Ambassador Morgenthau's Story
By , formerly American Ambassador to Turkey. New York: DOUBLEDAY PAGE & Co., 1918. 8vo, xvi+407 pp. $2.00.
MR. MORGENTHAU’S book is a historical document of the first importance. Arriving in Constantinople late in 1913, he had time to study the intricacies of Turkish politics, and to make the acquaintance of the leading personages, before the outbreak of the war. Speaking German as his native tongue, he was admirably equipped for the long contest with the agents sent from Berlin to dominate Turkey.
He offers living portraits of the men with whom he came in contact: Wangenheim, the German Ambassador, burly, exuberant, indefatigable, amiable, indiscreet, unscrupulous; Talaat, the young Turk ‘boss,’ ex-postman and telegraph operator, a coarse, violent, hulking creature, with enormous wrists, who, on one notable occasion, received the author in his shabby house in a poor quarter of Constantinople, clad in a fez and gray pyjamas; Enver Pasha, the dashing adventurer, young, confident, fearless, dapper, Germanized to the tips of his upturned moustache, living in unexplained luxury, with his bride of royal lineage; Djemal, gambler and specialist in massacre and murder; Pallavicini, the correct and conventional Austrian diplomat; Bedri Bey, the Prefect of Police, with a thirst for newspaper notoriety. No reader will forget these descriptions; even if Mr. Morgenthau had given us nothing else, his book would be worth reading.
The events with which he deals, however, are even more interesting than the people. There are little episodes admirably narrated, such as the rescue of the Sisters of Sion by Mr. and Mrs. Morgenthau. But it is the big events, vital to re-
cent history, that give the book its exceptional value. Here we have the story of the Goeben and the Breslau, the closing of the Dardanelles, and other incidents in the careful German plot to gain control of Turkey and make full use of her geographical and military possibilities. Here we have Wangenheim’s own version of the meeting of magnates at Potsdam on July 5, 1914, which set the date for the outbreak of the war, and his equally shameless admissions of Germany’s aims and intended methods. We have already had an account of the Gallipoli campaign, as seen from inside, by Mr. Einstein, agent of the State Department in Constantinople; but the blunt Ambassador saw more, heard more, and understood more, than the gifted attaché.
The chapters on the Armenian atrocities are terrible — all the more so because they are bare of exaggeration and attempt at dramatic effect, setting forth with restraint and precision incontrovertible evidence of what the author properly describes as the most horrible episode in the whole history of the human race.
Most interesting of all, perhaps, is the author’s record of his conversations in Berlin with Von Jägow and Zimmermann, on the subject of German-Americans. A German-American himself, he knew what he was talking about; and there are people in the United States who ought to take his words to heart — quite as profitably as Zimmermann and Von Jägow.
Mr. Morgenthau shows an extraordinarily swift and accurate grasp of character, and an ability to get so close to men that he can readily touch their strength and their weakness. He shows broad sympathies, few prejudices, a keen sense of justice, and a keen sense of humor. These qualities have made him a successful diplomat, and also a successful writer.
F. S.