Germany -- Foreign relations -- Turkey; Turkey -- Foreign relations -- Germany; World War, 1914-1918 -- Turkey
In 1914 Djemal headed the Police Department; it was his duty to run
down citizens who were opposing the political gang then controlling
Turkey. Such opponents were commonly assassinated or judicially
murdered. Afterward Djemal was Minister of Marine, and as such
violently protested against the sale of American warships to
Greece. Then he was sent to Palestine as Commander of the Fourth
Army Corps, where he distinguished himself as leader in the
wholesale persecutions of the non-Moslem population
]
taken up permanent headquarters in the Bosphorus, Djavid Bey, Minister
of Finance, happened to meet a distinguished Belgian jurist, then in
Constantinople.
“I have terrible news for you,” said the sympathetic Turkish statesman.
“The Germans have captured Brussels.”
The Belgian, a huge figure, more than six feet high, put his arm
soothingly upon the shoulder of the diminutive Turk.
“I have even more terrible news for you,” he said, pointing out to the
stream where the _Goeben_ and the _Breslau_ lay anchored. “The Germans
have captured Turkey.”
CHAPTER VI
WANGENHEIM TELLS THE AMERICAN AMBASSADOR HOW THE KAISER STARTED THE WAR
But there was one quarter in which this transaction produced no
appreciable gloom. That was the German Embassy. This great “success”
fairly intoxicated the impressionable Wangenheim, and other happenings
now aroused his _furor Teutonicus_ to a fever heat. The _Goeben_ and the
_Breslau_ arrived almost at the same time that the Germans captured
Liége, Namur, and other Belgian towns. And now followed the German sweep
into France and the apparently triumphant rush for Paris. In all these
happenings Wangenheim, like the militant Prussian that he was, saw the
fulfilment of a forty-years’ dream. We were all still living in the
summer embassies along the Bosphorus. Germany had a beautiful park,
which the Sultan had personally presented to the Kaiser’s government;
yet for some reason Wangenheim did not seem to enjoy his headquarters
during these summer days. A little guard house stood directly in front
of his embassy, on the street, within twenty feet of the rushing
Bosphorus, and in front of this was a stone bench. This bench was
properly a resting place for the guard, but Wangenheim seemed to have a
strong liking for it. I shall always keep in my mind the figure of this
German diplomat, in those exciting days before the Marne, sitting out on
this little bench, now and then jumping up for a stroll back and forth
in front of his house. Everybody passing from Constantinople to the
northern suburbs had to pass along this road, and even the Russian and
French diplomats frequently went by, stiffly ignoring, of course, the
triumphant ambassadorial figure on his stone bench. I sometimes think
that Wangenheim sat there for the express purpose of puffing his cigar
smoke in their direction. It all reminded me of the scene in Schiller’s
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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