Von Sanders also spoke on this subject.
“Your father is making a great mistake,” he said, “giving out the facts about what the Turks are doing to the Armenians. That really is not his business.”
As hints of this kind made no impression on me, the Germans evidently decided to resort to threats. In the early autumn a Dr. Nossig arrived in Constantinople from Berlin. Dr. Nossig was a German Jew, and came to Turkey evidently to work against the Zionists. After he had talked with me for a few minutes describing his Jewish activities, I soon discovered that he was a German political agent. He came to see me twice; the first time his talk was somewhat rambling, the purpose of the call apparently being to make my acquaintance and insinuate himself into my good graces. The second time, after discoursing vaguely on several topics, he came directly to the point. He drew his chair closely up to me and began to talk in the most friendly and confidential manner.
“Mr. Ambassador,” he said, “we are both Jews, and I want to speak to you as one Jew to another. I hope you will not be offended if I presume upon this to give you a little advice. You are very active in the interests of the Armenians, and I do not think you realise how very unpopular you are becoming for this reason with the authorities here. In fact, I think that I ought to tell you that the Turkish Government is contemplating asking for your recall. Your protests will be useless. The Germans will not interfere on behalf of the Armenians, and you are just spoiling your opportunities of usefulness and running the risk that your career will end ignominiously.”
“Are you giving me this advice,” I asked, “because you have a real interest in my personal welfare?”
“Certainly,” he answered, “all of us Jews are proud of what you have done and would hate to see it end disastrously.”
“Then you go back to the German Embassy,” I said, “and tell Wangenheim that I said, to go ahead and have me recalled. If I am to suffer martyrdom, I can think of no better cause in which to be sacrificed. In fact, I would welcome it, for I can think of no greater honour than to be recalled because I, a Jew, had been exerting all my powers to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of Christians.”
Dr. Nossig hurriedly left my office and I have never seen him since. When I next met Enver I told him that there were rumours that the Ottoman Government was about to ask for my recall. He was very emphatic in denouncing the whole story as a falsehood. “We would not be guilty of making such a ridiculous mistake,” he said. So there was not the slightest doubt that this attempt to intimidate me had been hatched at the German Embassy.
Wangenheim returned to Constantinople in early October. I was shocked at the change that had taken place in the man. As I wrote in my diary, “he looked the perfect picture of Wotan.” His face was almost constantly twitching, he wore a black cover over his right eye, and he seemed unusually nervous and depressed. He told me that he had obtained little rest, but had been obliged to spend most of his time in Berlin attending to business. A few days after his return I met him on my way to Haskeuy; he said that he was going to the American Embassy, and together we walked there. I had been recently told by Talaat that he intended to deport all the Armenians who were left in Turkey, and this statement had induced me to make a final plea to the one man in Constantinople who had the power to end the horrors. I took Wangenheim up to the second floor of the Embassy, where we could be entirely alone and uninterrupted, and there, for more than an hour, sitting together over the tea-table, we had our last conversation on this subject.
“Berlin telegraphs me,” he said, “that your Secretary of State tells them that you say that more Armenians than ever have been massacred since Bulgaria has come in on our side.”