MORE ADVENTURES OF THE FOREIGN RESIDENTS

The Gallipoli deportation gives some idea of my difficulties in attempting to fulfil my duty as the representative of Allied interests in the Ottoman Empire. Yet, despite these occasional outbursts of hatred, in the main the Turkish officials themselves behaved very well. They had promised me at the beginning that they would treat their alien enemies decently, and would permit them either to remain in Turkey, and follow their accustomed occupations, or to leave the Empire. They apparently believed that the world would judge them, after the war was over, not by the way they treated their own subject peoples, but by the way they treated the subjects of the enemy Powers. The result was that a Frenchman, an Englishman, or an Italian enjoyed far greater security in Turkey than an Armenian, a Greek, or a Jew. Yet against this disposition to be decent a persistent malevolent force was constantly manifesting itself.

In a letter to the State Department I described the influence that was working against foreigners in Turkey. “The German Ambassador,” I wrote in substance, “keeps pressing on the Turks the advisability both of repressive measures and of detaining as hostages the subjects of the belligerent Powers. I have had to encounter the persistent opposition of my German colleague in endeavouring to obtain permission for the departure of the subjects of the nationalities under our protection.”

Now and then the Turkish officials would retaliate upon one of their enemy aliens, usually in reprisal for some injury, or fancied injury, inflicted on their own subjects in enemy countries. Such acts gave rise to many exciting episodes, some tragical, some farcical, all illuminating in the light they shed upon Turkish character and upon Teutonic methods.

One afternoon I was sitting with Talaat, discussing routine matters, when his telephone rang.

“Pour vous,” said the Minister, handing me the receiver.

It was one of my secretaries. He told me that Bedri had arrested Sir Edwin Pears, had thrown him into prison, and had seized all his papers. Sir Edwin was one of the best-known British residents of Constantinople. For forty years he had{168} practised law in the Ottoman capital; he had also written much for the Press during that period, and had published several books which had given him fame as an authority on Oriental history and politics. He was about eighty years old and of venerable and distinguished appearance. When the war started I had exacted a special promise from Talaat and Bedri that in no event should Sir Edwin Pears and Prof. Van Millingen, of Robert College, be disturbed. This telephone message which I now received—curiously enough, in Talaat’s presence—seemed to indicate that this promise had been broken.

I now turned to Talaat and spoke in a manner that made no attempt to conceal my displeasure.

“Is this all your promises are worth?” I asked. “Can’t you find anything better to do than to molest such a respectable old man as Sir Edwin Pears? What has he ever done to you?”

“Come, come, don’t get excited,” rejoined Talaat. “He’s only been in prison for a few hours, and I will see that he is released.”

He tried to get Bedri on the wire, but failed. By this time I knew Bedri well enough to understand his method of operation. When Bedri really wished to be reached on the telephone he was the most accessible man in the world; when his presence at the other end of the wire might prove embarrassing the most painstaking search could not reveal his whereabouts. As Bedri had given me his solemn promise that Sir Edwin should not be disturbed, this was an occasion when the Prefect of Police preferred to keep himself inaccessible.

“I shall stay in this room until you get Bedri,” I now told Talaat. The big Turk took the situation good-humouredly. We waited a considerable period, but Bedri succeeded in avoiding an encounter. Finally I called up one of my secretaries and told him to go out and hunt for the missing Prefect.

“Tell Bedri,” I said, “that I have Talaat under arrest in his own office, and that I shall not let him leave it until he has been able to instruct Bedri to release Sir Edwin Pears.”

Talaat was greatly enjoying the comedy of the situation. He knew Bedri’s ways even better than I did, and he was much interested in seeing whether I should succeed in finding him. But in a few moments the telephone rang. It was Bedri. I told Talaat to tell him that I was going to the prison in my own automobile to get Sir Edwin Pears.

“Please don’t let him do that,” replied Bedri. “Such an occurrence would make me personally ridiculous and destroy my influence.”{169}

“Very well,” I replied, “I shall wait until 6.15. If Sir Edwin is not restored to his family by that time I shall go to the Police Headquarters and get him.”

As I returned to the Embassy I stopped at the Pears’ residence and attempted to soothe Lady Pears and her daughter.

“If your father is not here at 6.15,” I told Miss Pears, “please let me know immediately.”

Promptly at that time my telephone rang. It was Miss Pears, who informed me that Sir Edwin had just reached home.

The next day Sir Edwin called at the Embassy to thank me for my efforts on his behalf. He told me that the German Ambassador had also worked for his release. This latter statement naturally surprised me; I knew no one else had had a chance to do anything, as everything transpired while I was in Talaat’s office. Half an hour afterward I met Wangenheim himself; he dropped in at Mrs. Morgenthau’s reception. I referred to the Pears case and asked him whether he had used any influence in securing his release. My question astonished him greatly.

“What?” he said. “I helped you to secure his release! Der alte gauner! (The old rascal.) Why, I was the man who had him arrested!”

“What have you got against him?” I asked.

“In 1876,” Wangenheim replied, “that man was pro-Russian and against Turkey!”

Such are the long memories of the Germans! In 1876 Sir Edwin wrote several articles for the London Daily News describing the Bulgarian massacres. At that time the reports of these fiendish atrocities were generally disbelieved, and Sir Edwin’s letters placed all the incontrovertible facts before the English-speaking peoples and had much to do with the emancipation of Bulgaria from Turkish rule. This act of humanity and journalistic statesmanship had brought Sir Edwin much fame, and now, after forty years, Germany proposed to punish him............