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.
There has been no lack of cross currents _against_ the war policy of
the Young Turkish Government. Ever since the entry of Turkey into the
war, there has been a deeply rooted and unshakeable conviction among
all kinds and conditions of men, even in the circles of the Pashas and
the Court--the people of Turkey take too little interest in politics
and are composed of far too heterogeneous elements for there to be
anything in the nature of what we call "public opinion"--that Turkey's
alliance with the Central Powers was a complete mistake and that it
can lead to no good. It is of course known that since the outbreak of
war Turkey has not only been under martial law and in a state of siege,
but that under the régime of a brutal military dictatorship, with its
system of espionage, personal liberty has been practically null and
void. Any expressions of disapproval, therefore, or agitations against
the "Committee" are naturally only possible in most intimate circles,
and that with all secrecy. Little or nothing of the true opinions of
this or that personage ever trickles through to publicity, and so it
is utterly impossible, except from quite detached symptoms, to get
any proper idea of what are the real thoughts and feelings of those
cultured Turks who do not belong to the "Ittihad" and have no part in
their system of pillage and aggrandisement.
In spite of the limited information available it will be worth while,
I think, to go into these counter-streams a little more fully. In
pretty well every grade of society and among all nationalities in
Turkey, there is the conviction that the old Sultan Abdul-Hamid would
never have committed the fateful error of declaring war against the
Entente and binding himself hand and foot to Germany. In the case of
Turkey's remaining neutral, the Entente had formally promised her
territorial integrity; Turkey refused. She felt herself driven to a war
of prevention, principally through fear of the power of Russia. The
statements made by those who agreed with Enver and Pasha and pushed
for the war, that Turkey in the case of non-participation would be
completely thrown on the mercy of a victorious Russia and that Russia's
true aim in the war was the Dardanelles and Constantinople, have never
been authenticated. There are still Turks, anti-Russian Turks, who even
admitted this possibility, and yet believed the word of the Entente--at
any rate of the Western Powers--and trusted to England's throwing her
weight into the scale against Russia's plans of conquest, if Turkey
remained neutral. They saw and still see no necessity for the Turkish
Government to have entered on a war of prevention.
Russia's aim was the Straits and Constantinople--well and good. But
Russia would by hook or by crook have had to come to a friendly
agreement with Turkey and could not have simply broken a definite
promise given by the combined Entente to Turkey. It would have been
quite different if Russia had demanded Constantinople from the Western
Powers as the price of her participation in the war against Germany;
then, but only then, the Entente would perhaps have had to come to an
agreement satisfying Russia on this head. But Russia had quite other
ideas, and long before Turkey's entry into the war and without any
prospects of getting Constantinople, she flung her whole weight against
Germany and Austria right at the beginning of the war.
The treaty with regard to Constantinople between the Western Powers
and Russia was not signed till six months after Turkey declared war,
and England would certainly never have allowed Russia to encroach on a
really neutral or sympathetically neutral Turkey. Then, but only then,
there might have been some foundation in fact for the ideas one heard
advanced by German-Turkish illusionists who would still have liked to
believe that there was continual dissension within the Entente, even
long after the official notification of the Anglo-Russian treaty
with regard to the Straits, and by some even after the speech of the
Russian minister Trepoff, that the English occupation of the islands
at the entrance to the Dardanelles, which could be made into a second
Gibraltar, aimed chiefly at blocking the Straits and preventing Russia
from gaining undisturbed possession of Constantinople. Specially
optimistic people even look to that chimerical antagonism between
Russia and England for the salvation of Turkey, should Germany be
finally overcome.
Whether she liked it or not, then, Russia would have had to come to
a friendly agreement with Turkey, had the latter remained neutral,
in order to gain the desired goal. And this goal would have been
necessarily limited, by the fact of Turkey's non-entry on the enemy
side, rather to the stoppage of German Berlin-Baghdad efforts at
expansion, the prevention of any strangulation of the enormous Russian
trade in the south and desperate opposition to any attempt to keep
Russia away from the Mediterranean, than to an attack on Turkey and
her vital interests. And who knows whether under such an agreement,
bound as it was to give Russia certain liberties and privileges in the
Straits, Turkey also might not have got much in exchange, at any rate
on financial lines, and might not also have obtained permission at last
to develop Armenia by that west-to-east railway so long desired by the
Turks and so strongly opposed by the Russians?
Would the terrible bloodshed in the present war, the complete economic
exhaustion entailed, and the risk of a doubtful outcome of the fight
for existence or non-existence not have been far outweighed by the
prospect, in the case of a friendly agreement with Russia, of seeing
the orthodox cross again planted on the Hagia Sophia, an international
régime established in Constantinople--with certain Russian privileges
and the satisfaction of certain Russian moral demands, it is true,
but otherwise nothing to disturb Turkish life in Stamboul or in any
way prejudice Turkish prestige? Even the prospect of having to raze
the forts on the Straits to the ground in order to give free access
from the Mediterranean, or the necessity of having to inaugurate a
more humane and beneficent policy in Armenia, perhaps with European
supervision over the carrying out of the reforms would surely have
been preferable to the present state of affairs. These would all
have ensured for Turkey a long period of peace, capital wealth and
intellectual and social improvement, perhaps at the expense of a
momentary hurt to her feelings,--but these had been far more severely
wounded already, as, for example, when she had to look on helplessly
while bit after bit of her Empire was torn from her. It would have
been impossible for Russia to get more than this from Turkey had she
remained neutral. Her sovereignty and territorial integrity would have
been completely guaranteed.
But Turkey thought she had to stake all, her whole existence, on
one card, and she staked on the wrong one, as is recognised now by
thousands of intelligent Turks. Believers in the war policy followed
by the Government make themselves hoarse maintaining that if Russia
had not gradually overpowered a neutral Turkey to win Constantinople
completely, at any rate the Entente would have finally forced her to
join their side; in either case, therefore, war was inevitable. They
point to Salonika, and, in face of all reason, maintain that the
Entente Powers would in all probability have treated Turkey exactly
as they treated Greece. They forget that their geographical position
is entirely different, and would have a very different effect on
military tactics. If Turkey had remained a sympathetic neutral, so
would Bulgaria; or else the whole of the Balkan States, from Roumania
and Bulgaria to Greece, would have joined the Entente right at the
beginning. In either case there would have been no necessity at all for
Turkey to join, for what military obligations had she to fulfil? The
Entente would certainly never have driven Turkey to fight, simply to
get the benefit of the Turkish soldiers available; there is no truth
whatever in the statements circulated about unscrupulous compulsion
with this end in view.
The benefit for the Entente of Turkey's sympathetic neutrality would
have been so enormous that they would most certainly have been content
with that. Neither in Germany nor in Turkey is there any doubt whatever
in military circles that it was Turkey's entry into the war on the
German side and her blocking of the Straits, and so preventing Russia
from obtaining supplies of ammunition and other war material, that has
so far saved the Central Powers. Had Turkey remained neutral, constant
streams of ammunition would have poured into Russia, Mackensen's
offensive would have had no prospect at all of success, and Germany
would have been beaten to all intents and purposes in 1915. The Turks
do not scruple to let Germany feel that this is so on every suitable or
unsuitable occasion.
The Entente would certainly never have moved a finger to disturb
Turkey's sympathetic neutrality and drive her into war. There would
have been tremendous material advantages for Turkey in such a
neutrality. Instead of being impoverished, bankrupt, utterly exhausted,
wholly lost, as she now is, she might have been far richer than
Roumania has ever been. There is one thing quite certain, and that is
that Abdul-Hamid would never have let this golden opportunity slide of
having a stream of money pouring in on himself and his country. And
certainly Turkey would not have lacked moral justification had she so
acted.
These considerations I have put forward rather from the Turkish
anti-war point of view than from my own. They are opinions expressed
hundreds of times by thoroughly patriotic and intelligent Turks
who saw how the ever more intensive propaganda work of the German
Ambassadors, first Marschall von Bieberstein, then Freiherr von
Wangenheim, gradually wormed its way through opposition and prejudice,
how the German Military Mission in Constantinople tried to turn the
Russian hatred of Germany against Turkey instead, how, finally, those
optimists and jingoists on the "Committee," who knew as little about
the true position of affairs throughout the world as they did of the
intentions of the Entente or the means at their own disposal, proceeded
to guide the ship of State more and more into German waters, without
any reference to their own people, in return for promises won from
Germany of personal power and material advantage. These were those days
of excitement and smouldering unrest when Admiral von Souchon of the
_Goeben_ and the _Breslau_, with complete lack of discipline towards
his superior, Djemal Pasha, arranged with the German Government to
pull off a coup without Djemal's knowledge--chiefly because he was
itching to possess the "Pour le Mérite" order--and sailed off with the
Turkish Fleet to the Black Sea. (I have my information from the former
American Ambassador in Constantinople, Mr. Morgenthau, who was furious
at the whole affair.)[2]
These were the days when Enver and Talaat threw all their cards on the
table in that fateful game of To Be or Not to Be, and brought on their
country, scarcely yet recovered from the bloodshed of the Balkan War,
a new and more terrible sacrifice of her manhood in a war extending
over four, and later five, fronts. The whole result of this struggle
for existence depended on final victory for Germany and that was
becoming daily more doubtful; in fact, Ottoman troops had at last to be
dispatched by German orders to the Balkans and Galicia.
Turkey had, too, to submit to the ignominy of making friends with
her very recent enemy and preventing imminent military catastrophe
by handing over the country along the Maritza, right up to the gates
of the sacred city of Adrianople, to the Bulgarians. She had to look
on while Armenia was conquered by the Russians; while Mesopotamia
and Syria, in spite of initial successes, were threatened by
English troops; while the "Holy War" came to an untimely end, the
most consecrated of all Islam's holy places, Mecca, fell away from
Turkey, the Arabs revolted and the Caliphate was shattered; while her
population in the Interior endured the most terrible sufferings, and
economic and financial life tended slowly and surely towards complete
and hopeless collapse.
Not even yet, indeed now less than ever, is there any general
acceptance among the people of the views held by Enver and Talaat
and their acolytes. Not yet do intelligent, independent men believe
the fine phrases of these minions of the "Committee," who are held
in leading strings by these dictators partly through gifts of money,
office, or the opportunity to enrich themselves at the expense of the
people, partly through fear of the consequences should they revolt, or
of those domestic servants who call themselves deputies and senators.
On the contrary, it is no exaggeration to say that three-quarters of
the intelligent out-and-out Turkish male population--quite apart from
Levantines, Greeks, and Armenians--and practically the entire female
population, who are more sensitive about the war and whose hearts are
touched more deeply by its immeasurable suffering, have either remained
perfectly friendly to England and France or have become so again
through terrible want and suffering.
The consciousness that Turkey has committed an unbounded folly has long
ago been borne in upon wide circles of Turks in spite of falsified
reports and a stringent censorship. There would be no risk at all
in taking on a wager that in private conversation with ten separate
Turks, in no way connected with the "Committee," nine of them will
admit, as soon as they know there is no chance of betrayal, that they
do not believe Turkey will win, and that, with the exception of the
much-feared Russia, they still feel as friendly as ever towards their
present enemies. "_Quoi qu'il arrive, c'est toujours la pauvre Turquie
qui va payer le pot cassé._" ("Whatever happens, it's always poor
Turkey that'll have to pay the piper") and "_Nous avons fait une grande
gaffe_" ("We _have_ put our foot in it") were the kind of remarks made
in every single political discussion I ever had in Constantinople--even
with Turks.
So much for the men, who judge with their reason. What of the women?
The one sigh of cultured Turkish women, up to the highest in the
land--who should have a golden book written in their honour for their
readiness to help, their sympathy, and humanity in this war--is: "When
shall we get rid of the Boches; when will our good old friends, the
English and the French, come back to us?" Nice results, these, of
German propaganda, German culture, German brotherhood of arms! What
a sad and shameful story for a German to have to tell! Naturally the
drastic system of the military dictatorship precludes the public
expression of such feelings, but one needs only have seen with one's
own eyes the looks so often cast by even real Turkish cultured society
at the German _Feldgrauen_ who often marched in close formation through
the streets of Constantinople--for a time they used to sing German
soldiers' songs, until that was prohibited at the express wish of the
Turkish Government to see how the land lies.
There was a marked and ill-concealed contrast in the coldness shown
to Imperial German officers and the lavish affection showered on the
Austrians and Hungarians who used for a time often to pass through
Constantinople on their way to the Dardanelles or Anatolia with their
heavy artillery. They were a great deal more sociable than their
German comrades, and one could not fail to note the significance of
such freely voiced comments as "_N'est-ce pas, ils sont charmants les
Autrichiens?_" ("The Austrians _are_ delightful, aren't they?") The
sight of us Germans, especially the very considerable German garrison
stationed for a time in the Capital, awakened in the Turks, however
much they might recognise the military necessity for their presence,
remarkable ideas about the future "German Egyptising of Turkey," and
everyone blamed Enver Pasha as the man responsible for Germany's
penetrating thus far.
A Turk in a high official position--whose name I shall naturally not
divulge--even went so far as to say to me in an intimate personal
discussion we were having one day between friend and friend: "We
Turks are and will always remain, in spite of the war, pro-English
and pro-French so far as social and intellectual life is concerned;
and it would need twenty years of hard propaganda work on Germany's
part, quite different from her present methods, to change this point
of view, if it ever could be changed." He went on to recall the time
of the pro-English era, and the enthusiastic demonstrations that had
taken place at the Sirkedji station when the horses were taken out of
the English Ambassador's carriage. "I was there myself," he said, "and
believe me, apart from the war, heaps of us are at bottom still of the
same mind." And, growing heated, he added: "What is your Embassy, tell
me? Is it really an Embassy? No representation, no intimate intercourse
with us, or at best only with your political agents, no personal charm,
nothing but brusque demands and a most humiliating economic neglect
of the Turkish population. The English and the French and even the
Russians would treat us quite differently."
This man is no exception in his ideas. He is a thorough Young Turk, who
holds with the "Committee" through thick and thin and has to thank them
for a very pleasant billet, but he is, besides, a youngish man with a
modern European education. He is thoroughly imbued, as are all of his
kind, with modern French ideas, and even the war cannot alter that.
It only needs the final collapse of the Central Powers, and then the
break-down of the whole political system under the direction of these
jingoistic emancipationists who think they can get on without Europe,
and the Turks will all, every one of them, be as thoroughly pro-English
and pro-French as they ever were and will hate Germany and everything
German with fanatical hatred.
Towards Hungary, their blood relation, they will probably retain some
friendliness in memory of their alliance in the Great War and the cause
of Turanism; they will be quite indifferent to Bulgaria; they will lose
their fear of Russia and come to an agreement with her; but after the
war there will be no bridging the gulf between Turkey and Germany, and
if Germany, on the conclusion of peace, is allotted any part of smaller
Turkey by the rest of the European Powers, she will have to reckon
for many a long year with the very chilly relations that will exist
between Germans and Turks. Even those who went heart and soul into the
war as a war of defence against Turkey's powerful northern neighbour
foresee that when peace is declared Turkey will, so far as her enormous
indebtedness to Germany permits, rather throw herself on the mercy
of England and France and America and beg from them the capital
necessary for reconstruction and for freeing them from the hated
German influence--an aversion which is already evident in hundreds of
different ways. Even Germany is beginning to recognise the existence
of this tendency, which, hand in hand with the jingoistic attempt to
turkify commercial life, bodes ill for German activity in Turkey after
the war.
These are the opinions of the educated classes. The people, however,
the poor, ignorant Turkish people, were ready long ago to accept any
solution that would liberate them from their terrible sufferings.
The Turkish people have not the mental calibre of our German people
which will perhaps make them fight on, just for the sake of leaving no
stone unturned, even after it is quite evident that they are tending
towards final collapse. The stake for which they are fighting is not
so valuable to this agricultural people, who with an inferior and
extortionate set of rulers have never been able really to enjoy life,
as it is to the population of a modern industrial country like Germany,
where every political gain or loss has a direct result on their own
pockets; defeat will certainly have much less effect on the Oriental.
One can therefore speak with confidence of a general longing for
the end of the war at any price. The Turks have had quite enough of
suffering, and there are limits to what even these willing and mutely
resigned victims can bear.
Nevertheless it is quite certain that the courageous Turkish soldier,
in obedience to iron discipline and in unconditional submission to his
Padishah, will continue to defend his lost cause to the very last
drop of his blood, with an unquestioning resignation that absolutely
precludes the idea of any defection within the army. Only a purely
political military revolution, originating with the better-informed
officers, who now really no longer believe in ultimate victory, is
within the bounds of possibility.
But the most confiding endurance on the part of the Turkish soldier,
even when the military cause has long been lost, will not hinder this
same soldier, when he is once more back in his own home as a peasant,
from realising that European influence and European civilisation
are a very competent protection against the miserably retrogressive
Turkish rule, and that he has drawn more material profit from that
single example of European activity, the Baghdad Railway, than from
all Turkish official reforms put together, and so would willingly see
Europe exercising a powerful control in his country. He would accept
the military collapse of his country which he had so long and so
bravely defended, and the dramatic political changes, with a quietly
submissive "_Inshallah_." And although, deprived as he is of every
kind of information and without even the beginnings of knowledge, he
perhaps still believes in ultimate victory for the Padishah, he will
probably heave a sigh of relief when the unexpected collapse comes, and
he will not take long to understand what it means for him: freedom and
happiness and an undreamt-of material well-being under strong European
influence.
The late successor to the throne, Prince Yussuf Izzedin Effendi, was
the highest of those in high authority who openly represented the
pessimistic anti-war tendency. It was for this that he was murdered
or perhaps made to commit suicide by Enver Pasha. The whole truth
about this tragic occurrence can only be sifted to the bottom when the
dictators of the "Committee" are no longer in their place and light
finally breaks on Turkey. Whether it was murder or suicide, the death
of the successor to the throne is one of the most dramatic scandals of
Turkish history, and Enver Pasha has his blood, as well as the blood
of so many others, on his head. As far as is possible during the war,
Europe has already collected all the information available on the
subject. I myself was in Constantinople when the tragic occurrence
took place, and I can speak so far from personal experience.
In connection with this sensational event, the world has already heard
how Yussuf Izzedin was kept for years under the despotic Abdul-Hamid
shut off from the world as a semi-prisoner in his beautiful _Konak of
Sindjirlikuyu_, just outside the gates of Constantinople, where he
became a sufferer from acute neurasthenia. In recent years, however,
his health had improved and, although latently hostile to the men
of the "Committee" and their politics, he had come more into the
foreground, especially after the recapture of Adrianople, which he
visited with full pomp and ceremony as Crown Prince of the Turkish
Empire. While the Gallipoli campaign was going on, he even made a
journey to the Front to greet his soldiers. Early one morning he was
found lying dead in a pool of his own blood with a severed artery. He
had received his death wound in exactly the same place and exactly
the same way as his father, Sultan Abdul-Aziz, who fell a victim to
Abdul-Hamid's hatred. The political significance of Yussuf Izzedin's
death is perfectly clear. What we want to do now is to demonstrate
Enver Pasha's moral culpability in the matter and to show how he was
more or less directly the murderer of this quiet, cultured, highly
respected, and thoroughly patriotic man, who was some day to ascend the
throne of Turkey.
So much at least seems to be clear, that Prince Izzedin, who was
naturally interested in retaining his accession to the throne
undisturbed and who in spite of his neurasthenia was man enough to
stand up for his own rights, foresaw ruin for his kingdom by Turkey's
entry into the war on the side of Germany. He was more far-seeing than
the careless adventurers and narrow-minded fanatics of the "Committee"
and recognised that the letting-go of the treasured Pan-Islamic
traditions of old Sultan Hamid was a grave mistake which would lead
to the alienation of the Arabs, and which endangered both the Ottoman
Caliphate and Ottoman rule in the southern parts of the Empire. He
could not console himself for the evacuation of the territory round
Adrianople, right up to the gates of the sacred city, which meant much
to him as the symbol of national enlightenment. He had a real personal
dislike for upstarts of the stamp of Enver and Talaat. Apart from
these differences of opinion and personal sympathies and antipathies,
deep-rooted though these undoubtedly were, Yussuf Izzedin was and
always would have been a thorough "Osmanli" with fiery nationalistic
feelings, who wished for nothing but the good of his Empire and his
country. And yet he was got rid of.
It would be difficult for the present Turkish Government to prove that
the successor to the throne, apart from his feeling of sorrow that
his country had been drawn into the war, apart from his readiness to
conclude an honourable separate peace at the first possible moment,
did anything which might have caused them trouble. The officials of
the Turkish Government had themselves made repeated efforts through
their Swiss Ambassadors to find out how the land lay, and whether they
could conclude a separate peace; so they had no grounds at all for
reproaching Prince Yussuf Izzedin, who, as a leader of this movement,
naturally let no opportunity of this kind slide. But he was far too
clever not to know that any attempt in this direction behind the backs
of the present Government would have no chance of success so long as
Turkey was held under the iron fist of Germany.
Perhaps the "Committee" had something to fear for the future, when the
time came for the reverses now regarded as inevitable. Yussuf would
then make use of his powerful influence in many circles--notably among
the discontented retired military men--to demand redress from the
"Committee." Enver, true to his unscrupulous character, quite hardened
to the sight of Turkish blood, and determined to stick to his post
at all costs--for it was not only lucrative, but flattering to his
vanity--was not the man to stick at trifles with a poor neurasthenic,
who under the present military dictatorship was absolutely at his
mercy. He therefore decided on cold-blooded murder.
The Prince, well aware of the danger that threatened him, tried at
the last moment to leave the country and flee to safety. He had even
taken his ticket, and intended to start by the midday Balkan train next
day to travel to Switzerland via Germany. He was forbidden to travel.
Whether, feeling himself thus driven into a corner and nothing but
death at the hand of Enver's creatures staring him in the face, he
killed himself in desperation, or whether, as thousands of people in
Constantinople firmly believe, and as would seem to be corroborated by
the generally accepted, although of course not actually verified, tale
of a bloody encounter between the murderers and the Prince's bodyguard,
with victims on both sides, he was actually assassinated, is not yet
settled, and it is really not a matter of vast importance.
One thing is clear, and that is that Izzedin Effendi did not pay
with his life for any illoyal act, but merely for his personal and
political opposition to Enver. He is but one on this murderer's long
list of victims. The numerous doctors, all well known creatures of the
"Committee" or easily won over by intimidation, who set their names
as witnesses to this "suicide as a result of severe neurasthenia"--a
most striking and suspicious similarity to the case of Abdul-Aziz--have
not prevented one single thinking man in Constantinople from forming a
correct opinion on the matter. The wily Turkish Government evidently
chose this kind of death, just like his father's, so that they could
diagnose the symptoms as those of incurable neurasthenia. History
has already formed its own opinion as to how much free-will there was
in Abdul-Aziz' death! The opinions of different people about Prince
Yussuf's death only differ as to whether he was murdered or compelled
to commit suicide. "_On l'a suicidé_," was the ironical and frank
comment of one clever Old Turk. We will leave it at that.
The funeral of the successor to the throne was a most interesting
sight. I sent an article on it to my paper at the time, which of
course had only very, very slight allusions to anything of a sinister
character; but it did not find favour with the censor at the Berlin
Foreign Office. The editorial staff of the paper evidently saw what I
was driving at, and wrote to me: "We have revised and touched up your
report so as at least to save the most essential part of it;" but even
the altered version did not pass the censor's blue pencil. But I had at
any rate the moral satisfaction of knowing that of all the papers with
correspondents in the Turkish capital, mine, the _Kölnische Zeitung_,
was the only one that could publish nothing, not a single line, about
this important and highly sensational occurrence, for I simply wrote
nothing more. That was surely clear enough!
When in 1913, after the unsuccessful counter-revolution, Mahmud Shevket
Pasha was assassinated and was going to be buried in Constantinople,
the "Committee" issued invitations days beforehand to all foreign
personages. This time nothing of the sort happened; and even the Press
representatives were not invited to be present. On the former occasion
everything possible was done, by putting off the interment as long as
possible and repeatedly publishing the date, by lengthening the route
of the funeral procession, to give several thousands of people an
opportunity of taking part in the ceremony.
This time, however, the authorities arranged the burial with all speed,
and the very next day after the sensational occurrence the body was
hurried by the shortest way, through the Gülhané Park, to the Mausoleum
of Sultan Mahmud-Moshee. The coffin had been quietly brought in the
twilight the evening before from the Kiosk of Sindjirlikuyu on the
other side of Pera on the Maslak Hill, to the top of the Seraïl. Along
the whole route, however, wherever the public had access, there were
lines of police and soldiers; and the bright uniforms of the police
who were inserted in groups of twenty between every single row of the
procession of Ministers, members of the "Committee" and delegaters who
walked behind the coffin, were really the most conspicuous thing in the
whole ceremony. Enver Pasha passed quite close to me, and neither I,
nor my companions, could fail to note the ill-concealed expression of
satisfaction on his face.
The most beautiful thing about this whole funeral, however, was the
visit paid me by the Secretary-General of the Senate, the minute
after I had reached home (and I had driven by the shortest way). With
a zeal that might have surprised even the simplest minded of men,
he offered to tell me about the Prince's life, lingering long and
going into exhaustive detail over the well-known facts of his nervous
ailment. Then, blushing at his own awkwardness and importunity, he
begged me most earnestly to publish his version of all the details and
circumstances of this tragic occurrence, "which no other paper will be
in a position to publish." Naturally it was never written.
So, once more, in the late summer of 1916, Enver Pasha, who was so fond
of discovering conspiracies and political movements in order to get rid
of his enemies, and go scot free himself, had a fresh opportunity of
reflecting, with even more foundation than usual, on the firmness of
his position and the security of his own life.
It is perhaps time now to give a more comprehensive description of this
man. We have already mentioned in connection with the failure of his
Caucasus offensive that Enver has been extraordinarily over-estimated
in Europe. The famous Enver is neither a prominent intellectual leader
nor a good organiser--in this direction he is far surpassed by Djemal
Pasha--nor an important strategist. In military matters his positive
qualities are personal courage, optimism, and, consequently, initiative
which is never daunted by fear of consequences, also cold-bloodedness
and determination; but he is entirely lacking in judgment, power of
discrimination, and largeness of conception. From the German point
of view he is particularly valuable for his unquestioning and
unconditional association with the Central Powers, his readiness to do
anything that will further their cause, his pliability and his zeal in
accommodating himself even to the most trenchant reforms. But it is
just these qualities that make enemies for him among retired military
men and among the people.
Regarded from a purely personal point of view, Enver Pasha is, in spite
of the fulsome praise showered on him by Germans inspired by that
most pliant implement, German militarism, one of the most repugnant
subjects ever produced by Turkey. Even from a purely external point of
view his appearance does not at all correspond with the picture of him
generally accepted in Germany from flattering reports and falsified
photographs. Small of stature, with quite an ordinary face, he looks
rather, as one of my journalistic colleagues said, like a "gardener's
boy" than a Vice-General and War Minister, and anyone who ever has the
opportunity I have so often had, of looking really closely at him, will
certainly be repelled by his look of vanity and cunning. It was really
most painful to have to listen to him (he has always been a bad and
monotonous speaker) in the Senate and the Lower House at the conclusion
of the Dardanelles campaign reading his report in a weak, halting
voice, but with the disdainful tone of a dictator. Every third word was
an "I." Even the Turkish Press accorded this parliamentary speech a
fairly frosty reception.
Besides this, Enver is one of the most cold-blooded liars imaginable.
Time and again there has been no necessity for him to say certain
things in Parliament, or to make certain promises, but apparently he
found cynical enjoyment in making the people and Parliament feel their
whole inferiority in his eyes. What can one think, for example, of such
performances as this? At the end of 1916 when the discussion about
military service for those who had paid the exemption tax (_bedel_) was
going on, he gave an unsolicited and solemn assurance before the whole
House that he had no intention whatever of calling up certain classes
until the Bill had been finally passed and that it would show that he
was really desirous of sparing commercial life as far as possible in
the calling up of men. Exactly two hours after this speech the drum
resounded through all the streets of Stamboul and Pera, calling up all
those classes over which Enver had as yet no power of jurisdiction, and
which he said he wanted to keep back because to tear them away from
their employment would mean the complete disorganisation of the already
sadly disordered commercial life of the country.
This was Talaat's opinion, too, and he offered a firm resistance to
Enver's plan, which it appears had been introduced by command of the
German Government. In this case, however, resistance was useless, and
had to give way to military necessity. If Enver said something in
Parliament--this at any rate was the general conclusion--one might be
quite certain that exactly the opposite would take place. He has now
gained for himself the reputation of being a liar and a murderer among
all those who are not followers of the "Committee."
In contrast to Talaat, who is at least intelligent enough to keep up
appearances and cunning enough to hold himself well in the background,
Enver's personal lack of integrity in money matters is a subject of
most shameful knowledge in Constantinople. It is pretty well generally
known how he has made use of his position as Military Dictator to gain
possession for himself of property worth thousands of pounds, and how
in his financial dealings with Germany hundreds have found their way
into his own pocket--up till the winter of 1915-1916, according to an
estimate from confidential Turkish circles and from German sources I
will not name, he had already managed to collect something like two
million pounds, reckoned in English money. This son of a former lowly
_conducteur_ in the service of the Roads and Bridges Board, whose
mother, as I have been assured by Turks is the case, plied in Stamboul
the much-despised trade of "layer-out" of corpses, now lives in his
Konak in more than princely luxury, with flowers and silver and gold on
his table, having married, out of pure ambition, a very plain-looking
princess. That is the true portrait of this much-coddled darling of
the Young Turks, and latterly of the German people as well. This is
the idol of so many admiring German women, who are bewitched by his
more than adventurous career and the halo surrounding him which he has
enhanced by every known and unknown means of self-advertisement.
Enver's character won for him in "Committee" circles personal dislike
and bitter, though veiled, enmity even from his colleagues who were
of exactly the same political persuasion as himself. Of his relations
towards the infinitely more important Djemal Pasha we have already
spoken; we shall speak in a moment of his relations to Talaat. In the
world of the retired military men, however, who had been badgered about
by Enver, neglected and simply forcibly pensioned off by hundreds
before the war because of their divergent political opinions, and even
thrown into the street, the War Minister was heartily hated. A very
large part of them were of the same political views as the murdered
successor to the throne, and their opinion of the Great War was as
we have already indicated. They pointed bitterly to Enver as the
all-too-pliable servant of Germany, who was only too ready to sacrifice
the flower of Ottoman youth on those far battlefields of Galicia at
a sign from the German Staff, and open door after door to German
influence in the Interior without even attempting to protect the land
of his fathers from invasion and decay.
As we have said, political revolutions in Turkey usually start in
military circles, not among the people, and there was an actual attempt
in this direction in the autumn of 1916. Either by chance or by
someone's betraying the plot, it was discovered by Enver in time, and
the number of military men and Old Turkish personages associated with
them, imprisoned in Constantinople alone, reached six hundred. At the
head of the movement stood Major Yakub Djemil Bey.
During the whole of the summer of 1916 Enver's position had been looked
upon as quite insecure. The knowledge of his greed in money matters,
his tactless pushing, and his ruthless brutality had totally alienated
a wide circle of people, and many believed that he would soon have to
resign.
In addition to this, a deep inward antagonism reigned between him and
Talaat, the real leader and by far the most important statesman of
Turkey, which was far more than a cleverly veiled personal dislike.
There was a constant struggle for power going on between the two men.
By the end of May the crisis had become pretty acute, although outward
appearances were still preserved and only well-informed circles knew
anything at all about the matter. Enver had at that time to hurry back
from the Irak, where he was on a visit of inspection with the German
Chief of Staff and the Military Attaché, in order to safeguard his
post. In confidential circles, the outbreak of open enmity between the
two was fully expected; but this time again Talaat was the cleverer.
He felt that, in spite of his own greater influence and following, in
spite of his real superiority to Enver, he might perhaps, if he tried
conclusions with him while he was still in command of the army, find
himself the loser and, in view of Enver's murderous habits, pay for his
rashness with his life. So he decided not to risk a decisive battle
just yet. He was too patriotic, also, to let things come to an open
break during the difficult time of war. Talaat disappeared for a short
time on a visit of inspection to Angora, and things settled down to
their old way again.
There is still internal conflict going on. But Enver, with boundless
ambition and no fine feelings of honour, clings to his post, and
has shown by the way he dealt with the instigators of the conspiracy
mentioned above that nothing but force will move him from his post,
and that he will never yield to public opinion or the criticism of
his colleagues. He was troubled by no qualms, in spite of the widely
circulated opinion that he would certainly jeopardise his life if he
went on in the same ruthless way towards the retired military men. He
simply had the leader, Yakub Djemil Bey, hanged like a common criminal,
and the whole of his followers, for the most part superior officers and
highly respected persons, turned into soldiers of the second class, and
put in the front-line trenches.
Enver's removal would not alter the whole Young Turkish régime much,
but it would take from it much of its ruthless barbarity, and its most
repugnant representative would vanish from the picture. It would also
be a severe blow for Germany and her militaristic policy of driving
Turkey mercilessly to suicide. It would be a godsend to the anti-German
Djemal Pasha. From a political point of view it would mean, far more
than Talaat's appointment as Grand Vizier, the absolute supremacy of
that statesman.
At bottom probably less ruthless than Enver and certainly cleverer,
there is no doubt but that he would pursue his jingoistic ideas in the
realm of race-politics, but at any rate he would not want any military
system of frightfulness. Enver's removal from office will come within
the range of near possibility as soon as the new British operations
against Southern Palestine and Mesopotamia have produced a real
victory. Turkey is not in a good enough military position to prevent
this, and the whole world will soon recognise that it is this servant
of Germany, this careless optimist and very mediocre strategist who is
to blame for the inexorable breaking-up of the Ottoman Empire.
The contrast I have noted between Enver and Talaat provides the
opportunity for saying a few words about Talaat, now Pasha and
Grand Vizier, and by far the most important man of New Turkey.
As Minister of the Interior, he has guided the whole fate of his
country, except in purely military matters, as uncrowned king. It is
he more than anyone else who is the originator of the whole system
of home politics. Solidity of character, earnestness, freedom from
careless optimism, and conspicuous power of judgment distinguish him
most favourably from Enver, who possesses the opposite of all these
qualities. A high degree of intelligence, an enormous knowledge of
men, an exceptional gift of organisation and tireless energy combined
with great personal authority, prudence and reserve, calm weighing
of the actual possibilities--in a word, all the qualities of the
real statesman--raise him head and shoulders above the whole of his
colleagues and co-workers. It would be unjust to doubt his ardent
patriotism or the honesty of his ideas and intentions. Talaat's
character is so impressive that one often hears even Armenians, the
victims of his own original policy of persecution, speak of him with
respect, and I have even heard the opinion expressed that had it not
been for Talaat's cleverness, the Committee would have gone much
further with their mischievous policy.
But his high intellectual abilities do not prevent him from suffering
from that same plague of narrow-minded, jingoistic illusion peculiar
to the Pan-Turks. He is as if intoxicated with a race-fanaticism that
stifles all nobler emotions. Talaat is too methodical and clever not to
avoid all intentional ruthlessness, but in practice his system, which
he follows out with inflexible logic to the bitter end, turns out to
be just as brutal as Enver's intrinsically more brutal policy. And
although he accommodates himself outwardly to modern European methods
and knows how to utilise them, the ethics of his system are out-and-out
Asiatic. When Talaat speaks in the "Committee," there is very rarely
the slightest opposition. He has usually prepared and coached the
"Committee" so well beforehand that he can to all appearance keep in
the background and only follow the majority. With the exception of a
few military affairs, everything has always taken place that he has
proposed in Parliament.
Beside this man, whose sparkling eyes, massive shoulders, broad chest,
clean-cut profile and exuberant health denote the whole unbounded
energy of the dictator, the good-natured, degenerate, and epileptically
inclined Sultan, Mehmed V, "El Ghazi" ("the hero"), is but a weak
shadow. But if we fully recognise Talaat's high intellectual qualities,
we should like all the more to emphasise that he must be held
personally responsible more than all the others for everything that is
now happening in Turkey, so far as it is not of a military character.
The spirit reigning in Turkey to-day, the spirit of Pan-Turkish
jingoism, is Talaat's spirit. The Armenian persecutions are his very
own work. And when the day of reckoning comes for the Turkey of the
"Committee of Union and Progress," it is to be hoped that Europe as
judge and chastiser and avenger of an outraged civilisation, will lay
the chief blame on Talaat Pasha rather than on his far weaker colleague
Enver.
All his eminent qualities, however, do not prevent this intellectual
leader of Turkey, the most important man, beside the Sultan, in the
land, from showing signs of something that is typical of the whole
"Committee" clique with their dictatorial power, and which we may
perhaps be allowed to call _parvenuishness_. At all points we see
the characteristics of the parvenu in this statesman and one-time
adventurer and in these creatures of the "Committee" who have recently
become wealthy by certain abuses--I would remind you only of the
Requisitions--and by a lucrative adherence to the ruling clique. There
are of course individual cases of distinguished men of good birth
throwing in their lot with the "Committee," but they are extremely
rare, and they only help to give an even worse impression of the
average Young Turk belonging to the Government. Their past is usually
extremely doubtful, and their careers have been somewhat varied.
No one of course would ever think of setting it down as a black mark
against Talaat, for example, that he had to work his way up to his
present supreme position from the very modest occupation of postman
and postal coach conductor on the Adrianople road, via telegraph
assistant and other branches of the Post Office; on the contrary, such
intelligence and energy are worthy of the highest praise. But Talaat's
case is a comparatively good one, and it is not so much their low
social origin that is a drawback to these political leaders of Turkey,
as their complete lack of education in statesmanship and history,
which unfits them for the high rôle they are called upon to fill.
Naturally it is not exactly pleasant when a man like Herr Paul Weitz,
the correspondent of the _Frankfurter Zeitung_, and a political agent,
can boast with a certain amount of justification that he has given tips
of money to many of the present members of the "Committee"--in the real
sense of the word, not in the political meaning of _backshish_! It is
no wonder, then, that German influence won its way through so easily!
Even yet Talaat's lowly origin is a drawback to him socially, and,
in spite of his jovial manner and his complete confidence in his own
powers, he sometimes feels himself so unsure that he rather avoids
social duties. Probably one of the reasons of his long delay in
accepting the post of Grand Vizier--he was already definitely marked
out for it in the summer of 1915--was his own inner consciousness
that his whole past life unfitted him socially for the duties of such
an office. That he has now decided to accept it, is only the logical
sequence of the system of absolute Turkification, which, with its plan
of muzzling and supplanting all non-Turkish elements, had of course
to get rid of the Egyptian element in the Government, represented by
Prince Halim Saïd, the late Grand Vizier, and his brother, the late
Minister of Public Works.
There are far more outstanding cases of incompatibility between social
upbringing and present activity among the "Committee." I will simply
take the single example of the Director General of the Press, Hikmet
Bey. Mischievous Pera still gives him the nick-name of "_Sütdji_"
("milkman"), because--although it is no reproach to him any more than
in Talaat's case--he still kept his father's milk shop in the Rue
Tepé Bashi in Pera before he managed to get himself launched on a
political career by close adherence to the Committee. Sometimes, of
course, one inherits from a low social origin far worse things than
social inferiority. Perhaps Djemal Pasha's murderous instincts are to
be traced to the fact that his grandfather was the official hangman in
the service of Sultan Mahmud, and that his father still retained the
nick-name of "hangman" among the people.
One only needs to cast a glance at the Young Turks who are the
leaders of fashion in the "Club de Constantinople"--after the English
and French members are absent--with German officers who have been
admitted as temporary members at a reduced subscription, and one will
find there, as in the more exclusive "Cercle d'Orient," and in the
"Yachting Club" in Prinkipo in the summer-time, individuals belonging
to the "Committee" whose lowly origin and bad manners are evident at
the first glance. Talaat, who is himself President of the Club, knows
exactly how to get his adherents elected as members without one of them
being blackballed. People who used not to know what an International
Club was, and who perhaps, in accordance with their former social
status, got as far as the vestibule to speak to the Concierge, are
now great "club men" and can afford, with the money they have amassed
in "clique" trade and by the famous system of Requisitions, to play
poker every evening for stakes of hundreds of Turkish pounds. One
single kaleidoscopic glance into the perpetual whirl of any one of
these clubs, which used to be places of friendly social intercourse
for the best European circles, is quite sufficient to see the class
of degenerate, greedy parvenus that rule poor, bleeding, helpless,
exhausted Turkey. One cannot but be filled with a deep sympathy for
this unfortunate land.
The Turks of decent birth are disgusted at these parvenus. I have had
conversations with many an old Pasha and Senator, true representatives
of the refined and kindly Old Turkish aristocracy, and heard many a
word of stern disapproval of the "Committee" quite apart from their
divergent political opinions. There is a whole distinguished Turkish
world in Constantinople who completely boycott Enver and his consorts
socially, although they have to put up with their caprices politically.
"I don't know Enver at all," or "_Je ne connais pas ces gens-là_"
("I don't know these people"), are phrases that one very often hears
repeated with infinite disdain. In all these cases it is the purely
personal side--birth and manners--that repels them.
Socially the cleft between the two camps is far deeper than it is
politically, for many of these same people accommodate themselves,
though with reluctance in their heart, to sharing at least formally
as Senators in the responsibility for the present Young Turkish
policy. They have to do so, for otherwise they would simply be flung
mercilessly by Enver's Clique on to the streets to beg for bread.
This is how it comes about to-day that, with very few exceptions, the
Senators, who, to tell the truth, have as little practical say as the
members of the Lower House, are all outwardly complaisant followers
of the "Committee." The more doctrinal, but at any rate courageous
and honourable opposition of Ahmed Riza is likewise of very little
significance. Once, about the middle of December, 1916, Enver even went
so far as to hurl the epithet "shameless dog" at Ahmed Riza in the
Senate without being called to order by the President.
The Deputies are also, with even fewer exceptions than the
Senators--only one or two are reasonable men--all slaves pure and
simple of Enver and Talaat. The Lower House is nothing but a set of
employees paid by the Clique. In other countries now at war the Lower
House may have sunk to the level of a laughing-stock; in Turkey it
has become the instrument of crime. And it is these same toadies
and parasites, who daily carry out this military dictator's will in
Parliament, that he daily treats with scarcely veiled irony and open
and complete disdain. These are the "representatives of the people" in
Turkey in war-time!
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 2: Djemal Pasha learnt the news that Admiral von Souchon had
bombarded Russian ports, and so made war inevitable, one evening at the
Club. Pale with rage, he sprang up and said: "So be it; but if things
go wrong, Souchon will be the first to be hanged."]