Germany -- Foreign relations -- Turkey; Turkey -- Foreign relations -- Germany; World War, 1914-1918 -- Turkey
“Mr. Ambassador,” he said, “we are both Jews and I want to speak to you
as one Jew to another. I hope you will not be offended if I presume upon
this to give you a little advice. You are very active in the interest of
the Armenians and I do not think you realize how very unpopular you are
becoming, for this reason, with the authorities here. In fact, I think
that I ought to tell you that the Turkish Government is contemplating
asking for your recall. Your protests for the Armenians will be useless.
The Germans will not interfere for them and you are just spoiling your
opportunity for usefulness and running the risk that your career will
end ignominiously.”
“Are you giving me this advice,” I asked, “because you have a real
interest in my personal welfare?”
“Certainly,” he answered; “all of us Jews are proud of what you have
done and we would hate to see your career end disastrously.”
“Then you go back to the German Embassy,” I said, “and tell Wangenheim
what I say--to go ahead and have me recalled. If I am to suffer
martyrdom, I can think of no better cause in which to be sacrificed. In
fact, I would welcome it, for I can think of no greater honour than to
be recalled because I, a Jew, have been exerting all my powers to save
the lives of hundreds of thousands of Christians.”
Dr. Nossig hurriedly left my office and I have never seen him since.
When next I met Enver I told him that there were rumours that the
Ottoman Government was about to ask for my recall. He was very emphatic
in denouncing the whole story as a falsehood. “We would not be guilty of
making such a ridiculous mistake,” he said. So there was not the
slightest doubt that this attempt to intimidate me had been hatched at
the German Embassy.
Wangenheim returned to Constantinople in early October. I was shocked at
the changes that had taken place in the man. As I wrote in my diary, “he
looked the perfect picture of Wotan.” His face was almost constantly
twitching; he wore a black cover over his right eye, and he seemed
unusually nervous and depressed. He told me that he had obtained little
rest; that he had been obliged to spend most of his time in Berlin
attending to business. A few days after his return I met him on my way
to Haskeuy; he said that he was going to the American Embassy and
together we walked back to it. I had been recently told by Talaat that
he intended to deport all the Armenians who were left in Turkey and this
statement had induced me to make a final plea to the one man in
Constantinople who had the power to end the horrors. I took Wangenheim
up to the second floor of the Embassy, where we could be entirely alone
and uninterrupted, and there, for more than an hour, sitting together
over the tea table, we had our last conversation on this subject.
“Berlin telegraphs me,” he said, “that your Secretary of State tells
them that you say that more Armenians than ever have been massacred
since Bulgaria has come in on our side.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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