This demonstration comprised the “Holy War,” so far as Constantinople understood it. Such was the inglorious end of Germany’s attempt to arouse 300,000,000 Mohammedans against the Christian world! Only one definite result did the Kaiser accomplish by spreading this inciting literature. It aroused in the Mohammedan soul all that intense animosity toward the Christian which is the fundamental fact in his strange emotional nature, and thus started passions aflame that afterward spent themselves in the massacres of the Armenians and other subject peoples.
CHAPTER XV
DJEMAL, A TROUBLESOME MARK ANTONY—THE FIRST GERMAN ATTEMPT TO GET A GERMAN PEACE
IN early November, 1914, the railroad station at Haidar Pasha was the scene of a great demonstration. Djemal, the Minister of Marine, one of the three men who were then most powerful in the Turkish Empire, was leaving to take command of the Fourth Turkish Army, which had its headquarters in Syria. All the members of the Cabinet and other influential people in Constantinople assembled to give this departing satrap an enthusiastic farewell. They hailed him as the “Saviour of Egypt,” and Djemal himself, just before his train started, made this public declaration:
“I shall not return to Constantinople until I have conquered Egypt!”
The whole performance seemed to me to be somewhat bombastic. Inevitably it called to mind the third member of another bloody triumvirate who, nearly two thousand years before, had left his native land to become the supreme dictator of the East. And Djemal had many characteristics in common with Mark Antony. Like his Roman predecessor, his private life was profligate; like Antony, he was an insatiate gambler, spending much of his leisure over the card table at the Cercle d’Orient. Another trait which he had in common with the great Roman orator was his enormous vanity. The Turkish world seemed to be disintegrating in Djemal’s time, just as the Roman Republic was dissolving in the days of Antony; Djemal believed that he might himself become the heir of one or more of its provinces and possibly establish a dynasty. He expected that the military expedition on which he was now starting would make him not only the conqueror of Turkey’s fairest province, but also one of the powerful figures of the world. Afterward, in Syria, he ruled as independently as a medieval robber baron—whom in other details he resembled; he became a kind of sub-sultan, holding his own court, having his own selamlik, issuing his own orders, dispensing freely his own kind of justice, and often disregarding the authorities at Constantinople.
The applause with which Djemal’s associates were speeding his departure was not entirely disinterested. The fact was that most of them were exceedingly glad to see him go. He had been a thorn in the side of Talaat and Enver for some time, and they were perfectly content that he should exercise his imperious and stubborn nature against the Syrians, Armenians, and other non-Moslem elements in the Mediterranean provinces. Djemal was not a popular man in Constantinople. The other members of the triumvirate, in addition to their less desirable qualities, had certain attractive traits—Talaat, his rough virility and spontaneous good nature, Enver, his courage and personal graciousness—but there was little about Djemal that was pleasing. An American physician who had specialized in the study of physiognomy had found Djemal a fascinating subject. He told me that he had never seen a face that so combined ferocity with great power and penetration. Enver, as his history showed, could be cruel and bloodthirsty, but he hid his more insidious qualities under a face that was bland, unruffled, and even agreeable. Djemal, however, did not disguise his tendencies, for his face clearly pictured the inner soul. His eyes were black and piercing; their sharpness, the rapidity and keenness with which they darted from one object to another, taking in apparently everything with a few lightning-like glances, signalized cunning, remorselessness, and selfishness to an extreme degree. Even his laugh, which disclosed all his white teeth, was unpleasant and animal-like. His black hair and black beard, contrasting with his pale face, only heightened this impression. At first Djemal’s figure seemed somewhat insignificant—he was undersized, almost stumpy, and somewhat stoop-shouldered; as soon as he began to move, however, it was evident that his body was full of energy. Whenever he shook your hand, gripping you with a vise-like grasp and looking at you with those roving, penetrating eyes, the man’s personal force became impressive.
Yet, after a momentary meeting, I was not surprised to hear that Djemal was a man with whom assassination and judicial murder were all part of the day’s work. Like all the Young Turks his origin had been extremely humble. He had joined the Committee of Union and Progress in the early days, and his personal power, as well as his relentlessness, had rapidly made him one of the leaders. After the murder of Nazim, Djemal had become Military Governor of Constantinople, his chief duty in this post being to remove from the scene the opponents of the ruling powers. This congenial task he performed with great skill, and the reign of terror that resulted was largely Djemal’s handiwork. Subsequently Djemal became a member of the Cabinet, but he could not work harmoniously with his associates; he was always a troublesome partner. In the days preceding the break with the Entente he was popularly regarded as a Francophile. Whatever feeling Djemal may have entertained toward the Entente, he made little attempt to conceal his detestation of the Germans. It is said that he would swear at them in their presence—in Turkish, of course; and he was one of the few important Turkish officials who never came under their influence. The fact was that Djemal represented that tendency which was rapidly gaining the ascendancy in Turkish policy—Pan-Turkism. He despised the subject peoples of the Ottoman country—Arabs, Greeks, Armenians, Circassians, Jews; it was his determination to Turkify the whole empire. His personal ambition brought him into frequent conflict with Enver and Talaat, who told me many times that they could not control him. It was for this reason that, as I have said, they were glad to see him go—not that they really expected him to capture the Suez Canal and drive the English out of Egypt. Incidentally, this appointment fairly indicated the incongruous organization that then existed in Turkey. As Minister of Marine, Djemal’s real place was at the Navy Department; instead of working in his official field the head of the navy was sent to lead an army over the burning sands of Syria and Sinai.
Yet Djemal’s expedition represented Turkey’s most spectacular attempt to assert its military power against the Allies. As Djemal moved out of the station, the whole Turkish populace felt that an historic moment had arrived. Turkey in less than a century had lost the greater part of her dominions, and nothing had more pained the national pride than the English occupation of Egypt. All during this occupation, Turkish suzerainty had been recognized; as soon as Turkey declared war on Great Britain, however, the British had ended this fiction and had formally taken over this great province. Djemal’s expedition was Turkey’s reply to this act of England. The real purpose of the war, the Turkish people had been told, was to restore the vanishing empire of the Osmans, and to this great undertaking the recovery of Egypt was merely the first step. The Turks also knew that, under English administration, Egypt had become a prosperous country and that it would, therefore, yield great treasure to the conqueror. It is no wonder that the huzzahs of the Turkish people followed the departing Djemal.
About the same time Enver left to take command of Turkey’s other great military enterprise—the attack on Russia through the Caucasus. Here also were Turkish provinces to be “redeemed.” After the war of 1878, Turkey had been compelled to cede to Russia certain rich territories between the Caspian and the Black seas, inhabited chiefly by Armenians, and it was this country which Enver now proposed to reconquer. But Enver had no ovation on his leaving. He went away quietly and unobserved. With the departure of these two men the war was now fairly on.
Despite these martial enterprises, other than warlike preparations were now under way in Constantinople. At that time—in the latter part of 1914—its external characteristics suggested nothing but war, yet now it suddenly became the great headquarters of peace. The English fleet was constantly threatening the Dardanelles and every day Turkish troops were passing through the streets. Yet these activities did not chiefly engage the attention of the German Embassy. Wangenheim was thinking of one thing and of one thing only; this fire-eating German had suddenly become a man of peace. For he now learned that the greatest service which a German ambassador could render his emperor would be to end the war on terms that would save Germany from exhaustion and even from ruin; to obtain a settlement that would reinstate his fatherland in the society of nations.