[37] Baron Beyens, Belgian minister in Berlin, to M. Davignon, Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs, No. 111 of the Belgian documents, translated in Morel’s Diplomacy Revealed, p. 283. The quotation from von Jagow is from The Disclosures from Germany, p. 251.
[38] Regarding the German military mission to Turkey cf. Djemal Pasha, op. cit., pp. 65–70, 101–102; Liman von Sanders, Fünf Jahre Türkei (Berlin, 1919); Field Marshal von der Goltz, Die Militärische Lage der Türkei nach dem Balkankriege (Berlin, 1913); The Disclosures from Germany, pp. 57 et seq.
[39] Djemal Pasha, op. cit., p. 108.
[40] Ibid., pp. 107–115. Regarding other aspects of German military and diplomatic successes in Turkey during 1914, cf. Anatolia, pp. 44–45; Henry Morgenthau, Ambassador Morgenthau’s Story (New York, 1918); Karl Helfferich, Die deutsche Türkenpolitik, pp. 28 et seq., and Die Vorgeschichte des Weltkrieges, passim; André Chéradame, The Pan German Plot Unmasked (New York, 1917)—all representing widely divergent points of view.
CHAPTER XI
TURKEY, CRUSHED TO EARTH, RISES AGAIN
Nationalism and Militarism Triumph at Constantinople
The outbreak of the Great War precipitated a serious political crisis at Constantinople. Decisions of the utmost moment to the future of the Ottoman Empire had to be taken. Chief among these was the choice between neutrality and entry into the war in coöperation with the Central Powers. Pacifists and Entente sympathizers, of whom Djavid Bey was perhaps the foremost, counseled non-intervention in the struggle. Militarists and Germanophiles, headed by Enver Pasha, the distinguished Minister of War, advocated early and complete observance of the alliance with Germany, which called for active military measures against the Entente. In support of the pacifists were the great mass of the people, overburdened with taxes, worn out with military service, and weary of the sacrifices occasioned by the Tripolitan and Balkan Wars. In support of the militarists were German economic power, German military prestige, and the powerful emotion of Turkish nationalism.
The case of the pacifists, like that of their opponents, was based frankly upon national self-interest. A great European war seemed to them to offer an unprecedented opportunity for setting Ottoman affairs in order without the perennial menace of foreign interference. Ottoman neutrality would be solicited by some of the belligerents, Ottoman intervention by others; during the war, however, no nation could afford to bully Turkey. By clever diplomatic bargaining economic and political privileges of the greatest importance might be obtained—the Capitulations, for example, might be abolished. Neutral Turkey might grow prosperous by a thriving commerce with the belligerents. After the peace both victor and vanquished would be too exhausted to think of aggression against a revivified Ottoman Empire. To remain neutral was to assure peace, security, and prosperity. To intervene was to invite defeat and dismemberment.
Militarists, however, appraised the situation differently. National honor demanded that Turkey go to the assistance of her allies. But, more than that, national security demanded the decisive defeat of the Entente Powers. As contrasted with the firm friendship of Germany for Turkey, it was pointed out, there was the traditional policy of Russia to dismember the Ottoman Empire and of France and Great Britain to infringe upon Ottoman sovereignty whenever opportunity presented itself. A victorious Russia would certainly appropriate Constantinople, and as “compensations” France would take Syria and England Mesopotamia. By closing the Dardanelles and declaring war, Turkey could deal Russian economic and military power a blow from which the empire of the Tsars might never recover. By associating herself with the seemingly irresistible military forces of Germany, Turkey might once and for all eliminate Russia—the feared and hated enemy of both Turks and Germans—from Near Eastern affairs. In addition, British security in Egypt might be shaken, and the French colonial empire in North Africa might be menaced by a Pan-Islamic revival. In these circumstances the war might be for Turkey a war of liberation, from which only the craven-hearted would shrink.