Soviet Union -- Biography; Soviet Union -- History -- Revolution, 1917-1921
When I asked, “Would you be sorry to see America and Japan at war?”
he replied, “Not if England was involved. Anything which tends to
draw England’s attention away from us or which weakens the great
powers, naturally gives Turkey a better chance for reconstruction.
You understand that I’m not saying I want to see another war; I am
simply saying that if those nations interested in destroying Turkey are
occupied elsewhere it relieves us of war burdens and gives us a chance
to carry out our own destinies.”
He tried to get Mr. Vanderlip’s reaction on women by the same tactics
he employed with the actress. One day he said, “I have three wives and
I’m looking for another.” This was not true, but Mr. Vanderlip proved
entirely gullible. “Good heavens,” he said, regarding Enver in shocked
surprise, “we Anglo-Saxons consider one wife enough tyranny....”
“Naturally,” Enver conceded, suavely, “with one there must be tyranny
but with three or four or a hundred.... Ah, you must agree that is
quite a different matter.”
His sudden appearance in Moscow during the blackest days of the
blockade as well as the blackest days for the Central Powers proves him
an incomparable soldier-of-fortune. With two suits of clothes, a pair
of boots, a good revolver and a young German mechanician whom he could
trust, he started by aeroplane from Berlin to Moscow. The story of how
they had to land because of engine trouble near Riga, of how he was
captured and spent two months in the Riga jail just at the moment when
the whole Allied world was calling loudest for his blood, will remain
a story which will have scanty advertisement from those British Secret
Service men who like so well to turn journalists and write their own
brave autobiographies.
Enver sat in the Riga jail as plain “Mr. Altman” who could not speak
anything but German. He was scrutinized by every Secret Service man in
the vicinity and pronounced unanimously a Jewish German Communist of
no importance. By appearing humble, inoffensive and pleasant, he soon
worked his way into the confidence of the warden, was released and
escaped to Moscow. He arrived just in time to rush off for the dramatic
Baku conference.
The Communists understood perfectly well that Enver Pasha was
not at the Oriental Conference as a sudden and sincere convert to
Internationalism, and he knew that they knew. Both Zinoviev and Enver
were actors taking the leading rôles in a significant historical
pageant. The results are really all that matter, since the motives will
soon be forgotten.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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