What I Saw in Berlin and Other European Capitals During Wartime

by Piermarini

November 3rd.

I have now been two days in Constantinople; I have compared the present condition of the Army, of the Navy, and of the different Services with their condition four years ago, when I came first to the Turkish capital. I have recalled to my mind what I saw at Tripoli, three years ago, when the Turks demonstrated their worth from a military point of view; and, finally, I have taken into consideration the lessons to be learned from their conduct in the Balkan War.

There is only one possible conclusion: there is a big change in everything; there is the evident mark of somebody who pulls the strings, and pulls them with a definite object, and with strong and delicate hands.

That somebody is Enver Pasha.

Till a few weeks ago the question: "Is Enver Pasha really a clever politician and a first-rate military man?" would have had one answer only—"Of course he is; he is the only great man of Turkey; as long as he lives Turkey will have some hope of resurrection."

This man, who has the celebrity and the ambition of a little Napoleon, is, at the bottom, nothing more than a child with a large dose of vanity. He worships publicity, he loves to see his photographs in the big foreign papers, to read the gossip about his private life, in which he used to pose as a blasé man of the world, surrounded by a full score of wonderful princesses wanting only to marry him. His vanity went as far as to make him proceed legally against a photographer who dared to publish a picture postcard showing Enver as he really is, short and stoutish.

As for his character, he is neither capable nor determined. He takes up everything with great enthusiasm, but never accomplishes his work. The only deed of his mighty career was the ruin of Abdul Hamid; Europe looked at him as at a novel Brutus, and Enver made at once a world-wide fame and a fairly large fortune.

From his gilded cage, the beautiful Villa Allatini, on the Bosphorus, in which he is kept prisoner, the former Sultan has written repeatedly to the man who has dethroned him and led his country to take the most foolish of steps, asking that neutrality should be observed as long as possible, and saying that only by keeping friends with the great Mediterranean Powers and Russia could the Sick Man of Europe obtain another lease of life.

Enver took no notice of the advice of the old Sovereign, who is certainly one of the most Machiavellian and tactful politicians of modern times. If anything, Enver tried to rush by personal action the Turkish intervention.

Here, in Constantinople, one imagines that he must have the gift of ubiquity. He is everywhere. He traced personally the route of a new railway line, which will connect directly the Arsenal with the main line; he fixed the place where the platforms for the new large guns from Germany were to be erected; he selected the houses which were to serve as temporary barracks, hospitals, and depôts; he was seen on one day at the two extreme points of the Dardanelles (a record considering the leisurely Turkish communication), arranging for special protective trenches to be constructed in defence of roads and railway lines exposed to the fire of the naval artilleries. And while doing all this material work he had all the diplomatic arrangements completely on his shoulders, and had to carry out, as though not pretending to do so, the orders from Berlin.