Enver never seemed to be able to loaf in the easy manner of most Orientals. His mental and physical vitality is more like that of an enthusiastic and healthy American. Every morning he rose early to go for a long walk, he read a great deal, took at least three lessons in some foreign language every week and was constantly writing articles for Turkish papers which he printed on a hand press in his own room, and he held almost daily conferences either with the Russians or the Mohammedans. He does not drink or smoke and is devoutly religious.
He likes any discussion which reveals another person’s deepest emotions. If he cannot rouse one any other way he does so by some antagonistic remark which often he does not mean at all. For example, he is extremely liberal in his opinions about women and does not think they should be excluded from political life. Nevertheless, he said to a young actress at tea one afternoon in my apartment, when they were talking about woman suffrage, that she would be better off in a harem. Being an ardent feminist, she rose and fairly shouted at him: “Enver Pasha, you may be a great man in the East, but just listen to me! I am one of the first actresses of my profession. In my world it is every bit as great and important for me to remain an actress as it is for you in your world to remain a warrior or a diplomat.”
Enver took his scolding in very good humor. Afterwards he told me that he had never liked this actress before. “Independence is a great thing in women. Our women lack it and many of them are just puppets on this account.”
He was always extremely interested in American ideas and American opinions. He said he could never understand why Americans were so sentimental about Armenians. “Do they imagine that Armenians never kill Turks? That is indeed irony.”
At the table he used to ask Mr. Vanderlip questions about his proposed Kamchatka concessions. Vanderlip, like many Californians, is rather violently anti-Japanese. His idea of having a naval base at Kamchatka amused Enver. He said Vanderlip was killing two birds with one stone, that he wished to manœuver the American Government into a war with Japan, prove himself a patriot, and at the same time protect his own interests and grow rich. “So that,” said Enver, “if it really came about—the next war would be for Vanderlip and should be known as ‘Vanderlip’s War.’”
When I asked, “Would you be sorry to see America and Japan at war?” he replied, “Not if England was involved. Anything which tends to draw England’s attention away from us or which weakens the great powers, naturally gives Turkey a better chance for reconstruction. You understand that I’m not saying I want to see another war; I am simply saying that if those nations interested in destroying Turkey are occupied elsewhere it relieves us of war burdens and gives us a chance to carry out our own destinies.”
He tried to get Mr. Vanderlip’s reaction on women by the same tactics he employed with the actress. One day he said, “I have three wives and I’m looking for another.” This was not true, but Mr. Vanderlip proved entirely gullible. “Good heavens,” he said, regarding Enver in shocked surprise, “we Anglo-Saxons consider one wife enough tyranny....”
“Naturally,” Enver conceded, suavely, “with one there must be tyranny but with three or four or a hundred.... Ah, you must agree that is quite a different matter.”
His sudden appearance in Moscow during the blackest days of the blockade as well as the blackest days for the Central Powers proves him an incomparable soldier-of-fortune. With two suits of clothes, a pair of boots, a good revolver and a young German mechanician whom he could trust, he started by aeroplane from Berlin to Moscow. The story of how they had to land because of engine trouble near Riga, of how he was captured and spent two months in the Riga jail just at the moment when the whole Allied world was calling loudest for his blood, will remain a story which will have scanty advertisement from those British Secret Service men who like so well to turn journalists and write their own brave autobiographies.
Enver sat in the Riga jail as plain “Mr. Altman” who could not speak anything but German. He was scrutinized by every Secret Service man in the vicinity and pronounced unanimously a Jewish German Communist of no importance. By appearing humble, inoffensive and pleasant, he soon worked his way into the confidence of the warden, was released and escaped to Moscow. He arrived just in time to rush off for the dramatic Baku conference.