After all, this proceeding did have great international importance. Von Sanders’s personal vanity had led him to betray a diplomatic secret; he was not merely a drill master who had been sent to instruct the Turkish Army; he was precisely what he had claimed to be—the personal representative of the Kaiser. The Kaiser had selected him just as he had selected Wangenheim, as an instrument for working his will in Turkey. Afterward von Sanders told me, with all that pride which German aristocrats manifest when speaking of their imperial master, how the Kaiser had talked to him a couple of hours the day he had appointed him to this Constantinople mission, and how, the day that he had started, Wilhelm had spent another hour giving him final instructions. I reported this dinner incident to my Government as indicating Germany’s growing ascendancy in Turkey, and I presume the other Ambassadors likewise reported it to their Governments. The American military attaché, Major John R. M. Taylor, who was present, attributed the utmost significance to it. A month after the occurrence he and Captain McCauley, commanding the Scorpion, the American stationaire at Constantinople, had lunch at Cairo with Lord Kitchener. The luncheon was a small one, only the Americans, Lord Kitchener, his sister, and an aide making up the party. Major Taylor related this incident, and Kitchener displayed much interest.
“What do you think it signifies?” asked Kitchener.
“I think it means,” Major Taylor said, “that when the big war comes, Turkey will probably be the ally of Germany. If she is not in direct alliance, at least I think that she will mobilise on the line of the Caucasus and thus divert three Russian army corps from the European theatre of operations.”
Kitchener thought for a moment and then said, “I agree with you.”
And now for several months we had before our eyes this spectacle of the Turkish Army actually under the control of Germany. German officers drilled the troops daily—all, I am now convinced, in preparation for the approaching war. Just what results had been accomplished appeared when, in July, there was a great military review. The occasion was a splendid and a gala affair. The Sultan attended in state; he sat under a beautifully decorated tent and held a little court, and the Khedive of Egypt, the Crown Prince of Turkey, the Princes of the imperial blood and the entire Cabinet were also on hand. We now saw that, in the preceding six months, the Turkish Army had been completely Prussianised. What in January had been an undisciplined, ragged rabble was now parading with the goose-step; the men were clad in German field-grey, and they even wore a casque-shaped head-covering, which slightly suggested the German pickelhaube. The German officers were immensely proud of the exhibition, and the transformation of the wretched Turkish soldiers of January into these neatly-dressed, smartly-stepping, splendidly manœuvring troops was really a creditable military achievement. When the Sultan invited me to his tent I naturally congratulated him upon the excellent showing of his men. He did not manifest much enthusiasm; he said that he regretted the possibility of war; he was at heart a pacifist. I noticed certain conspicuous absences from this great German fête, for the French, British, Russian, and Italian Ambassadors had kept away. Bompard said that he had received his ten tickets but that he did not regard that as an invitation. Wangenheim told me, with some satisfaction, that the other Ambassadors were jealous, and that they did not care to see the progress which the Turkish Army had made under German tutelage. I did not have the slightest doubt that these Ambassadors refused to attend because they had no desire to grace this German holiday; nor did I blame them.
Meanwhile I had other evidences that Germany was playing her part in Turkish politics. In June the relations between Greece and Turkey reached the breaking-point. The Treaty of London (May 30, 1913) had left Greece in possession of the islands of Chios and Mitylene. A reference to the map discloses the strategic importance of these islands. They stand there in the Ægean Sea like guardians controlling the Bay and the great port of Smyrna, and it is quite apparent that any strong military nation which permanently held these vantage points would ultimately control Smyrna and the whole Ægean coast of Asia Minor. The racial situation made the continued retention of these islands by Greece a constant military danger to Turkey. Their population was Greek and had been Greek since the days of Homer; the coast of Asia Minor itself was also Greek; more than half the population of Smyrna, Turkey’s greatest Mediterranean seaport, was Greek; in its industries, its commerce, and its culture the city was so predominantly Greek that the Turks usually referred to it as giaour Ismir—“infidel Smyrna.” Though this Greek population was nominally Ottoman in nationality, it did not conceal its affection for the Greek fatherland, these Asiatic Greeks even making contributions to the Greek Government. The Ægean islands and the mainland, in fact, constituted Graecia Irredenta, and that Greece was determined to redeem them, precisely as she had recently redeemed Crete, was no diplomatic secret. Should the Greeks ever land an army on this Asia Minor coast, there was little question that the native Greek population would welcome it enthusiastically and co-operate with it.
Since Germany, however, had her own plans for Asia Minor, naturally the Greeks in this region formed a barrier to Pan-German aspirations. As long as this region remained Greek it formed a natural obstacle to Germany’s road to the Persian Gulf, precisely as did Serbia. Anyone who has read even cursorily the literature of Pan-Germania is familiar with the peculiar German method which German publicists have advocated for dealing with populations that stand in Germany’s way. That is, by deportation. The violent shifting of whole peoples from one part of Europe to another, as though they were so many herds of cattle, has for years been part of the Kaiser’s plans for German expansion. This is the treatment which, since the war began, Germany has applied to Belgium, to Poland, to Serbia, and its most hideous manifestation, as I shall show, has been to Armenia. Acting under Germany’s prompting, Turkey now began to apply this principle of deportation to her Greek subjects in Asia Minor. Three years afterwards the German Admiral Usedom, who had been stationed in the Dardanelles during the bombardment, told me that it was the Germans “who urgently made the suggestion that the Greeks be moved from the sea-shore.” The German motive, Admiral Usedom said, was purely military. Whether Talaat and his associates realised that they were playing the German game I am not sure, but there is no doubt that the Germans were constantly instigating them in this congenial task.
The events that followed foreshadowed the policy adopted in the Armenian massacres. The Turkish officials pounced upon the Greeks, herded them in groups and marched them toward the ships. They gave them no time to settle their private affairs, and they took no pains to keep families together. The plan was to transport the Greeks to the wholly Greek islands in the Ægean. Naturally the Greeks rebelled against such treatment, and occasional massacres were the result, especially in Phocaea, where more than fifty people were murdered. The Turks demanded that all foreign establishments in Smyrna dismiss their Greek employés—and replace them with Moslems. Among other American concerns, the Singer Manufacturing Company received such instructions, and though I interceded and obtained sixty days’ delay, ultimately this American concern had to obey the mandate. An official boycott was established against all Christians, not only in Asia Minor, but in Constantinople, but this boycott did not discriminate against the Jews, who have always been more popular with the Turks than have the Christians. The officials particularly requested Jewish merchants to put signs over their doors indicating their nationality and trade—such signs as “Abraham the Jew, tailor,” “Isaac the Jew, shoemaker,” and the like. I looked upon this boycott as illustrating the topsy-turvy national organisation of Turkey, for here we had a nation engaging in a commercial boycott against its own subjects.
This procedure against the Greeks not improperly aroused my indignation. I did not have the slightest suspicion at that time that the Germans had instigated these deportations, but I looked upon them merely as an outburst of Turkish ferocity and chauvinism. By this time I knew Talaat well; I saw him nearly every day and he used to discuss practically every phase of international relations with me. I objected vigorously to his treatment of the Greeks; I told him that it would make the worst possible impression abroad and that it affected American interests. Talaat explained his national policy; these different blocs in the Turkish Empire, he said, had always conspired against Turkey; because of the hostility of these native populations, Turkey had lost province after province—Greece, Serbia, Rumania, Bulgaria, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Egypt, and Tripoli. In this way the Turkish Empire had dwindled almost to the vanishing point. If what was left of Turkey was to survive, added Talaat, he must get rid of these alien peoples. “Turkey for the Turks” was now Talaat’s controlling idea. Therefore he proposed to Turkify Smyrna and the adjoining islands. Already 40,000 Greeks had left, and he asked me again to urge on American business houses to employ only Turks. He said that the accounts of violence and murder had been greatly exaggerated, and suggested that a commission be sent to investigate. “They want a commission to whitewash Turkey,” Sir Louis Mallet, the British Ambassador, told me. True enough, when this commission did bring in its report, it exculpated Turkey.
The Greeks in Turkey had one great advantage over the Armenians, for there was such a thing as a Greek Government, which naturally had a protecting interest in them. The Turks