enver pasha discusses the armenians
all this time i was bringing pressure upon enver also. the minister of war, as i have already indicated, was a different type of man from talaat. he concealed his real feelings much more successfully; he was usually suave, cold-blooded, and scrupulously polite. and at first he was by no means so callous as talaat in discussing the armenians. he dismissed the early stories as wild exaggerations, declared that the troubles at van were merely ordinary warfare, and attempted to quiet my fears that the wholesale annihilation of the armenians had been decided on. yet all the time that enver was attempting to deceive me he was making open admissions to other people—a fact of which i was aware. in particular, he made no attempt to conceal the real situation from dr. lepsius, a representative of german missionary interests. dr. lepsius was a high-minded christian gentleman. he had been all through the armenian massacres of 1895, and he had raised considerable sums of money to build orphanages for armenian children who had lost their parents at that time. he came again in 1915 to investigate the armenian situation on behalf of german missionary interests. he asked for the privilege of inspecting the reports of american consuls, and i granted it. these documents, supplemented by other information which dr. lepsius derived largely from german missionaries in the interior, left no doubt in his mind as to the policy of the turks. his feelings were aroused chiefly against his own government. he expressed to me the humiliation which he felt, as a german, that the turks should deliberately set about to exterminate their christian subjects while germany, ostensibly a christian country, was making no endeavours to prevent it. to him enver scarcely concealed the official purpose. dr. lepsius was simply staggered by his frankness, for enver told him in so many words that they at last had an opportunity to rid themselves of the armenians and that they proposed to use it.
by this time enver had become more frank with me—the circumstantial reports which i possessed made it useless for him{227} to attempt to conceal the true situation further—and we had many long and animated discussions on the subject. one of these i recall with particular vividness. i notified enver that i intended to take up the matter in detail, and he laid aside enough time to go over the whole situation.
“the armenians had a fair warning,” enver began, “of what would happen to them in case they joined our enemies. three months ago i sent for the armenian patriarch and told him that if the armenians attempted to start a revolution, or to assist the russians, i would be unable to prevent mischief from happening to them. my warning produced no effect, and the armenians started a revolution and helped the russians. you know what happened at van. they obtained control of the city, used bombs against government buildings, and killed a large number of moslems. we knew that they were planning uprisings in other places. you must understand that we are now fighting for our lives at the dardanelles, and that we are sacrificing thousands of men. while we are engaged in such a struggle as this we cannot permit people in our own country to attack us in the back. we have got to prevent this, no matter what means we have to resort to. it is absolutely true that i am not opposed to the armenians as a people. i have the greatest admiration for their intelligence and industry, and i should like nothing better than to see them become a real part of our nation. but if they ally themselves with our enemies, as they did in the van district, they will have to be destroyed. i have taken pains to see that no injustice is done; only recently i gave orders to have three armenians who had been deported returned to their homes when i found that they were innocent. russia, france, great britain and america are doing the armenians no kindness by sympathising with and encouraging them. i know what such encouragement means to a people who are inclined to revolution. when our union and progress party attacked abdul hamid we received all our moral encouragement from the outside world. this encouragement was of great help to us and had much to do with our success. it might similarly now help the armenians and their revolutionary programme. i am sure that if these outside countries did not encourage them they would give up their efforts to oppose the present government and become law-abiding citizens. we now have this country in our absolute control, and we can easily revenge ourselves on any revolutionists.”
“after all,” i said, “suppose what you say is true, why not punish the guilty? why sacrifice a whole race for the alleged crimes of individuals?”{228}
“your point is all right during peace times,” replied enver. “we can then use platonic means to quiet armenians and greeks; but in time of war we cannot investigate and negotiate. we must act promptly and with determination. i also think that the armenians are making a mistake in depending upon the russians. the russians really would rather see them killed than alive. they are as great a danger to the russians as they are to us. if they should form an independent government in turkey, the armenians in russia would attempt to form an independent government there. the armenians have also been guilty of massacres. in the entire district around van only 30,000 turks escaped; all the rest were murdered by the armenians and kurds. i attempted to protect the non-combatants at the caucasus; i gave orders that they should not be injured, but i found that, the situation was beyond my control. there are about 70,000 armenians in constantinople, and they will not be molested, except those who are dashnaguists and those who are plotting against the turks. however, i think you can ease your mind on the whole subject, as there will be no more massacres of armenians.”
i did not take seriously enver’s concluding statement. at the time that he was speaking massacres and deportations were taking place all over the armenian provinces, and they went on almost without interruption for several months.
as soon as the reports reached the united states the question of relief became a pressing one. in the latter part of july i heard that there were 5,000 armenians from zeitoun and sultanie who were receiving no food whatever. i spoke about them to enver, who positively declared that they would receive proper food. he did not receive favourably any suggestion that american representatives should go to that part of the country and assist and care for the exiles.
“for any american to do this,” he said, “would encourage all armenians and make further trouble. there are about 28,000,000 people in turkey, and 1,000,000 armenians, and we do not propose to have 1,000,000 disturb the peace of the rest of the population. the great trouble with the armenians is that they are separatists. they are determined to have a kingdom of their own, and they have allowed themselves to be fooled by the russians. because they have relied upon the friendship of the russians they have helped them in this war. we are determined that they behave just as turks do. you must remember that when we started this revolution in turkey there were only 200 of us. with these few followers we were{229} able to deceive the sultan and the public, who thought that we were immensely more numerous and powerful than we were. we really prevailed upon him and the public through our sheer audacity, and in this way established the constitution. it is our own experience at revolution which makes us fear the armenians. if 200 turks could overturn the government, then a few hundred bright, educated armenians could do the same thing. we have therefore deliberately adopted the plan of scattering them so that they can do us no harm. as i told you once before, i warned the armenian patriarch that if the armenians attacked us while we were engaged in a foreign war we turks would hit back, and that we should hit back indiscriminately.”
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 move pressing one. 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 it 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.”{230}
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 wall 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, recognise 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{231} 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 the 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 dashuaguist 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 realise 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 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{232} 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 offence 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 ramazan, 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 given 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 asking 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{233} forest. as i was losing no opportunities to influence him, i accepted this invitation. we motored 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 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 afterwards borrowed it, had one made for his own use—even including the number in one corner—and he 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 {234}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, whereat 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 distinction in official etiquette; i was determined to talk about the armenians. but again i failed to make any progress.
enver found more interesting discussions.
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.{235}
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. suddenly enver reined up his horse, 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 they were i do not know, but i can certainly testify concerning the high character of his marksmanship.
talaat also began to amuse himself in the same way, and finally the two statesmen dismounted, began shooting in competition and behaving as gaily and as care-free 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 destruction 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{236} 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 times 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 ease interfered with by such disagreeable and unimportant subjects. the grand vizier showed his attitude when the greek chargé 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, on 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 to 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” 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 charges that our sympathy with the armenians was largely responsible for all their troubles.
soon after this interview sa?d halim ceased to be minister for foreign affairs. his successor was halil bey, who for some years had been speaker of the turkish parliament. halil was a very different type of man. he was much more tactful, much more intelligent, and much more influential in turkish affairs. he was also a smooth and oily conversationalist, good-natured and fat, and by no means so lost to all decent sentiments as most{237} turkish politicians of the time. it was generally reported that halil did not approve the armenian proceedings, yet his official position compelled him to accept them, and even, as i now discovered, to defend them. soon after obtaining his cabinet post, halil called upon me and made a somewhat rambling explanation of the armenian atrocities. i had already had experiences with several official attitudes toward the persecutions; talaat had been bloodthirsty and ferocious, enver subtly calculating, while the grand vizier had been testy. halil now regarded the elimination of this race with the utmost good humour. not a single aspect of the proceeding, not even the unkindest things i could say concerning it, disturbed his equanimity in the least. he began by admitting that nothing could palliate these massacres, but, he added, in order to understand them, there were certain facts that i should keep in mind.
“i agree that the government has made serious mistakes in the treatment of the armenians,” said halil, “but the harm has already been done. what can we do about it now? still, if there are any errors we can correct, we should correct them. i deplore as much as you the excesses and violations which have been committed. i wish to present to you the view of the sublime porte. i admit that this is no justification, but i think there are extenuating circumstances that you should take into consideration before judgment is passed upon the ottoman government.”
and then, like all the others, he went back to the happenings at van, the desire of the armenians for independence, and the help which they had given the russians. i had heard it all many times before.
“i told vartkes” (an armenian deputy who, like many, other armenian leaders, was afterwards murdered) “that, if his people really aspired to an independent existence, they should wait for a propitious moment. perhaps the russians might defeat the turkish troops and occupy all the armenian provinces. then i could understand that the armenians might want to set up for themselves. why not wait, i told vartkes, until such a fortunate time had arrived? i warned him that we would not let the armenians jump on our backs, and that, if they did engage in hostile acts against our troops, we would dispose of all armenians who were in the rear of our army, and that our method would be to send them to a safe distance in the south. enver, as you know, gave a similar warning to the armenian patriarch. but, in spite of these friendly warnings, they started a revolution.”
i asked about methods of relief, and told him that already{238} twenty thousand pounds ($100,000) had reached me from america.
“it is the business of the ottoman government,” he blandly answered, “to see that these people are settled, housed and fed until they can support themselves. the government will naturally do its duty! besides, the twenty thousand pounds that you have is in reality nothing at all.”
“that is true,” i answered, “it is only a beginning, but i am sure that i can get all the money we need.”
“it is the opinion of enver pasha,” he replied, “that no foreigners should help the armenians. i do not say that his reasons are right or wrong. i merely give them to you as they are. enver says that the armenians are idealists, and that the moment foreigners approach and help them they will be encouraged in their national aspirations. he is utterly determined to cut for ever all relations between the armenians and foreigners.”
“is this enver’s way of stopping any further action on their part?” i asked.
halil smiled most good-naturedly at this somewhat pointed question, and answered:
“the armenians have no further means of action whatever!”
since not far from 500,000 armenians had been killed by this time, halil’s genial retort certainly had one virtue which most of his other statements in this interview had lacked—it was the truth.
“how many armenians in the southern provinces are in need of help?” i asked.
“i do not know; i would not give you even an approximate figure.”
“are there several hundred thousand?”
“i should think so,” halil admitted, “but i cannot say how many hundred thousand.
“a great many suffered,” he added, “simply because enver could not spare troops to defend them. some regular troops did accompany them and these behaved very well; forty even lost their lives defending the armenians. but we had to withdraw most of the gendarmes for service in the army and put in a new lot to accompany the armenians. it is true that these gendarmes committed many deplorable excesses.”
“a great many turks do not approve these measures,” i said.
“i do not deny it,” replied the ever-accommodating halil, as he bowed himself out.
enver, halil, and the rest were ever insistent on the point which they constantly raised, that no foreigners should furnish{239} relief to the armenians. a few days after this visit the under-secretary of state called at the american embassy. he came to deliver a message from djemal to enver. djemal, who then had jurisdiction over the christians in syria, was much annoyed at the interest which the american consuls were displaying in the armenians. he now asked me to order these officials “to stop busying themselves in armenian affairs.” djemal could not distinguish between the innocent and the guilty, this messenger said, and so had to punish them all! some time afterward halil complained to me that the american consuls were sending facts about the armenians to america and that the government insisted that they should be stopped.
as a matter of fact, i was myself sending most of this information, and i did not stop.
