A CITY OF DIPLOMATISTS
O, what a tangled web we weave
When first we practise to deceive.
SCOTT
I HAVE already mentioned that the Turk is accustomed to the vagaries of
despots, to the flatteries and servility which they breed. But to be
more exact, it should be stated—indeed, it cannot be too often
repeated—that Constantinople was the hearth of duplicity, of every form
of intrigue, long before the Turks were ever heard of. The Byzantine
historian Procopius of Cæsarea, private secretary to Belisarius, has
left invaluable testimony to the treacherous atmosphere of
Constantinople in the days of the Emperor Justinian and the Empress
Theodora. Other historians have also borne witness that these
characteristics marked the life of the Court of Byzantium down to the
last hour of its existence. With a tradition of over fifteen hundred
years to legitimize the term of “Byzantinism” and all it conveys, it is
scarcely to be wondered at that Constantinople has always proved a
disintegrator of human character, and that only the strongest and the
noblest have ever been able to pass unscathed through this fiery furnace
of deceit, in which, be it said, the Christian element has shown itself
to be a far abler adept than the Mohammedan. Even now, in the twilight
of Turkey’s fortunes, many may still remain of opinion—so often
expressed in the halcyon days of her prosperity—that of all the races
that have ever ruled in Constantinople, the Turkish has been the only
one noted for its honesty. Indeed, it is an incontrovertible historical
fact that the advent of the Turk in Constantinople inaugurated an era of
tolerance, till then unknown in those parts. But however this may be, it
cannot be gainsaid that Constantinople has witnessed more intrigue than
any other capital in the world—Rome excepted—and thus is fitly
considered to be the best training-ground for diplomatists; and many are
the stories concerning them. One day an Ambassador met a carriage,
guarded by a eunuch, containing some ladies of the Sultan’s harem. He
endeavoured to peep in at the window, when he received a blow across the
face from the vigilant eunuch. Great uproar ensued thereupon, and formal
complaint was made to the Sultan on the part of the outraged
diplomatist. He was received in private audience, and Abdul Hamid
listened patiently to the tale of outrage. On its conclusion the Sultan
replied: “My dear X, I have gone carefully into the case, and see
exactly how it stands. You are a gentleman, therefore you could never
have committed such a breach of good manners as that alleged to have
taken place; and consequently no eunuch could possibly have presumed to
strike you. The whole affair must be the product of your fancy; pray let
us dismiss it.”
Another Ambassadorial story tells how an august personage—let us call
him Prince Florizel—sent word to the Sultan, by the Ambassador at
Constantinople of the country to which he belonged, that he intended to
make his Imperial Majesty a present of a horse. Now the Sultan already
possessed a number of horses, and he was somewhat anxious to find out
what sort of animal the Prince had destined for him. If it was to be a
racer, or a so-called “Clydesdale,” the Sultan had no use for it. The
Imperial horse-boxes were built to suit the size of the animals usually
kept there; and in order to find room for a racing thoroughbred or a
Clydesdale mare, the Sultan would have to enlarge the stable or to make
the gift-horse a head shorter in order to find room for it. In this
dilemma he sent a trusted servant privately—that is to say,
unofficially—to the Ambassador in question, with His Majesty’s best
compliments. Would his Excellency be kind enough to say what kind of
horse it was intended to bestow on him, the accommodation of the
Imperial stables being, etc.? Great indignation thereupon on the part of
the Ambassador. “This is not the way to treat me; you are not qualified
to discuss this matter with me. The proper person is the Sultan’s Master
of the Horse. Let His Majesty communicate with me through him, or go to
...” The Sultan’s trusty servant returned to the Imperial Palace and
gave a “truthful” but Orientally diluted version of what had taken
place, omitting the Ambassadorial reference to a certain alternative
invoked. For an Ambassador is usually supposed to be _persona grata_
with the Sovereign to whom he is accredited, and the openly expressed
wish that his Imperial Majesty should accept the alternative of being
damned would hardly have rendered his presence in Constantinople
agreeable to the Sovereign.
The Sultan declined to send his Master of the Horse to the Ambassador,
ignored the whole affair, and took no further notice of the offer. When,
all the same, the gift-horse arrived, it was received in silence and put
in the Imperial stable to get fat and ugly. No acknowledgment of any
kind was vouchsafed, either to the Ambassador or those entrusted with
the delivery of the horse. And I am told that Prince Florizel, down to
the end of his life, when he had become a powerful monarch, esteemed for
his tact and courtesy throughout the world, could never understand how
it was that the Sultan, than whom no man more courteous and more
genuinely appreciative of a kindness existed, should have had nothing to
say in return for this particular mark of attention. According to
Professor Vambéry, the Sultan subsequently took his revenge on the
Ambassador in question by receiving him one bitter winter day in an
apartment without a fire, and his Excellency was laid up with a cold for
a fortnight.
If men gifted with the acute perceptions, the prescience and tact of an
Ambassador have not always been accurate in their judgment of the East,
or happy in their dealings with the Sultan, it will readily be believed
that men of inferior calibre are often singularly at sea in their
opinions and unfortunate in their experiences with the Turk. The keynote
of the Turk’s bearing is a serene dignity; and a lengthened sojourn in
the East has an imperceptible effect on the traveller from the West. The
European gets unconsciously accustomed to expect a certain grace of
bearing in the humblest, and when he meets a distinguished
representative type from his own country—a man who would be the talk of
the capital by reason of his wealth, or some one in high station, a
law-giver, hereditary or otherwise—the traveller is disenchanted, and
says to himself: “Is it possible that this restless, hustling creature
is the type of man we look up to at home?”
There have never been any powerful social elements in Constantinople, as
in other capitals, to compete with diplomacy. A millionaire banker might
be knocked on the head with impunity in the streets of Pera, but the
obscure Vice-Consul of a Great Power is sacrosanct. In every case the
social as well as the intellectual life of Constantinople, such as it
is, is largely made up of and regulated by the staff of the different
Embassies, Legations, and Consulates, of which “his Excellency,” the
full-blown Ambassador, is the supreme embodiment. Behold him as he comes
along in all the pomp and circumstance of his high calling! He steps
ashore from his richly ornamented caique, he, the cynosure of all
beholders, preceded by kavasses, guards, and dragomans dressed in blue,
green, red, or purple tunics and gaiters, richly embroidered with gold
and silver. He is obsequiously followed by his secretarial staff; deeply
impressing the imagination of the crowd as his carriage drives up to the
Sublime Porte or the Imperial Palace. Verily, the Ambassador stands as
the centrepiece of a world of tinsel and make-believe, the pinnacle of
an edifice of decorative glamour; for the reality of power rests with
the Press to-day, and an astute Ambassador builds up his reputation by
carefully nursing the correspondents of influential newspapers, for the
slighted journalist is in a position to give an Ambassador a deal of
trouble.
“To have been an Ambassador at Constantinople,” one of the most
distinguished of them once said to me, “is to have been _somebody_, at
least for once in a lifetime. Compared with an Ambassador here, even an
Imperial Chancellor, who is continually badgered and bullied by Press
and Parliament, is almost a nobody,” he added with a self-satisfied
smile. The diplomatic light who expressed himself thus was also quite
frank in his estimation of the world in which he moved. Potentates he
regarded as merely kings on a chess-board, to be separated from their
protecting pieces, and, if of opposing colour, to be hustled,
circumvented, and checkmated. He declared that he had become satiated
with, and quite indifferent to, decorative distinctions. These had been
showered upon him in such profusion that he now only prized those
studded with brilliants, “avec de grosses pierres,” such as Gortschakoff
asked for from Bismarck.
The facilities for telegraphic and postal communication between the
different Embassies at Constantinople and their Governments at home have
hitherto not been of that perfect kind which reduces an Ambassador in
some other countries to the status of a cipher at the end of a wire.
Therefore, a wider field was open for personal initiative on the part of
an Ambassador there than elsewhere. The complex personality of Abdul
Hamid, round whom everything revolved, also afforded until quite
recently exceptional scope to the abilities of an Ambassador, and lent
great importance to the dragoman service, _i.e._ the man who holds the
responsible post of official interpreter to an Embassy. His rôle
demanded varied linguistic accomplishments, tact, and a liberal course
of diplomatic education. Among the chief dragomans of the Embassies of
the Great Powers were to be found some of the ablest, most astute and
cultivated of men, particularly Levantines of Italian or Greek origin.
The dragomans form so conspicuous a feature of diplomatic life at
Constantinople that the Turks declare the souls of those who have passed
away in the course of time flit on the waters of the Bosphorus in the
bodies of the flocks of birds so often seen skimming the blue waters at
sunset.
Like Bucharest—another preparatory school of budding
Ambassadors—Constantinople has long been a seminary, a high school for
diplomatists of every country. Here it is that uncouth youths, taken raw
from the Foreign Office, their hands everlastingly thrust in their
pockets, a pipe in their mouth, with slouching gait and pitiable
embarrassment, on entering the room of their official superiors come
gradually to discard their angularities and are taught to behave
themselves in accord with cosmopolitan usage. They are put through their
paces, and finally learn to roar in true leonine fashion in the name of
their country.
The gaucheries of the young diplomatists might be a theme for ridicule,
but I refrain. On one important matter, nevertheless, a word may be
said. It would be well if the British Ambassadorial staff were to
abandon that hauteur which some of its members are apt to display
towards those of their countrymen who visit Constantinople charged with
important commercial interests. It is not necessary that a British
Ambassador should imitate the policy of those who use their diplomatic
position to champion the commercial interests of their country at the
expense of higher trusts and higher standards; but it is advisable to
avoid the other extreme of ignoring everything and ostentatiously
snubbing everybody connected with commerce as beneath the dignity of
diplomacy. Yet this has repeatedly been the line of conduct, as it has
been that of inclination. For it was only in 1908 that our Embassy first
took official notice of the British Chamber of Commerce at
Constantinople and sent a representative to attend its sittings, who
probably thought he was demeaning himself in being called upon to do so.
This aloofness towards trade interests and their representatives is all
the more inexplicable as many of these young men come of families which
owe their worldly position to trade, either as bankers, brewers, meat
contractors, or even less reputable connexions. Both the Anglo-Saxon and
the Teuton take on a most necessary coat of social polish in
Constantinople by rubbing against the more subtle and elusive elements
of the Levant, the more graceful-mannered Italian or Spaniard and the
well-bred Turk, from the “Excellency” down to the caikdji (boatman) of
the Bosphorus. “Texas Jack” can go to school here, did go to school, and
so profited by tuition received that on his return home he could not
reconcile himself to the every-day rough-and-tumble uncouthness of
Yankee-land. He had been favourably impressed by the Turks, and they
liked him in return, for there was a touch of genuine unspoilt human
nature about the man. One winter the Sultan sent and begged his
acceptance of a fur coat to keep the cold out. Thereupon a howl went up
in the American Press; accusations of graft, bribery, and corruption—not
in New York, but in Constantinople! Altogether it may be said that the
diplomatists the United States sends to Turkey, even if they may have
been somewhat ignorant of diplomacy as a profession, are invariably men
of sterling worth and value in themselves, not chosen on account of
their family connexions or financial resources. And this is a matter of
importance inasmuch as things are apt to vary according to the character
of the representative of a country. The well-bred gentleman would
naturally inculcate that urbanity of manner and that cultivation of
heart and mind which, far more than any other accomplishments, form the
true charm of the élite of European society. The Ambassador less happily
constituted can hardly fail to leave his mark on his subordinates in a
corresponding degree.
A peculiar type of Ambassador is he who arrives on the scene unduly
advanced in life, “un peu gaga, ramolli,” whose mechanical style of
address and response acts like a yawn on his surroundings. There is
again the Ambassador who has been sent to Constantinople in order to be
got decently out of the way from his own country. He is known to be in
the wake of business, and spites the diplomatic world by giving no
entertainment beyond a cup of tea, thus saving a good proportion of his
salary, but thereby inculcating the habit of economy among a class only
too readily given to spend money. It was said of one such that he “stole
like a raven,” and had become a millionaire since he came to
Constantinople. He managed to keep on excellent terms with the wily
representative of another great country, and more particularly with
certain journalists who might easily have exposed his menées. One of his
exploits was to join the representative of another Power in bullying the
Sultan and ultimately blackmailing the Turks shamefully, who thus had
good reason to hurl their maledictions at his head when he departed.
A pitiable figure of the diplomatic world is the poor Ambassador: one
whose private income is unequal to the calls upon his position and whose
life is besides bankrupt in happiness. He sits alone in glittering
dejection in his beautiful palace, with no money to entertain and no
wife to comfort him and cheer his solitude.
Diplomatic Constantinople is exceptional in that an Ambassador and his
staff live out of social contact with the nation to which they are
accredited, and are thus thrown much more on their own resources—those
of their immediate circle and nationality—than anywhere else in Europe.
The Embassies form a social centre for those who come under their
influence such as is not readily met with elsewhere in European society.
I need only mention, as far as England is concerned, the brilliant names
of the past, the many references to be found in diplomatic memoirs to
such men as Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, Sir Henry Layard, Lord
Dufferin, Sir William White, and last, but not least, the late Sir
Nicholas O’Conor, all of whom exercised a beneficial influence over
those who passed their time of diplomatic apprenticeship under them.
Hence the rôle of an Ambassador at Constantinople—and partly that of an
Ambassadress as well—is of an educational nature. Many a young attaché
has found in the wife of his chief a motherly and sympathetic confidante
whose counsel has kept him out of mischief in this dangerous centre of
temptation. For the family life of the English diplomatic world in
Constantinople has long been an exemplary one: one to look up to.
English diplomacy can boast of having always preserved personal
integrity, an aloofness from every species of sordid and illegitimate
transaction and from all concession-mongering and cadging for favours of
any and every description in the Turkish capital. The English
Ambassadorial staff has left such dealings severely alone, a course of
conduct which has redounded to England’s honour in the past; and as it
has always been highly appreciated by the best class of Turks, even in
the worst days of England’s unpopularity at the Palace, it can scarcely
fail to redound to her permanent advantage in her dealings with Turkey
in the future. For here we have an ideal of conduct worthy of a great
nation.
Turkish diplomatists have always been picturesque figures in European
society even when their salaries were in arrear; but when they return to
Constantinople they are to be pitied. Many of them have been spoiled by
their experience in other lands. A few years in the social whirl of
Paris, Vienna, Berlin, or London does not improve them: the Mohammedans
in particular are apt to acquire undesirable habits and modes of
thought. They become imbued with the worldly cunning, the artificiality
and insincerity of European fashionable life, with the extravagant
homage Europeans pay to social position, so different from the
patriarchal instincts of home, and they are consequently disenchanted
when they return to Constantinople to find that they are nobodies, mere
hangers-on at the Palace, perhaps destined to spend years as suppliants
for work. Without private means, accustomed to spend money like water,
these officials are in a hopeless plight. Society in London and Paris
has deadened every unspoilt interest and ideal. They have become
sceptics and cynics. I met one who was the son of a Minister, said to be
one of the most notorious personages in Turkey. He quoted Renan and La
Rochefoucauld, and would tell you that vanity and egotism are the
driving forces of every human action. Such a man finds his countrymen
stupid, not “up-to-date.” He believes Turkey to be rotten to the core,
and if you tell him that you are a philo-Turk he will take you for a
rogue who is in the pay of the Palace. Has the Sultan “received” you or
not? That is all that interests him about you. And if you ask him what
he does to earn a living, he will be quite surprised. He is military
attaché of the Ottoman Embassy at X. “Yes, but what are you doing here?”
“Oh, I’m on leave.” “Yes, but surely not permanently?” “Well, for a year
or two.”
The lack of a distinctive, dominant national feature which marks
intellectual or social life generally at Constantinople extends to the
cuisine. There are not half a dozen establishments in the whole city in
which the Western European can obtain a meal that in any way satisfies a
discriminating palate. Even at the Club de Constantinople the cooking
has the irritating, kaleidoscopic, nondescript character of its members;
it is of every and of no nationality. It is only at the Cercle d’Orient,
the club of the diplomatic world, and at the Embassies that the cuisine
has that Parisian foundation to which the epicure can look forward with
pleasure. Under such circumstances it is a great treat to be invited by
one of the “gros bonnets” of the diplomatic world whose dinners enjoy a
well-deserved popularity. It was on such an occasion that, carried away
by the excellence of the fare, I ventured to express myself to his
Excellency to the following effect. I had noticed that there was not a
single member of his Ambassadorial staff who had not been decorated by
the Sultan, so I suggested that he might perhaps prevail upon His
Majesty to bestow a decoration upon his cook, whose culinary feats
appeared to me to constitute an appreciable auxiliary force telling in
the scale of his Excellency’s many diplomatic triumphs.
Not overwork, but over-eating, late hours, and no exercise constitute
the real handicap to longevity in the diplomatic world in
Constantinople, for Ambassadorial dinners and dinner-giving go on all
the year round, each Embassy in turn inviting the others: “cutlet
against cutlet.” This means sitting up late. It is almost impossible for
the heads of the different Embassies, who are supposed never to take a
walk abroad except when preceded by dragomans and kavasses, to indulge
in a quiet daily “constitutional” either on foot or on horseback. Such a
mode of living requires a tough constitution, and it is not surprising
to find that an Ambassador at Constantinople rarely attains a great age.
English and Americans who are enamoured of what has come to be
internationally known as “high life,” and whose limited means may not
admit of their rubbing shoulders with the diplomatic world in Paris or
London, cannot do better than take a trip to Constantinople in the
height of the winter season of that gay, pleasure-loving city. Furnished
with a few decent introductions, the chances are that they will see
something of fashionable life without being called upon to make any
“frais de représentation”! There is Oriental lavishness in the mode of
entertainment. Something of Turkish generosity in the way of hospitality
has become engrafted on to the Christian elements, and invitations to
Ambassadorial dinners and balls are not beyond the reach of the
travelling English who at home have never come nearer to the regions of
fashion than South Kensington or Brompton. Should these advantages,
however, be unattainable, a stray guinea or two as a subscription to one
or other of the various charity balls given by different nationalities
in the town will suffice to ensure social contact with the cosmopolitan
financial and diplomatic world. These balls under Ambassadorial
patronage and presidency are unique, the more so since they take place
in the capital of a people which does not dance. Sometimes it is a
fancy-costume ball, at other times one in evening dress, with the
military and naval attachés of the different Powers in full uniform.
Such an entertainment affords a vivid picture of cosmopolitan life, the
atmosphere being that of the Levant and endowed with an articulate
abandon, obsolete under our more sedate social conditions. To see the
guests arrive is a curious sight. A regular pandemonium of shouts,
shrieks, and curses proceeds from the Turkish arabadjis lashing their
restive steeds as the carriages jostle each other in front of the
building. A unique feature of a past age consists of a few old-fashioned
sedan-chairs, from which ladies emerge.
Inside, the building swarms with attachés d’ambassade, representative of
every imaginable nationality. British, French, Spanish, Italian, German,
Russian, Persian, Servian, Roumanian, Bulgarian, Montenegrin, Greek, not
to forget the Levantine ruck of no exact nationality, are gathered
together here, but no Mohammedan Turks. Such a ball is a rare treat for
the dark-eyed Perote débutantes, some of them of mixed Greek blood of
great physical beauty. Looking down from a balcony in stucco Mauresque,
the whole scene present a rare whirl of colour, life, and excitement, a
picture of the vanity and transience of all things: one which recalls
the sad exclamation attributed to Xerxes, in crossing from Asia not far
from this very spot, that in less than a hundred years not a single soul
of all his hosts would be alive.
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