Germany -- Foreign relations -- Turkey; Turkey -- Foreign relations -- Germany; World War, 1914-1918 -- Turkey
There were certain influential Germans in Constantinople who did not
accept Wangenheim’s point of view. I have already referred to Paul
Weitz, for thirty years the correspondent of the _Frankfurter Zeitung_,
who probably knew more about affairs in the Near East than any other
German. Although Wangenheim constantly looked to Weitz for information,
he did not always take his advice. Weitz did not accept the orthodox
imperial attitude toward Armenia, for he believed that Germany’s refusal
effectively to intervene was doing his fatherland everlasting injury.
Weitz was constantly presenting this view to Wangenheim, but he made
little progress. Weitz told me about this himself, in January, 1916, a
few weeks before I left Turkey. I quote his own words on this subject:
“I remember that you told me at the beginning,” said Weitz, “what a
mistake Germany was making in the Armenian matters. I agreed with you
perfectly. But when I urged this view upon Wangenheim, he threw me twice
out of the room!”
Another German who was opposed to the atrocities was Neurath, the
Conseiller of the German Embassy. His indignation reached such a point
that his language to Talaat and Enver became almost undiplomatic. He
told me, however, that he had failed to influence them.
“They are immovable and are determined to pursue their present course,”
Neurath said.
Of course no Germans could make much impression on the Turkish
Government as long as the German Ambassador refused to interfere. And,
as time went on, it became more and more evident that Wangenheim had no
desire to stop the deportations. He apparently wished, however, to
reëstablish friendly relations with me, and soon sent third parties to
ask why I never came to see him. I do not know how long this
estrangement would have lasted had not a great personal affliction
befallen him. In June, Lieutenant Colonel Leipzig, the German Military
Attaché, died under the most tragic and mysterious circumstances in the
railroad station at Lule Bourgas. He was killed by a revolver shot; one
story said that the weapon had been accidentally discharged, another
that the Colonel had committed suicide, still another that the Turks had
assassinated him, mistaking him for Liman von Sanders. Leipzig was one
of Wangenheim’s intimate friends; as young men they had been officers in
the same regiment, and at Constantinople they were almost inseparable. I
immediately called on the Ambassador to express my condolences. I found
him very dejected and careworn. He told me that he had heart trouble,
that he was almost exhausted, and that he had applied for a few weeks’
leave of absence. I knew that it was not only his comrade’s death that
was preying upon Wangenheim’s mind. German missionaries were flooding
Germany with reports about the Armenians and calling upon the Government
to stop the massacres. Yet, overburdened and nervous as Wangenheim was
this day, he gave many signs that he was still the same unyielding
German militarist.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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