THE “BOSS SYSTEM” IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE AND HOW IT PROVED USEFUL TO
GERMANY
Talaat, the leading man in this band of usurpers, really had remarkable
personal qualities. Naturally Talaat’s life and character proved
interesting to me, for I had for years been familiar with the Boss
system in my own country, and in Talaat I saw many resemblances to the
crude yet able citizens who have so frequently in the past gained power
in local and State politics. Talaat’s origin was so obscure that there
were plenty of stories in circulation concerning it. One account said he
was a Bulgarian gypsy, while another described him as a Pomak--a Pomak
being a man of Bulgarian blood whose ancestors, centuries ago, had
embraced the Mohammedan faith. According to this latter explanation,
which I think was the true one, this real ruler of the Turkish Empire
was not a Turk at all. I can personally testify that he cared nothing
for Mohammedanism, for, like most of the leaders of his party, he
scoffed at all religions. “I hate all priests, rabbis, and brodjas,” he
once told me--brodja being the nearest equivalent the Mohammedans have
for the ministers of religion. I can also testify to the fact that
Talaat paid no attention to certain injunctions of his Church,
especially that against drinking; he was the presiding genius of a club
that met not far from the American Embassy, whose tendencies were
occasionally bacchanalian. In American city politics a streetcar driver
or a gas-man has not uncommonly developed great abilities as a
politician, and similarly Talaat had started life as a letter-carrier.
From this occupation he had risen to be a telegraph-operator at
Adrianople, and of these humble beginnings he was extremely proud. I
visited him once or twice at his house. Although Talaat was then the
most powerful man in the Turkish Empire, his home was still the modest
home of a man of the people. It was cheaply furnished; the whole
establishment reminded me of a moderately-priced apartment in New York.
His most cherished possession was the telegraph instrument with which he
had once earned his living; I have seen him take the key and call up one
of his personal friends or associates. Talaat one night told me that he
had that day received his salary as Minister of the Interior; after
paying his debts, he said, he had just one hundred dollars left in the
world. He liked to spend part of his spare time with the rough-shod crew
that made up the Committee of Union and Progress; in the interims when
he was out of the Cabinet he used to occupy the desk daily at party
headquarters, personally managing the party machine. Despite these
humble beginnings, Talaat had developed some of the qualities of a man
of the world. Though his early training had not included instruction in
the use of a knife and fork--such implements are wholly unknown among
the poorer classes in Turkey--Talaat could attend diplomatic dinners and
represent his country with a considerable amount of dignity and personal
ease. I have always regarded it as indicating his innate cleverness
that, though he had had little schooling, he had picked up enough French
to converse tolerably in that language. Physically he was a striking
figure. His powerful frame, his huge, sweeping back and his rocky biceps
emphasised that natural mental strength and forcefulness which made
possible his career. In discussing matters Talaat liked to sit at his
desk, with his shoulders drawn up, his head thrown back, and his wrists,
twice the size of an ordinary man’s, planted firmly on the table. It
always seemed to me that it would take a crowbar to pry these wrists
from the board, once Talaat’s strength and defiant spirit had laid them
there. Whenever I think of Talaat now I do not primarily recall his
rollicking laugh, his uproarious enjoyment of a good story, the mighty
stride with which he crossed the room, his fierceness, his
determination, his remorselessness--the whole life and nature of the man
take form in those gigantic wrists.
Talaat, like most strong men, had his forbidding, even his ferocious,
moods. One day I found him sitting at the usual place, his massive
shoulders drawn up, his eyes glowering, his wrists planted on the desk.
I always anticipated trouble whenever I found him in this attitude. As I
made request after request, Talaat, between his puffs at his cigarette,
would answer “No!” “No!” “No!”
I slipped around to his side of the desk.
“I think those wrists are making all the trouble, your Excellency,” I
said. “Won’t you please take them off the table?”
Talaat’s ogre-like face began to crinkle, he threw up his arms, leaned
back, and gave a roar of terrific laughter. He enjoyed my method of
treating him so much that he granted every request I made.
At another time I came into his room when a couple of Arab princes were
present. Talaat was solemn and dignified, and refused every favour I
asked. “No, I shall not do that. No, I haven’t the slightest idea of
doing that,” he would answer. I saw that he was trying to impress his
princely guests, to show them that he had become so great a man that he
did not hesitate to “turn down” an Ambassador. So I came up nearer and
spoke quietly.
“I see you are trying to make an impression on these princes,” I said.
“Now if it’s necessary for you to pose, do it with the Austrian
Ambassador--he’s out there waiting to come in. My affairs are too
important to be trifled with.”
Talaat laughed. “Come back in an hour,” he said. I came back; the Arab
princes had left, and we had no difficulty in arranging matters to my
satisfaction.
“Someone has got to govern Turkey; why not we?” Talaat once said to me.
The situation had just about come to that. “I have been greatly
disappointed,” he would tell me, “at the failure of the Turks to
appreciate democratic institutions. I hoped for it once, and I worked
hard for it--but they were not prepared for it.” He saw a Government
which the first enterprising man who came along might seize, and he
determined to be that man. Of all the Turkish politicians I met, I
regarded Talaat as the only one who really had extraordinary innate
ability. He had great force and dominance, the ability to think quickly
and accurately, and an almost superhuman insight into men’s motives. His
great geniality and his lively sense of humour also made him a splendid
manager of men. He showed his shrewdness in the measures which he took,
after the murder of Nazim, to gain the upper hand in this distracted
Empire. He did not seize the Government all at once; he went at it
gradually, feeling his way. He realised the weaknesses of his position;
he had several forces to deal with: the envy of his associates on the
revolutionary committee which had backed him, the army, the foreign
Governments, and the several factions that made up what then passed for
public opinion in Turkey. Any of these elements might destroy him,
politically and physically. He understood the dangerous path he was
treading, and he always anticipated a violent death. “I do not expect to
die in my bed,” he told me. By becoming Minister of the Interior, Talaat
gained control of the police and the administration of the provinces, or
vilayets. This gave him a great amount of patronage, which he used to
strengthen his position with the Committee. He attempted to gain the
support of all influential factions by gradually placing their
representatives in the other Cabinet posts. Though he afterwards became
the man who was chiefly responsible for the massacre of hundreds of
thousands of Armenians, at this time Talaat maintained the pretence that
the Committee stood for the unionisation of all the races in the Empire,
and for this reason his first Cabinet contained an Arab-Christian, a
Deunme (a Jew by race, but a Mohammedan by religion), a Circassian, an
Armenian, an Egyptian. He made the latter Grand Vizier, the highest post
in the Government, a position which roughly corresponds to that of
Chancellor in the German Empire. The man whom he selected for this part,
which in ordinary times was the most dignified and important in the
Empire, belonged to quite a different order of society from Talaat. Not
uncommonly bosses in America select high-class figure-heads for mayors
or even governors, men who will give respectability to their faction yet
whom, at the same time, they think that they can control. It was some
such motive as this which led Talaat and his associates to elevate Saïd
Halim to the Grand Vizierate. Saïd Halim was an Egyptian Prince, the
cousin of the Khedive of Egypt, a man of great wealth and great culture.
He spoke English and French as fluently as his own tongue, and was an
ornament to any society in the world. But he was a man of unlimited
vanity and ambition. His great desire was to become Khedive of Egypt,
and this had led him to join his political fortunes to the gang that was
then ascendant in Turkey. He was the heaviest “campaign contributor,”
and, indeed, he had largely furnished the Young Turks in their earliest
days. In exchange they had given him the highest office in the Empire,
but with the tacit understanding that he should not attempt to exercise
the real powers of his office, but content himself with enjoying its
dignities and holding himself in readiness for the Khedivate, when all
their plans had succeeded.
Germany’s war preparations had for years included the study of internal
conditions in other countries. An indispensable part of the Imperial
programme had been to take advantage of such disorganisations as existed
to push her schemes of penetration and conquest. What her emissaries
have attempted in France, Italy, and even the United States, is
apparent, and their success in Russia has greatly changed the course of
the war. Clearly such a situation as that which prevailed in Turkey in
1913 and 1914 provided an ideal opportunity of manipulations of this
kind. And Germany had one great advantage in Turkey which was not so
conspicuously an element in other countries. Talaat and his associates
needed Germany almost as badly as Germany needed Talaat. They were
altogether new to the business of managing an empire. Their finances
were depleted, their army and navy almost in dissolution, enemies were
constantly attempting to undermine them at home, and the great Powers
regarded them as seedy adventurers whose career was destined to be
brief. Without strong support from an outside source, it was doubtful how
long the new regime could survive. Talaat and his Committee needed some
foreign Power to organise the army and navy, to finance the nation, to
help them reconstruct their industrial system, and to protect them
against the encroachments of the encircling nations. Ignorant as they
were of foreign countries, they needed a skilful adviser to pilot them
through all the channels of international intrigue. Where was such a
protector to be obtained? Evidently only one of the great European
Powers could perform this office. Which one should it be? Ten years
before Turkey would naturally have appealed to England. But now the
Turks regarded England as merely the nation that had despoiled them of
Egypt, and that had failed to protect Turkey from dismemberment after
the Balkan wars. In association with Russia, Great Britain now
controlled Persia and thus constituted a constant threat--at least, so
the Turks believed--against their Asiatic dominions. England was
gradually withdrawing her investments from Turkey; English statesmen
believed that the task of driving the Turk from Europe was about
complete, and the whole Near-Eastern policy of Great Britain hinged on
maintaining the organisation of the Balkans as it had been determined by
the Treaty of Bucharest--a treaty which Turkey refused to regard as
binding and which she was determined to upset. Above all, the Turks
feared Russia in 1914, just as they had feared her ever since the days
of Peter the Great. Russia was the historic enemy, the nation which had
given freedom to Bulgaria and Rumania, which had been most active in
dismembering the Ottoman Empire, and which regarded herself as the
nation that was ultimately to possess Constantinople. This fear of
Russia, I cannot too much insist, was the one factor which, above
everything else, was forcing Turkey into the arms of Germany. For more
than half a century Turkey had regarded England as her surest safeguard
against Russian aggression, and now England had become Russia’s virtual
ally. There was even then a general belief, which the Turkish chieftains
shared, that England was entirely willing that Russia should inherit
Constantinople and the Dardanelles.
Though Russia in 1914 was making no such pretensions, at least openly,
the fact that she was crowding Turkey in other directions made it
impossible that Talaat and Enver should look for support in that
direction. Italy had just seized the last Turkish province in
Africa--Tripoli--and at that moment was holding Rhodes and other Turkish
islands and was known to cherish aggressive plans in Asia Minor. France
was the ally of Russia and Great Britain, and was also constantly
extending her influence in Syria, in which province, indeed, she had
made great plans for “penetration” with railroads, colonies, and
concessions. The personal equation played an important part in the
ensuing drama. The Ambassadors of the Triple Entente hardly concealed
their contempt for the dominant Turkish politicians and their methods.
Sir Louis Mallet, the British Ambassador, was a high-minded and
cultivated English gentleman; Bompard, the French Ambassador, was a
similarly charming, honourable Frenchman, and both were constitutionally
disqualified from participating in the murderous intrigues which then
comprised Turkish politics. Giers, the Russian Ambassador, was a proud
and scornful diplomat of the old aristocratic régime. He was exceedingly
astute, but he treated the Young Turks contemptuously, manifested almost
a proprietary interest in the country, and seemed to me already to be
wielding the knout over this despised Government. It was quite apparent
that the three Ambassadors of the Entente did not regard the Talaat and
Enver régime as permanent, or as particularly worth their while to
cultivate. That several factions had risen and fallen in the last six
years they knew, and they likewise believed that this latest usurpation
would vanish in a few months.
But there was one active man in Turkey then who had no nice scruples
about using such agencies as were most available for accomplishing his
purpose. Wangenheim clearly saw what his colleagues had only faintly
perceived: that these men were steadily fastening their hold on Turkey,
and that they were looking for some strong Power that would recognise
their position and abet them in maintaining it. In order that we may
clearly understand the situation, let us transport ourselves, for a
moment, to a country that is nearer to us than Turkey. In 1913
Victoriano Huerta and his fellow-conspirators gained control of Mexico
by means not unlike those that had given Talaat and his Committee the
supreme power in Turkey. Just as Huerta murdered Madero, so the Young
Turks had murdered Nazim, and in both cases assassination became a
regular political weapon. Huerta controlled the Mexican Congress and the
offices just as Talaat controlled the Turkish Parliament and the chief
posts of the State. Mexico under Huerta was a poverty-stricken country,
with depleted finances, exhausted industries and agriculture, just as
was Turkey under Talaat. How did Huerta seek to secure his own position
and rehabilitate his distracted country? There was only one way, of
course: that was by enlisting the support of some strong foreign Power.
He sought repeatedly to gain recognition from the United States for this
reason. When we refused to deal with a murderer, Huerta looked to
Germany. Let us suppose that the Kaiser had responded; he could have
reorganised Mexican finances, rebuilt her railroads, re-established her
industries, modernised her army, and in this way obtained a grip on the
country that would have amounted to virtual possession.
Only one thing prevented Germany from doing this--the Monroe Doctrine.
But there was no Monroe Doctrine in Turkey, and what I have stated as a
possibility in Mexico is in the main an accurate picture of what
happened in the Ottoman Empire. As I look back upon the situation, the
whole thing seems so clear, so simple, so inevitable. Germany, up to
that time, was practically the only great Power in Europe that had not
appropriated large slices of Turkish territory, a fact which gave her an
initial advantage. Germany’s representation at Constantinople was far
better qualified than that of any other country, not only by absence of
scruples, but also by knowledge and skill, to handle this situation.
Wangenheim was not the only capable German then on the ground. A
particularly influential outpost of Pan-Germany was Paul Weitz, who had
represented the _Frankfürter Zeitung_ in Turkey for thirty years. Weitz
had the most intimate acquaintance with Turks and Turkish affairs; there
was not a hidden recess to which he could not gain admittance. He was
constantly at Wangenheim’s elbow, coaching advising, informing. The
German naval attaché, Humann, the son of a famous German archæologist,
had been born in Smyrna, and had passed practically his whole life in
Turkey. He not only spoke Turkish, but he could also think like a Turk,
and the whole psychology of the people was part of his mental equipment.
Moreover, Enver, one of the two main Turkish chieftains, was on close
friendly terms with Humann. When I think of this experienced trio,
Wangenheim, Weitz, and Humann, and of the charming and honourable
gentlemen who were opposed to them, Mallet, Bompard, and Giers, the
events that now rapidly followed seem as inevitable as the orderly
processes of nature. By the spring of 1914 Talaat and Enver,
representing the Committee of Union and Progress, practically dominated
the Turkish Empire. Wangenheim, always having in mind the approaching
war, had one inevitable move: that was to control Talaat and Enver.
Early in January, 1914, Enver became Minister of War. At that time he
was thirty-two years old. Like all the leading Turkish politicians of
the period, he came of humble stock, and his popular title, “hero of the
revolution,” shows why Talaat and the Committee had selected him as
Minister of War. Enver enjoyed something of a military reputation,
though, so far as I could discover, he had never achieved a great
military success. The revolution of which he was one of the leaders in
1908 cost very few human lives; he commanded an army in Tripoli against
the Italians in 1912--but certainly there was nothing Napoleonic about
that campaign. Enver used to tell me himself how, in the second Balkan
war, he had ridden all night at the head of his troops to the capture of
Adrianople, and how, when he arrived there, the Bulgarians had abandoned
it and his victory had thus been a bloodless one. But certainly Enver
did have one trait that made for success in such a distracted country as
Turkey--and that was audacity. He was quick in making decisions, always
ready to stake his future and his very life upon the success of a simple
adventure; from the beginning, indeed, his career had been one lucky
crisis after another. His nature had a remorselessness, a lack of pity,
a cold-blooded determination, of which his clean-cut handsome face, his
small but sturdy figure, and his pleasing manners, gave no indication.
Nor would the casual spectator have suspected the passionate personal
ambition that drove him on. His friends commonly referred to him as
“Napoleonlik”--the little Napoleon--and this nickname really represented
Enver’s abiding conviction. I remember sitting one night with Enver, in
his house; on one side hung a picture of Napoleon, on the other one of
Frederick the Great, and between them sat Enver himself! This fact gives
some notion of his vanity; these two warriors and statesmen were his
great heroes, and I believe that Enver thought fate had a career in
store for him not unlike theirs. The fact that, at twenty-six, he had
taken a leading part in the revolution which had deposed Abdul Hamid
naturally caused him to compare himself with Bonaparte, and several
times has he told me that he believed himself to be “a man of destiny.”
Enver even affected to believe that he had been divinely set apart to
re-establish the glory of Turkey and make himself the great dictator.
Yet, as I have suggested, there was something almost dainty and feminine
in Enver’s appearance. He was the type that in America we sometimes call
a _matinée_ idol, and the word women frequently used to describe him was
“dashing.” His face contained not a single line or furrow; it never
disclosed his emotions or his thoughts; he was always calm, steely,
imperturbable. That Enver certainly lacked Napoleon’s penetration is
evident from the way in which he had planned to obtain the supreme
power, for he early allied his personal fortunes with Germany. For years
his sympathies had been with the Kaiser. Germany, the German Army and
Navy, the German language, the German autocratic system, exercised a
fatal charm upon this early preacher of Turkish democracy. When Hamid
fell, Enver had gone on a military mission to Berlin, and here the
Kaiser immediately detected in him a possible instrument for working out
his plans in the Orient, and cultivated him in numerous ways. Afterward
Enver spent a considerable time in Berlin as military attaché, and this
experience still further attached him to Germany. The man who returned
to Constantinople was almost more German than Turkish. He had learned to
speak German fluently, he was aping Germany in all matters, he was even
wearing a moustache slightly curled up at the ends; indeed, he had been
completely captivated by Prussianism. As soon as Enver became Minister
of War, Wangenheim flattered and cajoled the young man, played upon his
ambitions, and doubtless promised him Germany’s complete support in
achieving them. In his private conversation Enver made no secret of his
admiration for Germany.
Thus Enver’s elevation to the Ministry of War was virtually a German
victory. He immediately instituted a drastic reorganisation. Enver told
me himself that he had accepted the post only on condition that he
should have a free hand; and this free hand he now proceeded to
exercise. The army still contained a large number of officers who
inclined to the old régime rather than to the Young Turks--many of whom
were partisans of the murdered Nazim. Enver promptly cashiered 268 of
these, and put in their places Turks who were known as “U. and P.” men
and many Germans. The Enver-Talaat group always feared a revolution that
would depose them as they had thrown out their predecessors. Many times
did they tell me that their own success as revolutionists had taught
them how easily a few determined men could seize control of the country;
they did not propose, they said, to have a little group in their army
organise such a _coup d’état_ against them. The boldness of Enver’s move
alarmed even Talaat, but Enver showed the determination of his character
and refused to reconsider his action, though one of the officers removed
was Chukri Pasha, who had defended Adrianople in the Balkan war. Enver
issued a circular to the Turkish commanders practically telling them
that they must look to him for preferment alone, and that they could
make no headway by playing politics with any group except that dominated
by the Young Turks.
Thus, Enver’s first acts were the beginnings in the Prussiafication of
the Turkish Army, but Talaat was not an enthusiastic German like his
associate. He had no intention of playing Germany’s game; he was working
chiefly for the Committee and for himself. But he could not succeed
unless he had control of the army, and therefore he had made Enver, for
years his closest associate in “U. and P.” politics, Minister of War.
Again, he needed a strong army if he was to have any at all, and
therefore he turned to the one source where he could find assistance--to
Germany. Wangenheim and Talaat, in the latter part of 1913, had arranged
that the Kaiser should send a military mission to reorganise the Turkish
Army. Talaat told me that on calling in this mission he was using
Germany, though Germany thought that it was using him. That there were
definite dangers in the move he well understood. A deputy who discussed
this situation with Talaat in January, 1914, has given me a memorandum
of a conversation which shows well what was going on in Talaat’s mind.
“Why do you hand the management of the country over to the Germans?”
asked this deputy, referring to the German military mission. “Don’t you
see that this is part of Germany’s plan to make Turkey a German colony?
That we shall become merely another Egypt?”
“We understand perfectly,” replied Talaat, “that that is Germany’s
programme. We also know that we cannot put this country on its feet with
our own resources. We shall, therefore, take advantage of such technical
and material assistance as the Germans can place at our disposal. We
shall use Germany to help us reconstruct and defend the country until we
are able to govern ourselves with our own strength. When that day comes,
we can say good-bye to the Germans within twenty-four hours.”
Certainly the physical condition of the Turkish Army betrayed the need
of assistance from some source. The picture it presented, before the
Germans arrived, I have always regarded as portraying the condition of
the whole Empire. When I issued invitations for my first reception a
large number of Turkish officials asked to be permitted to come in
evening clothes; they said that they had no uniforms and no money with
which to purchase or to hire them. They had not received their salaries
for three and a half months. As the Grand Vizier, who regulates the
etiquette of such functions, still insisted on full military dress,
many of those officials had to absent themselves. About the same time
the new German mission asked the Commander of the Second Army Corps to
exercise his men, but the Commander replied that he could not do so as
his men had no shoes!
Desperate and wicked as Talaat subsequently showed himself to be, I
still think that he, at least then, was not a willing tool of Germany.
An episode that involved myself bears out this view. In describing the
relations of the great Powers to Turkey I have said nothing about the
United States. In fact, we had no important business relations at that
time. The Turks regarded us as a country of idealists and altruists, and
the fact that we spent millions in building wonderful educational
institutions in their country purely from philanthropic motives aroused
their astonishment and possibly their admiration. They liked Americans
and regarded us as about the only disinterested friends whom they had
among the nations. But our interest in Turkey was small; the Standard
Oil Company did a growing business, the Singer Company sold sewing
machines to the Armenians, we bought much of their tobacco, figs, and
rugs, and gathered their liquorice root. In addition to these
activities, missionaries and educational experts were about our only
contacts with the Turkish Empire. The Turks knew that we had no desire
to dismember their country or to mingle in Balkan politics. The very
fact that my country was so disinterested was perhaps the reason why
Talaat discussed Turkish affairs so freely with me. In the course of
these conversations I frequently expressed my desire to serve them, and
Talaat and some of the other members of the Cabinet got into the habit
of consulting me on business matters. Soon after my arrival, I made a
speech at the American Chamber of Commerce in Constantinople; Talaat,
Djemal, and other important leaders were present. I talked about the
backward economic state of Turkey, and admonished them not to be
discouraged. I described the condition of the United States after the
Civil War, and made the point that our devastated Southern States
presented a spectacle not unlike that of Turkey at that present moment.
I then related how we had gone to work, realised on our resources, and
built up the present thriving nation. My remarks apparently made a deep
impression, especially my statement that after the Civil War the United
States had become a large borrower in foreign money markets and had
invited immigration from all parts of the world.
This speech apparently gave Talaat a new idea. It was not impossible
that the United States might furnish him the material support which he
had been seeking in Europe. Already I had suggested that an American
financial expert should be sent to study Turkish finance, and in this
connection I had mentioned Mr. Henry Bruère, of New York--a suggestion
which the Turks had favourably received. At that time Turkey’s greatest
need was money. France had financed Turkey for many years, and French
bankers, in the spring of 1914, were negotiating for another large loan.
Though Germany had made some loans, the condition of the Berlin money
market at that time did not encourage the Turks to expect much
assistance from that source.
In late December, 1913, Bustány Effendi, a Christian Arab, and Minister
of Commerce and Agriculture, who spoke English fluently--he had been
Turkish commissioner to the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893--called and
approached me on the question of an American loan. Bustány asked if
there were not American financiers who would take entire charge of the
reorganisation of Turkish finance. His plea was really a cry of despair
and it touched me deeply. As I wrote in my diary at the time, “They seem
to be scraping the box for money.” But I had been in Turkey only six
weeks, and obviously I had no information on which I could recommend
such a large contract to American bankers. I informed him that my advice
would not carry much weight in the United States unless it were based on
a complete knowledge of economic conditions in Turkey. Talaat came to me
a few days later, suggesting that I make a prolonged tour over the
Empire and study the situation at first hand. Meanwhile he asked if I
could not arrange a small temporary loan to tide them over the interim.
He said there was no money in the Turkish Treasury; if I could only get
them $5,000,000, that would satisfy them. I told Talaat that I would try
to get this money for them and that I would adopt his suggestion and
inspect his Empire with the possible idea of interesting American
investors. After obtaining the consent of the State Department I wrote
to my nephew and business associate, Mr. Robert E. Simon, asking him to
sound certain New York institutions and bankers on making a small
short-time collateral loan to Turkey. Mr. Simon’s investigations soon
disclosed that a Turkish loan did not seem to be regarded as an
attractive business undertaking in New York. Mr. Simon wrote, however,
that Mr. C. K. G. Billings had shown much interest in the idea; and
that, if I desired, Mr. Billings would come out in his yacht and discuss
the matter with the Turkish Cabinet and with me. In a few days Mr.
Billings had started for Constantinople.
The news of Mr. Billings’s approach spread with great rapidity all over
the Turkish capital; the fact that he was coming in his own private
yacht seemed to magnify the importance and the glamour of the event.
That a great American millionaire was prepared to reinforce the depleted
Turkish Treasury and that this support was merely the preliminary step
in the reorganisation of Turkish finances by American capitalists
produced a tremendous flutter in the foreign embassies. So rapidly did
the information spread, indeed, that I rather suspected that the Turkish
Cabinet had taken no particular pains to keep it secret. This suspicion
was strengthened by a visit which I received from the Chief Rabbi
Nahoum, who informed me that he had come at the request of Talaat.
“There is a rumour,” said the Chief Rabbi, “that Americans are about to
make a loan to Turkey. Talaat would be greatly pleased if you would not
contradict it.” Wangenheim displayed an almost hysterical interest; the
idea of America coming to the financial assistance of Turkey did not
fall in with his plans at all, for in his eyes Turkey’s poverty was
chiefly valuable as a means of forcing the Empire into Germany’s hands.
One day I showed Wangenheim a book containing etchings of Mr. Billings’s
homes, pictures, and horses; he showed a great interest, not only in the
horses--Wangenheim was something of a horseman himself--but in this
tangible evidence of great wealth. For the next few days ambassador
after ambassador and minister after minister filed into my office, each
solemnly asking for a glimpse at this book! As the time approached for
Mr. Billings’s arrival Talaat began making elaborate plans for his
entertainment; he consulted with me as to whom we should invite to the
proposed dinners, lunches, and receptions. As usual, Wangenheim got in
ahead of the rest. He could not come to the dinner which we had planned,
and asked me to have him for lunch, and in this way he met Mr. Billings
several hours before the other diplomats. Mr. Billings frankly told him
that he was interested in Turkey and that it was not unlikely that he
would make the loan.
In the evening we gave the Billings party a dinner, all the important
members of the Turkish Cabinet being present. Before this dinner,
Talaat, Mr. Billings, and myself had a long talk about the loan. Talaat
informed us that the French bankers had accepted their terms that very
day, and that they would, therefore, need no American money at that
time. He was exceedingly gracious and grateful to Mr. Billings and
profuse in expressing his thanks. Indeed, he might well have been, for
Mr. Billings’s arrival enabled Turkey at last to close negotiations
with the French bankers. His attempt to express his appreciation had one
curious manifestation. Enver, the second man in the Cabinet, was
celebrating his wedding when Mr. Billings arrived. The progress which
Enver was making in the Turkish world is evidenced from the fact that,
although Enver, as I have said, came of the humblest stock, his bride
was a daughter of the Turkish Imperial House. Turkish weddings are
prolonged affairs, lasting two or three days. The day following the
Embassy dinner Talaat gave the Billings party a luncheon at the Cercle
d’Orient, and he insisted that Enver should leave his wedding ceremony
long enough to attend this function. Enver, therefore, came to the
luncheon, sat through all the speeches, and then returned to his bridal
party.
I am convinced that Talaat did not regard this Billings episode as
closed. As I look back upon this transaction I see clearly that he was
seeking to extricate his country, and that the possibility that the
United States would assist him in performing the rescue was ever present
in his mind. He frequently spoke to me of Mr. “Beelings,” as he called
him, and even after Turkey had broken with France and England and was
depending on Germany for money, his mind still reverted to Mr.
Billings’s visit.