Enver always resented any suggestion that American missionaries or other friends of the Armenians should go to help or comfort them. "They show altogether too much sympathy for them," he said over and over again.
I had suggested that particular Americans should go to Tarsus and Marsovan.
"If they should go there, I am afraid that the local people in those cities would become angry and they would be inclined to start some disturbance which might create an incident. It is better for the Armenians themselves, therefore, that the American missionaries should keep away from them."
"But you are ruining the country economically." I said at another time, making the same point that I had made to Talaat. And he answered it in almost the same words, thus showing that the subject had been completely canvassed by the ruling powers.
"Economic considerations are of no importance at this time. The only important thing is to win. That's the only thing we have on our mind. If we win, everything will be all right; if we lose, everything will be all wrong anyhow. Our situation is desperate, I admit it, and we are fighting as desperate men fight. We are not going to let the Armenians attack us in the rear."
The question of relief to the starving Armenians became every week a more pressing one, but Enver still insisted that Americans should keep away from the Armenian provinces.
"How can we furnish bread to the Armenians," Enver declared, "when we can't get enough for our own people? I know that they are suffering and that it is quite likely that they cannot get bread at all this coming winter. But we have the utmost difficulty in getting flour and clothing right here in Constantinople."
I said that I had the money and that American missionaries were anxious to go and use it for the benefit of the refugees.
"We don't want the Americans to feed the Armenians," he flatly replied. "That is one of the worst things that could happen to them. I have already said that it is their belief that they have friends in other countries which leads them to oppose the Government and so brings down upon them all their miseries. If you Americans begin to distribute food and clothing among them, they will then think that they have powerful friends in the United States. This will encourage them to rebellion again and then we shall have to punish them still more. If you will give such money as you have received to the Turks, we shall see that it is used for the benefit of the Armenians."
Enver made this proposal with a straight face, and he made it not only on this occasion but on several others. At the very moment that Enver suggested this mechanism of relief, the Turkish gendarmes and the Turkish officials were not only robbing the Armenians of all their household possessions, of all their food and all their money, but they were even stripping women of their last shreds of clothing and prodding their naked bodies with bayonets as they staggered across the burning desert. And the Minister of War now proposed that we give our American money to these same guardians of the law for distribution among their charges! However, I had to be tactful.
"If you or other heads of the Government would become personally responsible for the distribution," I said, "of course we would be glad to entrust the money to you. But naturally you would not expect us to give this money to the men who have been killing the Armenians and outraging their women."
But Enver returned to his main point. "They must never know," he said, "that they have a friend in the United States. That would absolutely ruin them! It is far better that they starve, and in saying this I am really thinking of the welfare of the Armenians themselves. If they can only be convinced that they have no friends in other countries, then they will settle down, recognize that Turkey is their only refuge, and become quiet citizens. Your country is doing them no kindness by constantly showing your sympathy. You are merely drawing upon them greater hardships."
In other words, the more money which the Americans sent to feed the Armenians, the more Armenians Turkey intended to massacre! Enver's logic was fairly maddening; yet he did relent at the end and permit me to help the sufferers through certain missionaries. In all our discussions he made this hypocritical plea that he was really a friend of this distracted nation and that even the severity of the measures which he had adopted was mercy in disguise. Since Enver always asserted that he wished to treat the Armenians with justice-in this his attitude to me was quite different from that of Talaat, who openly acknowledged his determination to deport them-I went to the pains of preparing an elaborate plan for bettering their condition. I suggested that, if he wished to be just, he should protect the innocent refugees and lessen this suffering as much as possible, and that for that purpose he should appoint a special committee of Armenians to assist him and send a capable Armenian, such as Oskan Effendi, formerly Minister of Posts and Telegraphs, to study conditions and submit suggestions for remedying the existing evils. Enver did not approve either of my proposals; as to the first, he said that his colleagues would misunderstand it, and, as to Oskan, he said that he admired him for his good work while he had been in the Cabinet and had backed him in his severity toward the inefficient officials, yet he could not trust him because he was a member of the Armenian Dashnaguist Society.
In another talk with Enver I began by suggesting that the Central Government was probably not to blame for the massacres. I thought that this would not be displeasing to him.
"Of course I know that the Cabinet would never order such terrible things as have taken place," I said. "You and Talaat and the rest of the Committee can hardly be held responsible. Undoubtedly your subordinates have gone much further than you have ever intended. I realize that it is not always easy to control your underlings."
Enver straightened up at once. I saw that my remarks, far from smoothing the way to a quiet and friendly discussion, had greatly offended him. I had intimated that things could happen in Turkey for which he and his associates were not responsible.
"You are greatly mistaken," he said. "We have this country absolutely under our control. I have no desire to shift the blame on to our underlings and I am entirely willing to accept the responsibility myself for everything that has taken place. The Cabinet itself has ordered the deportations. I am convinced that we are completely justified in doing this owing to the hostile attitude of the Armenians toward the Ottoman Government, but we are the real rulers of Turkey, and no underling would dare proceed in a matter of this kind without our orders."
Enver tried to mitigate the barbarity of his general attitude by showing mercy in particular instances. I made no progress in my efforts to stop the programme of wholesale massacre, but I did save a few Armenians from death. One day I received word from the American Consul at Smyrna that seven Armenians had been sentenced to be hanged. These men had been accused of committing some rather vague political offense in 1909; yet neither Rahmi Bey, the Governor General of Smyrna, nor the Military Commander believed that they were guilty. When the order for execution reached Smyrna these authorities wired Constantinople that under the Ottoman law the accused had the right to appeal for clemency to the Sultan. The answer which was returned to this communication well illustrated the extent to which the rights of the Armenians were regarded at that time:
"Technically, you are right; hang them first and send the petition for pardon afterward."
I visited Enver in the interest of these men on Bairam, which is the greatest Mohammedan religious festival; it is the day that succeeds Ramadan, their month of fasting. Bairam has one feature in common with Christmas, for on that day it is customary for Mohammedans to exchange small presents, usually sweets. So after the usual remarks of felicitation, I said to Enver:
"To-day is Bairam and you haven't sent me any present yet."
Enver laughed.
"What do you want? Shall I send you a box of candies?"
"Oh, no," I answered, "I am not so cheap as that. I want the pardon of the seven Armenians whom the court-martial has condemned at Smyrna."
The proposition apparently struck Enver as very amusing.
"That's a funny way of a
sking for a pardon," he said. "However, since you put it that way, I can't refuse."
He immediately sent for his aide and telegraphed to Smyrna, setting the men free.
Thus fortuitously is justice administered and decision involving human lives made in Turkey. Nothing could make clearer the slight estimation in which the Turks hold life, and the slight extent to which principle controls their conduct. Enver spared these men not because he had the slightest interest in their cases, but simply as a personal favour to me and largely because of the whimsical manner in which I had asked it. In all my talks on the Armenians the Minister of War treated the whole matter more or less casually; he could discuss the fate of a race in a parenthesis, and refer to the massacre of children as nonchalantly as we would speak of the weather.
One day Enver asked me to ride with him in the Belgrade forest. As I was losing no opportunities to influence him, I accepted this invitation. We autoed to Buyukdere, where four attendants with horses met us. In our ride through the beautiful forest, Enver became rather more communicative in his conversation than ever before. He spoke affectionately of his father and mother; when they were married, he said, his father had been sixteen and his mother only eleven, and he himself had been born when his mother was fifteen. In talking of his wife, the Imperial Princess, he disclosed a much softer side to his nature than I had hitherto seen. He spoke of the dignity with which she graced his home, regretted that Mohammedan ideas of propriety prohibited her from entering social life, but expressed a wish that she and Mrs. Morgenthau could meet. He was then furnishing a beautiful new palace on the Bosphorus; when this was finished, he said, the Princess would invite my wife to breakfast. Just then we were passing the house and grounds of Senator Abraham Pasha, a very rich Armenian. This man had been an intimate friend of the Sultan Abdul Aziz, and, since in Turkey a man inherits his father's friends as well as his property, the Crown Prince of Turkey, a son of Abdul Aziz, made weekly visits to this distinguished Senator. As we passed through the park, Enver noticed with disgust that woodmen were cutting down trees and stopped them. When I heard afterward that the Minister of War had bought this park, I understood one of the reasons for his anger. Since Abraham Pasha was an Armenian, this gave me an opportunity to open the subject again.
I spoke to him of the terrible treatment from which the Armenian women were suffering.
"You said that you wanted to protect women and children," I remarked, "but I know that your orders are not being carried out."
"Those stories can't be true," he said. "I cannot conceive that a Turkish soldier would ill-treat a woman who is with child."
Perhaps, if Enver could have read the circumstantial reports which were then lying in the archives of the American Embassy, he might have changed his mind.
Shifting the conversation once more, he asked me about my saddle, which was the well-known "General McClellan" type. Enver tried it and liked it so much that he afterward borrowed it, had one made exactly like it for himself-even including the number in one corner and adopted it for one of his regiments. He told me of the railroads which he was then building in Palestine, said how well the Cabinet was working, and pointed out that there were great opportunities in Turkey now for real-estate speculation. He even suggested that he and I join hands in buying land that was sure to rise in value! But I insisted in talking about the Armenians. However, I made no more progress than before.
"We shall not permit them to cluster in places where they can plot mischief and help our enemies. So we are going to give them new quarters."
This ride was so successful, from Enver's point of view, that we took another a few days afterward, and this time Talaat and Dr. Gates, the President of Robert College, accompanied us. Enver and I rode ahead, while our companions brought up the rear. These Turkish officials are exceedingly jealous of their prerogatives, and, since the Minister of War is the ranking member of the Cabinet, Enver insisted on keeping a decorous interval between ourselves and the other pair of horsemen. I was somewhat amused by this, for I knew that Talaat was the more powerful politician; yet he accepted the discrimination and only once did he permit his horse to pass Enver and myself. At this violation of the proprieties, Enver showed his displeasure, whereas Talaat paused, reined up his horse, and passed submissively to the rear.
"I was merely showing Dr. Gates the gait of my horse," he said, with an apologetic air.
But I was interested in more important matters than such fine distinctions in official etiquette; I was determined to talk about the Armenians. But again I failed to make any progress. Enver found more interesting subjects of discussion.
He began to talk of his horses, and now another incident illustrated the mercurial quality of the Turkish mind-the readiness with which a Turk passes from acts of monstrous criminality to acts of individual kindness. Enver said that the horse races would take place soon and regretted that he had no jockey.
"I'll give you an English jockey," I said. "Will you make a bargain? He is a prisoner of war; if he wins will you give him his freedom?"
"I'll do it," said Enver.
This man, whose name was Fields., actually entered the races as Enver's jockey, and came in third. He rode for his freedom, as Mr. Philip said! Since he did not come in first, the Minister was not obliged, by the terms of his agreement, to let him return to England, but Enver stretched a point and gave him his liberty.
On this same ride Enver gave me an exhibition Of his skill as a marksman.
At one point in the road I suddenly heard a pistol shot ring out in the air. It was Enver's aide practising on a near-by object. Immediately Enver dismounted, whipped out his revolver, and, thrusting his arm out rigidly and horizontally, he took aim.
"Do you see that twig on that tree?" he asked me. It was about thirty feet away.
When I nodded, Enver fired-and the twig dropped to the ground.
The rapidity with which Enver could whip his weapon out of his pocket, aim, and shoot, gave me one convincing explanation for the influence which he exercised with the piratical crew that was then ruling Turkey. There were plenty of stories floating around that Enver did not hesitate to use this method of suasion at certain critical moments of his career; how true these anecdotes were I do not know, but I can certainly testify to the high character of his marksmanship.
Talaat also began to amuse himself in the same way, and finally the two statesmen started shooting in competition and behaving as gaily and as carefree as boys let out of school.
"Have you one of your cards with you?" asked Enver. He requested that I pin it to a tree, which stood about fifty feet away.
Enver then fired first. His hand was steady; his eye went straight to the mark, and the bullet hit the card directly in the centre. This success rather nettled Talaat. He took aim, but his rough hand and wrist shook slightly-he was not an athlete like his younger, wiry, and straight-backed associate. Several times Talaat hit around the edges of the card, but he could not duplicate Enver's skill.
"If it had been a man I was firing at," said the bulky Turk, jumping on his horse again, "I would have hit him several times."
So ended my attempts to interest the two most powerful Turks of their day in the fate of one of the most valuable elements in their empire!
I have already said that Sa•d Halim, the Grand Vizier, was not an influential personage. Nominally, his office was the most important in the empire; actually, the Grand Vizier was a mere place-warmer, and Talaat and Enver controlled the present incumbent, precisely as they controlled the Sultan himself. Technically the ambassadors should have conducted their negotiations with Sa•d Halim, for he was Minister for Foreign Affairs; I early discovered, however, that nothing could be accomplished this way, and, though I still made my Monday calls as a matter of courtesy, I preferred to deal directly with the men who had the real power to decide all matters. In order that I might not be accused of neglecting any means of influencing the Ottoman Government, I brought the Armenian question several tim
es to the Grand Vizier's attention. As he was not a Turk, but an Egyptian, and a man of education and breeding, it seemed not unlikely that he might have a somewhat different attitude toward the subject peoples. But I was wrong, The Grand Vizier was just as hostile to the Armenians as Talaat and Enver. I soon found that merely mentioning the subject irritated him greatly. Evidently he did not care to have his elegant case interfered with by such disagreeable and unimportant subjects. The Grand Vizier showed his attitude when the Greek ChargŽ d'Affaires spoke to him about the persecutions of the Greeks. Sa•d Halim said that such manifestations did the Greeks more harm than good.
"We shall do with them just the opposite from what we are asked to do," said the Grand Vizier.
To my appeals the nominal chief minister was hardly more statesmanlike. I had the disagreeable task of sending him, in behalf of the British, French, and Russian governments, a notification that these Powers would hold personally responsible for the Armenian atrocities the men who were then directing Ottoman affairs. This meant, of course, that in the event of Allied success, they would treat the Grand Vizier, Talaat, Enver, Djemal and their companions as ordinary murderers. As I came into the room to discuss this somewhat embarrassing message with this member of the royal house of Egypt, he sat there, as usual, nervously fingering his beads, and not in a particularly genial frame of mind. He at once spoke of this telegram; his face flushed with anger, and he began a long diatribe against the whole Armenian race. He declared that the Armenian "rebels" had killed 120,000 Turks at Van. This and other of his statements were so absurd that I found myself spiritedly defending the persecuted race, and this aroused the Grand Vizier's wrath still further, and, switching from the Armenians, he began to abuse my own country, making the usual charge that our sympathy with the Armenians was largely responsible for all their troubles.
Ambassador Morgenthau's Story Page 30
