But we were all there in a highly nervous state, because we knew that Germany was working hard to produce a casus belli. Souchon frequently sent the Goeben and the Breslau to man?uvre in the Black Sea, hoping that the Russian fleet would attack. There were several pending1 situations that might end in war. Turkish and Russian troops were having occasional skirmishes on the Persian and Caucasian frontier. On October 29th Bedouin troops crossed the Egyptian border and had a little collision with British soldiers. On October 29th I had a long talk with Talaat. I called in the interest of the British Ambassador, to tell him about the Bedouins crossing into Egypt. “I suppose,” Sir Louis wrote me, “that this means war; you might mention this news to Talaat and impress upon him the possible results of this mad act.” Already Sir Louis had had difficulties with Turkey over this matter. When he had protested to the Grand Vizier about the Turkish troops near the Egyptian frontier, the Turkish statesman had pointedly2 replied that Turkey recognised no such thing as an Egyptian frontier. By this he meant, of course, that Egypt itself was Turkish territory and that the English occupation was a temporary usurpation3. When I brought this Egyptian situation to Talaat’s attention he said that no Ottoman Bedouins had crossed into Egypt. The Turks had been building wells on the Sinai Peninsula to use in case war broke out with England; England was destroying these wells, and the Bedouins, said Talaat, had interfered4 to stop this destruction.
At this meeting Talaat frankly5 told me that Turkey had decided6 to side with the Germans and to sink or swim with them. He went again over the familiar grounds, and added that if Germany won—and Talaat said that he was convinced that Germany would win—the Kaiser would get his revenge on Turkey if Turkey had not helped him to obtain this victory. Talaat frankly admitted that fear—the motive7 which, as I have said, is the one that chiefly inspires Turkish acts—was driving Turkey into a German alliance. He analysed the whole situation most dispassionately; he said that nations could not afford such emotions as gratitude8, or hate, or affection; the only guide to action should be cold-blooded policy.
“At this moment,” said Talaat, “it is for our interest to side with Germany; if, a month from now, it is our interest to embrace France and England, we shall do that just as readily.”
“Russia is our greatest enemy,” he continued, “and we are afraid of her. If now, while Germany is attacking Russia, we can give her a good strong kick, and so make her powerless to injure us for some time, it is Turkey’s duty to administer that kick”!
And then turning to me with a half-melancholy, half-defiant smile, he summed up the whole situation.
“Ich mit die Deutschen,” he said in his broken German.
Because the Cabinet was so divided, however, the Germans themselves had to push Turkey over the precipice9. The evening following my talk with Talaat, most fateful news came from Russia. Three Turkish torpedo10 boats had entered the harbour of Odessa, had sunk the Russian gunboat Donetz, killing11 a part of the crew, and had damaged two Russian dreadnoughts. They also sank the French ship Portugal, killing two of the crew and wounding two others. They then turned their shells on the town and destroyed a sugar factory, with some loss of life. German officers commanded these Turkish vessels12; there were very few Turks on board, as the Turkish crew had been given a holiday for the Turkish religious festival of Bairam. The act was simply a wanton and unprovoked one; the Germans raided the town deliberately13, simply to make war inevitable14. The German officers on the General, as my friend had told me, were constantly threatening to commit some such act if Turkey did not do so; well, now they had done it. When this news reached Constantinople, Djemal was playing cards at the Cercle d’Orient. As Djemal was Minister of Marine15, this attack, had it been an official act of Turkey, could have been made only on his orders. When someone called him from the card-table to tell him the news Djemal was much excited. “I know nothing about it,” he replied. “It has not been done by my orders.” On the evening of the 29th I had another talk with Talaat. He told me that he had known nothing of this attack beforehand, and that the whole responsibility rested with the German, Admiral Souchon.
Whether Djemal and Talaat were telling the truth in thus pleading ignorance I do not know; my opinion is that they were expecting some such outrage16 as this. But there is no question that the Grand Vizier, Sa?d Halim, was genuinely grieved.{82} When M. Bompard and Sir Louis Mallet17 called on him and demanded their passports he burst into tears. He begged them to delay; he was sure that the matter could be adjusted. The Grand Vizier was the only member of the Cabinet whom Enver and Talaat particularly wished to placate18. As a prince of the royal house of Egypt, and as an extremely rich nobleman, his presence in the Cabinet, as I have already said, gave it a certain standing19. This probably explains the message which I now received. Talaat asked me to call upon the Russian Ambassador and ask what amends20 Turkey could make that would satisfy the Czar. There is little likelihood that Talaat sincerely wished me to patch up the difficulties; his purpose was merely to show the Grand Vizier that he was attempting to meet his wishes and, in this way, to keep him in the Cabinet. I saw M. Giers, but found him in no submissive mood. He said that Turkey could make amends only by dismissing all the German officers in the Turkish Army and Navy; he had his instructions to leave at once and he should do so. However, he would wait long enough in Bulgaria to receive their reply, and, if they accepted his terms, he would come back.
“Russia, herself, will guarantee that the Turkish fleet does not again come into the Black Sea,” said M. Giers grimly. Talaat called on me in the afternoon, saying that he had just had lunch with Wangenheim. The Cabinet had the Russian reply under consideration, he said. The Grand Vizier wished to have M. Giers’s terms put in writing; would I attempt to get it? By this time Garroni, the Italian Ambassador, had taken charge of Russian affairs, and I told Talaat that such negotiations21 were out of my hands, and that any further negotiations must be conducted through him.
“Why don’t you drop your mask as messenger-boy of the Grand Vizier and talk to me as Talaat?” I asked.
He laughed and said: “Well, Wangenheim, Enver, and I prefer that the war shall come now.”
Bustány, Oskan, Mahmoud, and Djavid at once carried out their threats and resigned from the Cabinet, thus leaving the Government in the hands of Moslem22 Turks. The Grand Vizier, although he had threatened to resign, did not do so. He was exceedingly pompous23 and vain, and enjoyed the dignities of his office so much that, when it came to the final decision, he could not surrender them. Thus the net result of Turkey’s entrance into the war, so far as internal politics was concerned, was to put the nation entirely24 in the hands of the Committee of union and Progress, which now controlled the Government in practically all{83} its departments. Thus the idealistic organisation25 which had come into existence to give Turkey the blessings26 of democracy had ended by becoming a tool of Prussian autocracy27.
One final picture I have of these exciting days. On the evening of the 30th I called at the British Embassy. British residents were already streaming in large numbers to my office for protection, and fears of ill-treatment, even the massacre28 of foreigners, filled everybody’s mind. Amid all this tension I found one imperturbable29 figure. Sir Louis was sitting in the chancery, before a huge fireplace, with large piles of documents heaped about him in a semi-circle. Secretaries and clerks were constantly entering, their arms full of papers, which they added to the accumulations already surrounding the Ambassador. Sir Louis would take up document after document, glance through it, and almost invariably drop it into the fire. These papers contained the Embassy records for probably a hundred years. In them were written the great achievements of a long line of distinguished30 Ambassadors. There appeared the story of all the diplomatic triumphs in Turkey of Stratford de Redcliffe, the “Great Elchi,” as the Turks called him, who, for the greater part of almost fifty years, from 1810 to 1858, practically ruled the Turkish Empire in the interest of England. The records of other great British Ambassadors at the Sublime32 Porte now went, one by one, into Sir Louis Mallet’s fire. The long story of British ascendancy33 in Turkey had reached its close. The twenty years’ campaign of the Kaiser to destroy England’s influence and to become England’s successor had finally triumphed, and the blaze in Sir Louis’s chancery was really the funeral pyre of England’s vanished power in Turkey. As I looked upon this dignified34 and yet somewhat pensive35 diplomat31, sitting there amid all the splendours of the British Embassy, I naturally thought of how once the Sultans had bowed with fear and awe36 before the majesty37 of England, in the days when Prussia and Germany were little more than names. Yet the British Ambassador, as is usually the case with British diplomatic and military figures, was quiet and self-possessed. We sat there before his fire and discussed the details of his departure. He gave me a list of the English residents who were to leave and those who were to stay, and I made final arrangements with Sir Louis for taking over British interests. Distressing38 in many ways as was this collapse39 of British influence in Turkey, the honour of Great Britain and that of her Ambassador was still secure. Sir Louis had not purchased Turkish officials with money, as had Wangenheim; he had not corrupted40 the Turkish Press, trampled41 on every{84} remaining vestige42 of international law, fraternised with a gang of political desperadoes, and conducted a ceaseless campaign of misrepresentations and lies against his enemy. The diplomatic game that had ended in England’s defeat was one which English statesmen were not qualified43 to play. It called for talents such as only a Wangenheim possessed—it needed that German statecraft which, in accordance with Bismarck’s maxim44, was ready to sacrifice for the Fatherland “not only life but honour.”
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1
pending
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| prep.直到，等待…期间；adj.待定的；迫近的 | |
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2
pointedly
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| adv.尖地，明显地 | |
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usurpation
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| n.篡位；霸占 | |
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interfered
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| v.干预( interfere的过去式和过去分词 )；调停；妨碍；干涉 | |
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5
frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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8
gratitude
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| adj.感激，感谢 | |
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9
precipice
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| n.悬崖，危急的处境 | |
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10
torpedo
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| n.水雷，地雷；v.用鱼雷破坏 | |
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11
killing
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| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
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vessels
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| n.血管( vessel的名词复数 )；船；容器；（具有特殊品质或接受特殊品质的）人 | |
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13
deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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15
marine
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| adj.海的；海生的；航海的；海事的；n.水兵 | |
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16
outrage
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| n.暴行，侮辱，愤怒；vt.凌辱，激怒 | |
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mallet
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| n.槌棒 | |
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18
placate
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| v.抚慰，平息(愤怒) | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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20
amends
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| n. 赔偿 | |
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negotiations
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| 协商( negotiation的名词复数 )； 谈判； 完成（难事）； 通过 | |
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Moslem
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| n.回教徒，穆罕默德信徒；adj.回教徒的，回教的 | |
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pompous
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| adj.傲慢的，自大的；夸大的；豪华的 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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organisation
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| n.组织，安排，团体，有机休 | |
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blessings
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| n.（上帝的）祝福( blessing的名词复数 )；好事；福分；因祸得福 | |
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27
autocracy
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| n.独裁政治，独裁政府 | |
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28
massacre
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| n.残杀，大屠杀；v.残杀，集体屠杀 | |
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29
imperturbable
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| adj.镇静的 | |
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distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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diplomat
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| n.外交官，外交家；能交际的人，圆滑的人 | |
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sublime
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| adj.崇高的，伟大的；极度的，不顾后果的 | |
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ascendancy
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| n.统治权，支配力量 | |
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dignified
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| a.可敬的，高贵的 | |
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pensive
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| a.沉思的,哀思的,忧沉的 | |
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awe
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| n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧 | |
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majesty
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| n.雄伟，壮丽，庄严，威严；最高权威，王权 | |
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distressing
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| a.使人痛苦的 | |
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collapse
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| vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷 | |
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40
corrupted
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| （使）败坏( corrupt的过去式和过去分词 )； （使）腐化； 引起（计算机文件等的）错误； 破坏 | |
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41
trampled
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| 踩( trample的过去式和过去分词 )； 践踏； 无视； 侵犯 | |
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42
vestige
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| n.痕迹，遗迹，残余 | |
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43
qualified
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| adj.合格的，有资格的，胜任的，有限制的 | |
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44
maxim
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| n.格言，箴言 | |
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