Germany -- Foreign relations -- Turkey; Turkey -- Foreign relations -- Germany; World War, 1914-1918 -- Turkey
When the Turkish Government abrogated the Capitulations, and in this way
freed themselves from the domination of the foreign powers, they were
merely taking one step toward realizing this Pan-Turkish ideal. I have
alluded to the difficulties which I had with them over the Christian
schools. Their determination to uproot these, or at least to transform
them into Turkish institutions, was merely another detail in the same
racial progress. Similarly, they attempted to make all foreign business
houses employ only Turkish labour, insisting that they should discharge
their Greek, Armenian, and Jewish clerks, stenographers, workmen, and
other employees. They ordered all foreign houses to keep their books in
Turkish; they wanted to furnish employment for Turks, and enable them to
acquire modern business methods. The Ottoman Government even refused to
have any dealings with the representative of the largest Austrian
munition maker unless he admitted a Turk as a partner. They developed a
mania for suppressing all languages except Turkish. For decades French
had been the accepted language of foreigners in Constantinople; most
street signs were printed in both French and Turkish. One morning the
astonished foreign residents discovered that all these French signs had
been removed and that the names of streets, the directions on street
cars, and other public notices, appeared only in those strange Turkish
characters, which very few of them understood. Great confusion resulted
from this change, but the ruling powers refused to restore the detested
foreign language.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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