ABDUL HAMID AND THE POPE
Be to my virtues very kind,
Be to my faults a little blind.
Two great Personalities came across my path when I commanded the
Mediterranean Fleet for three years--the Sultan Abdul Hamid and Pope
Leo XIII. They each greatly admired the astuteness of the other.
Wily as Abdul was, the Pope was the subtler of the two. I did not
have the interviews with the Pope which I might have had. There was
no real occasion for it, as was the case with Abdul Hamid; and also,
though by the accident of birth I was of the Church of England (nearly
everybody’s religion is the accident of his birth), yet by taste and
conviction I was a Covenanter, and therefore dead against the Pope. I
would have loved to participate in the fight against Claverhouse at the
battle of Drumclog.
I happen to be looking at the battlefield of Drumclog now, and I
hope to be buried in Drumclog Church--that is, if I die here; or in
the nearest Church to my death bed. I am particular to say this, as
it avoids so much trouble; and I don’t have any more feeling for a
cast-off body than for a cast-off suit of clothes. The body, after he’s
left it at death, is not the man himself, any more than his cast-off
clothes. The only thing I ask for is a white marble tablet made by Mr.
Bridgman of Lichfield (if he’s still alive), with the inscription on
it to be found in Croxall Church as written of herself by my sainted
Godmother, of whom Byron wrote so beautifully: “She walks in beauty
like the night.” She deserved his poem.
That was a big digression; but being dictated, as it is, this is a
conversation book and not a classic. Classics are dry. Conversation,
taking no account of grammar or sequence, is more interesting. However,
that’s a matter of opinion. To talk is easy, but to write is terrific.
Even Job thought so, that patient man.
To resume Abdul Hamid and the Pope.
Neither rats nor Jews can exist at Malta. The Maltese are too much for
either. A Maltese can’t get a living in the Levant. The Levantine is
too much for the Maltese. No Levantine has ever been seen in Armenia.
His late Majesty, Abdul Hamid, was an Armenian. He massacred more
Armenians than had ever been massacred before. I’ve no doubt that can
be explained. It is supposed that the Armenian coachman of the previous
Sultan was his father. He certainly was not a bit like his presumed
father, the Sultan. When I dined several times with the Sultan, his
father’s picture hung behind him and he used to ask people if they
traced the likeness--there wasn’t even a resemblance.
The Sultan paid me a very special honour in sending his most
distinguished Admiral with his Staff down to the British Fleet lying
at Lemnos, to escort me up to Constantinople. This Admiral was known
to me; and it afforded me an opportunity, in the passage up the
Dardanelles, of making a thorough inspection of the Forts and all the
particulars connected with the defence of the Dardanelles. Nothing was
kept back from me; and incidentally it was through this inspection I
became on such terms with the Pashas that a most amicable arrangement
was reached between us as to our ever having to work in common. A very
striking incident occurred illustrating Kiamil Pasha’s remark to me
of how every Turk in the Turkish Empire trusted the English when they
trusted no one else. Kiamil’s argument was that such trust was only
natural after the Crimean War, and after the war with Russia--when
Russia was at the gates of Constantinople, and the British Fleet,
coming up under Admiral Hornby in a blinding snowstorm, encountering
great risks and not knowing but what the Forts, bribed by Russia,
might open fire--that British Fleet, by its opportune arrival, hardly
a minute too soon, effectually banged, barred and bolted the gates of
Constantinople against the Russians and produced peace. And Kiamil’s
emphasis was that, notwithstanding all these wonderful things that
England had done for Turkey, England never asked for the very smallest
favour or concession in return, whereas other nations were all of
them notoriously always grabbing; and I told Kiamil Pasha that I
felt very proud indeed, as a British Admiral, that England had this
noble character and deserved it. The incident I referred to was this:
Upon an observation being made to the Turkish Commander-in-Chief
in the Dardanelles as to whether some written document wouldn’t
be satisfactory to him, he replied he wanted no such document--if
a British Midshipman brought him a message, the word of a British
Midshipman was enough for him.
The views I formed at that period of the impregnability of the
Dardanelles stood me in good stead when the Dogger Bank incident became
known on Trafalgar Day, 1904--the very day I assumed the position of
First Sea Lord of the Admiralty. We were within an ace of war with
Russia; the Prime Minister’s speech at Southampton, if consulted, will
show that to be the case; and I then drew up a secret memorandum with
respect to the Dardanelles, which I alluded to at the War Council when
the attack on the Dardanelles was being discussed, also in my official
memorandum to Lord Cromer, the Chairman of the Dardanelles Commission,
and in my evidence before the Commission.
Personally I had a great regard for Abdul Hamid. Our Ambassadors had
not. One who knew of these matters considered Abdul Hamid the greatest
diplomat in Europe. I have mentioned elsewhere how greatly he resented
Lord Salisbury throwing over the traditional English Alliance with
Turkey and Lord Salisbury saying in a memorable speech that in making
that alliance in past years we had backed the wrong horse. For were
not (was Abdul Hamid’s argument) England and Turkey the two greatest
Mahomedan nations on Earth--England being somewhat the greater?
Kiamil--the Grand Old Man of Turkey--told me the same. He had been many
times Grand Vizier, and I went especially with the Mediterranean Fleet
to Smyrna to do him honour. He was the Vali there. His nickname in
Turkey was “The Englishman”; he was so devoted to us. He lamented to me
that England had had only one diplomatist of ability at Constantinople
since the days of Sir Stratford Canning, whom he knew. His exception
was a Sir William White, who had been a Consul somewhere in the Balkan
States. No other English Ambassador had ever been able to cope with
the Germans. I remonstrated with Kiamil by saying that Ambassadors now
were only telegraph instruments--they only conveyed messages, and quite
probably from some quite young man at the Foreign Office who had charge
of that Department. I venture to remark here in passing what I have
very frequently urged to those in authority--that the United States
system is infinitely better than ours. Their diplomatic representatives
are all fresh from home, with each change of President; ours live all
their lives abroad and practically cease to be Englishmen, and very
often, like Solomon, marry foreign wives. Another thing I’ve urged on
Authority is that some Great Personage should annually make a tour
of inspection of all the Diplomatic and Consular Agents (exactly as
the big Banks have a travelling Inspector), who would ask how much he
had increased the trade of the great British Commonwealth of Nations;
and if it weren’t more than five per cent. would give him the sack.
This Great Travelling Personage must be a man independent in means
and station of any Government connexion and undertake the duty as Sir
Edward (now Lord) Grey goes to Washington. The German Ambassador at
Constantinople used to go round selling beetroot sugar by the pound!
The English Ambassador said to me at a Garden Party he gave by those
lovely sweet waters of the Bosphorus: “You see that fellow there with
a white hat on? He’s the President of the British Chamber of Commerce;
he’s an awful nuisance. He’s always bothering me about some peddling
commercial business!”
Abdul Hamid was exceeding kind to me and invited me to Constantinople,
and he descanted (the Boer War then being on) what a risk there was
of a big coalition against England. Curiously enough, his colleague
the Pope had the same feeling. It is very deplorable, not only in the
late War but also in the Boer War especially, how utterly our spies
and our Intelligence Departments failed us. I was so impressed with
what the Sultan told me that I set to work on my own account; and
through the patriotism of several magnificent Englishmen who occupied
high commercial positions on the shores of the Mediterranean, I got
a central forwarding station for information fixed up privately in
Switzerland; and it so happened, through a most Providential state of
circumstances, that I was thus able to obtain all the cypher messages
passing from the various Foreign Embassies, Consulates and Legations
through a certain central focus, and I also obtained a key to their
respective cyphers. The Chief man who did it for me was not in
Government employ; and I’m glad to think that he is now in a great
position--though not rewarded as he should have been. No one is. But
as to any information from an official source reaching me, who was so
vastly interested in the matter, in the event of war where the Fleet
should strike first--all our Diplomats and Consuls and Intelligence
Departments might have been dead and buried. And how striking the
case in the late War--the Prime Minister not knowing at the Guildhall
Banquet on November 9th, 1918, that the most humiliating armistice ever
known would be accepted by the Germans within thirty-six hours, and
one of our principal Cabinet Ministers saying the Sunday before that
the Allies were at their last gasp. And read now Ludendorff, Tirpitz,
Falkenhayn, Liman von Sanders, and others--they knew exactly what the
Allies’ condition was and what their own was. And if the Dardanelles
evidence is ever published, it will be found absolutely ludicrous how
the official spokesmen gravely give evidence that the Turks had come
to their last round of ammunition and that the roofs of the houses
in Constantinople were crowded with people looking for the advent
of the approaching British Fleet. Why! it took our Admiral, on the
conclusion of the Armistice, with the help of the Turks and all his own
Fleet, several weeks to clear a passage through the mines, on which
Marshal Liman von Sanders so accurately based his reliance against any
likelihood of the Dardanelles being forced.
[Illustration:
[_Photo Press Portrait Bureau_
ADMIRAL OF THE FLEET LORD FISHER, G.C.B., O.M., ETC., 1917.]