Unfortunately, subsequent events had put back Venizelos to the fore, and after numerous shifts of policy the Greeks had succeeded before our arrival in having the great powers present to Turkey the terms of the Treaty of Sèvres. Naturally, past, present and future politics were the subject of all conversations. Feeling was running high in Turkish circles. Every one was incensed both against the Allied powers and against the Turkish Government of the moment. The Grand Vezir, or Prime Minister, was being severely criticised and accused of trampling on the dignity of the nation by accepting the Treaty of Sèvres. The Nationalist movement had already started and while the Turks remained stoically calm in Constantinople for fear of reprisals by the Inter-Allied fleets upon the innocent population of the city, the tide of despair was rising in Anatolia. The Nationalist movement was as yet not thoroughly organized. But the set purpose of preventing the application of the terms of the treaty was already noticeable in the activities of the Turkish Nationalist bands who had sworn to die rather than to lose their independence. They have, since then, stuck most efficiently to their patriotic aim.
During those critical days following the publication of the terms of the Treaty of Sèvres, and during the first weeks of the conception of the Turkish Nationalist movement, many a time have we watched from Prinkipo the smoke of firearms indicating encounters between Turkish Nationalist bands and British Colonial troops, on the hills dominating the nearby shores of Anatolia. Once we witnessed a big forest fire engineered for the purpose of destroying the hiding-places where the Nationalist volunteers would take refuge after their successful raids against the armies of occupation. These Anatolian hills lie to this day, their once smilingly green slopes bare—a silent example of the work of destruction undertaken in the name of civilization by the western powers who champion the rights of certain small nations by destroying the properties of others. These Anatolian hills are at this day, desolate and sad—but a proud monument commemorating the unsuccessful attempt of the so-called civilized governments to pass a death sentence upon a small nation whose will to live independently could not be conquered either by fire or by blood. The prologue of the greatest crime perpetrated in history since the partition of Poland was thus gradually unfolding itself almost under our very eyes, while the Turkish circles of Prinkipo and Constantinople—prisoners in their own capital—had to watch, aloof. It was an edifying show of real Oriental restraint to see all these people stand stoically and without a murmur so that their brethren in Anatolia might have time to organize. In the face of the worst adversities and while their hearts were bleeding, they furnished to Anatolia the breathing-spell it required. To the cry of “chase the Turk out of Europe” shouted in their very face, the Turks of Constantinople were opposing a passive and dignified resistance. A friend of mine summarized one day most clearly the motive underlying their passive resistance. We were on the Prinkipo boat going to Constantinople—the boat which in the old days was full of Turkish dignitaries going to their offices. Now only a few Turkish business men were distinguishable in the crowd. A few foreign officers were lounging comfortably on benches “reserved for Inter-Allied officers”—large enough to accommodate twenty people—while crowds of men and women were standing all around for lack of place to sit. The boat was filled with noisy Levantines, Armenians and Greeks, eating dates and pistachio nuts, throwing the seeds and the shells on the deck, making of the floor a place not fit for animals, and rendering themselves generally obnoxious. My friend pointed to them and said: “These are the people who want to take Constantinople away from us in the name of civilization! But we have to overlook their impudence, we have to close our eyes on their misbehaviour, we have to stand and bear it all. What else can we do? If we weaken and join “en masse” the Nationalists in Anatolia, we would leave in Constantinople a majority of these people and the Western Powers would take advantage of this majority to detach the city completely from the rest of Turkey. If we can't control our patience, and rise against the foreigners and the usurpers in our own city, the Western Powers will interfere and their battleships will destroy our homes. But if we stand pat and ignore them they can not do us any harm. Our duty is to preserve our city for Turkey and we can only do it by remaining here and by opposing to those who plot against us a passive and silent resistance.”
In this atmosphere of suspense the last days of our stay in Prinkipo drew near. Our house in Stamboul would be ready now in about a month. I had promised my wife to take her to Erenkeuy and to the Bosphorus. My father wanted us to discharge our obligations towards the rest of the family and besides he was soon going back to town himself. The season of Prinkipo was at its end. Constantinople and its surrounding are at their best in the early fall, but Prinkipo gets too cold. The bathing season was finished, the yachting season was at its end. The hotels were closing. One by one the villas were shutting their hospitable doors. The summer colony was disbanding. Prinkipo was preparing for its annual winter sleep.
We packed our bags and went to visit my aunts.
III
ERENKEUY
SINCE our arrival at Constantinople my wife had been complaining that I had not shown her a “harem.” So she was very anxious to visit my aunts, in Erenkeuy, when I told her that it was there that she could see one, at least in the Turkish sense of the word. Harem in Turkish means nothing less, but nothing more, than the special house or the special section of a house reserved to the ladies of the family. In the old days when the ladies did not associate with men they used to live in the main house or in a part of the house, generally the best, where they had their own sitting-rooms, dining-rooms, boudoirs, etc., distinct from the sitting-room, dining-room or den of the men of the family. When I speak of “ladies" and “men” in the plural it is well to remember it was and still is the custom in Turkey for all the members of the same family to live together under the same roof. The Turkish family is a sort of a clan. So while there are always many ladies in a family, foreigners must not imagine that there are many “wives.” This is a true narrative of Turkey and the Turks as they really are, so I have to speak the truth even at the risk of shattering many legends. I am bound therefore not to fall in line with the traditions established by other writers who never fail to refer to a servant in a Turkish household as being a “slave,” and to the ladies of a Turkish family as being “wives.” The truth is that slavery was not generally practised in Turkey even before the Civil War in America, and the “wives” referred to by most of the foreign writers either exist only in their imagination or else are the sisters, sisters-in-law, daughters or cousins of the head of the family which foreign writers innocently or purposely represent as his wives. Of course there might be several wives in the same household—but not the wives of the same man. For instance, when we were visiting my father in Prinkipo, there were four “wives” living together: my father's, my uncle's, my cousin's and my own wife. Anyhow I warned my wife that she would see in Erenkeuy a “harem” in the Turkish sense of the word and not the kind of private cabaret which exists only in the fertile imagination of scenario writers, and in the ludicrous pages of sensational newspapers or dime novels.
Erenkeuy is a little village at about half an hour ride from Constantinople and on the Asiatic side. The shores of Anatolia are here covered with country estates uniting small villages all the way from Scutari to Maltepe—a distance of about fifteen miles and all except Cadikeuy and Moda are peopled with Turks. The Turks living here are mostly conservatives. They are not old fashioned and narrow but they have kept to the Turkish ways of living more accurately than the Turks living in other sections or suburbs of Constantinople. It really cannot be explained but there is here an indefinable something that makes you feel that you are in Turkey more than you do in any other suburb of Constantinople. Perhaps it is only due to the fact that you are on the hospitable soil of Anatolia.
Suburban trains running on the famous Bagdad railroad take you to Erenkeuy. I again had a jolt on these trains. In the old days the company belonged to the Germans and was run by the Germans. But it endeavoured not to arouse the susceptibility of the Turks by flaunting in their faces that it was a foreign company. All the employees on the train wore the fez, the national Turkish headgear, and the greatest majority of them were Turks. Now the Allies have replaced the Germans and have taken over the railroad as part of Germany's war indemnity towards them. The result is that their systematic campaign of humiliating the Turks has been practised even here. The new Allied administration employs mostly Greeks and Armenians—and all the employees of the company now wear caps. Really the difference between caps or fezzes is only one of form, but it has a psychological effect. For instance, even in my case, although I dislike the fez as a most unpracticable and unbecoming headgear, and although I have worn hats the greater part of my life I could not help resenting the change: it rubbed me the wrong way. It made me most vividly feel as if we were not the masters in our own homes—at least temporarily in Constantinople and its environs.