At bottom probably less ruthless than Enver and certainly cleverer, there is no doubt but that he would pursue his jingoistic ideas in the realm of race-politics, but at any rate he would not want any military system of frightfulness. Enver's removal from office will come within the range of near possibility as soon as the new British operations against Southern Palestine and Mesopotamia have produced a real victory. Turkey is not in a good enough military position to prevent this, and the whole world will soon recognise that it is this servant of Germany, this careless optimist and very mediocre strategist who is to blame for the inexorable breaking-up of the Ottoman Empire.
The contrast I have noted between Enver and Talaat provides the opportunity for saying a few words about Talaat, now Pasha and Grand Vizier, and by far the most important man of New Turkey. As Minister of the Interior, he has guided the whole fate of his country, except in purely military matters, as uncrowned king. It is he more than anyone else who is the originator of the whole system of home politics. Solidity of character, earnestness, freedom from careless optimism, and conspicuous power of judgment distinguish him most favourably from Enver, who possesses the opposite of all these qualities. A high degree of intelligence, an enormous knowledge of men, an exceptional gift of organisation and tireless energy combined with great personal authority, prudence and reserve, calm weighing of the actual possibilities—in a word, all the qualities of the real statesman—raise him head and shoulders above the whole of his colleagues and co-workers. It would be unjust to doubt his ardent patriotism or the honesty of his ideas and intentions. Talaat's character is so impressive that one often hears even Armenians, the victims of his own original policy of persecution, speak of him with respect, and I have even heard the opinion expressed that had it not been for Talaat's cleverness, the Committee would have gone much further with their mischievous policy.
But his high intellectual abilities do not prevent him from suffering from that same plague of narrow-minded, jingoistic illusion peculiar to the Pan-Turks. He is as if intoxicated with a race-fanaticism that stifles all nobler emotions. Talaat is too methodical and clever not to avoid all intentional ruthlessness, but in practice his system, which he follows out with inflexible logic to the bitter end, turns out to be just as brutal as Enver's intrinsically more brutal policy. And although he accommodates himself outwardly to modern European methods and knows how to utilise them, the ethics of his system are out-and-out Asiatic. When Talaat speaks in the "Committee," there is very rarely the slightest opposition. He has usually prepared and coached the "Committee" so well beforehand that he can to all appearance keep in the background and only follow the majority. With the exception of a few military affairs, everything has always taken place that he has proposed in Parliament.
Beside this man, whose sparkling eyes, massive shoulders, broad chest, clean-cut profile and exuberant health denote the whole unbounded energy of the dictator, the good-natured, degenerate, and epileptically inclined Sultan, Mehmed V, "El Ghazi" ("the hero"), is but a weak shadow. But if we fully recognise Talaat's high intellectual qualities, we should like all the more to emphasise that he must be held personally responsible more than all the others for everything that is now happening in Turkey, so far as it is not of a military character. The spirit reigning in Turkey to-day, the spirit of Pan-Turkish jingoism, is Talaat's spirit. The Armenian persecutions are his very own work. And when the day of reckoning comes for the Turkey of the "Committee of Union and Progress," it is to be hoped that Europe as judge and chastiser and avenger of an outraged civilisation, will lay the chief blame on Talaat Pasha rather than on his far weaker colleague Enver.
All his eminent qualities, however, do not prevent this intellectual leader of Turkey, the most important man, beside the Sultan, in the land, from showing signs of something that is typical of the whole "Committee" clique with their dictatorial power, and which we may perhaps be allowed to call parvenuishness. At all points we see the characteristics of the parvenu in this statesman and one-time adventurer and in these creatures of the "Committee" who have recently become wealthy by certain abuses—I would remind you only of the Requisitions—and by a lucrative adherence to the ruling clique. There are of course individual cases of distinguished men of good birth throwing in their lot with the "Committee," but they are extremely rare, and they only help to give an even worse impression of the average Young Turk belonging to the Government. Their past is usually extremely doubtful, and their careers have been somewhat varied.
No one of course would ever think of setting it down as a black mark against Talaat, for example, that he had to work his way up to his present supreme position from the very modest occupation of postman and postal coach conductor on the Adrianople road, via telegraph assistant and other branches of the Post Office; on the contrary, such intelligence and energy are worthy of the highest praise. But Talaat's case is a comparatively good one, and it is not so much their low social origin that is a drawback to these political leaders of Turkey, as their complete lack of education in statesmanship and history, which unfits them for the high rôle they are called upon to fill. Naturally it is not exactly pleasant when a man like Herr Paul Weitz, the correspondent of the Frankfurter Zeitung, and a political agent, can boast with a certain amount of justification that he has given tips of money to many of the present members of the "Committee"—in the real sense of the word, not in the political meaning of backshish! It is no wonder, then, that German influence won its way through so easily!
Even yet Talaat's lowly origin is a drawback to him socially, and, in spite of his jovial manner and his complete confidence in his own powers, he sometimes feels himself so unsure that he rather avoids social duties. Probably one of the reasons of his long delay in accepting the post of Grand Vizier—he was already definitely marked out for it in the summer of 1915—was his own inner consciousness that his whole past life unfitted him socially for the duties of such an office. That he has now decided to accept it, is only the logical sequence of the system of absolute Turkification, which, with its plan of muzzling and supplanting all non-Turkish elements, had of course to get rid of the Egyptian element in the Government, represented by Prince Halim Saïd, the late Grand Vizier, and his brother, the late Minister of Public Works.
There are far more outstanding cases of incompatibility between social upbringing and present activity among the "Committee." I will simply take the single example of the Director General of the Press, Hikmet Bey. Mischievous Pera still gives him the nick-name of "Sütdji" ("milkman"), because—although it is no reproach to him any more than in Talaat's case—he still kept his father's milk shop in the Rue Tepé Bashi in Pera before he managed to get himself launched on a political career by close adherence to the Committee. Sometimes, of course, one inherits from a low social origin far worse things than social inferiority. Perhaps Djemal Pasha's murderous instincts are to be traced to the fact that his grandfather was the official hangman in the service of Sultan Mahmud, and that his father still retained the nick-name of "hangman" among the people.
One only needs to cast a glance at the Young Turks who are the leaders of fashion in the "Club de Constantinople"—after the English and French members are absent—with German officers who have been admitted as temporary members at a reduced subscription, and one will find there, as in the more exclusive "Cercle d'Orient," and in the "Yachting Club" in Prinkipo in the summer-time, individuals belonging to the "Committee" whose lowly origin and bad manners are evident at the first glance. Talaat, who is himself President of the Club, knows exactly how to get his adherents elected as members without one of them being blackballed. People who used not to know what an International Club was, and who perhaps, in accordance with their former social status, got as far as the vestibule to speak to the Concierge, are now great "club men" and can afford, with the money they have amassed in "clique" trade and by the famous system of Requisitions, to play poker every evening for stakes of hundreds of Turkish pounds. One single kaleidoscopic glance into the perpetual whirl of any one of these clubs, which used to be places of friendly social intercourse for the best European circles, is quite sufficient to see the class of degenerate, greedy parvenus that rule poor, bleeding, helpless, exhausted Turkey. One cannot but be filled with a deep sympathy for this unfortunate land.
The Turks of decent birth are disgusted at these parvenus. I have had conversations with many an old Pasha and Senator, true representatives of the refined and kindly Old Turkish aristocracy, and heard many a word of stern disapproval of the "Committee" quite apart from their divergent political opinions. There is a whole distinguished Turkish world in Constantinople who completely boycott Enver and his consorts socially, although they have to put up with their caprices politically. "I don't know Enver at all," or "Je ne connais pas ces gens-là" ("I don't know these people"), are phrases that one very often hears repeated with infinite disdain. In all these cases it is the purely personal side—birth and manners—that repels them.