TWO WAR YEARS IN
CONSTANTINOPLE
TWO WAR YEARS
IN
CONSTANTINOPLE
_Sketches of German and Young Turkish
Ethics and Politics_
BY
DR. HARRY STUERMER
LATE CORRESPONDENT OF THE KÖLNISCHE ZEITUNG
IN CONSTANTINOPLE (1915-16)
TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN
E. ALLEN
AND THE AUTHOR
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
DECLARATION
The undersigned hereby declares on his sworn word of honour that
in writing this volume he has been in no way inspired by outside
influence, and that he has never had any dealings whatsoever, material
or otherwise, either before or during the war, with any Government,
organisation, propaganda, or personality hostile to Germany or Turkey
or even of a neutral character. His conscience alone has urged him to
write and publish his impressions, and he hopes that by so doing he may
perform a service towards the cause of truth and civilisation.
Moreover, he can give formal assurance that he has expressly avoided
making the acquaintance of any person resident in Switzerland until his
manuscript should have been sent to press.
Furthermore, he has been actuated by no personal motives in thus
giving public expression to his experiences and opinions, for he has
no personal grievance, either material or moral, against any person
whatsoever.
[Illustration: _Dr. H. Stuermer_]
Geneva,
_June 1917_.
PREFACE
While the author of this work was waiting on the frontier of
Switzerland for final permission from the German authorities to enter
that country, Germany committed her second great crime, her first
having completely missed its mark. She had begun to realise that she
was beaten in the great conflict which she had so wantonly provoked
with that characteristic over confidence in the power of her own
militarism and disdainful undervaluation of the _morale_ and general
capacities of her enemies. In final renunciation of any last remnants
of humanity in her methods, she was now making a dying effort to help
her already lost cause by a ruthless extension of her policy of piracy
at sea and a gratification of all her brutal instincts in complete
violation of the rights of neutral countries.
It is therefore with all the more inward conviction, with all the
more urgent moral persuasion, that the author makes use of the rare
opportunity offered him by residence in Switzerland to range himself
boldly on the side of truth and show that there are still Germans who
find it impossible to condone even tacitly the moral transgression and
political stupidity of their own and an allied Government. _That is the
sole purpose of this publication._
Regardless of the consequences, he holds it to be his duty and his
privilege, just because he is a German, to make a frank statement,
from the point of view of human civilisation, of what have become his
convictions from personal observations made in the course of six months
of actual warfare and practically two years of subsequent journalistic
activity. He spent the time from Spring 1915 to Christmas 1916 in
Turkey, and will of course only deal with what he knows from personal
observation. The following essays are of the nature merely of sketches
and make no claim whatever to completeness.
With regard to purely German politics and ethics, therefore, the author
will confine himself to a few indications and impressions of a personal
kind, but he cannot forget the rôle Germany has played in Turkey as
an ally of the present Young Turkish Government, nor can he ignore
Germany's responsibility for the atrocities committed by them. The
author publishes his impressions with a perfectly clear conscience,
secure in the conviction that as the representative of a German paper
he never once wrote a single word in favour of this criminal war, and
that during his stay of more than twenty months in Turkey he never
concealed his true opinions as soon as he had definitely made up his
mind what these were.
On the contrary, he was rather dangerously candid and frank in speaking
to anyone who wanted to listen to him--so much so, that it is almost a
miracle that he ever reached a neutral country. After the war he will
be in a position to appeal to the testimony of dozens of people of high
standing in all walks of life that in both thought and action a deep
cleft has always divided him from his colleagues, and that he has ever
ardently longed for the moment when he might, freely and without fear
of consequences, do his bit towards the enlightenment of the civilised
world.
May these lines, written in all sincerity and hereby submitted to the
tribunal of public opinion, free the author at last from the burden
of silent reproach heaped on him by a mutilated, outraged, languishing
humanity, of being a German among thousands of Germans who desired this
war.
* * * * *
Several months have passed since the original text of the German and
French editions of this little book was written. Baghdad was taken by
British troops before the last chapter of the German manuscript had
been completed, and since then military operations have been more and
more in favour of the Entente. A number of important political events
have occurred, such as the Russian Revolution and the entry of the
United States of America into the war.
Further developments of Russian politics may yet have a direct effect
on the final solution of the problems surrounding the defeated Ottoman
Empire. But the author has preferred to maintain the original text of
his book, written early in March this year, and to make no changes
whatever in the conclusions he had then arrived at as a result of the
fresh impressions he carried away from Turkey.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PAGE
At the outbreak of war in Germany--The German "world-politicians"
(_Weltpolitiker_)--German and English mentality--The
"place in the sun"--England's declaration
of war--German methods in Belgium and Alsace-Lorraine--Prussian
arrogance--Militaristic journalism 17
CHAPTER II
To Constantinople--Pro-Turkish considerations--The dilemma
of a Gallipoli correspondent--Under German military
control 35
CHAPTER III
The great Armenian persecutions--The system of Talaat and
Enver--A denunciation of Germany as a cowardly and
conscienceless accomplice 42
CHAPTER IV
The tide of war--Enver's offensive for the "liberation of the
Caucasus"--The Dardanelles Campaign; the fate of Constantinople
twice hangs in the balance--Nervous tension
in international Pera--Bulgaria's attitude--Turkish rancour
against her former enemy--German illusions of a
separate peace with Russia--King Ferdinand's time-serving--Lack
of munitions in the Dardanelles--A mysterious
death: a political murder?--The evacuation of
Gallipoli--The Turkish version of victory--Constantinople
unreleased--Kut-el-Amara--Propaganda for the "Holy
War"--A prisoner of repute--Loyalty of Anglo-Indian
officers--Turkish communiqués and their worth--The fall
of Erzerum--Official lies--The treatment of prisoners--Political
speculation with prisoners of war--Treatment
of enemy subjects--Stagnation and lassitude in the summer
of 1916--The Greeks in Turkey--Dread of Greek
massacres--Rumania's entry--Terrible disappointment--The
three phases of the war for Turkey 75
CHAPTER V
The economic situation--Exaggerated Entente hopes--Hunger
and suffering among the civil population--The system of
requisitioning and the semi-official monopolists--Profiteering
on the part of the Government clique--Frivolity and
cynicism--The "Djemiet"--The delegates of the German
_Zentraleinkaufsgesellschaft_ (Central Purchases Commission)--A
hard battle between German and Turkish intrigue--Reform
of the coinage--Paper money and its depreciation--The
hoarding of bullion--The Russian rouble
the best investment 107
CHAPTER VI
German propaganda and ethics--The unsuccessful "Holy
War" and the German Government--"The Holy War"
a crime against civilisation, a chimera, a farce--Underhand
dealings--The German Embassy the dupe of adventurers--The
morality of German Press representatives--A
trusty servant of the German Embassy--Fine official
distinctions of morality--The German conception of the
rights of individuals 126
CHAPTER VII
Young Turkish nationalism--One-sided abolition of capitulations
--Anti-foreign efforts at emancipation--Abolition of
foreign languages--German simplicity--The Turkification
of commercial life--Unmistakable intellectual improvement
as a result of the war--Trade policy and customs
tariff--National production--The founding of new businesses
in Turkey--Germany supplanted--German starvation--Capitulations
or full European control?--The
colonisation and forcible Turkification of Anatolia--"The
properties of people who have been dispatched elsewhere"--The
"Mohadjirs"--Greek persecutions just before the
Great War--The "discovery" of Anatolia, the nucleus of
the Ottoman Empire--Turkey finds herself at last--Anatolian
dirt and decay--The "Greater Turkey" and the
purely Turkish Turkey--Cleavage or concentration? 151
CHAPTER VIII
Religion and race--The Islam policy of Abdul-Hamid and of
the Young Turks--Turanism and Pan-Islamism as political
principles--Turanism and the Quadruple Alliance--Greed
and race-fanaticism--Religious traditions and
modern reforms--Reform in the law--A modern Sheikh-ul-Islam--Reform
and nationalization--The Armenian
and Greek Patriarchates--The failure of Pan-Islamism--The
alienation of the Arabs--Djemal Pasha's "hangman's
policy" in Syria--Djemal as a "Pro-French"--Djemal
and Enver--Djemal and Germany--His true character--The
attempts against the Suez Canal--Djemal's murderous
work nears completion--The great Arabian and
Syrian Separatist movement--The defection of the Emir
of Mecca and the great Arabian catastrophe 176
CHAPTER IX
Anti-war and pro-Entente feelings among the Turks--Turkish
pessimism about the war--How would Abdul-Hamid have
acted?--A war of prevention against Russia--Russia and
a neutral Turkey--The agreement about the Dardanelles--A
peaceful solution scorned--Alleged criminal intentions
on the part of the Entente; the example of Greece
and Salonika--To be or not to be?--German influence--Turkey
stakes on the wrong card--The results 209
CHAPTER X
The outlook for the future--The consequences of trusting
Germany--The Entente's death sentence on Turkey--The
social necessity for this deliverance--Anatolia, the
new Turkey after the war; forecasts about the Turkish
race--The Turkish element in the lost territory--Russia
and Constantinople; international guarantees--Germany,
at peace, benefits too--Farewell to the German "World
Politicians"--German interests in a victorious and in a
defeated Turkey--The German-Turkish treaty--A paradise
on earth--The Russian commercial impulse--The
new Armenia--Western Anatolia, the old Greek centre of
civilisation--Great Arabia and Syria--The reconciliation
of Germany 258
Appendix 283
TWO WAR YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
CHAPTER I
At the outbreak of war in Germany--The German "world-politicians"
(_Weltpolitiker_)--German and English mentality--The "place in the
sun"--England's declaration of war--German methods in Belgium and
Alsace-Lorraine--Prussian arrogance--Militaristic journalism.
Anyone who, like myself, set foot on German soil for the first time
after years of sojourn in foreign lands, and more particularly in
the colonies, just at the moment that Germany was mobilising for the
great European war, must surely have been filled, as I was, with a
certain feeling of melancholy, a slight uneasiness with regard to
the state of mind of his fellow-countrymen as it showed itself in
these dramatic days of August in conversations in the street, in
cafés and restaurants, and in the articles appearing in the Press.
We Germans have never learnt to think soundly on political subjects.
Bismarck's political heritage, although set forth in most popular
form in his _Thoughts and Recollections_, a book that anyone opposing
this war from the point of view rather of prudence than of ethics
might utilise as an unending source of propaganda, has not descended
to our rulers in any sort of living form. But an unbounded political
_naïveté_, an incredible lack of judgment and of understanding of
the point of view of other peoples, who have their _raison d'être_
just as much as we have, their vital interests, their standpoint of
honour--have not prevented us from trying to carry on a grand system of
_Weltpolitik_ (world politics). The average everyday German has never
really understood the English--either before or during the war; in the
latter's colonial policy, which, according to pan-German ideas, has
no other aim than to snatch from us our "place in the sun"; in their
conception of liberty and civilisation, which has entailed such mighty
sacrifices for them on behalf of their Allies; when we trod Belgian
neutrality underfoot and thought England would stand and look on;
at the time of the debates about universal service, when practically
every German, even in the highest political circles, was ready to wager
that there would be a revolution in England sooner than any general
acceptance of Conscription; and coming down to more recent events,
when the latest huge British war loan provided the only fit and proper
answer to German frightfulness at sea.
Let me here say a word on the subject of colonial policy, on which I
may perhaps be allowed to speak with a certain amount of authority
after extended travel in the farthest corners of Africa, and from
an intimate, personal knowledge of German as well as English and
French colonies. Germany has less colonial territory than the older
colonists, it is true. It is also true that the German struggle for
the most widespread, the most intensive and lucrative employment of
the energies and capabilities of our highly developed commercial land
is justified. But at the risk of being dubbed as absolutely lacking
in patriotism, I should like to point out that in the first place the
resources we had at our disposal in our own colonial territory in
tropical and sub-tropical Africa, little exploited as they then were,
would have amply sufficed for our commercial needs and colonising
capacities--though possibly not for our aspirations after world power!
And secondly, the very liberal character of England's trade and
colonial policy did not hinder us in any way from reaching the top of
the commercial tree even in foreign colonies.
Anyone who knows English colonies knows that the British Government,
wherever it has been possible to do so politically, that is, in all her
colonies which are already properly organised and firmly established
as British, has always met in a most generous and sympathetic way
German, and indeed any foreign, trade or other enterprises. New firms,
with German capital, were received with open arms, their excellence
and value for the young country heartily recognised and ungrudgingly
encouraged; not the slightest shadow of any jealousy of foreign
undertakings could ever exist in a British colony, and every German
could be as sure as an Englishman himself of being justly treated in
every way and encouraged in the most generous fashion in his work.
Thousands of Germans otherwise thoroughly embued with the national
spirit make no secret of the fact that they would far rather live in
a British than a German colony. Too often in the latter the newcomer
was met at every point by an exaggerated bureaucracy and made to feel
by some official that he was not a reserve officer, and consequently a
social inferior. Hints were dropped to discourage him, and inquiries
were even made as to whether he had enough money to book his passage
back to where he came from!
Far be it from me to wish to depreciate by these words the value of
our own colonial efforts. As pioneers in Africa we were working on
the very best possible lines, but we should have been content to go
on learning from the much superior British colonial methods, and
should have finished and perfected our own domain instead of always
shouting jealously about other people's. I am quite convinced that
another ten years of undisturbed peaceful competition and Germany,
with her own very considerable colonial possessions on the one hand,
and the possibility on the other of pushing commercial enterprise on
the highest scale not only in independent overseas states but under
the beneficent protection of English rule with its true freedom and
real furtherance of trade "uplift," would have reached her goal much
better than by means of all the sword-rattling _Weltpolitik_ of the
Pan-Germans.
It is true that in territory not yet properly organised or guaranteed,
politically still doubtful, and in quite new protectorates, especially
along the routes to India, where vital English interests are at stake,
and on the much-talked-of Persian Gulf, England could not, until her
main object was firmly secured, meet in the same fair way German
desires with regard to commercial activity. And there she has more than
once learnt to her cost the true character of the German _Weltpolitik_.
That is the real meaning, at any rate so far as colonial politics are
concerned, of the German-English contest for a "place in the sun." No
one who understands it aright could ever condone the outgrowths of our
_Weltpolitik_, however much he might desire to assist German ability to
find practical outlet in all suitable overseas territory, nor could he
ever forget the wealth of wonderful deeds, wrought in the service of
human civilisation and freedom, Englishmen can place to their credit
years before we ever began. With such considerations of justice in
view, we should have recognised that there was a limit to our efforts
after expansion, and as a matter of fact we should have gone further
and fared better--in a decade we should have probably been really
wealthy--for the English in their open-handed way certainly left us
a surprising amount of room for the free exercise of our commercial
talents.
I have intentionally given an illustration only of the colonial side
of the problem affecting German-English relations, so that I may avoid
dealing with any subject I do not know from personal observation.
It was this English people, that, in spite of all their egoism, have
really done something for civilisation, that the German of August 1914
accused of being nothing but a nation of shopkeepers with a cowardly,
narrow-minded policy that was unprepared to make any sacrifice for
others. It was this people that the German of August 1914--and his
spokesman von Bethmann-Hollweg, who later thought it necessary to
defend himself against the charge of "having brought too much ethics
into politics"--expected to stand by and see Belgium overridden. It
was this same England that we believed would hold back even when the
Chancellor found it impossible to apply to French colonial possessions
the guarantee he had given not to aim at any territorial conquests in
the war with France!
And so it was with all the more grimness, with all the more gravity,
that on that memorable night of August 4th the terrible blow fell. The
English declaration of war entered into the very soul of the German
people, who stood as a sacrifice to a political miscalculation that had
its roots less in a lack of thought and experience than in a boundless
arrogance.
About the same time I was a witness of those laughable scenes which
took place on the Potsdamer Platz in Berlin, where, in complete
misjudgment of the whole political situation _Japanese_ were carried
shoulder high by the enthusiastic and worthy citizens of Berlin under
the erroneous impression that these obvious arch-enemies of Russia
would naturally be allies of Germany. Every German that was not blind
to the trend of true "world-politics" must surely have shaken his head
over this lamentable spectacle. A few days afterwards Japan sent its
ultimatum against Kiao-Tchao!
It was the same incapability of thinking in terms of true
world-politics that led us lately to believe that we might find
supporters in Mexico and Japan of the piracy we indulged in as a
result of America's intervention in the war, the same incapability
that blinded us to the effect our methods must have on other neutrals
such as China and the South American States. And although one admits
the possibility of a miscalculation being made, yet a miscalculation
with regard to England's attitude was not only the height of political
stupidity, but showed an absence of moral sense. _The moment England
entered the war, Germany lost the war._
And while the world-politicians of Berlin, having recovered from their
first dismay, were making jokes about the "nation of shopkeepers" and
its little army which they would just "have arrested"; while a little
later the military events up to St. Quentin and the Battle of the Marne
seemed to justify the idle mockers who knew nothing of England and had
never even ventured their noses out of Germany,--those who had lived
in the colonies were uttering warnings against any kind of optimism,
and some already felt the war would end badly for us.
I belonged to the latter group. I expressed my conviction in this
direction as early as August 6th, 1914, in a letter which I wrote from
Berlin for my father's birthday. In it I maintained that in spite of
all our brilliant military successes, which would certainly not last,
this war was a mistake and would assuredly end in failure for Germany.
_Littera scripta manet._ Never from that moment have I believed in
final victory for Germany. Slowly but surely then I veered round to the
position that I could no longer even _desire_ victory for Germany.
Naturally I did my military duty. I saw the fearful crime Germany was
committing, yet I hurried to the front with the millions who believed
that Germany was innocent and had been attacked without cause. There
was nothing else to be done, and it must of course be remembered that
my final rupture with Germany did not take place all of a sudden. After
a few months of war in Masuria I was released as unfit for active
service as the result of a severe illness.
Of all the many episodes of my life at the front, none is so deeply
impressed on my memory as the silent war of mutual hatred I waged with
my immediately superior officer, a true prototype of his race, a true
Prussian. I can still see him, a man of fifty-five or so, who, in spite
of former active service, had only reached the rank of lieutenant, and
who, as he told me himself right at the beginning, in very misplaced
confidence, rushed into active service again because in this way he
could get really good pay and would even have a prospect of further
promotion.
This Lieutenant Stein told me too of the first weeks in Belgium, when
he had been in command of a company, and I can still hear him boasting
about his warlike propensities, and how his teacher had said about
him when he was a boy "he was capable of stealing an altar-cloth and
cutting it up to make breeches for himself."
"When we wanted to do any commandeering or to plunder a house," so he
told me, "there was a very simple means. A man belonging to my company
would be ordered to throw a Belgian rifle through an open cellar
window, the house would then be searched for weapons, and even if we
found only one rifle we had orders to seize everything without mercy
and to drive out the occupiers." I can still see the creature standing
in front of me and relating this and many a similar tale in these first
days before he knew me. I have never forgotten it; and I think I owe
much to Lieutenant Stein. He helped me on the way I was predestined to
go, for had I not just returned from the colonies and foreign lands,
imbued with liberal ideas, and from the first torn by grave doubts?
The Lieutenant may be an exception--granted; but he is an exception
unfortunately but too often represented in that army of millions
on its invading march into unhappy Belgium, among officers and
non-commissioned officers, whom, at any rate so far as active service
is concerned, everyone who has served in the German Army will agree
with me in calling on the average thoroughly brutal. Lieutenant
Stein gave me my first real deep disgust of war. He is a type that I
have not invented, and he will easily be identified by the German
military authorities from his signature on my military pass as one
of those arch-Prussians who suddenly readopt a martial air, suddenly
revive and come into their element again, although they may be sickly
old valetudinarians--the kind of men who in civil life are probably
enthusiastic members of the "German Colonial Society," the "Naval
Union," and the "Pan-German Association," and ardent world-politicians
of the ale-bench type.
I found his stories afterwards confirmed to the letter by one of the
most famous German war-correspondents, Paul Schweder, the author of the
four-volume work entitled _At Imperial Headquarters_. With a _naïveté_
equal to Lieutenant Stein's, and trusting no doubt to my then official
position as correspondent of a German paper, he gave me descriptions
of Belgian atrocities committed by our soldiers and the results of
our system of occupation that, in all their horrible nakedness, put
everything that ever appeared in the Entente newspapers absolutely in
the shade.
As early as the beginning of 1916 he told me the plain truth that we
were practically starving Belgium and that the country was really only
kept alive by the Relief Commission, and that we were attempting to
ruin any Belgian industry which might compete with ours by a systematic
removal of machinery to Germany. And that was before the time of the
Deportations!
Schweder's descriptions dealt for the most part with the sexual
morality of our soldiers in the trenches. In spite of severe
punishments, so he assured me, thousands and thousands of cases
occurred of women and young girls out of decent Belgian and French
families being outraged. The soldier on short leave from the front,
with the prospect of a speedy return to the first-line trenches and
death staring him in the face, did not care what happened; the unhappy
victims were for the most part silent about their shame, so that the
cases of punishment were very few and far between.
While I was at the front I heard extraordinary things, for which I
had again detailed confirmation from Schweder, who knew the whole of
the Western Front well, about the German policy of persecution in
Alsace-Lorraine. There the system was to punish with imprisonment
not only actions but opinions. The authorities did not even scruple
to imprison girls out of highly-respected houses who had perhaps made
some harmless remark in youthful ignorance, and shut them up with
common criminals and prostitutes to work out their long sentence.
Such scandalous acts, which are a disgrace to humanity, Paul Schweder
confirmed by the dozen or related at first-hand.
He was intelligent enough, too, as was evident from the many statements
made by him in confidential circles, to see through the utter lack
of foundation, the mendacity, the immorality of what he wrote in his
books merely for the sake of filthy lucre; but when I tried one day to
take on a bet with him that Verdun would not fall, he took his revenge
by spreading the report in Constantinople that I was an Pro-Entente,
and doing his utmost to intrigue against me. That is the German
war-correspondent's idea of morality!
When I was released from the army in the beginning of 1915, I joined
the editorial staff of the _Kölnische Zeitung_ and remained for some
weeks in Cologne. I have not retained any very special impressions
of this period of my activity, except perhaps the recollection of
the spirit of jingoistic Prussianism that I--being a Badener--had
scarcely ever come across before in its full glory, and, from the
many confidential communications and discussions among the editorial
staff, the feeling that even then there was a certain nervousness and
insecurity among those who, in their leading articles, informed the
public daily of their absolute confidence in victory.
One curious thing at this time, perhaps worthy of mention, was the
disdainful contempt with which these Prussians--even before the fall of
Przemysl--regarded Austria. But the scornful and biting commentaries
made behind the scenes in the editorial sanctum at the fall of this
stronghold stood in most striking contrast to what the papers wrote
about it.
Later, when I had already been a long time in Turkey, a humorous
incident gave me renewed opportunity of seeing this Prussian spirit of
unbounded exaggeration of self and depreciation of others. The incident
is at the same time characteristic of the spirit of militarism with
which the representatives of the German Press are thoroughly imbued, in
spite of the opportunities most of them have had through long visits to
other countries of gaining a little more _savoir faire_.
One beautiful summer afternoon at a promenade concert in the "Petit
Champs" at Pera I introduced an Austrian Lieutenant of Dragoons I knew,
belonging to one of the best regiments, to our Balkan correspondent who
happened to be staying in Constantinople: "Lieutenant N.; Herr von M."
The correspondent sat down at the table and repeated very distinctly:
"_Lieutenant-Colonel von M._" It turned out that he had been a
second lieutenant in the Prussian Army, and had pushed himself up to
this wonderful rank in the Bulgarian Army, instinctively combining
journalism and militarism. My companion, however, with true Austrian
calm, took not the slightest notice of the correction, did not spring
up and greet him with an enthusiastic "Ah! my dear fellow-officer,
etc.," but began an ordinary social conversation.
Would anyone believe that next day old Herr von M. took me roundly
to task for sitting at the same table as an Austrian officer and
appearing in public with him, and informed me quasi-officially that as
a representative of the _Kölnische Zeitung_ I should associate only
with the German colony in Constantinople.
I wonder which is the most irritating characteristic of this type of
mind--its overbearing attitude towards our Allies, its jingoistic
"Imperial German" cant, or its wounded dignity as a militarist who
forgets that he is a journalist and no longer an officer?