Kitaplar...
259)Harry Stuermer - Two War Years in Constantinople
It was the same incapability of thinking in terms of true world-politics that led us lately to believe that we might find supporters in Mexico and Japan of the piracy we indulged in as a result of America's intervention in the war, the same incapability that blinded us to the effect our methods must have on other neutrals such as China and the South American States.
The moment England entered the war, Germany lost the war.
As early as the beginning of 1916 he told me the plain truth that we were practically starving Belgium and that the country was really only kept alive by the Relief Commission, and that we were attempting to ruin any Belgian industry which might compete with ours by a systematic removal of machinery to Germany.
He said : " You are going to Constantinople. You will soon be able to see for yourself the moral bankruptcy of the Young Turks, and you will find that Turkey is nothing but a dead body galvanised into action, that will only last as long as the war lasts and we Germans supply the galvanising power." I
The climax was reached in the scandal of supplanting General Weber, commanding the " Southern Group " (Seddul-Bahr), by Vehib Pasha, a grim and fanatical Turk. In this case the Turkish point of view prevailed, for General Liman von Sanders, Commander-in-Chief of the Gallipoli Army, was determined not to lose his post, and agreed slavishly with all that Enver Pasha ordained. From other fronts, such as the Irak and the " Caucasus " (which was becoming more and more a purely Armenian theatre of war, without losing that chimerical designation in the official reports !), there came even more significant tales ; there German and Turkish officers seemed to live still more of a cat-anddog life than in the Dardanelles.
Ermenilere zulmedildiğinden, Alman hükümetinin de bundan sorumlu olduğundan Ermenilerin Kürtler’in ellerine bırakıldığından vs bahsediyor...
Practically right up to the end of 1916, the real, shortsighted, jingoistic Turk looked askance at his new ally and viewed with irritation and distrust the desecration of his sacred " Edirne," the symbol of his national re- naissance, while the ambition of all politicians was to bring Bulgaria one day to a surrender of the lost territory and more. Even in 1916 I found Young Turks, belonging to the Committee, who still regarded the Bulgarians as their erstwhile cunning foe and as a set of unscrupulous, un- sympathetic opportunists who might again become a menace to them. They even admitted that the Serbs were " infinitely nicer enemies in the Balkan war," and appealed to them very much more than the Bulgarians.
On the occasion of the Bairam Festival —^the highest Musulman festival—in 1916, the Turkish Government made a point of sending a group of about seventy AngloIndian Mohammedan officers, who had been taken prisoner at the fall of Kut and were now interned in Eski-Shehir, to the " Caliph City of Stamboul," where they were entertained for ten days in different Turkish hotels and shown everything that would seem to be of value for " Holy War " propaganda purposes.
" Z.E.G." (" Zentraleinkaufsgesellschaft," " Central Purchasing Commission ") and their minions who tried to rob Turkey of foodstuffs and raw material for the benefit of Germany, against the " Djemiet " and more particularly the Quartermaster-General, Ismail Hakki Pasha, that wooden-legged, enormously wealthy representative of the neoTurkish spirit—he was the most perfect blend of Oriental politeness and narrow minded decision to do exactly the opposite of what he had promised. On the Turkish side, there was the determination to safeguard the interests of the Army, and in the case of the "Djemiet" the effort not to let any foodstuffs out of Turkey --a, standpoint that has at last found expression in a formal prohibition of all export—^then the quest of personal enrichment on the part of the great " Clique " ; on the German side, the insatiable hunger for everything Turkey could provide that had been lacking for a long time in Germany : the whole thing was a wonderfully variegated picture of mutual intrigue.
Mehmed Zekki "Bey," the publisher and chief editor of the military paper Die Nationalverteidigung and its counterpart La Defense, published daily in French but representative of Young Turkish-German interests. Hundreds of those who know Zekki also know that he used to be called " Capitaine Nelken y Waldberg." Fewer know that " Nelken " alone would have been more in accordance with fact....Then, as often happens, the Argentine special police took him into their service, thinking, no doubt, on the principle of "setting a thief to catch a thief," that he would have special experience for the post. Grounds enough there for him to add on the second name on his falsified passport "Nelkeny Waldberg " and to call himself in Eiu-ope a "Capi taine de la Gendarmerie" from the Argentine!
As early as summer 1915 there were clear outward indications in the streets of Constantinople of a smouldering Nationalism ready to break out at any moment. Turkey, under the leadership of Talaat Bey, pursued her course along the weU-trodden paths, and the first sphere in which there was evidence of an attempt at forcible Turkification was the language. Somewhere towards the end of 1915 Talaat suddenly ordered the removal of all French and English inscriptions, shop signs, etc., even in the middle of European Pera. In tramcars and at stop ping-places the French text was blocked outboards with public police warnings in French were either removed altogether or replaced by unreadable Turkish scrawls; the street indications were simply abolished. The au thorities apparently thought it preferable that the Levantine public should get into the wrong tramcar, should break their legs getting out, pick flowers in the parks and wander round helplessly in a maze of unnamed streets rather than that the spirit of forcible Turkification should make even the least sacrifice to comfort... all the names over the shops had been painted over and replaced by wonderful Turkish characters that looked like decorative shields or something of the kind painted in the red and white of the national colours. If one had not noted the entrance to the shop and the look of the window very carefully, one might wander helplessly up and down the Grand Rue de Pera if one wanted to buy something in a particular shop
Then came the famous language regulations, which even went so far—^with a year of grace granted owing to the extraordinary difficulties of the Turkish script—as to decree that in the offices of all trade under takings of any public interest whatsoever, such as banks, newspapers, transport agencies, etc., the Turkish language should be used exclusively for book-keeping and any written communication with customers. One can imagine the " Osmanic Lloyd " and the " German Bank " with Turkish book-keeping and Turkish letters written to an exclusively European clientele
I was house-hunting in Pera once and could not find anything suitable. I approached a member of the Committee and he said in solemn earnest: "Oh, just wait a few weeks. We are all hoping that Greece will declare war on us before long, and then all the Greeks will be treated as the Armenians have been. I can let you have the nicest villa on the Bosporus. but then," he added with gleaming eyes, " we won't be so stupid as merely to turn them out. These Greek dogs (kopek rum) will have the pleasure of seeing us take everything away from them— everything —and compelling them to give up their own property by formal contract." Anlatttt sen seversin.
The Hungarians are closely allied to the Turks not only by blood but in general outlook, and form a marked contrast to Germany's cold and methodical calculation in worming her way into Turkish commercial life. After the war when Turkey is seeking for stimulation, it will be easy enough to make use of Hungarian influence to the detriment of Germany. Turanist ideas have even been brought into play to establish still more firmly the union between Turkey and her former enemy Bulgaria, and the people of Turkey are reminded that the Bulgars are not really Slavs but Slavic Fino-Tartars.
I shall naturally not divulge—even went so far as to say to me in an intimate personal discussion we were having one day between friend and friend : " We Turks are and will always remain, in spite of the war, pro English and pro-French so far as social and intellectual life is concerned ; and it would need twenty years of hard pro paganda work on Germany's part, quite different from her present methods, to change this point of view, if it ever could be changed."
While the Gallipoli campaign was going on, he even made a journey to the Front to greet his soldiers. Early one morning he was found lying dead in a pool of his own blood with a severed artery. He had received his death wound in exactly the same place and exactly the same way as his father, Sultan Abdul-Aziz, who fell a victim to Abdul-Hamid's hatred. The political significance of Yussuf Izzedin's death is perfectly clear. What we want to do now is to demonstrate Enver Pasha's moral culpability in the matter and to show how he was more or less directly the murderer of this quiet, cultured, highly respected, and thoroughly patriotic man, who was some day to ascend the throne of Turkey... One thing is clear, and that is that Izzedin Effendi did not pay with his life for any disloyal act, but merely for his personal and political opposition to Enver. One thing is clear, and that is that Izzedin Effendi did not pay with his life for any disloyal act, but merely for his personal and political opposition to Enver.
The more doctrinal, but at any rate courageous and honourable opposition of Ahmed Riza is likewise of very little significance. Once, about the middle of December, 1916, Enver even went so far as to hurl the epithet " shameless dog " at Ahmed Riza in the Senate without being called to order by the President
