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Updated: June 3, 2025
Indeed it would have been an unnecessary explanation, for but a few months after the opening of the war, Talaat Bey's plans were complete, and the extermination of Armenians hundreds of miles from any sphere of military operations rendered it needless to say anything about it, or to invent instances of treachery if there were actually none to hand.
Perhaps some might die, but Talaat had no use for weaklings at his agricultural colonies. Nor must there be any poking and prying on the part of those interfering American missionaries; and so Talaat Bey put all the agricultural colonies out of bounds for foreigners....
'It is a peculiarly imperious necessity of our existence, we read in Jelal Noury Bey's propaganda, 'to Turkise the Arab lands, for the particularistic idea of nationality is awaking among the younger generations of Arabs, and already threatens us with a great catastrophe. Against the Arabs the Young Turks formed and fostered a special animosity; they were powerful and warlike, and Enver, Talaat, and others saw that the idea of an Osmanli supremacy could never be realised unless very drastic measures were taken against them.
But such considerations were not even alleged for the second class of the murder-scheme. Before passing on, it will be well to review, quite shortly, the reasons which dictated it, and penetrate into the infernal councils of Enver Pasha and Talaat Bey. The text of the scheme is to be found in the defined policy of the Young Turk party as set forth in their Congress of 1911.
If Bulgaria was under the impression that our group was falling asunder she would have staked everything to try and save herself by a separate peace. In Constantinople, too, there was an Entente group. Talaat and Enver were as reliable as they were strong. But a journey undertaken by me to Switzerland in the conditions described might prove to be the alarm signal for a general sauve qui peut.
But it was uncommon powerful in the provinces, and Enver and Talaat daren't meddle with it. The dangerous thing about it was that it said nothing and apparently did nothing. It just bided its time and took notes. 'You can imagine that this was the very kind of crowd for my purpose.
'One and a half million of sandbags, he wrote, 'are required for the fortress of Gaza.... The bags should be made, if necessary, of all the silk-hangings in houses of Syria and Palestine. With his army behind him, he has twice already defied the orders of Talaat, and I am inclined to think that he is the coming Strong Man of the effete Empire with whom it would be well worth while to make friends, even at a highish price.
Would not the great Ottomanisers temper their patriotism with a little clemency? Talaat Bey disagreed: he wanted to make a complete job of it, but Jemal the Great, fresh from his visit to Germany, supported the idea, and, in spite of Talaat's opposition, made a spectacular exhibition of clemency, in which, beyond doubt, we can trace an 'Imitatio Imperatoris, in the following manner.
For some time past the former had been dealing in secret with the Entente. The alliance with Turkey rested mainly on Talaat and Enver. Talaat told me in Bucharest, however, quite positively that he would be forced to send in his resignation if he were to return empty-handed, and in that case the secession of Turkey would be very probable.
The people are, of course, told, with suitable statistics, how famine is decimating England and France, and how the total starvation of those unfortunate countries is imminent. Indeed, of all the signs of want of confidence in their German overlords, by far the most promising are the facts that Talaat and Enver have sent their money out of the country, and that Jemal the Great has a swelled head.
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