AMBASSADOR MORGENTHAU'S STORY
CHAPTER XXVII
"I SHALL DO NOTHING FOR THE ARMENIANS" SAYS THE GERMAN AMBASSADOR
Suppose that there is no phase of the Armenian question which has aroused more
interest than this: Had the Germans any part in it? To what extent was the
Kaiser responsible for the wholesale slaughter of this nation? Did the Germans
favour it, did they merely acquiesce, or did they oppose the persecutions?
Germany, in the last four years, has become responsible for many of the blackest
pages in history; is she responsible for this, unquestionably the blackest of
all?
I presume most people will detect in the remarks of these Turkish chieftains
certain resemblances to the German philosophy of war. Let me repeat particular
phrases used by Enver and other Turks while discussing the Armenian massacres:
"The Armenians have brought this fate upon themselves." "They had a fair warning
of what would happen to them." "We were fighting for our national existence ...
.. We were justified, in resorting to any means that would accomplish these
ends." "We have no time to separate the innocent from the guilty." "The only
thing we have on our mind is to win the war."
These phrases somehow have a familiar ring, do they not? Indeed, I might rewrite
all these interviews with Enver, use the word Belgium in place of Armenia, put
the words in a German general's mouth instead of Enver's, and we should have
almost a complete exposition of the German attitude toward subject peoples. But
the teachings of the Prussians go deeper than this. There was one feature about
the Armenian proceedings that was new---that was not Turkish at all . For
centuries the Turks have ill-treated their Armenians and all their other subject
peoples with inconceivable barbarity. Yet their methods have always been crude,
clumsy, and unscientific. They excelled in beating out an Armenian's brains with
a club, and this unpleasant illustration is a perfect indication of the rough
and primitive methods which they applied to the Armenian problem. They have
understood the uses of murder, but not of murder as a fine art. But the Armenian
proceedings of 1915 and 1916 evidenced an entirely new mentality. This new
conception was that of deportation. The Turks, in five hundred years, had
invented innumerable ways of physically torturing their Christian subjects, yet
never before had it occurred to their minds to move them bodily from their
homes, where they had lived for many thousands of years, and send them hundreds
of miles away into the desert. Where did the Turks get this idea? I have already
described how, in 1914, just before the European War, the Government moved not
far from 100,000 Greeks from their age-long homes along the Asiatic littoral to
certain islands in the Aegean. I have also said that Admiral Usedom, one of the
big German naval experts in Turkey, told me that the Germans had suggested this
deportation to the Turks. But the all-important point is that this idea of
deporting peoples en masse is, in modern times, exclusively Germanic. Any one
who reads the literature of Pan-Germany constantly meets it. These enthusiasts
for a German world have deliberately planned, as part of their programme, the
ousting of the French from certain parts of France, of Belgians from Belgium, of
Poles from Poland, of Slavs from Russia, and other indigenous peoples from the
territories which they have inhabited for thousands of years, and the
establishment in the vacated lands of solid, honest Germans. But it is hardly
necessary to show that the Germans have advocated this as a state policy; they
have actually been doing it in the last four years. They have moved we do not
know how many thousands of Belgians and French from their native land.
Austria-Hungary has killed a large part of the Serbian population and moved
thousands of Serbian children into her own territories intending to bring them
up as loyal subjects of the empire. To what degree this movement of populations
has taken place we shall not know until the end of the war, but it has certainly
gone on extensively.
Certain German writers have even advocated the application of this policy to the
Armenians. According to the Paris Temps, Paul Rohrbach "in a conference held at
Berlin, some time ago, recommended that Armenia should be evacuated of the
Armenians. They should be dispersed in the direction of Mesopotamia and their
places should be taken by Turks, in such a fashion that Armenia should be freed
of all Russian influence and that Mesopotamia might be provided with farmers
which it now lacked." The purpose of all this was evident enough. Germany was
building the Bagdad railroad across the Mesopotamian desert. This was an
essential detail in the achievement of the great new German Empire, extending
from Hamburg to the Persian Gulf. But this railroad could never succeed unless
there should develop a thrifty and industrious population to feed it. The lazy
Turk would never become such a colonist. But the Armenian was made of just the
kind of stuff which this enterprise needed. It was entirely in accordance with
the German conception of statesmanship to seize these people in the lands where
they had lived for ages and transport them violently to this dreary, hot desert.
The mere fact that they had always lived in a temperate climate would furnish no
impediment in Pan-German eyes. I found that Germany had been sowing those ideas
broadcast for several years; I even found that German savants had been lecturing
on this subject in the East. "I remember attending a lecture by a well-known
German professor," an Armenian tells me. "His main point was that throughout
their history the Turks had made a great mistake in being too merciful toward
the non-Turkish population. The only way to insure the prosperity of the empire,
according to this speaker, was to act without any sentimentality toward all the
subject nationalities and races in Turkey who did not fall in with the plans of
the Turks."
The Pan-Germanists are on record in the matter of Armenia. I shall content
myself with quoting the words of the author of "Mittel-Europa," Friedrich
Naumann, perhaps the ablest propagator of Pan-German ideas. In his work on Asia,
Naumann, who started life as a Christian clergyman, deals in considerable detail
with the Armenian massacres of 1895-96. 1 need only quote a few passages to show
the attitude of German state policy on such infamies: "If we should take into
consideration merely the violent massacre of from 80,000 to 100,000 Armenians,"
writes Naumann, "we can come to but one opinion---we must absolutely condemn
with all anger and vehemence both the assassins and their instigators. They have
perpetrated the most abominable massacres upon masses of people, more numerous
and worse than those inflicted by Charlemagne on the Saxons. The tortures which
Lepsius has described surpass anything we have ever known. "What then prohibits
us from falling upon the Turk and saying to him: 'Get thee gone, wretch!'? Only
one thing prohibits us, for the Turk answers: 'I, too, I fight for my
existence!'---and indeed, we believe him. We believe, despite the indignation
which the bloody Mohammedan barbarism arouses in us, that the Turks are
defending themselves legitimately, and before anything else we see in the
Armenian question and Armenian massacres a matter of internal Turkish policy,
merely an episode of the agony through which a great empire is passing, which
does not propose to let itself die without making a last attempt to save itself
by bloodshed. All the great powers, excepting Germany, have adopted a policy
which aims to upset the actual state of affairs in Turkey. In accordance with
this, they demand for the subject peoples of Turkey the rights of man, or of
humanity, or of civilization, or of political liberty---in a word, something
that will make them the equals of the Turks. But just as little as the ancient
Roman despotic state could tolerate the Nazarene's religion, just as little can
the Turkish Empire, which is really the political successor of the eastern Roman
Empire, tolerate any representation of western free Christianity among its
subjects. The danger for Turkey in the Armenian question is one of extinction.
For this reason she resorts to an act of a barbarous Asiatic state; she has
destroyed the Armenians to such an extent that they will not be able to manifest
themselves as a political force for a considerable period. A horrible act,
certainly, an act of political despair, shameful in its details, but still a
piece of political history, in the Asiatic manner. . . . In spite of the
displeasure which the German Christian feels at these accomplished facts, he has
nothing to do except quietly to heal the wounds so far as he can, and then to
let matters take their course. For a long time our policy in the Orient has been
determined: we belong to the group that protects Turkey, that is the fact by
which we must regulate our conduct. . . . We do not prohibit any zealous
Christian from caring for the victims of these horrible crimes, from bringing up
the children and nursing the adults. May God bless these good acts like all
other acts of faith. Only we must take care that deeds of charity do not take
the form of political acts which are likely to thwart our German policy. The
internationalist, he who belongs to the English school of thought, may march
with, the Armenians. The nationalist, he who does not intend to sacrifice the
future of Germany to England, must, on questions of external policy, follow the
path marked out by Bismarck, even if it is merciless in its sentiments. . . .
National policy: that is the profound moral reason why we must, as statesmen,
show ourselves indifferent to the sufferings of the Christian peoples of Turkey,
however painful that may be to our human feelings. . . . That is our duty, which
we must recognize and confess before God and before man. If for this reason we
now maintain the existence of the Turkish state, we do it in our own
self-interest, because what we have in mind is our great future. . . . On one
side lie our duties as a nation, on the other our duties as men. There are
times, when, in a conflict of duties, we can choose a middle ground. That is all
right from a human standpoint, but rarely right in a moral sense. In this
instance, as in all analogous situations, we must clearly know on which side
lies the greatest and most important moral duty. Once we have made such a choice
we must not hesitate. William II has chosen. He has become the friend of the
Sultan, because he is thinking of a greater, independent Germany."
Such was the German state philosophy as applied to the Armenians, and I had the
opportunity of observing German practice as well. As soon as the early reports
reached Constantinople, it occurred to me that the most feasible way of stopping
the outrages would be for the diplomatic representatives of all countries to
make a joint appeal to the Ottoman Government. I approached Wangenheim on this
subject in the latter part of March. His antipathy to the Armenians became
immediately apparent. He began denouncing them in unmeasured terms; like Talaat
and Enver, he affected to regard the Van episode as an unprovoked rebellion,
and, in his eyes, as in theirs, the Armenians were simply traitorous vermin.
"I will help the Zionists," he said, thinking that this remark would be
personally pleasing to me, "but I shall do nothing whatever for the Armenians."
Wangenheim pretended to regard the Armenian question as a matter that chiefly
affected the United States. My constant intercession in their behalf apparently
created the impression, in his Germanic mind, that any mercy shown this people
would be a concession to the American Government. And at that moment he was not
disposed to do anything that would please the American people.
"The United States is apparently the only country that takes much interest in
the Armenians," he said. "Your missionaries are their friends and your people
have constituted themselves their guardians. The whole question of helping them
is therefore an American matter. How, then, can you expect me to do anything as
long as the United States is selling ammunition to the enemies of Germany? Mr.
Bryan has just published his note, saying that it would be unneutral not to sell
munitions to England and France. As long as your government maintains that
attitude we can do nothing for the Armenians."
Probably no one except a German logician would ever have detected any relation
between our sale of war materials to the Allies and Turkey's attacks upon
hundreds of thousands of Armenian women and children. But that was about as much
progress as I made with Wangenheim at that time. I spoke to him frequently, but
he invariably offset my pleas for mercy to the Armenians by references to the
use of American shells at the Dardanelles. A coolness sprang up between us soon
afterward, the result of my refusal to give him "credit" for having stopped the
deportation of French and British civilians to the Gallipoli peninsula. After
our somewhat tart conversation over the telephone, when he had asked me to
telegraph Washington that he had not hetzed the Turks in this matter, our visits
to each other ceased for several weeks.
There were certain influential Germans in Constantinople who did not accept
Wangenheim's point of view. I have already referred to Paul Weitz, for thirty
years the correspondent of the Frankfurter Zeitung, who probably knew more about
affairs in the Near East than any other German. Although Wangenheim constantly
looked to Weitz for information, he did not always take his advice. Weitz did
not accept the orthodox imperial attitude toward Armenia, for he believed that
Germany's refusal effectively to intervene was doing his fatherland everlasting
injury. Weitz was constantly presenting this view to Wangenheim, but he made
little progress. Weitz told me about this himself, in January, 1916, a few weeks
before I left Turkey. I quote his own words on this subject:
"I remember that you told me at the beginning," said Weitz, "what a mistake
Germany was making in the Armenian matters. I agreed with you perfectly. But
when I urged this view upon Wangenheim, he threw me twice out of the room!"
Another German who was opposed to the atrocities was Neurath, the Conseiller of
the German Embassy. His indignation reached such a point that his language to
Talaat and Enver became almost undiplomatic. He told me, however, that he had
failed to influence them.
"They are immovable and are determined to pursue their present course," Neurath
said.
Of course no Germans could make much impression on the Turkish Government as
long as the German Ambassador refused to interfere. And, as time went on, it
became more and more evident that Wangenheim had no desire to stop the
deportations. He apparently wished, however, to reestablish friendly relations
with me, and soon sent third parties to ask why I never came to see him. I do
not know how long this estrangement would have lasted had not a great personal
affliction befallen him. In June, Lieutenant Colonel Leipzig, the German
Military Attaché, died under the most tragic and mysterious circumstances in the
railroad station at Lule Bourgas. He was killed by a revolver shot; one story
said that the weapon had been accidentally discharged, another that the Colonel
had committed suicide, still another that the Turks had assassinated him,
mistaking him for Liman von Sanders. Leipzig was one of Wangenheim's intimate
friends; as young men they had been officers in the same regiment, and at
Constantinople they were almost inseparable. I immediately called on the
Ambassador to express my condolences. I found him very dejected and careworn. He
told me that he had heart trouble, that he was almost exhausted, and that he had
applied for a few weeks' leave of absence. I knew that it was not only his
comrade's death that was preying upon Wangenheim's mind. German missionaries
were flooding Germany with reports about the Armenians and calling upon the
Government to stop the massacres. Yet, overburdened and nervous as Wangenheim
was this day, he gave many signs that he was still the same unyielding German
militarist. A few days afterward, when he returned my visit, he asked:
"Where's Kitchener's army?
"We are willing to surrender Belgium now," he went on. "Germany intends to build
an enormous fleet of submarines with great cruising radius. In the next war, we
shall therefore be able completely to blockade England. So we do not need
Belgium for its submarine bases. We shall give her back to the Belgians, taking
the Congo in exchange."
I then made another plea in behalf of the persecuted Christians. Again we
discussed this subject at length.
"The Armenians,"' said Wangenheim, "have shown themselves in this war to be
enemies of the Turks. It is quite apparent that the two peoples can never live
together in the same country. The Americans should move some of them to the
United States, and we Germans will send some to Poland and in their place send
Jewish Poles to the Armenian provinces---that is, if they will promise to drop
their Zionist schemes."
Again, although I spoke with unusual earnestness, the Ambassador refused to help
the Armenians.
Still, on July 4th, Wangenheim did present a formal note of protest. He did not
talk to Talaat or Enver, the only men who had any authority, but to the Grand
Vizier, who was merely a shadow. The incident had precisely the same character
as his pro forma protest against sending the French and British civilians down
to Gallipoli, to serve as targets for the Allied fleet. Its only purpose was to
put Germans officially on record. Probably the hypocrisy of this protest was
more apparent to me than to others, for, at the very moment when Wangenheim
presented this so-called protest, he was giving me the reasons why Germany could
not take really effective steps to end the massacres. Soon after this interview,
Wangenheim received his leave and went to Germany.
Callous as Wangenheim showed himself to be, he was not quite so implacable
toward the Armenians as the German naval attaché in Constantinople, Humann. This
person was generally regarded as a man of great influence; his position in
Constantinople corresponded to that of Boy-Ed in the United States. A German
diplomat once told me that Humann was more of a Turk than Enver or Talaat.
Despite this reputation I attempted to enlist his influence. I appealed to him
particularly because he was a friend of Enver, and was generally looked upon as
an important connecting link between the German Embassy and the Turkish military
authorities. Humann was a personal emissary of the Kaiser, in constant
communication with Berlin and undoubtedly he reflected the attitude of the
ruling powers in Germany. He discussed the Armenian problem with the utmost
frankness and brutality.
"I have lived in Turkey the larger part of my life," he told me, "and I know the
Armenians. I also know that both Armenians and Turks cannot live together in
this country. One of these races has got to go. And I don't blame the Turks for
what they are doing to the Armenians. I think that they are entirely justified.
The weaker nation must succumb. The Armenians desire to dismember Turkey; they
are against the Turks and the Germans in this war, and they therefore have no
right to exist here. I also think that Wangenheim went altogether too far in
making a protest; at least I would not have done so."
I expressed my horror at such sentiments, but Humann went on abusing the
Armenian people and absolving the Turks from all blame.
"It is a matter of safety," he replied; "the Turks have got to protect
themselves, and, from this point of view, they are entirely justified in what
they are doing. Why, we found 7,000 guns at Kadikeuy which belonged to the
Armenians. At first Enver wanted to treat the Armenians with the utmost
moderation, and four months ago he insisted that they be given another
opportunity to demonstrate their loyalty. But after what they did at Van, he had
to yield to the army, which had been insisting all along that it should protect
its rear. The Committee decided upon the deportations and Enver reluctantly
agreed. All Armenians are working for the destruction of Turkey's power and the
only thing to do is to deport them. Enver is really a very kind-hearted man; he
is incapable personally of hurting a fly! But when it comes to defending an idea
in which he believes, he will do it fearlessly and recklessly. Moreover, the
Young Turks have to get rid of the Armenians merely as a matter of
self-protection. The Committee is strong only in Constantinople and a few other
large cities. Everywhere else the people are strongly 'Old Turk'. And these old
Turks are all fanatics. These Old Turks are not in favour of the present
government, and so the Committee has to do everything in their power to protect
themselves. But don't think that any harm will come to other Christians. Any
Turk can easily pick out three Armenians among a thousand Turks!"
Humann was not the only important German who expressed this latter sentiment.
Intimations began to reach me from many sources that my "meddling" in behalf of
the Armenians was making me more and more unpopular in German officialdom. One
day in October, Neurath, the German Conseiller, called and showed me a telegram
which he had just received from the German Foreign Office. This contained the
information that Earl Crewe and Earl Cromer had spoken on the Armenians in the
House of Lords, had laid the responsibility for the massacres upon the Germans.,
and had declared that they had received their information from an American
witness. The telegram also referred to an article in the Westminster Gazette,
which said that the German consuls at certain places had instigated and even led
the attacks, and particularly mentioned Resler of Aleppo. Neurath said that his
government had directed him to obtain a denial of these charges from the
American Ambassador at Constantinople. I refused to make such a denial, saying
that I did not feel called upon to decide officially whether Turkey or Germany
was to blame for these crimes.
Yet everywhere in diplomatic circles there seemed to be a conviction that the
American Ambassador was responsible for the wide publicity which the Armenian
massacres were receiving in Europe and the United States. I have no hesitation
in saying that they were right about this. In December, my son, Henry Morgenthau,
Jr., paid a visit to the Gallipoli peninsula, where he was entertained by
General Liman von Sanders and other German officers. He had hardly stepped into
German headquarters when an officer came up to him and said:
"Those are very interesting articles on the Armenian question which your father
is writing in the American newspapers."
"My father has been writing no articles," my son replied.
"Oh," said this officer, "just because his name isn't signed to them doesn't
mean that he is not writing them!"
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 indefinite, 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 close 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 interest of the Armenians and I
do not think you realize 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 for
the Armenians will be useless. The Germans will not interfere for them and you
are just spoiling your opportunity for 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
we would hate to see your career end disastrously."
"Then you go back to the German Embassy," I said, "and tell Wangenheim what I
say---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, have 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 next I
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
changes 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; that he 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 back to it. 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."
"No, I did not cable that," I replied. "I admit that I have sent a large amount
of information to Washington. I have sent copies of every report and every
statement to the State Department. They are safely lodged there, and whatever
happens to me, the evidence is complete, and the American people are not
dependent on my oral report for their information. But this particular statement
you make is not quite accurate. I merely informed Mr. Lansing that any influence
Bulgaria might exert to stop the massacres has been lost, now that she has
become Turkey's ally."
We again discussed the deportations.
"Germany is not responsible for this," Wangenheim said.
"You can assert that to the end of time," I replied, "but nobody will believe
it. The world will always hold Germany responsible; the guilt of these crimes
will be your inheritance forever. I know that you have filed a paper protest.
But what does that amount to? You know better than I do that such a protest will
have no effect. I do not claim that Germany is responsible for these massacres
in the sense that she instigated them. But she is responsible in the sense that
she had the power to stop them and did not use it. And it is not only America
and your present enemies that will hold you responsible. The German people will
some day call your government to account. You are a Christian people and the
time will come when Germans will realize that you have let a Mohammedan people
destroy another Christian nation. How foolish is your protest that I am sending
information to my State Department. Do you suppose that you can keep secret such
hellish atrocities as these? Don't get such a silly, ostrich-like thought as
that---don't think that by ignoring them yourselves, you can get the rest of the
world to do so. Crimes like these cry to heaven. Do you think I could know about
things like this and not report them to my government? And don't forget that
German missionaries, as well as American, are sending me information about the
Armenians."
"All that you say may be true," replied the German Ambassador, "but the big
problem that confronts us is to win this war. Turkey has settled with her
foreign enemies; she has done that at the Dardanelles and at Gallipoli. She is
now trying to settle her internal affairs. They still greatly fear that the
Capitulations will again be forced upon them. Before they are again put under
this restraint, they intend to have their internal problems in such shape that
there will be little chance of any interference from foreign nations. Talaat has
told me that he is determined to complete this task before peace is declared. In
the future they don't intend that the Russians shall be in a position to say
that they have a right to intervene about Armenian matters because there are a
large number of Armenians in Russia who are affected by the troubles of their
coreligionists in Turkey. Giers used to be doing this an the time and the Turks
do not intend that any ambassador from Russia or from any other country shall
have such an opportunity in the future. The Armenians anyway are a very poor
lot. You come in contact in Constantinople with Armenians of the educated
classes, and you get your impressions about them from these men, but all the
Armenians are not of that type. Yet I admit that they have been treated
terribly. I sent a man to make investigations and he reported that the worst
outrages have not been committed by Turkish officials but by brigands."
Wangenheim again suggested that the Armenians be taken to the United States, and
once more I gave him the reasons why this would be impracticable.
"Never mind all these considerations," I said. "Let us disregard
everything---military necessity, state policy, and all else---and let us look
upon this simply as a human problem. Remember that most of the people who are
being treated in this way are old men, old women, and helpless children. Why
can't you, as a human being, see that these people are permitted to live? "
"At the present stage of internal affairs in Turkey," Wangenheim replied, "I
shall not intervene."
I saw that it was useless to discuss the matter further. He was a man who was
devoid of sympathy and human pity, and I turned from him in disgust. Wangenheim
rose to leave. As he did so he gave a gasp, and his legs suddenly shot from
under him. I jumped and caught the man just as he was falling. For a minute he
seemed utterly dazed; he looked at me in a bewildered way, then suddenly
collected himself and regained his poise. I took the Ambassador by the arm,
piloted him down stairs, and put him into his auto. By this time he had
apparently recovered from his dizzy spell and he reached home safely. Two days
afterward, while sitting at his dinner table, he had a stroke of apoplexy; he
was carried upstairs to his bed, but he never regained consciousness. On October
24th, I was officially informed that Wangenheim. was dead. And thus my last
recollection of Wangenheim is that of the Ambassador as he sat in my office in
the American Embassy, absolutely refusing to exert any influence to prevent the
massacre of a nation. He was the one, and his government was the one government,
that could have stopped these crimes, but, as Wangenheim told me many times,
"our one aim is to win this war."
A few days afterward official Turkey and the diplomatic force paid their last
tribute to this perfect embodiment of the Prussian system. The funeral was held
in the garden of the German Embassy at Pera. The inclosure was filled with
flowers. Practically the whole gathering, excepting the family and the
ambassadors and the Sultan's representatives, remained standing during the
simple but impressive ceremonies. Then the procession formed; German sailors
carried the bier upon their shoulders, other German sailors carried the huge
bunches of flowers, and all members of the diplomatic corps and the officials of
the Turkish Government followed on foot.
The Grand Vizier led the procession; I walked the whole way with Enver. All the
officers of the Goeben and the Breslau, and all the German generals, dressed in
full uniform, followed. It seemed as though the whole of Constantinople lined
the streets, and the atmosphere had some of the quality of a holiday. We walked
to the grounds of Dolma Bagtche, the Sultan's Palace, passing through the gate
which the ambassadors enter when presenting their credentials. At the dock a
steam launch lay awaiting our arrival, and in this stood Neurath, the German
Conseiller, ready to receive the body of his dead chieftain. The coffin,
entirely covered with flowers, was placed in the boat. As the launch sailed out
into the stream Neurath, a six-foot Prussian, dressed in his military uniform,
his helmet a waving mass of white plumes, stood erect and silent. Wangenheim was
buried in the park of the summer embassy at Therapia, by the side of his comrade
Colonel Leipzig. No final resting-place would have been more appropriate, for
this had been the scene of his diplomatic successes, and it was from this place
that, a little more than two years before, he had directed by wireless the
Goeben and the Breslau, and safely brought them into Constantinople, thus making
it inevitable that Turkey should join forces with Germany, and paving the way
for all the triumphs and all the horrors that have necessarily followed that
event.
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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