Such was the German state philosophy as applied to the Armenians, and I had the opportunity of observing German practice as well. As soon as the early reports reached Constantinople, it occurred to me that the most feasible way of stopping the outrages would be for the diplomatic representatives of all countries to make a joint appeal to the Ottoman Government. I approached Wangenheim on this subject in the latter part of March. His antipathy to the Armenians became immediately apparent. He began denouncing them in unmeasured terms; like Talaat and Enver, he affected to regard the Van episode as an unprovoked rebellion, and, in his eyes, as in theirs, the Armenians were simply traitorous vermin.
“I will help the Zionists,” he said, thinking that this remark would be personally pleasing to me, “but I shall do nothing whatever for the Armenians.”
Wangenheim pretended to regard the Armenian question as a matter that chiefly affected the United States. My constant intercession in their behalf apparently created the impression, in his Germanic mind, that any mercy shown this people would be a concession to the American Government. And at that moment he was not disposed to do anything that would please the American people.
“The United States is apparently the only country that takes much interest in the Armenians,” he said. “Your missionaries are their friends and your people have constituted themselves their guardians. The whole question of helping them is therefore an American matter. How, then, can you expect me to do anything as long as the United States is selling ammunition to the enemies of Germany? Mr. Bryan has just published his note, saying that it would be unneutral not to sell munitions to England and France. As long as your government maintains that attitude we can do nothing for the Armenians.”
Probably no one except a German logician would ever have detected any relation between our sale of war materials to the Allies and Turkey’s attacks upon hundreds of thousands of Armenian women and children. But that was about as much progress as I made with Wangenheim at that time. I spoke to him frequently, but he invariably offset my pleas for mercy to the Armenians by references to the use of American shells at the Dardanelles. A coolness sprang up between us soon afterward, the result of my refusal to give him “credit” for having stopped the deportation of French and British civilians to the Gallipoli peninsula. After our somewhat tart conversation over the telephone, when he had asked me to telegraph Washington that he had not hetzed the Turks in this matter, our visits to each other ceased for several weeks.
There were certain influential Germans in Constantinople who did not accept Wangenheim’s point of view. I have already referred to Paul Weitz, for thirty years the correspondent of the Frankfurter Zeitung, who probably knew more about affairs in the Near East than any other German. Although Wangenheim constantly looked to Weitz for information, he did not always take his advice. Weitz did not accept the orthodox imperial attitude toward Armenia, for he believed that Germany’s refusal effectively to intervene was doing his fatherland everlasting injury. Weitz was constantly presenting this view to Wangenheim, but he made little progress. Weitz told me about this himself, in January, 1916, a few weeks before I left Turkey. I quote his own words on this subject:
“I remember that you told me at the beginning,” said Weitz, “what a mistake Germany was making in the Armenian matters. I agreed with you perfectly. But when I urged this view upon Wangenheim, he threw me twice out of the room!”
Another German who was opposed to the atrocities was Neurath, the Conseiller of the German Embassy. His indignation reached such a point that his language to Talaat and Enver became almost undiplomatic. He told me, however, that he had failed to influence them.
“They are immovable and are determined to pursue their present course,” Neurath said.
Of course no Germans could make much impression on the Turkish Government as long as the German Ambassador refused to interfere. And, as time went on, it became more and more evident that Wangenheim had no desire to stop the deportations. He apparently wished, however, to reëstablish friendly relations with me, and soon sent third parties to ask why I never came to see him. I do not know how long this estrangement would have lasted had not a great personal affliction befallen him. In June, Lieutenant Colonel Leipzig, the German Military Attaché, died under the most tragic and mysterious circumstances in the railroad station at Lule Bourgas. He was killed by a revolver shot; one story said that the weapon had been accidentally discharged, another that the Colonel had committed suicide, still another that the Turks had assassinated him, mistaking him for Liman von Sanders. Leipzig was one of Wangenheim’s intimate friends; as young men they had been officers in the same regiment, and at Constantinople they were almost inseparable. I immediately called on the Ambassador to express my condolences. I found him very dejected and careworn. He told me that he had heart trouble, that he was almost exhausted, and that he had applied for a few weeks’ leave of absence. I knew that it was not only his comrade’s death that was preying upon Wangenheim’s mind. German missionaries were flooding Germany with reports about the Armenians and calling upon the Government to stop the massacres. Yet, overburdened and nervous as Wangenheim was this day, he gave many signs that he was still the same unyielding German militarist. A few days afterward, when he returned my visit, he asked: