CHAPTER V
I INTERVIEW ENVER PASHA
Germanising the Turkish War Office—Halil Bey—Wireless Disguised as a Circus—Enver Pasha Receives Me—The Turkish Napoleon—Something of a Dandy—“If the English Had Only Had the Courage”—“To Egypt!”—Turkey’s Debt to Great Britain—Affairs Before Manners—A German Tribute to British Troops—Their Designs in the Suez Canal—German War Plans—Where to Kill Germans—The Baghdad Expedition—German Officers in Mufti.
The principal object of my visit to Constantinople was to find out from the Turks what were the German plans. I determined to take the bull by the horns, and accordingly called at the Turkish Foreign office to see Halil Bey, the Foreign Minister. It must be remembered that I was in possession of a personal introduction to him from the Turkish Ambassador in Vienna. After four unsuccessful attempts, I succeeded in seeing him by reason of my credentials, which have enabled me to gather so much valuable information. The Foreign Office, like every other Government department, is infested with Germans. Halil Bey, who received me courteously, is a prosperous-looking Turk, who might be described as fat. He was frankly pro-German.
“What we Turks need,” he remarked, “is German business initiative. We do not possess it yet. Look what Germany did for Roumania; she has reorganised her and set her on her feet. Roumania is now rich and prosperous, and full of enterprise. The Germans are with us only for the duration of the war,” he added, “and they will help Turkey to become a wealthy nation. See what they are doing for us in Anatolia. There we have 200 German non-commissioned officers teaching the people modern farming.”
I decided that Halil Bey was an optimist, and a very poor student of history. Also an equally bad judge of German character.
My object in seeking out Halil Bey, however, was not so much to obtain his own opinions, as to get an introduction to Enver Pasha. I pressed the Foreign Minister very hard.
“It is my desire,” I said, “to have a few words with the Napoleon of the Balkans.”
“That,” he replied, “is very difficult. Twenty or thirty Austrian and German journalists have been here, but the Minister of War has been so occupied that he has been unable to see any of them; but I will try,” he added, and taking up the telephone he called up the War Minister, and had some laughing conversation with him in Turkish, the nature of which I did not understand. So far as I was concerned, it was obviously satisfactory, and I was told to go to the War Office on the following morning, when Enver Pasha would grant me an audience.
The Turkish War Office stands on the top of a hill in the very heart of Stamboul, the native quarter of the city. It is a huge squat building surrounded by a railing some five yards high. The hill commands a magnificent view of Stamboul and the Sea of Marmora; but to a poor and over-tired journalist, unable to procure a carriage, who has for half-an-hour toiled laboriously up the hill to reach his goal, the glories of nature are somewhat discounted.
During my previous visit to Constantinople I had made the acquaintance of the War Office, then sadly dirty and neglected and typically Turkish in appearance. Now everything was so changed as to be scarcely recognisable. Inside and out it had been redecorated. It was obviously the intention of the Germans that, however neglected the other Turkish Government buildings might be, the War Office was to be a place that would impress itself upon the imagination.
Again I was struck by the number of German officers to be seen, albeit in Turkish uniforms for the most part. They were to be seen everywhere, and clearly the entire direction of affairs was in their hands.
On my arrival I was ushered into an anteroom, where I spent a few minutes in conversation with Enver’s German aide-de-camp.
As we sat chatting together I recalled an incident that occurred during my previous visit to the Turkish War Office in May, 1915. Through one of the windows I had noticed a huge mast belonging to the great wireless station of Osmanli.
“What do you think of it?” inquired a German lieutenant with whom I had been conversing. “With that wireless station we can communicate with Berlin.”
I doubted this at the time, but I have since discovered that the statement was quite correct. I inquired if it were the wireless from the Goeben, deliberately assuming innocence in order to stimulate the German to further disclosure.
“Oh, no,” was the reply, “ships do not carry masts of that size. This one came from Germany.”
“From Germany!” I exclaimed. “But surely Roumania would not allow to pass a wireless apparatus. That would be a violation of neutrality.”
The officer smiled, a German smile, a smile of superior knowledge. “Well,” he replied, “as a matter of fact it was not passed as a wireless apparatus, but I will explain to you the little device that we used to get it there. We had to think out some plan, as we badly needed a strong apparatus, so we got it here as a circus!”
I laughed outright, but my companion did not appear to see anything funny in the incident. It seemed to strike him as clever rather than humorous—he was a typical German. Humour does not exist where the needs of the Fatherland are concerned.
Presently an electric bell rang, summoning the aide-de-camp, who conducted me into the War Minister’s presence. My first impression of Enver Pasha was that he was on very good terms with himself. He is a small man, standing perhaps some five feet five inches, with coal-black eyes, black moustache, and generally rather handsome features. He is about thirty-five years of age, but looks younger, and has obviously taken great care of himself. On his face was a pleased, contented expression that never for one moment left it. I could not say whether this was habitual or whether it was assumed for my special benefit. He was well-dressed and well-groomed, with something of the dandy about him; low down on the left breast he wore the Iron Cross of the First Class. He spoke German perfectly, Halil speaks only French.
Enver smiled as he shook hands with me, not only at my fez, but at my card which was printed in Turkish characters. There was a merry twinkle in his eye, and he had an extremely easy manner. It is said that he models himself, not upon the Great War Lord but upon Napoleon, even to the extent of riding a white charger. The general impression in Constantinople was that he has no little conceit of himself. Never for one moment did he allow me to forget that he was graciously giving me some of his valuable time. His first act was to produce a big gold cigarette case, from which he invited me to take a cigarette, having first carefully selected one himself. He then leaned back comfortably in his arm-chair and awaited my questions.
To make him talk I asked whether it was true that Great Britain was prepared to make a separate peace with Turkey, and, if so, what would be the result of such overtures.
“It is too late,” he replied, smiling. “They may have had that design, and it might have succeeded; but we learn that the Entente”—or as he called them jocularly the mal-Entente—“Powers have designs to hand over Constantinople to Russia, and that compelled us to remain with the Central Powers.”
Referring to the Gallipoli campaign, he said: “If the English had only had the courage to rush more ships through the Dardanelles they would have got to Constantinople, but their delay enabled us thoroughly to fortify the Peninsula, and in six weeks’ time we had taken down there over two hundred Austrian Skoda guns.
“But,” he continued, “even had the British ships got to Constantinople it would not have availed them very much. Our plan was to retire our army to the surrounding hills and to Asia Minor and leave the city at their mercy. They would not have destroyed it, and the result would have been simply an impasse. With the Germans we can strike at the British Empire through the Suez Canal. Our motto is, ‘To Egypt!’”
I told him that in my country we found it extremely difficult to realise that Turkey was actually at war with England and France, seeing that but for the efforts of these two countries Turkey would long since have ceased to exist as a separate kingdom in Europe.
“That is quite correct (sie haben recht),” he replied without pausing to think. But in the same breath he murmured, “Whatever England did for Turkey was not dictated out of love, but rather from consideration for her own interests. England feared the competition of Russia in the Mediterranean.”
I was a little suspicious of Enver’s complacent attitude, but I believe he was sincere in what he said to me. I watched him very carefully when he told me that the sacrifice of a few more ships would have got the English to Constantinople, and I am convinced that this is his firm opinion. I could not help thinking of the pity of it all, and that 200,000 casualties might have been saved by a little more enterprise. I learned that this opinion was general in Constantinople, even in high diplomatic quarters.
At the end of ten minutes Enver rose and remarked: “You must excuse me now, I am busy.” He shook hands with me and abruptly left the room. I was a little surprised at this, but concluded that in his many responsibilities he had never had the leisure in which to study manners, and the courtesy due even to a journalist. Had I been English I could better have understood his attitude; for, some years ago, he visited England, where he did not receive the attention he expected. The result was that he returned to Constantinople strongly anti-British.
Enver’s view as to the possibility of Great Britain forcing the Dardanelles, had they shown a little more vigour and indifference to the loss of a few ships, I found echoed by the German officers whom I met both at the Pera Palace and the Continental Hotel, where I stayed on my return from Asia Minor, only in their case it was more vehemently expressed. The Turks have no real dislike for the English and none for the French, although all French words have been removed from the shop-signs in Constantinople.
German officers, however, were very free in expressing their loathing of the British, though full of admiration for the fighting capacity of their soldiers. On every hand I heard the remark that they wished they had British, Australian and Canadian Tommies to command. The general view expressed in Constantinople is to the effect that the united German-Turkish army will destroy the Suez Canal from one end to the other, if necessary, filling it up with its ancient sand and thus render it impassable.
“But if you do that,” I remarked to more than one of them, “the British will merely return to their old route to India via the Cape of Good Hope.”
Never once did they vouchsafe an answer to this. The German has an extraordinary capacity for seeing no further than his particular goal. He is a creature of cries “To Paris!” “To Calais!” “To Warsaw!” “To Egypt!”; and when he finds himself baulked he forgets his object, just as a child forgets a toy when something more interesting presents itself.
One and all, however, admitted that there was no chance of the Germans getting to Paris. Their contention was—and it must be remembered that many of them had been fighting in the West—that they had effectually walled off the English and French armies and rendered them to all intents and purposes impotent, thus enabling themselves together with their allies—Austrian, Turkish, Bulgarian, and Arabian—to operate freely on the Eastern front.
As I have said, my instructions were to find out what were the German plans in the East. With this object I mingled freely with as many Germans and Turks as possible. I lost no opportunity of entering into conversation with anyone who showed the least inclination to converse. Fortunately I speak French perfectly, and German almost as well. French enabled me to talk to the Turks, and my German permitted me to “get close,” as the Americans say, not only to the German soldiers, but to officers and civilians, who are stationed at, or are passing through, Constantinople on their way to Asia Minor.
It appears to be part of the German economic plan to turn Turkey into a great German dependency, and to force the Turk to cultivate the soil, which in some places is the richest in the world. The true humour of the situation will develop when the Turk discovers what he has let himself in for. As to the German military plans, they are, so far as I could gather, three in number. My own view is that they will attempt the whole three simultaneously, and then allow them to develop as fortune may decide. These plans are (1) the Baghdad-Persia-India plan; (2) the Caucasus plan, with which to tackle the Russians; (3) Egypt and the Suez Canal plan.
One afternoon a German said to me, “If the English and French only knew, the proper place to kill Germans is between Nieuport in Belgium and Mülhausen in Alsace; but owing to their inferior staff work, lack of munitions, fear of our guns, gas, mines, and machine-guns, they leave us comparatively quiet in the Western theatre, and enable us to menace the line of communication to India and the ridiculous Townshend Expedition, which will never get to Baghdad.”
There is among the German officers a general contempt for the English and French, particularly the English, staff work. At the Sachim Pasha Hotel in Stamboul I encountered a pleasant old Turk who spoke French extremely well. He was the Vali of Baghdad (a sort of Justice of the Peace, I believe), who had come to report to the Germans the condition of the English and Turkish forces. What he said was practically a repetition of what Enver had said to me a few days previously about Gallipoli: “We were very alarmed when we heard they were coming,” he remarked, “for our defences were in a bad condition, and we had nothing but a few old guns. Our spies, however told us that General Townshend’s force was a small one, and we therefore took courage and held the English in check until we could get our reinforcements; now, thanks to Allah, they will never reach our holy city, their relief force is too late.”
It is not for me to offer advice to the British Government. As I have said, I love the country just as I hate the Germans, but I wish the British Ministers could appreciate how often the term “too late,” in connection with the operations of the Allies, has cropped up during this journey of mine.
The German authorities in Constantinople were urged by the people at Baghdad to send every available man there, whereas the immediate wish of the Turks is to get to the Suez Canal and so regain their fair province of Egypt and the Nile. Turkish sentiment combined with German hatred of England may probably precipitate the immediate advance on the Canal. I have been told frequently since my return to England that this is impossible, that it is only “bluff.” I remember the same things being said when Enver Pasha announced, months ago, that the Germans were coming to relieve Constantinople. My own opinion—which, of course, may be worth nothing, but it is formed as the result of talking to scores of Turks and Germans in Constantinople and Asia Minor—is that unless there be great combined efforts in France by the British and French, and in the Caucasus by the Russians, the Germans and Turks may achieve one—at least one—of their three objects, possibly two, perhaps all three even. The determining factors are the pressure by the hated British Navy and greater activity in France, Belgium, and Russia.
At four o’clock every afternoon the German officers, who are constantly arriving from Berlin at the Pera Palace Hotel to receive their instructions, remove their military clothes and appear in mufti. Here again we have evidence of German subtlety. No man in the world loves his uniform as does the German officer, but, as one waggish Bavarian lieutenant said to me, “We must not give the Turks the impression that we are a flight of German locusts. We do not want the Galata Bridge to look like Unter den Linden all the time, so as soon as we have finished our duty we go about as civilians.” They are wise. Constantinople already looks quite German enough; that is, to Turkish eyes. There are German newspapers printed in the city, there are the crews of the Goeben and Breslau wearing the Turkish fez, and of the submarines, and swarms of miscellaneous Germans, all with their particular object in view. These facts in themselves are enough to cause misgiving in the heart of the most pronouncedly pro-German Turk. My own impression is that whatever may be the result of the war the Germans are getting such a hold on the Near East that it will be next to impossible to drive them out. Money is scarce in Germany, but the Germans seem to have plenty to spend in Turkey and Asia Minor.