Forty Days of Musa Dagh (19 page)

 

 

So Dr. Johannes Lepsius had to set out on an even longer journey.
But now the malign spell was broken. The demons had thought out another
method. They almost forced him to be at his ease. Outside a cab had
just set down its fare. The driver had his eye on an easy journey, he
avoided crowds, and so, in a magically short time, fully reposed, and
invaded now by a self-confidence for which he could have given himself no
reason, the crusader entered the quiet world of the Seraglio and clattered
thunderously on across the ancient cobbles to the Ministry. Here they were
expecting him. Even before he could show his card, an official had greeted
him with the question: "Dr. Lepsius?" What a good omen! More stairs, and a
long corridor. But, borne on the wings of happy presentiment, the pastor
almost felt he hovered along it. The quiet Ministry of the Interior,
Talaat Bey's fortress, made a pleasantly dream-like impression. These
official rooms seemed almost enchanted -- without doors, only divided
by billowy curtains. This, he could not tell why, soothed him with the
assurance of coming success. He was conducted to the end of a passage,
into a special suite. Enver Pasha's headquarters in the Ministry. Here,
doubtless, in these two rooms the dice of the Armenian fate had been
cast. A large apartment, seemingly a waiting- and audience-room. Next
it, a study, containing only a big, empty writing-table. The curtain
into this study had been pulled back. Lepsius saw three portraits on the
wall behind the empty table: right, Napoleon; left, Frederick the Great;
an enlarged photograph of a Turkish general in the middle. Doubtless
Enver Pasha, the new war god.

 

 

The expectant pastor seated himself beside the window. His eyes, over
the rims of pince-nez, drew in peace from the beauty of heaps of ruins,
shattered cupolas, broken columns, sheltered by umbrella-pines. Beyond,
the Bosporus, whose toy steamers thrust their way on. The pastor's blue,
myopic gaze, his full and childish lips pouting through the short grey
beard, his severe cheeks still rosy with haste and perturbation -- all
this produced an image of long-suffering, of a soft heart, inflexibly
hard upon itself. A servant brought in a copper coffee pot. Lepsius
greedily gulped three tiny cups. This coffee gave him an advantage,
his nerves tightened, his veins pounded fresh blood to his brain.
When Enver Pasha came upon him, he had just emptied his fourth cup.

 

 

 

 

Before leaving Berlin, Johannes Lepsius had asked for minute accounts
of Enver Pasha, yet he felt surprised that this Turkish Mars, this
one of the seven or nine arbiters of the life or death of the world,
should be so unimposingly diminutive. He instantly saw the reason for
those portraits of Frederick the Great and Napoleon. Heroes five feet
tall, little conquerors, always on tip-toe, who force a way to power to
spite their inches. Lepsius would have wagered anything that Enver Pasha
wore high heels. He did not, in any case, take off his lambskin képi,
which certainly looked much taller than dress regulations allowed. The
gold-tabbed marshal's (or fancy-dress) uniform, beautifully moulded
to the waist, lent added majesty, by the smart, stiff perfection of
its line, investing this figure, in conjunction with gleaming rows of
medals, with something almost frivolously young, ornately bold. "The
gipsy-king," reflected Lepsius and, although his heart was pounding,
he could not escape a rampant waltz of his early youth:

 

 

"All this and more
You may be sure
I'll do."

 

 

Yet this text, which now assailed him at the sight of the spick-and-span
magnificence of the uniform, was in sheer contradiction to the glance
and manner of this youthful commander-in-chief. Enver Pasha looked shy,
almost embarrassed; from time to time he would open his eyes like a
young girl. The narrow hips and sloping shoulders gave his movements a
certain delicate grace. Lepsius felt heavy and obese.

 

 

Enver's first attack took the form of arousing a sudden sympathy with
his tripping person, a feeling he knew how to awaken in visitors. He did
not, having welcomed Lepsius, conduct him to the adjoining study but,
begging him to stay where he was, pulled up a chair for himself from
the table to the window, not troubling that his face was in the light
while his visitor's was shaded.

 

 

Johannes began the interview (he had thought this out, in deciding his
plan of campaign) with greetings from an admiring German lady, which he
laid at the general's feet. The general smiled his peculiar, shy little
smile and said in a pleasant tenor, which, vocally even, gave full effect
to the winsomeness of his whole personality, and in excellent German:
"I have the very deepest respect for Germany. There can be no doubt that
you are one of the most astonishing peoples in the world. Personally,
I'm always delighted to get a chance to receive a German."

 

 

Enver, Pastor Lepsius knew, had been pro-French on the Committee and
perhaps, in private, continued to be so. He had stubbornly tried not
to come into the war on Germany's side, but on that of the Allies.
All that did not matter at present. Lepsius went on feeling his way,
with civilities: "Your Excellency has so many devoted German admirers.
We all expect you to astonish the world with your victories."

 

 

Enver opened his eyes. A little movement of the hand seemed wearily
to defend him against the demands which always lie hidden within such
flatteries. A silence, implying more or less: "Well now, my dear fellow,
look out whom you're dealing with." Lepsius turned his head to the window,
listening, though out there no noise was audible save the faint hoots
and signal-bells on the Bosporus.

 

 

"I've been noticing how enthusiastic the people seem to be, here in Istanbul.
Especially today. I was most impressed by the crowds."

 

 

The general, in his pleasant, but by now quite indifferent voice, decided
on a pithy little saying, in the style of patriotic pronunciamentos:
"The war is hard. But our people is aware of what it owes itself."

 

 

The German made his first sortie: "Is it quite the same in the interior,
Excellency?"

 

 

Enver glanced with delight into the farthest corner of the room:
"Certainly. Great things are happening in the interior."

 

 

"Excellency, these great things are well known to me.

 

 

The war lord refused, with a hint of surprise, to understand. For the leader
of a great empire, his cheeks looked surprisingly fresh and young.
"The position on the Caucasian front improves every day. It is of course
a little premature to speak of the southern army under Jemal and your
countryman Kress."

 

 

"Most encouraging, Excellency. But, by the interior I mean the peaceful
vilayets, not the war zone.

 

 

"While a state is at war, all its government districts are war zones,
more or less."

 

 

This was discharged with a certain delicate crispness. So that the outpost
skirmish had gone against Dr. Lepsius, who was forced to open frontal attack:
"Your Excellency is aware, perhaps, that I'm not here as a private
individual, but as representative of the German Orient Society, who will
require my report upon certain happenings."

 

 

A surprised Enver sat wide eyed. What exactly is an Orient Society?

 

 

"Our Foreign Office, indeed our Chancellor, is in active sympathy with
my mission. On my return I am to deliver a lecture in the Reichstag on
the Armenian question, for the information of the German press."

 

 

Enver Pasha, listening in routine patience, his eyes cast down, looked up
at the words "Armenian question." The sulkiness of a spoilt child whom
heavy grown-ups will not stop pestering with their stale old nonsense
clouded his face for an instant. It passed at once. Yet Dr. Lepsius'
heart already failed him. "I come to you in my need, Excellency, because
I'm convinced that a leader of your distinction will not do anything
which might besmirch his name in history."

 

 

"I know, Herr Lepsius," Enver Pasha began, in the softest, most indulgent
voice, "I know that you've come here, and asked for this interview,
to demand my explanation of all these matters. And although a number of
urgent questions require my attention, I'm perfectly willing to spare
you whatever time you may need and give any information you choose to
ask for."

 

 

Lepsius was forced to acknowledge this sacrffice with a deeply grateful
little bow.

 

 

"Ever since my friends and I have controlled the government," the general
continued, "we've always striven to grant the Armenian millet's requests,
and see that absolute justice was meted out to it. There was an old
understanding. Your Armenian friends acclaimed our revolution most
cordially; they swore all kinds of oaths of fidelity to us. Unfortunately
they broke them overnight. We shut our eyes as long as possible, as long
as the Turkish people, the ruling people, was not in danger. We are
living in Turkey, are we not? But when, after war was declared, cases
of high treason, felony and subversive tendencies kept increasing, when
desertion assumed alarming proportions, when it came to open revolt --
I'm only thinking, mind, of the great revolt in Zeitun -- then we found
ourselves obliged either to take action to repress it or lose our right
to direct the war and remain the leaders of our people."

 

 

Lepsius nodded, as though he were well on the way to becoming convinced.
"In what, Excellency, did these legally proved cases of treason and
sedition consist?"

 

 

A broad gesture from Enver. This plenitude of crimes could never fully be
exhausted. "Conspiracy with Russia. Sasonov's speech praising Armenians
in the Petersburg Duma was clear enough. Conspiracies with France and
England. Intrigue, espionage -- all you can think of."

 

 

"And these cases have been legally investigated?"

 

 

"By court martial, naturally. It would be just the same in your country.
Not long ago fifteen of the worst offenders were sentenced and publicly
executed."

 

 

"Clumsy insolence," Lepsius mentally decided. He leaned back and tried
to control his unsteady voice. "According to my knowledge those fifteen
Armenians were arrested long before the war. So they can scarcely have
been found guilty of treachery by usual military law."

 

 

"We ourselves derive from the revolution." Though the general did not answer
to the point, he did so with the gleefulness of a schoolboy who remembers
a most amusing escapade. "We know exactly how all that's done."

 

 

Lepsius swallowed down a very expressive description of the revolution
and all its works. He cleared his throat for the next inquiry: "And these
Armenian notables and intellectuals, whom you've arrested here in Istanbul
and deported -- are they also convicted of treachery?"

 

 

"You must see for yourself that we can't keep even possible traitors so
near the Dardanelles."

 

 

Johannes Lepsius did not contradict, but plunged, in a burst of sudden
temperament, into the main issue: "And Zeitun? I'm very anxious indeed
to hear Your Excellency's view of Zeitun."

 

 

Enver Pasha's blankly gleaming suavity was overcast with a sudden
disapproval. "The revolt in Zeitun is one of the worst mutinies in the
history of the Turkish empire. Unfortunately our troops lost heavily in
their struggle to subdue the rebels, though I'm afraid I can't give you
exact figures."

 

 

"My reports of Zeitun differ from those of Your Excellency." Lepsius planted
this blow in hesitant syllables. "My accounts make no mention of any revolt
of the population there, but of provocative oppression, lasting over a period
of months, by the district and sanjak officials. They speak of some trifling
disorder, which could easily have been checked by strengthening the town
police, whereas any fair-minded person can easily perceive a deliberate
intention in military reinforcements of over a thousand strong."

 

 

"You've been given false information." Enver was still quietly well behaved.
"May I inquire who your informants were, Herr Lepsius?"

 

 

"I can name a few of them, but I may as well say that no Armenian sources
are included. On the other hand I have the specific memoranda of various
German consuls, reports from missionaries, the eyewitnesses of the worst
atrocities. And finally I've been given a most consistent account of
the whole business by the American ambassador, Mr. Morgenthau."

 

 

"Mr. Morgenthau," said Enver brightly, "is a Jew. And Jews are always
fanatically on the side of minorities."

 

 

Lepsius gasped at the graceful evasiveness of this. His feet and hands
were cold as ice. "It isn't a question of Morgenthau, Excellency,
but of the facts. And you neither will, nor can, deny them. A hundred
thousand people are already on their way into exile. The officials
talk of nothing but resettlement. But I suggest to you that, frankly,
that's a misnomer. How can a people of peasant mountaineers, craftsmen,
townsfolk, professional people, be resettled by a stroke of the pen in
Mesopotamian deserts -- empty plains? In waste country, hundreds of miles
away from their homes, which even bedouin tribes refuse to inhabit? And
that object is simply a blind. The district officials are conducting
these deportations in such a way that, in the first eight days' march,
these wretched people either collapse or go mad of hunger, thirst,
disease, so that helpless boys and defenceless men get slaughtered by
Kurds and bandits, if not by the military -- and young girls and women
are literally forced into prostitution. . . ."