During a visit I paid to Constantinople in January 1907 something occurred which impressed me forcibly with the conviction that the Hamidian régime, the desire of one man, however well-intentioned and industrious, to do single-handed all the directing work of an empire, was doomed to failure; and this in spite of the many evidences I had had, both in Europe and in Asia, of the personal popularity of the Sultan. It was the talk of Pera that the Chief of the Secret Police, Fehim Pasha, had been guilty of some extraordinary pranks; among them the instigation of sham conspiracies which he pretended to nip in the bud in order to give proof of his devotion to the Sultan. All attempts to draw the Sultan’s attention to this man’s misdeeds had apparently failed, owing, it was said, to His Majesty’s indulgence towards one who was the son of his own foster-brother. Emboldened by success, Fehim Pasha had extended his sphere of black-mailing operations to members of the European colony, while several murders were put to his account as having been their instigator. Still he managed to elude the arm of justice. At last he took upon himself to lay an embargo on a ship, either belonging to a German or in the cargo of which some German firm was interested. Here, however, he came into conflict with the German Ambassador, the late Baron Marschall von Bieberstein, who promptly took the part of his countrymen, saw that the embargo on the ship in question was removed, and, distrustful of the dilatoriness of the officials at the Sublime Porte, lodged a strongly worded complaint direct at the Palace. This ultimately resulted in Fehim Pasha being banished to Asia Minor, where he was subsequently assassinated by a mob in the street. This tragic development, however, only took place after I had left Constantinople.
The German Ambassador, who was always very friendly and frank with me, one day discussed the situation created by Fehim Pasha’s delinquencies. He convinced me that the man was a scoundrel, and that he himself had done no more than what he was perfectly entitled to do in endeavouring to bring one to book who was neither more nor less than a criminal miscreant, fully deserving to be given over to the public hangman.
I happened to call at the Palace next day, and went up as usual into the private room of Izzet Pasha, where, quite unexpectedly, I met my old friend Ahmed Midhat Effendi. It was one of the very few times I had ever known him to pay a visit to the Palace. Fehim Pasha’s crimes and the energetic measures of the German Ambassador formed the subject of conversation in the room. Izzet Pasha warmly expressed his indignation at an Ambassador presuming to interfere in what he considered to be a purely internal incident. “Qu’est ce qu’il s’imagine, ce Monsieur de Marschall?” Knowing what I did of the affair on such good authority, I was taken by surprise, the more so as Ahmed Midhat Effendi joined in upholding the innocence of the incriminated pasha. I could scarcely credit the culpable ignorance thus revealed to me by those to whom it should have been a first care not to lead their master astray on an issue of such vital importance. I said it was hopeless for the well-wishers of Turkey to attempt to say a good word for their Government as long as such things were possible; that the German Ambassador had had the training of a State Prosecutor, and certainly was not one to be misled by unreliable evidence, or to be moved from his point once he had decided upon it; and that English newspapers, which were not usually over-favourably disposed to German interests, had strongly supported the Ambassador in this particular matter. But it was all to no purpose. I failed to shake their belief in Fehim Pasha’s innocence. They even asserted that he was quite a good fellow. The most they would admit was that he had been somewhat hasty and headstrong owing to his youth, “un peu étourdi.” It is only fair to state, however, that those present did not show any ill-feeling at my being so plain-spoken; but this was only in accordance with what I have so often experienced in the Turkish character. Still I left the Palace with a pessimistic feeling.
Sirry Bey, who had been the chief of our expedition in Armenia, called on me at the Pera Palace Hotel one evening and said: “I come to you on behalf of His Majesty. He feels his dignity trespassed upon by the interference of the German Ambassador in this Fehim Pasha business, which he holds to be one of an internal nature not concerning a foreign Ambassador, and he would like to see you.” I mentioned to Sirry Bey what I had heard from the Ambassador, and told him that it seemed to me to be a black business, and he would do well to convey this opinion to the Sultan. In due course I received a message to come up to the Palace immediately as the Sultan wanted to see me.
On my arrival I was taken in to His Majesty, and he at once began to discuss the Fehim Pasha incident, and to complain of the conduct of the German Ambassador. As the editor of the Daily Mail had asked me to send him a report in case I should have an opportunity of interviewing the Sultan, I asked His Majesty whether he would wish me to give his version of the affair to that paper, at the same time repeating to him what I had heard about Fehim Pasha’s delinquencies. Whether the Sultan attached any importance to what I told the interpreter I am unable to say, but in reference to my suggestion he held up his hands in a deprecatory manner, and uttered the words, “Yok! yok!” (“No! no!”) twice in succession.
“It is nothing more than my plain duty to see justice done,” the Sultan said to me. And as if it were monstrous that a doubt could exist with regard to so self-evident a truism, he added: “Even if it were one of my own sons, I would see justice done.”
Of course, I respected his wishes, and did not refer at all to the German Ambassador in my interview with His Majesty, a report of which appeared in the Daily Mail of March 8, 1907. There would also have been no point in my doing so, as I was convinced of the hopelessness of the Sultan’s case, whatever might have been the uncompromising attitude the German Ambassador had taken up. Since such outrages were possible under the very eyes of the diplomatic representatives of the Great Powers in the capital in broad day, was it not within the range of probability that many crimes which had been imputed to the Sultan had indeed been committed, though without his knowledge? I left Constantinople with the conviction that nothing, not even the support of the German Empire, could long sustain a régime in which such things were allowed to happen.
The rivalry of the different European nationalities forms too important a feature in the eyes of the foreign visitor, at least those of a political turn, not to call for comment. Nowhere are Goethe’s words—written nearly a hundred years ago—more applicable than to this subject:
Und wer franzet oder brittet,
Italienert oder teutschet