Soviet Union -- Biography; Soviet Union -- History -- Revolution, 1917-1921
When Enver turned to Moscow he had no other place to turn to and when
Zinoviev took him to Baku, Zinoviev knew no other means of effectively
threatening the English in order to change their attitude on the
blockade. Zinoviev could not complain about Enver’s shallow attitude
towards Socialism since there was hardly anything Socialistic about
Zinoviev’s appeal for a “holy war.” Enver summed up his feelings about
the new alliance thus: “For the future of Turkey and the future of
the East a friendship with Russia is worth more to the Turks than any
number of military victories. And we have to build that friendship
while we have the opportunity.”
His way of living without any regrets and as if there were no
to-morrows is rather startling at times. I remember when Talaat Pasha,
his lifelong friend, was murdered by an Armenian in Berlin, he read the
message with no show of emotion and his only comment was: “His time
had come!” But against an excessive temptation on the part of fate to
record Enver’s death prematurely, in his own words, he “sleeps with one
eye open,” carries a dagger and a loaded automatic. Once when we talked
about the possibility of his being assassinated he said, “I have been
near death so many times that these days I live now seem to be a sort
of present to me.”
Enver is no open sesame to those who do not know him well. He really
has the traditional Oriental inscrutability. The first two or three
times I talked with him, we stumbled along rather lamely in French.
Someone suggested to me that he probably spoke several languages
which, for some unknown reason, he would not admit. So one day I said
abruptly, “Oh, let’s speak English.” He looked at me with one of his
sudden, rare smiles and answered in my own language, “Very well, if you
prefer it.”
When I asked him how he learned English he told me he had learned it
from an English spy. “He came to me as a valet and professed deep love
for Turkey. For several months we studied diligently. One day I thought
I would test his love for Turkey so I ordered him to the front. He was
killed. Later, we found his papers.”
“Were you surprised?” I asked him.
“Why, not at all,” said Enver. “He really showed a great deal of
pluck. The only thing I had against him was that he taught me a lot of
expressions not used at court.”
“Like what?”
“Like ‘don’t mention it,’” said Enver, laughing. “And the terrible
thing about learning such an expression,” he said, “is that it is
so sharp and so definite and often fits an occasion so aptly that
it flashes in one’s mind and can’t be forgotten. American slang is
extremely picturesque and expressive, but it is not dignified enough to
be used by diplomats.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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