As I listened to the public speeches of Lord Curzon I was haunted by all the fateful memories of the ruin I had seen in Angora. The doubt would come; does he really realise the supreme necessity to wipe out for ever that awful page of history, to establish peace, and to help, with all the tactful sympathy at his command, the new nation to stand on its own feet. Maybe we should even be comforted by hope, if our Government would only take us more fully into its confidence. The people of England are, after all, deeply concerned. They have faith, they would gladly be loyal; but why are they kept in the dark? When I am speaking with the Turkish delegates, I sometimes fancy I catch a look on their faces of “deep anguish” as we name Lord Curzon, and my heart sinks. How am I to convince them, certain as I am he is right, that he is not drifting towards the false “sentiment” that has been broadcasted to uphold the Greeks?
On the anniversary of the In-Eunus, I dined with Ismet Pasha. When he refused dates I told him that, “so long as he kept the ‘dates’ of his victories, he needed no others.” “I left Constantinople with nothing,” he answered. “I returned the head of the Army.” Turkey gives every man his chance.
So far as possible, I am dividing my time between British and Turks; and no one can say that either gives more time or “hard labour” to their responsibilities, than the other. It is not possible, certainly, for any visitor to interrupt Lord Curzon, he seems to be working all the time.
There is one figure we all watch carefully at the Conference. I once compared the face of M. Venizelos to an Apostle! Now he hovers round the British Delegation like a bird of ill-omen, for some inexplicable reason still mesmerising our diplomatists, carrying trouble wherever he goes. Djavid Bey laughs to remind me of how proud I had once been to pour out tea for them both!
One naturally feels great interest in Melle Stanciof, as the first woman diplomatist, and her personality repays study. Tall and thin, with the large eyes of the Oriental, she is very able, speaks English without an accent, and loves her work. I repeated to her the dogma that to be twenty-one is an essential qualification for a diplomat; but she is twenty-seven, and only laughed at the idea.
Sir Wm. Tyrell, Permanent Head of the British Foreign Office, with all his Irish charm and wit, is as clever as Machievelli. He delights in calling himself “Chief of the Underlings”; but men like Mr. Forbes Adam and Mr. Harold Nicholson were experienced diplomats when their Turkish colleagues were in their cradles; which, as Ismet Pasha sometimes complains, “gives them no chance for a fair fight.” But when I dined with them as his guests, there was no fighting; and our host, I felt, was very well qualified to promote friendly relations, by the cultured ease of his hospitality.
To my thinking, British “underlings” are very able men, and not pro-Russian as the Turks are disposed to fear. They were all anxious for peace, and quite sincerely eager to understand the nationalist point of view.