at Constantinople, 18578211;69, 163; Sterling -- 6 Cumberbatch's letter to Waugh from the US Embassy in Constantinople -- 7 Non-career staff employed at the British Consulate-General, Istanbul, 1946 -- 8 British consuls-general at Istanbul, 18068211;2008 -- 9 Anglo-Turkish bilateral agreements (with place of signing) presented to the House of Comm.