Atatürk, Kemal, 1881-1938; Turkey -- Description and travel; Turkey -- Politics and government -- 1918-1960
Finally my host invited the audience to express their appreciation of
the visit from an Englishwoman, who had persisted, against such terrible
odds, in coming to give them so much “news” from Great Britain; and the
old wooden roofs echoed to their cheers and clapping.
Maybe the British Government would scarcely have approved our meeting;
but there are many people in England who take a different view; and as I
told the people, “I had been seven years on the French front (a real
slice out of one’s life) and I knew what war meant. I will not believe
our men are going to be led to war again. However our politicians may
talk, whatever hysteria may be printed in the Press, we have sound,
practical reasons for friendship. There is nothing in the Nationalist
Pact to which Great Britain can seriously object; nothing, certainly, to
justify the shedding of blood on either side.”
After the meeting we drove back to our comfortable quarters, and talked
long into the night over tea and cigarettes. Too tired to sleep, I told
my host if once I dozed off there would be no waking me “this side of
anytime,” so I “let myself go” upon the glories of old England and the
fine traditions of our race—a subject my present companions were still
perfectly ready to applaud.
We passed on to America and her big Press. To their taste, British
journalism is “just dry bones—without a breath of life.” They must have
something picturesque, unrestrained by any considerations of taste or
possible hurt to the feelings of those concerned.
I told them of the strange pride with which an American dared to boast
of an “interview” with King Constantine. “His Majesty,” as the reporter
had written, “without asking me even to sit down, drew from his pocket a
handsome case and helped himself to a cigarette. He naturally did not
offer one to me.”
Constantine was, naturally, infuriated by the sarcastic implication, and
denied the “interview” altogether. The “man from the States” promptly
started an “action” against him, and withdrew it, once he had thus
secured far more publicity (which means dollars) than all the
“interviews” he might have secured with deposed royalties, would ever
have brought his way.
A lady compatriot of his, in the same spirit, once claimed to have
secured an “interview” with M. Kemal Pasha, and wrote that “he smoked
Player’s cigarettes.” When I told her friend that this was certainly
untrue, he said: “What matters! It was good copy.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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