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Updated: May 25, 2025
This is only a guess, but the conduct of Jemal the Great in the matter of these Armenian refugees, and in other affairs, has been distinctly imperial. In June of this year, for instance, he telegraphed to H.E. the Vali of Syria, and an extract from his text is truly Potsdamish.
There will be no question, of course, of turning out or of deporting Turks who live in Syria, in Armenia, in Constantinople, for the ways of the Allies are not those of Talaat and Enver and Jemal the Great.
On the eve of his leaving Germany, as yet unconscious probably of the subordination of the entire Turkish fleet to the German Admiralty, he gave an interview to a representative of the Cologne Gazette, which deserves more than that ephemeral appearance. It shows Jemal the Great in a sort of hypnotic trance induced at Potsdam.
We must bear in mind, however, that he was a hot hater of the Shah, and a thorough 'irreconcilable. On quitting Persia he went to Constantinople, where he appeared to be allowed such free expression of disrespect to his Sovereign that the Shah addressed a remonstrance to the Sultan, who stated in reply that Jemal was leaving for some remote place to employ himself in literary work.
Thus Jemal will find himself deprived of his military command, because the navy so urgently needed his guiding hand, while his guiding hand over the navy will be itself guided by the German Admiralty.... In fact, it looks rather like checkmate for Jemal the Great, and an end to the trouble he might have given the German control.
The Zeitunlis were hardy independent mountaineers, who were possessed of arms, and Jemal thought it more prudent not to dally with deportations, but conduct a regular campaign against them. For two or three months they resisted, entrenching themselves in the hills, but they could not hold out against artillery and the modern apparatus of war, and the whole tribe was wiped out.
All was working in accordance with his plan; the poorer classes of Arabs were dying like flies, but mortality was not so successful among the wealthier, who could, to some extent, purchase food. So Jemal the Great set to work among them. He began by hanging the heads of Syrian-Arabs in Damascus, Beirut, and other cities.
Probably in the winter of 1917-1918 our troops will come into collision with them. But in the interval, also quite probably, Jemal the Great may resent German superintendence. But in addition to his ludicrous side, there is in him a refined hypocrisy and a subtle cruelty worthy of Abdul Hamid. One instance will suffice.
Jemal was in favour of defensive action; Enver procrastinated and proposed sending one division to strengthen the IVth Army on the Gaza front and to proceed with the Bagdad preparations. The wait-and-see policy prevailed, but long before we exerted our full strength Bagdad was out of the danger zone.
I gather that Jemal the Great was not so much impressed by the magnificence of William II. as to fall dazzled and prone at the Imperial feet, and lick with enraptured tongue the imperial boot polish, but rather to be inspired to do the same himself, to become the God-anointed of the newly acquired German province, which is Turkey, and make a Potsdam of his own.
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