The meeting which followed between Enver and myself was the most momentous I had had up to that time. We discussed the fate of the foreigners for nearly an hour. I found Enver in one of his most polite but most unyielding moods. He told me before I began that it was useless to talk—that the matter was a closed issue. But I insisted on telling him what a splendid impression Turkey’s treatment of her enemies had made on the outside world. “Your record in this matter is better than that of any other belligerent country,” I said. “You have not put them into concentration camps, you have let them stay here and continue their ordinary business, just as before. You have done this in spite of strong pressure to act otherwise. Why do you destroy all the good effect this has produced by now making such a fatal mistake as you propose?”
But Enver insisted that the Allied fleets were bombarding unfortified towns, killing women, children, and wounded men.
“We have warned them through you that they must not do this,” he said, “but they don’t stop.”
This statement, of course, was not true, but I could not persuade Enver that he was wrong. He expressed great appreciation for all that I had done, and regretted for my sake that he could not accept my advice. I told him that the foreigners had suggested that I threaten to give up the care of British and French interests.
“Nothing would suit us better,” he quickly replied. “The only difficulty we have with you is when you come around and bother us with English and French affairs.”
I asked him if I had ever given him any advice that had led them into trouble. He graciously replied that they had never yet made a mistake by following my suggestions.
“Very well, take my advice in this case, too,” I replied. “You will find later that you have made no mistake by doing so. I tell you that it is my positive opinion that your cabinet is committing a terrible error by taking this step.”
“But I have given orders to this effect,” Enver answered. “I cannot countermand them. If I did, my whole influence with the army would go. Once having given an order I never change it. My own wife asked me to have her servants exempted from military service and I refused. The Grand Vizier asked exemption for his secretary, and I refused him, because I had given orders. I never revoke orders and I shall not do it in this case. If you can show me some way in which this order can be carried out and your protégés still saved, I shall be glad to listen.”
I had already discovered one of the most conspicuous traits in the Turkish character: its tendency to compromise and to bargain. Enver’s request for a suggestion now gave me an opportunity to play on this characteristic.
“All right,” I said. “I think I can. I should think you could still carry out your orders without sending all the French and English residents down. If you would send only a few, you would still win your point. You could still maintain discipline in the army, and these few would be as strong a deterrent to the Allied fleet as sending all.”