AMBASSADOR MORGENTHAU'S STORY
CHAPTER XIX
A FIGHT FOR THREE THOUSAND CIVILIANS
On the second of May, 1915, Enver sent his aide to the American Embassy,
bringing a message which he requested me to transmit to the French and British
governments. About a week before this visit the Allies had landed on the
Gallipoli peninsula. They had evidently concluded that a naval attack by itself
could not destroy the defenses and open the road to Constantinople, and they had
now adopted the alternative plan of despatching large bodies of troops, to be
supported by the guns of their warships. Already many thousands of Australians
and New Zealanders had entrenched themselves at the tip of the peninsula, and
the excitement that prevailed in Constantinople was almost as great as that
which had been caused by the appearance of the fleet two months before.
Enver now informed me that the Allied ships were bombarding in reckless fashion,
and ignoring the well-established international rule that such bombardments
should be directed only against fortified places; British and French shells, he
said, were falling everywhere, destroying unprotected Moslem villages and
killing hundreds of innocent non-combatants. Enver asked me to inform the Allied
governments that such activities must immediately cease. He had decided to
collect all the British and French citizens who were then living in
Constantinople, take them down to the Gallipoli peninsula and scatter them in
Moslem villages and towns. The Allied fleets would then be throwing their
projectiles not only against peaceful and unprotected Moslems, but against their
own countrymen. It was Enver's idea that this threat, communicated by the
American Ambassador to the British and French governments, would soon put an end
to "atrocities" of this kind. I was given a few days' respite to get the
information to London and Paris.
At that time about 3,000 British and French citizens were living in
Constantinople. The great majority belonged to the class known as Levantines;
nearly all had been born in Turkey and in many cases their families had been
domiciled in that country for two or more generations. The retention of their
European citizenship is almost their only contact with the nation from which
they have sprung. Not uncommonly we meet in the larger cities of Turkey men and
women who are English by race and nationality, but who speak no English, French
being the usual language of the Levantine. The great majority have never set
foot in England, or any other European country; they have only one home, and
that is Turkey. The fact that the Levantine usually retains citizenship in the
nation of his origin was now apparently making him a fitting object for Turkish
vengeance. Besides these Levantines, a large number of English and French were
then living in Constantinople, as teachers in the schools, as missionaries, and
as important business men and merchants. The Ottoman Government now proposed to
assemble all these residents, both those who were immediately and those who were
remotely connected with Great Britain and France, and to place them in exposed
positions on the Gallipoli peninsula as targets for the Allied fleet.
Naturally my first question when I received this startling information was
whether the warships were really bombarding defenseless towns. If they were
murdering non-combatant men, women, and children in this reckless fashion, such
an act of reprisal as Enver now proposed would probably have had some
justification. It seemed to me incredible, however, that the English and French
could commit such barbarities. I had already received many complaints of this
kind from Turkish officials which, on investigation, had turned out to be
untrue. Only a little while before Dr. Meyer, the first assistant to Suleyman
Nouman, the Chief of the Medical Staff, had notified me that the British fleet
had bombarded a Turkish hospital and killed 1,000 invalids. When I looked into
the matter., I found that the building had been but slightly damaged, and only
one man killed. I now naturally suspected that this latest tale of Allied
barbarity rested on a similarly flimsy foundation. I soon discovered, indeed,
that this was the case. The Allied fleet was not bombarding Moslem villages at
all. A number of British warships had been stationed in the Gulf of Saros, an
indentation of the Aegean Sea, on the western side of the peninsula, and from
this vantage point they were throwing shells into the city of Gallipoli. All the
"bombarding" of towns in which they were now engaging was limited to this one
city. In doing this the British navy was not violating the rules of civilized
warfare, for Gallipoli had long since been evacuated of its civilian population,
and the Turks had established military headquarters in several of the houses,
which had properly become the object of the Allied attack. I certainly knew of
no rule of warfare which prohibited an attack upon a military headquarters. As
to the stories of murdered civilians, men, women, and children, these proved to
be gross exaggerations; as almost the entire civilian population had long since
left, any casualties resulting from the bombardment must have been confined to
the armed forces of the empire.
I now discussed the situation for some time with Mr. Ernest Weyl, who was
generally recognized as the leading French citizen in Constantinople, and with
Mr. Hoffman Philip, the Conseiller of the Embassy, and then decided that I would
go immediately to the Sublime Porte and protest to Enver.
The Council of Ministers was sitting at the time, but Enver came out. His manner
was more demonstrative than usual. As he described the attack of the British
fleet, he became extremely angry; it was not the imperturbable Enver with whom I
had become so familiar. "These cowardly English! " he exclaimed." They tried for
a long time to get through the Dardanelles, and we were too much for them! And
see what kind of a revenge they are taking. Their ships sneak up into the outer
bay, where our guns cannot reach them, and shoot over the hills at our little
villages, killing harmless old men, women, and children, and bombarding our
hospitals. Do you think we are going to let them do that? And what can we do?
Our guns don't reach over the hills, so that we cannot meet them in battle. If
we could, we would drive them off, just as we did at the straits a month ago. We
have no fleet to send to England to bombard their unfortified towns as they are
bombarding ours. So we have decided to move all the English and French we can
find to Gallipoli. Let them kill their own people as well as ours."
I told him that, granted that the circumstances were as he had stated them, he
had grounds for indignation. But I called his attention to the fact that he was
wrong; that he was accusing the Allies of crimes which they were not committing.
"This is about the most barbarous thing that you have ever contemplated," I
said. "The British have a perfect right to attack a military headquarters like
Gallipoli."
But my argument did not move Enver. I became convinced that he had not decided
on this step as a reprisal to protect his own countrymen, but that he and his
associates were blindly venting their rage. The fact that the Australians and
New Zealanders had successfully effected a landing had aroused their most
barbarous instincts. Enver referred to this landing in our talk; though he
professed to regard it lightly, and said that he would soon push the French and
English into the sea, I saw that it was causing him much concern. The Turk, as I
have said before, is psychologically primitive; to answer the British landing at
Gallipoli by murdering hundreds of helpless British who were in his power would
strike him as perfectly logical. As a result of this talk I gained only a few
concessions. Enver agreed to postpone the deportation until Thursday---it was
then Sunday; to exclude women and children from the order, and to take none of
the British and French who were then connected with American institutions.
"All the rest will have to go," was his final word. "Moreover," he added, "we
don't purpose to have the enemy submarines in the Marmora torpedo the transports
we are sending to the Dardanelles. In the future we shall put a few Englishmen
and Frenchmen on every ship we send down there as a protection to our own
soldiers."
When I returned to our embassy I found that the news of the proposed deportation
had been published. The amazement and despair that immediately resulted were
unparalleled, even in that city of constant sensations. Europeans, by living for
many years in the Levant, seem to acquire its emotions, particularly its
susceptibility to fear and horror, and now, no longer having the protection of
their embassies, these fears were intensified. A stream of frenzied people began
to pour into the Embassy. From their tears and cries one would have thought that
they were immediately to be taken out and shot, and that there was any
possibility of being saved seemed hardly to occur to them. Yet all the time they
insisted that I should get individual exemptions. One could not go because he
had a dependent family; another had a sick child; another was ill himself. My
ante-room was full of frantic mothers, asking me to secure exemption for their
sons, and of wives, who sought special treatment for their husbands. They made
all kinds of impossible suggestions: I should resign my ambassadorship as a
protest; I should even threaten Turkey with war by the United States! They
constantly besieged my wife, who spent hours listening to their stories and
comforting them. In all this exciting mass there were many who faced the
situation with more courage.
The day after my talk with Enver, Bedri, the Prefect of Police, began to arrest
some of the victims.
The next morning one of my callers made what would ordinarily have seemed to be
an obvious suggestion. This visitor was a German. He told me that Germany would
suffer greatly in reputation if the Turks carried out their plan; the world
would not possibly be convinced that Germans had not devised the whole scheme.
He said that I should call upon the German and Austrian ambassadors; he was sure
that they would support me in my pleas for decent treatment. As I had made
appeals to Wangenheim several times before in behalf of foreigners, without
success, I had hardly thought it worth while to ask his cooperation in this
instance. Moreover, the plan of using non-combatants as a protective screen in
warfare was such a familiar German device that I was not at all sure that the
German Staff had not instigated the Turks. I decided, however, to adopt the
advice of my German visitor and seek Wangenheim's assistance. I must admit that
I did this as a forlorn hope, but at least I thought it only fair to Wangenheim.
to give him a chance to help.
I called upon him in the evening at ten o'clock and stayed with him until
eleven. I spent the larger part of this hour in a fruitless attempt to interest
him in the plight of these non-combatants. Wangenheim said point blank that he
would not assist me. "It is perfectly proper," he maintained, "for the Turks to
establish a concentration camp at Gallipoli. It is also proper for them to put
non-combatant English and French on their transports and thus insure them
against attack. As I made repeated attempts to argue the matter, Wangenheim
would deftly shift the conversation to other topics. According to my record of
this talk, written out at the time, the German Ambassador discussed almost every
subject except the one upon which I had called.
"This act of the Turks will greatly injure Germany," I would begin.
"Do you know that the English soldiers at Gaba Tepe are without food and drink?"
he would reply. " They made an attack to capture a well and were repulsed. The
English have taken their ships away so as to prevent their soldiers from
retreating---"
" But about this Gallipoli business," I interrupted. "Germans themselves here in
Constantinople have said that Germany should stop it---"
"The Allies landed 45,000 men on the peninsula," Wangenheim answered, "and of
these 10,000 were killed. In a few days we shall attack the rest and destroy
them."
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 a "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 also
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't
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 for 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.
"I must go strictly according to rules in this matter," he said. And, in the
goodness of his heart, he did speak to Saïd Halim. Following this example
Wangenheim also spoke to the Grand Vizier. In Wangenheim's case, however, the
protest was merely intended for the official record.
"You may fool some people," I told the German Ambassador, "but you know that
speaking to the Grand Vizier in this matter is of about as much use as shouting
in the air."
However, there was one member of the diplomatic corps who worked whole-heartedly
in behalf of the threatened foreigners. This was M. Koloucheff, the Bulgarian
Minister. As soon as he heard of this latest Turco-German outrage, he
immediately came to me with offers of assistance. He did not propose to waste
his time by a protest to the Grand Vizier, but announced his intention of going
immediately to the source of authority, Enver himself. Koloucheff was an
extremely important man at that particular time, for Bulgaria was then neutral
and both sides were angling for her support.
Meanwhile, Bedri and his minions were busy arresting some of the doomed English
and French. The deportation was arranged to take place Thursday morning. On
Wednesday, the excitement reached the hysterical stage. It seemed as if the
whole foreign population of Constantinople had gathered at the American Embassy.
Scores of weeping women and haggard men assembled in front and at the side of
the building; more than three hundred gained personal access to my office,
hanging desperately upon the Ambassador and his staff. Many almost seemed to
think that I personally held their fates in my hand; in their agony of spirit
some even denounced me, insisting that I was not exerting all my powers in their
behalf. Whenever I left my office and passed into the hall I was almost mobbed
by scores of terror-stricken and dishevelled mothers and wives. The nervous
tension was frightful; I seized the telephone, called up Enver, and demanded an
interview.
He replied that he would be happy to receive me on Thursday. By this time,
however, the prisoners would already have been on their way to Gallipoli.
"No," I replied, "I must see you this afternoon."
Enver made all kinds of excuses; he was busy, he had appointments scheduled for
the whole day.
"I presume you want to see me about the English and French," he said. "If that
is so, I can tell you now that it will be useless. Our minds are made up. Orders
have been issued to the police to gather them all by to-night and to ship them
down to-morrow morning."
I still insisted that I must see him that afternoon and he still attempted to
dodge the interview.
"My time is all taken," he said. "The Council of Ministers sits at four o'clock
and the meeting is to be a very important one. I can't absent myself."
Emboldened by the thought of the crowds of women that were flooding the whole
Embassy I decided on an altogether unprecedented move.
"I shall not be denied an interview," I replied. "I shall come up to the cabinet
room at four o'clock. If you refuse to receive me then, I shall insist on going
into the council room and discussing the matter with the whole Cabinet. I shall
be interested to learn whether the Turkish Cabinet will refuse to receive the
American Ambassador."
It seemed to me that I could almost hear Enver gasp over the telephone. I
presume few responsible ministers of any country have ever had such an
astounding proposition made to them.
"If you will meet me at the Sublime Porte at 3:30," he answered, after a
considerable pause, "I shall arrange to see you."
When I reached the Sublime Porte I was told that the Bulgarian Minister was
having a protracted conference with Enver. Naturally I was willing to wait, for
I knew what the two men were discussing. Presently M. Koloucheff came out; his
face was tense and anxious, clearly revealing the ordeal through which he had
just passed.
"It is perfectly hopeless," he said to me. "Nothing will move Enver: he is
absolutely determined that this thing shall go through. I cannot wish you good
luck, for you will have none."
The meeting which followed between Enver and myself was the most momentous I had
had up to that time. We discussed the fate of the foreigners for nearly an hour.
I found Enver in one of his most polite but most unyielding moods. He told me
before I began that it was useless to talk---that the matter was a closed issue.
But I insisted on telling him what a splendid impression Turkey's treatment of
her enemies had made on the outside world. "Your record in this matter is better
than that of any other belligerent country," I said. "You have not put them into
concentration camps, you have let them stay here and continue their ordinary
business, just as before. You have done this in spite of strong pressure to act
otherwise. Why do you destroy all the good effect this has produced by now
making such a fatal mistake as you, propose?
But Enver insisted that the Allied fleets were bombarding unfortified towns,
killing women, children, and wounded men.
"We have warned them through you that they must not do this," he said, "but they
don't stop."
This statement, of course, was not true, but I could not persuade Enver that he
was wrong. He expressed great appreciation for all that I had done, and
regretted for my sake that he could not accept my advice. I told him that the
foreigners had suggested that I threaten to give up the care of British and
French interests.
"Nothing would suit us better," he quickly replied.
The only difficulty we have with you is when you come around and bother us with
English and French affairs."
I asked him if I had ever given him any advice that had led them into trouble.
He graciously replied that they had never yet made a mistake by following my
suggestions.
"Very well, take my advice in this case, too," I replied. "You will find later
that you have made no mistake by doing so. I tell you that it is my positive
opinion that your cabinet is committing a terrible error by taking this step."
"But I have given orders to this effect," Enver answered. "I cannot countermand
them. If I did, my whole influence with the army would go. Once having given an
order I never change it. My own wife asked me to have her servants exempted from
military service and I refused. The Grand Vizier asked exemption for his
secretary, and I refused him, because I had given orders. I never revoke orders
and I shall not do it in this case. If you can show me some way in which this
order can be carried out and your protégés still saved, I shall be glad to
listen."
I had already discovered one of the most conspicuous traits in the Turkish
character: its tendency to compromise and to bargain. Enver's request for a
suggestion now gave me an opportunity to play on this characteristic.
"All right," I said. "I think I can. I should think you could still carry out
your orders without sending all the French and English residents down. If you
would send only a few, you would still win your point. You could still maintain
discipline in the army, and these few would be as strong a deterrent to the
Allied fleet as sending all."
It seemed to me that Enver almost eagerly seized upon this suggestion as a way
out of his dilemma.
"How many will you let me send?" he asked quickly. The moment he put this
question I knew that I had carried my point.
"I would suggest that you take twenty English and twenty French---forty in all."
"Let me have fifty," he said.
"All right---we won't haggle over ten," I answered. "But you must make another
concession. Let me pick out the fifty who are to go."
This agreement had relieved the tension, and now the gracious side of Enver's
nature began to show itself again.
"No, Mr. Ambassador," he replied. "You have prevented me from making a mistake
this afternoon; now let me prevent you from making one. If you select the fifty
men who are to go, you will simply make fifty enemies. I think too much of you
to let you do that. I will prove to you that I am your real friend. Can't you
make some other suggestion?"
"Why not take the youngest? They can stand the fatigue best."
"That is fair," answered Enver. He said that Bedri, who was in the building at
that moment, would select the "victims." This caused me some uneasiness; I knew
that Enver's modification of his order would displease Bedri, whose hatred of
the foreigners had shown itself on many occasions, and that the head of the
police would do his best to find some way of evading it. So I asked Enver to
send for Bedri and give him his new orders in my presence. Bedri came in, and,
as I had suspected, he did not like the new arrangement at all. As soon as he
heard that he was to take only fifty and the youngest he threw up his hands and
began to walk up and down the room.
"No, no, this will never do!" he said. "I don't want the youngest, I must have
notables! "
But Enver stuck to the arrangement and gave Bedri orders to take only the
youngest men. It was quite apparent that Bedri needed humouring, so I asked him
to ride with me to the American Embassy, where we would have tea and arrange all
the details. This invitation had an instantaneous effect which the American mind
will have difficulty in comprehending. An American would regard it as nothing
wonderful to be seen publicly riding with an ambassador, or to take tea at an
embassy. But this is a distinction which never comes to a minor functionary,
such as a Prefect of Police, in the Turkish capital. Possibly I lowered the
dignity of my office in extending this invitation to Bedri; Pallavicini would
probably have thought so; but it certainly paid, for it made Bedri more pliable
than he would otherwise have been.
When we reached the Embassy, we found the crowds stiff there, awaiting the
results of my intercession. When I told the besiegers that only fifty had to go
and these the youngest, they seemed momentarily stupefied. They could not
understand it at first; they believed that I might obtain some modification of
the order, but nothing like this. Then, as the truth dawned upon them, I found
myself in the centre of a crowd that had apparently gone momentarily insane,
this time not from grief, but from joy. Women, the tears streaming down their
faces, insisted on throwing themselves on their knees, seizing both my hands,
and covering them with kisses. Mature men, despite my violent protestations,
persisted in hugging me and kissing me on both cheeks. For several minutes I
struggled with this crowd, embarrassed by its demonstrations of gratitude, but
finally I succeeded in breaking away and secreting myself and Bedri in an inner
room.
"Can't I have a few notables? " he asked.
"I'll give you just one," I replied.
"Can't I have three? " he asked again.
"You can have all who are under fifty," I answered.
But that did not satisfy him, as there was not a solitary person of distinction
under that-age limit. Bedri really had his eye on Messieurs Weyl, Rey, and Dr.
Frew. But I had one "notable" up my sleeve whom I was willing to concede. Dr.
Wigram, an Anglican clergyman, one of the most prominent men in the foreign
colony, had pleaded with me, asking that he might be permitted to go with the
hostages and furnish them such consolation as religion could give them. I knew
that nothing would delight Dr. Wigram, more than to be thrown as a sop to
Bedri's passion for "notables."
"Dr. Wigram is the only notable you can have," I said to Bedri. So he accepted
him as the best that he could do in that line.
Mr. Hoffman Philip, the Conseiller of the American Embassy---now American
Minister to Colombia---had already expressed a desire to accompany the hostages,
so that he might minister to their comfort. This manifestation of a fine
humanitarian spirit was nothing new in Mr. Philip. Although not in good health,
he had returned to Constantinople after Turkey had entered the war, in order
that he might assist me in the work of caring for the foreign residents. Through
all that arduous period he constantly displayed that sympathy for the
unfortunate, the sick, and the poor, which is innate in his character. Though it
was somewhat irregular for a representative of the Embassy to engage in such a
hazardous enterprise as this one, Mr. Philip pleaded so earnestly that finally I
reluctantly gave my consent. I also obtained permission for Air. Arthur Ruhl of
Collier's and Mr. Henry West Suydam, of the Brooklyn Eagle, to accompany the
party.
At the end Bedri had to have his little joke. Though the fifty were informed
that the boat for Gallipoli would leave the next morning at six o'clock, he,
with his police, visited their houses at midnight, and routed them all out of
bed. The crowd that assembled at the dock the next morning looked somewhat
weather-beaten and worse for wear. Bedri was there, superintending the whole
proceeding, and when he came up to me, he good-naturedly reproached me again for
letting him have only one "notable." In the main, he behaved very decently,
though he could not refrain from telling the hostages that the British airplanes
were dropping bombs on Gallipoli! Of the twenty-five "Englishmen" assembled
there were only two who had been born in England, and of the twenty-five
"Frenchmen" only two who had been born in France. They carried satchels
containing food and other essentials, their assembled relatives had additional
bundles, and Mrs. Morgenthau. sent several large cases of food to the ship. The
parting of these young men with their families was affecting, but they all stood
it bravely.
I returned to the Embassy, somewhat wearied by the excitement of the last few
days and in no particularly gracious humour for the honour which now awaited me.
For I had been there only a few minutes when His Excellency, the German
Ambassador, was announced. Wangenheim discussed commonplaces for a few minutes
and then approached the real object of his call. He asked me to telegraph to
Washington that he had been "helpful" in getting the number of the Gallipoli
hostages reduced to fifty! In view of the actual happenings this request was so
preposterous that I could scarcely maintain my composure. I had known that, in
going through the form of speaking to the Grand Vizier, Wangenheim had been
manufacturing his protest for future use, but I had not expected him to fall
back upon it so soon.
"Well," said Wangenheim, "at least telegraph your government that I didn't
'hetz' the Turks in this matter."
The German verb "hetzen" means about the same as the English "sic," in the sense
of inciting a dog. I was in no mood to give Wangenheim. a clean bill of health,
and told him so. In fact, I specifically reported to Washington that he had
refused to help me. A day or two afterward Wangenheim called me on the telephone
and began to talk in an excited and angry tone. His government had wired him
about my telegram to Washington. I told him that if he desired credit for
assistance in matters of this kind, he should really exert himself and do
something.
The hostages had an uncomfortable time at Gallipoli; they were put into two
wooden houses with no beds and no food except that which they had brought
themselves. The days and nights were made wretched by the abundant vermin that
is a commonplace in Turkey. Had Mr. Philip not gone with them, they would have
suffered seriously. After the unfortunates had been there for a few days I began
work with Enver again to get them back. Sir Edward Grey, then British Secretary
for Foreign Affairs, had requested our State Department to send me a message
with the request that I present it to Enver and his fellow ministers; its
purport was that the British Government would hold them personally responsible
for any injury to the hostages. I presented this message to Enver on May 9th. I
had seen Enver in many moods, but the unbridled rage which Sir Edward's
admonition now caused was something entirely new. As I read the telegram his
face became livid, and he absolutely lost control of himself. The European
polish which Enver had sedulously acquired dropped like a mask; I now saw him
for what he really was---a savage, bloodthirsty Turk.
"They will not come back!" he shouted. "I shall let them stay there until they
rot! "
"I would like to see those English touch me!" he continued.
I saw that the method which I had always used with Enver, that of persuasion.,
was the only possible way of handling him. I tried to soothe the Minister now,
and, after a while, he quieted down.
"But don't ever threaten me again!" he said.
After spending a week at Gallipoli, the party returned. The Turks had moved
their military headquarters from Gallipoli and the English fleet, therefore,
ceased to bombard it. All came back in good condition and were welcomed home
with great enthusiasm.
Continue >
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TABLE OF CONTENTS  Introduction
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Chapter XVI
Chapter XVII
Chapter XVIII
Chapter XIX
Chapter XX
Chapter XXI
Chapter XXII
Chapter XXIII
Chapter XXIV
Chapter XXV
Chapter XXVI
Chapter XXVII
Chapter XXVIII
Chapter XXIX
PLACE YOUR ORDER
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