Tourists In War Zone..

New York Times 100 years ago today, April 28, 1913:
Those on the Laconia Held Up Three Times Near Constantinople.
    Daniel D. Bidwell, a well-to-do business man of Hartford, who returned yesterday on the Carmania, was one of the tourists on the Clark cruise of the Laconia, which sailed from New York on Feb. 12, and was the only tourist cruiser, he said, that got to Constantinople or Piraeus this season, owing to the war.
    "When we stopped at Madeira," said Mr. Bidwell, "we took on board Deputy United States Consul Louis Peck of Constantinople, and I believe that is the reason we got through and saw the city.
    "Going through the Dardanelles the ship was stopped by a blank shot fired from the fort on the European side. After hoisting signals stating that the Laconia was a tourist steamer we were allowed to proceed. A short time after that a shot was fired from a fort on the Asiatic side, and we stopped again. The same signals were hoisted, and all was well. The steamer had gone ahead only a few minutes when a solid shot was fired across her bows from a water battery. Then the Captain stopped and anchored, and a rowboat came off with a Turkish naval officer sitting in the stern.
    "Capt. Irvine, as commander in the Royal Naval Reserve, had a blue ensign flying at the stern instead of the familiar red British ensign, and this, the officer told him, had caused the Laconia to be mistaken for a warship.
    "As there were the full number of warships belonging to Great Britain in the Dardanelles at the time, the officer informed the commander that unless he lowered the blue ensign and hoisted the red flag of the merchant marine he could not go in. Capt. Irvine complied with as good grace as possible, and we went in and anchored near the warships of the various nations off the Golden Horn."
    Frank C. Clark, who was also on the Carmania, said that Constantinople was full of disabled and maimed soldiers, and the feature of their appearance to the Americans was the resigned way in which they took their injuries.
    In Athens the tourists from the Laconia went to the hotels Grand Bretagne and D'Angleterre, opposite the Royal Palace, and were surrounded with Greek soldiers after dinner who apparently had all come from America to serve in the war, and who hailed them with "Any one here from Kansas City?" "Who's from Chicago?" "Any news from good old New York?" and similar queries. There were few wounded soldiers in Athens.