[Illustration: HENRY MORGENTHAU
American Ambassador at Constantinople from 1913 to 1916]
AMBASSADOR
MORGENTHAU’S
STORY
BY
HENRY MORGENTHAU
_Formerly American Ambassador to Turkey_
[Illustration: colophon]
ILLUSTRATED
GARDEN CITY NEW YORK
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
1919
COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF
TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES,
INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN
TO
WOODROW WILSON
THE EXPONENT IN AMERICA OF THE ENLIGHTENED PUBLIC OPINION OF THE WORLD,
WHICH HAS DECREED THAT THE RIGHTS OF SMALL NATIONS SHALL BE RESPECTED
AND THAT SUCH CRIMES AS ARE DESCRIBED IN THIS BOOK SHALL NEVER AGAIN
DARKEN THE PAGES OF HISTORY
PREFACE
By this time the American people have probably become convinced that the
Germans deliberately planned the conquest of the world. Yet they
hesitate to convict on circumstantial evidence and for this reason all
eye witnesses to this, the greatest crime in modern history, should
volunteer their testimony.
I have therefore laid aside any scruples I had as to the propriety of
disclosing to my fellow countrymen the facts which I learned while
representing them in Turkey. I acquired this knowledge as the servant of
the American people, and it is their property as much as it is mine.
I greatly regret that I have been obliged to omit an account of the
splendid activities of the American Missionary and Educational
Institutions in Turkey, but to do justice to this subject would require
a book by itself. I have had to omit the story of the Jews in Turkey for
the same reasons.
My thanks are due to my friend, Mr. Burton J. Hendrick, for the
invaluable assistance he has rendered in the preparation of the book.
HENRY MORGENTHAU.
October, 1918.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. A German superman at Constantinople 3
II. The “Boss System” in the Ottoman Empire
and how it proved useful to Germany 20
III. “The personal representative of the
Kaiser.” Wangenheim opposes the
sale of American warships to Greece 41
IV. Germany mobilizes the Turkish army 61
V. Wangenheim smuggles the _Goeben_ and
the _Breslau_ through the Dardanelles 68
VI. Wangenheim tells the American Ambassador
how the Kaiser started the war 82
VII. Germany’s plans for new territories, coaling
stations, and indemnities 90
VIII. A classic instance of German propaganda 96
IX. Germany closes the Dardanelles and so
separates Russia from her Allies 105
X. Turkey’s abrogation of the capitulations.
Enver living in a palace, with
plenty of money and an imperial bride 112
XI. Germany forces Turkey into the war 123
XII. The Turks attempt to treat alien enemies
decently, but the Germans
insist on persecuting them 130
XIII. The invasion of the Notre Dame de
Sion School 147
XIV. Wangenheim and the Bethlehem Steel
Company. A “Holy War” that
was made in Germany 157
XV. Djemal, a troublesome Mark Antony.
The first German attempt to get a
German peace 171
XVI. The Turks prepare to flee from Constantinople
and establish a new capital
in Asia Minor. The Allied fleet
bombarding the Dardanelles 184
XVII. Enver as the man who demonstrated
“the vulnerability of the British
fleet.” Old-fashioned defenses of
the Dardanelles 202
XVIII. The Allied armada sails away, though
on the brink of victory 217
XIX. A fight for three thousand civilians 232
XX. More adventures of the foreign residents 253
XXI. Bulgaria on the auction block 262
XXII. The Turk reverts to the ancestral type 274
XXIII. The “Revolution” at Van 293
XXIV. The murder of a nation 301
XXV. Talaat tells why he deports the Armenians 326
XXVI. Enver Pasha discusses the Armenians 343
XXVII. “I shall do nothing for the Armenians,”
says the German Ambassador 364
XXVIII. Enver again moves for peace. Farewell
to the Sultan and to Turkey 385
XXIX. Von Jagow, Zimmermann, and German-Americans 397
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Henry Morgenthau _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
Mrs. Henry Morgenthau with Soeur Jeanne 8
Constantinople from the American Embassy 9
Beylerbey palace on the Bosphorus 16
The American Embassy at Constantinople 16
Henry Morgenthau, American Ambassador to Turkey, 1913-1916 17
Talaat Pasha, ex-Grand Vizier of Turkey 48
Turkish infantry and cavalry 49
Bustány Effendi 56
Mohammed V, late Sultan of Turkey 57
Wangenheim, the German Ambassador 68
The Sultan, Mohammed V, going to his regular Friday prayers 72
Talaat and Enver at a military review 73
Baron Von Wangenheim, German Ambassador to Turkey 80
Djemal Pasha, Minister of Marine 81
The Marquis Garroni, Italian Ambassador to the Sublime Porte in 1914 112
M. Tocheff, Bulgarian Minister at Constantinople 112
The American summer Embassy on the Bosphorus 113
Enver Pasha, Minister of War 120
Saïd Halim, Ex-grand Vizier 121
Sir Louis Mallet and M. Bompard 136
Gen. Liman von Sanders 137
German and Turkish officers on board the _Goeben_ 144
Bedri Bey, Prefect of Police at Constantinople 145
Djavid Bey, Minister of Finance in Turkish Cabinet 145
The British Embassy 176
Robert College at Constantinople 177
The American Embassy Staff 184
The Modern Turkish soldier 185
The Ministry of War 200
The Ministry of Marine 200
Halil Bey in Berlin 201
Talaat and Kühlmann 201
General Mertens 201
The Red Crescent 208
Enver Pasha 209
Turkish quarters at the Dardanelles 240
Looking north to the city of Gallipoli 241
The British ship _Albion_ 248
The Dardanelles as it was March 16, 1915 249
Tchemenlik and Fort Anadolu Hamidié 264
Fort Dardanos 265
The American ward of the Turkish hospital 272
Students of the Constantinople College 273
Abdul Hamid 304
A characteristic view of the Armenian country 305
Fishing village on Lake Van 312
Refugees at Van crowding around a public oven,
hoping to get bread 313
Kaiser William II, in the uniform of a Turkish
Field Marshal 328
Interior of the Armenian church at Urfa 329
Armenian soldiers 336
Those who fell by the wayside 337
A view of Harpoot 337
View of Urfa 368
A relic of the Armenian massacres at Erzingan 368
The funeral of Baron von Wangenheim 369
AMBASSADOR MORGENTHAU’S STORY
CHAPTER I
A GERMAN SUPERMAN AT CONSTANTINOPLE
When I began writing these reminiscences of my ambassadorship, Germany’s
schemes in the Turkish Empire and the Near East seemed to have achieved
a temporary success. The Central Powers had apparently disintegrated
Russia, transformed the Baltic and the Black seas into German lakes, and
had obtained a new route to the East by way of the Caucasus. For the
time being Germany dominated Serbia, Bulgaria, Rumania, and Turkey, and
regarded her aspirations for a new Teutonic Empire, extending from the
North Sea to the Persian Gulf, as practically realized. The world now
knows, though it did not clearly understand this fact in 1914, that
Germany precipitated the war to destroy Serbia, seize control of the
Balkan nations, transform Turkey into a vassal state, and thus obtain a
huge oriental empire that would form the basis for unlimited world
dominion. Did these German aggressions in the East mean that this
extensive programme had succeeded?
As I picture to myself a map which would show Germany’s military and
diplomatic triumphs, my experiences in Constantinople take on a new
meaning. I now see the events of those twenty-six months as part of a
connected, definite story. The several individuals that moved upon the
scene now appear as players in a carefully staged, superbly managed
drama. I see clearly enough now that Germany had made all her plans for
world dominion and that the country to which I had been sent as American
Ambassador was one of the foundation stones of the Kaiser’s whole
political and military structure. Had Germany not acquired control of
Constantinople in the early days of the war, it is not unlikely that
hostilities would have ended a few months after the Battle of the Marne.
It was certainly an amazing fate that landed me in this great
headquarters of intrigue at the very moment when the plans of the Kaiser
for controlling Turkey, which he had carefully pursued for a quarter of
a century, were about to achieve their final success.
For this work of subjugating Turkey, and transforming its army and its
territory into instruments of Germany, the Emperor had sent to
Constantinople an ambassador who was ideally fitted for the task. The
mere fact that the Kaiser had personally chosen Baron Von Wangenheim for
this post shows that he had accurately gauged the human qualities needed
in this great diplomatic enterprise.
The Kaiser had early detected in Wangenheim an instrument ideally
qualified for oriental intrigue; he had more than once summoned him to
Corfu for his vacations, and here, we may be sure, the two congenial
spirits had passed many days discussing German ambitions in the Near
East. At the time when I first met him, Wangenheim was fifty-four years
old; he had spent a quarter of a century in the diplomatic corps, he had
seen service in such different places as Petrograd, Copenhagen, Madrid,
Athens, and Mexico, and he had been chargé at Constantinople, several
years afterward coming there as ambassador. He understood completely all
countries, including the United States; his first wife had been an
American, and Wangenheim, when Minister to Mexico, had intimately
studied our country and had then acquired an admiration for our energy
and progress. He had a complete technical equipment for a diplomat; he
spoke German, English, and French with equal facility, he knew the East
thoroughly, and he had the widest acquaintance with public men.
Physically he was one of the most imposing persons I have ever known.
When I was a boy in Germany, the Fatherland was usually symbolized as a
beautiful and powerful woman--a kind of dazzling Valkyrie; when I think
of modern Germany, however, the massive, burly figure of Wangenheim
naturally presents itself to my mind. He was six feet two inches tall;
his huge, solid frame, his Gibraltar-like shoulders, erect and
impregnable, his bold, defiant head, his piercing eyes, his whole
physical structure constantly pulsating with life and activity--there
stands, I would say, not the Germany which I had known, but the Germany
whose limitless ambitions had transformed the world into a place of
horror. And Wangenheim’s every act and every word typified this new and
dreadful portent among the nations. Pan-Germany filled all his waking
hours and directed his every action. The deification of his emperor was
the only religious instinct which impelled him. That aristocratic and
autocratic organization of German society which represents the Prussian
system was, in Wangenheim’s eyes, something to be venerated and
worshipped; with this as the groundwork, Germany was inevitably
destined, he believed, to rule the world. The great land-owning Junker
represented the perfection of mankind. “I would despise myself,” his
closest associate once told me, and this represented Wangenheim’s
attitude as well, “if I had been born in a city.” Wangenheim divided
mankind into two classes, the governing and the governed; and he
ridiculed the idea that the upper could ever be recruited from the
lower. I recall with what unction and enthusiasm he used to describe the
Emperor’s caste organization of German estates; how he had made them
non-transferable, and had even arranged it so that the possessors, or
the prospective possessors, could not marry without the imperial
consent. “In this way,” Wangenheim would say, “we keep our governing
classes pure, unmixed of blood.” Like all of his social order,
Wangenheim worshipped the Prussian military system; his splendid bearing
showed that he had himself served in the army, and, in true German
fashion, he regarded practically every situation in life from a military
standpoint. I had one curious illustration of this when I asked
Wangenheim one day why the Kaiser did not visit the United States. “He
would like to immensely,” he replied, “but it would be too dangerous.
War might break out when he was at sea, and the enemy would capture
him.” I suggested that that could hardly happen as the American
Government would escort its guest home with warships, and that no nation
would care to run the risk of involving the United States as Germany’s
ally; but Wangenheim still thought that the military danger would make
any such visit impossible.
Upon him, more than almost any diplomatic representative of Germany,
depended the success of the Kaiser’s conspiracy for world domination.
This German diplomat came to Constantinople with a single purpose. For
twenty years the German Government had been cultivating the Turkish
Empire. All this time the Kaiser had been preparing for a world war, and
in this war it was destined that Turkey should play an almost decisive
part. Unless Germany should obtain the Ottoman Empire as its ally, there
was little chance that she could succeed in a general European conflict.
When France had made her alliance with Russia, the man power of
170,000,000 people was placed on her side, in the event of a war with
Germany. For more than twenty years Germany had striven diplomatically
to detach Russia from this French alliance, but had failed. There was
only one way in which Germany could make valueless the Franco-Russian
Alliance; this was by obtaining Turkey as an ally. With Turkey on her
side, Germany could close the Dardanelles, the only practical line of
communication between Russia and her western allies; this simple act
would deprive the Czar’s army of war munitions, destroy Russia
economically by stopping her grain exports, her greatest source of
wealth, and thus detach Russia from her partners in the World War. Thus
Wangenheim’s mission was to make it absolutely certain that Turkey
should join Germany in the great contest that was impending.
Wangenheim believed that, should he succeed in accomplishing this task,
he would reap the reward which for years had represented his final
goal--the chancellorship of the Empire. His skill at establishing
friendly personal relations with the Turks gave him a great advantage
over his rivals. Wangenheim had precisely that combination of force,
persuasiveness, geniality, and brutality which was needed in dealing
with the Turkish character. I have emphasized his Prussian qualities;
yet Wangenheim was a Prussian not by birth but by development; he was a
native of Thüringen, and, together with all the push, ambition, and
overbearing traits of the Prussian, he had some of the softer
characteristics which we associate with Southern Germany. He had one
conspicuous quality which is not Prussian at all--that is, tact; and, as
a rule, he succeeded in keeping his less-agreeable tendencies under the
surface and showing only his more ingratiating side. He dominated not so
much by brute strength as by a mixture of force and amiability;
externally he was not a bully; his manner was more insinuating than
coercive; he won by persuasiveness, not by the mailed fist, but we who
knew him well understood that back of all his gentleness there lurked a
terrific, remorseless, and definite ambition. Yet the impression left
was not one of brutality, but of excessive animal spirits and good
nature. Indeed, Wangenheim had in combination the jovial enthusiasm of a
college student, the rapacity of a Prussian official, and the
happy-go-lucky qualities of a man of the world. I still recall the
picture of this huge figure of a man, sitting at the piano, improvising
on some beautiful classic theme--and then suddenly starting to pound out
uproarious German drinking songs or popular melodies. I still see him
jumping on his horse at the polo grounds, spurring the splendid animal
to its speediest efforts--the horse never making sufficient speed,
however, to satisfy the ambitious sportsman. Indeed, in all his
activities, grave or gay, Wangenheim displayed this same restless spirit
of the chase. Whether he was flirting with the Greek ladies at Pera, or
[Illustration: MRS. HENRY MORGENTHAU
(On the right). Wife of the American Ambassador at Constantinople from
1913 to 1916, with Soeur Jeanne (on the left), head of the French
Hospital]
[Illustration: CONSTANTINOPLE FROM THE AMERICAN EMBASSY
Showing (in the centre of the picture) the buildings of the Ministry of
Marine, on the famous Golden Horn, with the city beyond]
spending hours over the card table at the Cercle d’Orient, or bending
the Turkish officials to his will in the interest of Germany, all life
was to him a game, which was to be played more or less recklessly, and
in which the chances favoured the man who was bold and audacious and
willing to pin success or failure on a single throw. And this greatest
game of all--that upon which was staked, as Bernhardi has expressed it,
“World empire or downfall”--Wangenheim did not play languidly, as though
it had been merely a duty to which he had been assigned; to use the
German phrase, he was “fire and flame” for it; he had the consciousness
that he was a strong man selected to perform a mighty task. As I write
of Wangenheim, I still feel myself affected by the force of his
personality, yet I know all the time that, like the government which he
served so loyally, he was fundamentally ruthless, shameless, and cruel.
But he was content to accept all the consequences of his policy, however
hideous these might be. He saw only a single goal, and, with the realism
and logic that are so characteristically German, Wangenheim would brush
aside all feelings of humanity and decency that might interfere with
success. He accepted in full Bismarck’s famous dictum that a German must
be ready to sacrifice for Kaiser and Fatherland not only his life but
his honour as well.
Just as Wangenheim personified Germany, so did his colleague,
Pallavicini, personify Austria. Wangenheim’s essential quality was a
brutal egotism, while Pallavicini was a quiet, kind-hearted,
delightfully mannered gentleman. Wangenheim was always looking to the
future, Pallavicini to the past. Wangenheim represented the mixture of
commercialism and medieval lust for conquest which constitute Prussian
_welt-politik_; Pallavicini was a diplomat left over from the days of
Metternich. “Germany wants this!” Wangenheim would insist, when an
important point had to be decided; “I shall consult my foreign office,”
the cautious Pallavicini would say, on a similar occasion. The Austrian,
with little upturned gray moustaches, with a rather stiff, even slightly
strutting, walk, looked like the old-fashioned Marquis that was once a
stock figure on the stage. I might compare Wangenheim with the
representative of a great business firm which was lavish in its
expenditures and unscrupulous in its methods, while his Austrian
colleague represented a house that prided itself on its past
achievements and was entirely content with its position. The same
delight that Wangenheim took in Pan-German plans, Pallavicini found in
all the niceties and obscurities of diplomatic technique. The Austrian
had represented his country in Turkey many years, and was the dean of
the corps, a dignity of which he was extremely proud. He found his
delight in upholding all the honours, of his position; he was expert in
arranging the order of precedence at ceremonial dinners, and there was
not a single detail of etiquette that he did not have at his fingers’
ends. When it came to affairs of state, however, he was merely a tool of
Wangenheim. From the first, indeed, he seemed to accept his position as
that of a diplomat who was more or less subject to the will of his more
powerful ally. In this way Pallavicini played to his German colleague
precisely the same part that his emperor was playing to that of the
Kaiser. In the early months of the war the bearing of these two men
completely mirrored the respective successes and failures of their
countries. As the Germans boasted of victory after victory Wangenheim’s
already huge and erect figure seemed to become larger and more
upstanding, while Pallavicini, as the Austrians lost battle after battle
to the Russians, seemed to become smaller and more shrinking.
The situation in Turkey, in these critical months, seemed almost to have
been purposely created to give the fullest opportunities to a man of
Wangenheim’s genius. For ten years the Turkish Empire had been
undergoing a process of dissolution, and had now reached a state of
decrepitude that had left it an easy prey to German diplomacy. In order
to understand the situation, we must keep in mind that there was really
no orderly, established government in Turkey at that time. For the Young
Turks were not a government; they were really an irresponsible party, a
kind of secret society, which, by intrigue, intimidation, and
assassination, had obtained most of the offices of state. When I
describe the Young Turks in these words, perhaps I may be dispelling
certain illusions. Before I came to Turkey I had entertained very
different ideas of this organization. As far back as 1908 I remember
reading news of Turkey that appealed strongly to my democratic
sympathies. These reports informed me that a body of young
revolutionists had swept from the mountains of Macedonia, had marched
upon Constantinople, had deposed the bloody Sultan, Abdul Hamid, and had
established a constitutional system. Turkey, these glowing newspaper
stories told us, had become a democracy, with a parliament, a
responsible ministry, universal suffrage, equality of all citizens
before the law, freedom of speech and of the press, and all the other
essentials of a free, liberty-loving commonwealth. That a party of Turks
had for years been struggling for such reforms I well knew, and that
their ambitions had become realities seemed to indicate that, after all,
there was such a thing as human progress. The long welter of massacre
and disorder in the Turkish Empire had apparently ended; “the great
assassin”, Abdul Hamid, had been removed to solitary confinement at
Saloniki, and his brother, the gentle Mohammed V, had ascended the
throne with a progressive democratic programme. Such had been the
promise; but, by the time I reached Constantinople, in 1913, many
changes had taken place. Austria had annexed two Turkish provinces,
Bosnia and Herzegovina; Italy had wrenched away Tripoli; Turkey had
fought a disastrous war with the Balkan states, and had lost all her
territories in Europe except Constantinople and a small hinterland. The
aims for the regeneration of Turkey that had inspired the revolution had
evidently miscarried, and I soon discovered that four years of so-called
democratic rule had ended with the nation more degraded, more
impoverished, and more dismembered than ever before. Indeed, long before
I had arrived, this attempt to establish a Turkish democracy had failed.
The failure was probably the most complete and the most disheartening in
the whole history of democratic institutions. I need hardly explain in
detail the causes of this collapse. Let us not criticize too harshly the
Young Turks, for there is no question that, at the beginning, they were
sincere. In a speech in Liberty Square, Saloniki, in July, 1908, Enver
Pasha, who was popularly regarded as the chivalrous young leader of this
insurrection against a century-old tyranny, had eloquently declared
that, “To-day arbitrary government has disappeared. We are all brothers.
There are no longer in Turkey Bulgarians, Greeks, Servians, Rumanians,
Mussulmans, Jews. Under the same blue sky we are all proud to be
Ottomans.” That statement represented the Young Turk ideal for the new
Turkish state, but it was an ideal which it was evidently beyond their
ability to translate into a reality. The races which had been maltreated
and massacred for centuries by the Turks could not transform themselves
overnight into brothers, and the hatreds, jealousies, and religious
prejudices of the past still divided Turkey into a medley of warring
clans. Above all, the destructive wars and the loss of great sections of
the Turkish Empire had destroyed the prestige of the new democracy.
There were plenty of other reasons for the failure, but it is hardly
necessary to discuss them at this time.
Thus the Young Turks had disappeared as a positive regenerating force,
but they still existed as a political machine. Their leaders, Talaat,
Enver, and Djemal, had long since abandoned any expectation of reforming
their state, but they had developed an insatiable lust for personal
power. Instead of a nation of nearly 20,000,000, developing happily
along democratic lines, enjoying suffrage, building up their industry
and agriculture, laying the foundations for universal education,
sanitation, and general progress, I saw that Turkey consisted of merely
so many inarticulate, ignorant, and poverty-ridden slaves, with a small,
wicked oligarchy at the top, which was prepared to use them in the way
that would best promote its private interests. And these men were
practically the same who, a few years before, had made Turkey a
constitutional state. A more bewildering fall from the highest idealism
to the crassest materialism could not be imagined. Talaat, Enver, and
Djemal were the ostensible leaders, yet back of them was the Committee,
consisting of about forty men. This committee met secretly, manipulated
elections, and filled the offices with its own henchmen. It occupied a
building in Constantinople, and had a supreme chief who gave all his
time to its affairs and issued orders to his subordinates. This
functionary ruled the party and the country something like an American
city boss in our most unregenerate days; and the whole organization thus
furnished a typical illustration of what we sometimes describe as
“invisible government.” This kind of irresponsible control has at times
flourished in American cities, mainly because the citizens have devoted
all their time to their private affairs and thus neglected the public
good. But in Turkey the masses were altogether too ignorant to
understand the meaning of democracy, and the bankruptcy and general
vicissitudes of the country had left the nation with practically no
government and an easy prey to a determined band of adventurers. The
Committee of Union and Progress, with Talaat Bey as the most powerful
leader, constituted such a band. Besides the forty men in
Constantinople, sub-committees were organized in all important cities of
the empire. The men whom the Committee placed in power “took orders” and
made the appointments submitted to them. No man could hold an office,
high or low, who was not indorsed by this committee.
I must admit, however, that I do our corrupt American gangs a great
injustice in comparing them with the Turkish Committee of Union and
Progress. Talaat, Enver, and Djemal had added to their system a detail
that has not figured extensively in American politics--that of
assassination and judicial murder. They had wrested power from the other
factions by a deed of violence. This _coup d’état_ had taken place on
January 26, 1913, not quite a year before my arrival. At that time a
political group, headed by the venerable Kiamil Pasha, as Grand Vizier,
and Nazim Pasha, as Minister of War, controlled the Government; they
represented a faction known as the “Liberal Party,” which was chiefly
distinguished for its enmity to the Young Turks. These men had fought
the disastrous Balkan War, and, in January, they had felt themselves
compelled to accept the advice of the European powers and surrender
Adrianople to Bulgaria. The Young Turks had been outside the breastworks
for about six months looking for an opportunity to return to power. The
proposed surrender of Adrianople apparently furnished them this
opportunity. Adrianople was an important Turkish city, and naturally the
Turkish people regarded the contemplated surrender as marking still
another milestone toward their national doom. Talaat and Enver hastily
collected about two hundred followers and marched to the Sublime Porte,
where the ministry was then sitting. Nazim, hearing the uproar, stepped
out into the hall. He courageously faced the crowd, a cigarette in his
mouth and his hands thrust into his pockets.
“Come, boys,” he said, good humouredly, “what’s all this noise about?
Don’t you know that it is interfering with our deliberations?”
The words had hardly left his mouth when he fell dead. A bullet had
pierced a vital spot.
The mob, led by Talaat and Enver, then forced their way into the council
chamber. They forced Kiamil, the Grand Vizier, to resign his post by
threatening him with the fate that had overtaken Nazim.
As assassination had been the means by which these chieftains had
obtained the supreme power, so assassination continued to be the
instrument upon which they depended for maintaining their control.
Djemal, in addition to his other duties, became Military Governor of
Constantinople, and in this capacity he had control of the police; in
this office he developed all the talents of a Fouché, and did his work
so successfully that any man who wished to conspire against the Young
Turks usually retired for that purpose to Paris or Athens. The few
months that preceded my arrival had been a reign of terror. The Young
Turks had destroyed Abdul Hamid’s régime only to adopt that Sultan’s
favourite methods of quieting opposition. Instead of having one Abdul
Hamid, Turkey now discovered that she had several. Men were arrested and
deported by the score, and hangings of political offenders--opponents,
that is, of the ruling gang--were common occurrences.
The weakness of the Sultan particularly facilitated the ascendancy of
this committee. We must remember that Mohammed V was not only Sultan but
Caliph--not only the temporal ruler, but also head of the Mohammedan
Church. As religious leader he was an object of veneration to millions
of devout Moslems, a fact which would have given a strong man in his
position great influence in freeing Turkey from its oppressors. I
presume that even those who had the most kindly feelings toward the
Sultan would not
[Illustration: BEYLERBEY PALACE ON THE BOSPHORUS
Where Abdul Hamid was confined from the time when he was taken from
Saloniki until his recent death--a photograph taken from the launch of
the _Scorpion_, the American guardship at Constantinople]
[Illustration: THE AMERICAN EMBASSY AT CONSTANTINOPLE
Where Ambassador Morgenthau conducted American diplomatic affairs from
the fall of 1913 to the spring of 1916. After Turkey came into the war
Mr. Morgenthau accepted charge of the affairs of nine other nations]
[Illustration: HENRY MORGENTHAU, AMERICAN AMBASSADOR TO TURKEY,
1913-1916]
have described him as an energetic, masterful man. It is a miracle that
the circumstances which fate had forced upon Mohammed had not long since
completely destroyed him. He was a brother of Abdul Hamid--Gladstone’s
“great assassin”--a man who ruled by espionage and bloodshed, and who
had no more consideration for his own relatives than for the massacred
Armenians. One of Abdul Hamid’s first acts, when he ascended the throne,
was to shut up his heir apparent in a palace, surrounding him with
spies, restricting him for society to his harem and a few palace
functionaries, and constantly holding over his head the fear of
assassination. Naturally Mohammed’s education had been limited; he spoke
only Turkish, and his only means of learning about the outside world was
an occasional Turkish newspaper. So long as he remained quiescent, the
heir apparent was comfortable and fairly secure, but he knew that the
first sign of revolt, or even a too curious interest in what was going
on, would be the signal for his death. Hard as this ordeal was, it had
not destroyed what was fundamentally a benevolent, gentle nature. The
Sultan had no characteristics that suggested the “terrible Turk.” He was
simply a quiet, easy-going, gentlemanly old man. Everybody liked him and
I do not think that he harboured ill-feeling against a human soul. He
could not rule his empire, for he had had no preparation for such a
difficult task; he took a certain satisfaction in his title and in the
consciousness that he was a lineal descendant of the great Osman;
clearly, however, he could not oppose the schemes of the men who were
then struggling for the control of Turkey. In the replacement of Abdul
Hamid, as his master, by Talaat, Enver, and Djemal, the Sultan had not
greatly improved his personal position. The Committee of Union and
Progress ruled him precisely as they ruled all the rest of Turkey--by
intimidation. Indeed they had already given him a sample of their power,
for the Sultan had attempted on one occasion to assert his independence,
and the conclusion of this episode left no doubt as to who was master. A
group of thirteen “conspirators” and other criminals, some real ones,
others merely political offenders, had been sentenced to be hanged.
Among them was an imperial son-in-law. Before the execution could take
place the Sultan had to sign the death warrants. He begged that he be
permitted to pardon the imperial son-in-law, though he raised no
objection to viséing the hangings of the other twelve. The nominal ruler
of 20,000,000 people figuratively went down upon his knees before
Talaat, but all his pleadings did not affect this determined man. Here,
Talaat reasoned, was a chance to decide, once for all, who was master,
the Sultan or themselves. A few days afterward the melancholy figure of
the imperial son-in-law, dangling at the end of a rope in full view of
the Turkish populace, visibly reminded the empire that Talaat and the
Committee were the masters of Turkey. After this tragical test of
strength, the Sultan never attempted again to interfere in affairs of
state. He knew what had happened to Abdul Hamid, and he feared an even
more terrible fate for himself.
By the time I reached Constantinople the Young Turks thus completely
controlled the Sultan. He was popularly referred to as an
“irade-machine,” a phrase which means about the same thing as when we
refer to a man as a “rubber stamp.” His state duties consisted merely
in performing certain ceremonies, such as receiving ambassadors, and in
affixing his signature to such papers as Talaat and his associates
placed before him. This was a profound change in the Turkish system,
since in that country for centuries the Sultan had been an unquestioned
despot, whose will had been the only law, and who had centred in his own
person all the power of sovereignty. Not only the Sultan, but the
Parliament, had become the subservient creature of the Committee, which
chose practically all the members, who voted only as the predominant
bosses dictated. The Committee had already filled several of the most
powerful cabinet offices with its followers, and was reaching out for
the several important places that, for several reasons, still remained
in other hands.