When I attempted to approach the subject from another angle, this master diplomatist would begin discussing Rumania and the possibility of obtaining ammunition by way of that country.
“Your secretary, Bryan,” he said, “has just issued a statement showing that it would be unneutral for the United States to refuse to sell ammunition to the Allies, so we have used this same argument with the Rumanians; if it is unneutral not to sell ammunition, it is certainly unneutral to refuse to transport it!”
The humorous aspects of this argument appealed to Wangenheim, but I reminded him that I was there to discuss the lives of between 2,000 and 3,000 non-combatants. As I touched upon this subject again, Wangenheim replied that the United States would not be acceptable to Germany as a peacemaker now, because we were so friendly to the Entente. He insisted on giving me all the details of recent German successes in the Carpathians and the latest news on the Italian situation.
“We would rather fight Italy than have her for our ally,” he said.
At another time all this would have greatly entertained me, but not then. It was quite apparent that Wangenheim would not discuss the proposed deportation further than to say that the Turks were justified. His statement that it was planned to establish a “concentration camp” at Gallipoli unfolded his whole attitude. Up to this time the Turks had not established concentration camps for enemy aliens anywhere. I had earnestly advised them not to establish such camps, thus far with success. On the other hand, the Germans were protesting that Turkey was “too lenient,” and urging the establishment of such camps in the interior. Wangenheim’s use of the words “concentration camps in Gallipoli” showed that the German view was at last prevailing and that I was losing my battle for the foreigners.
An internment camp is a distressing place under the most favourable circumstances, but who, except a German or a Turk, ever conceived of establishing one right in the field of battle? Let us suppose that the English and the French should assemble all their enemy aliens, march them to the front, and place them in a camp in No Man’s Land, directly in the fire of both armies. That was precisely the kind of “concentration camp” which the Turks and Germans now intended to establish for the resident aliens of Constantinople—for my talk with Wangenheim left no doubt in my mind that the Germans were parties to the plot. They feared that the land attack on the Dardanelles would succeed, just as they had feared that the naval attack would succeed, and they were prepared to use any weapon, even the lives of several thousand non-combatants, in their efforts to make it a failure.
My talk with Wangenheim produced no results, so far as enlisting his support was concerned, but it stiffened my determination to defeat this enterprise. I now called upon Pallavicini, the Austrian Ambassador. He at once declared that the proposed deportation was “inhuman.”
“I will take up the matter with the Grand Vizier,” he said, “and see if I can stop it.”
“But you know that is perfectly useless,” I answered. “The Grand Vizier has no power—he is only a figurehead. Only one man can stop this; that is Enver.”
Pallavicini had far finer sensibilities and a tenderer conscience than Wangenheim, and I had no doubt that he was entirely sincere in his desire to prevent this crime. But he was a diplomat of the old Austrian school. Nothing in his eyes was so important as diplomatic etiquette. As the representative of his Emperor, propriety demanded that he should conduct all his negotiations with the Grand Vizier, who was also at that time Minister of Foreign Affairs. He never discussed State matters with Talaat and Enver—indeed, he had only limited official relations with these men, the real rulers of Turkey. And now the saving of 3,000 lives was not, in Pallavicini’s eyes, any reason why he should disregard the traditional routine of diplomatic intercourse.