CHAPTER III
“THE PERSONAL REPRESENTATIVE OF THE KAISER”—WANGENHEIM OPPOSES THE SALE OF AMERICAN WARSHIPS TO GREECE
BUT even in March, 1914, the Germans had pretty well tightened their hold on Turkey. Liman von Sanders, who had arrived in December, had become the predominant influence in the Turkish army. At first Von Sanders’ appointment aroused no particular hostility, for German missions had been called in before to instruct the Turkish army, notably that of Von der Goltz, and an English naval mission, headed by Admiral Limpus, was even then in Turkey attempting the difficult task of reorganizing the Turkish navy. We soon discovered, however, that the Von Sanders military mission was something quite different from those which I have named. Even before Von Sanders’ arrival it had been announced that he was to take command of the first Turkish army corps, and that General Bronssart von Schnellendorf was to become Chief of Staff. The appointments signified nothing less than that the Kaiser had almost completed his plans to annex the Turkish army to his own. To show the power which Von Sanders’ appointment had given him, it is only necessary to say that the first army corps practically controlled Constantinople. These changes clearly showed to what an extent Enver Pasha had become a cog in the Prussian system. Naturally the representatives of the Entente Powers could not tolerate such a usurpation by Germany. The British, French, and Russian Ambassadors immediately called upon the Grand Vizier and protested with more warmth than politeness over Von Sanders’ elevation. The Turkish Cabinet hemmed and hawed in the usual way, protested that the change was not important, but finally it withdrew Von Sanders’ appointment as head of the first army corps, and made him Inspector General. However, this did not greatly improve the situation, for this post really gave Von Sanders greater power than the one which he had held before. Thus, by January, 1914, seven months before the Great War began, Germany held this position in the Turkish army: a German general was Chief of Staff; another was Inspector General; scores of German officers held commands of the first importance, and the Turkish politician who was even then an outspoken champion of Germany, Enver Pasha, was Minister of War.
After securing this diplomatic triumph Wangenheim was granted a vacation—he had certainly earned it—and Giers, the Russian Ambassador, went off on a vacation at the same time. Baroness Wangenheim explained to me—I was ignorant at this time of all these subtleties of diplomacy—precisely what these vacations signified. Wangenheim’s leave of absence, she said, meant that the German Foreign Office regarded the Von Sanders episode as closed—and closed with a German victory. Giers’s furlough, she explained, meant that Russia declined to accept this point of view and that, so far as Russia was concerned, the Von Sanders affair had not ended. I remember writing to my family that, in this mysterious Near-Eastern diplomacy, the nations talked to each other with acts, not words, and I instanced Baroness Wangenheim’s explanation of these diplomatic vacations as a case in point.
An incident which took place in my own house opened all our eyes to how seriously Von Sanders regarded this military mission. On February 18th, I gave my first diplomatic dinner; General Von Sanders and his two daughters attended, the General sitting next to my daughter Ruth. My daughter, however, did not have a very enjoyable time; this German field marshal, sitting there in his gorgeous uniform, his breast all sparkling with medals, hardly said a word throughout the whole meal. He ate his food silently and sulkily, all my daughter’s attempts to enter into conversation evoking only an occasional surly monosyllable. The behaviour of this great military leader was that of a spoiled child.
At the end of the dinner Von Mutius, the German chargé d’affaires, came up to me in a high state of excitement. It was some time before he could sufficiently control his agitation to deliver his message.
“You have made a terrible mistake, Mr. Ambassador,” he said.
“What is that?” I asked, naturally taken aback.
“You have greatly offended Field Marshal Von Sanders. You have placed him at the dinner lower in rank than the foreign ministers. He is the personal representative of the Kaiser and as such is entitled to equal rank with the ambassadors. He should have been placed ahead of the cabinet ministers and the foreign ministers.”
So I had affronted the Emperor himself! This, then, was the explanation of Von Sanders’ boorish behaviour. Fortunately, my position was an impregnable one. I had not arranged the seating precedence at this dinner; I had sent the list of my guests to the Marquis Pallavicini, the Austrian Ambassador and dean of the diplomatic corps, and the greatest authority in Constantinople on such delicate points as this. The Marquis had returned the list, marking in red ink against each name the order of precedence—1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc. I still possess this document as it came from the Austrian Embassy, and General Von Sanders’ name appears with the numerals “13” against it. I must admit, however, that “the 13th chair” did bring him pretty well to the foot of the table.
I explained the situation to Von Mutius and asked M. Panfili, conseiller of the Austrian Embassy, who was a guest at the dinner, to come up and make everything clear to the outraged German diplomat. As the Austrians and Germans were allies, it was quite apparent that the slight, if slight there had been, was unintentional. Panfili said that he had been puzzled over the question of Von Sanders’s position, and had submitted the question to the Marquis. The outcome was that the Austrian Ambassador had himself fixed Von Sanders’ rank at number 13. But the German Embassy did not let the matter rest there, for afterward Wangenheim called on Pallavicini, and discussed the matter with considerable liveliness.