Tilkidom and the Ottoman Empire: The Letters of Gerald Fitzmaurice to George Lloyd, 1906-1915 9781463226084

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Tilkidom and the Ottoman Empire

Analecta Isisiana: Ottoman and Turkish Studies

A co-publication with The Isis Press, Istanbul, the series consists of collections of thematic essays focused on specific themes of Ottoman and Turkish studies. These scholarly volumes address important issues throughout Turkish history, offering in a single volume the accumulated insights of a single author over a career of research on the subject.

Tilkidom and the Ottoman Empire

The Letters of Gerald Fitzmaurice to George Lloyd, 1906-1915

Edited by G.R. Berridge

The Isis Press, Istanbul

pre** 2010

Gorgias Press LLC, 954 River Road, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA www.gorgiaspress.com Copyright © 2010 by The Isis Press, Istanbul Originally published in 2008 All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise without the prior written permission of The Isis Press, Istanbul. 2010

ISBN 978-1-61719-155-8

Printed in the United States of America

For Nuri Yurdusev, best of friends

CONTENTS

Preface Acknowledgements 1906 9 September 13 September 23 September 29 September 1907 1 February 4 February 27 February 12 March 11 May 20 May 21 June 15 July 15 August 5 November 26 November 8 December 21 December 27 December

1908 9 February 3 March 12 March 26 March 10 April 11 May

11 13 "I'm off to town to hang around the Council of Ministers" "Elchi's dovecot has been fairly fluttered" "Rottenness and flabbiness ... has grown around the nation's heart" "Theoretical ravings ... [about] ... home life" "Chok-chok lonely oldum since the two tilkis left" "1906-7 has been a red-letter year to me ... I had fallen and you saved me" "I often feel very very lonely and miss much" "Get photo'ed and send me one to see what a biyikli Yavri looks like" "Turks are more reliable than some British Ambassadors" "You will be sorry to learn that poor Onik Effendi died rather suddenly last week" "Condemned to everlasting waiting at the everlasting Porte" "And, Tilki, let me tell you a dead secret" "I met Miss Bell and was delighted tho' somewhat timid and humble" "I went to St Sophia the night of Power ... I felt the throb of Islam more than I ever did before" "The beast must go" "I may get into A.H.'s political harem yet" "In an autocratic country like this being sound at the core or in the fish's head matters more" "[Your] last actually contained 3 numbered questions requiring a straight answer which of course we never give in the East" "So let my pen distil black treason" "I'm sorry to have drawn you over Ireland" "I have consulted the Turkish Sphinx [on who should be the next Ambassador]" "le Roi est mort - Vive le roi" "I am a cosmopolitan but it is a long way off ... . With me it has been the outermost of a lot of concentric circles of which Ireland is the Bull's Eye" "You must not think me callous to human suffering. We have got certain things done but there is no use talking about them in public"

16 17 18 19 21 23 25 27 30 35 38 44 49 50 52 55 59 61 64 68 71 74 77

80

TI LKI D O M A N D T H E O T T O M A N 3 June 9 June 2 1 June

8 uly 2 9 July

7 October (?) October 25 November 16 December 18 December

09 10 January 19 January

25 February February 28 6 30 26

March May June

2 9 June 28 July 4 August

EMPIRE

"What do you think of our new chief? He isn't at all a bad choice" "I think you had better go on to the end as an uncompromising hater of Ireland" "I would never have gone to the extent of an 'entente' with Russia and above all not openly and gratuitously championed an anti-Turkish policy with her" "We have been quietly clearing off a number of 'current matters' to try and present a smooth surface to Lowther" "You remember one used to say in the Bodega that one must always be prepared in this country for the touch of the magician's wand to set Turkey on her legs. It has come" "The 'children' have received a cruel blow ... but they are showing great self restraint" "Abdul Hamid was unkind in keeping me seven hours at the Palace today (Sunday) but I forgive him" "I have been intriguing frightfully during the last few weeks and frequently find myself in quaint places in Stamboul after dark" "We are now in the second phase of our revolution" "Yesterday (the opening of Parliament) I was busy from morning till bedtime. ... He [the Sultan] is certainly the best comedian in two continents and played his part perfectly" "We shan't be hard on the Bulgarians. ... I have called them the Japs of the Balcans and think they may one day be the nucleus of something big" "And now poor Turkey - all the romance gone - must take up the white man's burden and have done with childish days. ... No, it cannot be, Tilki, and we must quietly prepare some fresh surprise" "The'children'have ... been naughty" "I yesterday assisted at a Bagdad Rly interpellation and debate" "We all wonder whether we are preparing some new neat little surprise for our friends in Europe" "The mutiny of April 13th was in no way a reaction to the old regime" "My pen is practically 'broke' like my spirit! ... Excuse paper and pen. They are both old régime tho' not reactionary" "I am getting most keen on Sionism which is I k s great feature of our new life" "Your kind treatment of the children's representatives is producing an excellent effect here" "The Cretan imbroglio is full on us and as usual is labyrinthine"

83 85

86 88

89 90 91

92 95

97

101

105 107 110 Ill 112 115 119 121 123

CONTENTS

11

August August October

17 December 1910 26 February

"Constitutionalism is a blatant farce" "Anent the funny things said of me at home" "You gleaned that one had a little shadow of doubt lurking in the folds of one's conscience as to whether baddish mistakes had not been made. I was much cheered by your verdict" "I'm for George Lloyd and not for Lloyd George. 'What's in a name'? The fate of an Empire"

123 124

126 129

"You must have felt awed as a neophyte when you entered the Chamber instilled with the centuries old direction of the affairs of an Empire which looms so large on four if not five continents" "I have been deep down in the bowels of the earth and have only come up today to find your note to H.E." "Yesterday I ... wired to Lamb only to learn in reply that you had turned your brush away from us and gone to Crete. ... One of the points I wanted to talk to you about was Freemasonry" "It looks as if the time were not far distant when we shall have to make up our minds as to whether Petersburgh ... is not more important for us than Consple" "There is no news here. The cruelties to animals the street dogs on the Black Hole of Calcutta-like Island of Oxia is as bad as my treatment at Perim" "The whole loan matter [in Paris] ... is vitally important. It is pivotal and the most important event since July 1908" "The loan with the Germans is not yet signed and they don't feel at all comfortable about undertaking the responsibility of financing Young Turkey" ... "How naughty Welshmen are!" "I rejoice to hear you are sane about Ireland"

143 144 146

"A last hurried note from Stamboul. ... No matter what may happen to me I shall have done my duty to Great Britain, Turkey and Islam"

150

"For God's sake push ahead without losing a second. Hours mean Empires now"

153

Glossary of Turkish words, abbreviations, and private words and phrases used in the letters and endmatter List of persons mentioned in the letters List of works cited Index

159 161 175 177

27 May 3 June

27 July

3

August

15 October 9

November

17 November 1 December 1912 4 November 1915 5 September

131 134

135

137 139 140

PREFACE

Gerald Henry Fitzmaurice was Chief Dragoman at the British Embassy in Constantinople before the First World War and George Ambrose Lloyd was a young Honorary Attaché based in the Embassy from the autumn of 1905 until the end of 1906. In my recently published biography, Gerald Fitzmaurice (1865-1939), which leans heavily on the private letters that Fitzmaurice wrote to Lloyd between 1906 and 1915,1 describe the ups and downs of the close friendship which developed between them. I also deal more or less fully with many of the subjects raised in the letters. Why, then, publish them separately? I decided to bring out the letters separately for three reasons. The first of these was that I had found it necessary roughly to transcribe most of them for the purposes of writing the biography. Fitzmaurice often wrote in haste and seemed to feel the need for economy in notepaper. As a result, the handwriting in the letters is often difficult and is compounded by his tendency to join up words and also squeeze numerous postscripts into the margins and letterhead. Having transcribed them just to be able to understand them, I assumed - naively as it turned out - that it would be relatively straightforward to knock them into shape for publication. Secondly, it soon became obvious to me that - probably because of the difficulty of the letters and because Fitzmaurice had no previous biographer - they had been little used at all by previous historians. Thirdly, and most importantly, I concluded that other students of the last years of the Ottoman Empire, and particularly of Britain's relations with it, would find them to be of immense value - and spot in them many points of significance that I had missed. Fitzmaurice was a great writer of private letters, a form of diplomatic correspondence which became popular in Britain in the nineteenth century because it avoided the risk that their publication in a Blue Book might be required. But some 'private letters' were more 'private' than others! Those that Fitzmaurice wrote to the powerful William Tyrrell can be found in Foreign Office Private Office papers at The National Archives and an even larger number written from the Yemen frontier to Sir Nicholas O'Conor in 1902-5 are held in the O'Conor papers at the Churchill Archives Centre in Cambridge. Smaller collections can be found in the Herbert papers in the Somerset County Archives at Taunton, the Ryan papers in the Middle East

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Centre Archives at St. Antony's College Oxford, and the Sykes papers in Hull University Archives. However, these were all tame and for the most part rather thin compared to the ones he wrote to George Lloyd. Indeed, there is no doubt whatever that it is this collection of almost 60 private letters that reveals most fully the workings of Fitzmaurice's mind and his deepest and most private thoughts - as well as the greatest wealth of varied and colourful detail. It is also this collection that provides the most significant and authentic detail, for example on the Embassy's role in supporting Kiamil Pasha after the Young Turks' revolution in July 1908. These letters are also held at the Churchill Archives Centre at Cambridge (GLLD 7/1-4 and 9/1/3), and are now published here for the first time. How have I approached my task? In the interests of brevity, I describe myself on the title page of this book as its 'Editor'. However, a more accurate description would probably be 'transcriber and annotater', for - except for italicizing the dates in order to highlight them - 1 have transcribed the text of the letters exactly as I found them. Using digital photographs of the originals, I have gone over them with a microscope and reproduced everything that they contain: nothing at all of the text has been deleted. Furthermore, I have wittingly made no alterations to the punctuation or spelling, though I have occasionally added '[sic]' after a word to indicate that an eccentric or anachronistic spelling is not a typo of my own and also used inserts in square brackets to add explanations or letters or words obviously omitted by Fitzmaurice by mistake. As a linguist with a classical education, he peppered the letters not only with Latin and Turkish phrases but with French and occasionally German, Italian and Arabic ones as well. He also loved lengthy and sometimes bizarre metaphors, and was fond of quoting Kipling without attribution. I have, therefore, offered translations where necessary and added a few footnotes to illuminate certain references. (To have provided background in the footnotes to all of the subjects dealt with in the letters would probably have doubled the length of the book. Such background can be found in my biography of Fitzmaurice. As a rule, I have only footnoted in The Letters subjects not dealt with in the biography.) As to the headings that I have given to each of the letters under 'Contents' in these preliminary pages, they are quotations from the letters concerned that seem to capture their flavour or their most important theme. G. R. B., Leicester, September 2007

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I must once more express first my great debt to Caroline Mullan for her indispensable assistance to my work on Fitzmaurice; she also read this manuscript and improved it significantly at more than one point. I am also grateful to Mrs Mairfn Benson for permission to quote the text of the letters and for the help and blessing to the project of Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill College Cambridge. As always, Sue Smith in the Official Publications section of the University of Leicester Library has been most helpful, as have my very good friends, Nuri and Esin Yurdusev. Nuri sat with me for hours checking from the originals that I had transcribed Fitzmaurice's Turkish words correctly and then translating them. I must also thank David Barchard for reading the manuscript and clarifying some final mysteries, and express my gratitude for the encouragement and advice of Anne Louise Antonoff of the University of Pennsylvania, and Mary A. Giunta, formerly of the [US] National Historical Publications and Records Commission.

1906

George Lloyd had taken up his position as honorary attaché in the British Embassy in Constantinople in the autumn of 1905. A year later he took his first leave in England, and did not return until November. This was the end of what subsequently Fitzmaurice always referred to as the 'red letter' year of 1906 - the year in which 'tilkidom' was born. This was the fraternity and outlook of the young foxes ( 'yavri tilkis '), whose 'brushes ' might be detected by the sharp-eyed as they stealthily advanced British interests in many corners of the Sultan's well-protected dominions but who would always return for guidance to the chief fox ('bash tilki') in their 'earth' in the Embassy. The most important of the young foxes were Patrick Ramsay, Percy Loraine and George Lloyd; Fitzmaurice, whose hair was red and in his native Ireland would have been called 'foxy ',1 was of course the chief fox. While in England in late 1906 George Lloyd spent much time pressing his case at the Board of Trade and the Foreign Office for official support for his plan to investigate the prospects for British trade in Mesopotamia. Meanwhile, Fitzmaurice was still licking the wounds he had suffered on the Yemen frontier in 1902-5, not the least of which was the psychological one inflicted by the decision of the devious Ambassador, Sir Nicholas O 'Conor, to appoint in his absence the outsider, Harry Lamb, to the position of Chief Dragoman - a position which Fitzmaurice believed he had not only earned but been promised. At the time he wrote his first letter to George Lloyd, in September 1906, Fitzmaurice had in fact only just been promoted from 3rd to 2nd Dragoman; he was also still smarting at being denied an honour by the India Office on his return from Aden; and he remained desperate to escape to a provincial consular post from Constantinople - now nothing for him but his "Byzantine dunghill'. *

I am indebted to Caroline Mullan for pointing this out. This may well have come up in conversation between Fitzmaurice and his young friends and, added to the fox's reputation for stealth and cunning, clinched for him the appropriateness of the metaphor.

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British Embassy, Constantinople, Sunday, Sept. 9th 1906 My dear Lloyd, Your papers have been coming and I have taken the liberty of eviscerating them with the enclosed results - the titbits which I thought might interest you. Pardo says he can let you have the Sarabend strips for £T20 as lowest price. Kafaroff's carpet has been returned to him through the faithful but drunken Haidar. Today is Sunday but I'm off to town to hang around the Council of Ministers to try and influence them through mutes 1 and other indirect means to come to a decision re. Sinai Boundary that will enable 'Elchi' to get away by Wednesday next. He was to have left yesterday but there was the usual hitch in things Turkish and he is in an excess of fidgets. I haven't had a day (or night) off for some time nor am I likely to till he goes. Today has come in the (to me) welcome news that the Turks are rumoured to have doubled their guard at Kossaima and that they are collecting stones to build a guard house. Heaven grant it may be true tho' the Elchi remain here for aeons. The Sultan received O'C. and Constans last Friday for V2 hr. each - appeared weak but in no dying state - in fact rather chirpy but probably forcedly so. People are still prospecting on his early demise. Elchi has got his colleagues to agree to a joint 3% note and is quite pleased with himself, but much water will flow under the Galata Bridge before the Turks accept it in its present form. Meanwhile rumour has it that the Turks are going to enforce the 3% on the 1/14 Sept!! Marco has brushed your 'Ferahan'. The kutchuk [little] Tilki (I mean the 'pees [dirty] teelkie' has bought a carpet and is pleased. The Grand Vizier says he has a beautiful leopard skin ready for you. Apologies for the smudge which I did not notice when starting this hurried scrawl. Do you know Babington Smith, Elgin's scimatar [?] and present Sec. to P. M. General and future financial member in Simla. He used to be in the [Ottoman] Debt here and out riding I used to make tentative efforts to convert him to the True Creed of Fiscalitis. 2 He is keen on Bagdad Rly etc but you probably know him. He is member of Brooks. - I must shut up as the steamer is coming. yrs always, G.H. F.

1 For centuries, deaf-mutes had for security reasons been employed as servants at the Ottoman court. This reference is important because it signifies that Fitzmaurice was capable of communicating with them through their sophisticated sign language. 2 Tariff reform.

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British Embassy, Constantinople, Sept. 13th 1906 My dear Lloyd, This ought to reach you on your 27th Geburtstag as Pat and I say in German and is to wish you "ad multos annos". I see Kaiser Bill has had another triumph in the election of a German as General of the Jesuits! Elchi is off on leave tomorrow as the Sinai Boundary has been settled "in principle". I went to the Palace on Monday morning after a field day at the Council of Ministers on Sunday and got the Sultan's Irade in a few hours. It gives Mofrak, Mayein, Ain Kadeis, Ain Gedeirat, Kossaima, Magdabba to Egypt and accepts Owen's line as basis of delimitation. It is somewhat of a bitter pill to the Turks and indirectly a knock to Germany as it will make the Turks chary of listening to any German whisperings about Egypt. This morning a bombshell arrived from the F.O. anent the 3 per cent the final note verbale concerning which Elchi was about to sign this afternoon. The F.O. (prompted by whom?!) 1 say their information regarding improvements in the Customs do not tally with Elchi's and they insist on further guarantees and execution of promises - a lot more in the same strain about Gendarmerie etc. Elchi's dovecot has been fairly fluttered. Have you seen the two articles in this months "Contemporary" by a person called 'Bell' and "a traveller in the Near East". The latter has many interesting remarks but is otherwise a somewhat rambling article. Blackwood's "Abdul Hamid and Pan islamism" by, I presume, Aubrey is distinctly good and I almost suspect you of indirect and partial inspiration or collaboration. Marling arrives on Saturday on his way to Tehran. He is putting up in Oliphants rooms and we are having it carpeted with Sarabends as a delicate compliment to his refined taste - somewhat like Dizzy's primroses. 2 Pat and I are going to drink your health on the 19th and we are seriously thinking of invading the sanctuary of the Bodega. 3 Mind you don't waste time in answering these rambling notes. yours always, G. H. Fitzmaurice P.S. By the way I hear Lafcadio Hearne's book called "Japan. An Interpretation" or something of that sort is distinctly good. G.H.F. We had Elchi and Lady O'Conor to dine at the mess a couple of nights ago. Lady O'C was in great form and spirits.

1 2

Probably Fitzmaurice's great rival, Adam Block. Primroses were Disraeli's favourite flower. The name with which GHF and his young friends had christened their rooms.

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British Embassy, Constantinople, Sept. 23rd 1906 My dear "teelkie", Thanks so much for the "Soul of the People" 1 and your most interesting letter. I haven't yet read the former but feel sure it will not be 'cogglesome'. I was intensely rejoiced at what you say about Lloyd George and the present Govt's tendencies towards retaliation. I should have liked the B[oard] of Trade to become orthodox under a President with the present President's name transposed but there! In a way it would be better, I suppose, that a Liberal Govt shd take up the true creed as they can carry with them a certain number of the sections (Radical etc) which wd never be convinced by the Conservatives. The same may ultimately happen about 'Universal [military] Service'. Chamberlain would be "than gods more glad" and more than compensated for all he has gone through, if he lives to see the Liberal party converted. He wd die happy, chanting "Nunc dimittis" [Now lettest thou thy servant depart]. Of course it must come, and it means such a lot as it must lead to our shedding the rottenness and flabbiness which has grown around the nation's heart - to clear thinking and working on cleaner-cut lines - in fact a new spirit breathed into the Empire. Re. the Sinai Boundary, Findlay rather muddled the Irade of settlement and raised a cloud of dust but such is Elchi's luck that matters were allright again by the day he reached the F.O. He seems also to have brought them (F.O.) round to his 3% views - the Note is going in to the Porte - Barclay 2 has been telegraphically thanked by Hardinge for his skilful handling of the matter and at last it looks like becoming a "fait accompli". Billy of Berlin will rejoice as also Bag. Ry. Directors. Since Elchi's departure the Chancery work has diminished enormously - the needless selfpuffing despatches and tels. of H.E. having no longer to be copied, ciphered and registered. Tilley, Macleay and Pat are not overworked. Loraine left on leave today via Odessa and Moscow Petersburgh and thence by steamer to England. We hope he wont fall in for a 'pogrom' at Odessa. Spring-Rice and Marling went through to Tehran last week. Marling was sorry to have missed you and looks forward to putting you up out there in rooms covered with Serabends. Spring-Rice asked me to come and see him on 1 Harold Fielding Hall's, The Soul of a People, was first published in 1898 and thereafter ran through numerous editions and reprints. It was an account of what he called the 'living beliefs' of Burmese Buddhism and contained three chapters on the position of women in Burmese society (four including the one on divorce), which was higher relative to that of men than was common in the West. Fitzmaurice and Lloyd were both hostile to the women's suffrage movement in Britain, as, interestingly enough, was the woman who was soon to be their mutual friend, Gertrude Bell. 2 Chargé d'Affaires in O'Conor's absence.

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his steamer (a German boat). He said that the Oriental Secretaryship at Tehran was to be remodelled - the pay coming from the Indian Govt, and wanted to know whether it would suit me. I said it sounded attractive but that I wd wait to see how things shape in the way of R[upee]s. etc. Have you been writing "Wanted a policy in Turkey" in the Morning Post! I suppose we shan't see you for weeks as you must hate returning to our Byzantine dungheap. yrs always, G. H. Fitzmaurice P.S. Neil Primrose and Agar Robartes have turned up here but I haven't seen them yet to talk to. I wonder do they require a little injection of the Stamboul brand of Impiric. G.H.F. *

British Embassy, Constantinople, Sat. 29 Sept. 1906 My dear 'Yavri', It was very wrong but very nice of you to steal a half hour from your 'yatajak wakt' [bedtime] at Northallerton to write to this poor half frozen 'tilki'. Macleay went off in the 'Imogen' 1 to slay 'cockiolly-birds' on an island in the Marmara leaving Pat and myself all alone in 'Bleak House' as indeed it has become. The warm South wind fled before a bitter blast from the Russian steppes - the thermometer dropped some 20 to 30 degrees and we began to ask why on earth we are not in town in our snug little 'earths' 2 before nice warm fires. You would have laughed to come into my room and find the biyuk and kuchuk tilkis [big and little foxes] wrapped up as to the feet, brush 3 and aliter in rugs and fur coats - all the windows closed and blinds down and a perfect blaze of light thrown on priceless velvets from quite a number of lamps the heat from which barely sufficed to ward off frost bite. We must even confess to having imbibed at night port and other liquors to keep up our calorific. But, inshallah, it will get warmer in a day or two. I have been trotting N. Primrose and Agar Robartes about quite a lot. I don't think the Mother of Parliaments lost much by the latter being excluded from the deliberations of its 670 members. Primrose is quite a nice fellow very quick and observant but seems to reflect his father's versatile qualities with his inability to focus them on essentials and his want of driving power. But let me not be hasty in my judgments. They are gone off to Broussa 1 2 3

The British Embassy statioruiaire or gunship. The hole or hiding place of a creature such as a fox. A fox's tail.

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whence they drive to a place on the Anatolian Rly and go on to Konieh returning here for a further few days stay. They both have clear recollections of you and your coxing. Complacency and misplaced confidence in the glories of the parish pump seems to be the prevailing note at home just now. I suppose 'Joe' is as good as dead but surely it is a case of "non omnis moriar" for him. The cause which he has championed is not dead and I take it the leaven is working at home tho' perhaps quietly and unobtrusively. It is certainly working in the colonies and in a more tangible form. Preference is to the front in Canada, Australia and even South Africa. Even if Chamberlain is not succeeded by a prophetic leader at home the cause will go on and the big motive power may come from the Colonies instead of the Mother Country. It is indeed a titanic task to breathe into the people at home (with their laissez-faire and love-of-the lap of luxury state of mind and its resultant general flabbiness and want of buck-up) a pure spirit of patriotism which alone can bind the country (i.e. the Empire) and prevent disintegration - can make us 'not take it lying down' commercially, politically, or in general national efficiency as compared to our dangerous rivals. But this may all sound iaflar' fjust verbiage] - theoretical ravings of those whose path of life does not bring them into touch much with the hard facts of home life. Ama, inshallah, dunejeghiniz vakitde ouzoun ouzadie konoushageyiz [But, inshallah, when you come back, we shall talk it over in detail.] - Have you eaten 'yaourt' in the shop in Chandos St. of which Maunsell speaks? Weitz met me the other day and tackled me at length about our having blocked the Bagdad Ry by our opposition to the 3% and yet people (i.e. H.E.) say the 3% will not help Billy of Berlin's Bagdad project. yours always, G. H. Fitzmaurice

1907 In early December 1906 George Lloyd had once more returned to London and was pleased to learn in the early New Year that his great wish had been granted. He had been appointed as a 'Special Commissioner' for the Board of Trade's Commercial Intelligence Committee to investigate the conditions and prospects for British trade in Mesopotamia. His mission was to last for five months and he was to proceed at once. Having early wind of the official announcement, he had already returned to Constantinople and on 31 January 1907 - despite suffering both from flu and the after-effects of dysentery and fever contracted on earlier travels - then set off for the Persian Gulf. Initially in the company of Pat Ramsay (who also caught up with him again later), he journeyed via Bombay in order to obtain information on Indian trade with the Gulf, and did not leave India for his final destination until 24 February. After seven months rather than five, and 1,900 miles on horseback, he finally arrived back in Constantinople, via ship from Trebizond, once more suffering seriously from dysentery and fever.1 This long interlude in their separation produced some of Fitzmaurice 's longest and most revealing letters. *

British Embassy, Constantinople, Feb. 1st 1907 Dear 'Yavri', A hurried line to catch the Roumanian which was to have left tomorrow and has just announced its intention of going in a couple of hours. Percy appears to have left his thin puttees at home so I venture to send you an old pair of mine which are no use to me as they cant be applied to my ungainly legs whereas they ought to be just the thing to clothe your graceful calves. I hope Pat and you are basking and allright. The sun came out here just as you must have been leaving Smyrna and my old visage gladdened as I thought it was just the physic you wanted to dissipate that nasty 'flu'. It has been doing the rounds here. Dr Maclean is in bed with it. Mrs Barclay is also reported to be down with but I believe it is one of her old collapses when she has to be kept absolutely still for days on end (Deli oldu) [Gone mad].

1

See Lloyd, G. A, TNA, p. 1.

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Chok-chok lonely oldum [I have felt very lonely] since the two tilkis left. Last night I moved into your bedroom and today (alas!) the Bodega has been dismantled and I move in tomorrow in fear and trembling at my audacity in profaning 'Schwedegon' 1 as the correct Burmese spelling has it. I am just going out for a ride on Tommy and hope he won't be unkind to me and deposit me in the mud of Chishli. I said goodbye for you to Ali Bey yesterday. He was almost affected asked many questions about your travels and date of return, winding up with an 'Allah saghlikversin' [God bless you]. I met the Sand diviner when leaving the bazaars and he inquired after the 'delikanli' [young man]. When he heard that his prophecies about your travelling by land and sea etc etc were being fulfilled, he exclaimed Allah! Allah! and gave a horrible grimace of pleasure. He made no allusion to sabrsizlik[impatience], so I suppose he has forgiven you. The sudden thaw here was amusing. In the busy street ("Mahmoud Pasha") leading up to the bazaars the shops were in danger of being flooded and all classes of the dutiful subjects without distinction of race or creed turned out and aided by the ever victorious gleefully worked at getting rid of the inflow which came down at a bewildering rate. One of the 'oppressed' ones put his hawkers trestle on a heap of snow and announced to a grinning audience "Yeni bir dukian achdim [I have set up a new shop]" etc etc. Lynch's 3rd steamer does not seen so hopeful today as yesterday. 2 Turkey all over! I enclose a tel. reed, for you and opened by mistake in the chancery. Give my love to the "pees [dirty] teelkee". Very best wishes for health, luck and success to you from yrs always G. H. Fitzmaurice *

1 The spectacular Pagoda in Rangoon. Up to this point the steamer carriage of goods on the Tigris between Basra and Bagdad was divided between the Sultan's Hamidieh Steam Navigation enterprise and the Euphrates and Tigris Steam Navigation Company, owned by the British company, Lynch Brothers. Competition between them was fierce and, while the Sultan had six steamers, he had limited Lynch to two. As becomes clear from the subsequent letters, George Lloyd had obviously been impressing on the Foreign Office the importance of persuading the Sultan to relent and permit Lynch a third steamer. In his subsequent report, he emphasised that more tonnage on the Tigris for Lynch would not only speed up shipments, reduce their costs, and increase the profits of a British company but - by increasing Lynch's prosperity - be essential to the "political predominance of British interests in Mesopotamia", Lloyd, G. A., TNA, p. 50. 2

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Private British Embassy, Constantinople, "Bodega", Feb. 4th 1907 My dear'Yavri', You see the change of address and behold the abomination of desolation is standing in the holy place! I had just settled down in the 'Bodega' when your note from Athens reached me and it produced in me an earthquake of mingled feelings of distress and pleasure. The latter soon conquered as it usually does in sluggish tempered creatures like myself and I reckoned what you said in it as one more kindness added to the thousand and one nice deeds you have done to this "unworthy one" during the alas! too brief period you were here — deeds that were all the nicer and more pleasant that they were done in an almost imperceptible way. Yavri, it has been a very great privilege and a very deep pleasure to me to have been here with you during the last year and in my dull way I shall never forget it. "The pleasant nice memories remain" and 1906-7 has been a red-letter year to me. But surely the obligation is all the other way. I am deeply sensible that it is so. The thought that one thousandth part of what you say may be true almost releases this poor "deveji" [camel-keeper] from the death rattle which has been in my throat for some time back because of the impossibility of your ever forgiving the amount of boredom I have inflicted on you. But boredom is "plus qu'un crime" so I shall 'chup karne'. When I say the obligation is all the other way I mean what I told you once or twice before. For some fifteen-seventeen years I was animated in my work with what, according to my lights, I imagined to be the correct spirit and proper conception of what a Britisher should feel and do in matters broadly Imperial, but 3 years under canvass up country from Aden coupled with the tricks O'Conor played me warped my reason and shrivelled my heart so that I fell away from my ideals. Shortly after I met you, Tilki, I recognized in you a higher and truer form of what I had failed to attain. I felt ashamed of myself and my backsliding and repented. I had fallen and you saved me. This I can never repay. You did me 'good' and through me you have done good to others. For it is given to humble instruments at times to help others to do what they themselves cannot attain. And now, at the risk of wearying you and making you 'Dargin'[resentful], let me tell you that, making due allowance for my old world wisdom which has long lost contact with the ways of the West, I feel firmly convinced that you are destined to do great things. You simply can't help it even if you would. I feel equally convinced, if I may be presumptuous, that in taking up your present mission you have done the right thing. From many points of view you are the best man to whose lot it could have fallen. You will do good down there and the result of your work will do good to you when you launch out into broader spheres and enable you to influence things on bigger lines.

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Tho' we may never meet again there is one little way, Tilki, in which I shall endeavour to requite what you have done to and for me here. I shall use my energy and the spirit you have restored to me to work here on the lines you would like. If from time to time I may write and tell you that something has been done in the right way or that things are improving, I feel that it will give you pleasure while it will be a selfish way for me to perpetuate the very pleasant memories of the past year. It has been a pleasant year and I have enjoyed it inordinately. There is now a very big void in the Embassy and a big void in the 'Bodega' tho' I have filled it with pretty things. Ce n'est plus la même chose. There is a 'Ferahan' over the mantelpiece, a Bokhara over the screen, the bookcase has gone into the piano corner and the Genoese velvets are on the wall facing the fireplace, while the floor is covered with the two Serabend strips that spent their summer in the Therapia 'Bodega'. Elchi is telling the F.O. that he hopes to get Lynch's 3rd steamer (your steamer) while I hear the Sultan has appointed a commission to devise by hook or by crook means of removing the accumulation at Basra even by using Admiralty boats. Elchi got a wire today from the F.O. telling him they attach 'the utmost importance' to his getting your steamer. I give it a tiny shove when I can but you know how short my arm is, as the Turks say. I was at the bazaars today and find that Ali Bey has stowed your card away among the musty treasures of his marvellous cupboard and pigeon holes. Funny old thing! The latest excitement here is Fehim falling foul of the Germans Marshall asked for an audience and insisted on Abdul Hamid inquiring into all Fehim's misdeeds. Fehim has been under arrest in his house since yesterday the Gr. Vizier has written a report setting forth his iniquities while Fehim's post is being examined into by a Commission sitting at the Palace. One can't help wishing the German luck and hoping he will succeed where the Brit. Amb. lacked the courage to try. The 'worthy one' came back today - appears not to be going to Mexico till Aug. and has been offered the Acting at Belgrade. He is in great form. 'Tommy' and I have had a ride. We got on well together tho' we risked floundering in a snow drift and Kismet splashed him. The snow is still about for tho' we had a couple of days of warm south wind, the 'Black Sea scud' came rolling down over the hills and the weather has been bleak, cold and damp. You are lucky in being in the great spaces washed with sun. Marco is sending de Muret. I have got the seed pearls and am sending them to Aubrey tomorrow.

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Mind, Tilki, I should be fearfully distressed if anything private or official happened where we might assist and you hesitated to let us know. You must not put yourself on the Mark Sykes level! Goodbye and best of luck up the Gulf. I am sending this to King & King who I presume will forward if it does not catch you at Bombay. Tamam [Agreed]. Yrs ever, G. H. Fitzmaurice. P.S. In describing the 'Bodega' I forgot to mention that your armchair with your hair wash scented embroidery is where your old armchair was on the night of the fire. Marco has carefully removed and stowed away all your belongings so that when you return here next August or Sept. you can step into a 'Bodega' at Therapia as if you had just left it. Your print is the one really nice thing in the B. Miss [Gertrude] Bell's Syrian book was most favourably reviewed as 'the book of the week' in the Outlooks of Jan. 19th. I have sent for it. When shall I be sending for George Lloyd's book. I personally think it's disgraceful your not having written anything yet. If I had your clearness of thought and expression I should have burst into print ages ago, despite my bad leg! By the way, it was real 'laflar[nonsense]' your referring to 'Jansiz' [lifelessness]. You are really a downright 'Janli' [energetic] sort of haivan [beast] — despite what any old spiteful buckteethed-coarse grained old Arab fraud may say. Your nur Osmanie [a mosque near the Grand Bazar] beggar blesses you. 'Vale' G. H. F. *

"Bodega", Pera, Feb. 27th 1907 My dear "Tilki", Your long and most interesting letter from the Red Sea and Aden reached me yesty. I see from it you had not reed, a letter and parcel posted by me to catch the "Arabia" at Suez and stupidly addressed by me only to P & O "Arabia" instead of giving King & King as an alternative. I am writing to the P & O Agent Suez to see whether he can find and forward. The parcel contained some thin [?] puttees, Percy having left his in England. I found these among my miscellanies and thought they could not be more "mushareffed" [honoured] than in adorning your calves during your Mesopotamian wanderings. I hope they will reach you and thus not miss the lucky fate I had intended them for.

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You and Machell's appreciation about Egypt interested me wildly. Do you remember my taking the liberty of marking a few lines towards the end of the Ilnd vol. of Lyall about pacification and orderly government increasing the pressure upwards against alien and isolated rulers. 1 It rather fits the situation in Egypt and India. Many years ago I thought that among the future military exigencies of the Empire, we ought to have an army that would enable us easily at a given moment to throw 25,000 men into Egypt and 150,000 into India. As you say, we have to go steadily on - being fresh and firm and hoping that ultimately the Egyptian and Indian 'nations' will have such an English colouring that their interests will be so bound up with ours that they will not be totally devoid of a certain appreciation (gratitude is too much to expect) of the good we shall have done them and that they will be thus led to deal with us in trade matters in such a way as practically to give us a free presence. But in the meantime we cannot by our pacifying policy not awaken national forces which may mean rude shocks and our having to overawe them until ultimately, let us hope, they will be resigned and reconciled to bowing to our influence. We have to fulfil our destiny tho' they may say "Why brought ye us from bondage, our loved Egyptian night". 2 Is there in Egypt, India and Persia any reflex of recent Far Eastern events? Percy is going to Persia, starting with Jay on Mch 14th for Aleppo Bagdad - Basra - Mohammerah - Wais - Ispahan and Tehran. You are certain to meet and he will tell you all our gossip. - How Marshall won in his tussle over Fehim who has been deported to Broussa or further - how O'C on a tilki's advice and plain speaking joined Marshall at the 11th hour and spoke to the Sultan thus not quite allowing Germany to step into the position occupied by this Embassy in the days of Stratford de Redcliffe when we championed oppressed nationalities. All classes are grateful to Marshall and O'C (the order ought to have been reversed!) and respect them for having rid the capital of the Fehim incubus. Picot has been into the Bodega today and tells me that O'C has just said that it is allright about your steamer and that the Porte is writing accepting the content of a second note that has just gone in from HMG. If so (for Elchi's words are forked) you will not be 'dilkharab [disappointed]' Tilki for you will have done a great deed - the precursor of many others I am convinced in Mesopotamia.

1 Presumably a reference to Sir Alfred Lyall's two-volume work, Asiatic Studies, Religious Social, first published by John Murray in 1899. 2 From Rudyard's Kipling's poem, 'The White Man's Burden' (1899).

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Parker has been out here as messenger and spent his three days with Elchi and Block imbibing information about the Bd Ry. This visit is held to portend that we are going in soon with the Germans. Meanwhile the 3% is hanging fire, the F.O. and B. of T. jibbing and Elchi floundering to right his position vis-à-vis the Turks. If we go in with the Germans it has occurred to me that it might not be a bad thing for us to chuck all those tithe guarantees bring on the Commercial Treaties which raise the Customs duties to 13% to 15% thus yielding 1.5 million £. extra - on condition that we have control of the Customs and thus secure our guarantee for the B. Ry. It would be simpler and better than playing around with such uncertain and variable securities as tithes. Was not Arthur Herbert's death shocking. I think I liked him best of the messengers. 'Tommy' sends his love and is sorry to hear your twinnies are still not quite robust. He says you must wrap them up. With Percy's departure the last link of tilkidom will have snapped. As it is I often feel very very lonely and miss much. But then Yavris must be about the Empire's business. I often feel depressed when I have to eat my yaourt and prunes alone or only with Weakley at Tokatlian's, while there is nobody to play sonatas of Bohême and the 'W[earing]. of the Green' 1 . Even Kismet and my Oriental philosophy do not console me. May this find you in health and o...[?], yours always, G. H. Fitzmaurice P.S. Borgo has news of his wife being very ill and has left for the Black Mts. I have had 'flu' for some ten days but managed to keep my head above water. Two days ago there was still a patch of the old snow on the Okmaidan, so you can imagine our weather has been rotten - It is so still. You were well out of it, G.H.F. *

"Bodega", Club de Constantinople, Pera, March 12th, 1907 My dear 'Yavri', I expect that in a couple of days we shall have a tel. from Crow to say you have reached Basra. I'm sure that during the last fortnight you have had a very interesting time drinking in the atmosphere of the Gulf, impregnated as you must have felt it with a hundred years' memories and associations of noble unselfish British efforts spent on the best of Imperial lines. You will have reached Basra to find that your 3rd steamer started for Bagdad on March 1

A very well known Irish song.

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8th and you will have felt a justifiable glow of satisfaction that your conversations with Grey and Hardinge and especially your letter to the latter have borne such splendid and I hope lasting fruit. I'm rather glad that Hardinge sent out a copy of your letter as it will remain as a record of who really did what the Amb. had called the impossible.1 Loraine and Jay leave in a couple of days for their trek and I feel so confident of you all meeting that I am asking him to take you a few 'squashed flies' 2 and a box of your John Cotton. "Az veren jandan verir" ["A modest gift come from the heart"]. So smoke a whiff together in memory of 'Auld lang syne' here during 1906-7. Percy has had to go through a fearful ordeal of dinners - Polo Club etc. Last night we dined at Bob Dudgelle [?]'s and the Worthy One played and sang Mrs Flannigan's ball! It brought back a flood of the Therapia Bodega memories and only wanted you to make things as of yore. We talked of Yavri! Percy will tell you how screamingly funny the 'Worthy One' was in his impersonation of Teddy Roosevelt, the strenuous advocate of the six children family and how going home supported by the beautiful balik[fish] and the bash tilki he insisted in the Grande Rue in taking part in the Carnival shows we met, rivalling Aubrey's midnight exploits with Arabs in the slums of Bagdad. Poor 'W.O.', he and I are left abandoned by four of the seven who spent such happy days in Therapia last summer. He still makes his 'dehshetli gurultus '[terrible noise] but is having a hard time just now running the chancery with Elchi in bad health and fidgets over the present agonies of the 3%. The Turks have accepted everything but the F.O. is still hanging back and instructing H. E. inter alia to tell them insisting that if they do not fulfil their engagements H.M.G. may have to concert about controlling the Customs. H. E. left out the latter in his n.v. to the S.P. and today got a scalping [sic] tel. from the F.O. that wd make any man of guts resign. Things seem in a hopeless tangle and poor Weakley is worked to death - ripening for Kissingen 3 - all because Elchi knows nought of using "open speech and simple - an hundred times made plain". 4 Nicholls (D'Arcy's man) is here and seems on the point of settling with the Civil List for the purchase of the Mesopotamian oil fields concession. Your visit to Irak seems to synchronize, as it ought to with a revival of our prestige etc in those parts. Inshallah!

1 Lynch was permitted to run a third steamer until the Civil List was in a position to place 12 additional steamers on the river, TNA, Crow to O'Conor, 8 Mar. 1907, F0195/2242. 2 Fitzmaurice was himself very fond of Garibaldi biscuits (for which this was a popular name), and always carried them around with him. 3 The German spa town of Bad Kissingen. 4 "By open speech and simple, An hundred times made plain" - more lines from Kipling's 'The White Man's Burden' (1899).

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What do you think of the expediency of the Bagdad Consulate G1 being transferred to the F.O.? On the one hand associations are connected with India which pays ... [?] ... way the I.O. (This paper is intolerable) 1 ... the F.O. wd not [pay?] for the upkeep of the 'Comet', Sepoy Guard etc etc. While in the past one has heard that the British merchants in Bagdad would prefer to see the change from India to the F.O. which has already taken place at Basra repeated in Bagdad where, they used to say, their interests suffered owing to the AngloIndian manner of the Consul Genl. towards the Turks - his ignorance (and that of all his staff except one cavass) of Turkish etc etc. You are familiar with the pros and cons. I suppose either way much if not nearly all depends on the character of the occupant of the post - whether from India or the F.O. I should value awfully your opinion on the subject, so if you have time do write and let me know. Also - Tilki - I have another request. Your fortnight or so in the Gulf probably included a stay at Bushire or Koweit (with Cox and Knox) which gave you time to start 'biyik' [moustache] - so get photo'ed and send me one to see what a biyikli Yavri looks like on board (for preference) the 3rd steamer. You ought to get phot[o]e'd too with Percy and send me a copy. Also don't forget to snapshot the Basra Customs - d[itt]o at Bagdad together with the Bagdad landing stage where the steamers moor like the Shirket[Company] boats alongside the Galata bridge. You may be not uninterested to know that Miss [Gertrude] Bell's permit has at last been obtained without the endless delays involved in a reference to the Porte - Irade etc. The Min. of Public Instruction thrice insisted on sending the application to the Porte. I thrice prevailed on them to refer it back to the Museum and finally secured the needful result so that she can start work - Inshallah - in April as she intended. One had to put one's best leg foremost as a reference to the Porte meant months or a year's delay. Poor 'Tommy' has not had much exercise of late. The weather up to today has been positively execrable but at last the sun seems to have conquered the Siberian and Black Sea blasts. We may soon have balmy sunshine and it will be possible to go to Eyoub - enjoy the view - talk to the gravediggers - and return amid chatanas [small steam boats] and yelken ghemis [sail boats]. But it will not be like last year. What a lot has happened since then! - A couple of nights ago I was awakened to find sparks falling in showers about the Embassy - went on to the roof only to see the burnt out shell of Galata Serai school. The Bekjis [guards] were not allowed to call out their 'yanghin var' [fire! fire!] as officially a Govt building cannot burn. But Devle[t] Effendi's Alma Mater is no less a heap of smouldering ashes and the

1

Fortunately, Fitzmaurice then found some better paper.

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Shadow of Allah is ceaselessly occupied in seeing to its being immediately rebuilt. I was glad you had led [sic] to see it last year - excuse scrawl yrs ever, G. H. Fitzmaurice *

'Bodega', May 11th, 1907 My dear 'Tilki', It seems ages since I have written you and I have of late been frequently reproaching myself with not inflicting a letter on you but have hesitated to do so for several reasons among which was a doubt as to the length of your stay at Bagdad and the consequent possibility that my lucubrations might be wandering over Mesopotamia and Kurdistan. Your tel. of this morning about sending mails etc to Diarbekir sets my doubts at rest. By the way I sent you a pot of hairwash by Percy along with the baccy and sq[uashed]. flies. I hope you got the first as I should be distressed to know that the Ambrosial locks risked destruction from Bagdad heat for want of lubrication. Now let me thank you ever so much for your last two long nice letters from Basra. They have solaced my delkharablik [disappointment] and chased O'Conoritis away. I am delighted to glean from them that you have been eminently successful in your mission so far despite the gigantic difficulties you had to overcome and I partly realize them. This did not come as a surprise to me for I felt that Yavri Pasha by an expenditure of energy and determination (true 'Jan' [Life]) and a rigidly controlled and tactfully directed impatience (true 'Sabr' ['Patience']) would defeat the combined wiles and concentrated obstinacy of both Turk and Arab not to mention the climatic and other disinertia of the local merchant and that you would unlock the secrets of their hearts and ledgers by the piercing X-rays of your penetration. This smacks of Hadji Baba who, of course, also visited Bagdad and started a roaring trade in pipe handles. I am very happy, Tilki, for I know that the results of your work will be good and it is especially gratifying that you who have laid the foundations (3rd Ag kishtil) of our revival in those parts should find it your Kismet to see to British energy being launched on a further era of progress with freshly galvanized hope and impetus. For mixed metaphor as this may sound I believe something such will be the result of your mission carried out as it is under very great difficulties including unreliable twinnies. You will have noticed from your 'Mail' that the good cause is going onward - that there are signs that the tide has ceased ebbing. The Colonial Conference - 1 beg pardon - 1 mean the 'Imperial Council' has given a filip to

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minds and feeling at home tho' one almost gnashes one's teeth when one thinks to what purpose a man like the invalid of St Raphael [Joseph Chamberlain] would have utilized the opportunity now given us. I feel that, now that the leaven started by him has been working in the nation to more purpose than perhaps appears during the last few years, he would had he or say Milner been Colonial Secretary or better still Premier, have melted the struggling prejudices of the nation by the blast of his fervour - have breathed a new spirit into the Imperial movement and, sweeping off their feet those who are haltingly discussing halfway measures, made a United Empire with preference and a permanent Imperial Council an accomplished fact, as Bismarck did at Versailles. However we must not be dissatisfied, for the present Conference though it has not gone the 'whole hog' has not been in vain and has rivetted the attention of the Empire and Gt. Britain on the one great vital issue of this generation. The Empire goes before Gt. Brit, in Imperial matters for in the absence of Chamberlain the driving power is coming from the Col[onie]s. and especially from Australia which did not always get the credit of being so sound. Among other significant facts you have noticed how the London and Glasgow Chambers of Commerce have plumped for Impl. Preference and had Chamberlain been in Manchester and not Birmingham the stronghold of Cobdenism wd by now have recanted its heresy. The April National R. has two stunning good articles from Garvin and Milner. The latter to my mind is Chamberlain's predestined successor. He has the level headedness, clear headedness and above all the true spirit of the latter. The cause is bound to win. I almost feel tempted to quote, even to you, the words of an Irish 'rebel' song about "on the cause will go, through weal and woe". But it is not won yet and there will be work for you to do when you get home. Milner will want a successor and somebody must be the President of the Imperial Board of Trade. I wonder whether your plans are taking shape now that you are almost in sight of the end of your present white man's burden whether you are going home via Cons'ple or utilizing your present proximity to Tehran to run out there for a few months. If you are doing the latter you had better let us or Marco know so that the things you want can be sent to Trebizond. Did you notice Curzon's appeal in the Times of April 8th for a suitable monument in Calcutta or London, or both, for Lord Clive. I am sending a £5 as I have always had from childhood a great admiration for him and bracketed with Rhodes consider him one of our greatest Empire builders. His was a hard unscrupulous and pathetic character.

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I'm sure you have revelled in Bagdad and have visited all the neighbouring places of interest. Have you seen the droves of 'mandas'[water buffalo] that an old Turk told me once were to be found around Hellah? "Jeilan" [horse] would be in clover there. I found him in the stable yesterday with a spring like look on his face. We hadn't met for ages and he seemed to recognize my voice. He rubbed his head and neck against my face in a woeful and almost pathetic way. I fear he won't be taken on nice rides to Justinian's acqueduct this spring nor behold his mounts swilling 'airan' 1 at the Sweet Waters village. He did not witness the swilling of that excellent cup the same evening on the terrace of the small club when Einstein and Yavri discussed 'graft'. Spring came suddenly a few days ago - fearfully late alas! and I have been taking Tommy out - mostly alone. I have long talks with him and tell him about you. Quite privately and confidentially I have called him 'Tilki' and he seems to like it especially when there is a prospect of sugar. He is secretly glad tho' he does not say so that he is not carrying Yavri on his long trek from the Lands of Shinar 2 to Mosul - Diarbekir etc. by the trace of the Bg' Ry - Vise. Bury turned up here the other evening and went on the following morning. He seems a nice fellow and keen in the right way. He left the Bodega at 1.30am after a long yarn. He saw Elchi whom he naively warmly congratulated on having raised Brit, prestige to such a pinnacle during the last year. I did not disabuse him. It's unkind to shatter youth's impressions. Maunsell has just returned from a trip down to 'Avanseman'[furthest point reached?] on the Hedjaz Railway which is progressing apace. I have noticed in the Blue Print and Indian papers copious references to and extracts from your two memos on the H. Ry. They have hit the mark and been properly appreciated both in India and at home. Sykes is producing 3 magna opera on Turkey and its Turks. I haven't seen them. They may not yet be published but one can guess the nature and style of their contents. Forgive my alluding to his 'works' in the same breath as your memos. His are opera bouffe and eccentric - yours are - well, Bilmem[I don't know]. I have consulted such shipping experts as are to be found here abouts. "What is the minimum rate per mile a ship can take at a profit for through traffic exclusive of port rates etc but including ex. and im...[?] etc". The local experts say it is impossible to calculate any such standard or unit in the case of a ship where the contingent factors are so many and varied - e.g. whether she takes passengers or not, whether she is a new or second hand boat, whether she does her outward voyage in ballast or half ballast with a certainty or probability of a

1 Airan or ayran is a drink consisting of yoghurt diluted with water, to which salt is usually added. 2 The designation of Mesopotamia in the Book of Genesis.

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full cargo on the homeward voyage; the varying prices of bunker coal at different stages of a long and broken journey etc etc etc. I tried to make them realize, imagine or admit that, though unlike a[n] engine or train on land, a ship's capacity is limited, shipping experts dealing with long ocean voyages to the Cape, S. America, Far East etc must have theoretically worked out some basic standard per mile 'ceteris paribus' but they all say it is impossible and that it is simply a matter of competition or being able to neutralize the latter by rings, 1 collusion, rebates, or other such semi-fraudulent devices. Weakley, to whom I have given your warm selams has also interested himself in the matter but with the same negative result. I feel a bit ashamed at perhaps not having understood your query as I know you don't ask questions to which there is no answer. Shipping is one of the most dishonest trades going and perhaps these vile people are only taking advantage of my inexperience to humbug me and conceal facts of deep interest and import. I see Elchi and Lynch are at cross purposes over the weight v. bulk question on the Tigris. Lynch has been trying to get Allan Ramsay to induce the Civil List here to adopt the measurement instead of weight basis for the up rates from Basra to Bagdad. Perhaps Lynch is making an unduly great profit at the expense of British importers. The Ambassadors and Tewfik Pasha signed the 3% Protocol a few days ago and it is to come into force in a couple of months if all goes well. Weakley is recovering from the titanic efforts he has been putting forth in the altruistic task of reforming the Turkish Customs. He has accomplished marvels and no other foreign official in Cons'ple could have produced the results - 'the ends for others sought'. 2 Of course Elchi has never realized this - nor thanked him nor made it known. Weakley is a jewel as a public official - a martyr to duty in the unselfish way he slaves under the most thankless of circumstances. Lynch has a valedictory letter - a parting shot at the 3% in the 'Times'. It spells anti-Bagdad Railways. I think my left leg will be much lamer from senile decay (today is Sunday for tho' I started this letter on Sat. evening I was interrupted three times - one never can sneak an unbroken hour in the Embassy) before that project gets far beyond Eregli. - 1 do not grudge the 3% now for the Aidin Ry Extension has been got - you pulled off Father Tigris No. 3 and Patterson's mines about which I have worried a bit from a distance and without appearing in the open is all but finished. The G. V. to whom I gave your selams told me the Irade for Patterson's mines, which question involves a sum of some £80,000, is out but as the matter is not 1 That is, cartels, often known at the time as 'shipping rings'. See my The Politics of the South Africa Run. 2 Another line from Kipling's poem, 'The White Man's Burden' (1899) - actually "the end for others sought".

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quite straightened out I have prompted Patterson to go on bombarding the F.O. as they have been dealing with O'C. Tho' I daren't whisper it even to the walls of the 'Bodega' several despatches now figuring in the Chancery registers were really indited[composed] in your old sanctuary - still quickened and controlled - you see - by your brooding spirit. Weakley too has got the privileged stores for bunker coal - a big British interest - put on a magnificent footing - so that on the whole we have got our quid pro quo for the 3% - despite Elchi and the £8000 a year he gets for representing the Empire and for harming her interests. Taba and the Sinai Boundary too were settled in spite of O'C's vaccilationfsic] and backsliding. You have seen Cromer's last report and his resignation. The first was his testament embodying the results of one of the finest lives spent in the service of the Empire and pointing out the course for Gorst and other helmsmen to steer. I think he did well to resign now and showed his greatness in doing so. It's only weak rotters who cling on after their time. The Sultan & Co. are glad he is gone as, tho' they admire a strong man - they disliked him naturally. I hear a rumour that Machel may resign and one or two others. They feel they won't get on with Gorst who - on dit [they say] - is a bit crotchety. Abdul Hamid is going strong and a Princess has just been born just 9 months and one week after the Friday when he did not attend the Selamlik! I wonder would Bergman's diagnosis have agreed with this. They have just brought me your tel. of yesterday about the shorthand clerk. Today is the Greek Easter and I have to go off to the Phanar to congratulate the Oecumenical Patriach on behalf of the Amb. You remember our visit. I wonder will my visit today be chronicled and commented on by the local press. After that I have to go to Stamboul - Council of Ministers about a small Maghil case that has just occurred at Basra where a gang of robbers have broken into a British subject's house next door to that of the dragoman - threatened the owner's life and made off with all his goods despite the dragoman's appeals to a corps de garde just by to interfere and protect. 1 This evening or tomorrow I shall start hunting for a clock for you. I hope with success but you know how badly Cons'pie is equipped with civilized machines - human and other.

1 This appears to have been just the latest serious incident in the village of Maghil near Basrah, the first of which in recent times had been the murder of the British subject, Mr Granville, in February of 1906. Moreover, the local authorities had been dilatory in arresting and punishing the culprits and Crow believed that British prestige had been badly shaken as a result. There was also lawlessness at other spots, and on the river, and he had been demanding not just public executions but collective punishment, TNA, Fitzmaurice to Lamb, 30 Mar. 1906, F0195/2221; and Crow to O'Conor, 22 Mar. 1907, F0195/2242.

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I never thanked you for your kind congrats. re. the Grahame cum Maxwell decoration referred to in your letter from, I think, Bushire. Far from there having been any question [of] any unmerited 'honorific distinction', I have been engaged at intervals in wrangling with O'C and trying to induce him to invite the F.O. to give me what I was entitled to by the regulations during 10 months in 1905-1906 when he had me doing 1st Dragoman's work (Taba and Akaba) on 3rd Dragoman's pay which was inferior to instead of being in excess of that received by my juniors in the provinces. I was more than sick a couple of weeks ago when he finally wrote home waiving my established right to the excess pay during the period mentioned thus upsetting the basis on which I had worked and at times slaved here during some ten years. Turks are more reliable than some British Ambassadors - however — At last we have news of the 'Pees Teelkee' who I was afraid had got lost somewhere between Karachi and Basra. He is now on his way to Aleppo and as you and he have evidently met, we shall soon have more lifelike news of you than typeprint can convey. I fancy you must have met Percy too - as he was reported to have left Basra for Ahwaz late in April. What a chatter of tilkis and wagging of brushes there must have been. Lynch rebate question I shall talk over with Allan Ramsay when he returns. He is Lynch's representative] here but is away at present. Nichols (Darey's man) is away in England discussing combination between Darey, Lynch and the B.I. with proposals to take over the Servia [?] boats. Pending his return the Mesopot. oilfields concession from the Civil List has hung fire. The W.O. sends love. He is back again in deep mourning after burying his father! The page ends and so must my incoherent prattle. Good luck - Keep avoiding the Bagdad button 2 and such disfigurements. Akibetiniz Khair alsan [I hope that whatever you do will turn out well], yrs ever, G. H. Fitzmaurice *

'Bodega', May 20th 1907 My dear Tilki, Thanks very much for your letter written on board on the way up to Bagdad with its reflections re. the future of those parts. The Turk certainly stands a chance of being young and virile when we shall be suffering from

* This sentence is left trailing off like this. Unusual, long-lasting boils caused by a bloodsucking fly that left ugly scars.

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hypercivilized decay and senility provided the corrosive influence of Western economies do not sap and destroy his pristine virtues in the meanwhile. It's a toss-up but I always think the chances are in favour of the Turk especially since the Japs beat the Russians and have shown the path of regeneration to the East. Also your letter from Bagdad in which you tell me of Percy's movements - recommend Apenta 1 and ask me about the conditions upon which Lynch's no. 3 was obtained. The Porte's note says "la Liste Civile qui a le monopole de la navigation sur le Tigre et l'Euph. donne à Messrs Lynch & Cie. l'autorisation d'employer, à titre provisoire, un troisième bateau, jusqu'à ce que le dit département ajoute douze bateaux aux douze qui sont actuellement en activité de service. En priant V. E. de vouloir bien prendre acte des conditions auxquelles cette faveur a été accordée etc etc." So you see the Porte (1) declares that the monopoly belongs to the Civil List, (2) that the permission for the 3rd steamer is granted by the C.L. and not the Porte, and the period is until douze (not douze nouveaux) bateaux are added to the two now plying, i.e. until there are 14 and not 18 as O'C originally led Picot and F.O. to suppose. I pointed out these points and discrepancies to Picot who with Lynch eventually thought best to accept trusting to the Turks never carrying out their intentions about increasing the number of steamers and to their (Lynch's) always being able to control the import cargoes. Picot was a bit sick and worn out physically. The future, like most things in life, depends on ourselves and Lynch. Nice trite remark! It was very nice of you sending me those cuttings about the Pfersianj. Gulf. I read them with great relish and interest and am keeping them. I am somewhat distressed about your eyes bothering you and trust it will be allright, as you hope - when you get north of Bagdad and nearer to Kurdistan - farther away from the influence of the South wind. But Mosul can be very trying while Jezire can smack of inferno and you won't be comfy till you get to Mezere (Kharput). So let me make it yassak [forbidden] for you to write to me as it only adds to a constantly increasing physical strain. For me it is a self denying ordinance and request which I hope you won't reject. I half suspected when you wired for a shorthand clerk that it was to ease the strain on your eyes and was almost glad to get your reply (3 days in coming) saying you would do without. I am today sending to you addressed to the Diarbekir V. Consulate by Turkish Parcels Post two bottles of Penhaligon 2 and two tins of John Cotton and trust, tho' not without a certain misgiving, that they will reach you safely. You will be sorry to learn that poor Onik Effendi died rather suddenly last week. He had a weakish heart tho' not heart disease and ' A mineral water. A famous London brand of perfume.

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has been worrying a lot about his prospects and promotion. His great ambition after 24 years faithful and good service to us was to be given the title of Assistant dragoman and be allowed to wear a hat as he has long grown out of and above his original position of pousla hunter at the Porte where his status vis-à-vis Turkish official[s] had become rather galling. I made a couple of tries with O'Conor to get the matter set right but without avail. It wd have cost nothing and was very simple but O'C merely pooh poohed the suggestion, incapable as he was of understanding it and imagining as he does invariably when any suggestion is made to him that it meant some difficult point for him to settle. Poor Qnik got brooding over it, lost his interest in life at repeated refusals to entertain even such a simple request. In fact the springs of his life snapped with a result largely contributing to his death. It is very sad, especially as he has for years pinched himself for the sake of his family and his children's education and was just hoping to be able to see daylight through the little mist of difficulties surrounding his small life. He is of course an irreparable loss to us all as he was the repository of a V2 century of precedents in affairs Turkish - knew and was liked by hundreds of Turkish officials - in fact he was the mainstay of the dragomanate out of which I feel the bottom so to speak has fallen. I feel very upset personally at his sad end as I had known him for close on 20 years and always found him to[sic] willing obliging and grateful for the little one has been at times able to do for him. Da-[m]n Elchi - the man wd have lived and rendered invaluable service for another ten years had he (Elchi) only listened or had the human sympathy enabling him to understand what the man had done - was entitled to and how much his heart was set upon bettering his position informally. The papers you handed over to him are in the cupboard where you and he put them. The key is with me and, if by any chance I shd not be here when you return you will find it with my remplaçant or successor to whom I shall make special mention of the sacred deposit. Hoare got something which resembles appendicitis and has after a stay in hospital, to go home to see specialists and perhaps be operated on. I haven't heard whether he has been cut open. I have given your selams and expression of gratitude to the G. V., also to Hassan Fehmi, Ghalib and the beardless mektoubji [secretary general]. Chok memnoun oldiler - size da chowal ile selam gundarurler [They were pleased - they send you bagfull of wishes], I had a ride on Tommy yesterday after a ten days interval - being slightly over busy just now. The meadows were nice - the grass green and the flowers lisping poetry at one. It was very hot and I longed for 'airan' and somebody to help me empty the bowl!

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There is nothing much doing here beyond the tale of common things. Block is driving hard to get effective control by the [Ottoman] Debt of the 25% of the 3% to come to the Debt - the thin end of the wedge of foreign controul of the Near Eastern Customs. What do you think of the mental unrest in the Middle East and India? One can't help pondering at times over it and its possible consequences but then I am a pessimist. Eat yaourt - keep fit and return happy to the 'Bodega', yrs ever, G. H. Fitzmaurice *

"Bodega", Pera, June 21st 1907 My dear "Tilki", I have been longing to have a talk at you for some time back but did not feel sure of hitting you off, not knowing how fast you would travel to Diarbekir where I presumed your stay would be short. I can't wait any longer and so send this to Erzeroum. I asked Pat to send me a line from Therapia if there was any tel. news of your whereabouts and movements but haven't heard anything from him tho' I suspect you must be at or past Diarbekir by now. Today is Friday - no Porte and the troops are just past going by to the Selamlik. I have the whole Embassy to myself and can write any trash I like. I can't thank you enough for nor tell you how much I revelled in your letters from Bagdad. They were more than water in the desert to famished man and beast. I feel almost angry with you for your kindness in writing them. There, don't say that is Irish. They were so vivid that even with my dull imagination I almost felt myself taking part in the great Tilki trek. I wished I had been with you on your Kerbelai trip - getting through the bazaars at night (I did it at Ispahan tho' not on a felonious errand like our friend Hadji) and the ride back on Bahrein snakes. 1 1 do wish we could get the building of the Hindiye weir. 2 It would be more than the thin edge in irrigation in those parts. I was positively delighted with the four photos including the 'Comet' and the 3rd Ag kishti. I had something to do with the coming of the 'Comet' when in the 18nineties she replaced the old one and the Turks made a determined effort to get

1

A metaphor for a fast horse. The Hindiye Canal ran off the lower Euphrates but had become so large that, except at flood times, it was taking all of the water from the river. As a result, the Ottoman government had commissioned a French engineer, M. Cugnin, to prepare a plan for a barrage that would enable the water to be divided between canal and river. Major Ramsay urged the political advantages of ensuring that a British firm secured the contract for the first major irrigation scheme in Mesopotamia, TNA, Ramsay (Baghdad) to O'Conor, 30 Mar. 1907, F0195/2242. 2

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rid of all 'Comets' and sepoy guards. 1 I share your not pessimistic but healthily prudential ideas about the danger of our trade there having but the one plank basis of Manchester Cottons and the harm that must come from the establishment of a branch of the Deutsche Bank. I feel you have woken up our people a bit and also that if ever I visit those regions I shall find your pumps in use there. How superlatively (don't laugh as you did in the Therapia Bodega last summer) nice of you to have sent me the carpet. It hasn't arrived yet, the letter of advice too being overdue but I'm sure it will be the gem of your humble ...'[?] collection. I'm getting a bit anxious about its non-arrival and must find time to worry the Turkish G.P.O. people about it. I shall shake them up a bit if it's ever possible to shake Turks up. By the way I was seeing the Minister of War yesterday urging the carrying out of the death sentence on the Maghil murderers and in the course of the interview reminded him of that photo of the Queen (V.) sitting looking up at the Prince Consort which he showed us that night in Ramazan. He has had a stroke some time ago and is now a bit shaky but still a soldier every inch of him. He said he would try and get the Irade confirming the death sentence. But Padishahin merhameti choddir [But the Sultan is so merciful]. As you see I have not gone to Therapia - no Bodega - no bathes - no lunches in the garden or dinners where the stars had lit their silver lamps after the shrine and the talks with friends. By selfishly remaining in town I save myself 3 hrs travelling on Bosphorus steamers most days in the week and avoid contact with Elchi. I see, it's true, a lot of my own society which I know is pernicious but - lehte [?]2 eyle [it has advantages?] Pat came back pleased with himself but not with Gabriel which I can quite understand from what you said in one of your letters. Gabriel seems to have been a helpless invalid with a consequent tendency to peevishness all the way. Pat couldn't leave him to go to Damascus but went with him as far as Alexandria where he put him on board a steamer for home. Pat does not seem inclined to cotton to the new lot - though Lambton your successor is nice without vigour and Monson is a very good boy tho' quiet - chok mazlum [too quiet]. They play tennis and not polo - so that their ways are different. Mrs Macleay has come out so the W.O. has gone to Tokatlian's 3 and Pat is now the last of the Mohicans. The Surtees are back and at Therapia. Mrs Hughes has gone home. Also Miss Whittaker has gone to Europe. Weakley too has been away in 1 The 'Comet' was a 182-ton steam-driven gunship built for the Royal Indian Marine in Bombay in 1884 and placed at the disposal of the British Resident at Baghdad. It was usually referred to as the 'new Comet' because its predecessor - which was already old when acquired in 1852 - had the same name, TNA, Ramsay to O'Conor, 16 Oct. 1907, FO195/2243: and Cheeseman, 'A History of Steamboat Navigation on the Upper Tigris'. ^ The first two letters of this word are indecipherable; the transcription 'lehte' is speculative. 3 A hotel in Therapia.

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Smyrna and Syria inspecting Customs Houses and may not be back for some time. Jones became so impossible [in the dragomanate] that the Chancery [and] even W.O. almost revolted and O'C had to admit his mistake and get a successor who arrived yesterday in the shape of McGregor from Sarajevo - a clever linguist but dilettante keeper of parrots and other cockyolly birds. He ought not to last more than six months if the Elchi can ever be got to acknowledge a second failure. Jones goes to Trebizond where you will find him. What a nice suggestion about my running up to Erzeroum and filling our baskets from the babbling trout brooks of the upper Euphrates valleys. By Allah Tilki I wd enjoy it but alas! and it is always so with a dragoman condemned to everlasting waiting at the everlasting Porte, it is not to be. Lamb is going on leave on July 15th and Onik Effendi who died on May 10th has not yet - iniquitous to relate - been replaced, the Elchi wanting to appoint some rotter - another Jones - against Lamb's advice. Even if the right man is appointed it will take years to train him. Meanwhile my work has not been lightened. Without Marinitsch and Onik and only a junior like [Richard Masssie] Graves (for you Tilki realise that however clever a man may be experience is indispensable in dealing with the Unspeakable) it is physically impossible for me to carry on alone in summer, specially with one's basis at Therapia some eleven miles from Pera and Stamboul. I'm thinking of consulting Dr Maclean who is replacing Clemow (on leave) and asking for leave too on the grounds of health letting the pettily inconsiderate O'C do as he likes. Artik [oh well]! No matter what happens I'm afraid it is out of the question my coming to Erzeroum where I suppose you will try and get through the heavy [work?] of your compilation. The W.O. was saying the other day that when you come here the Elchi is bound to try and pose vis á vis the F.O. and B. of T. as running you, so I presume you will have most of your work in a shape that won't be susceptible of alteration at his insane suggestions - 1 did not thank you specially for your letter from Mosul which I got yesterday. It was long and written just after you came off your long and hard and fatiguing ride from Bagdad, with its double marches, testing as it must have done even your powers of endurance. You are the last of the fraternity of the [fox] brushes on the trek as all the other wanderers have got back to their several earths. By the way the Maxwells passed through here recently. Mrs Maxwell told Pat and myself that she saw a fox near the ruins of Nebuchanezzar's palace near Babylon! We two tilkis smiled faintly and furtively at one another but never a sound passed our lips. I have always been impressed by the evening shout of the Pad [ishah] Chok Yasha! [Long live the Sultan] in out of the way spots in Turkey - on the furthermost confines of the

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"well protected dominions" - wherever twenty or more of the ever-victorious are gathered together in A.H.'s name. But isn't it sincere? It always seemed to me so. The Turk is unquestioning and not given overmuch to analysis of his feelings but they all feel vaguely yet strongly that the Padishah is their head centre and emblematical of their religious and national unity, their rallying point and the embodiment of their past and, they trust, their future glories. A great and sad event has happened today - separation between myself and Tommy! After the Embassy went to Therapia and his stable friends left for the country Tommy showed signs of boredom, especially at lonely hacking. I started taking him out with a stick and ball onto the Okmeidan but even there his poor heart yearned for equine fellowship. He longed for the Buyukdere meadow and the skarry. No cajoling or blandishments could raze out the ...[?] trouble of his brain on this score, so I sold him to the Polo Club and said goodbye to him today. He will be happier, poor beast, than down here in my acrid atmosphere. It did not seem proper that a pony which had carried one of the victors in last year's Cup match should not hear the crack of the ball and Bob's stentorian orders to No. 1. I must go up some day and see him play. Poor Tommy. I wld gladly have sold him to a white man but no one in the Chancery plays now and the Polo CI. seemed best. Todays telegrams which I read in the Levant Herald at lunch at Tokatlian's had two items of deep import - one that the German Emperor will probably again visit Constantinople and the other that Chamberlain's life is despaired of. His end to my mind is touching and pathetic beyond words. If he dies the greatest spirit in English public life since Chatham will have gone out but I hope it will still quicken and controul us. It is sad that when he had more than half breathed his spirit into the nation, he should have been so suddenly, almost cruelly, stricken with dumbness. He has fought the good fight and if his ideas prevail, as I am convinced they will, he will have arrested the hands of history's timepiece and rejuvenated an empire that according to old cynics like Salisbury was sinking into the inevitable natural decay which overtook Carthage, Venice and other states founded on sea power. Turkey wants a Chamberlain just now, for the Sublime Govt, seems once again staggering on to the brink of financial disaster. They have been at their wits end to pay one out of three months salary and have scraped together enough to tide them over immediate embarrassments by plunging deeper into the quagmire of short loans at 7% interest. The 3% comes into force on June 25th but the Turks will see nothing of it directly while the Custom House improvements such as they are have cost a sum which to their low administrative standards is considerable. Of course negatively it is a gain as they will no longer be held responsible for finding sums to cover the deficits

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in Macedonia, where Europeans insist on paying salaries in full contrary to all the basic tenets of Turkish finance. Merchants are already beginning to put up the prices of imported commodities to the 11 per cent basis so that the consumers will apparently pay most of the increase and Turks say with a certain show of reason that it is unfair that the rest of the Empire should have to pay for the beaux yeux of the 3 Provinces and the vagaries of foreign financial inspectors who for some inscrutable reason insist on constructing and actually keeping in repair roads and bridges. Why it [is] quite unheard of and monstrous! - At the last moment the 3% was within an ace of not coming off. When the Debt insisted on its right of supervision of the 3% increase, the Turks demurred - Block, who was determined to use it as a lever for getting into the Customs, marshalled his forces at the F.O. - got Elchi stiff instructions, and finally drove a coach and four into and through the Ambassadorial Areopagus. A Great Council was then held at the Palace lasting till 1 a.m. but the Sultan proved obdurate - said he did not want the 3% at the price of Foreign Controul and ordered the Ministers to discuss and examine the expediency of rejecting the 3% and having Tariff Commercial Treaties instead. The Min. of the Interior (Memdouh) and the Min. of Public Works were in favour of this plan. The G.V. was at his wits ends - went home and sat up the remainder of the night writing a swing(e]ing report showing the folly and futility of executing a change of front at the last moment. Another full Council was held and finally last night the Sultan gave his Irade with a slight change of formula which we are assured is immaterial but nobody has seen the Irade yet! Verily nothing ever finishes in Turkey except by the hand of Allah. Darey's concession for the Mesopotamian oilfields still hangs fire. The Turks are desperately hard up but the Civil List still refuses the large lump of backsheesh which Nicholls (Darey's man) is dangling before their eyes and mouth. The matter has several times been on the point of coming off but as often hung fire. The Civil List was iraded to examine and choose the best offer. They have now (apparently) weeded out all except three, of which Darey seems favourite - the other two competitors being English - one, Baker and the other Bryant whom Aubrey made drunk last year coming up from Egypt. In some incomprehensible way Bryant seems to represent capital but Nichols feels sure that both will ultimately spell Darey for a consideration. A final decision is, as usual, supposed to be imminent partly on the supposition that the Sultan wants money to marry five Princesses. - Bakallum [Let's see]! People are also dabbling in or treating for Mesopotamian irrigation and taking over the Saninya [?] but a lot of water will pass Kurma before either are accomplished facts. The Bagdad Railway is in statu quo, the position being

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that our Govt are prepared to take the Bagdad section without Kiljometric]. Guarantee, the confidential secret of which is that HMG will privately, as in the Quay Co. arrangement, guarantee interest on the outlay. I haven't heard of any definite proposals recently with the Germans nor should I think they are likely just yet, in view of the desperate penury of the Turkish Treasury and the universal financial depression consequent on the state of the New York market and the slump in Paris resulting from the colossal "grève" of 800,000 wine growing demonstrators in the south of France. The French slump is serious owing to their tremendous holding in and holding up of Russian securities, especially after the coup d'état in dissolving the Duma. Aubrey Herbert and his brother Mervin have just been here after a weeks stay. Aubrey has been in Montenegro and thence went through Albania from Scutari to Uscup accompanied by Kiazim. He had the usual adventures in travelling and stayed at his usual hotel here. He is looking right well and was in great spirits. He had some wonderful lunches at Balta Liman - took his brother to opium dens etc etc winding up with a troubadour escapade where he was seen alternatively doffing and donning a fess [sic] before the latticed windows of some fair sorceress in the backslums of Sultan Ahmed. Nothing dreadful happened and he left a couple of hours after by the Conventional safe and sound. I'm afraid he found me in a rather lugubrious state of mind but as he spent most days up the Bosphorus I did not inflict too much on him. Bob Dudgelle has just looked in to pay over the pieces of dirty yellow for 'Tommy'. I feel like Judas. Bob, whom I told I was writing to you, begs me to send you his greetings. They have just attempted the first match but the ground was sopping after a heavy downpour. It reminds me of your making a similar attempt under similar conditions last year - when there was no play and two very pees teelkees went off for a ride in the woods coming back in a state that would disgrace any Bodega. Marco has your things in town ready to transport to Therapia at a few hours' notice before the inauguration of the 1907 Therapia Bodega, for which there is lots of room now in the Therapia house. Please tell old Yusuf Effendi (drag[oman]) and Tahir [?] cavass at Erzeroum that I am still alive and praying for them - Now Tilki, good bye. If I go on leave our next meeting may be else-where than Therapia. I always remember with pleasure tinged with shame your allowing me [to] abuse the Therapia Bodega at breakfast and other unseasonable hours of the day when I must have been an infernal nuisance with my wails. Kussura bakma Insanlikdir [Forgive me - I'm only human]. Tamam [Agreed] yrs always, G. H. Fitzmaurice

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PS Pat told me of a certain biyikli [moustached] Tilki that he met in the Lands of Shinar and has since been travelling in the dominions of Tigleth Pileser - Semarians and suchlike Assyrian monarchs but I have not had ocular proof (try photos) of the truth of Pat's statement. Belki yalandir [Maybe it's wrong]! G.H.F. *

Private "Bodega", Pera, July 15th 1907 My dear Tilki, I had heard different rumours about you from Therapia - that you had arrived at Diarbekir - hadn't had any mails for five weeks - were going to Bitlis and Van for the Vali's of which places you wanted telegraphic instructions to facilitate your task, and finally that you had gone to Kharput to recruit [sic] from an attack of malaria when yesterday your wire asking your slave's advice about the necessity of visiting Van and Bitlis arrived 30 hrs overdue from Kharput. I answered at once and presumed you got the reply after a respectable interval and in a not entirely undecipherable condition. This morning I got your letter from Diarbekir dated June 26th in which you make no mention of having received two registered letters and the parcel containing two tins of baccy and two bottles of hair grease which I sent you (registered) on May 20th, so I asked the Chancery in the absence of the Amb. to wire Heard to ask you whether you had yet received them. I presume they have sent the wire from Therapia. If the answer is in the negative I must make a big row as it would never do for John Cotton to be smoked by Kurdish Chiefs and the hair grease swallowed by tipling natives, while I am extremely reluctant that my prattling letters - one of those to Diarbekir was chokful of bosh lakirdi [meaningless words] - should be mistranslated and shown to the G. V. or H.I.M.! - I am looking forward to seeing and reading your strictures on Newmarch. They are I know richly deserved and I trust - I'm sure - will have a good result despite any twisted ideas H. E. may have on the matter. I have long ago insisted on a V.C. being sent to Mosul. The matter is decided in principle by the F.O. tho' the appointment is being withheld for some months. The view from Mardin is ripping. I went up to the highest pinacle [sic] of the Karaja Dagh: The day was clear as crystal and I had a magnificent panoramic view of the rolling downs right away beyond Jebel Abdul Aziz to the S.E. and Harran to the S. I killed a horse in getting there - had to bivouak out the night and reached Viranshehr the next evening to find Ibrahim's son

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preparing for a "Jeilan" [small deer] hunt with hawks. I was amused at your meeting Abdurrahim Pasha at Mosul - to find you calling him an 'old chap' and alluding to his bibulous tendencies. He was a keen young officer when I knew him - an extra pious Moslem etc etc. "Tempora mutantur" etc. etc. I am old too but slake my thirst with Tashdelen [spring water] and 'airan' - what a Pharisee I am! I am still in town - all alone but tonight have to go to Therapia as Lamb left on leave yesterday, Elchi refusing me mine, D - [amn] him! Pat most kindly wants me to join the mess but I am going to the Hotel as I want to be away from Elchi and near my steamer. My town work will be fearfully constant as Onik's successor was only appointed a few days ago - is raw while I have to show him the ropes. It will take a couple of years to break him in. [Richard] Graves is not A. 1 as a dragoman. Your diagnosis is perfectly accurate. Lamb I hear had him appointed. I was in no way consulted and act accordingly. I don't mean to complain of Lamb but he and H.E. have rather left me in the lurch this summer. I ought to be accustomed and not grumble as it has happened oft and oft during the last 15 to 18 years. I may get Ryan up to help. He has a surplus sense of duty and a bulldog tenacity. The 3% became a 'fait accompli' only on Friday last and the beastly 'chojuk'[child] was born in great travail as the matter at the last stages got into a fearful tangle leaving a plentiful crop of questions about refund of the 3% illegally levied during the last fortnight, etc etc to be slowly and painfully settled. You will not be surprised to hear that the banks of the Tigris are again seething with trouble, Lynch's and other craft having been fired on, looted etc between Kurma and Amara. There is not much else going on. The Powers feel they must go with the Macedonian fiasco and are going to butter up the "existing" reforms with some supplementary judicial reforms! While the removal of the mandate of the financial advisers will in a few months lead to a fresh tussle between the Porte and the Powers. July 23rd. I had got this far when I had to run to catch the last boat 7.30pm to Therapia and since then (July 15 - my birthday by the way) I positively have not been able to get a moment to write. Today I finished at the Porte at 5 and have come over here to write before going up to Therapia. I was rather 'dilkarab' [disappointed] yesterday on getting your 2nd note from Diarbekir just before you left for Kharput. I see you have been really seedy, Tilki, and I'm very sorry as I realise what it is to have to trek over those dismal mountains when one is sick in body and moreso in mind at the disappointment of not being able to do one's work as you wd like to do it. But zarar yok [?], Yavri Pasha - jan sagh olsun [But never mind, Yavri Pasha-just look after yourself]. You had already done the bulk and the most

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important part of your work and I sincerely trust this will find you in good fettle again at Erzeroum. Between Bagdad (I might even say Mosul) and Erzeroum there is no place of importance from the point of view of your mission. At Erzeroum you will I hope find a tin of John Cotton which I with great difficulty persuaded Jones to convey to Trebizond. I had to overcome his almost insuperable scruples to be a conveyor of 'contraband'! Your tel. from Kharput re doctor's advice to drive to Samsoun rather upset Elchi who said he could not take the responsibility of conniving at a wounded 'tilki' risking its life by riding to Erzeroum. I told him I imagined you had set your heart on finishing your job by going to Erzeroum and Trebizond and I was even presumptuous enough to compare myself with you by saying that in your place I wd have ignore [d] the doctor's advice and gone to E. Darilma! [Don't be upset!] I then suggested that as Dickson could not stay in the Bitlis Vilayet it might be advisable to send Heard to Bitlis via Mush, knowing that you would be with him as far as Mush. He insisted on keeping the two tels separate but the result I hope has been the same and you have both had a pleasant tho' somewhat tedious journey by Palu to Moush visiting en route what the Jibranli Kurds have left of Chanli Monastery! The yaourt made by the monks is excellent, while there used to be a nice silk carpet in the sanctuary which only my fears of desecrating a shwedegon prevented one from having abstracted. I suppose it has gone now - removed by Kurds or a wandering Jew. Your carpet from Bagdad has arrived and I'm simply delighted with it. Its design is quite uncommon and as you say tile-like. It consequently appeals to Pat who was prompt to recognise its "Juiss" as it is of the same pattern and style as his hearthrug bought from Kafaraj. It was very very nice of you to have sent it and it is correspondingly appreciated and shall be treasured as a "yadkiar" [souvenir] of the great tilki trek to the Lands of Shinar which I have never succeeded in visiting. Chok chok shukur [Thank goodness]. Also, Pat has produced some photos of biyikli [moustached] tilkis at Babylon and Bagdad. He has given me copies. Mashallah! Chok guzel oldu. H.I.M. chok begenejek [It's been very nice. H.I.M will like it very much]. During the last week some changes have taken place. Jay has left for Tokio to his own great regret. He was feted at dinners, especially of a polo nature, for a good ten days. In fact he left in a blaze of glory. The Worthy One and Mrs Macleay have also gone - having been sent to take charge at Belgrade before going to Mexico. The poor W.O. was very upset at going and so were his many friends - down to the cavasses. His kindly nature has appealed to and attracted all. Ben da chok 'triste' oldum [I too felt very sad] Pat is the only one left now. He does not seem happy and is gruff at times. I have not seen much

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of him while at Therapia - nor indeed of any one as I leave early in the morning and get back late, sometimes at 8.40 p.m. He is very good at polo this year - practices a lot in the morning and has just got a real yavri pony (2 V2 yrs old) from falanga [someone] at Yaffa. Douglas broke his collar bone the other day - his pony having crossed its legs. However it might have been worse. When I was young we all broke our collar bones at the then rough form of Rugby. I must visit him some Sunday and console him with the tale about my left knee! I'm sure he will be sympathetic and not like you. Miss [Gertrude] Bell who has had a most successful two months at archaeological research etc with Sir W. Ramsay in Konieh Vilayet has returned via Haidar Pasha probably half an hour ago. She is going to stay with the Ambassador so I fear I can't avoid meeting her much as I am afraid of her. She has had Fattah with her and finds he suffers in the head from the effects of some accident when travelling with an Englishman and is going to have him attended to by Dr Maclean. I must give him your selams and ask him to give me your description in Turkish of a mosquito - "the tiny Koush - that buzzes at night and stings with its tail in front etc etc"! Weakley has just come back after visiting Smyrna and the Syrian Coast with a run up to Damascus and Aleppo. He is pleased with his trip and has been diligently prying into the working of his improved customs houses. He is not surprised to find the tail end of the 3% question dragging on and has already resumed his toil of serf and sweeper at the Custom House whither I accompanied him yesterday. Hassan Fehmi sends his selams - also the beardless mektoubji [secretary general] as also Ghalib Pasha and the G.V. whom I have seen this afternoon about a 'difficulty' on the Western frontier of Egypt. I always seem fated to deal with boundary questions but don't mind as long as it means a reasonable and intelligent widening of the British and a corresponding shrinkage of the "other ones" frontier. I have also been persuading him to back up Khalid Bey, the shaky but decent Governor of Kharput who is a Cypriot by birth. I also saw Ghalib Pasha today about Elchi going to an audience on Friday next. We must have our Admiral up here to do a duty call on the Sultan. The latter will be gratified and during the last week I have worked the oracle to get him to invite the Admiral. No more news of the German Emperor's visit. It so happens that Emin Bey the Nazir of the Erzeroum Customs is an old friend of mine and it may not be cheeky of me to imagine that his dostluk [friendship] towards me may be an incentive to him to help you - if possible - beyond your own powers of extracting information. So let me enclose a card and ask you to be kind enough to present it with my greetings of the heartiest kind. You can tell him or perhaps old Youssuf who being an Arab from

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Mardin and consequently a past master in fulsome compliment, would do it for you that I would have had nice things written on the card were it not that even large sheets of paper - much less a card - could not contain what my heart would like to express. Emin is a poet of no mean talent and affects simple Turkish style as opposed to high flown Arabic expletives. He is a very good fellow and I'm sure will give you all the help he officially can as to Persian transit trade etc etc. It was in the Erzeroum Customs that I bought my first carpets - the two Serabend strips that had the honour of gracing the Therapia Bodega last summer. Don't go to the Ghiaour boghan quarter or they may stone you. As regards your anxiety to get home to London before much of the autumn has gone owing to a strong tide in tariff reform affairs, I am really unable to judge, but it seems that tho' the corrosive effect of Tariff Reform is eating away steadily the feet of the Liberal Colossus, that there is no prospect just yet of that old beast meeting with shocks sufficiently violent to bring it down with a crash - certainly nothing this session. Next year's session with a new Education Bill followed by an onset on the Lords may shatter the Liberals - force them to appeal to the country with a result which I hope and feel confident will bring in those who have been able to get rid of all the obese and unchallenged old things but all this may take a year. If I were Hewitt, however, I would like to see the best men working hard as soon as possible at a quiet, determined and incisive propaganda - having any forces marshalled and trained so as to produce the maximum effect when the tussle does come. What laflar [nonsense] I may be talking! Let me "chup karne"[?]. And now, Tilki, let me tell you a dead secret. I had applied for Beyrout when the other day the Elchi said he was proposing Lamb for Bey [rout], and me as his successor, "if I wanted and liked the post". As it is one I was entitled to under the arrangements made by his predecessor I did not thank him. I told him (sarcastically) that I felt flattered and that it wd be well he was careful in not thus making a mistake from the point of view of Brit, interests by appointing the wrong man. My words said one thing - my tone of voice a second and my eyes and looks a third - but the result was that he has written home - I don't know what or to whom. The upshot is a tossup for Elchi's proposals are not always acted on nowadays. I enclose a letter returned from Aden as received. I did not dare to read it as it may be "bosh lakirdi" [meaningless words]. The best of luck to you, yours always, G. H. Fitzmaurice *

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Meguerditch Tokatlian, Therapia, Aug. 15th 1907 Dear Tilki, For quite a number of days I have been trying in vain to snatch a few moments to write and acknowledge your delicious long letter from Erzeroum with its inclosed copy of your Phillippic contra Newmarch. I believe it has contributed towards the desired effect as I hear Newmarch is not returning to Bagdad. That in itself is as great a negative gain as would have been the dismissal of the 'Sow's Ear' any time during the last 15 months. It is one of the great fruits of your visit to Mesop. which you will find alluded to in the enclosed cutting sent to me in an envelope addressed in the handwriting of Miss Hughes, who has just returned. The underlining is mine. Pray forgive and don't ask me to walk to the Giant's - not at more than 3 miles an hour. I can't, do more now as advancing years - want of exercise and above all increasing weakness in my crippled left leg are telling their sad tale. I met Miss Bell and was delighted tho' somewhat timid and humble. Elchi carried her off on the 'Imogene' to the Islands but despite my endeavours to do Lamb's work in addition to my own slumming in Turkish offices I managed to play truant and stealthily sneaked some hours of her company. Biraz korkdum ama balglinbi olduc [I was a bit scared but pleased nevertheless.] I suppose we shall soon see you here, even in Adam's rig as your clothes from Bagdad have not yet reached, being delayed a few days owing to quarantine. Pat tel [egraphe]d to Port Said and they are coming by Brit, steamer 'Assanan'. I was more than flattered by some remarks of yours anent the possibility of my succeeding Lamb. It's very wrong of you to fall a victim to hyperbole, Tilki, but inshallah if such a change does come about I shall take hints and a spurprick from you and then we shall have a few results to prove that we are no longer throwing away our golden opportunities as we have been doing during the last year or so. The Powers are coming on with judicial reforms in Macedonia - Grey and O.C. especially the latter wants to play a protagonist's part. I have been urging him to keep in the background as forcing judicial reforms will touch H.I.M. on the quick and then goodbye to oil - navigation and irrigation in the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates. I have produced a slight effect but oh my God! his vanity and it is such a powerful vice, au revoir - ... [?] is at Buyukdere yours ever, G. H. Fitzmaurice

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On 30 August George Lloyd arrived back in Constantinople, where it seems that once more he shared rooms with Fitzmaurice. He remained there for two months, apparently engaged in the initial preparation of his report on his mission to the Gulf and Mesopotamia. In early November he then left for Egypt, though his stay there was curtailed by a Foreign Office request that he should be in London for a special meeting on 20 November. On arrival in England his health gave way completely and it was the spring of 1908 before he was sufficiently recovered to resume active life. *

"Bodega", Nov. 5th 1907 My dear 'Tilki', Or shall I call you ... [?] now that a new act of Tilkidom is opening? I suppose you got my wire to Alex. re. Hindiyé barrage. On enquiry at the Min. of Public Works it turned out that, Turkish fashion, the notice inviting tenders in Dec. was premature, the places and specifications being still at Bagdad. It's all the better in a way as there is less chance of our being taken by surprise and I'm sure you will do the needful at home in the way of interesting the likely people, realizing as you do the pivotal importance of getting the British wedge into irrigation in those regions hallowed by Tilkis. Things Turkish are always uncertain and if they insist on the tenders being in in December we shall tel. to the F.O. We shall know in a day or two. I managed to get those rooms in the Royal after all and am having them repapered so that some day when you pay us a flying visit you will find a 'bodega' ready close to my 'earth'. Alas the 'bodega' has felt very forlorn since Friday when you took your final leave of it. I kept it warm for you for well nigh a year but I have now to turn out and hand over to some "gilded" attaché possibly of the banal type. Chok dilkharablik! [Very depressed!] I went to St Sophia the night of Power with Miss Hughes. We both thought of you and sent you a thrill by wireless which I hope you got. It was like the last Selamlik we attended - no vulgar crowd of Franks - just a handful of mostly British. One could wander alone in the galleries without being pestered by naive tourist questions. I have never seen the mosque so full. The cavass and mosque attendants said the same. I made a rough calculation by rows etc and worked it out at over 12,000 souls in the congregation. I then asked the Imam who said there were some 15,000. Every available nook and cranny was occupied by fervent devotees and worshippers of Allah. I pictured the temple of Holy Wisdom some thousand years ago on Easter Eve Night with the Emperor's procession, the Patriarch - incense and

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tawdry splendor of the Oriental rife and contrasted it with impressive simplicity and volcano-like force of Islamic fervour. Nations and kings may perish or may fade. A breath can make them, etc. 1 My mind wondered to the Adrianople Gate where we lunched before the walls which have witnessed the biggest world drama before that enacted in front of the defences of Port Arthur. I felt the throb of Islam more than I ever did before. Verily is there no 'din' [religion] outside Islam. The following day I took Miss H. to hear Kokulu Kokulu Kokulu bar! at the Bayazid mosque. She did not find the Indian amber. By the way the G.V. says he was only joking when he spoke of the striped blue flannel suit. Alas, he says, a Grand Vizier must dress more soberly. So don't order it. Among the collars you kindly offered to have sent, let me have half a dozen "turned down". Also one dark brown among the V2 doz. ties. Further in my moves between Therapia and town - my few pearl studs were stolen or 'disappeared' "gaib olmush [got 'disappeared']". If not too much worry you might have me sent a couple of those white shirt front studs you used to wear. Arthur - I suppose prompted by Marco, the caretaker of the Town Embassy whose smartness and quickness you so much admired - came to say that you intended giving the said Marco baksheesh but apparently forgot as Marco was away during your last visit to town. If so - shall I do the needful? I enclose an open envelope from the Cercle d'Orient found lying on the Bodega table - It's probably a bill so you won't bless me. The second day after you left my old friend the Black Sea scud came rolling down with its usual accompaniments of cold rain and bleaks winds the Amb. being again caught at Therapia. This morning it hailed and the streets are what you know they can be. I trust the home climate is treating you better. You were well out of our present specialities. It's a time for tilkis to crowd in a room with as many rugs and lamps as possible and tell one another Nasredin stories over a hot water bottle. I have been interrupted half a dozen times while writing this note - the last being an invasion of Hodson and Pat who could not stand Therapia any longer and came riding in. They have just had tea in the Bodega served by my "efficient" Marco. If the moon is visible tonight Bairam [the religious festival] will be tomorrow, otherwise the day after. After Bairam and with the Embassy in town I am starting with fresh vigour tackling my tale of common things, as you will soon after a rest - have to tackle the big problems of the Half-remembered lines from Oliver Goldsmith's 'The Deserted Village' (1769), his famous lament for the passing of an older and better world: "Where wealth accumulates, and men decay; Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade; A breath can make them, as a breath has made: But a bold peasantry, their country's pride, When once destroy'd, can never be supply'd."

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Land of Hope and Glory on the lines of your sire. Later on when you have time to spare don't forget us and send a 'bal ghibi' [nice] line to us loiterers unconscious as we are of our disgrace. I shan't easily forget the pleasure of the last two years despite the insidious and at times fierce onslaughts on the Citadel. Keep attacking it and I shall finally tell in which café in a back street of Stamboul the rusty keys are to be found. Keep fit and happy, yrs always, G. H. Fitzmaurice P.S. I enclose a note to [William] Tyrrell which may be superfluous. I told you I did a little lobbying to prevent a bad man being put in the Customs as Hassan Fehmi's successor. You will be glad to hear that Raif Pasha of whom I have spoken to you and whom I have pointed out to you once or twice has been appointed. He was Midhat Pasha's 'confidant' and did 5 years with him in Bagdad. I accompanied him into his last exile to Aleppo where he was Vali during my Birejik escapade. I have had occasion to do him a good turn or two. He is an intimate friend of mine and I hope won't be anti-Brit, in consequence. He is quite different from H. Fehmi, being quick, alert and vigorous with great force of character. I took Weakley to him and put them on good terms. I shook the G.V. warmly by the hand and congratulated him on Raif's appointment. Had Machell or others anything piquant to say about Egypt? And what do Garstin and Willcocks think of Hind doing the Hindiyé barrage. Nov. 7th I have reopened this to say I have just done my round of Bairam visits, 5 hrs steady going without lunch. Hassan Fehim asked after - spoke Turkish sandwiched with French and was simply attired in his simple room in his simple house opposite the baths, not in the least affected by his elevation to Presidency of the Council of State and the dignity of cabinet minister. Poor old Said's place was empty. So was yours. Chok soghuk oldu bouz ghibi [It was very cold - icy cold] GHF. *

Private Pera, 26 Nov. 1907 My dear "Tilki", I was more than distressed yesterday at your note with just a feeble signature. This never occurred during all your wandering, trekking and

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roughing it in the well protected Ottoman Dominions with its plagues of flies, fleas, microbes and 1001 annoyances - climatic and otherwise. How is it that Old England should have done what Abdul Hamid's and 'my' backward bad-watery country could not do. Or is it the aftermath of your recent sojourn in our sanatorium of ... ! [?] I'm very sorry especially as I realize what a weakening and lowering trouble dysentery is. I had it twice in an acute form and afterwards in a chronic state for some 3 years. May yours be quickly over. In fact I hope this may find you on the mend. I know you must have been bad - when unable to write. It takes a good deal to bring you to that state. One is glad, however, that it happened when you are with your own people. Our weather is fine again and the view from the 'Royal' is superb. Eyoub and the Adrianople Gate (where one gets such a fine lunch) are in it and if you could be suddenly transported here from London's gloom I'm sure you would pick up fast and soon be able to ride out to Justinians'. 'Airan' would do you good i.e. if drunk in large bowls. Dr Griffiths and his wife turned up here the other day on their way home and you can imagine how intensely interested I was in meeting them, after all you had told me of their splendid pioneer work singlehanded in a fanatical and God forsaken hole like Mosul. Their simple earnest and unaffected manner impressed me even more than what you had told me. Their spirit is the true sort. Elchi received them well and they were gladdened. Of course they can't realize what a snake he is. I took the liberty of giving them your address. His address in London is A. Hume Griffiths, MD, c/o Secretary C.M.S., Salisbury Sq., London E. C. You will be amused to hear that the people of Diarbekir, encouraged perhaps at what had happened at Bitlis and Erzeroum, could no longer stand the supine incompetence of Fehmi Bey or the depredations and lawless exactions of Mark Sykes' friend Ibrahim Pasha and his unruly crew, rose in rebellion and seized the Konak [vali's office] and telegraph office, shutting off all communication except between themselves and Yildiz from which they demanded the dismissal of the Vali and the degradation of Ibrahim from his rank of Colonel in the Hamidie - rank and position which had, with the connivance of the Palace, served to screen and protect him in his freebooting and plundering. After 3 days parleying and innumerable Councils of Ministers the Vali was dismissed and replaced by your friend Mustapha of Mosul (a true King Stork after the poor old 'log' of Fehim) while a Commission is being sent to enquire into and 'redress' their alleged grievances against Ibrahim who has been invited to come to Aleppo ("Come into my parlour"'!). His friend Mark Sykes is again on the move and reaches Syria in January [to] do another loop trip from Aleppo and down Mesopotamia way. He and Ibrahim may meet but under altered conditions.

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You will be amused to hear - if you have not noticed it in the papers that the Prophet's tomb at Medina is to be lighted with electricity and the job has gone to a British firm. Poor Prophet! And now - even tho' you may be only rising from a bed of sickness let me worry you with a matter of business. - The B. of Trade some time ago said they wanted Syria and Palestine done and have now tel [egraphe]d. out asking whether Weakley or Waugh could be spared to do it and failing this would Elchi suggest somebody else. Elchi is writing by tomorrow's post to say he can't spare Weakley or Waugh and suggesting Blech. Now Blech is a good man with a good head and a 1st cl [ass], pen who wanted to write a more ... [?] report than most people including W. and W. but Syria, as you know, with its overdose of sun is a place of gorgeous cavasses and morbus consulares in a virulent form. A Consolos Bey - and especially a selfconscious one like B. - could not possibly condescend to go out into the highways and byways and spend hours with Syrian or semi-native ship agents etc - squat on mats in a bazaar as you did at Basra and slum in the only bok [shit]-eating way possible for the compilation of figures etc in a useful form. Waugh, of course, can't be spared from the Consulate as important judicial cases cannot be left to a baby like Edmonds. Weakley, whose knowledge of Arabic and Turkish (written and colloquial) and whose love of grubbing and delving with natives eminently fit him for the work, is the man to go. He is the Commercial Attaché, whose duty is to travel about and make himself acquainted first hand with the local trade conditions in his district (i.e. Turkey) while it would be invaluable at the Embassy (after O'C is gone) to have a man equipped with an intimate personal and local knowledge of commercial interests in a big slice of the Ott. Empire like Syria and Palestine - a man to whom British enterprises and merchants there were living realaties [sic] instead of bald names. Now the sole reason why O'C and Barclay say Weakley can't be spared for some 3 months is the purely selfish one that they may want him to write mystifying memos in case the F.O. asks them some - to them conundrum about trade and especially to worry at and write reports about the Custom 'improvements' promised by the Turks in connection with the 3% Weakley was indispensable for the 3% Customs negotiations when they were in the technical stage. But now that all details have been settled in principle and the question has entered on the administrative stage where it is a matter of exercising pressure to get the Turks to execute their engagements i.e. to spend the money which they have assigned for the various Customs buildings etc a task which is becoming increasingly difficult with the ever growing calls on the depleted Ott. treasury - representations at the Porte are required rather than Weakley spending hours per diem footling at the Customs. I will undertake to

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do the pressing the Porte and to securing that they keep the Customs up to the mark while I can send the dogged and persistent Ryan to check and control at the Customs the carrying out of the Porte's instructions. Would it not be possible, provided you are well enough, to get Bell or the B. of T. to ask Elchi to state pertinently why Weakley can't be spared and not to accept his flimsy reasons but to insist on his sending Weakley - to - in fact - order him to send him, as the Commercial Attaché is the proper person to do the job, more especially as he can also when there supervise and report on the Customs improvements at Jaffa, Beirut, Alexandretta and Messina improvements which are part of the Porte's 3% engagements. I am tremendously keen on Weakley going because he is the man to do it - because he would be immensely more useful with the local experience to be gained and because it would gladden his heart to be on positive lines after years of rotting at his desk toiling to meet the requirements of O'C's putridly negative brain. When you are well do let me know what chances he has of another 5 years' mandate. The beast must go and be succeeded by, say, de Bunsen. The Armenian crisis has affected this place badly and Agopian, the 'British' banker, seems on the point of failing. He financed Pardo's shop which has been mortgaged during the last few days. Zonaro the painter called yesterday and wanted to know when you are coming back a propos of £T15 you owe him for the picture. They do demons [?] here in Csple. I'm comfy at the Royal and shall send you a photo of my rooms when Pat can take one. Pat will soon be head of the Chancery when Tilley goes. He is very sorry to hear of your illness. Goodbye Tilki ... [?] *

"Bodega", Stamboul, Dec. 8th 1907 My dear 'Tilki', Today is Sunday - no Sublime Porte and I have time to write and blow you up for being so extraordinarily nice as to worry about those beastly ties etc when you have been laid out flat on a bed of sickness. I feel I must thank and upbraid you equally heartily and with neatly balanced vehemence. However, I'm right glad you were able to get up, but it must be maddening to be condemned to inactivity just now and it will seem ages until Xmas especially when you must be burning to be up and doing with such stacks of problems to tackle. The Hindiyé has not come to a point though an Irish firm - Stewarts of Belfast - were first in the field with enquiries. It is sickening when such matters are trembling in the balance to find Elchi going to

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Selamlik (Friday last) and worrying the Sultan for 1 hrs about his infernal idea of increasing the Macedonian Gendarmerie. After this audience as indeed after the one before Abdul Hamid kept me back and talked a lot of blarney about his pleasure and delight at my being 1st Drag. Damn it, I've filched more territory from him and wrenched more Mahomedan converts from his hungry canine mouth than any 1st Drag, since he came on the throne. I cut him short of course on account of Elchi's jealousy but I was dying to ask him for an Irade or two about Mesopotamia. I could have got inside his skin about that part of his well protected dominions but one always comes back with a swing to the impossibility of doing anything positive as long as O'C reigns here. I may get into A.H.'s political harem yet, tho'! After Friday's audience Elchi said he had not made a deep impression and asked me how I would have put it from a Turkish point of view. I told him the problem absolutely defeated me as I couldn't imagine myself talking to him at all on such a subject from a Turkish p [oin]t of view. However [You can't make a silk purse out of a] "sow's ear". Thanks so much for all you told me about Egypt and Gorst. It is deeply interesting - intensely so and I more than agree with you about the impolicy of devious methods with Orientals. It don't pay in the long run. The transition stage you describe them as being in in Egypt must mean their moving along a curve but that don't matter, I fancy, as long as they don't do a 'dilenji' [beggar's] zigzag as we seem to be eternally doing here. Oh! for one who can think straight, speak straight, act straight and write straight i.e. for a successor to O'C. By the way you will be more than gratified to hear that having had my ear to the ground the other day about things Egyptian I heard many complaints about Brit, officials Nilewards but a chorus of praise of Machel. I shd so like to meet him but then these things are not to be for one who is tied to the Galata bridge and the Via dolorosa leading to the Ottoman capital (Pretty mixed metaphor! - Shades of Sir Boyle Roche. 1 ) I suppose you met Chitty - also that turbaned Hibernian Haji Browne. When Tweedie comes along I shall send him to the Selamlik. Ghalib asked after you. He and the G.V. sorry to hear you are a "bit seedy". I haven't yet met or told Haji Akif. He would grieve and say it was the result of travelling in the country of the "piss [dirty] Arab". Insani fena oloursa memleket da fena olmali [If the people are bad, so is the country]. You remember his maxim. I got the Irade for Patterson's mines the other day so you can fancy how dilkhosh [reborn?] I am. Elchi hasn't understood but it was the third of the tangible advantages in the way of a quid pro quo for the 3% which I suggested to him in spring of 1906 (other two being Aidin Ry and the 3rd Ag 1

A late eighteenth century Irish parliamentarian famous for his mixed metaphors.

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kishti). The Irade was the result of a report which was to have been written by the G.V. and Farismaris but owing to the retiring disposition of the latter was written by the G.V. and the Sheik ul islam. It has meant a lot of persistent slumming and one hasn't yet reported it officially. I also got an Irade the other day for Prof. Garstang to excavate the most important Hittite remains near Aintab [modern day Gaziantep], It was blocked for a year, I believe by the Germans, the site being near the B [agdad]. Ry track but they have eaten 'bok' [shit] and six German applications are now blocked - ha! I shd like to have been in 12 Str-Str when Miss Bell called but shd have been somewhat in a state of korkmak [fear], I did a pilgrimage with Pat out to Hamdi Bey's at Behek this afternoon to try and get him to help about an application for Sir W . Ramsay to excavate sites that Miss Bell and he worked at last year. He omitted to send plans but Hamdi promises to try and have imaginary plans made and passed by the local authorities (Konieh) who now that it is winter may be content with a zaptieh's report in answering the conundrums the Ministry of Public Instruction usually asks them about such matters. Please give my respectful regards to Miss B. when she comes again which I'm sure will be soon. Hamdi Bey told us of an application of the French Ambassador for him (Hamdi) to visit Paris on the celebration of some artistic centenary. The sultan replied 'let him go to the next one'. H. is trying hard to live the remaining 90000 years! One begins to understand the meaning of the epithet 'Everlasting' usually applied to the "Devlet [i] -aliye" [Sublime state]. Hamdi also told us of a conversation between him and his Chief, the Min. of Public Instruction, where he told the latter that he had musical evenings twice a week and was met by a most serious inquiry as to where he purchased his gramophone! Pity there is not Turkish 'Punch'. 1 Hamdi has two pictures for the Academy. I don't understand art but his productions seem to be stilted and wanting in the master's touch. By the way I have had Pat's sketch of Perim framed and it looks quite nice. When you are recovered and start your town 'Bodega' don't forget to have your Preziosi chromograph framed as Pat's and mine i.e. a gold frame and gold mount. Both of ours look quite well. The carpets in my room here are the 'mirs' which graced your Therapia Bodega in 1906.1 have bought another carpet which I think a beauty. I paid a long price for it but am not ashamed and shall not fear your criticism. It faces my sofa from which it dispossessed my best bokhara. The view from my window is simply topping. I hate going round to the Embassy in the morning. The other morning I was reminded of our surreptitious visit to the Patriarch by finding the Golden Horn enveloped in a thick white mist which the sun eventually pierced and scattered disclosing Stamboul and the Marmara after their night of 1

The humorous British weekly.

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repose. Today the view is like the Thames in Nov. as it has been raining since morning from inky and murky clouds. This month's 'National' is distinctly good with two ripping art [icle]s by 'Ignatius' and 'Garvin' - also one about the Persian Gulf and one about 'Defenceless Scotland' - Poor Pat swallowed up by Germans. Tilley has gone to Bulgaria and Pat is head of the Chancery. He is a bit at sea and when I go into the inner chancery in the morning I find the little 'pees teelkee' looking very small among a huge mass of despatches and drafts. He'll cotton to it soon and [it] is very good for him. George [Barclay] and I help him a bit - 1 have been having a joke recently. I have been playing a jocular air on the Elchi piano and worked him up into a hilarious and reckless mood. When things (Persian front [ier], etc etc) go wrong and he gets snubbed, I make him roar with Homerian laughter in which I heartily join. It's much better than a play but may end in a tragedy - for him. I wonder how long I can keep it up. I'm experimenting. It gives general relief - less nagging. It reminds me of the orta agasi [a Janissary officer]. Now, Tilki - forgive this letter if it bores you - put it in your nice English grate if it does not while away a few minutes sandwiched into between [sic] lessons in German and Turkish, the speeches of two national allies. At my next private audience with Abdul I am going to tell him to run off and spend a month incog [nito], in the south of England and come back and start a Parliament at the Sub. Porte. Ali Bey will be the MP for the Bezistan [grand bazaar], Ali is looking very ill. I think the old thing is breaking up. I am in negotiation for 48 old prints of C'ople including the one you gave me of the 'bend' [?], also the one you gave Miss Hughes. The beast wants £20 and another 'pig' has got a preferential right. I am intriguing against him. Forgive this prattle from one who paints [?] in Pera - yours always, G. H. Fitzmaurice Lambton goes to Munich in a few days. No successor yet. They can't find a fitting successor to the Hon. A. 1 of 1906.! *

1 Presumably a reference to the Hon. Aubrey Herbert.

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Pera, Dec. 21st 1907 My dear Yavri, I meant to have written this last night so as to make sure of its reaching you by the 25th to convey my Yuletide selams more especially as according to what the doctors told you some time ago, their arrival ought to coincide with your being yourself again, but I was too fagged out yesterday. For Friday (non-S.P. day) as it was I had to run about all day and late in the evening worrying because some Kurds are threatening to snowball a mob of scallywag Persians somewhere near Miandoab of all places. I hope you are really yourself again or moreso and that the doctors predictions have not been belied by a relapse or any rot of that sort. It's a tricky trouble I know to my cost. I had a bad go of it many years ago in Van and owing to neglect etc it pursued me for some three years in a chronic form smouldering, so to speak, and then at times bursting out into a flame of tenesmus. By the way, a propos of the Persian boundary about which a nervy and irresolute chief [O'Conor] is just now plaguing my life, I notice in the Statesman's Year Book for 1907 two maps of portions of the British Empire boundaries recently straightened out - viz the Aden Protectorate and the Sinai boundary. I noticed them the other day for the first time and they rather flooded me with quaint memories. The Turco-Persian boundary however is not a British one and I don't feel inclined to sweat in the same way about it as long as our prestige is not compromised. Most of the old Turks boundaries (Montenegro etc) seem at the present moment to be bulging in or out in a somewhat unaccountable way. The ties etc arrived. Infinite thanks. Even the ascetic ways of the Sublime Porte cannot take exception to the socks which however they never see as (you may have forgotten) my weak left leg and ankle forces me always to wear boots! ha! The ties will make me feel quite peacocky. Weakley is a new man since an F.O. tel. forced Elchi to acquiesce in his going to Syria. I am telling him he must go home and get in touch with the B. of T. people. It will help in many ways especially towards his throwing off those Elchi and F.O. toils that have been woven around him for years and reduced him to the position of the veriest drudge. You have done a good and a kind act in contributing towards this result. Have I told you that Cumberbatch of Smyrna goes to Beirut and Bar [n]ham (quondam Aleppo) to Smyrna. Neither are paragons but then in an autocratic country like this being sound at the core or in the fish's head matters more and can counteract or remedy the shortcomings and lack of influence of a provincial consular officers [sic]. While the best man (even at Mosul) can't do much if headquarters (Embassy or ... [?]) are wrong. Don't

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give [Wilkie] Young a clerk - just yet. Let him dig out and win his spurs first. Keep him on Spartan fare for a time and his unquestionable intelligence may contribute a lot to the Empire's needs - he is too fond of the 'lightly proffered laurels'.1 You have read Curzon's last on Ciive. He always had a peculiar fascination for me. He like Wolfe were weak ungainly unpromising types not much good at writing or speaking but with the devil of a spirit in them. Ryan is doing well. He sacrifices his lunch - 'slushes' about in Stamboul and extracts piastres and liras for the Britisher from the Turk. In a few years he will be a good man at this Embassy. That was your impression of him after talking to him during and after the lunch to old Marinitsch at the Cercle d'Orient. What has been happening to your cranes [?] in Pic [cjadilly. When I heard of it I thought of getting the Sultan to issue an Irade and have a few thousand hamals turned on to remove the pendant [?] obstruction to the Kings passage down la Grande Rue de Londra. Tashaksiz memleket! [Country without balls!] Agopian went smash - the Pardo shop is heavily mortgaged. Pardo has left and they are sort of liquidating. It will mean the disappearance of one of our landmarks. What news about the Hindiye? Goodbye. I must go round to the Embassy. My hands are frozen. I've been scribbling this in the Royal without a fire - my feet wrapped in a fur. Cons'ple has had a blizzard and been under snow for some days. Today is South Wind - rain - thaw - beastliness and I've to go to the Palace early thence drive to the Porte - thence back to HMG to do bear dance before Elchi - nice prospect. Merry Xmas and best of luck from yrs always, G. H. Fitzmaurice P.S. Has Aubrey gone to Australia for a weekend?! P.S. 2 Have reopened this on getting yours of Dec. 17th by bag. I have only V2 read it. I got the prints 48 for £T20. Chok pahali [Very expensive]. The Turks will help us in the Bagdad Rly. Some 18 years ago (forgive an old man's tendency to harp back) when Goschen announced the 2 Power standard I said we can't keep up such a standard and have an army commensurate with the military liabilities of the Empire - short of bankruptcy. We ought not to take national risks but if we are prepared to take some the standard (with a friendly French navy - the U.S.A. fleet in the Pacific and the Russian at the bottom of 1 Another line from Kipling's poem, 'The White Man's Burden'. ^ This lengthy postscript is particularly difficult to make out.

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Tsushima) is unnecessary for from 5 to 10 years a bold policy of sinking the German navy almost would make it so for a generation for a German battleship counts two or [?] a division. O [Id]. A [ge]. Pension is the pivot of all Home Politics I shd think. Like Pears advertisement it is visible through the ... [?] sheet of every political party ... [?] I should go for F. R. L. The scientific ... [?] will be gradually forced on us. I may have to rewrite this when I have re-read your letter while S.P. work does not clarify one's vision of home politics. In feverish haste, G.H.F. Elchi has just read me a most cogglesome letter from Grey *

British Embassy, Constantinople, 27/12/07 Dear Tilki, Let me hurriedly try to answer as much as I remember of your last letter which I have left at the Royal. The last actually contained 3 numbered questions requiring a straight answer which of course we never give in the East. Young Marinitsch (Min. of Public Wks) came the other day and told me the plans from Bagdad wd not arrive for a fortnight (you remember my wire to Alex saying the first date was premature) - then copies wd be made (and he would bring me one) whereupon a date probably the middle of February would be fixed for tendering. He also said that Chaucode [?] (a French engineer and Cugnin's predecessor at Bagdad) was coming forward as a contractor. I drove Weakley over yesterday to the Ministry of Public Works and all the more precise information he obtained is just being copied in the Chancery to go home today. Of course it will not be Pearson or others who will find the money but the Turks who on terms to be come to with the contractors will advance money (very un-Turkish!) for starting the work etc. As the latter has to be done with Cugnin's surveys and soundings and plans as a basis, I wonder whether there is any room for Willcock's plans. I suppose Pearson or whoever the would-be contractor is will send out an Engineer here as soon as copies of the Turkish plans are ready. He will have to go into the matter with the Ministry of Public Works and may want to send or go to Bagdad to verify Cugnin's plans and soundings and to study the local conditions as to labour, transport etc - no easy problems in those regions. So far no German has shown up but there may be one or two lurking in the bullrushes. I'm glad you have knocked Vere and his arrant humbug out. The thing aint to be done on those lines.

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You see there is a fairish amount of time so don't overstrain yourself, for you have been very ill - as ill as when you had peritonitis at 16 aet. I rather suspected it when I wrote you my first letters full of ordinary business items. It was not woodenness or callousness that made me write them but an idea that in a reflex way they might conceal from yourself how ill you were. What an inverted or distorted mind I have got. So now that the Hindye is to go yavash yavash [slowly, slowly], do take your ten days rest as the doctors insist and, inshallah, the tremendous efforts you have made when you ought to have been in bed will bear fruit in our making the beginning of the development of Mesopotamia heralded by your mission. Marling and Percy seem to be near tottering thrones and renascent peoples. Percy will depict the situation in suitable language! yrs ever, G. H. Fitzmaurice P.S. I have not got the Chanshagan. Miss Hughes sends kind messages.

1908

By March 1908 George Lloyd was well enough to give the Committee of Imperial Defence the benefit of the knowledge he had acquired during his mission to the Persian Gulf and Mesopotamia - especially on the German threat in the region - but his health still required lengthy periods of convalescence. In April he went to Madeira for this purpose and in May to Devon, and the effects seem to have been beneficial. This was just as well because the Young Turks' revolution in July suddenly made 'experts on the Near East' sought after in political and journalistic circles, and convalescence was a luxury his career could no long afford. Among the various offers he received, the one he accepted was adoption as the prospective Unionist candidate for the West Midlands constituency of Wednesbury. In August the pull of the revolution saw him once more in Constantinople, where on 9 September he was joined by his close friend in the Foreign Office, Samuel Pepys Cockerell ('S.P.C.'). On 26 September they set off for home, and in the autumn and early winter Lloyd was heavily preoccupied with political and advisory business in London. His travelling for the year was not over, however, for on 17 December he left on a mission to investigate the causes of unrest in India. At this point, the demands of the parliamentary career on which he was now determined caused a change in his plans. Uncomfortable with Wednesbury, he had withdrawn his candidature, so when at Port Said he received an encouraging cable from the Conservative Association in the marginal Liberal seat of West Staffordshire, he had no alternative but to abort his mission and return home - via Constantinople - at once. As for Fitzmaurice, who in the previous October had at last become Chief Dragoman, the year 1908 was also full of surprises and excitement. *

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Private Pera, Feb. 9th 1908 My dear Tilki, Today is Sunday, a blizzardy day outside and nobody to sympathize with my left leg trouble which has become more acute so let my pen distil black treason a propos of a letter from you received some days ago and immediately consigned to the flames. Sound the loud timbal o'er England's dard sea, old Hamid has triumphed and Macedon's free. In other words Judicial Reforms have gone 'fut'! The house of cards (gendarmerie, judicial reforms etc) built by O'C, Grey, C. Hardinge etc has crumbled to the dismay and detriment of a Free Importing Govt, (altho' well intentioned toward Ireland) and Captain Clive has triumphed for T.R. mainly owing to the prayers and good wishes of the Parish Priest and tenants of his Irish Estate. I have wasted (no, spent) this morning drafting with Elchi a nine dervishes [frenzied] tel. to Grey over Judicial Reform. The levity of it will make Sir E. furious. I might write vols, about how this happy result was engineered but will content myself with a Hallelujah cry. Persian frontier is the blessed state of status quo and will I hope remain there to the annoyance of Tehran and Wratislaw (at... [?]) who are straining for a Boundary Commission. We had an audience on Friday and as Elchi is dead off talking Macedonia I induced him for the first time in two years to talk British interests. We came away with an order for British fire floats against fires in villages on the Bosphorus. Izzet's house had burnt. I paid him a call, as I told, immediately after and two days subsequently got him to lay before A.H. the plans and specifications for the fire-steamers whose agent was in Cons'ple. If the Elchi hadn't been O'C we might have got a big order straight away. However we must be thankful for small mercies until we get a better Elchi. Barclay, by the way, who from being rabidly antiBlock is equally, tho' quite illogically, pro-O'Conor and is now spending a couple of days in town [London] seeing G [rey], and Hardinge to whitewash O'C's failure in the matter of Macedonia. He is very 'shashmish' [surprised] as it is O'C's biggest fiasco for which he ought to be sacked (undeservedly 1 ). Quem deus vult perdere . 2 He has also put his foot in it over the new Ambassador to London. The Sultan through the G.V. proposed Reshid Bey Ott. Amb. to Rome - (I had told Tahsin Pasha that Sir E. Grey does not [k]no [w] Greek but does speak 'Islamja' - to prevent the appointment of a Greek and secure that of a Moslem) and Elchi walzed away with the idea that Ferid (who asks after you and sends his selams) was intriguing to get Selim 1 2

Unless Fitzmaurice is being crudely sarcastic here, this clearly should be 'unreservedly'. Whom God will destroy [he first deprives of reason].

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Pasha out of Cons'ple and apptd. to Rome told the F.O. that Reshid is a nonentity which is somewhat true (but all the Padishah's representatives at home and abroad are cyphers in the eyes of the Shadow of God upon Earth) and that it was an attempt to foist him on us to make room for Selim at Rome. I told H.E. this was not so but he obstinately persists with the result that 'Kinghy' rejected Reshid. Result was great discontent at the Palace and Porte which said we evidently wanted a Ghiaour in thus rejecting the 1st Mahomedan proposed for London. I manoeuvered somewhat. The Sultan insisted on Reshid aut nullus and I have just spent two hours with Elchi making him eat his own words in a tel. to the F.O. suggesting that Reshid's appointment be reconsidered and accepted. I expect Hardinge and Grey will be frantic at O'C's muddling and leading them astray. In fact now ought to be the psychological moment for bringing big guns to bear on the citadel of O'C's mystification and incompetence. This is not a country to do big and flashy things in though there is a lot to be done in a quiet way, but nothing positive will ever be done without a maximum of trouble, waste of time and expense as long as O'C is here. He has long ago been found out and is distrusted and discredited at the Porte and by his foreign colleagues (this latter consideration is mainly responsible for the Macedonian failure). If the F.O. takes the responsibility of renewing his mandate here, they must also take the full responsibility for the inevitable negative results. Baron Marschall and A. Hamid want O'C to remain here just as Billy of Berlin and Bulow want a Free Trader to remain in office in England. The last two years have been a golden opportunity lost for us in this country despite the efforts of tilkidom "quorum magna pars" but are we fatuous enough to wilfully handicap ourselves for another lustrum? Hardinge is sound. Grey is halting while old Fitzmaurice 1 and his brother Lansdowne have been captured in the past by Elchi's blarney and spider-weaving. I'm longing to hear what Miss Bell and you concocted and whether she has been able to eradicate the heresy - exorcise the demon - from Willie Tyrrell. Chirol ought to be easily led to make a flank attack on the citadel while Mallet, Maxwell and the valiant Parker ought to [be] ready to break a lance in the good cause. They may have to fill Berlin, Rome and perhaps Washington but it surely cannot be beyond the resources of the diplomatic service to find a successor to de Bunsen in a relatively unimportant post like Madrid. For G [od]'s sake let's have someone that is normal and can think, speak, write and act straight here or else give up the struggle and sing "Hail Germania!" This is all fearful treason to my chief but it is not treason to the Empire or British interests.

* Lord Edmund Fitzmaurice - no near relation (see List of Persons).

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The leaven is working fairly fast at home. Hereford following on MidDevon will - 1 pray - be followed by a big majority at Worcester. A few more by-elections going right and we shall get them on the run. There may be a lull and a check but there can be no 'going' back and once the feet of the colossus show serious signs of crumbling I shouldn't be surprised if Lloyd George and some other healthy minded folks discard the misnomer of Free Trade and antiquated nostrums of Free Imports and rally to the only policy that can lead us out of the bondage of luxury and decay to the renewed vigorous life of a healthy Imperial organism, an organism that will defy the lessons of history (decay of empires built on sea-power, Venice etc) so cravenly appealed to by the "lathe painted to look like iron" (the late Lord Salisbury). I'm becoming rhetorical - so let me shut up and remember that it is 20 summers since I went down into the East. Garvin on Cromer in the National is mercilessly convincing. What a pity that a Caesar should fall so low. It makes me think I was always right in speaking to you of home politics to make the allowance you at times deprecated for my being so long out of touch with the great pulse of home life. It is the penalty of exile, Tilki, and I cheerfully repine not. Some atoms must be sacrificed for the good of the body politic. Garvin's a wonder. He speaks like a prophet in his cave. His pen with Joe's speech would be an irresistible combination even in beef-eating obtuse-minded Britain. I mislaid your cheque for the Sumac for a time and only cashed it yesterday. It was a £T too much and I have given the diff. to the smileless and joyless Serkis who was touched and may send you a present on your birthday. The new motto of the dragomanate pasted on my wall is "To ease another's heartache is to forget one's own". It's a good one for those whose whole lives are merged in that of others and who are known as 'issmsiz' [nameless] (what a bull!) I asked Giovanni to send back to you a bottle of grease for Ambrosial locks which came on here. Wilkie Young has just left. He was worrying muchly about increased pay etc etc. I told him smilingly that he must study your memo - that payments wd be by results and that when he had got sold some ten oil pumps we would raise his pay. He is rather a farceur but an amusing one. I had him to dine at the Cercle and talked till midnight. It occurs to me that in what I may have written to you yesterday evening there may be a semblance of exaggeration about Elchi springing from my personal animus against him. You know from experience in the Akaba, Aden frontier, 3rd steamer etc etc affairs how positive results have only been attained after an infinity of trouble and undoing his evil negative work - how when a question arises he refuses to tackle it - wastes oceans of money on

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telegraphing etc until it becomes so envenomed and entangled that wild horses have to be employed to get it out of the bog into which his funk, insincerity and distorted methods have let it slip. How he is totally devoid of any patriotic or broader feeling than that of a contemptible instinct of preserving his wretched shrivelled-up self by lies and posing to the F.O. as working to further British commercial interests about which he does not care a 2d damn as long as he can hoodwink you - me - Brit merchants - the F.O. etc. Hence failure of oil - irrigation and everything else in Mesopotamia which our policy of course also was jeopardizing for shadowy political issues which have now too ended in naught. An Amb. gets £8000 personal and a practical £13000 to £15000 for doing more than this - for being positive - straight guiding the F.O. in their necessary gropings and at least telling them the truth. - Goodbye, Tilki - forgive me. "Om mani parde oms" 1 - my prayer wheels are tired working in Kassim Pasha, all over Stamboul - in every vilayet - even at Skardo and Little Tibet. Faris Maris PS ... [?] is over a Hammasse - cleaner I hope than that opposite Hassan Fehim's house. Just close by, the large house of Mehmet Ali Pasha the Assistant G. V. caught fire the other day and burnt gaily. The old Pasha was informed - left the Porte - drove up to his blazing home and without getting out of his carriage asked if all the inmates had been saved. On a laconic reply in the affirmative he remarked there "did not seem hope of saving anything else - the brigade seem to be doing their duty" - turned his carriage round and drove back to the Porte where he went on with his work without an apparent thought as to where he and his family were to lay their heads, while in his house were burning 1400 vols, of old Turkish books, valuable manuscripts which it had cost him a life's work to collect. What Stoics they are! The Porte is 'Sublime'! Serkis has just handed me a bulky but yet unopened letter from the 'Kindly One' with an Egyptian postmark. I trust the £50 you gave to Mosul and the sacrifices you made for that modern Nineveh will not have been in vain. The new Vice-Consul for Mersina is almost certain to be appointed. There is really a lot to be done there. One of his chief duties will be to see that cows are not ill-treated in the ... [?] Seitun.

* Tibetan Buddhists believe that chanting this mantra - now usually transliterated 'Om mani padme hum' - invites the blessings of Chenrezig, the embodiment of compassion.

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I trust you are fit. I feel you have been overworked with your report and your 100s other occupations. Today being Sunday I pray Allah to keep you safe from fogs and heresy about Ireland! ha! Yours ever, G. H. Fitzmaurice P.S. This has been penned in the darkness and twilight of the Dragomanate to which does not run even to [sic] a lamp so Im not responsible for spelling punctuation or coherency. P.S. Monday morning I have reopened my letter which I haven't time to re-read to tell you that the great Miss Whittall the 'Duchess of Bezistan' has actually left via Marseilles and Paris for London where unless she gets lost en route she ought to arrive on Friday next. Enquiry at Pearsons might reveal her fate. At the last moment just before leaving the house it was discovered she had ordered a huge box into which she put a mangal - cigarettes - caviar - Turkish delight and a miscellaneous collection of the rubbish which like Mark Twain's jackdaw she has been collecting for ages at the bazaars. When this was found out the Woods were horrified at the prospect of her detention at Custom Houses, arrest as an anarchist and her running it short of funds as it weighed 200 kilos and must cost a fortune for freight and railway carriage. However she is bound to bargain with everyone en route and may get to England with her 'box'! Of course you will take your well earned fortnight's rest in April irrespective of my movements which are an unknown factor. I shan't be home for ages at my present rate of mole working. *

Pera. Mch. 3rd 1908 My dear "Tilki", For days and days I have been trying to find time to write to you and tonight Elchi is so ill that the private performance of a play written by Lady O'C.! to have taken place tonight has had to be postponed at the last moment and I'm free to treat you to drivel instead of listening to a flow of the same from the stage. Your long letter of the other day filled me with very mixed feelings. The tardy fulfillment of the "dam ouzerinda" [exaggerated] promise, apart from being a most creditable exhibition of Turkish manuscript, filled me with joy as it showed that you have some vestige of good faith left. I think I shall show it to the G.V. tho' official etiquette may preclude my telling him the

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whole sad story of my all but vain attempts to get you to keep a promise. I'm sorry to have drawn you over Ireland. I didn't mean to, but your fusillades and diatribes against a small part of the United Kingdom fill me with sadness mingled with compassion, showing me as they do that the flame of hatred and passion which flared up that never-to-be-forgotten night in the 'Bodega' when you launched out into scathing, 'jansiz' ['lifeless'], and passionate denunciation of poor uneconomic Ireland has not been quenched by knowledge or dulled by time. But, Tilki, I'm full of hope - even confidence that as years roll by you will, like Chamberlain, see the error of your ways and be glad to settle the Irish question at a round table conference with Redmond or his successor. I fear you are now a real disruptionist and are quite capable of robbing Ireland of the regalia of St. Patrick 1 so that her enemies may erime [?] 'Shame'. Ne issa! [Jesus Christ!] A decade hence you'll be sound on an Imperial question second only in importance to that of Tariff Reform and Preference. I suppose you poisoned and poured vitriol on to my good name with Austen Chamberlain - Alas! Alas! I must take a shop in the Bezistan and give up working for the Empire. I shall never go on leave to England again but shall take a German steamer to Southampton and Queenstown where with Turkish officers I shall reform the Royal Irish Gendarmerie and reform the judicial methods of Resident Magistrates drawing their inspiration from Dublin Castle. I had a long talk with Abdul Hamid some time ago about the state of Ireland. He has a scheme of reforms but that is another story, as Kipling says. Your news about the Combine filled me with joy - a genuine thrill. I always felt that your visit to those parts would be productive of good. I followed you in spirit in your interviews with Stricks2 and your memo to the F.O. reminds me of your letter to Hardinge about the 3rd Steamer. I'm distinctly flattered by your asking my advice which I fear is valueless. Granted that our ships are run as economically as the German (which is improbable) it is obvious that they can't keep up the unequal fight against a German Govt subsidy and therefore imperative that we must come to their rescue by giving them a temporary subvention until they drive the Germans back, as Greeks (you may remember) drove their salvage boats out of the Dardanelles - back to Malta and practically out of the Mediterranean. As you point out it is not simply a question of the Gulf shipping and trade. It must lead to their partial 1 Fitzmaurice clearly has in mind here the Irish Crown Jewels, which had been stolen in the previous year in a still unsolved crime. The reference a few lines below to Dublin Castle is to the bungled investigation. I am grateful to Caroline Mullan for this information. 2 Frank C. Strick's Anglo-A/gerian Company, formed by a merger in 1905 of his AngloAlgerian Company with his other company, the Anglo-Arabian and Persian Gulf Company, which had developed a profitable line in shipping high quality bunker coal from South Wales to the ports of Bushire and Basrah.

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absor [p]tion of the Indian shipping and trade. Their coming there has been a distinct and open challenge to our pre-eminence. It is war and we must fight without gloves. As you say, admitting them temporarily into the Combine will only give them breathing time to gather force for a fiercer attack. Better fight them from the outset and meet subsidy by subsidy. The door is opened to the Germans by the golden key of a subsidy and as surely automatically, slowly and imperceptively [sic] closed to us. The results of 100 years effort especially in the Gulf is worth making an effort to maintain. They have thrown down the gauntlet of the German purse. It is surely imperative to fight them with a corresponding weapon - the British purse. In subsidizing the H. A. the Germans are making a great sacrifice - a greater sacrifice than a corresponding effort by us. Surely we can't shrink from it. In anything connected with India and the Gulf the consequences of supineness will be dire and irreparable. But let me not go on with commonplaces or echoes of your letter. You ask my advice and I have none - my brain being unable to grasp the details of business - a British official is alas! frequently inefficient. Money (Pearsons engineer) arrived here. I saw him and talked with him - sent him over with a man and Waugh to Servicen Effendi of the Min. of P [ublic]. Works. I had previously spoken to Servicen who is a friend of mine and who says no competitors have so far applied. I shall see Money tomorrow and if necessary try to work the 'big guns', though Sir E. Grey's suggestions about a Gov G [enera]l for Macedonia hasn't got us into the best of odour in high quarters. The G.V. made almost as ferocious [an] attack on me the other day as you did on the Irish question. However we shall do our best for the Hindiye. Money says he is not inclined to accept the Turkish terms and unless they modify them he may not be able to tender and is thinking of going on to Egypt to see Willcocks with a view to working on the latter's plans should nothing come of the Turkish intent of having the dam built on Cugnin's plans. So you are tired of beating your head against the stone wall of the F.O. Citadel. You remember our chat by simile and allegory about the defence of the antiquated wall of the Erbil citadel. We are indeed strong in our passivity. Elchi has been ill - in fact he has not been fit or able to work since his illness in October. He has never been down this winter before 10.30 - mostly at 11.30 and frequently after noon. You can imagine what that means from a work point of view. It has been hell to me as the morning's work has been done from 5pm to 8pm after my afternoons at the Porte. It hasn't left me much of a margin for private affairs. He has been peevish too and his mind utterly incapable of grasping anything, the which has trebled my work. The whole thing has been maddening and disgraceful from a British interest point of view. During the last three weeks I have at times only seen him for 5

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minutes in a [sic] 8 hrs - in his bedroom. In fact a complete breakdown which has been concealed from the outside world until today when the doctors absolutely forbade him to work and we have had to give out that he is 'indisposed' and that fussbox Barclay is in charge. Ye Gods!!! As he is now officially ill I looked into the bazaars today and actually went into the Bezistan (which I hadn't seen for months) to exchange selams with Ali Bey. The old ruffian is quite well and sends you his selams. I offered to exchange places with him taking over his shop, capital and harem and introducing him to the G.V. as Brit. 1st Drag. He grinned and laughed like a hyena - the old beast. The beggar was not there but the Moroccan sand-diviner was airing his teeth on a stool outside his den of mendacity. I had a letter from Aubrey from Colombo - most amusing - also one from the "Kindly One" who seems quite happy and cheerful after his visit to England. Our new attaché - your successor! - is expected shortly - the Lord Vernon - quite youthful and fond of jewelry and scents, I hear. God knows we are decadent enough already in the Chanceiy. Again congratulations on your "dam ouzerinenda" [exaggeration]. Do take things 'yavash, yavash' [slowly, slowly] till you are quite fit. Otherwise, Tilki, you may not be up to the big job when the time comes. Forgive yrs ever G. H. Fitzmaurice P.S. I had stacks more to tell you but a d—n D.T. Correspondent came in (anyone seems to have the right to violate my privacy at any time in the Embassy) when I was halfway through this and stayed IV2 hrs - till midnight. Struck [?] and I have to be at the Embassy at 8am this morning to help George disentangle the mess Elchi has gratuitously got the Ottoman Embassy London question into - I'm going to take the liberty of sending you a book or two to help to correct one or two of your errors in the religion of Imp [eria]l Politics. You and Curzon must have talked fearful stuff together. Na! Good night. *

Pera, March 12th 1908 Dear Tilki, I have just (i.e. the day before yesterday) got a funny letter addressed to the 'Tilki Pasha' but couched in a somewhat despondent tone from one who, strange to say, has already behind him a record of 'things achieved' in Turkey and yet he has 'little hope' because this land of the Padischah - which is an impassive, impersonal, impassable - negative land of flitting phantoms

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merging even into dissolving mirage - does not respond to every touch of the Western magician's wand. It seems to me at times as if everything were inverted in this quaint receding country and that it is only when one has realized that everything is hopeless that one ought to expect to be able to do something - only something - not much and yet everything. But a truce to my dogmatizing on this land of Allah, paradoxes and contradictions where the negation of self alone avails and yet avails not. I haven't got up early (it's not yet 8a.m.) to preach to those who 'know' but to squeeze in, before the pressure of the days aimless toil - everlasting waiting at the everlasting Porte, a note to you to say that Cap. Doughty Wylie V.C. at Konieh and whom you met one day going down the Bosphorus (where the yelkovans [shearwaters] ceaselessly and purposelessly flit) in the launch and whom I've daringly told to look you up. Why? Because Miss Bell (at the Beshiktash scala [pier]) told me she thought it a good thing to box the Konieh and Mersina Vice Consulates into one. I said wait a bit - 'sabr keran' ['have patience'] bakallum [let's see]! and now the latter hopeless word is bearing fruit. For it was decided to reopen Mersina and though I urged Miss B's combination Elchi and Tilley overruled me and the former decided to send a young and useless fledgling like Heathcote-Smith to Mersina 1 because, forsooth, he came out first in his (paper) exam and this recommendation has gone home to the F.O. tho', as I told them, it would be better if one wants results in that country of great possibilities but where cows are sometimes ruthlessly left to their sufferings, one ought to send someone who is seasoned to the East. Doughty Wylie is one such - whose soul has been steeped in our mists. As H.M. E. has sent home its recommendation there is nothing to be done here tho' things might alter if F.O. asked us whether the Doughty Wylie suggestion is not feasible. I have suggested his trying that course, looking you up and asking you where and when he might find Miss Bell and whether she would like to whisper to W. Tyrrell or Sir E. Grey (she told me at Beshiktash she might mention it to the latter). He ought perhaps to see Maxwell and Dufferin the head of the Consular Dept. and also Pearson (Woods Pasha's son-in-law) who is now in the Consular Department and thus try to work the oracle. If I have done wrong forgive - chok jessaret etdim [I should not have gone so far]. Elchi is bad - a priest was in the house all last night and the crows are beginning to gather in the vicinity of Downing Str. A little torn tit of mine that nestles in the vicinity of Big Ben tells me that in the intervals in the song of the Bell it heard voices talking and they said Let's send Sir A. Hardinge (happy Hardinge) to Cons'ple. I have consulted the Turkish Sphinx 1

Though formally appointed to Mersina with the promoted rank of vice-consul, in the event it was decided to send him to Smyrna instead, FO List.

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and it says "For God's sake don't send Sir A. H. He is too birdlike, volatile and brilliantly clever with books while totally ignorant of the book of books (that of human nature). He is nervous, jumpy, imaginative and hourly conceiving wondrous schemes while his presence is far from imposing and his harem rides with a divided skirt", quoth the Sphinx and sighed. Thus it flapped its wings and resumed "Send me a man who is dignified, calm, impersonal (as far as it is given to Westerners to be so) who will work through others and not for himself - who will not hunt the phantom of Kudos - who will inspire confidence and convince me of his sincerity. For him shall the veil be unrolled and British interests slowly and quietly prosper but woe betide them unless the Inglis Serai overlooking Kassim Pasha is purged of lies and mystifications. I have visited the capitals in my flights and put a black mark against Brussels 1 while my impenetrable eye lit up when it beheld Madrid. 2 Petersburgh 3 filled me with doubts as I never can be convinced of the friendliness of one who has consorted with the Muscovite and been identified with a Pro Russian British policy." Thus spoke the Sphinx and relapsed into its centuries-old enigmatic pose. Tilki - my soul was filled with alarm and cried out "How long, Oh Allah, how long shall the Road be sacrificed for want of a normal businesslike man. For two decades has the boat of British prestige slipped down the current of the Bosphorus for want of a cox who has studied and knows the shifty eddies - tricky undercurrents and the 'tilkiliks' of the backwaters." I am sending you the 'Broken Road'. 4 Before finishing I took it round to the Embassy to see what the morning's news is about Elchi. He is bad - critical - all arrangements have been made as regards this world and the next but he may pull through. Willcocks arrives here from Egypt on March 17th (St Patrick's Day) to see Pearson's engineer. The adjudication [on] Hindiye takes place today. This evening I shall know what, if anything, has happened. Pearson's man hopes

1 2

a

Sir Arthur Hardinge, Minister at Brussels. Sir Maurice de Bunsen, Ambassador at Madrid.

Sir Arthur Nicolson, Ambassador at St. Petersburgh. Mason's novel, The Broken Road, was first published in the previous year (1907). Set on the Indian frontier, it is nominally the story of the determination of a son, Andrew Linforth, to complete the building of a military road up to the Hindu Kush that was abandoned when his father, the superintendent of the project, was cut off and killed by the natives of 'Chiltistan'. The real theme of this somewhat awkwardly plotted book, however, is the folly - grasped only by those like the political officer, Charles Luffe, who really understand the East - of trying to make Westerners out of 'Orientals'. Shere Ali, the young prince of Chiltistan, is educated at Eton and Oxford and becomes Linforth's bosom friend. However, fully accepted neither by his own nor the white people on his return to India, he raises Chiltistan against the British in revenge for having destroyed his identity - and tragedy inevitably ensues. Fitzmaurice probably saw himself as Luffe, Lloyd as the young Linforth, and - possibly - Shere Ali as the archetypal Young Turk. 4

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no solid tender will be forthcoming. I see another Irishman, young du Cros, has done good T. R. work at Hastings. 1 Goodbye and good luck, yrs ever, G. H. Fitzmaurice May I crave a copy of your report? Ali Bey says there are only three nice Franks in the world - Miss Hughes, you and the Tilki Pasha. He says Miss Whittall is detestable because she drives too hard a bazarlik [bargain]. G.H.F. *

Friday, March 26th 1908 Dear Tilki Pasha, I hope you got my Sphinxy note. Its mutterings - its interpretation of the 'mene, mene Iskel cephassin 2 was based on truth which has in part come to pass. But the prayer wheel is still droning "Om mani" etc. However 'de mortius' etc [of the dead say nothing but good] but poor old Nick [O' Conor] was true to himself to the end. He mystified himself and us. For he had improved - the improvement was maintained the second day and increased the third until even Lady O'C had begun to hope. I felt so relieved that I trotted off to the Porte and then went roving in the Bezistan returning to Pera on foot when at Galata I was greeted by the rumour "L'Ambassadeur est mort". I bought a crepe armband in a shop - went to the Embassy, decided the burial being at Scutari Cemetery and drove on to the Palace to inform A.H. I thought one ought to be true to the "Brit. Amb." to the end and accordingly "played on the piano" by sending in a message that "Sir N. instead of being buried on Irish soil to which all Irish men were so attached had wished to take his last rest in the Crimean War Cemetery side by side with those who had fought and died for Islam". This touched the right cord in the Caliph's pianola - and a thrill went through the Vatican of Islam - the electric current doing a rapid circuit through the capital. I drove on to the G.V.'s house and that of the Min. for F.A. and all Stamboul soon knew that the Brit. Amb. had bequeathed his mortal remains to Islam. A. H. wired to the King his condolences which thus reached the golf links of Biarritz. Izzet was despatched to H.M.E. to 1 Arthur Du Cros was the Unionist candidate for a by-election in Hastings held on 3 March, the need for which was created by the retirement on health grounds of his father, Harvey Du Cros MP. The election was fought chiefly on the issue of Tariff Reform versus Free Trade and the young Du Cros was successful in holding his father's seat, to Fitzmaurice's evident satisfaction, The Times, 4 March 1908. 2 Possibly the vision of the writing on the wall seen by Belshazzar, King of Babylon, recorded in the Old Testament Book of Daniel and famously portrayed in 'Belshazzar's Feast' by Rembrandt (ca. 1635). I am grateful to David Barchard for this suggestion.

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consult with the Bashtilki as to the funeral arrangements. One saw that they were made on a scale befitting a Brit. Elchi and of a nature to make Marschall's eyes turn green with jealousy. The Turks responded to the note struck and you have read the results in the papers. An army of sweepers were turned on - 1 had no difficulty in having the roads repaired and sanded - all traffic suspended and wheeled traffic driven into the side streets - a Turkish band rapidly improvised to play funeral marches from Chopin - orders to the Moslem troops to reverse arms and the Moslem flags afloat to half mast (both unprecedented). We slaved day and night at the details of organization with the result as the Smileless and silent Serkiz said that "since the foundation of Istamboul such a procession has not been seen". It was more than a mile long - shops closed and every church bell in Pera tolling - all guards turned out crowds of Moslem women - the utmost order - all officials responding with alacrity to the humble prayers and directions of the Bashtilki who rode in Barclay's carriage close behind the hearse. There were innumerable small side lights but the compass of a letter cannot contain them. The real sad sight of picture [sic] has been the sad widow who has been fairly distraught. I have brought her consoling messages from A.H. who insists on seeing her before she goes. She had a complete breakdown and I have had to tell her that though God has removed her husband He has left her her children to look after, help and guide - the duty to the young of those who have been through the trials of life. This sort of thing was necessary to bring the poor woman back to this world. I have assisted at many sad scenes but I confess to having been affected when I accompanied her into the mortuary chamber and she flung herself on the corpse - broke down absolutely - covering his face with tears - kisses and wailing laments. It was very sad, Tilki, and even my rugged soul felt the pang of sorrow which only an effort could suppress. It's sad - sad - sad! But sorrow is shadow to life etc. However le Roi est mort - Vive le roi and we are thinking of the successor. March 28th - D - n everything. I was interrupted here the day before yesterday and haven't had a moment to continue. Lady O.'C. has the most weird and morbid fancies - refuses to see her relations or children - wants to leave the Emb. and go to the French hospital etc etc etc, while the Sultan wants to see her - erect a Tekke [Dervish convent] over O'C's graves [sic] etc etc and between ministering to a mind diseased and patching up matters at the Palace I am having a gay time - Barclay is fearfully 'shashkin' [bewildered]. He would like to see de Bunsen come here but thinks it too delicate a matter to write about openly to C.H. [Charles Hardinge] or W. Tyrrell. He has however written privately to the latter describing the character of the man who ought to be sent here - the description corresponding to de B. (without

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mentioning names and describing the sort of man who ought not to come here - the description being a portrait of Sir A. Hardinge. I wonder do you care which cock crows on this dunghill. The Turks are inquisitive as to O'C's successor and Ghalib who sends selams told me yesterday that he had heard of Nicolson and de Bunsen and hoped fervently it would be the latter. Nicolson has been so identified with a Pro-Russian policy that it would take A.H. at least a year and a half to get rid of his distrust of him - if indeed he ever can get over it, while it occurs to one that from the F.O. point of view they ought to want to keep Nicolson on at Petersburgh to carry out a policy which hinges so on the Amb. being a persona grata with the Czar, Isvolsky etc. If you meet Tyrrell or Chirol, would it not be possible to discretely [sic] influence matters. I suppose they will want to fill up the vacancy as soon as seemly after O'C's death. There are troublous times ahead here and the new man ought to be well in the saddle before the storm bursts. The Sultan has been nice over the Ottoman Embassy (London), appointing Rifaat Bey of Athens whom the King and Hardinge met there two years ago and liked. Of course all this throws my plans about leave into the melting pot as George begs me not to leave him alone and the new Amb. will want me to stay until he has had a look around. Verily there is no peace for the wicked and you know I am very malignant. We are just having a little massacre in Van just by way of keeping our hand in! There is of course a complete collapse of O'C's house of cards re Macedonia and Grey is confronted with a fiasco - the natural and inevitable result of O'C's policy of insincerity, mystification and lies. By the way, I heard Nicolson described the other day by one who knew him as an 'awful liar'. - Willcocks paid a hurried visit here about the day of O'C's death. I didn't see him. He said the Turkish plans for the Hindiye were impossible. Money (Pearson's engineer) agreed - neither (nor anybody else) tendered by the date fixed. The Turks are going to extend the limit by six months but have promised Money not to make the publication in the papers until he has been able to see his people at home. He is now in England - Ramsay of Bagdad is now here. I have only seen him once. He talks a lot about a 'Yavri Tilki'. I hope the Yavri Tilki is well - quite well - otherwise I shall be 'dilkharab' [sad]. It hasn't sent me a copy of its report on Mesopotamia. Nichin [Why]? Weakley, 'the Kindly One', is sipping coffee somewhere in Syria and we haven't heard of him. He is probably rubbing his hands over the certainty that Elchi can't any more worry him about the 3% Customs improvements etc. Weather here has been atrocious — Black Sea 'scud' coming down in inky masses for a fortnight. I've bought the Chanshaghan. yrs ever, G. H. Fitzmaurice

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P.S. Reopened to give a Hip Hip Hurrah! over Peckham. 1 Ain't it glorious! T. R. is the only big bell sound ringing out in the country and consequently is gradually smothering the piping squeaks of the wavering and wobbling [?]. In hoc signo vinces! G. H. F.

'Bodega', April 10th 1908 My dear 'Tilki', I was thinking of writing to you to cheer you up and was about to drag myself off a certain lovely 'Chanshaghan' on which I was reclining at my stumpy length when the silent Serkis brought me in your letter at parts of which I am 'dilkharab' [disappointed] and hasten to pour out the vials of my wrath in reply. I pass over your diatribes re the Irish party as unworthy of notice, but how dare you refuse to send me a copy of your report. The delay in sending it had made me so angry that I stirred up the poor children of Sham [sic] outside the door of Eden 2 to fire on your 3rd Ag kishti and drive it and all Lynch's boats off the river. I have brought all trade in Mesop. to a deadlock, imprisoned Major Ramsay and Langridge (who are here) in the 7 towers 3 whither I shall soon send Parry (Lynch's agent) to roost with them on the 15th Cent, rafters if you don't relent. Your refusal has endangered the Hindiyé, and Money together with Willcocks are hiding in the bullrushes on the Nile. If your report is not forthcoming I shall get the Turks to produce from their hidden reserve enough to guarantee 2 sections of the Bagdad Railway and shall myself escort Billy of Berlin to Aleppo. Why do you distort my playfull allusion to our Byzantine dungheap into a lament [?] about being disinterested as to who shall fill O'C's throne. Oh Tilki ! Even my dull wits and semi comprehension have partially divined how fervidly keen you are to see a régime of spineless flabbiness bolstered up with hypocrisy and lies replaced by a quietly strong straightforward and businesslike line of policy. At a secret conference between the Chief Mute at the Porte, the Moroccan sand diviner and the bash tilki - the whole secret of who killed Cock Robin was narrated in dumb show - but that must not go down on paper!

1 At the Peckham by-election on 24 March the Unionists took the seat from the Liberals with an unprecedented majority, The Times, 25 Mar. 1908 2 The natives of Mesopotamia. In the Christian Bible this region was allotted to Noah's son, Shem, and his descendants.

a

The Castle of the Seven Towers.

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How dare you think or say that this poor mazlum [humble] tilki crouching behind the throne of an Elchi can restore even by waiting a cycle of aeons the fallen glories of G. Britain in these parts? Dost not know that England's greatness dwindles through the unchallenged obeseness of 'mudd [i]ed oafs and flannelled fools' 1 in "London"? But a truce to my silly raillery. I'm very distressed at your illness and pray Allah for your saghlik [health]. About a fortnight ago or more a bird twittered and said 'Yavri hastadir influenza var' ['Yavri is ill - he's got influenza'] - then a raven croaked and said Yavri is sweating away at Defence Committee work, and then came your short scrawl penned by the dim light perhaps of a Bezistan lantern. I am horribly well - unberufen - Elchi's death - horribili dictu - was the end of a fearful nightmare which lasted the whole winter. I had to slave so hard to make good the wastage from his wasting life that it seemed to act parasitically in diminishing my vital forces. Now I am whole myself again and have seldom been better in my life. How horrible and uncanny but quite true. What a weird thing life is! Not an atom of my existence goes into that boa constrictor fussbox Barclay jumping about like a cat on hot bricks howling for his paté de foie gras and his veins flushed with Moet et Chandon 1892 until no serum is left. He ain't no match for the Turk - ye Gods and that heartless mannikin Mrs B. - a sexless American who sets everybody by the ears - even poor Countess [?]. But I must not be abusive. The thing is impossible. Townley and Whitehead are the sound businesslike normal-minded juniors who might come here and perhaps old man Marling, tho' he is a Free fadder. Before we can get on to positive lines with the Turks the Macedonian question must be got out of the way. Lansdowne as well as Grey is committed to the present course so the only solution is that those provinces be lopped off from Turkey. Terrible events will happen during the process of amputation and a man like de Bunsen is the best type to have here until that consummation is tided over. After that let the real actor come here. Any one who comes out here and tries to score successes is bound to come to grief as Currie and O'Conor did. The breakdown of the judicial reforms was a great step in advance towards the eventual settlement of Macedonia. If we can smash another scheme or two, the end will be hastened if not well in sight. The Armenian massacres will pale before what will happen at the "deep damnation of the Turks' taking o f f ' 2 in Europe and I may not live to tell the tale. But the decrees of fate must run their course. When you are well can you discretely3

1 From Kipling's poem, 'The Islanders' (1902): "Then ye returned to your trinkets; then ye contented your souls/With flannelled fools at the wicket or the muddied oafs at the goals." 2 A variation on a line from Shakespeare's play, 'Macbeth'. 3 He meant 'discreetly'.

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have the following conveyed to the proper 1 quarter in the F.O. If not it don't matter. It's just this. O'C bungled horribly Reshid Bey (of Rome's) appointment as Ott. Amb. to London and the Sultan would have sulked in the ordinary course and left the London Embassy in the hands of a chargé d'affaires for months. For reasons known only to A.H. and myself he, though the aggrieved party, not only did not so sulk but actually appointed the man we suggested (Rifat Bey of Athens) i.e. accepted a nominee imposed by us. Then O.'C. died and the Turks expect us after a decent interval to propose a decent Amb. Now it appears the intention is to leave 'George' here in charge till Oct. or Nov. and the Sultan will take great umbrage at this unnecessary apparent slight coming on his nice behaviour. He will be much disgruntled and British interest and the next Ambassador will pay for it. 'George' has just been made a Minister Plenipotentiary in the Diplomatic Service so that he will lose nothing by having his Acting [rank] curtailed. A decent interval after O'C's death would be one to two months. If you do get a chance of whispering this to the F.O. please don't let it come from me. Now for the conundrum in your P.S. about patriotism v. cosmopolitanism. I'm incapable of giving you an opinion beyond the reflex of my own feelings in the matter which are and have been the following. I have always been a Free Trader in theory but a Tariff Reformer in practice. Free trade (worldwide) is the ideal but it will not be in my time. The necessity for us has been and is a scientifically exclusive or protectionist tariff. Similarly I am a cosmopolitan but it is a long way off and will not be for generations. With me it has been the outermost of a lot of concentric circles of which Ireland is the Bull's Eye. It is a small green circle - the next a red British one - then comes an all red Imperially British circle and then a further English-speaking one - outside of which is a European etc white man's circle and outside of that a Cosmopolitan multi-coloured (yellow, copper, black etc). Until Hayashi jujitsu'd Lansdowne into the Anglo-Jap. alliance with its results at Tsushima, Port Arthur and Mukden, 2 I had hoped the yellow would have been crushed and absorbed by a white combination and that my distant theoretical Cosmopolitanism would end at the white circle - now I don't know where I am but cling to as much patriotism as is included within the English-speaking circle though there it is weak while it gets stronger until I get back into my tiny cosmos inside my green inner circle! Is this intelligible or rot. If the latter please don't blame me, Tilki - you have brought it on yourself. Patriotism, I think, is the higher ideal now and will be for generations. Cosmopolitanism won't be practicable until your grandson has 1

This is underlined twice in the original. Scenes of the defeat of Russia by Japan in the war of 1904-5.

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adult children when the kaleidoscope may have dissolved into one colour which of course physiologically should be white - though up to Tsushima I had hoped it would be 'red'. Strums is going I grieve to say. He has been made a Minister Plenipotentiary in their F.O. at the Hague. They go in May after a dinner at the Cercle d'Orient. It's sad. Pat may be going soon too. Tehran? There won't be any trace of 1906-7 tilkidom soon. The G.V. asked after you the other day. Dq go easy, my dear Yavri and get fit. You owe it to a lot of things which I shan't mention. You mentioned 'flu' and "one or two other things". What are they? May I know? Yrs ever, G. H. Fitzmaurice Read I and XI in "Traits and Travesties". 1 Chok tuhaf ! [Very curious!] Don't write until you are quite well. I got a note the other day with the Beshiktash postmark from Miss Bell. I am writing a very discrete letter to W. Tyrrell - making no suggestions about O'C's successor but analysing the situation here - telling him the Turkish point of view and letting him draw inferences. It's a very delicate matter for me to touch on to him - so please don't know that I have written to him. *

11 May 1908 Dear Tilki Pasha, I have just got your letter as I got rid of 'George' and am going to write to you straight away before the waves of his telash [anxiety] surge again round my addled head. I was glad to hear from Pat that you had got back refreshed like a giant after imbibing quantities of ozone and having visited one 1 The volume of reprints of articles in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine by Laurence Oliphant, the diplomatist, traveller and mystic. These recommendations are very instructive on Fitzmaurice's views. In the first essay, 'A Turkish Effendi on Christendom and Islam', Oliphant reports - with qualified sympathy - the views of an anonymous and fictional Turk with an interest, like himself, in the study of comparative religion. The original Christian teaching had a higher moral character (more altruistic) than that of Islam, says the Effendi, but in practice it has been perverted in a much greater degree. Indeed, it has been morally inverted. Thus the real God of this 'Anti-Christendom', especially in its Protestant version, is Mammon, and socalled 'barbarians' such as the Moslems of the Ottoman Empire, suffer from its inroads physically but above all morally - accordingly. Appalled by the cupidity and hypocrisy of 'Western civilization', not least in Ireland, and while only too well aware of the decrepitude and corruption of their own world, intelligent and enlightened Turks thus believe that Western 'reform' of Turkey will only make matters worse. Moslems are far more religious than Christians and should be left to enjoy their simple life undisturbed. The second essay, 'An American Statesman on Irish Atrocities', is a clever and pungent satire on the inconsistencies in the application of the British doctrine of intervention. Its theme is that if the English (and Russians), from a sense of superiority in level of civilization, have the right to interfere by force in support of their oppressed co-religionists in European Turkey, then the Americans (and Russians) have a similar right relative to the Catholic peasantry of Ireland, who are abused even more by 'Protestant beys' and 'British bashi-bazouks'.

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of the few and rapidly dwindling number of places on our little globe where your 'brush' has not waffed. I hope you are strong and fit. Thanks so much for your note from Madeira. It may [sic] me realized [sic] a lot of what is to be realized from its past - the faded glories of empire built on sea-power. (Aren't the Turks wise in neglecting their navy!) W.C. I see too has got in for Dundee. 1 One would have thought that electors who have dealt so long in gunny bags made of stuff coming from distant parts of the Empire would have been more Imperial in their tastes. But then the latter are unaccountable. Of course it would have been too much to expect his rejection. Manchester on top of Peckham not to mention the Pyrrhic Liberal victory over Amery 2 is enough to go on for some time. They were like the two large bowls of airan we (no, 'I') had at that village two years ago. I haven't congratulated you on your Stricks' victory over Balin and the Kaiser. It was a great work but must have taken a lot out of you especially when you were feeling anything but fit. - 1 liked Major Ramsay a lot - he is a very level headed fellow without any frills and I don't think India could send us a better man. As long as he is there I shan't have any doubts as to whether an F.O. or I.O. man should fill the post that has been hallowed by the silent tread of many tilkis. Pat is going soon. I'm sorry. It's another break with 1906-7 and the poor little tilki is a good fellow. I think he is a lot improved since you and he became friends. I wished he could have gone for 1 V2 years to Tehran and wrote to Tyrrell in that sense but it was too late. He will be all right with Bryce who is a genial 'papa' and will be interested in a small tilki coming from a country in which B. has taken a great tho' perhaps misguided interest. 3 'Filies' and heiresses will be the great danger tho' I've noticed an exclusionist tendency in the U.S.A. as regards heiresses going abroad especially to Italy. Pat's stay here has not been in vain. He has learnt a lot in this old-world place and has solidified. It's rather cheek my talking like this of one who is so much my superior in ability and accomplishments. But forgive the bash tilki. Its horizon is rather "borné". I heard this afternoon at the Porte that 'they' were much pleased at the King receiving Rifa'at Bey so soon and being nice to him. Hunkiar [The Sultan] wants to know, now that Lady O'C is gone, when he is to expect a new Ingliz Elchisi. I hear the appointment won't be long delayed - also straight from Grey that Nicolson can't possibly be spared from the Neva. Grey 1 On 9 May Winston Churchill, then President of the Board of Trade in the Liberal government, was elected on a reduced majority in the by-election at Dundee. In his acceptance speech he said, among other things, 'It is a triumph for Ireland', The Times, 11 May 1908. 2 On 5 May the Unionist, Leo Amery, was defeated by the Liberal candidate in the by-election at East Wolverhampton by just eight votes. 3 In the event, Pat Ramsay did not go to the British Embassy in Washington, where James Bryce was ambassador.

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said he is the best man in the diplomatic service and he would like to send him everywhere - Q. E. Impossibile. In that case G. Lowther will probably go to Berlin and our fate probably lies between A. Hardinge and de Bunsen, bar a younger man. Miss B. said the Hardinge danger has been averted. One has heard further breaths of rumour as to the possibility of Block but may Allah forfend! In any case we shall know our Kismet soon and shall receive it in perfect submission to creative will - neither shall we reason. I have been a bit influenzij of late - 'George' has fussed a lot but he is leagues better than poor Elchi. One hasn't been idle tho' one's work has been somewhat negative: clearing away with a big broom the fictions and cobwebs woven under the late régime - clearing the decks for positive action for his successor. Inshallah, I have got George to help to give the coup de grace to our unwise championing of the Macedonian cause. In fact we are fading somewhat into the background despite trumpeting to the contrary from the F.O. There has been a lot of manoeuvring between us and the Russians but I think the latter are now in front of us. We have just given a lot of rotten F.O. proposals a very icy douche. In the Persian frontier we are fairly well behind the Russians. In fact I feel little anxiety on that score. Our F.O. got rather keen on the Armenian question somewhat owing to bloodcurdling reports from Heard and the recent massacre at Van but I have hung hard on to George's coat tails (without treading on them!), have worked several representations about Van and spent yesterday using the surgeon's knife on a projected Blue book of Armenian horrors. I've also got George to write home deprecating its publication until a more propitious moment. Meantime you must not think me callous to human suffering. We have got certain things done but there is no use talking about them in public. It only sets the uninitiated agog, I think you'll agree. To parody Herodotus - "Many more heinous things have we being [sic] doing but decency forbids". If the new Elchi is coming soon I fear I can't go home for some time. I have to go with the Sultan's delegate to the frontier to meet him - must usher him in and generally see him in the saddle - then crack the whip and run home. In case I have to spend the summer at Therapia I may do a bathe and would crave forgiveness in asking you to get (and send me) at Hope Bros Regent Str. a couple of those triangular blue bathing drawers. They cost only a few piastres probably by bargaining hard 3 Prs. 10 paras which I can give your barrow beggar. I give him something from time to time and told him it was from you. He rewarded you with a smile which I can't describe tho' you can imagine it. Forgive your slave who has written in "ajile" [haste], yrs ever, G. H. Fitzmaurice

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Pera, June 3rd 1908 M y dear 'Tilki', Let me hurl a missive at you. H. E. Mrs Barclay wanted to go to Therapia on May 15th. I asked George did he mind my staying in town as the work always suffered during "the Therapia season" and I couldn't reconcile myself to unduly prolonging it. Result - the Embassy did not go up till May 31st and I am still in town which gives me a few remaining moments of leisure before going to Therapia and consequently the chance of plaguing you with this. What do you think of our new chief? He isn't at all a bad choice. Infinitely better than A . Hardinge or Rodd or such ilk. I knew him fairly well and personally shall, I trust, get on as well any Dragoman who has to be ever saying 'No, don't' to one's Western Chiefs' mind, can get on with his Elchi. He is on the stout, placid and, (years ago) the indolent side. I wonder whether the F.O. will put enough 'pitch under his tail' to keep him going for a decade in this capital. He is a straightforward, level headed - commonsense person and therefore an immense improvement on the deceased. I should of course have vastly preferred de Bunsen but then one can never expect one's ideals. The latter is reputed weak but you know how much the 'nameless', voiceless and impersonal Dragoman can influence and stiffen a man with whom he is in thorough sympathy, as I should have been with de Bunsen. With Lowther I shall always wear a mask - tho' not a thick one. I have to go to the frontier with a Sultan's delegate to meet him and greet him on his arrival in the wellprotected dominions. You see the dragoman begins his shadowing from the very outset - follows Elchi Bey all through his official career despite continual kicks and finally sees him off by the Express or to Scutari. How Chiefs must loathe the pestilential parasite. Meantime I can't go on leave as he may be coming soon. They say the F.O. want him to get in to the saddle before they crack the whip over their wonderful scheme of Macedonian reforms and I suppose I shall have to run behind his stirrup like the Parkas behind the carriage at the Selamlik - for some time. In fact I don't suppose Albion's shore will be defiled by my tread till this time next year - tho' Gawd knows I'm stale in body and mind and want a freshening up. With Barclay I have to sit on the safety valve, if that is the right metaphor, and curb his 'telash' [anxiety] but things are going very well. It's paradise after O ' C ' s régime. I'm busy in clearing off small questions so as to try and give the new chief a fair start. I ' v e just got an Iradé for £500 for the widow of Glanville and a condemnation by the Civil Courts of 3 to death etc. This must sound quaint to you after what you wrote to me from Basra about having them strung on a gibbet 40 cubits high about 15 months ago. What is

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time in Turkey, and what a funny thing a dragoman is to go on making his representations about a question the origin of which has long been forgotten by the existing staff and is but faintly remembered by those scattered over the globe between Tehran and Mexico where I shortly expect to hear of a 'dehshetli gyurultu' [terrible noise]. Poor Percy - he is very 'dilkharab' [unhappy], as an F.O. man has just gone out there and been given higher rank than the beautiful 'balik' [fish]. His heart is torn and rent - poor fellow I must write him a soothing letter before I go to Therapia. We have just had a little kickup in Samos. George nearly went off his chump and rushed up and down the Bosphorus and to colleagues with his hat on the back of his head. These stupid Greeks wanted our Govt, to send ships but I got George and old Constans whom I interviewed on a ship in the harbour to strongly deprecate it 'for the present' as it would have encouraged the 'insurgents'. I want to use the incident in an anti-Greek sense and thereby get the Turks to go for Greek bands in Macedonia. If they do so - half the bottom falls out of the reform scheme. The G.V. has sent special instructions to Hilmi to drop on the Greeks. The Bulgars want to keep quiet bar reprisals against Greeks, and as it takes two to keep up a row - the result may be comparative quiet. But, my Gosh! tilki, why do I inflict all this on you who no longer reside near our fragrant Byzantine dunghill. Abdul and I are becoming dangerously friendly. He tried some blarney on me the other day by sending Ghalib after me to say that since his accession 33 years ago he had known only two really good dragomans - one Sir Alfred Sandison and the other Mossiu Feesmoris. I thanked him suitably for this shower of Imperial favours but added to Ghalib that I would much prefer his settling my little questions. I have got six Irades out of him in the last 3 wks and so have forgiven him his blarneying an Irishman. If I am like Sandison then there is no hope for me and I must put on a fess and apply for a post in the Sheikh ul Islamate. Oh tilki! Why have I gone down into the East. Perhaps I had better become a mad mullah and take to the Pathan Hills. What a dressing Willcocks has given the Mohamands but then the internal state of India is indeed perturbing. I wrote a long letter this morning to a soldier friend of mine in high position at Simla giving him tilki tips - what a joke! Hem de utanmiyorum [On top of it I am not ashamed of myself]. Are you furious like the Labour members at the King going to Russia and cementing the Anglo-Russian Agreement? ha! If you are, so is the German Emperor. But you must really be furious at the Bagdad Ry extension to Mardin. Of course it is inevitable and was. There is still time for us to do what we are going to do about the lower end but there ain't much time and we ought to be businesslike and recognize the pivotal fact that the Germans got

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the concession and must have the pre-eminent position thereby due to them. We have been trying and are still trying to stop it with pea shooter sort of pinpricks. Yaramaz! [Useless!] Roosevelt - Bryce and the Washington 'belles' have got a reprieve and Pat stays with us. He is glad and so am I. He will get on all right with Hohler. I shall tell the latter he must make allowances for Pat's perky youth. I am sending you postcards that may awaken pleasant memories. Ghalib - the G.V. and the beardless mektoubji [secretary general] have not forgotten you. They frequently ask about you and in their [crossed out] our nice old fashioned way send you selams and prayers for your saghlik [health] joined in my most humble Uriah Heep way bey 'bendeniz' [your humble servant] Oh Great Tilki Pasha Af edersiniz [Forgive me] G. H. Fitzmaurice Ne vakit bir ghuzel constituency alajaksiniz? Suffragetteji oldunuzmi? Ben petticoat sale peek beyenmiyorum. Inglizler tashaksiz millet deyildir. Kindly onedan doun kiad gheldi [?]. Chok zahmet chekyior. Ghayet sijak oldu, Syriade bou séné. [?] [When will you get your beautiful constituency? Were there suffragettes? I don't like petticoats at all. The English are not a nation without balls. ... [?] The Kindly One, a letter arrived from him yesterday. He's having so much trouble. It's been very hot in Syria this year [?] I've re-opened this. I gave the G.V. some smelling salts from Rimmel in Bond Str. but as it was old it had lost its force. Can you send me out one or two small bottles with the crystals - plane glass bottles about 2 inches high of obtruncated pyramid form. I shall give it to him as 'ilaj' [medicine] from you. *

British Embassy, Constantinople, June 9th 08, 5a.m. Dear Tilki, I have had a bad night. Hence the unseeming hour for writing to a great politikaji whose dose of 'bal' [honey] in the shape of a long interesting letter reached me last night. It was not the cause of my insomnia. Today is my last day in town. Tonight I sleep on or at least go to bed at Tokatlian's Therapia. I too have been thinking of Justinian's Aqueduct - the 'cup' we quaffed dining on the terrace of the small club - an interesting and deep conversation between G. A. LI [oyd], and Einstein on the subject of 'graft', followed by a sleepless night disturbed by insects and a fire. - The following Sunday morning Mrs Surtees and Cynthia were shocked when going to church at seeing two tilkis arrayed in beautiful bathing gowns (purchased at Stamboul a couple of days before together with saffron dyed sponges) sneaking into the caique house under the church for their first bathe in the Bosphorus.

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Now for your letter. You already know what I think of G. L [owther]. As for your query re the Irish Question, O'Conor answered it that day returning from Stamboul in the barge, when for once in his life he threw aside the veil of ambassadorial mist and told you never to dream of bargaining with the Irish nor to look upon the Irish Question as a pawn in the game of English (not British) politics. But you are hopeless on that subject and I think you had better go on to the end as an uncompromising hater of Ireland. However let me not moralize. I am a poor slummer at the Porte and you are a great Pasha at the heart of the Empire. As for Khanikin - olmaz [he's impossible]. It required a personal visit of the Kaiser's to get the B.R. concession and a landing from Corfou recently with a special message to arrange the 4 sections. A. Hamid will never grant such a concession to the English unless we make sweeping changes in our policy towards him. There is not much sign of that yet. This is a rather curt way of treating the project but "them's my sentiments" formed according to my lights, and we still use candles and oil lamps in this country. R. Ritchie's remark about the Genius of Empire is so true and so pregnant. The strong instinct of momentary common sense is delightful. If you had mentioned my name to him, he wd have smiled as he knows all about my doings - official rows with the Aden Resident, etc Govt, of India (i.e. your friend George Nathaniel [Curzon]) etc etc when in the Aden Hinterland. Weakley was reported down with acute dysentery (as per first postcard) but a wire yest. from Beirut said he was doing well. I know you will be glad. Sizin Report ne vakt bana Ghunderejeksiniz? [When will you send me your Report?] - Lowther may arrive soon and possibly go on leave in Sept. when Lady Lowther will have a yavri. If he goes I probably go home too. Artik biikdum [I am tired] The minarets are just showing up out of a thick mist overhanging the Horn, yrs always, G. H. Fitzmaurice P.S. What you have done and have had done in and around the Gulf is magnificent. I'm quite envious. *

British Embassy, Therapia, Constantinople, Sunday June 21st 1908 Dear Tilki Pasha, You are an angel. I got back from town last night to find Rimmels' bottles awaiting me. Ferid will be delighted tomorrow morning and will laugh when I give him your salts and message about the efficacy of British medicine as opposed to other quack remedies. He is bound to ask me whether it smells

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of Reval. He is always alluding to the latter of late. He gave me 500 hundred gold sovereigns yesterday at the Porte for Mrs Glanville so I am also giving him a basket of gooseberries tomorrow morning. He promises me to come up to Therapia some Friday afternoon to have tea in the Embassy garden. It will be a counter demonstration to Reval. All this is humbug but one has to carry on and our position here is becoming increasingly difficult since we have gone so far as to egg on the Russians to be anti-Turkish in Macedonia. I was always in favour of getting on to non-nagging relations with Russia - and would have done it before the alliance etc with Japan, one's idea being to isolate Ger [many], and bring her to her senses or at least some sense of proportion, but I would never have gone to the extent of an 'entente' with Russia and above all not openly and gratuitously championed an anti-Turkish policy with her - out-Russianing the Russians as we seem to be doing now. C. Hardinge is going too far I fear. I don't care a fig for Turkey in Macedonia and if the Bui gars alone or with the Russians produced the 'fait accompli' of ousting her from those provinces I would be in favour of recognizing it at once as we did in 1885 in the case of Eastern Roumelia as opposed to our 1878 policy of handing back provinces to Turkish misrule - but this is a far cry from openly espousing an anti-Turkish policy hand in glove with the Muscovite. However now we are in for it and must go on to the bitter end I fear. Germany is getting as exasperated as a Spanish bull. I wonder where it will end. For your letter graphically reminds me of the state of things at home 'where men decay' to quote Goldsmith whom you despise. Will the war of 1910 [?] be like the battle of Salamis where Xerxes in despair and at the sight of the prowess of the Queen of Halicarnassus and her triremes cried out "My men have become women and my women, men". Alas Tilki - but it can not be so. I shall go on plodding and hoping as you are doing over the Kharakin Ry. One can't do much - one can only give an obol - but it may come in handy. If A. Hamid, exasperated and sharing the chagrin of Berlin, felt inclined to stir up Islamic trouble in Egypt and India, one small tilki here might neutralize his baneful tendencies - perhaps? I see Chitty has succeeded Machel in Egypt. No better choice could have been made. His real worth will come out in the day of stress and trouble. He will be my future nilometer. The Khedive is anxious a bit. He was here the other day and returns later on. I met the fat Bagdad Ry Engineer the other day on the Quay at Therapia. He is going down tomorrow to Adana etc - says they will begin before next year, working up north from Adana and also East from the same place and that they hope to finish to Elif (near Mardin) in six years i.e. two years under time. "Avansiman" [The furthest point reached?] is now near Medina - the official

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inauguration taking place on Accession day but the Arabs are giving a lot of trouble and anxiety to our beloved Sovereign. Good luck, yrs ever, G. H. Fitzmaurice *

British Embassy, Constantinople, 8

Julyl908

My dear 'Tilki', I have been meaning to write to you since the birthday gazette but have been rushed over the Duke of Saxe Coburg's visit and haven't had a moment to myself. I rejoiced greatly at Weakley's " C M G " and feel sure that it is in great part due to your kind efforts and the nice indulgent things you have said about him and his work. It is a really good act you have done and, tho' he humbly deprecates the honour, I ' m sure it has made him happier as, I remember you several times (especially one day on leaving Tokatlian's Restaurant) said you would like to. One loves to see distinctions going to those who have worked hard and unobtrusively for the Sirkar 1 as well as to the voracious tuft-hunters (e.g. Surtees w h o is just now busy fishing f o r a S h e f a k a t 2 for his wife). Chitty who has succeeded Machell has also got a C.M.G. and he is another good instance of real merit being requited. I gave you a note for him but you did not meet. There are few men so steeped and versed in the mentality of the native Egyptian and one is much comforted by his appointment to a post which is practically the nilometer of Egyptian doings and aspirations. W e have just had the visit of the 'German' Duke of Saxe Coburg and as he is a nephew of [the] King, one rather insisted on A. Hamid recognizing him as such by inviting our Embassy to the Palace dinner etc. The Duke is a rather nice fellow having been to Eton etc and some of the Palace Turks said he was so different from other German Princelings "his English training being obvious". I am staying in the Embassy with the Barclays - just fancy what a joke it all is - things are running fairly smoothly. W e have been quietly clearing off a number of 'current matters' to try and present a smooth surface to Lowther who arrives at the end of this month. Are you going to pay us a little visit in September to refresh yourself after a year of bustle among go-a-head environment - to take a rest cure on the Bosphorus with its nasty undercurrents hidden away at the bottom - like the Macedonian reforms which may rise to the surface soon and give A.H. another fit of Anglophobism. I hope you got a Nasredin K h o j a spoon sent you as a reward f o r " D a m ouzerinda".

* The Indian government. A Turkish decoration.

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Have given up all hope of ever getting a copy of your Mesopotamian report. Utanmazsiniz! [You are shameless!] Yrs always, G. H. Fitzmaurice 1

*

British Embassy, Constantinople, July 29th [1908] Dear Tilki, Just a few lines before starting for Adrianople to fetch Lowther. One always said 'damn' their footling reforms and that the Macedonian question must ultimately be settled by blood. The reforms have been swept away by the Young Turks and the Army which determined at all costs to forestall our proposals re. mobile columns arising out of Reval. Three weeks ago I told Barclay that at any moment (even before I got to the bottom of the stairs) I shd not be surprised to hear 101 guns pronouncing a Constitution and that it would most likely happen when we were all at some gala tennis match. We were assembled more Britannica for the finals in the Ott. Empire Tennis Challenge Cup when the news came to us through the whispering galleries of the East that Ferid the Serasker had been sacked and that Said and Kiamil were enthroned as Gr. Viziers. 2 The next night the Serasker sent his son out to me overland to say he was in great peril and asking me to save him. I went down the next morning early to the Palace to intervene but only to find that the Constitution had just been signed by H.I.M. We are now on the wave of a popular and nationalist movement which will have far reaching effects as regards Egypt (they may want a Constitution there any day) - India - the abrogation of Foreign post offices - privileges, Capitulations etc. You remember one used to say in the Bodega that one must always be prepared in this country for the touch of the magician's wand to set Turkey on her legs. It has come. The Germans are sick unto death, flabbergasted and nonplussed. I must catch my train. Goodbye, yrs G. H. Fitzmaurice *

There is no evidence that Lloyd ever did send Fitzmaurice a copy of his report and the reasons are unclear. Perhaps it was a result of their hot words over Ireland. He delivered it to the Board of Trade at some time in 1908. The final draft of the 261 page document was classified 'Secret', though this seems hardly sufficient reason to deny it to Fitzmaurice, especially since it was bound and printed by a commercial house, albeit 'Printers to the King's Most Excellent Majesty'. See Lloyd, G. A., TNA. 2 T h e ' s ' was underlined in the original.

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Private British Embassy, Constantinople, Oct. 7th 1908, 1 am My dearTilki, I am dead beat having got back here just before midnight without any dinner beyond a chunk of bread and a bunch of grapes at the Beshiktash scala [pier] at 9. 30pm but I want to scrawl you a few lines to thank you for your most interesting note from Salonika whence I also got the 'Chifut' postcard and to say that 'one' felt a lot 'dilkharab' [heartsick] after your departure. The term allowed was very brief indeed. I hope your twinnies have not been wrecked and that your stay has at least been useful. You see we are doing something to upset calculations. The 'children' have received a cruel blow 1 - they are smarting under it and especially the brutal fashion of its delivery but they are showing great self restraint and curbing the hunger stricken Ramazan feelings of wrath and resentment. When it became a certainty on Sunday night I drove down to Kiamil's new house into which he had just moved in. The old man was fearfully upset and it was quite clear that Austria and Germany had tried to hit below the belt the antiGerman Constitutional movement, the pro-English Kiamil Cabinet and the English newly acquired prestige. I was with him till 4 a.m. and there was wild talk of war etc etc etc. Finally it was decided that the 'children' should bear up and show a manly restraint, avoid playing into the hands of the enemies of the Constitution by taking warlike measures - giving satisfaction to Germany and Austria by showing undue irritation and that a great effort should be made to keep things generally within the bounds of moderation and a proper sense of national dignity, especially as regards an anti-A. Hamid movement. I was all over the shop in town today in the rain, slush and cold. They are deeply grateful despite the feeling that their effusive friendship for us is in part responsible for what has happened. In a day or two the tragic fit will I hope be over and Kiamil will come out of the "crisis" stronger than before. We are very much on our mettle and trial. During the last three days I have had a feeling of facing the music as I had to do in another way during the Transvaal War. But dostluk [friendship] and emniyet [trust] carry one a long way and I am trying to make it turn out to the confusion of Germany. Marschall was to have left on leave on Monday but has had to postpone his departure and goes round explaining that Germany is not in it. The Turks are not such fools as he thinks and I'm sure the Germans have made a 'gaffe'. Russian attitude is very sphinxy - Bakallum [Let's see]. Pity the AngloRussian entente did not extend to the Near East?!

1

The Austrian annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

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My deepest bow to S. P. C. Zion 1 - Goodnight. Love to Pat whom you must have met, Yrs ever G. H. Fitzmaurice *

Pera, Sunday midnight, Oct 1908 Dear 'Tilki' Here's a line on a scrap of Therapia notepaper found lying about to acknowledge your last with note for Zonaro duly for [warde]d by cavass to Beshiktash. His Southern or Levantine mind has prompted him to put his ugly visage inside the Embassy several times, suspicious like that his 'danaro' was 'dimenticato'. Macaroni plus ice-cream apparently produce this effect. Wilkie Young V.C. Mosul is here and has bamboozled the Amb. to let him go home to flash and splash. He told me first it would be a good thing for him to see the Bd of Trade and get hints as to what he could do for trade in Mesopotamia]. I told him that sounded farcical as his own intelligence etc aided by G. A. Li's report would be ample. To Pat (as Head of the Chancery) he said he wanted to go home to get an outfit while to the Amb. (in my absence for seven hours at the Palace today) he said he wanted to go home to see his aged parent aet 86. Of course the real reason is he wants to go home and se faire valoir - the which is the opposite of what Gaskin or the man you want for the pioneer work there would want to do. I fear me greatly he is too much on the galavant, or gadding about - or flashing and idle [?] all of which aint no good in Turkey. I suppose he will want the clerk to sit in Mosul while he on a variety of pretexts visits the Persian frontier - the hills - Zinfar - Bagdad etc etc and when he has sucked the interest out of the post will fall conveniently ill and howl for a change which of course he will get to pastures new. This between ourselves - he is nice and amusing but not at all the man for spadework and certainly ought not to have a clerk till he has been there a year or so. Your efforts - even tho' those of a sick man, about Weakley going to Syria have borne fruit in the shape of a tel. from F.O. today saying the B. of T. want W. to go and the F.O. can't say 'nay'. Well done! Abdul Hamid was unkind in keeping me seven hours at the Palace today (Sunday) but I forgive him as I have had all the British officers in Turkish pay paid their arrears going back many years up to date - while some of the Germans are whining for theirs. I had tea with Pat instead of lunch. Ghalib Pasha asked me to convey his greetings and a warm invite back to 1 Lloyd's close friend, Samuel Pepys Cockerell.

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Stamboul to attend Selamlik on a sunny day. Today was unpleasant - strong S. W. gale most of the day and night. Cumberbatch of Smyrna Block's brother in law has been made C. Genl at Beirut to Elchi's disgust and Barnham ex Aleppo is going to Smyrna. Personally I would have sent Blech to Beirut and kept Bubbercatch at Smyrna, I hope you are much better. Do take care of yourself. Health (saghlik) before everything as our old-world wisdom says, "Sagh tilki eulmish arslandan eyidir" ["A living fox is better than a dead lion"]. Excuse this scrawl - it is late - I have had a long day and have to be about betimes tomorrow morning for a similarly long and I hope useful day. I am so glad about Weakley. He will be happier which we always said we would like to see "the Kindly One". He nearly chucked the service the other day and went into the Debt. He meant it to [o] - suffering badly from OConoritis. Una buona stretta di mano from yrs always, G. H. Fitzmaurice *

Private ex-Gate of Felicity, Nov. 25th 1908 My dear Tilki, You will have begun by this [time] to attribute my silence to my intense chagrin at your Bezistan find at Frant Court. 1 1 assure you it is not so but is due to the prosaic fact that during the last few weeks I have honestly not been able to find a good V2 hour to write to you. I several times sat down to try but was interrupted. A quarter of an hour would not have done for you. - My teeth did water at your discovery in the Sussex Caravanserai but I was not in the least jealous - in fact I am delighted that the pick of the titbits cadukluks - Preziosis 2 etc even including turquoise blue ground Persian rugs! (if the treasure contained such) should find their way into the Bodega whose occupant has - after the Great Elchi - taken such a zestful interest and has had such a keen insight into our poor little Near East. What more fitting 'Shwedagon' could they have found than the London abode of tilkidom! If you find time do tell me some day what you actually did get. I ' m sure the Preziosis grace your walls and that the delicate treasury of Louis XV cadukluks melt even the cynicism of the S.P.C. to the Jews. Oh what a beast he was! His subterranean workings among Hebrews in Turkey nearly led to a great upheaval. The Jews of Bagdad became so arrogant that the True Believers 1 2

Near Tunbridge Wells. Amedeo Preziosi (1816-82) was an Italian painter who specialized in 'Oriental' subjects.

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had to rise up in their wrath and slaughter and wound a few. They are now penitent tho' they shake their clenched fists grimly at the Bodega in King St. and Bagdad has actually returned a Jewish deputy. By the way one of my manifold occupations recently has been connected with a prospective find that may resound through all Israel and throw your Tunbridge Wells discovery into the shade. Captain Howell was here for a few days towards the end of Ramazan when your letter betrayed a certain apprehension as to the possible massacre manifestations of the True Faith of the "children". H. is a capital fellow as I anticipated from what you told me. I was at Therapia and did not see much of him but managed to spend the night of the 27th of Ramazan in Stamboul with him. I took him without ceremony and notice to iftar [breaking of the fast] with Hassan Fehmi whence we went to the mosque and onto Haji Akif's. The old sounds - It was one of the nights after the placards urging the Faithful to massacre the Ghiaours and it was rather fun moving about. Howell enjoyed it muchly. He left for Konieh, Aleppo, Bagdad - asked me to remember him to you. He is certainly of the right sort - cleverness and hard commonsense evenly balanced - a rare thing I believe. I hope you are pleased with the conduct of the 'children'. They have been sorely tried by these Austrians and Cretans but have I trust behaved in a way to at least merit your approval despite provocation - want of political experience etc etc. I have been intriguing frightfully during the last few weeks and frequently find myself in quaint places in Stamboul after dark. My doings would not bare the light of day and might - if known - be distorted by the Germans - even the Emperor. Ne bok yedi - herif! Allah bin belassini versin - yashasin 'D. Telegraph!' [What a crap man he is! May God visit on him a thousand calamities - long live the Daily Telegraph!] I have sworn a nightly oath that Ferid shall not come back to power as long as Marshall is here. If the latter goes then perhaps. Ferid has been spending money on the Press and trying to mine Kiamil's position. I have counter-mined hard and Ferid is now dished and discredited. The denouement comes tomorrow with the publication in the Yeni Gazette of Ferid's correspondence with the ex Vali of Hejaz. I spent from 6 to 7 pm with the Editor and Marshall may grind his teeth tomorrow. Damn the beasts - their underhand intrigues actually encircled Lowther but this Tilki has burrowed low down and smashed the conspiracy I hope. You see until the opening of Parliament there must be a "remaniement" of the present transition ministry of fossils - hence the recent and present fierce struggle. The "children" have now I think made up their minds to keep Ingliz Kiamil who has shown real proofs of tilkihood by steering through foreign and internal shoals during the last three months under our guidance.

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I'm sorry for Ferid - but one must think of one's own watan [homeland] etc. Delendus est Marshall 1 says the modern Cato. I could fill volumes unravelling to you the tangled skein of 'intrigue' but the best 'intrija' is known only to oneself and decency forbids that it should be vulgarized even in private print. It has been splendid fun but equally wearying. I never get time even to think of my left leg much less go to the bazaars. I am striving hard and I hope not in vain to get A. H. to open Parliament. It may not succeed - It will be a fresh laurel for Kiamil but in any case I have a little surprise for him. Aren't you pleased with our apparent stability during the last 3 months when we might have had several changes of ministry and corresponding chaos? Meanwhile English commercial etc interests are quietly forging ahead. Willcocks has five English engineers with him in your Country of Mesopotamia. The Frères School at Bagdad has given up teaching French and now teach English - Even the German stronghold of the Army is yielding to gentle pressure and an Englishman has got the contract for clothing the Turkish Tommy with 'Khakee' - The Min. of Marine swears that not a rivet will come henceforth from any country but England. Some eighty officers (naval) have combined and are taking lessons in English. Whittalls and others are mopping up mines etc etc. Krupps Agent is selling that fine house at Therapia below the German Embassy - The Austrian boycott is going strong and fierce. Baker is getting out a supply of English ready made clothing for Bairam - they are begging us all round to bring out English sugar etc etc etc. It's all great fun but one must tread wearily [sic] - for this country is still one of rude disappointments and one is rarely wrong in being cautious. Kiamil asked me the other day the origin of the word 'boycott'. I told him with a certain relish that it began in Yeshil ada [The green island?].2 I hear Aubrey is coming out. Also Sykes is revisiting Arabia and I suppose Miss Bell will soon be flitting to Bagdad. And now what are you doing? I have been prattling enough about our achievements here. I haven't time to read the papers and follow Tariff Reform but presume things are going right. By the way I haven't had time to open any of my National Reviews since May last. I got a glimpse at your article one night in the club and thought it A.I. if I may be presumptuous. Have you got a constituency yet? You must soon cast an anchor in the British Isles for it strikes me - O me mazlume! [Oh humble me!] that it is at home all your foreign knowledge, experience etc must be focussed - yashasin Inghilterre [Long Live England] as the crowd cried at the Porte the other day when I got Lowther to come out and 1 As an afterthought, Fitzmaurice placed brackets round 'Marshall' and above the name of the German Ambassador appears to have written 'Marcellus!' 2 The island of Ireland.

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stand on the doorstep side by side with Kiamil. It wd have given you a real thrill right down your spine - an Albert Hall thrill which I am looking forward to some day when Tilkidom triumphs. Good night. Allah bless you Keep fit and strong. Love to the Yahudi Loomri [Jewish fox]. 1 yrs ever G. H. Fitzmaurice *

Private Pera, Dec. 16th 1908 My dear 'Tilki', Pat came back some days ago and told me you were a bit seedy and like 'kinghy' had gone to Brighton on a pilgrimage to the spot where Parnell spent his last days. Great men do go to Canossa at times. I wanted to write to you not to chaff you but to tell you of the undercurrents here but my days and nights were so steeped in 'intrija' that I couldn't find time. Yours of the M l has reached me today as a reminder and I start this note though I shan't be able to finish it tonight - the eve of the opening of Parliament. But, Tilki, you are kind - 'superlatively' so - to send poor mazlum [humble] unworthy me such lovely and pahali hediyes [expensive gifts]. The Preziosi one sounds like Eyub and both shall be treasured by me as yadikiars [keepsakes] of your kindness and proofs of your highly developed tilkilik in unearthing them from the Tunbridge Wells Bezistan. Some of your remarks are so flattering that my blushes make my 'saribends' look pale. Chok utaniorum [I am so embarrassed]. Thank you very much, Tilki. As you have doubtless gleaned from the papers the 'children' have shown a tendency to get off the track. It's only natural, poor things! We are now in the second phase of our revolution and it may be a sort of counter revolution. They expected marvels all at once and are inexperienced. They grew impatient and the Committee had drifted into the ways of despotism and brooked not the restraints of the frail but stubborn old G.V. [Kiamil Pasha] They then invited the Balkan Committee out here - invited them to dine a certain Sat. night at the G.V. and 'ordered' the latter to present them to the Sultan. The G.O.M. asked them what they meant by inviting out a lot of English bashibazuks who were not recommended by the Embassy and told them his house was not a Committee Restaurant. This was the last straw and they sent delegates to the Palace to demand the instant dismissal of the G.O.V. The Sultan got into a 'state' and begged the G.V. to come up and arrange the matter. He came and gave the young gentlemen a sound rating. ' Loomri: Urdu for the Indian fox or chalak fox.

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They rushed off and held a secret conclave at which they determined with their majority in the house to make a clean sweep of the Dotard G.V. and his fossil Cabinet replacing them by their nominee as G.V. and a lot of young Committeemen, and the next day their organ began a series of fierce attacks on him in which they were joined by the 'Tanin', the joint organ of Ferid and Marshall. Now Tilki this was open war and one has felt all along that "you can't put two watermelons under one arm" and that when Parliament meets the Committee ought to dissolve itself. As it showed the opposite tendency while on the other hand it is best in the interests of stability that the old bird should hold the roost for some time to come and his fall would be a xSi victory for the Germans, 'one' thought that their gauntlet must be taken up and an effort made to smash their undue dictatorial influence, the bone of contention being the immediate fall or maintenance for a time of Kiamil. Round this point the fight has raged hotly (subterraneously) for the last fortnight and the Committee have got the worst of it so far. I have thrown myself heart and soul into the fray (unobtrusively). Marshall said 12 days ago that Kiamil would not last five days while Kantz (Bagdad Railway) told me a week ago he would be dismissed within eight days. To both statements I made a cheerful but mazlum [humble] reply but I have worked some 12 to 15 hrs a day for the last 15 days - worked the press foreign and native - dived into all sorts of nests in Stamboul by night and early morning and have now the satisfaction of feeling that the Committee - the great unknown impalpable body that has replaced Yildiz and was seemingly all powerful - has had a fall and chucked up the sponge for the present. But one is not yet out of the wood. I visited the Ikdam 1 one night and the next morning out came an article calling on the Committee to dissolve as a secret body failing which it wd have to be proceeded against as an unconstitutional organization. Bakallum! [Let's see!] There is of course an element of risk in the situation - should the Committee with the backing of the Army make a desperate resistance and drop the Sultan into the fray. As a result of most vigorous wire pulling I believe all the Arab members (some 30) will vote for Kiamil - I am assured of a similar support from a majority of the Albanians. The Greeks will go solid for him and a lot of the Anatolians. Of course a large majority of the members have been elected under the auspices of or at the orders of the Committee and the point is whether their allegiance will stand the test of a vote of no confidence in Kiamil. The Committee intended immediately on the assembly of Parliament to bring forward some issue and bring about his downfall but the campaign of the last two weeks against them and the biggish forces 'marshall'ed against them on this point have I think made even the bold Committee - omniscient ' The chief newspaper of the anti-CUP 'Liberal Union'

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and omnipresent as it is - reflect and waver. There is still another card to play. Some 40 members are still on their way to the Capital from distant provinces - Arabian etc - where the Committee's influence is not so great. If they elect to try conclusions before their arrival some members will move an ajournement of the debate until there is a full house - the question being so vital. You will not be surprised to hear that the Bezistan and all the whispering galleries that lead therefrom are in favour of Kiamil and should his downfall be compassed the people may rise up in its wrath and go for the despotic Committee with cries of Yashasin hurriyet [Long live liberty], Yashasin Osmanlilar [Long live the Osmanlis], The Sultan is quaking with nervousness and has promised Kiamil to open Parliament tomorrow. The air is of course full of rumours that he will be shot, deposed etc but I shall tell you the result tomorrow night as I must go to bed now - being tired after a titanic struggle between two invisible forces. Dec. 18. Yesterday (the opening of Parliament) I was busy from morning till bedtime. Today we have somewhat recovered and I must finish this before going to dine at the German (aib! [disgrace!]) Embassy. The papers have told you of yesterday's little incident in the way of an opening of a Parliament in Turkey and of the excellent behaviour of the children and their Padishah who, as old Kiamil told me some days ago he wd force him to, passed twice by the British Embassy. It was quite noticeable how discriminating the children were in their applause of the foreign Ambassadors. I told our cavass to discard his greatcoat for obvious reasons. There was room in the House for only a dozen officials with the result that many of my friends were distributed in windows, on roofs and other such undignified coigns of vantage and led vociferous cheers as the British Elchi came along, especially when the procession halted. The Austrian Elchi's carriage (the only closed one) was the signal for a polite but significant hiatus in the cheers. The Sultan was well received and when he came into the Chamber looked absolutely composed. In fact gave one the impression that he had been doing it every year during the last three decades. He is certainly the best comedian in two continents and played his part perfectly. He didn't even preface his short speech (not the Speech from the Throne) by any reference to his not being accustomed to public speaking. The Deputies were very grave and gave foreigners the impression of assisting at a religious ceremony. The poor things little realize what a task they have before them and how enormous is the burden they have transferred from A. Hamid's shoulders to their own. We don't say Inshallah! nowadays but being of the old régime I can't help mumbling the word to myself secretly and in the privacy of the Bodega. Inshallah everything will go well. I would give a lot to have a quiet chat with

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Tahsin Pasha in his island prison at Prinkipo. This is the 2nd chapter in our revolution and the Sultan's presence and circuitous progress through Stamboul is a score for Kiamil and the Sultan as it has rallied the moderates against those who have drunk at the fountains of the French revolution. Yours of 6th only reached me on the 16th and perhaps you have already left for India where the situation is big with coming events. I shd like myself to be able to visit India before the big change comes but feel I must face your wrath and stay on here for a time. If home politics allows and you are thinking of coming out here - don't do so for some time yet as it will take some little time for the situation to develop and you know how nasty our weather is in January and the beginning of Feb. The Balkan Committee's visit has been much overdone and has consequently done harm which it has cost me an infinity of trouble to undo and that only by half. I believe the National Bank is but one of Block's ill considered and hasty schemes but I hear Cassels has taken it up. I was quite grieved about Crawford coming to the Customs here. One had no hesitation in pressing Chitty on them as he wd have started work the day he entered and as Gorst said he could not spare him one hope [d] to gradually work round to some man with Egyptian or Indian experience but alas! Block wrote Hardinge who thro' Rifat forced him down the Turk's throat. Crawford stipulate [d] for more pay than the Turkish Head of the Customs here and on its being paid quarterly - in advance and through the British Embassy!!! The Head of the Turkish Customs, who stipulated Oriental experience, has not been officially notified of the appointment and is bound to kick. Damn Block - he will do a lot of harm I fear. We must go dead slow here till the financial situation is known. The success or failure of the Constitutional movement hinges on the latter. I tried to stave off the British Admiral appointment for a couple of months yet but it too has been stupidly rushed. I know I'm right in going slow. We can't afford to make mistakes. We've too many alert enemies and rivals. Again 1001 thanks for the prints. It's really too good of you. I'm overwhelmed with honour and confusion. There is no comparison between you and me. I'm a poor man who has had to spend 20 years in the East. I shd much prefer to be at home battling against Suffragettes and in favour of Tariff R. I rejoice that Marling half converted you in the matter of the AngloRussian Convention: a trip to India wd certainly complete the process. I have no hope of you ever seeing the error of your ways as regards Ireland where 'Boycott' started! Good bye. I must go and eat this filthy German meal. yours ever, G. H. Fitzmaurice

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Forgot to say our procession passed Hadji Akif's with whom I exchanged smiles - the Galata smile that made you and Pat laugh. P.P.S. Just got back from Germans who are tactless enough to show they are eating live coals. Mrs Boppe was there and sends you kind messages. She will be in Paris on Jan. 7th. Gute nacht, G.H.F. *

1909 On 16 January 1909 George Lloyd was adopted as the Conservative parliamentary candidate for West Staffordshire and thereafter threw himself into preparations for the next great political battle. With Lloyd George's speeches raising the political temperature, this could not be long in coming. Meanwhile, in London he continued to be probed for intelligence on Turkey. In September he went to Munich for the Wagner Festival and then back once more to Constantinople, not returning to London until the late autumn "probably", according to one of his biographers, "recalled by the action of the House of Lords in throwing out the Liberal Budget, and thus rendering imminent an appeal to the country."1 Fitzmaurice was, of course, even more delighted than usual see Lloyd back in Constantinople. This is because the role that he had played in the short-lived counter revolution of April had given powerful ammunition to enemies such as Adam Block, and for the first time caused even friends to question his judgement. Clearly experiencing a crisis of confidence, he needed the support and reassurance of George Lloyd more than ever before. *

Club de Constantinople, Pera, Jan. 10th 1909 My dear 'Tilki', Many thanks for your letter from Sophia anent your two hours confab with old Liaptcheff who is a fine old Macedonian. One does have mixed opinions and conflicting emotions when one gets wedged in between two sets of old Oriental bargainers but I think matters are going to pan out allright. The day before the declaration of independence I told old Kiamil that anything he could get over and above the E. Roumelian Tribute capitalized on the basis of the last ten years amount of Tribute would be "ça de gagné sur l'ennemi". We had then to hold the press here and let the natural irritation die down - get through the elections where the Committee was a necessary evil - then break the back of the Committee and strengthen the Kiamil Cabinet at the time of the opening of Parliament. There was never and is not any intention of making Bulgaria pay more than she can reasonably afford and no idea of crippling her financially. All L [iaptcheff]. says about war is rot. Their own official figures were that a war - the issues of which are doubtful - would cost ' Adam, Life of Lord Lloyd, p. 50.

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250,000,000frs, i.e. £stgl0 millions. The Railway figures (frs.40,000,000) are allright. That is a matter of buying and selling - The G.R. figures are also allright. Turkey asked not for compensation but for an equitable settlement of Bulgaria's indebt [ed]ness to her arising out of the obligations of the Berlin Treaty and the Public Debt estimated the amount at over £stg20,000,000 (apart from the Railway). Bulgaria said she would pay the 'material losses' of Turkey in connection with the change in her juridical status and Turkey will be ready to agree to this basis and even make further reductions. Now Turkey has been paying to the Bondholders £T 100,000 per annum for some 30 years on account of the Tribute of Bulgaria provided for by the IXth Art. of the Treaty of Berlin. This was a minimum and despite the repeated invitations of Turkey the Powers never settled the full amount, although they allowed their bondholders to go on accepting Turkey's payments under that head. Turkey claims that Bulgaria should pay her back the total, i.e. some 70 million frs, not necessarily as Tribute but as 'material losses' - a claim which is reasonable and equitable. But we want Bulgaria to pay what she can properly pay her without being crippled and the French banks who know the state of Bulgarian finances best are of opinion that putting the Bulgarian floating debt at 100,000,000 francs (an outside figure) and supposing that she pays Turkey another 70,000,000 in addition to the Railways and E. Roumelian Tribute Capital i.e. 140 to 150 million frs. in all, she would have to raise a loan (at 85 and 4 V2 p.c.) of about £11,000,000 and that she can do so easily. For the Railway receipts will more than pay for the interest on the purchase price. The Eastern R. Tribute will more than pay for the interest on its capital value and the Bulgarian Army estimates which were £1,700,000 [?] 3 yrs ago and are now £1,800,000 can, once she is recognized and her position secured internationally, be reduced by say £300,000 without impairing her military machine so that she could easily find the £200,000 odd required for the service of the E. R. Tribute capital value and the capital value of the £100,000 pd during the last 30 yrs (call it Tribute for Bulgaria or 'material loss' or whatever she likes) from economies on her military budget. But even here we are going to be merciful - for Kiamil P [asha]., now that a majority and ovations in Parliament (excepting the "irascible" member for Tokat) are assured, will not as a vulgar economy minded Armenian 1 might do, stiffen his back but will be ready to make considerable concessions to Bulgaria on the 70 million frs of "material loss" which Bulgaria has proposed as basis. I shan't mention final figure because it is dangerous to intervene between two

1 This could be 'American', which is certainly what Fitzmaurice wrote first. However, he seems to have crossed out the 'c', so he probably meant to write 'Armenian' and thought this deletion - together with the context - would be sufficient to make this clear.

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Orientals when they are having a 'bazarlik' but I have small doubt that they will come to terms. We can intervene here at the last moment and clinch the bargain in favour of Bulgaria thus annulling the bad effects on the Bulgarians of the Balcan Committee's 1 visit and the anti-Bulgarian howl which we found it necessary (on account of the Armenians, in reply to the anti-Kiamil action of Germany in conniving at the Austro-Bulgarian "violations", "spoliations" etc) to start in our press. What Liaptcheff and others said about siding with Austria is bluff - to which Buchanan has also been to a certain extent a victim. They can't do it no more than the Japs could have allied themselves with Russia before the war and the taking of Port Arthur. As a matter of fact before this letter reaches you the Austrians and Turks may be on the point of settling up and then Liaptcheff or Machevitch may have to tumble down here in double quick haste and settle up with a Kiamil victorious over Austria, the Young Turk Committee, and Parliament but, as I said, we shan't be hard on the Bulgarians. Personally I have always had a great admiration for them and many years [ago] - some 18 to 20 - conceived the notion that "Czarigrad bude nashi". 2 I have called them the Japs of the Balcans and think they may one day be the nucleus of something big. They have fine characteristics and lots of character. We ought never to have altered San Stephano. By the way, figures given above are from memory and mine being a bad one they may not be reliable. Have you noticed how for some unaccountable reason the Cretan Question is bubbling up and assuming an acute form. Of course it's all a joke and destined to flutter Clemenceau's dovecot just at the moment of your visit to him. It's also intended to lure the Bulgarians on as they must be anxious to come in and take advantage of the anti-Greek wind now blowing in Turkey. On the whole we are just doing quite nicely and are very pleased with ourselves at a moment when the outside world thinks war between Austria and everybody is about to break out. However the Servians may make asses of themselves and do something that will cause Europe including England to lose its head again. If so the Bodega will quake with laughter. Why shouldn't it? Poor thing! It must have its fun too! Now I must try and use your fountain pen which has lain on my desk since the blizzard took you away. Ferid Pasha has left and as the enclosed cutting shows they had a parting shot at him about a secret mission. Zawalli [Poor] Ferid. Izzet P. has been sending me cards and letters. He is a very difficult problem but must not yet publish his memoirs. I'm thinking of having him made station master at 'Avansciman' [the furthest point reached on the Bagdad Railway?]. The Balkan Committee was a committee of British parliamentarians concerned about the situation of the Christian subjects of the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans. It was co-founded in 1903 by Noel Buxton, later also its president. 2 "Constantinople will be ours". I am grateful to Karen Henderson for this translation.

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Have you read Milner's speeches in Canada? They will give you an idea about indiscriminate cosmopolitanism as a real danger to imperial unity. Mine, as I explained to you last year, is concertina like - shrinks to the small cosmos of Ireland and expands to that of the English speaking race. Before the Anglo-Japanese Treaty I would have made the whole world English speaking. A further Suffragette meeting at Trafalgar square (shades of Nelson!) makes me send you something on Tarantism. 1 If women hold separate meetings and want to break away from men - why shouldn't the latter be rowdy - and send in a football team or such to disperse such seditious gatherings on the assumption of the equality of the sexes. If women get the vote as the equals of men and the island is overcrowded, they being so many more numerous may, at the prompting of some Mrs Malthus, kill off the men or at least castrate them in the struggle for life. Men ought to at least resume wearing mustaches as evidence of virility. I was with Gabriel Effendi yesterday a propos of Willcocks whose reports (written in pencil and English) from Kut I translated to him. He is getting on very well so far - you will be glad to hear. Your work shall not have been in vain. They have again fired on the 3rd Aghkishti - Morley's Indian proposals seem to have had the momentary effect of a dose of old mother's syrup. If you have time - don't forget the socks - V2 doz. like the saucy ones 1 showed [you?] V2 doz blue with white clock. 2 pairs plain black evening 2 pairs of ditto with white clocks and a couple of pairs of evening with a faint fancy design. Please get him to send also 2 pair sock suspenders - light grey and dark blue - also a couple of ties - choice to yourself - I have written to old Drew ... [?] to say you wd kindly call - Now - goodbye - Tilki. I have written you much rot. Hope you are well and fit and have survived the food of the Royal. Dutiful regards to the Yahudi. yrs ever, G. H. Fitzmaurice P.S. old Liaptcheff has been misquoting Lowther about figures - pater [?] is very wrath with him. P.P.S. Think this is the first time I have been in my room about sunset and as I raise my eyes just now I find the most gorgeous sunset going on - such colours - it's divine. Oh! if the Yahudi were here to record them but then ... [?] he is only human after all. Allah is the only real painter - La illahe illah 2 !; [There is no god but Allah] Oh what I must have missed those countless evenings spent in the Embassy with N.R.OC. [O'Conor] 1 A medical condition of extreme agitation alleged to have been caused by a poisonous spider bite and curable only by frenzied dancing. Fitzmaurice - no doubt with his tongue firmly in his cheek - was suggesting that the Suffragettes were suffering from it. Underlined twice.

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Private British Embassy, Constantinople, Tuesday, 19/1/09 My dear Tilki Pasha, Your note from the St James reached yesterday together with a long 'jangali' one from Howell who is slaughtering pig etc in a spot instinct with animal, vegetable and mineral life somewhere near Delhi while alas! my prayer wheel drones on here in the Capital of the Sultan-i-Roum. Before opening your letter I knew what it contained. I felt it would come. I can realize the thrill right down your back and the tingle in every fibre. Had you been here it wd have reminded you of your feelings at hearing 'Joe' in the Albert Hall tho' there was no organ and no 'Land of Hope and Glory'. I poor creature never moved a muscle - sat there with all lights out wedged in between the German Amb. and his sausagey dragoman. 1 It marked the end of our counter revolution and I must admit that as the little frail old man [Kiamil Pasha] stood there on the Tribune impassively facing the assembly who 5 weeks ago were ready to chuck him by a majority of over 60 - as the turbaned and befezzed deputies rose and fairly cheered at the peroration while the crowd in the street took up the cry as the old Ingliz Kiamil left the imitation of the Parliament that for half a century of storm and strife, vicissitudes and exile he has admired and yearned to see transplanted to his country, I felt a quaint far off sensation stealing over my heart, or the place where such an organ ought to be. I thought of our talks in the Bodega and knew that within a few hours you would be eagerly parting with a copper to read the news and impart its real significance to that cynic of a stable companion of yours in 8 Pont Str. It meant that Ferid and Marshall and the Great Committee to whom the Balcan C [ommittee] did a pilgrimage in sackcloth and ashes are smashed - pulverized - no let me not fling my caution into the G [olden], Horn - they are scotched. The passage where Kiamil spoke of the old régime having estranged England while the new had brought England and Turkey back at once to the old paths of mutual dostluck [friendship] was rapturously "clapped" by the M.P.s but must have tasted of gall to the German Ambassador. It reminds both you and me of our old talks in Akaba days - of keeping the old boat from drifting down stream until the transformation scene came. It was a moment that you have earned in Mesopotamia and I at Perim and on the sandy wastes of the Aden hinterland. And now poor Turkey - all the romance gone - must take up the white man's 1 I now think it obvious that Fitzmaurice must here be referring to the occasion of the vote of confidence won by Kiamil Pasha in the Chamber on 13 January, which was believed by its opponents to be a great defeat for the CUP; see Ahmad, The Young Turks, pp. 32-3. In my biography of Fitzmaurice (p. 129) I mistakenly thought he was referring to the opening of Parliament on 17 December, when in fact he would most certainly have been sat next to Lowther.

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burden and have done with childish days. Her silent sullen peoples must begin the toil of serfs and sweepers and the tale of common things - that horrid economic development that you would fiercely and fain have Ireland adopt. She must forsooth become sordid - sap her virility in the search of progress and gold with the hydra-headed evils of socialism, feminism etc that follow in its train. No, it cannot be, Tilki, and we must quietly prepare some fresh surprise for those who complacently imagine we have altered the groves of our mentality to those of the flabby tissued minds of the prosperity pampered and hyper civilized West. But not just yet. I wonder how the Balcan Committee feel. They who like others came out thinking the Committee Rooms here were a Shive-Dagon 1 at which - like Yildiz in days of yore - all fell prostrate and worshipped. Alas! Turkey is ever elusive. I have not thanked you for your letter from Paris. It interested me muchly - especially Miss Bell's appreciation of Chirol. And so Herbert mentioned his little freak [prank] with the G.V. 2 I wonder if he told you the whole story - however - there is no use my adding the details. It's rot he's talking about being 'sorry'. He isn't really. He ought to have said he was ashamed of himself. Of course I speak not as Fitzmaurice but as the bash terguman of the Ingliz serai in his relations with the Sadrazam of Turkey in her critical moments. These young coruscating amateur politicians who are not genuine but come out here not to improve themselves or their country but merely to shine at home for a moment on the meretricious notoriety derived from the reflected glory of a passing acquaintance with Turkey and its Turks had better stay at home and attend to England's evils. They might at least have enough of manly self control not to do harm to England when here. I'm downright angry not with what he did but the manner of his doing it. Please forgive me, tilki, if I talk thus strongly of a friend of yours. I shan't allude to it again and shouldn't have done so now - had not the author of the "Crime" * Shwedagon Pagoda, Rangoon. Aubrey Herbert was very pro-Young Turk and thought the Embassy's support for Kiamil Pasha was mistaken. He had arrived to inspect the revolution at the same time as the Balkan Committee (which had been invited by the CUP), that is, at the end of November. This is a reference either to the CUP's arrangement for Kiamil to entertain Noel Buxton and his friends without informing him, or to Herbert's presence in company with the Buxton girls at the much anticipated opening of parliament by the Sultan on 17 December. On the latter occasion, the girls were "dressed as if they were going grouse shooting" and one of them could not contain her laughter, as he admitted in his diary on the following day. Neither the princesses nor the ambassadresses had been given tickets, and he was left in no doubt that the Embassy blamed him for what it regarded as an insult to Turkish custom and perhaps also as an attempt to embarrass Kiamil. In his defence it should be said that he recorded at the time that he was "profoundly unhappy" at the proposal that the girls be admitted and only endorsed it out of misplaced chivalry and because it was the result of an official invitation from "the Turkish to the Balkan Committee", Somerset County Archives, Diary of Aubrey Herbert, 18 and 20 Dec. 1908, DD/HER 215. 2

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spoken first to you. I send you a couple of numbers of our comic papers. The Kalem is good especially Kiamil and the donkey supplying the Parliament with fodder in the shape of bills. I hope your feet are warm. When they are cold up to above the knee come out and warm them before the Bodega fire wrapped up in my fur rug. Only let me know beforehand so that I may have time to get out 'your' antimacassar. 'Turki' is naughty at times and comes late in the morning. How is the coffee? Yrs always, G. H. Fitzmaurice al malum real mazlum [well known really humble] I have been working at the Tahsin and old Minister of War matter. It may help Izzet indirectly but many of the deputies cry for blood and are merhametsiz [merciless], Bakallum! [Let's see!] *

Club de Constantinople, Pera, Friday, Feb. 25th 1909 My dear Tilki, I owe you floods of ink but haven't had time for anything but a short scrawl of late. You see the volcanic forces which wrought such havoc at Messina have just produced a politico-seismic convulsion in our Parliament, shaking old Kiamil out of his G.V. chair. The 'children' have in fact been naughty. Poor things they have been on their good behaviour for 8 months and at last broke out. Of course to you who know it is only the denouement of Rahmi and the C.U.P.'s rage with old Kiamil over the Balcan Committee's dinner with the G.V. When they acclaimed him some weeks ago it was only because the European Press had sounded a disapproving note and induced them to kiss the hand they couldn't cut off. But the feud went on and both sides were watching their opportunity to compass the ruin of their rival - or rather the defeat of the principle represented by the opposing parties. Kiamil felt that after Parliament had met the only hope of salvation for this country lay in his being able to form a Govt, independent of the C.U.P. despotism that had replaced the Yildiz system and when he dismissed the C.U.P. nominees at the Ministry of War & Marine the Committee knew that it was a matter of life or death for them. Rahmi, Carasso & Co. at once decided on desperate counsels: spread the rumour that Kiamil was intriguing with the Sultan to overthrow the Constitution by dissolving the Mejlis [Parliament] 'sine die' etc etc. They wound things up to a high pitch of artificial excitement and resolved to adopt the methods of the French revolution - terrorize the deputies and declare their sittings permanent etc etc, insisting on the G.V. coming to Parliament the

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day of the interpellation determined to create pandemonium - shout, abuse him and drive him out of office. Kiamil was entitled by Art. 38 of the Constitution to postpone his reply and tried to do so for four days knowing that Nazim Pasha would by then have had time to dominate the military situation in which case it wd have been all up with the C.U.P. He thus put them in the position of having to violate their Constitution or capitulate. The naughty children chose the former with the result you know. For reasons indirectly connected with our recent commitments to Russia over the Bulgarian War indemnity Turquie's hands were tied - the principle for which Kiamil fought was swamped in the disorderly procedures of an Assembly frightened by the threats of God C.U.P. and the guns of the fleet trained on the bewildered legislators. The Jacobins won the day and the officials are again silent or whisper their doleful plaints again. La Terreur of the C.U.P. Right at the beginning (July last) I advised keeping the C.U.P. at arm's length as the evolution of their ideas would probably eventually work out in a way antagonistic to British notions of a properly constituted polity. Now we have the curious spectacle (reminding one of the Yildiz Camarilla) of the secret ruling despotic force in Turkey displaying anti-British sentiments (veiled) and 80 to 90% of the people detesting and dreading the C.U.P. while looking to us to rid them of King Stork. Verily, you will say, are they children and I fear they must go through more trials, perhaps bloody ones. Kiamil's plan was to shake the Govt, free of the dictation of the irresponsible C.U.P., settle foreign entanglements - try to get the finances into order with the assistance, confidence and goodwill of Europe and then retire to be succeeded by a Hilmi Pasha independent of the C.U.P. and not its slave and nominee as at present. The C.U.P. is guided by strongly Turkish nationalist and fanatical tendencies and is consequently profoundly mistrusted by the non-Turkish elements, Arabs, Albanians, Greeks, Bulgarians, Armenians etc who felt that their only chance of tolerable equality lay in the principles advocated by Kiamil. All of them personally distrust Hilmi especially the Bulgarians and despair of the Constitution under present 'auspices' giving them the relief expected. You see that trouble is brewing. The Sultan whom we saw this afternoon is very uneasy as to the future. He is the last of the 'Hunkiars' [supreme rulers] in the old sense of the terms [sic]. Will he weather the next storm? The Bal can Co [mmittee], have apparently fallen between two stools. They committed themselves to the C.U.P. and forsook the Bulgarians. Now the C.U.P. have violated their own constitution and imperilled its success. They are viewed askance by the old protégés of the Balcan Com. and by all rightminded people who desire the well being of Turkey's inhabitants while Buxton and Co. (deserted by Herbert) come out as

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the champions of poor Turkey's detested new despotism. This may iarn them' not to mix too much in the intricate mazes of Stamboul politics. Abdul Hamid (strange to relate) is clapping his hands over the 'Times' articles! In fact he and his people are (at last) united in applauding the Times' criticisms of the baneful methods of the C.U.P. Those articles have done a lot of good are quoted by the sane Turkish press and have emboldened the better elements to openly condemn the present course of the C.U.P. Verily has it been a revolution. When Kiamil flung his last reply at the Chamber he locked his black bag, smiled orientally, and cool as a cucumber left the Porte (8pm) where he had slaved during seven months of storm and stress for his country. I saw him the following morning - found him cheerful after his first good sleep since July 1908 but sad "because the deputies had violated their own constitution". As regards us, the whole incident has relieved us of the impossible task of trying to hold up the dilapidated fabric dramatically handed over by A.H., Tahsin and Izzet to an inexperienced and motley medley of races, tongues and beliefs. Izzet must be chuckling to the Channel waves. By the way Gordon Brown is I think doing very well as Times Correspondent. He is quiet, level-headed - has good judgement, is not overhasty. In many ways he is better than Graves. I hope Braham and Chirol are pleased with him. And now, Tilki Pasha, I was pleased to hear that you had been summoned to London to see the King and tell him of Turkey and Mesopotamia. I'm sure he was a match for Billy (on the latter subject) after being posted by you. I think I said when there was question of Weakley going there and O.C. wrote to me about getting the job for me, that apart from your special qualifications you would be able to make use of a first hand knowledge of those parts in bigger and higher spheres. Your visits to Bagdad etc have not been in vain and this mazlum [humble] one rejoices. I took Cassel to the exG.V. and had a long two hours pow wow with him. Thanks to you, I sobered him if the cold blooded old Jew required it. By the way French and German Finance are now working together here and this result is I think rightly attributed to French annoyance at Block's ill judged and irresponsible tactless attacks on everybody connected with French finance. Cassel was aware of this and deplored it. I fear a lot of harm has been done. It influenced the French attitude over the Bulgarian indemnity and may even have consequently led up to the Russian proposal and recent attitude. The latter here has of late been distinctly a big (?) [sic]. Kiazim (Herbert's man) has turned up and is pestering me with requests for a job in the Embassy 'which he understood from his master I should help him to get'. Of course we have no such job as our cavasses are full up.

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Weakley is still playing about in Syria. Poor Wilson Fox. 1 I was grieved to see of his premature death - evidently a victim to patriotic hard work. Commerce is sordid and kills. Poor Turkey! She can't battle with economics. By the way the Turks will now attribute any disasters that befall them to the C.U.P. escapade in chucking Kiamil and not to us. So it is the moment to liquidate all pending questions like Crete etc. even adversely to Turkey. We shan't get the odium now. They will all blame and curse the Committee. Even if Macedonia is lopped off, our position could almost stand the racket. This is important. How is the constituency and HOW IS YOUR HEALTH. I trust both are flourishing. No cold feet. Our weather has been absolutely vile for six solid weeks - snow and sleet almost continuous. The Arab deputies are in despair and are becoming rapidly separatists or reactionaries. Love to S.P.C. I suppose he is still working hard in the cause of Sion. He wrote me a nice long letter some time ago which of course I have not answered. Goodbye yrs always, G. H. Fitzmaurice P.S. By the way, if you have V2 hour free do drop in at 16 Piccadilly (Drews) and send me some socks. I know it is wrong to add to your labours but your slave is helpless and will soon bee sockless. G.H.F. *

British Embassy, Constantinople, Feb. 28th 1909 Dear Tilki Pasha, After writing my P.S. to my last letter on the subject of socks, I thought me it was cruel trespassing on your time and indulgence and wrote direct to Drew describing my wants when lo! and behold! yesterday a lot of socks and ties in exquisite taste and thereby showing the hand that chose them turned up. Many thanks. It was most kind of you to find time among the bewilderingly numerous calls of a busy civilized life. I yesterday assisted at a Bagdad Rly interpellation and debate. There were fierce denunciations of the iniquitous convention by members of the C.U.P. but the Minister of P.P.W.s threw his mantle over the Co. and C.U.P. deputies pronounced themselves quite satisfied. Nasty people say both sides were bakshished by the Germans but I don't believe it. Yakishmaz [unbecoming] sort of thing. Koweit was also lugged in and a C.U.P. member talked of the doings of that "exponent of Imperial doctrines, Lord Curzon" and 1 Arthur Wilson Fox was Comptroller-General of the Commercial, Labour, and Statistical Departments of the Board of Trade and, like Fitzmaurice, a workaholic, 'Obituary', The Times, 22 Jan. 1909. Fitzmaurice obviously saw a parallel between his fate and the one he only narrowly escaped himself on the Yemen frontier in 1902-5.

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expressed the hope that England which had every interest in retaining the goodwill of a Mohamedan country like Turkey would recognized [sic] that this integral part of the Ottoman dominions the integrity of which had been guaranteed by the Powers would soon be restored to Turkey. He who ... [?] can read. Good night - many thanks yrs always, G. H. Fitzmaurice *

British Embassy, Constantinople, March 6th 1909 DearTilki, Just a line to thank you for your last note and to say that, owing to an aberration of intellect common to muddle-headed muggins like the mazlum [humble] undersigned I have, I think, sent my two last letters to no. 2 and not no. 8 Pont Str. and I fear that as you are probably on very strained relations with your neighbours, you may not have got my worthless scrawls. It's too bad of that Yahudi to be and go and do it but he is to be congratulated! Tho' one must condole with you who left the upper storey of the Bezistan to retain the company of a friend. The undertone of your note re. the thankless task of infusing high ideals into a 'plebs' that thinks only of games and the Circassian Games, reminds me of what I said to Pat in his jealous moods of 1906 - about your having to go out into the hard and sordid life of political strife while he and I lay comfortably ensconced behind the secure ramparts of the Diplomatic and Consular citadels. It is hard, Tilki, and it's poor consolation to think that one is doing a minimum of good through a maximum of toil, but a microscopic impression produced on the masses of the British Isles has such a wide echo in this blooming'd ...ia' [diyar? place] that the result is worth striving for. But it is cruel work cutting out the "obese and unchallenged things". 1 You will be glad to hear that despite our growing chaos Willcocks is getting on well and the Min. of Public Works is pleased despite the vagaries of the quaint old "waters spirit". Mizzi in the Levant Herald has been keeping up a fierce campaign against the Committee whose organs hurl anathema back across the Golden Horn and threaten to procure his expulsion from Turkey for his impertinent interference in internal matters. Mizzi is being backed up by thousands of Turks who congratulate him and egg him on. The Committee is a bit alarmed and is putting 'water in' its wine. We all wonder whether we are preparing 1

A slightly corrupted line from Kipling's poem on the Boer War, 'The Lesson'.

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some new neat little surprise for our friends in Europe who take an interest in our quaint doings. I think I am on the tracks of a copy of those coloured prints with the Ottoman Ambassador in London frontispiece. 1 1 think you want one? Goodbye, love to the Yahudi, yrs ever, G. H. Fitzmaurice *

Private Sunday, May 30th 1909 Dear Tilki,2 I have no excuse for my silence beyond telling you that during the last six weeks I have had to give up my attempt to read even the 'Mail' (edition of the Times) and have been seedy again tho' I managed to keep on my feet. It isn't that I do much work but things are scattered and then - it is a revolution. The Bash Tilki has gone and the fraternity has disappeared. "Tis but a tent where takes his one day's rest, a Sultan to the realm of death addrest; The Sultan rises and the dark Ferrash strikes, and prepares it for another guest." 3 I feel that you have read about almost all that has happened during the last few weeks of centuries and realized the remainder. In Jan. last the C.U.P. subconsciously made up its mind to get rid of A.H. and felt it must first get rid of Kiamil Pasha whose name had been so unfortunately mentioned in the King's telegram to the ex-Sultan. Progress means fighting the Sheri - they fought it with the unnecessary harshness born of inexperience and the Sheri reacted as it will react again despite their now putting it (for form's sake) in the front of all official utterances. The next reaction may not be so violent but it will probably be more deadly in its disintegrating effects. Of course, as you know, everything is a fiction in this country if judged by western judgment and logic. Yildiz was a fiction - So is the C.U.P. and the mutiny of April 13th was in no way a reaction to the old regime - tho' it was a reaction against the C.U.P. the greatest strength of which was the universal distrust of A.H. Now that that asset of theirs is gone serious divergencies [sic] are breaking out among them. If they could only be induced to take office or rather responsibility, the sense of the latter might steady them but they shirk it so far and keep Hilmi P. and Ferid in power tho' they distrust them 1 There is an outside possibility that this was the 'Presentation of the Mahometan Credentials or - The final resource of French Atheists' (1793), one of the 'suppressed' prints of the brilliant cartoonist, James Gillray. 2 Italicized text is excluded from the printed version of this letter contained in the Lloyd papers. 3 From The Rubayyat of Omar Khayyam.

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profoundly. To the outsider recent events have appeared as a victory to Germany and it is so but not to the extent that some of us in a panicky and semi-hysterical way have imagined. It has only brought to the surface the strong German leaven in the army. Since 1870 and especially since von der Goltz Pasha spent a decade or more in the Turkish army Turkey, which since its foundation by the creation of the janissaries has always rested on its military force and prowess, has admired and tried to imitate the methods of German military superiority. Berlin looms large to their 'askers' [soldiers] larger than London which has no land forces and where women wrestle with men for the highest civil right. But despite this over 90% of the Ottoman population prefer England and detest the C.U.P. They are now silent under martial law and the terror of a vehmgericht 1 which is secret except as to its sentences. Martial (or Marschall) Law is Germany's opportunity. Mahmud Shevket is a pupil of Goltz and his subordinates are the pupils of Goltz's pupils. They all speak German and the German and Austrian military attachés who are exceptionally active and gifted men are quite at home in the Turkish War Office. There was a big function there yesterday at which I and a German officer were the only foreigners. I am a personal friend of all the prominent soldiers here and spent some hours with them after the ceremony probing their thoughts. With the exception of Mahmud Muktar Pasha (of Akaba memory and whom I saved during the mutiny when a few hundred raging Turkish Tommies wanted to tear him to pieces) they are all English in sympathy i.e. outside their profession. That is the real strength of Germany and it will last till we lick the Germans or seriously checkmate them. Therefore I think Aubrey wd be doing better work in combating suffragettes than dabbling in Balcan Committee politics. It wd never have done for us to be connected with the deposition of the Sultan & Caliph but on the quiet I have been on friendly terms with the prominent C.U.P. men. The other day we gave a big garden party (some 800 invitations). Some 600 came and among them were all the prominent Turkish officials. M.P.s, Senators, Soldiers and Sailors. They were all delighted except the German Ambassador who was green with jealousy. I had the pleasure of introducing to him some of my Committee friends. The Press (Turkish) were well represented and the "Tanin" - the C.U.P. organ - etc burst out into flowery descriptions on the following day. Friendly relations however are not sufficient to combat the effects of German efficiency, military and otherwise.

1 The vehmgerichte fearsome.

were secret criminal tribunals of medieval Germany; their reputation was

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As regards the internal position, martial law and the military dwarf the Parliament and Porte. The former is cowed a bit - zavalli [wretched] - and is no longer so self assertive. The C.U.P. party shirks responsibility in the way of taking office though - like a hen about to fly - they are thinking of becoming undersecretaries in the ministries as a stepping stone to actually becoming ministers and being steadied by a sense of responsibility. The "Times'" harping on the evils of dividing responsibility and power has had some effect. It is an anti-German line in tendency as it may mean the elimination of Ferid from the Ministry as Min. of the Interior. The German game is to have Ferid made G.V. just before Parliament is dissolved when with von der Goltz in the Army and Marschall in the Embassy they calculate that their position will be consolidated. Ferid has given large sums to the C.U.P. - sums which he probably got from the Bagdad Railway concession but they distrust and loathe him - except the Salonica Jews. Personally I shd have made Ferid G.V. after A.H.'s deposition. All the British would have squirmed and howled but it would have smashed him - now the turn of the wheel of party politics and intrigue in which he is a past master may bring him into office. I am secretly urging the C.U.P. to take office. One would be rather sold if they do so in all the ministries except the G. Vizierate and if Ferid "jujitsu"ed himself into that. I compromised him the other day by driving him in my carriage from his house and down the Grand Rue. You will be amused to hear that the present Sheikulislam is an old friend of mine and practically my nominee. This latter is not idle boasting. He is a very nice man and pro English but not over cute. Tilki deyildir Ferid Ghibi [He is not a fox like Ferid], There are rumours that the change of Sultan means a change of German Ambassador. Inshallah altho von der Goltz will replace Marschall in a way. It's an uphill fight, Tilki and that beast Block instead of helping loyally is only playing anti-Embassy games. Allah bellasini versin [May God visit calamity upon him!] In foreign politics two things have done us a lot of harm. One was the way in which the Times and English press - apparently inspired - strongly urged the Turks to swallow the Russian solution of the Bulgarian difficulty. It sent a quiver through the Young Turks and reminded them of Reval. It helped to dish Kiamil and his pro-English policy, for the Turk can't help distrusting the Muscovite - though they are both brothers in pseudo-Constitutionalism. The other was Germany's ultimatum to Russia. It came like a thunderbolt and struck the Turks as such, showing them that Germany was stronger than Russia, England and France combined - at least appeared such. The ultimatum too dished the Conference which England had apparently championed. From

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the outset I distrusted the Conference idea - mostly on account of the Cretan Question. We might have cut a sorry figure at it and its not taking place was, I think, a blessing in disguise. We can now take the line that there is no Cretan Question as indeed there may not be as long as Greece does not accept Crete's unilateral declaration of annexation. Some prominent Indian Mahommedans passed through here the other day. They were very disturbed at the Turks for overthrowing their Caliph in his (apparent) fight for the Sheri. I fancy the Egyptians feel somewhat similarly. I have loads to tell you - details about the Fairytale of the last few weeks. Everything has been strangely inverted but it will gradually be straightened - Willcox you will be glad to hear is doing well. I keep in touch with the Armenian Min. of Public Works over it. Adana is really bad. The C.U.P. are on their trial there. I hope they will be able to act straight but they are feeling that Anatolia is not like Yahudi Salonica. A. H. will probably be sent to an island. They wd like to make away with him. Kim bilir [Who knows?]. Do you ever see W. Tyrrell? I never write to him. Give him my very best selams. What fun about Miss Bell being robbed. I have worried Ferid over it. Yrs ever G. H. Fitzmaurice Niazi Bey the great hero and myself are beginning to hob nob. I introduce [d] him to the Elchi the other day and got him asked to the Garden Party. I wonder what will happen next. Izzet Pasha must be feeling a bit sore. What about an Arab Caliphate in Egypt. G.H.F. I've got a real turquoise blue carpet at last. Beats yours. The Bezistan is dead. *

Private June 26th 1909 My dear Tilki, Your letter of June 10th gave me in an intensified form the sort of feeling you had at Basra and Bagdad some years ago on receiving old régime missives from an "isimsiz" [nameless] member of a certain fraternity in old Stamboul - it was a whiff of consolation and the breeze of life to one who has been almost done to death by the poisoned arrows of the ignorant and malicious ones. But the dogs may bark and the caravans go by and the whole life of a dragoman is a cross between getting no kudos when things go right being expected to do the impossible and getting the whole blame when things appear to be going wrong. It is in the days work and does not ruffle me. I had

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heard of those funny whispers in the F.O. etc of Block, Maxwell (D.M. [?]), Lynch and others who shall be nameless. It was only the overflow of what took place here on an accentuated scale. I of course 'mazlum' like did nothing to counteract it beyond intimating to some of them e.g. Eyres (Ye Gods) that if they were convinced they ought to act and not talk - act by representing the thing at headquarters with my cheerful and ready concurrence. I even pulled their leg with a mild threat that if they did not do what seemed their duty (if what they said was true and they were convinced of it) I might do it for them. But I was merciful and the scales fell from before their eyes. You know I am not musical but I sometimes love facing music - even if it contains discordant notes. It's really ridiculous my wasting time and ink on this personal side of matters - especially as all right-minded people understand things. However, the Amb. is away for a few days and I have consequently some moments to waste. As for taking sides and not appreciating the strength of the Y. Turks, I told H. E. and urged him to telegraph it a fortnight before Kiamil Pasha fell that he (Kiamil) would certainly be knocked out soon and that within two months Abdul Hamid would be the object of violent action. He hesitated to risk such a prophecy then but when Kiamil did fall I forced him to add (in the margin of a tel.) that second part about A.H. and when things did work up to the deposition (which might have been a wholesale slaughter of him and his yavris) we just did not take sides tho' Rifat Pasha and the other ministers implored us to take certain action (which might have had such a colouring) "to save the Embassies - Capital - Empire and peace of Europe". I told them je m'en fous [I didn't care about that] and that I only knew of one thing - the existence in Turkey of a constitution which they were there to uphold. However I am digressing and divulging what even the F.O. doesn't know in detail and it must be reserved for a tête à tête yarn perhaps some years hence! As for "being a reactionary at heart - personally not knowing the Y.T. leaders and mentally working against Liberalism in Turkey because its success means the elimination of my post", I used somewhat the following language to Barclay just before the revolution in July last, "That we must support the Constitution with all our power as it meant the breathing the breath of life to oppressed nationalities (including Turks) - taking the sting out of Panislamism in India and Egypt - giving us a better chance (bar individual merits) than the Germans here and lastly (what a self-seeking person might call suicidal) it meant the abolition of the anomaly of the dragomanate - a eunuchy sort of post - where some unfortunate person supposed to be "tashakli" [bold] has the ungracious and ungrateful role of being the plaything between two diametrically opposed mentalities and gets all the kicks and few of the ha'pence-has a dog's life winter and summer and in all weathers etc

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etc etc as you know. N o man can really judge himself and I may be working unconsciously against Liberalism in Turkey but I ' m damned if I am aware of so doing while I imagine myself to be conscious of doing the direct opposite, provided the process does not mean the massacre of too many Armenians. Not only that but I ' m succeeding. The strength of the dragomanate like that of the Young Turks was the Yildiz system and its mystery. That's gone, thank God, and I think I not only know more Y . Turks than any of my foreign colleagues but have gone out of my way to bring them (quietly) into direct contact with my Amb. I am forcing him to waive etiquette and similarly get into contact with officialdom so as to eliminate the necessity of dragomans and what's more I ' m succeeding, having considerably reduced my former role. I have suggested to Lowther my going to the provinces and have a hope that before I go to England the chances of this consummation may be realizable. Of course I am old regime in training - am distinctly and vividly conscious of the same and have the good sense to want to get to some such consulate as Erzeroum where I spent happy days some 16 yrs ago fishing trout among the Kurds and their highlands. Even then I used to say I shd like to spend my last days there and it may come off yet. Why, dash it, I am not only old régime but am even medieval in my instincts - constantly harking back to primitive Norman castles with roast ox - bumpers of sac and border forays. None of your confounded modern civilization for me. It saps virility and makes mannikins out of men. I am also not entirely impractical as far as British interests are concerned and am working hard at present with the Porte - Min. of Public Wks and Deputies, to get Willcox money to go on with the Hindiyé barrage and to get Pearsons linked up with irrigation works there. It wd also fill pages to tell you how I have been working to get Lynch (you see I ' m impersonal as regards him) exclusive navigation rights from Fao to Mosul and Mezkena (Aleppo). I ' d have done it a week ago if it were not for the exigencies of Parliamentary ways and the Constitution. However, inshallah (d—m, there I am again using an old régime expression - but it soothes the nerves of those who love the Sheri !) it will come off if one has to try and get the Ministry to send the Deputies to their memlekets [constituencies] and do it without them. I gave Ferid a basket of gooseberries the other day in the hope that he wd not oppose it. Politics here are interesting now - the C.U.P. has got a nasty knock from Hilmi - Ferid. Query, will they take it lying down? They are even now thinking of getting Kiamil back to spite Hilmi and Ferid (both of whom are mining and countermining against one another). Aint the 'children' just quaint folk? The present Govt, is like a feat of table turning between Ahmed Riza (representing the Chamber), Mahmoud Shevket (representing the Army)

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and Hilmi (representing the Govt.). All three have their hands on the threelegged table while Ferid is underneath trying monkey tricks of a nature to defeat the magic. The general atmosphere is pro-English - and less proGerman just now despite our attitude in Crete about which there is a great telash and 'dehshetli gurultu' [concern and terrible racket] to distract attention from the sink of internal discontent, fierce rivalries etc etc. It's playing with fire and as one said 8-9 months ago, Crete wd be Germany and Austria's trump card against us. You may think we are playing into their hands by not doing as you suggest - "Getting the gratitude of Turkey and putting the humanitarian brigade in sympathy with the Xtian Cretans" - but the decrees of fate must be worked out - if tho' it may mean the risk of war with Greece the deposition of George by Fetwa like A.H. and trouble in Crete with an echo of massacre in Asia Minor. The responsibility is great but one can't shrink from it. The troops must go and be replaced by ships as decided over a year ago, tho' all may squirm and squeal in the process. It will work out allright in the end - Perhaps? I feel you are doing a great work at home - Tilki Pasha - Khaki replacing flanneled foolism on Sat. afternoons is the best news I've heard for 20 summers and makes me 20 years younger. Query, shall we or the Germans get home first? Slavism of course must be woken more quickly against the Teuton. It has been my dream for 18 years or more. Damn the Japanese alliance and the fall of Muckden! Is Cassel going in now or going to wait to see if we shall have another upheaval here? There are many mutterings of an approaching storm but it mayblow over. However if I start unravelling for you are [our] present internal politics the prayer wheel would drone on till night and I have to write out today something about a scheme for Arab levies in the Aden Hinterland which a friend (the Adjutant CI. at Simla) has asked me for. I wished to Allah I was a free agent to work against Germany here. I would deal her a deadly blow tho' it would exhaust me in the process. But you must not expect as much of me as of yore. I have told you how a dragoman is now being shorn of his attributes. Marling and Hohler do the Min. for F.A. now. The latter hates the sight of a dragoman. I only see the G.V. once a week. How it is all changing the unchanging East - and yet it is the same - only 'they' don't know it this land of paradoxes. I got Hilmi to make the Ex-Vali of Bagdad (who is an old friend of mine) Min. of Justice. I have told you of my share in the appointment of the present Sheik ul islam. I want to see the present Min. of Justice occupy that post one day. He wears a nice white turban over a jet black beard - is a gentleman and very clever. He is very keen on Ramsay, Willcox and all that you and I (poor 'one') want down there. I gave him

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recommendation to Ramsay when he went to Bagdad and have done the same with the new Vali (a General) whom I introduced to Lowther too. Percy Loraine is here or rather gone off for 10 days with the Ambassador. It's pleasant with Marling, and Pat wishes you were here to finally dissolve tilkidom. It must be dissolved soon and the name buried under the ruins of Abdul Hamid's régime. There is a deputation of some dozen deputies going to England. They are all personal friends of mine. Among them is Tala't Bey, Vice President of the Chamber and former internal secretary in Turkey of the Union and Progress. He is from Adrianople district and used formerly to be a telegraph clerk. He is a very nice fellow and I am thinking of giving him a note to you and also perhaps to a Bagdad deputy Ismail Hakki Bey Babanzadé son of the present Vali of Adana (a scoundrel). He is of Kurdish origin and wrote and writes for the C.U.P. organ the 'Tanin'. He aspires to be Under Secretary for F.A. i.e. Ismail Hakki. They may not go and if they do won't worry you but I shd like them to see "The Bodega" if only for an hour. Give my greetings to W. Tyrrell. I always consider him as one of those who really understand. I may write to him. Must shut up now - but let me add 'Damn Block'. He has done harm and may do more. He is too wrapped up in his impulsive and unscrupulous self. My pen is practically 'broke' like my spirit! Au revoir, yrs ever, G. H. Fitzmaurice (Another of the deputies going is Obeidullah Bey - very good man - an old friend of mine and of Kiamil!) Sassoon M.P. for Bagdad is a Jew and very 'slim' Tcunningl. Excuse paper and pen. They are both old régime tho' not reactionary. La Turquie misbehaves at times. June 4th was 3rd anniversary of ride to Justinian's acqueduct. *

British Embassy, Constantinople, June 29th 1909 Dear Tilki, How naughty and what profanation! The Holy of Holies dragged into British parish pump! If the 'Children' knew it they would flock to London and have a Sheri mutiny in front of Westminster and Buckingham Serai. But for the good name of England in the Belad-Islam [the Islamic world] I shall keep the secret and Inghilterra shall not become Dar al Harb [the non-Islamic world] and you shall not be court martialled and hanged on the Tower bridge with a nice white apron and a bilingual label telling the orbs et urbs [everyone] 1 of your heinous offence. 1

Urbs et orbis: city and world.

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Miss Bell writes to say she will be here on July 15th. I wonder shall we talk on old régime lines. For the children of Sham who have robbed her have not yet changed à la Salonique. You see the Cretan Question has taken shape. I have been working hard but discretely [discreetly] among our deputies especially some firebrands of Cretan origin. They said the Cretan Moslems wd be massacred and that the moment the troops left they wd emigrate - some 30,000 of them. I told them it was evident the Cretans did not understand 'Ottoman fraternity' and that if they left they would never get back as I would have 30,000 Irishmen sent in their place. I got Rahmi Bey and one or two other C.U.P.s to banter them somewhat and generally the atmosphere is not so fierce as a week ago but they are inflamed against the Greeks generally. It's playing with fire and there is a lot of fire damp,1 or whatever your miners call it, about. There is still a labyrinth in the Cretan question but inshallah it will come right and I can sing my 'Nunc dimittis' and return to Erzeroum. You have noticed the appointment of Javid Bey as Minister of Finance. It is most 2 important. I am very glad. He was the first deputy I met. Is very clever and does not like Germans. He is a crypto-Jew - I am getting most keen on Sionism which is the great feature of our new life. A. H. was an antiSionist. You understand? The acceptance by Javid Bey of a responsibility is the triumph of the principle for which we and Kiamil and The Times have contended during the last few months. Responsibility and power divorced was the old régime principle of Govt, and is pernicious. If the military can also be brought under the orders of Govt, we shall begin to find stability. Did I tell you in my last that the junior officers wanted Kiamil back. Malicious rumour said this was the result of the influence the British Embassy exercises over them, Chok yalan! [Great lie!] Utanmazlar ! [Shameless people!] Why shd we want Kiamil back? It would never do. Ferid may get the post [?] soon Beware of gooseberries. Yrs ever in Tilkidom, G. H. Fitzmaurice Ottoman deputies arrive London July 17th. I attended a meeting the other day at which the momentous question [arose] of whether they shd put up at the Cecil or the Charing X Hotel. I told them to go the Charing. Crescent was long and gravely discussed. Zavalli [Poor] children! but naughty they are! Is the Yahudi married? Where does he live? Supposed [sic] he has honeymooned at Jerusalem. 1 2

A flammable gas found in coal mines. Underlined three times in original.

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British Embassy, Constantinople, July 28th 1909, Wednesday My dear "Tilki", I have during the last ten days been working up to sparing an hour to talk to you and was to have done so today but preferred to run off to town this my day off to see Mahmoud Shevket Pasha about an order for 2,200,000 yards of Khaki over which there is a most fierce contest with the Germans. The latter have mobilized every inch of pressure and organization, with Billy in the background. Surtees is no match for von der Goltz so I had to throw my light weight into the scale and have a gleam of hope that our people may wrest the prize from our Teuton friends who are obsessed with the idea that the Ottoman W [ar], O [fficej. is a German monopoly. The result of my trip to Stamboul is that you shall only get a short note instead of a lengthy epistle. But zarar yok, Allah belassini Allemanlara verir ve sen ve bendeniz bairam yapariz [no harm's done, God will punish the Germans and you and I will celebrate]. I got your note last night about Fadl Arif's dream of Marble Halls. Well done, Tilki. You have been doing wonders and snatching them from the clutches of the B [alkan].C [ommittee]. while I fancy that in organizing the provincial trip you have made a patriotic financial sacrifice greater than over the Mosul hospital. Your kind treatment of the children's representatives is producing an excellent effect here, though we might have thought of the yaourt! Things are going very well here the children being very pro-English. One does not want to give it too much of a filip as the poor untutored things wd at once expect Inghilterra to give them yirghmi [twenty] (20) million lira and then be naughty if we don't and say they will go to Germany. Our friendship with them is on a much saner basis than this time last year. But why, Tilki, are you still perturbed about the Anglo-Persian Agreement. Everyone loves and magnifies the importance of his own dunghill and I imagine perhaps that that of Byzance is more important than any other but I can conceive statesmen at home who have a wider range of vision being convinced that Russia in trade and politically is more important to us than Turkey and Persia together, that I have lost my true sense of proportion and perspective and that it is imperative that the Russia of today and four years hence shd lean to London rather than Berlin, what though she may sap and undermine a bit in the Near and Middle East. They haven't yet gone beyond Kazvin 1 nor yet raised the question of the Straits. Charikoff has come here brimming with sympathy for Young Turkey and professing readiness to be nice to them, albeit that this may be but to cloak some fell design. Twenty years ago when Russia was very strong here we willingly brought in Germany 1 86 miles from Teheran.

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as a counterpoise. Now that Russia is weak and a lesser danger we are nice to her to keep Germany where she has got to. All very natural - especially since Mukden. By the way, 2,200,000 yds of Khaki is a war order and the children are itching to show their prowess abroad after their revolution - Napoleon-like. On the slightest pretext they would summon Athens to disavow annexation and in the absence of an immediate acquiescence, march suddenly and be in Athens in 13 days i.e. before the 4 powers have time to do more than admire Turkey's success. They are very cockahoop after their victory at Tehran. Some wd like to do the same with the Khedive. Did the papers report that Abdul Hamid tho' they told him it was not necessary insisted as "un fils de la patrie" in illuminating the Villa Allatini 1 and "taking part in the Constitutional rejoicings of all classes of Ottomans without distinction of creed, race etc." The Vali reported that his illuminations were on a larger scale than any other in Salonica tho' it is not clear whether his device was "Padishah Chok Yasha" [Long live the Sultan] or "Yashasin Yahudilar" [Long live the Jews] and all this out of the miserable monthly pittance allowed him. He is very happy though he has no 'bokhara' or other rugs to lie on. I suggested that Mahmoud Shevket should summon Russia to send ex-Shah Mahomed Ali to join him. You ought to slip out here if you have nothing better to do, as you hinted in one of your letters. I am staying in the Embassy with the Lowthers and am very happy. By the way, it was simply monstrous not giving Lowther the G.C.B. or G.C.M.G. especially as the latter was given to Ghazi Ahmed Muktar. It's positively "aib" [disgraceful] to have an English Elchi who is only K.C.M.G. and C.B., like Block, Woods, Pears, and Whittal [1] and God knows he has had a difficult year. If they only decorate and approve people like Pears - by GOD 2 they shall see it here in a loss of British prestige. If you come here, you will enjoy it though things have much changed and are very quiet. Few people up Bosphorus - para yok [no money] and much uncertainty as things are not yet stable. God Bless you for your kindness to the Children, yrs ever, G. H. Fitzmaurice *

1 The grand house in Salonica to which Abdul Hamid had been exiled. Underlined eight times in the original.

2

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Private British Embassy, Constantinople, 4 Aug. 1909 Dear "Tilki", The 'Delegates' are beginning to return - very pleased with all except our climate. They did not seem to quite stomach the amount of 'advice' they got. One of their prominent ones said in a Turkish paper that "one of every two words they heard in England was a word of advice". Zavalli chojuklar! [Poor children!] The other day when I wrote to you I forgot to mention to you a fear of mine that that suffragette ass with a suffragette wife Col. Massy is a tuft and kudos-hunter and may have tried to make himself prominent and sneak a decoration by fussing about the Deputies. I trust sincerely he won't get one I mean a British one. The Cretan imbroglio is full on us and as usual is labyrinthine. The Turks seem to be in a Navarino frame of mind and talk of sending their squadron near or to Suda. The 'children' seem determined to have their way Berlin being a tertius gaudens. They and Austrians are welcome to it as fate must, run its course. The children are alarmingly pro-English despite it all but there may be rude shocks ahead. However it is no more than one has anticipated since the declaration of Annexation close on a year ago, when one said that 9 months thence I shd not mind being German Ambassador here and do a gloat over England and her struggles anent Crete. In fact one has felt all along that until the Cretan difficulty was dealt with it would be perhaps a mistake to be too gushing to Young Turkey. I don't think H.M.G. here is likely to lose its head or fuss as in the days of N.R.OC, no matter what the fates may have in store for us. There are many indications that, unless foreign questions affect the internal situation, the children may feel drawn to have a nice little bust up before another 3 months are over, i.e. shortly after Ramazan. yrs ever, G. H. Fitzmaurice Love to Percy fr [om], whom I heard yesterday of your kindness to him in his illness. *

British Embassy, Constantinople [n.d. but ca. 8 August] My dear "Tilki", In my last note I said something about that fellow Col. Massy having some private axe to grind a propos of the reception of the Ottoman deputies. The other night at dinner Tala't Bey let drop some remarks about Turkey

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employing the services of Massy in a way to leave it to be supposed that the latter had sought something of the kind. I was not quite enthusiastic on the point. The Turkish deputies were very much impressed with the fact that the English allowed women to assist at Debates in the House only behind a grating (Kafes). I pointed out to them that it was the true Islam 'haremlik' system. Lady Lowther said the other day "I wonder if I shall ever see that Mr Lloyd about whom I have heard so much". I too wonder if you will be able to come out here one of these days. Ferid Pasha after resigning went to Carlsbad - wise man! The C.U.P. organ is now engaged in pouring vitriol on the devoted head of Gabriel Eff. Min. of P. Works who was so keen on Willcocks and his schemes. They want to out him and put their own man in after which we shall have an all but completely C.U.P. ministry - the which is a victory for us as we have since the fall of Kiamil advocated their coming out into the open and taking responsibility. The Cretan imbroglio is producing a ripple on the waters but for the moment I think we have damped the children's warlike ardour tho' of course their taking extreme measures depends on the necessities of the internal situation. The drastic retrenchment schemes in the ministries and the lowering of the grades of officers who were promoted under Abdul Hamid are being carried out and naturally generate a huge body of discontent, to which a cheap war wd act as a lightning conductor. The C.U.P. brook no opposition in press, Parliament or private speech with the result that Constitutionalism is a blatant farce. The last year's experiment has been interesting. It has proved that the poor children are far from fit for the large dose of liberty etc etc that they were supposed to swallow in July 1908. They have been making history, which is always enthralling. The mektubji has been swept away - also Ghalib Pasha. I shall soon be one of the few vestiges of the old regime and they say I must go too. I shan't be sorry. Yrs ever, [sic] *

Private

British Embassy, Constantinople, Aug. 11th, 1909 Dear Tilki, Thanks for your letter of the other day from Warwick. The Germans did not get the cloth. Neither did my British protégés but it is being all or nearly

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all ordered in England. The Turks won't get as good stuff as my people Wormald & Walker of Dewsbury wd have supplied them with but then I can't change their nature. W. & W. supplied the Japs during the war as I told Mahmoud Shevket. I have only met one or two of the children who travelled to London. Tomorrow I shall see Tala't and another lot. They are all delighted. The children generally are very 'telash'ed [anxious] about Crete and Greece. They just want a war to distract public attention from hangings and exilings of the Court Martials which are to go on by recent decision to March 1911 (the enclosed cutting from our friend Turquie may amuse you.) and also to assert their national sovereignty etc, etc. They may do something bold despite our good advice. History must work itself out despite the Balcan Co. By the way - anent the funny things said of me at home [-] have you heard a yarn (Brailsford and B.C.) that poor Tilki here being a Catholic is a reactionary as he is thereby opposed to the Jewish and Freemasonry forces working for the regeneration of Turkey. Wallah - aib! Inglizlara yakishmaz beyle bir intriga [Really - disgraceful! Such intrigue is not consistent with the English character]. Unfortunately the bulk of Mahomedans - Orthodox Greeks, Armenians etc etc are opposed to the exploitation of Turkey by Jewish Freemasons of the Continental ilk who are on the Zionist tack to the detriment of other Ottomans. They want to introduce hundreds of thousands of Russian and other Jewish colonists and some were to go to Adana to occupy the lands of massacred Armenians. Naturally, Armenians etc object to this sort of "procédés". I have been working hardish at the Adana business partly from humanitarian motives and partly because the bulk of British trade with Turkey is done through Armenians and it is essential to keep them on our side against the Germans whose Emperor came here at the time of the massacres and embraced Abdul. Interruptions galore. Aug. 12th met today Tala't and Fadl Arif who is eternally grateful to somebody called "George Lewid" who was very nice to him in England - Lowther was delighted to get your regards. Pat says he is writing telling you of Yildiz. I wonder is he mentioning that the cavass of a foreign embassy refused to accompany his Amb. into the private apartments of A.H. saying that it was 'aib' [a disgrace] to show them including the exCaliph's bathroom etc to the mongrel vulgar mob. Two days ago the Petit Champ and Grande Rue pavements were found to have been covered during the night with inscriptions in red simply recording the fact that "Allah is "buyuk" [great]. This writing on the walls is interpreted as meaning that Allah is greater than Ahmei Riza and Mahmud Shevket. Verily are the minds of the children troubled. Goodbye no time for more yrs always G. H. F.

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BODEGA, Therapia, Oct. 8th 1909 My dearTilki, What a strange coincidence! I have been striving hard (chok 1 chalishmak) to get some time to write to you any time this last fortnight but the days are short and I have to catch a boat before 9 a.m. and have been working hard at Lynch's concession. Tonight Lowther was going to town with the Italian Amb. and I was preparing - having the whole Embassy to myself - to write this note when Serkiz brought me up yours of Sunday last from Stafford where you are working hard (chok chalishmak) working at the 'broken road' of Empire which must go on. For its heart is in such places as Stafford no matter what we flies may strive to accomplish on the Bosphorus. You remember you left Pat in one of his 'hals' [moods]. It was a very bad one and lasted several days during which - poor boy! - he was very snappy at me. It wore off however - yielded to kindness and he has been very nice and apparently happy of late. He goes home on leave in a few days and doubtless you will meet. You allude to the pleasure of your stay here. You will be still more pleased to hear how childishly delighted I was to have you come out and so to speak inspect our position and doings here and give us an approval as regards the British position. It bucked me up immensely for from what I told you you gleaned that one had a little shadow of doubt lurking in the folds of one's conscience as to whether baddish mistakes had not been made. I was much cheered by your verdict. You would have rejoiced with an exceeding great joy if you had heard Weitz tell Pat and myself how Marshall, led astray by the military attaché, had at the moment of A.H.'s deposition put all his eggs in the military Committee, i.e. the wrong basket - how Mohamed Muktar Pasha, Ferid and other Pro-Germans had been eliminated - how the officers who are Pro-German have to lie low now and how the Empire is run by a ProEnglish triumvirate composed of Talat, Javid and Hussein Jahid, and Weitz was speaking the truth. The Germans are feeling bitter just now tho' their day may come again in this kaleidoscopic country. Weitz says the Bagdad Ry question is settled in principle and that if I ever go to Bagdad by rail I shall find a British station master at Mosul. I pray Allah it may be so. One won't have worked in vain under O'C to keep the old boat from drifting down stream on the Bosphorus when A.H. was watching through his telescope in the Jihannuma Kiosk. The Lowthers both said they were sorry that their trip to Marmora island and onw [ar]d to Broussa (Haji Osman) had prevented them seeing more of you. He told me that he had received a nice letter from you. Have you seen 1 Underlined twice.

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Willie Tyrrell and forgotten the G.C.B.? I took Lowther to "iftar" [breaking of the fast] the other night with my old friend the Sheik ul islam. It is the first time in the history of the Sheik ul Islamate that a British or foreign Amb. has dined with a Sh ul Islam during Ramazan. He is about 73 and talked to Lowther about the Great Elchi, Canning, and said he rejoiced that in his old age he had seen the day when England and Turkey had come together again. I felt like a child at the old man's feet and felt a thrill which was reflected in my voice and stirred him further. I had wished you were there. The visit produced an excellent undercurrent in Turkish circles. Ghalib Pasha called on you a couple of days after you had left. You'll be glad to hear he has been reinstated in his functions. He is the only relic left of the old régime and feels lonely at times - zavalli! [poor man] So do I, Tilki - for my work was only beginning when the change came and with tottering Capitulations and the studied elimination of dragomans, I feel a vacuum in front of me and my sphere of usefulness narrowed - but I'm just going steadily on doing my duty till the ship sinks consoled by the consciousness of having done my best in the past - no matter how small the results may have been. Personally I don't care a 'scrap' but it would be hard to have to cease to work on the lines one had traced. In 1906 when my spirit flagged you revived it and gave it a fresh impetus and I shd not like to be reduced to the position of a spectator while there is still some life left. I feel somehow it will not be so - certainly not if I can help it. I have to thank you for giving Miss Brooke Hunt that letter. I called on her and spoke as if I had known her through several stages of metamorphosis. She too has the right spirit and in a practical form. It is given unto her to do much good in the cause we have at heart. Those are the women that England wants and not your hysterical would-be usurpers of the rights of men. Khaki filling a whole aisle is one of the cures the nation wants. It means the highest form of spirit - the cheerful desire to die in the highest of causes - a spirit that is an antidote to socialism, suffragetism, etc etc - a spirit that will survive when the present socialist wave has spent its force. I often think, Tilki, that we ought to form a C.U.P. or Young England party - pace Disraeli. In fact you and the other young fellows who are working on the same lines are that party. One used to talk in the Bodega in 1906 of cutting out the obese overgrowth of a century of peace and prosperity. Tariff Reform and Khakiism may do a lot that way and I'm sure you will help to make the former ring out like a bell sound in the coming elections. I hope I'm not talking rot. I'm the obverse of those who know nothing of England who only England know - having lived so long and far away and being inclined consequently to ignore the enormous mass of socialistic-unpatriotic-parish

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pump anti-Imperial class sentiment that surges through our isles. But I try to give my 14th century instincts a practical turn and you who have toiled in the flystuck bazaars of Mesopotamia will be glad to hear that Lynch is on the point of getting a practically 75 years monopoly of the navigation of the Tigris to Mosul and the Euphrates to Mezkenah. Chesney tried for it in 1832. It is coming in 1909 while the guns used on his bootless expedition are still sleeping in the garden of our Consulate at Aleppo. The Germans are sick as it dashes to pieces many of William's dreams. Willcox arrived here to day from Bagdad. He is most enthusiastic. Pearson's engineer is here and we must see that Sir W.W.'s enthusiasm takes practical shape on British lines. Your visit to the Hindiye will not have been in vain - nor the fleabites - nor donkey ride nor the vision you had that night on the B.I. when the Gulf's moon shimmered on the waters under the black mass of C. Masandam sheltering Elphinstone's inlet opposite the island of Kish... [?] where Portuguese and Sepoys broiled of yore in the service of the lesser and greater Sirkar. Things here are going well but there are a few small clouds in the sky. The Y. Turks are fighting Patria volet privileges and running up against the Bulgarians. If the latter question becomes serious I wonder how Buxton will feel - somewhat mixed I fancy. At the Sheik-ul-islam's I met a young officers [sic] from Erzeroum who is Abdul Hamid's guardian at Salonica. I spoke to him of places and people in Erzeroum and his heart expanded and he told me of A.H. who he says is quite happy bar a fear of a sudden calamity. He is leading the life of a philosopher - smokes a lot and eats quantities of yaourt. Mahmoud Essad Effendi Minister of the 'Cadastre' [Land Register] and a turbaned friend of mine is visiting England and I have sent him a letter to you. He is now in Rome hobnobbing with the Pope. I shd like to have a good print of their interview. Howell is in England. Cavalry Club will find him. Do you know Coalfax who was recently here? Thanks for the cheque. It was £Ts not stg. I shall spend the difference on a good cause. Hope you have not such a bad opinion of Australia which is now in the van with universal [military] service. Goodbye Yavri Pasha. Good luck in your Stafford struggle. Don't forget you coxed Cambridge to victory. Forgive your slave, G. H. Fitzmaurice If you meet Aubrey you can tell him I spoke more in sorrow than in anger about him. G.H.F.

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I dine alone with Lowther at times (his wife being in Vienna), talk to him of T.R., Khaki and anti-suffragette. He is not easily fired but smiles not unsympathetically. *

British Embassy, Constantinople, Dec. 17th 1909 My dear Tilki', I hardly dare to approach you even with a short note as I know you have no time to waste on reading it. The moment we used to talk of at night in the town bodega in 1906 has come. The die is cast and the struggle means are we going to cut out those obese things that have been overlying us for decades and save the Empire from decay - throw off creeping senility born of success and luxury - rejuvenate it and defeat the lessons of history mentioned by Lord Salisbury in a pessimistic mood when he alluded to the decay and downfall of Venice and other empires dependent on sea power alone. I trust we are going to show the world that we are not going to "take it lying down", as Joe used to say. I am watching the struggle with intense interest and interesting my Turkish friends in it. Its results will affect the world currents for long - perhaps for generations and perhaps for ever. The muffled drums of the German Press show what they feel its issue portends. Drat them! I hope it won't be to their liking. The world seems to be holding its breath. If you have a moment to spare, would you send me a short line to give me your forecast of the General Election. I know that the eddies and cross currents are so numerous that prophecy is risky and all but impossible. But just give me a 'tilki guess'. You used to cox Eton and Cambridge to victory. Balfour's written statement is good - clear, concise, pithy and telling. Would that he had more enthusiasm and personality. Pat is going - being wafted to far Cathay, where I trust he will be a missionary of tilkidom - and spread the one true faith of Empire. It's the last break with 1906, and I feel it as much as an impersonal "isimsiz" [nameless one] can. Bleriot came to grief in Consple. It is not easy to succeed here. The natives were delighted at the failure of his sinful attempt to compete with Allah - it was too new régime for them. The Lynch question nearly upset Govt. It has not got through yet but it wd not have suited to have a Y. Turkey Cabinet with Tala't and Javid upset over an 'English' question. I only allowed it to go far enough to give the Germans a smack and they got it badly. Inshallah it will be all right but I fear me muchly - Bakallum [Let's see]. How hopeless it must seem to you and so old régime its disappointing delays.

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Ferid is in the Senate and is trying to bring on a conflict with the lower House - quite a l'Anglaise! I hope you are fit and that you will win. Joe says "I think they will win". A Merry Xmas to you and the blessings of Yuletide from yrs ever, G. H. Fitzmaurice Vote for the Irishman (Lansdowne) and not for the Welshman (Lloyd George), ha!! but ... [?] is unkind and I've ... [?] the gibe. Gallant little Wales! I'm for George Lloyd and not for Lloyd George. "What's in a name"? The fate of an Empire.

1910 In the British general election of January 1910 the Liberal government survived but George Lloyd defeated the sitting Liberal in West Staffordshire, albeit by the relatively small majority of 565 votes} A month later, on 24 February, he made a successful maiden speech in the House of Commons, inevitably enough on the subject of tariff reform,2 King Edward VII died on 9 May and, with national mourning interrupting normal business, shortly afterwards Lloyd took the opportunity to re-visit the troubled Balkan peninsula. In September he left on another foreign trip, this time to Canada, where he made a 'rapid political tour' before returning to England in the middle of October.3 In the general election called by the Liberal government in December to give it a mandate to limit the power of the House of Lords over money bills, George Lloyd retained his seat in parliament with his majority reduced only slightly, to 479. At Christmas he took a holiday in Paris and Switzerland with Percy Loraine. Meanwhile, Fitzmaurice, now on a somewhat tighter leash but still irrepressible, concluded in late spring the major investigation he had started the previous summer into the influence of Jews and Freemasons in the CUP. With Turkey now in the iron grip of Mahmud Shevket Pasha, the year 1910 was one of relative calm for Fitzmaurice, though he was increasingly concerned at the implications of Germany's growing influence in the country. *

British Embassy, Constantinople, Feb. 26th 1910 My dear Lloyd, I haven't had time for days and days to write a consecutive note. I wanted to send you a thought reading one to reach on the day you took the oath as Member of the mother of Parliaments founded as the origin of the word indicates by Norman Barons (not by Celts or Saxons) "in the days of old, when warriors were bold". You must have felt awed as a neophyte when Not 540, as Adam says in his Life of Lord Lloyd, p. 50. The polling in this constituency took place on 25 January and Lloyd polled 5,892 votes against the 5,327 of his Liberal rival, as recorded in The Times, 27 Jan. 1910 and also in Craig, British Parliamentary Election Resuits, 1885-1918. 2

Pari. Debs., 5th Ser. (Commons), vol. 14, 24 Feb. 1910, col. 429ff. Fitzmaurice would have been able to read this in The Times, 27 Jan. 1910. a Adam, Life of Lord Lloyd, p. 51.

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you entered the Chamber instilled with the centuries old direction of the affairs of an Empire which looms so large on four if not five continents - where Burke thundered and Hastings was tried etc etc etc and where the fate of that same Empire has to be decided during the coming decade and probably very soon - for I fancy the next two generations of British history must take its direction from the next Parliament and almost certainly from the second next quorum magna pars fueris [in which I played a great part] Poor St. Stephen! Who would have thought that the surging wave of socialism should have entered thy portals. Oh shades of Pitt! For if socialism wins before accounts are settled with Germany, we may roll up the map of India, S. Africa, Australia etc. One can take comfort from the Socialist riots in Frankfurt and Berlin but it is the comfort of weakness. I read your letter from Switzerland as I drove off to Parliament in the old Serasker's house where you and Surtees and I had "iftar" and saw those photos of the old Queen and the scrawl of the Ex-Sultan on the Irades. Your letter made me smile - especially your simple faith in the O'Brien cum Healy section of [Irish] Nationalists.1 But I was grieved to read a letter the same day in the Times on the same topic winding up with an appeal to the old Protestant prejudice - and a couple of articles in the Standard with the good old cry of Protestant Ulster not been [sic] delivered over to the tender mercies of 'Rome Rule'. Methought I was reading about Turks and Christians in this Ottoman United Kingdom! Alas! Quos Jupiter vult perdere So Asquith and co. want to manoeuvre the Lords into [getting] the odium of throwing the finances of the country into turmoil by rejecting the Veto Bill, but won't it recoil on them if properly used? India is more than disquieting and I see the new Press Law is considered ineffective and the Police are "shashmish" [puzzled] as to the nature of the anarchist organization. That reminds me of a "conversation" - not argument I had with you on the subject at lunch at Therapia in 1906, when you made light of my fears of coming trouble and advanced the perfection of our police organization. The anarchists are working on the mafia lines of our Young Turk Committee - like the Egyptians who have avenged Denshawi by assassinating Boutros Ghali. And what of South Africa where Merriman will have none of your fusion. I don't like his attitude for it seems to me to voice the soul of the Vaal speaking Boer - the Bond-Orangie line and the Transvaal burgher and squatter.

1 The All-for-Ireland League (1909-18), formed by nationalists disaffected with the Irish Parliamentary Party. It favoured a non-sectarian approach to the pursuit of Irish home rule involving major concessions to Ulster in order to avoid partition.

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And to turn to Turkey where there is an internal and external détente. The C.U.P. were foiled in their attempt to make trouble by the action of the four Powers in lulling the Cretan storm and by the Bulgars closing the temple of Janus - to mix the metaphor - while Hakki Pasha has beamed - called on Kiamil Pasha and given hope to the malcontents who were turned out of office. Politics have thus centred in Parliament and the latter is a quagmire where the C.U.P. Party shows fissiparous tendencies and the seceders are forming a new party. Tomorrow they are holding a special meeting - a rollcall - to ascertain the real extent of disaffection and the bolder spirits are thinking of dissolving the Chamber in the hope of its successor having more reliable adherents. Talaa't has been busy appointing C.U.P. men as valis, mutessarifs and caimacams who can manipulate the elections but he isn't ready yet. The 'Tanin' (C.U.P. organ) has not denounced the Laird outrage and speaks of it in connection with Indian unrest so I can't wish for the strengthening of the Committee just yet. Perhaps they ought first to be chastened by further trouble with the Bulgars. Ahmed Riza in a public letter says the Moslems of India have the same right to want to be annexed to Turkey as the Cretans to Greece. I didn't know that Indian Mohamedans spoke Turkish and are of Turkish stock. A Luxembourgeois renegade who is in touch with Young Turks said the other day that socialists are preparing for a big European upheaval and that 'missionaries' are at work in England. He added that Russia was disappointing as it was hard to move the heavy masses of mujiks there. The 20 Cent, is big with fate. Chok chalishmaliyiz! [We've got to work hard!] I got Mahmoud Shevket, the Min. of War, to give an order for 1200 military saddles from Coope [r] Allen and Co. of Cawnpore - better than its going to Germany. You have doubtless seen an appeal by Lowther in the Times of Feb. 15 for subscriptions to build an English school. Abdul Hamid gave the ground and we want about £10,000 to build and equip it. Waugh wrote the appeal and I did not see it before it went in or I should have had its wording altered. We have contributed our notes in £50 and £100 and I wonder if you could influence some one or ones blessed with a superabundance of this world's goods to contribute handsomely - Some old lady that is [sic] wants to put a few thousands into a convalescent home for cats or something of the kind. An American named Kennedy has just given £300,000 to Robert College. You know the twofold object of our school is to give Turks an English characterforming education and to train young Englishmen out here in Turkish etc so that English firms doing business in Turkey may have a supply of competent Turkish speaking Englishmen to represent them instead of being at the mercy

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of dishonest tricky native Jews and Greeks who love fraudulent bankrupting and other such Levantine dodges. I wonder whether Neil Primrose would try to get something out of Rosebery. You know the school is a memorial to O'Conor. Lord Newton might like to help. I am writing to Lady O'C and her brother to try and interest the Duke of Norfolk and the Bates. - 1 hope you are studying the rules of the House so as not to fall foul of Elchi Bey's brother. Lowther has not yet got the G.C.M.G. I'm very fit and going strong generally. yrs ever G. H. Fitzmaurice P.S. Were you amused at Damad Ferid Pasha's motion in the Senate to undo last year's Committee changes in the Constitution on French Revolutionary lines? It's fairly sound but was lost - owing to martial law! Egypt smells nasty. Will the throne tottering that has affected Turkey and Persia and Greece also affect Abbas Hilmi Pasha and the Khediviate! *

British Embassy, Constantinople, May 27th 1910 DearTilki, There is no possible apology for my long silence. So I make none. I have been deep down in the bowels of the earth and have only come up today to find your note to H.E. by which I see you and Willie Tyrrell and Behaeddin Shakir have been symposing. I was coming home this month but - damn it!!!! Ryan broke down and was ordered away by McClean, so I have to do another Therapia. I wanted to go badly for one or two reasons. I must only resign myself to Kismet as the Bash Tilki did when dethroned. So you are going to Albania. Why not come here first for a look round. I have something to say to you though I have no clothes and am not presentable to an M.P. I can say it from behind a screen perhaps. You have worked over that school in the spirit of Empire and of good can alone be your reward. King Edward's death is a great trouble but, inshallah, George V will be wise. He won't be in the hands of Cassels and Sassoons et hoc genus omne at any rate. au revoir yrs celerrime, G. H. Fitzmaurice

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Private Bodega, June 3rd 1910 My dear Tilki Basha, I have been in a fearful state of "dilkharablik" [distress] during the last 24 hrs. Yesterday I got anxious about your coming here and wired to Lamb only to learn in reply that you had turned your brush away from us and gone to Crete. "Nichin beuyle yapdin?" [Why did you do that?] ben keenly disappointed oldum [I'm keenly disappointed]. But the fault was mine by writing you that note to Salonica. When I was writing it that beast - nasty beast - Hohler came into my room and I never finished the letter. I was afraid too to press you to come here as I thought you might have set your heart on going to Canea. It so happened here that Tokatlian's at Therapia only opens on the 5th, the which gave me a pretext for staying in town and I hoped to have received you in my Bodega which I only half dismantled - keeping a turquoise blue rug which you have not seen - the antimacasser which knew your ambrosials - some oil for the same - some John Cotton and squashed flies - in fact all the necessary amenities for the machinations of two tilkis. The Embassy garden too is extra green this year and the view from the Bodega window correspondingly fresh and today is the anniversary of our ride to Justinians under the old régime. I should have said it was 'Kismet' but now one has not even that consolation. I have tickets too for Jihannuma and a ride in Yildiz Park is pleasant. I must only attribute it all to Halley's Comet which I view nightly from the Bodega before the stars hide their silver lamps. But to be serious I wanted to talk at you for 48 hrs as never I did before. I was more than upset at Ryan's breaking down and preventing me going home and looked on your coming here as the God sent compensation. "Hajgi" my driver would have loved to receive you as a "Mebus" [Deputy] (M.P.) and driven you to our new Parliament House. I wanted to tell you (what I can't do on paper) all I have been doing during the last 10 months during which the undercurrents here have been taking shape both as regards Turkey, Egypt, Persia, India and Russia etc. I wanted to consult you as to what line we should take for in a way we are now at the parting of the ways with Young Turkey. The next 3 months must be psychological and the issues may be big with fate. There are two or three points of 1st CI [ass], importance on which I can't make up my mind and I so wanted to exchange thoughts with you. I have several rather interesting documents to show you. If I haven't written during the last few months it's because I have been working very hard though seedy and not up to it and it's only within the last ten days that I completed my investigation. Shimdi ne yapayim? [What shall I do now?] Wallah shashdim! [I'm really puzzled!] If I could run home for a fortnight I

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should do so but I am absolutely tied down. I'm alone with an acting junior and I can't leave Elchi. One of the points I wanted to talk to you about was Freemasonry. I mean the influx here of the Continental brand of the Craft and as you are a Mason your advice and assistance wd have been invaluable. The Grand Orient with which you British Masons are not in communion now controls the C.U.P. and is extending its subterranean workings into Egypt on political lines. It has spread here by giving out that Freemasonry is British and that the King of England was its Patron etc etc. They have founded a (Continental) Grand Orient here with Talaat Bey as Grand Master and are roping in the Egyptian lodges with Mahomed Farid the Egyptian nationalist as delegate!! The British Masons here, as you know, are Ancient Scottish and they have at last discovered the political trickery of their Turkish bretheren while the Grand Lodge of Scotland has told our Masons not to have any truck with the Ottoman Grand Orient which it condemns as "spurious". The Turks through various agencies are trying to get round this and induce the English Grand Lodge to recognize them. If they obtain this they can counteract the effect of the decision of the G. Lodge of Scotland and still masquerade under the aegis of "Ingliz". The decision of Scotland checkmated them a lot. Could you not through Dimsdale whom you know a propos of your school or other high up English Masons see that the G.L. of England does not give its imprimatur to the travesty of Masonry that is current here and which British Masons say is a prostitution of the true principles of the fraternity. Of course I, being a Papist, am not competent to talk about the Craft. Hence my desire to have put you in communication here with the Master of our Lodge C [ommit]t [e]e. However, that was not to be. When you see Willie Tyrrell ask him if he has seen a long private letter (20 pages of foolscap) written by Lowther to Hardinge. I wonder if you trust Braham of the "Times"! Of course he is not British by origin and I have been told that he is to be regarded with a note of interrogation. I feel one should not tell him everything. I often wonder if he has the same position of confidence at the F.O. as Chirol. Is Charlie Hardinge as strong as before King Edward's death? And is he likely to go to India or Paris? My God! Tilki. I wished we had been able to exchange notes for 48 hrs. Just now I do feel that the decisions to be taken soon are momentous, making every allowance for the smallness of the dunghill on which, or under which I live.

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The dogs are being removed and they are heaped up in an enclosure outside the walls. The sight and stench are awful. - like the Black Hole in Calcutta. I rode out there the other day with Cadogan and was nearly knocked down off the wall - tho' I can stand a lot and have stood much during the Armenian massacres. Please forgive the rambling nature of this epistle and don't hurry to answer it as you will probably find it on your return among a heap of more important letters. When you were at Uscup I thought of wiring to Salonica but didn't as I was ignorant of your intended movements and thought you might be staying on with Lionel James. I hope you are happy and as full of hope as yours ever, G. H. Fitzmaurice I've grown 10 yrs older since I last saw you but don't regret it as it is in a good cause. P.S. I fancy you found Crete profitless for a short sojourn. I spent a few wks there once - excursions to the interior - Candia and Rethymo. I wonder did you go to ... [?]. It's a pretty spot. I visited it during troublous times years ago and had to leave it at night on a "drejin" or railway inspection trolley. ...'s [?] tomb was full of interest. The battle there meant such a lot. I found an old Afghan in charge of the tomb. *

British Embassy, Constantinople, July 27th 1910 My dear Tilki, I have been meaning for some time to write you at length but - it is Therapia season. There is a lull in the excited stage of the Cretan question but the object in view some time ago when the flames were fanned has not yet been attained - i.e. Hellenic shipping and commerce here have not yet been "complètement anéantis" to the profit of the Salonica Jews, and the boycott, which will probably be one day used against Lynch in Bagdad and against us in Egypt, still continues. Its head offices are called the "Ministry of Economic War". Meantime everything here is French or German, the former because the Paris market alone pays the piper and has decided to do so only at the price of concessions for railways, roads etc., and the latter because of its army and because with Austria it forms a combination to be feared, respected and placated. We are out of it for a variety of reasons e.g. our good terms with Russia and our alleged connivance at the stifling of the budding liberties of an Asiatic country like Persia: our refusal to give the "Egyptians" a

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Constitution: our general "intriguing" with Arabs and our designs on the Caliphate; our inability or unwillingness to help by loans the financial difficulties of Young Turkey etc etc etc. It looks as if the time were not far distant when we shall have to make up our minds as to whether Petersburgh with all that centres there - Japan, China, Afghanistan, Persia etc is not more important for us than Consple and all that centres here. I take it our capital and other energies are better and safer employed in building up Canada and S. Africa than in seeking doubtful outlets in Turkey. However! You have perhaps noticed references in the press to our new "Secret Association". Dr Riza Tevfik Bey, Deputy for Adrianople who was in England last year, has again gone there via Paris. If you have time it wd be well worth your while to see him and let him give you his views of our "dirigeants" [rulers]. He is a member of the C.U.P. and played a biggish role in 1908. He is weird tho' honest. He will tell you all about our "plot", which seems to be mainly got up with the idea of making people forget the murder of a journalist here some weeks ago and of raking in as many of the "opposition" as possible or at least terrorizing them. They have tried hard to incriminate Ferid (ex G.V.) and Kiamil etc etc. Of course if La Terreur will not allow overt opposition or criticism, the latter becomes secret. It is now clear that our new Govt, has settled down to despotism, so that the Constitutional side of Young Turkey is a farce. Personally I have no sentimental objections to their doing so, especially as they seem to be obeying natural instincts. But they must not ask us for favours (Crete, Egypt, Capitulations etc.) on the strength of being "Constitutional". Y. Turkey's despotism seems to be more enlightened than that of "Jihannuma" but some experts say "not" and that she is piling up unproductive expenditure and debt out of proportion to the taxable capacity of the country. This the future will show and it is only the French who can check it, if they want to. It's not oui business. We are out of it as regards concessions but our trade is doing well - very well on the whole and we can look on with placid serenity. You are doing yeoman service in combating such evils as "suffragettism" which I fancy must be staved off until at least our relations with Germany have taken definite shape. I haven't red a home paper since June 22nd so that I'm ignorant of what is going on at home. By the way, Dr. Riza Tevfik Bey is to be found through the Ottoman Embassy or Professor E. Browne of Pembroke C. Cambridge. The contents of Ali Bey's shop in the Bezistan were sold the other day by auction - "Sic transit gloria mundi". I had a most interesting talk for 3 hrs the other day with the Khedive. He is very pessimistic. In Turkey we get the

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"blame" of those we would "better" and in Egypt "the hate of those we guard"! Macedonia is simmering but I doubt if it boils Goodbye - no time for more, and you are by now a wearied and fagged legislator. yrs always, G. H. Fitzmaurice Turks have decided to order a Dreadnought in England and to buy in Germany a Govt ship (which we could not sell them) to match the new Greek ship the 'Averoff'. A.H.'s money in German Banks will partly pay for German ship! *

Private British Embassy, Constantinople, Aug. 3rd 1910 My dear "Tilki" Is it a touch of the wand? For yesterday arrived news that Hohler has been transferred to Mexico and that the 'Worthy One' (Macleay) is coming here as Head of Chanceiy. Hohler is very put out and I'm sure is trying to get out of it by correspondence with W. G. T [yrrell]. and if not successful will doubtless continue his efforts on his arriving in England about the 20th of this month. Let him go to Mexico. It will do him good and he can't do much harm there. It is a breezy, high, and bracing climate which ought to suit [his?] 'breezy' ways. There is no news here. The cruelties to animals - the street dogs on the Black Hole of Calcutta-like Island of Oxia is as bad as my treatment at Perim, 1 while the Bulgarians are being brutally dealt with to force them to produce a fixed number of rifles. The Boycott goes on despite our having recognized the 'Sovereign' rights of Turkey and they threaten to apply it to the goods of the Four Powers. Perhaps they will apply it before long to "Lynch" and the English in Egypt. They are very troublesome chauvinistically at Bagdad and in the Gulf. They will make us regret the days of Jihannuma. Our special mission arrives in a couple of hours. I'm sorry it's not [Lord] "Roberts". I had hoped to show him some Turkish "tommies" and fire him with conscription ideas and impressing on him how little we can expect "tashakli" [vigorous] Turks and other Orientals to respect or fear a nation whose men cannot even control their women much less the men of other virile countries. Goodbye yrs in haste G. H. Fitzmaurice 1 The barren island at the entrance to the Red Sea where Fitzmaurice spent almost a year in 1904-5, wrapping up the final stage of the Aden-Yemen frontier delimitation.

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PRIVATE. Copy of letter received from W. [sic] Fitzmaurice Esq. to G. A. Lloyd Esq.1 British Embassy, Constantinople, 15th October, 1910 I fancy this may find you fresh from your visit to the Britons' future home, - Our Lady of the Snows - , You must have been thrilled by the vast potentiality of everything there, and met men who are cutting "positively" into a big future, - the Georgian canal, and Hudson bay Railway, Laurier after his visit to the West where J. J. Hill's big conceptions are bearing fruit and sucking in 100,000 Yankees per annum and turning them into monarchially [sic] inspired Canadians, Le [...] ? 2 and Le Mieux and Bourassa. I hope you met the latter; he ought to do great things among the French, if not among the Canadians. All this beside the Eucharistic Conference and Newfoundland's triumph at the Hague, and I suppose the big predominant all pervading idea you must have felt at every throb of the engine and the steamer must have been the obsessing vitally imperative necessity of hastening T.R. and Colonial Preference, - even at the price of such trifles as Home Rule. Laurier has told us of the same two necessities, and Redmond and T. P. O'C [onnor] have perhaps hastened Home Rule all round. Hurry up! or Scotland and Wales will want it. It's catching nowadays and more so every day. But let me talk of my little dunghill here. Seven months ago when people asked me "How are things going here?" I said that the show might be divided into two parts: (1) the sentimental side, i.e. Liberty, Constitutional methods and (2) the progressive or sordidly economic side. The first I said was bad, worse than of yore; and the second - financiers would tell us when the deficit loan came to be negotiated in Paris. The loan, I felt, was the pivotal fact, - internal and external, and you can see the amount of dust that has been stirred up over it. Its echoes have probably reached you in Canada's stern wilds - Turco-Roumanian all but signed military convention - the gravitating towards the Central European Powers where the military magnet attracts and hypnotizes Turkey's 5-6,000 German-trained officers etc etc etc. Now let me tell you how my narrow and stale brain works as regards the loan. You begin with an organization called the Committee whose ideals and ideas, like those 1 This letter is in typescript, Lloyd obviously having had it typed out in order both to sanitize it slightly and make it more readable for the benefit of Tyrrell and Chirol, to both of whom he forwarded it at Fitzmaurice's request. I have corrected a few obvious typos. Lloyd's short covering letter, dated 29 October, concludes: "It is rather interesting". 2

Lloyd's transcriber obviously had the same sort of problem that I had.

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of Machado Pacha in Lisbon, are Republican, free thinking, positivist, etc, and which has captured the Govt of a country which is deeply religious etc. The C.U.P. thus logically felt the necessity in order to bring the masses into line to pose as being more catholic than the Pope and consequently started a Pan-Islamo-Asiatic policy. This led them into the countries which hold Bokhara and the Central Asiatic Khanates, Egypt, India, Algiers and Tunis, i.e. the Powers of the Triple Entente, who thus appeared to be the potential enemies of the Neo-Panislamism. The Salónica Jews in the Committee were naturally anti-slav i.e. anti-Bulgarian, and anti-Russian. The natural reflex of all this, and more, was a leaning towards Austro-Germany, whose mesmeric forces over the Y. Turks were, inter alia, enhanced by the Cretan embroglio in which England, France, Russia, and to a certain extent Italy found themselves entangled. Hence the approximation to Roumania which is the back door or half way house of the Triple Alliance. Now, if the Committee gravitates towards the Central European Powers, the answer ought to come back slick: "You shan't raise a sou in Paris" and Italy may break away from the Triple Alliance. The great hold which the Triple Entente has - the deterrent against the Committee joining hands with Vienna and Berlin - is the French Govt's power of preventing the quotation of loans intended for naval and military armaments instead of roads and schools, and any weakening of that power of France would seem suicidal from the Triple Entente point of view. Other considerations seem minor ones. Hence the antagonism of Cassel's National Bank against the A. H. Bank group and his intervention seem [sic] to weaken the only hold on - or deterrent of, - the Triple Entente against Young Turkey being drawn into the orb of Central Europe, and consequently are to be deprecated. His doing so under the aegis of our Govt seems suicidal. The F.O. might, as H.M.G. did at the moment of last year's loan, have told Cassel that he was free to do what he liked financially in Paris, but "to remember our Entente Cordiale relations with France". Under the protection of our bayonets he has made some £20,000,000 mostly in Egypt. The National Bank, after a year's existence, is paying a dividend of 6%, - so that he is not out of pocket. No matter what the Ottoman Bank's past may be, the C.U.P. ought to be forced to accept the French conditions. That will probably happen if we (i.e. Cassel) leave them alone. Djavid has a certain "partis pris" against the I.O.B. and says he won't have them at any price. If he does not get his money (to buy German or Brazilian ships and guns) in France, he must fall back on the Austro-German banks which will give him advances at 6% instead of 4%. This is a defeat and a check for him, as the Austro-German groups can't keep it up or go on withdrawing capital now employed at home in internal industrial development and Djavid Bey will soon have to find the wherewithal

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to settle a floating debt which amounts to anything between £15,000,000 and £30,000,000. He will be forced eventually to capitulate to France and discover that Austro-Germany is a broken reed from a liquid capital point of view. Already, too, there is a growing internal opposition to his methods which, people say, have unnecessarily disgruntled France and indirectly England and Russia. It is a pity, moreover, that Hussein Jahid (Deputy for Consple, the intimate and inseparable friend of the Min. of Finance) who has been writing a series of slashing articles against the Ottoman Bank and the French, should also be a member of the board of the rival institution, the National Bank. The latter is closely bound up with the present Young Turkey Govt, three committee members of which are ex-administrators on the Natl. Bank Board, which also has two other members of the C.U.P. It looks like a struggle between the Committee and an old regime institution (the Ott. Bank), and Cassel has managed to drag our Govt, in to the great delight of AustroGermany. From what I hear from Talat Bey (Min of Interior) and others, there is little likelihood of Young Turkey throwing in her lot with the Triple Alliance. They look upon it as short-sighted and suicidal policy, which would at once fiercely antagonize Russia. The whole loan matter has been settled before this reaches you. I am not a financier, but a lot of the foregoing seems to me to be sound, and you might lay it privately before Chirol and Tyrrell though it may be a grind to you to do so1. The matter is vitally important. It is pivotal and the most important event since July 1908. An interesting side-light is the following: Djavid poses as trying to emancipate Young Turkey from the thraldom and tyranny of the I.O.B. But he is a Jew, and many say he wants to shake himself free of Govt controlled finance, and lean entirely, - with ultimately Sionist objects - on Jewish international capital. Many foretold months ago that he would pick a quarrel with the A.H. Bank group (mostly Hugenot), then go to a Jewish group (Dreyfus and Bernard) in the event of a check appeal to Cassel, - then pull Austro-German strings (Laender Bank) and in the last resort get American Jews (Jacob, Schiff, Loeb, Cohen & Co.) to help him. All these five notes have been struck during the recent negotiations! It's all very interesting and amusing. One wonders what A. H. in his retreat at Salónica thinks of it. The Khedive's position has become ticklish. The Y. Turks are pulling wires in Egypt and one wonders whether he can prevent a Lisbonic explosion there. Crete is going better than one could have expected.

1 The words that I have italicized here are quite heavily crossed out in red ink in the original.

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I had a five hours' yarn with Jevad Bey (London Embassy) the other day. It was amusing. My health is good, but I must flit from here soon. The cholera microbe is adding to Young Turkey's trials. This is mainly a business letter but another time, inshallah *

British Embassy, Constantinople, Nov. 9th 1910 My dear Tilki, This is a hurried scrawl written in my bodega with my feet on a certain nice small prayer rug which was kindly wafted from Bagdad into my Tekke [monastery] some years ago. The loan with the Germans is not yet signed and they don't feel at all comfortable about undertaking the responsibility of financing Young Turkey. The operation will have cost the Min. of Finance between £400,000 and £500,000 more than what the Ott. Bank would have done it at. His absolute determination not to deal with the I.O.B. and to substitute for it in "Committee Finance" the Banque de Salonique and to a certain degree Cassel's Bank was at the root of the whole matter. At one time he refused to listen to any cooperation of the I.O.B. and Cassel but he may be obliged to come round to such a combination. The Germans are still more uncomfy over the tel. to the Emperor sent by Obeidullah. They have the audacity to assert that it was an intrigue engineered by me to put H.M. in a difficult position and base their base assumption on the facts that I was present in a box at the theatre, that I smiled instead of weeping like a Persian - that Obeidullah is an old friend of mine and that afterwards instead of expressing annoyance, I greatly admired his oratorical effort. Aren't they beasts! There is a certain amount of squealing over South Persia and the Turks may extend their encroachments by way of protecting Persia. If they do so I fear me they will force on a partition a trois a la Polonaise instead of a deux. Rahmi - Talat and co. are pulling Triple Entente while some of the Salonica element which of course loath Russia and Slaves [sic] generally seem pulling towards Central Europe, probably to Italy's great disgust. We have a nice little cholera epidemic on and brewing mainly as the result of our manoeuvres at Adrianople, where Mahmoud Shevket identified himself with the Sultan in a way to horrify our republican tendencies. We shall have to send for Machado Pasha! The Amb. is going on leave and Marling has returned. I wonder are you back from Canada and working on the Reveille programme. We have got to buck up during the next few years or —[else!]

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Don't you think we ought to get the German Emperor invited here. It wd frighten the Turks who are afraid that when Franz Joseph dies, Franz Ferdinand and Billy will smash Turkey to pieces. If they do we shall have to pick up some portions of the porcelain vase. Yrs ever, G. H. Fitzmaurice *

"Bodega", Nov. 17th 1910 Says the Tilki Effendi to the Tilki M.P. How naughty Welshmen are! LG will not have Home Rule in Ireland and you start 'misrule' in Wales. Not content with sending us Lloyd George to upset our finances, the landowners (the bulwark of the race 1 ) the House of Lords and the Constitution, you now start a sort of French disorders and try to destroy coal - the understructure of England's prosperity and greatness. But upon you, Welsh Tilkis and others who refusing to look at the Irish Question from a rational, businesslike and non-sentimental standpoint are risking wrecking the Conference, 2 England and the Empire's future. How the Germans must smile and rub their thorny hands. I am distressed - very distressed - at the Conference breakdown which seems to mean another disolution [sic] and General Election with perhaps stalemate results. It disheartens us abroad but then one must not be of little faith. England cannot afford to waste time just now. Every moment seems exquisitely precious - one ought to [be] girding up one's loins for the big world fight that is looming ahead and get into position all round to resist the quakes that are coming. But though Welshmen are misbehaving I don't despair and feel that the elections - if they come will be fought with a stout and steely courage. Perhaps T. R. will triumph before Bourassa and nationalism kill Joe's splendid work. As Canada has been an example to S. Africa, its falling away from Imperialism will have an [sic] bad echo in S.A. Oh for a man - and A.J.B [alfour], can't enthuse - But the Lord does great things through humble instruments and though he did waste time sitting on the fence, you may yet bear him in on the crest of victory's wave. It must be thrillingly interesting and terrifically hard work, Tilki M.P. 1

Fitzmaurice first wrote 'throne' rather than 'race'. The conference of party leaders in London to attempt to resolve the 'constitutional question' brought on by Lloyd George's controversial budget: how to resolve a deadlock between the House of Commons and the House of Lords. This was of great concern to the Irish Party since the most widely canvassed solution - a joint session of the two chambers - could make Home Rule more or less likely, depending on the terms on which this was agreed. The Unionists insisted that 'grave' constitutional issues could not be resolved without appeal to the electorate, while the Irish Party - on whose votes the Liberal government was dependent in the Commons saw this as an obstacle to Home Rule. In early November the conference, which had met in secret for over four months, collapsed.

2

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but I'm glad you are in it pace Pat, and I'm sure you will years hence look back with satisfaction on the good fight which you are fighting - 1 can't help writing this rot so forgive. I haven't yet thanked you for your long letter from the Manchester home of recalcitrance and malignancy where Bonar Law made such a bad break over the Indian (excise) drawback. I'm glad you are reconciled to the Russian theory. I used to talk of non-nagging relations with her before the Japanese war but after Port Arthur and Mukden it became imperative to get friendly with her - especially as long as she sticks to the Constitution. We ought to do all in our power - especially by giving her a good press and encouragement to strengthen her economically and constitutionally. The (Russian) nationalists (the successors of the Octobrists) are a healthy old Tory party and are British in sympathy on the whole. I know the Russians (Janus like) have two faces - one Asiatic and the other European - and that they have the incomprehensible duality springing from the admixture of Tartar and Slave [sic] blood but it is better they should be with us than with Germany, while Islam reached its high water mark in the day of Jihannuma - Neo-panislamism can't have the same sting while in India - if their Islam growls too much we can remind them that they are only 50 to 60 millions against 250 Hindus and perhaps even if we are skilful, we can play the Wahabias [?] off against them. [Sir Charles] Hardinge and [Sir Arthur] Nicholson [sic]1 are fixed as regards Russia and we here must bear the brunt. I personally don't mind taking my share, though it means a lot of squirming. The wave of Young Turk levelling has reached Bagdad and as we stand high there they are trying to humble and lower us - if not to pull down the whole structure which it has cost a century to build up. They are making us eat dirt there - they have been arbitrarily demolishing British property - make Lynch to lower the British flag on his steamers and cease to tow barges etc. Our prestige has fallen so low there that British Indians are becoming Turkish subjects but I trust we shall manage to set things right and hold our own. I pity our poor Consul Genl. there, Lorimer. He's a first class man but is having a bitter time of it. I have spent the better part of two Sundays in Stamboul about Irak and am going again tomorrow morning. What grieves me is that the British press - the one thing the Young Turks dread - should hesitate to tell the truth about their doings in Albania - Macedonia etc. They are trading on their (pseudo) Constitutional reputation but the loan has had a salutary and sobering effect. 2 1 The diplomatic 'Nicolsons' commonly had - and still have - theii name misspelled 'Nicholson'. 2 This sentence and those immediately following are impossible to make out with certainty because a portion of the original letter is torn away and missing. The bottom of the last page is also damaged.

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They ha [ve for?] the moment forgotten the juvenile chauvinism and ultranationalism in [...?] Cretan question - anti-Hellenic agitation and intrigues in Egypt. Djavid is [trying?] to hide his loan failure - which will cost the Turks over £500,000 - [...?] Germans are genuinely embarrassed at the prospect of financing [...?] young prodigal. The French played fair with us in Paris but it [was?] more than human flesh and blood can bear to see Block going about damning everything and everyone French and pounding this sort of twaddle into Djavid's and other Y. Turks' ears. The man has done enormous harm to us. Baron Marshall said the other day that he could not understand how Block could be allowed to play the part he has been playing. The fellow is false and wronly [sic] ego-centred to a degree. It's disgusting when Britishers should be pulling together to see him pulling against. However! The Young Turks are now repentant about breaking with the French and are anxious to make it up. They fear and distrust Germany and dread falling into her arms. My horse 'Jet' is fearfully fidgety when near a taxi (Turkish not 'chatana' [steam-boat] but "islim deghirmen" [steam mill]). The other day I had extricated him from a tangle of cabs, trams and bullock carts etc only to find myself in front of Mahmoud Shevket in a taxi. "Jet" nearly reared on his hind legs but I righted him and the Generalissimo grinned and saluted. I chaffed him about it at the opening of Parliament - a quarter of an hour afterwards - poor fellow he ran over and killed a Bimbashi [...?] G. H. Fitzmaurice *

Private British Embassy, Constantinople, Dec. 1st 1910 My dear T-lk- [sic], I feel I must write you a line even though you may not have time to read it, to tell you that the prayer wheels are at work in the Bodegas of Cs'ple, Pekin [Pat Ramsay] and, I hope, Rome [Percy Loraine] - three capitals of ancient and respectable empires - the wheels drone "George Lloyd and not Lloyd George", the which I trust will be the result of the polls on the 7th You use in your note of Nov. 23 a curious word spelt "Allah" which rather disconcerted me at first. After scratching my head (more Hibernics [Irish expressions]) I recollected that such a word was in use in Turkey many years ago under what people call the old regime. Now we have an atheist regime and expect soon to get on to the Anti-theist stage.

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I rejoice to hear you are sane about Ireland and quite realize that it is too late on the eve of an election to suddenly display sanity. Tactically I presume you must now concentrate on the Union (as if it were in danger! Oh! ne yalanjilar var inghilterrada! - bizde yok beuyle heriflar [what good liars there are in England!- here we have no such men]) but by not becoming sane on the Irish question years ago, the self-styled Unionists are now risking the crumbling of the foundations of the monarchical centre of the Empire risking an inrush of republican bilgewater into the moat constructed by the Normans. It's very "edebsiz" [rude] to say those nasty things about American dollars and American (Irish) citizens. Personally I am large minded and generous-minded enough to wish you (Tory!) victory as, (as I explained years ago in the Bodega) Ireland can afford to wait and will be all the better for doing so but - Tilki - the present wave of rotten socialism has got to be stemmed and must be stemmed - but another one will come on stronger a few years hence and then - if you are not right with the Irish (who are ever green! and don't rot fast) - the Empire - King, Lords and Church will have to go to where they have gone to in France. I presume if you only get 35 tories (and not 80) there will still be room for compromise on the basis of Lansdowne's resolutions. Our Y. Turks are watching you - 1 tell them the correct version of things at home. The after effects of the loan and a certain amount of tilkilik have sobered them temporarily - we don't want them to be playing games too much while we are tied up in a knot at home. They are now themselves tied up in a knot. I'm going on leave in the middle of the month but am going to stay somewhere in a sunny clime before approaching your fogs. Don't come here now. It's not interesting - all wallowing yrs ever G. H. Fitzmaurice

1912 In 1911 George Lloyd had had a lot to worry about. His parliamentary duties had been interrupted by illness in March and April, and he had been so concerned about the expense of nursing his large marginal seat in West Staffordshire that by September he had begun to look for a new constituency. To add to his discomforts, he had started to find himself at odds with his Conservative colleagues, whom he found " 'hopeless on defence', shifty on protection and hysterical on Ireland"} Nevertheless, consolation had come to him from a somewhat unexpected quarter: in July he became engaged to be married. His fiance was Blanche Lascelles, a Maid of Honour to Queen Alexandra, and on 13 November the couple were married. They had then spent their honeymoon in Constantinople, from which as it happened Fitzmaurice was absent on leave in London. In January 1912 Lloyd was part of a parliamentary delegation sent to Russia for the purpose of firming up relations, but thereafter the foreign travel that he so relished was much curtailed. This was because he now had responsibilities to the New Territorial Army (which he had joined in the previous year), as well as to the House of Commons and his relatively distant constituents. Furthermore, at the end of September his wife gave birth to a son, and then nearly died as the result of a kidney infection. As for Fitzmaurice, in the summer of 1912 he returned to Constantinople from a long absence in Tripoli during the Italian occupation only to find before long that he was once more in a hot spot. In October the first Balkan War broke out with the attack on Turkey of Bulgaria, Greece, and Serbia. *

Private (Ex-British Embassy, Constantinople.) The Bodega, Nov. 4th 1912 "The Sultan rises and the dark ferrash Strikes and prepares it for another guest" (words taken from a letter from G.H.F. to G.A.LI. (May 1909)

1 From an undated letter probably written in 1912, Charmley, Lord Lloyd and the Decline of the British Empire, p. 30.

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My dear "Tilki", A last hurried note from Stamboul. The C.U.P. has triumphed but what a smash and the worst 1 has yet to come. Pekin and the Boxers may not be in it. Our present state is this. If the Bulgarians enter the Sultanate Caliphate [,] Sublime Porte and Embassies must go abandoning the town to a temporary but abominable anarchy. Expiring effort of the C.U.P. Do you remember my saying years ago and more than once that one day awful events would happen here and as the poor dragoman had to be out when others remained at home the chances were that "one" should meet a "queer" fate. That time has come and if ever I am able to write again it will probably not be from Constantinople (Tzarigrad). The Court may fly to Brussa. The "children" have been naughty for four years and now Papa has come back from Salonica to see "Roum" burn. If it burns and St. Sophia is blown up, a frisson of massacre will envelop Asia Minor and Armenia compelling probably Russian intervention. All the treaties and protocols written in ink will be swept away or written in blood. There will be no Near Eastern Question or Panislamism or anything much to fill the pages of the "Near East". No matter what may happen to me I shall have done my duty to Great Britain, Turkey and Islam. In vain it is true and wittingly taking the line of greatest danger. Spirit lives or is reborn and it shall not all have been in vain from a British point of view. If I ever get the other side of the next few days events I shall write of the "decline and fall of the Ottoman State" 2 otherwise turn down an empty glass - emptied to the memories of 1906. I'm writing to you in a guardedly quaint strain while these days to the outer world one keeps the boldest front. Cheerful and confident so as not to breed panic in the zawallis [unfortunates] who know not the mysticism and psychology of the East retreating before the West. I thought I might have had a line from you by now - showing on which horse you were about to put your money. Your letter in the Times 3 gave me an indication. But the United States of the Balcans are the winning "Gee" 4 especially when backed by Russia. We have got to feel towards Russia and you ought to feel and I fancy do feel towards Ireland. Great Britain or the British Empire must be reconciled to both. 1

Underlined twice. Fitzmaurice clearly had in mind here Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. 3 In this letter, George Lloyd had attacked C. F. G. ('Charlie') Masterman, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, for making what he interpreted as an anti-Turkish speech at Bethnal Green when the government of which he was a member was supposed to be neutral in the Balkan conflict, 'British Ministers and the War', The Times, 21 Oct. 1912. Masterman was the political antithesis of Lloyd: ultra-liberal, anti-imperialist, and suffragist. 2

4

[gee-gee = horse]

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When I tried to speak to you and Sam [Cockerell] at Park House you were unsympathetic. Otherwise I might have said a lot about Panjudaism's great fight against Panslavism through Panislamism, and all centring in Jerusalem. Perhaps another time. Good night with kindest regards to "Blanche" and "Patti" and "Gertrude" and Ried. yrs ever The ex-Sheikh (G.H.F.) and ex-Wizard of Stamboul

1915 En route home from East Africa and in company with his wife, in April 1913 George Lloyd had once more visited Constantinople. However, from that juncture until the outbreak of general war he was preoccupied largely with his parliamentary duties in London, though this activity was leavened by the officer training which he thought a duty to the Empire. In late July and early August 1914 he had helped to stiffen the support of senior Conservatives for military intervention on the continent, and when the outbreak of war occurred had immediately joined his territorial regiment. With the entry of Turkey into the fighting, and having been denied the opportunity for glory in France, Lloyd was happy to be seconded to intelligence work in Cairo, among other reasons because he found himself working once more with Aubrey Herbert; he had arrived in Egypt in midDecember. However, he still yearned for action and the high spirits with which - despite serious strategic reservations — he anticipated the thrill of the attack on the Dardanelles in early 1915 was marred only by news on 20 March of the death of his closest friend, Sam Cockerell. In the event, Lloyd remained on the intelligence staff of GHQ in Cairo, though much of his work involved liaising with the ANZACs on the Gallipoli Peninsula. It was this post that he still occupied when in early September 1915, Fitzmaurice, who since leaving Constantinople for good in February 1914 had been employed on a variety of special missions - at this point the especially futile one to attempt to bribe the Bulgarians to join the Triple Entente ~ wrote what seems to have been his last letter to him.

Confidential British Legation, Sofia, Sept. 5th 1915 My dear George, Thanks for yours of Aug. 26th, main point of which is about Bulgaria. So let me rush 'in medias' [into the middle of things]. What I said to you at 48 Wilton Crescent and on the 'Arcadia' was that Bulgaria would not go against Russia bar some superlative stupidity on our part and that if we could (have) give(n) her the uncontested zone in a positive and concrete form, she would come with us i.e. against Turkey. The "superlative stupidity" has been twice committed in the last six months and still she has not gone against us i.e. against Serbia.

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You know how I harried and worried the F.O. etc on the subject and when the Dardanelles operations were about to start I again put in a memo to the F.O. urging the immediate offer of the uncontested zone, saying that it would then jump the Bulgarian Govt - that it was a case of Sibyline books 1 and that as time went on the price of Bulgaria would go up, while the question of the uncontested zone (region of Monastir) would pursue us right up to Tipperary. You know I also held that the military position of Cons'ple was not to be taken by us during a European war without the help of Bulgaria and I even ventured to disagree with Garvin and maintained that the Russians, given the inactivity on the Western front, would never reach the plains of Hungary. Well, when the Dardanelles show started, the Bulgarian Govt, offered to join us if we gave them a promise of the uncontested zone and guaranteed them against Greece and Roumania. The Entente Ministers [diplomatic agents in Sofia] laughed at them, said the Dardanelles would fall in 15 days (Genl Paget told King Ferdinand the same ineptitude) and did not even report home the Bulgarian offer. This was "superlative stupidity" No. 1. The second was in preferring Rome to Sofia as an axis of the neutral powers, contrary to advice to the effect that Italy could only come in in an anti-Serbian sense (Dalmatia and Albania), making the indispensable Serbian concessions to Bulgaria very difficult and that Sofia could start Greece and Roumania while Rome could not. Now Chirol sums up the Serbian concessions questions in the phrase "Italy blocks the way"! When I was at Mudros in the middle of April I tried to get telegrams sent to ginger up the F.O. and diplomacy. I failed and remarked "when they land, find a Flanders and have lost 15000 men, then they will scream for Bulgaria but it may be too late". On May 15 the scream came. The Minister [Sir Henry Bax-Ironside] was wired that it was of vital importance to secure Bulgarian cooperation, asking him if it was possible and saying "Consult Fitzmaurice". Minister ans [were]d "Nothing to be done". I replied (through him) that it was feasible on the basis of a clear cut guarantee of the uncontested zone plus a promise of the Cavalla region. On May 29th they gave Bulgaria not a clear cut, but a conditional guarantee. On June 15th the Bulgars sniffed at the conditions but sent a not unfavourable reply. We did not answer till Aug. 3rd still clinging to conditions. The Germans had meantime swept back the Russians and fortresses fell like ninepins (unlike the Dardanelles). Roumania naturally got the funks and the reflex was felt and is

1 The principle that the stronger party in a negotiation - if rational - will always demand progressively better terms as the process drags on; hence the interest of the weaker in settling as quickly as possible.

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felt here. Germans told the Bulgars that if they dare to go against Turkey a Mackensen Army would crash through Servia and appear on the Bulgar frontier. Our people then got the funcks and rushed, at last, to Nish with appeals. The answer has come (Sept. 3rd) after a month, consenting on impossible conditions to only half the uncontested zone! I wished you had been at Kraguievatz with that youngster the Serbian Crown Prince [Alexander], Harrison has played the garden ass "poor little Serbs! gallant little Serbs why should you make concessions to the nasty Bulgars". He has gone but again TOO LATE. We have no appreciation of the value of time in war. It and the German tide wait for no man. All this preamble. The present position is that the Germans have got the Turks to agree to give the Dedeaghatch railway against the passage of munitions. Bulgars say 'no'. We want it against a year of neutrality - past services. Germans are trying to get the Bulgars to attack Serbia when a German force will have reached a given point in Serbia in return for which Bulgaria is to get the limits of the San Stefano treaty i.e. Nish, Pirot and both the zones in Macedonia. Bulgars, although frightened, are resisting. If they hold firm Germany will have to invade Serbia with 800,000 to 1,000,000 men whereas 300,000 to 400,000 would do the trick if Bulgaria consents to be accomplice. I don't think she will, even now when it is 11.55 o [']cl lock] 1 but if a German Army crushes Serbia out of existence, then Bulgaria will occupy Serbian Macedonia as "res nullius" [legally free for anyone to take] so that right up to the end she will have avoided attacking an ally of Russia. The situation is serious - perhaps grave. The margin of time is perhaps. "Can you force the Dardanelles and get to Cons'ple (thus removing the German objective in the Balcans) before a German advance begins". If the Serbians would hand over the uncontested zone, then the Bulgars can be moved. But the Serbs are pig-headed and obdurate while our diplomacy at Nish is nil - except the Russian. It seems thus a matter of driving ahead at all costs at Anafarta and getting the Narrows. I have been to Maidos and across to Kabatepe where I got arrested. I studied the ground thoroughly and follow every move with strained and intense interest as I realize that failure in the matter of Cons'ple means the loss of Egypt and India while Marling will have to clear [out] of Tehran if he is not scuppered. The Germans are credited with the Napolonci plan of pushing down through Bessarabia and seizing Odessa etc whence with submarines they could ... [?] old harry. It is perhaps an alternative to piercing the Balcans. You know how the Kaiser feels about Stamboul, the Bagdad Railway etc etc. For God's sake push ahead without losing a second. Hours mean Empires now. 1

Or, 'five minutes to midnight' - when it will be too late.

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Of course, if you reach Cons'ple and the Young Turks try to surrender to us alone and not to the Allies, such a trap (like when they surrendered Salónica to the Greeks alone and not to the Balean Allies in order to split the latter and succeeded in doing so) will be avoided. If we split with Russia we would be playing the German game of forcing Russia to throw herself into the arms of Germany. Some days ago, on rumours that under German pressure, Bulgaria was about to mobilize against Serbia, the Agrarian [National Union] 1 leading Deputies (50 in the Chamber) went to the Prime Min. and told him that if such a thing were attempted the peasants i.e. the army, would not march as it wd be tantamount to marching against Russia. The P.M. said that means mutiny and I shall have to do my duty even if heads fall. They replied "You represent tens whereas we represent tens of thousands" i.e. revolution. From this you see that the Bulgarian Govt, can only go against Serbia by a coup d'etat. We are a bit active here and are buying the harvest to please the peasant and partly to prevent the Germans buying as their object is to use the export of grain as a lever to get the Bulgars to help them to open up the OrsovaNegotin reach of the Danube to get munitions through. We have also succeeded in putting the Govt in a minority so that they cannot summon the Chamber which they are bound to do for war credits. This supposed to meet in Oct. but lots of water may flow down the Danube or Bosphorus before then. I am doing the harvest buying - also press work etc etc. It's all negative without the concessions from Serbia but one must peg away on a sursum corda [lift up your hearts] basis. Heard who sends selaams recently got onto a plot to assassinate me. It's a good sign as showing that one is doing the Enemy serious harm. Drat them! If they don't pip me here they will never do it. I have written this hasty sketch and hope the picture is not too blurred. I trust Blanche and the boy are well. Vale, yours ever Begum. 2 Kind regards to Deedes. P.S. I suppose you realize that the present Govt of Bulgaria is an abnormal one. The Entente were anti-Bulgaria at the moment of her disasters in 1913. - England over Adrianople (i.e. treaty of London) - Russia over the 1

The powerful Bulgarian peasants' party. Why Fitzmaurice should have here signed himself 'Begum' (a Moslem woman of high rank) is mysterious, even by his own standards. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that he had just mentioned George Lloyd's wife, Blanche; perhaps, with self-mockery and a hint of bitterness, he was describing himself as George's forsaken Moslem 'wife'. 2

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Dobrudja (Convention of Petrograd) and France over Cavalla. The result was that Pro Bulgarian Entente politicians were discredited and all the nasty antiEntente folk came to Power with a small majority of 14 - twelve of whom were Moslem Members of the Committee of Union and Progress from Western Thrace. The Govt here is thus Young Turk. When the War came on, they clapped on the state of siege so that the Opposition cannot speechify or demonstrate while their papers are frequently suppressed. 90 per cent of the people are pro-Entente but they cannot get a lever under the Govt which is, so to speak, of our own creation. Serbian concessions will alone prize [sic] up the situation here - or perhaps the fall of the Dardanelles. G.H.F.

GLOSSARY OF TURKISH WORDS, ABBREVIATIONS, AND PRIVATE WORDS AND PHRASES USED IN THE LETTERS AND ENDMATTER A.H. Sultan Abdul Harnid II A.H. Bank group A u s t r o - H u n g arian Bank group Amb. Ambassador Aubrey Aubrey Herbert (see List of Persons) Bash Tilki Chief Dragoman The Bash Tilki Sultan Abdul Hamid II bash terguman Chief Dragoman B l a n c h e George Lloyd's wife, Blanche Lascelles, whom he married on 13 November 1911 B. of T. Board of Trade bezistan covered market Billy of Berlin Kaiser Wilhelm II the 'children' Young Turks C.U.P. Committee of Union and Progress (the Young Turks) George George Barclay (see List of Persons) G.V. Grand Vizier Elchi Ambassador Farismaris The name bestowed on Fitzmaurice by the Arabs on the Yemen frontier in 19025. Sometimes Fitzmaurice rendered it 'Faris Maris'. F.O. Foreign Office H.M.E. His Majesty's Embassy H.E. His Excellency [the Ambassador] H. I. M. His Imperial Majesty [the Sultan] I.O. India Office Inglis Serai English Palace, i.e. British Embassy I.O.B. Imperial Ottoman Bank Irade a formal decree of the Sultan Joe Joseph Chamberlain (see List of Persons)

kaimakam Deputy Governor or Governor of an Ottoman subdistrict kapou-oghlan embassy messenger Kindly One Weakley M . F . A . Minister [not Ministry] of Foreign Affairs n.v. note verbale O'C. Sir Nicholas O'Conor P a t Patrick Ramsay (see List of Persons) P e e s T e e l k i e Patrick Ramsay, I believe P e r c y Percy Loraine (see List of Persons) poussolalpussla 'a slip of paper recording the passage of the correspondence on any particular subject from office to office [at the Porte]', Ryan, The Last of the Dragomans , p. 47 Sadrazam Grand Vizier S.P. Sublime Porte S.P.C. Samuel Pepys Cockerell, the close friend of George Lloyd squashed flies Garibaldi biscuits takrir official note tel. telegram teelkieltilki fox 3rd Ag kishti George Lloyd's 'third steamer' TNA The National Archives, London Tommy Fitzmaurice's horse true creed tariff reform T.R. Tariff Reform vali provincial governor V.C. Vice-Consul vilayet Ottoman province Worthy One (W.O.) James Macleay yavri c u b Yahudi, the Sam Cockerell Yildiz The Palace of Abdul Hamid II in Constantinople

LIST OF PERSONS MENTIONED IN THE LETTERS*

NB. The following biographies are not complete. They are intended in general only to provide such detail as is necessary to understand the background and positions of the persons concerned at the time they crop up in the letters. For example, in the case of members of the British Embassy in Constantinople, usually I note only their immediately prior post and any earlier service in the Ottoman Empire. Though it fits slightly awkwardly into this list, I thought it would be helpful and of interest to include in it a reasonably full entry on George Lloyd himself. Agar-Robartes, Thomas Charles: Liberal politician and eldest son of the Viscount Clifden. In the general election in January 1906 elected MP for the Cornish constituency of Bodmin but removed in June on the grounds that his agent had employed corrupt practices to secure his victory; in February 1908 returned unopposed for another Cornish constituency and continued to hold it until his death in 1915 in the Great War. Opposed to Irish Home Rule. Ahmed Riza: CUP Deputy for Constantinople and President of the Chamber of Deputies. Babington Smith, (later Sir) Henry: Private Secretary to Earl of Elgin, Viceroy of India, 1894-9; British and Dutch Representative on the Council of Administration of the Ottoman Public Debt, 1900-3; Secretary to the Post Office, 1903-9; appointed head of the National Bank of Turkey in 1909. Barclay, (later Sir) George: Entered British Diplomatic Service 1888. 2nd Secretary at Constantinople 1898-1902; Secretary of Legation and then Counsellor at Tokyo, 1902-6; Counsellor and then Minister at Constantinople, March 1906-September 1908. During final posting in Constantinople was three times Chargé d'Affaires. Barnham, Henry Dudley: Entered Levant Service 1877. Held many posts throughout the Ottoman Empire and was British Representative on the Consular Mission sent to Zeitoun in January 1896. Promoted Consul General in 1906 and transferred to Smyrna in January 1908. Bax-lronside, Sir Henry: Entered British Diplomatic Service 1884 and posted first to Constantinople (1884-7). British Minister in Sofia from 1911 until early July 1915, when he was recalled. Had all along been opposed to trying to obtain Bulgaria's adherence to the Triple Entente.

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Behaeddin Shakir, Dr: Physician by training and important ideologue of the CUP. Member of its highest circle but never a Deputy or holder of ministerial office. Bell, Gertrude: Brilliant and rich, Gertrude Bell had a reputation already established as a mountaineer, writer, traveller and archaeologist in the Middle East before she first met Fitzmaurice in July 1907. Imperially minded and an outspoken anti-suffragist, with a large circle of influential friends, not least in the Foreign Office. In early winter 1915 joined military intelligence in Cairo. Bieberstein, Adolph Baron Marschall von: State Secretary for Foreign Affairs in Berlin, 1890-7; German Ambassador in Constantinople, 18971912, and doyen of the diplomatic corps - a commanding figure. Blech, Edward Charles: Entered Levant Service 1883. Dragoman-Archivist at Constantinople, 1894-1906; Consul for Palestine at Jerusalem, 1906-9. Bleriot, Louis: Well known French aviator. Had a serious crash near Constantinople at the end of 1909. Block, Sir A d a m : Entered Levant Service 1877. Chief Dragoman at Constantinople, 1894-1903; British and Dutch Representative on the Council of Administration of the Ottoman Public Debt, 1903-14; and President of the British Chamber of Commerce in Constantinople. 190714; senior figure in economic warfare in London during the Great War, first in the Foreign Office and then at the Ministry of Blockade. Block was proCUP and Fitzmaurice's most bitter rival; he was knighted in June 1907. Bourassa, Henri: French Canadian political leader and journalist. In 1903 founded the Nationalist League, which favoured autonomy for Canada within the British Empire. Abandoned the Federal Parliament and sat as a nationalist in the Quebec Assembly, 1908-12. In 1910 founded Le Devoir, French Canada's most highly regarded newspaper, which he also edited. Braham, Dudley Disraeli: Journalist on The Times. Correspondent in St. Petersburgh from 1901 until 28 May 1903, when he was expelled at 24 hours notice; Correspondent in Constantinople, 1903 until early 1908; recalled to London to become Assistant to Chirol (see below), then head of the Imperial and Foreign Department of The Times', Special Correspondent in the Far East, 1910-12; head of Imperial and Foreign Department, 1912early 1914, when he resigned. Browne, Prof. Edward Granville: Sir Thomas Adams' Professor of Arabic at Cambridge University and a leading 'Orientalist'. Also expert in Persian (actually his main interest) and Turkish, Browne taught entrants to the Levant Service. Bryce, Rt. Hon. James: British Ambassador in Washington, 1907-13. Buchanan, Sir George William: Entered British Diplomatic Service 1876. Agent and Consul-General in Bulgaria, 1903-9; Minister at The Hague, 1909-10; Ambassador at St. Petersburgh (subsequently Petrograd), 1910Octoberl919.

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Bunsen, (later Sir) Maurice de: Entered Diplomatic Service 1877; Secretary of Embassy at Constantinople, 1897-1902, serving four times as Charge d'Affaires and in total for almost a year; Secretary of Embassy and Minister, Paris, 1902-5; Minister at Lisbon, 1905; Ambassador at Madrid, 1906-13; Ambassador at Vienna, 1913-14; Assistant Under Secretary of State in the Foreign Office, 1915-18. Bury, Viscount: Born 1882, eldest son of the Earl of Albemarle; staff officer in the Scots Guards. Buxton, Noel: Prominent Liberal back-bencher with a strong commitment to social reform. Following a visit to the Balkans in 1899, also became an active defender of the interests of its Christian populations; in 1902 became the founding Chairman of the Balkan Committee and, in 1907, its President; later took up the Armenian cause as well. Engaged in relief work in Bulgaria in 1912 and on the outbreak of war in 1914 travelled to Sofia in an unsuccessful bid to persuade the government to sign up to the Triple Entente. Cadogan, Hon. Alexander: Entered British Diplomatic Service 1908. Attaché and subsequently 3rd Secretary at Constantinople, 1910-12. A future Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office. Carasso, Emmanuel: Jewish lawyer from Salonica and relatively minor figure in the CUP, according to Bernard Lewis in The Emergence of Modern Turkey, 2nd ed. (OUP: London, 1968), p. 212. Lewis adds that, presumably because Carasso was Jewish, he was frequently highlighted by opponents of the Young Turks. Cassel, Sir Ernest: Merchant banker and international financier. Born into a Jewish family in Cologne in 1852 but in 1869 emigrated to England and in 1878 became a British subject. Immensely wealthy, close to King Edward VII, influential in the highest political circles in London (including the Foreign Office), and with a reputation for sharp practice, in 1909 - with the encouragement of the Turkish government - launched the National Bank of Turkey. In the face of French financial and commercial predominance, this was not a success. Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. Joseph: Birmingham businessman and city politician who metamorphosed into a great national statesman. A Liberal Unionist, his career in office culminated with his period as Colonial Secretary from 1895 to 1903, when he resigned in order to lead the campaign for tariff reform. Suffered a stroke in 1906 and was forced to retire from public life. Charikoff, M.: Russian Ambassador at Constantinople, 1909-12. Chirol, Valentine: Journalist and author, though spent the first four years of his working life as a clerk in the Foreign Office, resigning in 1876. Had a special interest in the Middle East and India, and learned his new trade on the Levant Herald in Constantinople in the early 1880s. In 1892 joined The Times, commencing his career there as Correspondent in Berlin. By 1899

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was Director of the Foreign Department, a post he held until his retirement in early 1912. Shaping the views of The Times on foreign affairs, and retaining both a knowledge of and affection for the Foreign Office, had a close working relationship with it which seems to have flourished further during the Great War. In 1915 went on a special mission to the Balkans. Chitty, A.: Director-General of the Egyptian Ministry of Finance until he succeeded Machell (see below) as Adviser to the Ministry of the Interior in 1908. Clemow, Dr. Frank Gerard: Physician to the British Embassy in Constantinople, 1900-14. Cockerell, Samuel Pepys: Entered Foreign Office 1902. George Lloyd's best friend from Eton days until his death from smallpox on 20 March 1915 while serving with the Royal Flying Corps in Egypt. 'S.P.C.' was Commercial Attaché in Madrid (side accredited to Lisbon) during 1906 and 1907, returning to the Foreign Office at the start of 1908. In March 1909 his marriage to an Austrian Countess was announced in The Times and in May it was declared in the same newspaper that it was no longer to take place. In May 1910 resigned from the Foreign Office. Fitzmaurice repeatedly made cryptic references to his strong Jewish sympathies and on 29 June 1914 it is interesting to see Cockerell writing on 'Spanish Jews in Turkey' in a supplement of The Times. Constans, Jean Antoine Ernest: French Ambassador at Constantinople, 1898-1909. Cox, Lt. Col. Percy: Apptd. Consul-General at Bushire, 1904; Political Resident in the Persian Gulf, 1909. Crawford, (later Sir) Richard: British Commissioner of Customs lent to Turkey in early 1909 to reorganize the Custom House in Constantinople. Successful, and popular with the Turks, was also Adviser to the Ottoman Ministry of Finance, 1911-14. Knighted in January 1911, and in January 1914 given the honorary rank of Minister Plenipotentiary in the [British] Diplomatic Service. Cromer, (Evelyn Baring) Earl of: Legendary proconsul of Egypt, from 1883 until his retirement in July 1907. Because Britain continued to recognize Ottoman suzerainty over Egypt, Cromer had to be given a title that fudged the discrepancy between the de facto and the de jure positions hence 'Agent and Consul-General'. He was nevertheless given the rank of Minister Plenipotentiary in the Diplomatic Service. Crow, Francis Edward: Entered Levant Service 1885. Consul at Basra, 190314. Cugnin, Monsieur: French engineer commissioned by the Porte to prepare plans for the Hindiyé barrage; dismissed at the end of 1907. Cumberbatch, Henry: Entered Levant Service 1876. Consul and then ConsulGeneral at Smyrna, 1896-1908; Beirout, 1908-14.

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Deedes, Wyndham: Eton and Rifle Brigade. Served in the international inspectorate of the Turkish Gendarmerie, 1910-13; then for a short period as a civil inspector in Turkey. With fluent Turkish, was a most effective intelligence officer during the Gallipoli campaign, and joined the Arab Bureau in 1916. Dickson, Capt. B.: Vice-Consul at Van, 1906-10. Dimsdale, Sir Joseph Cockfield: Old Etonian (like Lloyd), banker, ardent imperialist, and formerly powerful Conservative politician in the city of London as well as MP - and past Grand Master and Treasurer of the Grand Lodge of Freemasons. Djavid Bey: Donmeh and Freemason from Salonica, and CUP Deputy for that town; Minister of Finance and Public Works in various cabinets. Doughty-Wylie, Capt. 'Dick': A brave soldier, severely wounded in various campaigns, convalescing as Acting Vice-Consul at Konieh, 1906-9; wounded again while helping to quell disorder in Adana in 1908; admired and loved by Gertrude Bell - but tragically because he was already married and, inevitably, killed at Gallipoli. Edmonds, William Stanley: Entered Levant Service 1903. Vice-Consul Interpreter in the Dragomanate at Constantinople, 1908-14. Einstein, Lewis: Entered American Foreign Service 1903. 3rd Secretary at US Embassy in London, 1905-6; 2nd Secretary of Legation, then Embassy, at Constantinople, March 1906-November 1908; Secretary of Embassy at Constantinople, November 1908-late 1909, when transferred to Peking. Eyres, Harry: Entered Levant Service 1877. Consul-General at Constantinople, 1905-14. Fehim Pasha: Foster-brother of Abdul Hamid and appalling bully, eventually banished - and then lynched. Ferid Pasha, Avlonyali Mehmed: Hamidian loyalist and Grand Vizier at the time of the revolution in July 1908. Then in and out of various official positions and always treated with suspicion by the CUP. Feriid Pasha, Damad Mehmed: Brother-in-law of Abdul Hamid (hence 'Damad') and after the revolution in July 1908 appointed to the Senate. A leader of the Liberal opposition. Findlay, (later Sir) Mansfeldt de Cardonnel: Entered British Diplomatic Service 1886. 3rd Secretary at Constantinople in the 1880s; Secretary of Legation and then Counsellor of Embassy at the Cairo Agency, 1901-7. Fitzmaurice, Lord Edmund (Petty-): Liberal politician with strong interest in the Balkans, whose hey-day was past by the opening of the twentieth century; younger brother of the former Conservative Foreign Secretary, Lord Lansdowne; ineffectual number two to Sir Edward Grey, representing the Foreign Office in the Lords, 1906-9.

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Garstin, Sir William: Highly regarded civil engineer who was InspectorGeneral of Irrigation in Egypt and Under-Secretary of State for Public Works, 1892-1908; remained an adviser on the hydrography of the Nile for some years afterwards. Garvin, James: Brilliant journalist and newspaper editor (notably of the Pall Mall Gazette and the Observer), Garvin was an ardent imperialist and tariff reformer - and thus strong supporter of Joseph Chamberlain. Gaskin, John Calcott: Vice-Consul at Bushire, 1893-1900; Assistant Political Agent, Bahrain, 1900-4; appointed Assistant for Trade and Commerce to Political Resident in Turkish Arabia, February 1912. Ghalib Pasha: Previously official in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, transferred to the Palace in 1880 as Assistant Introducer of Ambassadors and by 1906 was Grand Master of Ceremonies. Described in the British Embassy's Annual Report for 1906 as "an extremely agreeable, gentlemanly man, of no great intelligence or force of character ... and standing in extreme awe of his sovereign. ... essentially non-political". Goltz, Colmar Frhr. von der, General: 'Goltz Pasha' was a German general employed by both Abdul Hamid (1883-95) and the Young Turks (1909-11) to head a large advisory mission of German officers to reorganize the Ottoman Army. Gorst, Sir Eldon: Cromer's successor as Agent and Consul-General in Egypt, 1907-11. Graves, Philip Perceval: Journalist. Nephew of the senior Levant Service officer, Sir Robert Windham Graves. Correspondent of The Times in Cairo, 1906-8; Constantinople, 1908-14; intelligence officer in the Middle East in the Great War. Graves, Richard Massie: Entered Levant Service 1903. Nephew of the senior Levant Service officer, Sir Robert Windham Graves. Acting 3rd Dragoman at Constantinople, April 1907-January 1908. Grey, Sir Edward: British Foreign Secretary December 1905- December 1916. Hakki Pasha, Ibrahim: Legal Adviser to the Porte before the revolution in 1908; thereafter held ministerial offices for short periods until sent as Ambassador to Rome, 1909-10; Grand Vizier, 1910-11. Well thought of by the British Embassy before the revolution but latterly regarded by Fitzmaurice as a poor negotiator and a 'windbag'. Hardinge, Sir Arthur: Entered Foreign Office 1880. First cousin to Sir Charles Hardinge (see below). Minister at Brussels, 1906-11; Lisbon, 1911-13. Among the junior posts held by Sir Arthur earlier in his career was that of 2nd Secretary at Constantinople, 1889-90, where he overlapped with Fitzmaurice, who entered the dragomanate in 1890. In A Diplomatist in the East (1928) he admits that "From that moment onwards, my greatest ambition was that I might become Her Majesty's Ambassador to the Porte". When in 1908 Lowther got it instead, he almost resigned from the service (p. 29).

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Hardinge, Sir Charles (later Lord Hardinge of Penshurst): Entered the British Diplomatic Service 1881. Began his diplomatic career at the British Embassy in Constantinople (1881-4) and returned briefly in 1888. However, his career touched most intimately on Fitzmaurice when he was Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office from early in 1906 until the autumn of 1910, when he was appointed Governor-General of India. Hassan Fehmi: Editor of the most anti-CUP newspaper, the Serbesti; assassinated 7 April 1909. Heard, William Beauchamp: Entered Levant Service 1900. Vice-Consul at Diarbekir, March 1906-November 1908; Beirut, December 1908-November 1909; Sofia, 1909-1914; and Acting Consul at Philippopolis, MayNovember 1915. Heathcote-Smith, Clifford Edward: Entered Levant Service 1903. ViceConsul at Smyrna, 1908-13. Herbert, Aubrey: Appointed Honorary Attaché at Constantinople, March 1904. The half-blind elder son of the second marriage of the wealthy and influential fourth Earl of Carnarvon, he subsequently became a Conservative M.P. A Freemason and very pro-Young Turk, he eventually fell out with Fitzmaurice. Hilmi Pasha: Efficient, hard-working and ambitious Ottoman bureaucrat. Inspector-General of Macedonia, 1903-8; Minister of the Interior, 1908-9; Grand Vizier, 1909-10; Minister of Justice, 1912. Hoare, Reginald Hervey: Entered British Diplomatic Service 1906. Attache and then 3rd Secretary at Constantinople, 1906-9. Hohler, Thomas: Entered British Diplomatic Service 1895. Attaché and then 3rd Secretary at Constantinople, 1895-7; Adis Ababa, 1907; 2nd Secretary and then 1st Secretary at Constantinople, 1908-10; transferred to Mexico, August 1910. Izzet Pasha: Syrian Arab and second ranked Private Secretary to Abdul Hamid, over whom he had immense influence. Regarded by British Embassy as incarnation of the Hamidian system: cunning and venal. Widely loathed, he fled the country following the revolution in 1908. Jahid, Hussein: Journalist and influential member of the CUP. Jahid was Deputy for Constantinople and Editor of the Tanin. Jay, Peter: Entered American Foreign Service 1902. 2nd Secretary and soon Secretary of Legation at US Legation Constantinople, June 1903-June 1906; Secretary of Embassy (following upgrade of Legation) 1906-7; Secretary of Embassy at Tokyo, 1907-9. Like George Lloyd, who was only two years his junior, Jay was an Old Etonian, having spent five years at Eton before going to Harvard. Jones, John Francis: Entered Levant Service 1881. Dragoman-Archivist at Constantinople, November 1906-May 1907.

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Kiamil Pasha: Veteran politician (born 1832), liberal, independently minded, and intensely Anglophile. Grand Vizier after the 1908 revolution but soon fell out with the CUP and removed February 1909; Grand Vizier again October 1912-January 1913; died Nov. 1913. Kiazim: Aubrey Herbert's Albanian servant. Lamb, Harry: Entered Levant Service 1879. Consul for Kurdistan at Erzeroum, 1899-1903; Chief Dragoman at Constantinople, 1903-7; Consul-General at Satonica, 1907-14. Lambton, John Frederick: Honorary Attaché at Constantinople, 1907; later 5th Earl of Durham. Lansdowne, Sth Marquess of: Foreign Secretary, 1900-5; leader of the Conservative peers in the House of Lords, 1903-16; head of the wealthy, Protestant, Irish land-owning Petty-Fitzmaurice family, of which Gerald Fitzmaurice was a poor and distant relation. Law, Andrew Bonar: Conservative MP and prominent tariff reformer. Fought and lost a Manchester constituency in December 1910; returned in a byelection and succeeded Balfour as party leader in the House of Commons later in 1911. Liaptcheff, Andrea: Bulgarian statesman. Minister of Finance in 1908 in the Malinoff cabinet which proclaimed Bulgarian independence and thus responsible for negotiating the settlement of financial questions with Turkey, notably the fixing of the indemnity due to Constantinople for its loss of its tribute from Eastern Roumelia; member of the Macedonian Legion in the Balkan War of 1912. Lloyd, George Ambrose: Conservative MP, colonial administrator, and traveller. Born 19 September 1879, Lloyd was of Welsh descent and closely connected to the banking Lloyds. Honorary Attaché at Constantinople, 1905-6; Member of Parliament for W. Staffordshire, 1910-18; military intelligence in Egypt during the Great War; knighted in 1918 and Governor of Bombay, 1918-24; Conservative MP for Eastbourne, 1924-5; elevated to the House of Lords with the title Lord Lloyd of Dolobran, 1925, and High Commissioner for Egypt and the Sudan, 1925-9. In the 1930s vocal in the Lords in support of imperial interests (especially India and protection) and urged by some to form a 'true' Conservative Party; President of the Navy League; Chairman of the Empire Economic Union; and Chairman of the British Council. Appointed Colonial Secretary by Churchill, May 1940, but died suddenly in following February. Loraine, Percy: Entered British Diplomatic Service 1904. Attaché and then 3rd Secretary at Constantinople, December 1904-February 1907, when transferred to Tehran (promoted 2nd Secretary, May 1909); Rome, 190911; Peking, 1911; Paris, 1912-16. Returned to Turkey as Ambassador in the 1930s. Lorimer, John Gordon: Indian Government officer appointed 1891. ConsulGeneral at Bagdad 1909-14 (initially Acting).

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Lowther, Sir Gerard: Entered British Diplomatic Service 1879. 2nd Secretary at Constantinople (where he was Superintendent of Student Interpreters, including Fitzmaurice), 1884-90; Minister at Tangier and Consul-General in Morocco, 1905-8; Ambassador at Constantinople, 1908-13. Lynch, H. F. B.: Traveller, writer, businessman and politician. Senior partner in Lynch Brothers, the well known commercial firm in Mesopotamia and western Persia which owned the Euphrates and Tigris Steam Navigation Co.; Liberal MP for Ripon, 1906-10. Lynch had stayed with Fitzmaurice at the vice-consulate in Van in 1893 during research for his monumental Armenia: Travels and Studies (1901). McGregor, Peter James Colquhoun: Entered Levant Service 1885. Consul at Sarajevo, 1905-7; Dragoman-Archivist at Constantinople, June 1907end 1908. Macheti, Percy Wilfrid: Long-serving Adviser to the Egyptian Ministry of the Interior, who retired from the post in 1908. Mackensen, Field Marshall August von: German commander of the army group which finally crushed Serbian resistance in October 1915. Macleay, James: Entered British Diplomatic Service 1895. 2nd Secretary at Constantinople, April 1905-0ctober 1907. Aka the 'Worthy One'. Mallet, (later Sir) Louis: Entered Foreign Office 1888. Superintending Under Secretary of Eastern Department, 1908-13; Ambassador at Constantinople, 1913-14. Marco: Caretaker of the British Embassy building in Pera. Mariniteli, Hugo: 2nd Dragoman at the British Embassy in Constantinople from 1876 until retirement in 1906, having served previously for ten years as First Dragoman at the Spanish Legation. Believed to be of Dalmatian origin. Marling, Charles: Entered British Diplomatic Service 1889. 3rd Secretary at Constantinople, 1891-4; 2nd Secretary at Constantinople, 1900-3; Constantinople, 1905; Counsellor of Embassy at Teheran, 1906-8; Constantinople, October 1908-14. An old Constantinople hand, respected by Fitzmaurice, Marling served five times as Charge d'Affaires at the Embassy between 1908 and 1914. Marschall ('Marshall'), see Bieberstein. Maunsell, Lieut.-Col. Francis R i c h a r d : Military Attaché at Constantinople, 1901-5; formerly a military consul in the Ottoman Empire. Maxwell, Richard Ponsonby: Entered Foreign Office 1877. Head of Eastern Department, 1901 until retirement in November 1913. Merriman, John Xavier: Last prime minister of the Cape Colony before creation of the Union of South Africa in 1910.

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Milner, Lord (Alfred): Imperial patriot and proconsul. Governor of the Cape Colony, 1897-1901; Governor of Transvaal and Orange River Colony, 1901-5; and High Commissioner for South Africa, 1897-1905. Returned to England somewhat exhausted and with popularity diminished, and kept a low profile for the next few years; opposed to Irish Home Rule. Mizzi, Dr.: Maltese barrister and proprietor of the anti-CUP Levant Herald. Monson, Edmund St. J.: Entered British Diplomatic Service 1906. Attaché and then 3rd Secretary at Constantinople, 1907-11. Muktar, Ghazi Ahmed: Hero of the Russo-Turkish War, with a reputation for being 'above polities'. Abdul Hamid's representative in Egypt, 18851908; appointed Senator after the Young Turks' revolution, and President of the Senate in 1911; briefly Grand Vizier in second half of 1912. Father of Mahmoud Muktar Pasha. Muktar Pasha, Mahmud: Soldier son of Gazi Ahmed Muktar. Commander of the Constantinople garrison at the time of the counter-revolution in April 1909 and loyal to the CUP; appointed vali of Aydin on his return later in the year. Newmarch, Lieut.-Col. Lindsay Sherwood: Indian Army officer who was Consul-General at Bagdad until April 1906. Niazi Bey, Ahmed: Young Turk officer in the Third Army Corps in Macedonia and leader of the revolution in July 1908; returned to military duties and assisted in repression of the counter-revolution of April 1909. Nicolson, Sir Arthur: Entered Foreign Office 1870. 2nd Secretary at Constantinople (and Superintendent of Student Interpreters), 1879-83; Secretary of Embassy at Constantinople, 1893-4; Ambassador at St. Petersburgh, 1906-10; Permanent Under-Secretary of State at the Foreign Office, 1910-16. Father of the more famous Harold. O'Conor, Sir Nicholas: Entered British Diplomatic Service 1867; Irish landowner. Secretary of Legation at Peking, 1883-5, and Washington 1886; Agent and Consul-General in Bulgaria, 1887-92; Minister at Peking, 1892-5; Ambassador at St. Petersburgh, 1895-8; Ambassador at Constantinople from 1898 until his death on 19 March 1908. Oliphant, Lancelot: Entered Foreign Office 1903. Eastern Department clerk, with spells as Acting 3rd Secretary at Constantinople, 1905-6, and Teheran, 1909-11. First cousin once removed to the colourful late nineteenth century diplomat, Laurence Oliphant. Onik Effendi: Much valued Armenian dragoman in the British Embassy in Constantinople, whose death in 1907 was blamed by Fitzmaurice on O'Conor's indifference to his aspirations for formal acknowledgment. Paid from the Embassy's Secret Service fund. Owen, Captain R. C. R.: Senior British official of the Egyptian government on the Sinai Boundary Commission. Parker, Alwyn: Entered British Diplomatic Service 1901. Attaché at St. Petersburg, 1901-3; Eastern Department of the Foreign Office, 1904-17.

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Parnell, Charles Stewart: Irish nationalist who led the fight for Home Rule in the 1880s; favoured parliamentary rather than violent struggle; died in Brighton in 1891. Pears, Sir Edwin: British-born barrister, journalist and historian who became a permanent resident in Constantinople in 1873, when almost forty. Famous for articles in the Daily News in 1876 which launched Gladstone's campaign against the 'Bulgarian horrors'; and lectured to Levant Service trainees such as Fitzmaurice at its school at Ortakeui. Major figure in the British colony in Constantinople, Pears received a knighthood in the Birthday Honours list in June 1909. Picot, Lieut.-Col., Henry Philip: Military Attache (and from 1898 Oriental Secretary as well) at Teheran, 1893-1900; later, Chairman of the Euphrates and Tigris Steam Navigation Company. Primrose, Neil: Second son of the former prime minister, Lord Rosebery; seeking a political career, Primrose eventually gained entrance to the House of Commons as Liberal MP for N. Cambridgeshire in January 1910. Rahmi Bey, Mustafa: Influential CUP Deputy for Salonica. In early 1909 was described in the British Embassy's Annual Report for 1908 as "a man of considerable eloquence, energy, intelligence, and determination, a strong Turkish Nationalist and deadly opponent of the Palace". Ramsay, Major (later Lieut.-Col.) J.: Political Resident in Turkish Arabia and Acting Consul-General in Bagdad, 1907-10. Ramsay, The Hon. Patrick: Entered British Diplomatic Service, 1905. Attaché and then 3rd Secretary at Constantinople, 1905-10; Peking, January 1910-Augustl911, having been promoted 2nd Secretary in July 1911. Redmond, John: Moderate Irish nationalist who assumed the mantle of Parnell (see above) on the latter's death, first as leader of the Irish National League (1891-1900) and then of the Irish Parliamentary Party, 1900-18. Ritchie, Sir Richmond: Secretary to Political and Secret Committee of the India Office in London, 1902-9; then Permanent Under-Secretary until his death in 1912. Riza Bey, Ahmed: CUP Deputy for Constantinople and President of the Chamber. Roberts, Lord: Immensely popular military figure in Britain who finished his official career as C-in-C of the British Army (1900-4) and then briefly as a member of the Committee of Imperial Defence. In November 1905 became President of the National Service League and remained the most prominent campaigner for compulsory military service until the outbreak of war in 1914; in 1910 he was somewhat embattled. An opponent of Irish Home Rule. Rodd, Sir Rennell: Entered British Diplomatic Service 1884. Minister at Stockholm 1904-8; Ambassador at Rome, 1908-1918.

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Ryan, Andrew: Entered Levant Service 1897. Succeeded Fitzmaurice as 2nd Dragoman in October 1907, acted for him in his absence, and eventually after the Great War - succeeded him as Chief Dragoman. Both were Irish Catholics and - though quite different in personality - enjoyed mutual respect and affection. Said Pasha, Mehmed: Had been six times Grand Vizier under Abdul Hamid before once more being given the role immediately following the Young Turks' revolution in July 1908, though was forced to resign only days later. In late 1911 the grand vizierate was to see this veteran politician again. Sandison, Sir Alfred: An English 'Levantine', Sandison was a dragoman at Constantinople from 1860 until 1894. In 1874 he was granted the local rank of Oriental 2nd Secretary, in 1876 became in effect Chief Dragoman on the retirement of Etienne Pisani, and in 1878 was knighted. From 1888 onwards he was formally styled 'Chief Dragoman' in the Embassy order of precedence. Shah Mahomed Ali: Persian ruler forced to abdicate in 1909 and given sanctuary in Russia. Shevket Pasha, Mahmud: Commander of the Third Army Corps in Macedonia which crushed the counter-revolution of April 1909; thereafter, de facto military dictator, then Grand Vizier following the coup of January 1913; assassinated in June of that year. Spring-Rice, Sir Cecil: Entered Foreign Office, 1882. 2nd Secretary at Constantinople, July-October 1898; Secretary of Embassy (later Counsellor) at St. Petersburgh, 1903-6; Minister and Consul-General at Teheran, 1906-8. Stratford de Redcliffe, Lord: One of the most remarkable ambassadors of the nineteenth century, much of whose career was spent at Constantinople. The final posting of the 'Great ElchV lasted from 1841 until 1858, thereby embracing the Crimean War; died in 1880. Surtees, Col. Herbert Conyers: Military Attaché at Constantinople (side accredited to Athens), July 1905-November 1909. Sykes, Capt. Mark: Heir to a baronetcy and 34,000 acres in Yorkshire. Had travelled widely in and written about the Middle East and Asia, served in the Boer War, and acted as private secretary to the Irish Secretary (1904-5) before becoming an Honorary Attaché at Constantinople, 1905-6; elected Conservative MP for Central Hull, July 1911. Later, during the Great War, Fitzmaurice became much closer to Sykes (also Roman Catholic) than to Lloyd, who disliked Sykes and regarded him as a rival. Tahsin Pasha: Chief Secretary at the Palace, 1894-1908, and thus a man with whom Fitzmaurice had had countless dealings. Regarded by the British Embassy as a model private secretary for the Sultan: super-efficient and discreet; neither so venal nor so ambitious for influence over his master as his rival, Izzet Pasha (see above). Believed to have been a relatively poor man at the time of the revolution in July 1908 but in early August was

LIST

OF

PERSONS

MENTIONED

173

dismissed and narrowly escaped lynching. Deported by the Young Turks to an island in the Dodecanese but brought back to Constantinople in 1912 to avoid the risk that he might fall into the hands of the Italians. There lived on the charity of a kinsman, and died in destitution in 1933. Tala't Bey, Mehmet: CUP Deputy for Adrianople and sometime Minister of the Interior. Great heavyweight in the CUP, though never became Grand Vizier until 1917. Tewfik Pasha, Ahmed: Veteran diplomat and anti-CUP. Briefly Foreign Minister after the revolution in July 1908 and Grand Vizier following the short-lived counter-revolution of April 1909; Ambassador to Britain, 1909-14. Tilley, John: Entered Foreign Office 1893. Imposed on O'Conor by Sir Charles Hardinge as Acting 1st Secretary and Head of Chancery at Constantinople, September 1906-August 1908. Returned to the Foreign Office, where he rose steadily and was a good friend to Fitzmaurice; appointed Chief Clerk, October 1913. Townley, Walter Beaupré: Entered British Diplomatic Service 1886. Secretary of Embassy and then Counsellor at Constantinople, 1903-5; Washington, 1905-6; Minister to Argentina and Paraguay, 1906-11. Tyrrell, William: Entered Foreign Office 1889. Private Secretary to the Permanent Under-Secretary, Sir Thomas Sanderson, 1896-1903; Private Secretary to and closest confidant of the Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey, May 1907-June 1915. Tyrrell was one of the most powerful men in the Foreign Office and, also a Roman Catholic, perhaps Fitzmaurice's most valuable ally. Vernon, Lord: Nineteen years' of age when appointed Honorary Attaché at Constantinople, January 1908; transferred to Munich in same capacity a year later and resigned shortly afterwards. Waugh, Alexander Telford: Entered Levant Service 1885. Saw much service at Constantinople before becoming Chief Dragoman at the Consulate in 1901, with title of Consul and Legal Dragoman from January 1908. Waugh was the backbone of the consular section of the British Embassy, after the outbreak of war with Turkey staying on until the end of January 1915 under the protection of the American Embassy in order to look after British interests. Weitz, Paul: Constantinople Correspondent of the Frankfurter Zeitung and adviser to the German Embassy. Weakley, Ernest: Commercial Attaché at Constantinople, 1897-1914. Made a CMG 26 June 1908. Whitehead, James Beethom: Entered British Diplomatic Service 1883. Secretary of Embassy at Constantinople, 1902-3; Berlin, 1903-6 (promoted Counsellor, April 1904); Minister at Belgrade, 1906-10 (resigned).

174

TILKIDOM AND THE OTTOMAN

EMPIRE

Whittall, Sir (James) William: Patriarch of the great Whittall clan of Constantinople; head of J. W. Whittall & Co., one of the largest commercial houses in Turkey; and founder and sometime president of the British Chamber of Commerce in Constantinople. Knighthood given in 1898 for relief work during the Armenian massacres of 1896. Whittall, Miss: 'The Duchess of Bezistan' was probably Miss Adeline Whittall, referred to by Sir John Tilley in his memoirs (London to Tokyo, n.d., p. 60) as a great enthusiast for the bazaars and one in whose company on visits to them - together with Lloyd and Fitzmaurice - he often acquired bargains. Willcocks, Sir William: Widely regarded as the greatest irrigation engineer of his time. On retiring from the service of Egypt in 1908, spent three years surveying the water resources of the whole of Mesopotamia (which he had already visited in the winter of 1904-5) and provided the Turkish government with plans for irrigation projects in both the Tigris and Euphrates valleys. Wratislaw, Albert Charles: Entered Levant Service 1883. Consul at Basra, 1898-1903; Consul-General at Tabriz, 1903-9. Young, (Horace Edward) Wilkie: Entered Levant Service 1900. Though only having rank of Assistant, was Acting Consul at Trebizond and Erzeroum in 1907; promoted Vice-Consul at Mosul, January 1908; transferred to Beirut, November 1909, and Acting Consul-General there in 1910. Zonaro, Fausto: The well known and prolific Ottoman court painter. *In compiling these short biographies I have drawn on many sources but chiefly the following: The Foreign Office List; Ahmad, The Young Turks; Obituaries in The Times; the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, and Who's Who.

LIST OF WORKS CITED

Adam , Colin Forbes Life of Lord Lloyd (Macmillan: London, 1948) Ahmad, Feroz The Young Turks (Clarendon Press: Oxford, 1969) Berridge, G. R. The Politics of the South Africa Run: European

Shipping

and

Pretoria (Clarendon Press: Oxford, 1987) Berridge, G. R. Gerald Fitzmaurice (1865-1939), Chief Dragoman of the

British

Embassy in Turkey (Martinus Nijhoff: Leiden and Boston, 2007) Charmley, John Lord Lloyd and the Decline of the British Empire (Weidenfeld and Nicolson: London, 1987) Cheeseman, R. E. 'A History of Steamboat Navigation on the Upper Tigris', The Geographical

Journal, 61(1), Jan. 1923, pp. 27-34

Craig, F. W. S. (ed) British Parliamentary

Election Results, 1885-1918, 2nd ed.

(Parliamentary Research Services: Dartmouth, 1989) Fielding (Hall), H. The Soul of a People (R. Bentley & Son: London, 1898) Lloyd, G. A. TNA, Secret. Board of Trade. Commercial Intelligence Committee. Report upon the Conditions and Prospects of British Trade in Mesopotamia by Mr. George Lloyd, Special Commissioner of the Advisory Committee of the Board of Trade on Commercial Intelligence (London: printed for HMSO by Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1908), F0881/9324X Lyall, Sir Alfred Asiatic

Studies, Religious

and Social, 2 vols. (John Murray:

London, 1899) Mason, A. E. W. The Broken Road (Smith, Elder & Co: London, 1907). The full novel can now be read at www.fullbooks.com/The-Broken-Roadl/html Oliphant, Laurence Traits and Travesties: Social and Political (William Blackwood and Sons: Edinburgh and London, 1882)

INDEX Abdul Hamid II 16, 34, 75, 87, 113, 120, 139 Ambassador of to London 64-5, 71, 76, 79, 81 financial disaster threatening government of 41-2 and Fitzmaurice 56, 58, 84, 91 in Salonica 122, 128 and Young Turks 94, 95, 97-8, 108, 109, 112, 115, 116 Adana 115, 125 Aden 118 see also Perim, Yemen frontier Agar-Robartes, Thomas Charles 19-20, 161 Ahmed Riza 161 Ali Bey 58 Amery, Leo 81 Arab Caliphate 115,138 Arab deputies 96, 108, 110 Armenians 82, 125 Australia 31, 128 Austria 90, 94, 97, 103 Austro-Hungarian Bank group 141, 142 Babington Smith, (later Sir) Henry

16, 161

Bagdad Consulate-General 29, 81, 109, 145 Bagdad Railway 16, 20, 27, 33, 423, 60, 84-8 passim, 110, 126 Balfour, Arthur James 129, 144 Balkan Committee 95, 98, 103-9 passim, 163 Balkan League 150, 156 Balkans (1915), "superlative stupidity" of British policy in 153-5 Balkan War (1912) 149-50 Barclay, (later Sir) George 18, 64, 71, 75-83 passim, 161 Barnham, Henry Dudley 59, 161 Bax-Ironside, Sir Henry 154, 161 Behaeddin Shakir, Dr. 162 Bell, Gertrude 25, 29, 65, 82, 115, 120, 162

and Doughty-Wylie 72, 165 Fitzmaurice's fear of 4 7 , 4 9 , 5 7 and suffragettes 18n.l Bieberstein, Adolph Baron Marschall von 162 and Fehim Pasha 24, 26 and Young Turks 90, 96, 126 Billy of Berlin, see Kaiser Wilhelm II Blech, Edward Charles 54, 92, 162 Blériot, Louis 129, 162 Block, Sir Adam 38, 42, 162 and Crawford 98 Fitzmaurice's hostility to 17n.l, 82, 114, 116, 119 and French finance 109, 146 and National Bank 98 Board of Trade 18,21,31 'Bodega' 17 n.3, 24, 25, 50, 135 Bourassa, Henri 140, 144, 162 Braham, Dudley Disraeli 136, 162 Britain see under other subjects but especially Abdul Hamid II, British Embassy in Turkey, English School, General Election, Germany, Japan, Kiamil Pasha, Macedonia, Russia, Young Turks British Embassy in Turkey 120 and consulate 173 dragomanate of 35, 36-7, 40, 48, 49, 53, 66, 68 garden party of (May 1909) 113 ideal chief of 73, 75, 77, 78 Broken Road, The 73 Brooke Hunt, Miss 127 Browne, Prof. Edward Granville 162 Brown, Gordon 109 Bryce, Rt. Hon. James 81, 162 Buchanan, Sir George William 162 Buddhism 18n.l,67 Bulgaria 171 and Fitzmaurice 103, 153-7 and Macedonia 84 and Turkey 101-3, 108, 133, 139 see also Balkan War (1912), Liaptcheff

178

TILKIDOM AND THE OTTOMAN

Bunsen, (later Sir) Maurice de 65, 73, 75-6, 83, 163 Bury, Viscount 32, 163 Buxton, Noel 163 see also Balkan Committee

55,

Cadogan, Hon. Alexander 163 Canada 138, 140, 144 Carasso, Emmanuel 163 Cassel, Sir Ernest 98, 109, 118, 134, 141, 142, 143, 163 Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. Joseph ('Joe') 18, 20, 31, 41, 163 Chanli Monastery 46 Charikoff, M. 121, 163 Chirol, Valentine 65, 136, 154, 163 Chitty, A. 87, 88, 98, 164 Churchill, Winston 81 Clemow, Dr. Frank Gerard 164 Clive, Lord 31, 60 Cockerell, Samuel Pepys ('Yahudi') 63, 91, 92-3, 110, 120, 151, 153, 164 Comet 38-9 Committee of Union and Progress, see Young Turks Constans, Jean Antoine Ernest 84, 164 cosmopolitanism 79-80, 104 counter-revolution (April 1909) 112-14 criticism of Fitzmaurice's role in 115-17, 125, 126 Cox, Lt. Col. Percy 164 Crawford, (later Sir) Richard 98, 164 Crete 103, 110, 115, 118, 120, 123, 125, 133, 137, 141, 142 Cromer, (Evelyn Baring) Earl of 34, 66, 164 Crow, Francis Edward 34 n.l, 164 Cugnin, Monsieur 38 n.2, 61, 70, 164 Cumberbatch, Henry 59, 92, 164 Currie, Sir Philip 78 Dardanelles campaign (1915) 154, 155 Deedes, Wyndham 165 Deutsche Bank 39 Dickson, Capt. B. 165

EMPIRE

Dimsdale, Sir Joseph Cockfield 136, 165 Djavid Bey 120, 141-2, 143, 146, 165 Doughty-Wylie, Capt. 'Dick' 72, 165 dragomans 83, 116-17, 118, 127, 150 see also British Embassy Du Cros, Arthur 74 Dundee by-election 81 Eastern Roumelia (1885) 87 East Wolverhampton by-election 81 n.2 Edmonds, William Stanley 165 Edward VII, death of 131, 134 Egypt 47, 115, 132, 137-8 and Freemasons 136 87, Khedive of (Abbas Hilmi II) 138-9, 142 see also Cromer, Gorst, Machel, Sinai boundary dispute (1906) Einstein, Lewis 165 Emin Bey 47-8 English School 133-4 Erzeroum consulate 43, 47-8, 117, 120 Eyres, Harry 116,165 Farid, Mahomed 136 Fehim Pasha 24, 26, 165 Ferid Pasha, Avlonyali Mehmed 645, 89, 93-4, 103, 112-30 passim, 138, 165 Ferid Pasha, Damad Mehmed 134, 165 Fielding Hall, Harold 18 n. 1 Findlay, (later Sir) Mansfeldt de Cardonnel 165 Fitzmaurice, Lord Edmund (Petty) 65, 165 France 43, 102, 109, 137, 138, 1402, 146 see also Triple Entente Freemasons 125, 131, 136 Garstang, Prof 57 Garstin, Sir William 166 Garvin, James 66, 166 Gaskin, John Calcott 166 General Election (Jan. 1910) 129-32

INDEX General Election (Dec. 1910) 131, 144, 146-7 Germany and Armenians 125 and Britain 87, 113, 118, 1212, 132, 144 and Bulgaria 154-5, 156 shipping competition from 6970 and Sinai boundary dispute 17 and Turkish Army 94, 113, 121, 140 and Young Turks 89, 90, 99, 113, 114, 137, 140-3, 144 see also Bagdad Railway, Bieberstein, Deutsche Bank, Goltz, Weitz Ghalib Pasha 76, 124, 127, 166 Goldsmith, Oliver 51 n. 1, 87 Goltz, Colmar Frhr. von der, General 113, 121, 166 Gorst, Sir Eldon 34, 166 Grand Orient, see Freemasons Graves, Philip Perceval 166 Graves, Richard Massie 40, 45, 166 Greece 84, 115, 118, 120, 122, 125, 139 Grey, Sir Edward 65, 166 Griffiths, Dr. 53 Gulf shipping and trade 69-70 Hakki Pasha, Ibrahim 166 Hamdi Bey 57 Hardinge, Sir Arthur 72-3, 76, 82, 166 Hardinge, Sir Charles (later Lord Hardinge of Penshurst) 28, 65, 136, 145, 167 Hassan Fehmi 52, 167 Heard, William Beauchamp 156, 167 Hearne, Lafcadio 17 Heathcote-Smith, Clifford Edward 72, 167 Herbert, Arthur 27 Herbert, Aubrey 17, 28, 42, 43, 106, 108, 113, 128, 167 Hilmi Pasha 108, 112, 117-18, 167

179

Hindiye barrage 38, 50-76 passim, 117 see also Willcocks Hoare, Reginald Hervey 37, 167 Hohler, Thomas 118, 135, 139, 167 House of Lords crisis 132, 144 n.2 Howell, Capt. 93 Ibrahim Pasha 53 Ikdam 96 Imogen 19 Imperial Ottoman Bank, see Ottoman Bank Imperial matters 31 see also Tariff Reform India 26, 29, 98, 115, 132, 133, 145 Ireland 64, 68, 69, 70, 79, 80 n.l, 86, 94, 98, 132, 140, 144, 147, 149 Islam 50-1,54,112,145,150 see also Sheikh ul-Islam Ismail Hakki Bey Babanzade 119 Italy 154 Izzet Pasha 103, 167 Jahid, Hussein 142, 167 Japan 36,79,87,118 Jay, Peter 46, 167 Jevad Bey 143 Jews 125, 131, 134, 141, 142, 151, 163, 164 see also Zionism Jones, John Francis 40, 46, 167 Kaiser Wilhelm II 17, 155 Khakiism 127 see also Roberts, Lord Khalid Bey 47 Khedive, see under Egypt Kiamil Pasha 168 and Bosnia crisis 90 and Bulgaria 101-3 and Young Turks 89-120 138 Kiazim 43, 109, 168

passim,

180

TILKIDOM AND THE OTTOMAN

Kipling, Rudyard

12

Lamb, Harry 15, 40, 45, 48, 168 Lambton, John Frederick 39, 168 Lansdowne, 5th Marquess of 65, 168 Lascelles, Blanche 149 Law, Andrew Bonar 168 Levant Herald 111 Liaptcheff, Andrea 101, 103, 104, 168 Lloyd George, David 18, 130, 144 Loraine, Percy 15, 18, 26, 27, 28, 84, 123, 168 Lorimer, John Gordon 145, 168 Lowther, Sir Gerard 82, 83, 122, 129, 169 Lynch Brothers 22 n.2, 28 n. 1, 33, 36, 128, 129, 145 Lynch, H. F. B. 116,117,169 Macedonia 42, 45, 49, 56, 64, 7689 passim, 110, 139 McGregor, P. J. C. 40, 169 Machell, Percy Wilfrid 26, 34, 56, 169 Mackensen, Field Marshall August von 169 Macleay, James ('Worthy One') 24, 28, 35, 46, 169 Maghil case 34, 39 Mahmoud Essad Effendi 128 Mallet, (later Sir) Louis 169 Marco 51 Marinitch, Hugo 169 Marling, Charles 17, 18, 78, 98, 118, 169 Marschall ('Marshall'), see Bieberstein Massy, Col. 123-4 Masterman, C. F. G. ('Charlie') 150 n. 2 M a u n s e l l , Lieut.-Col. Francis Richard 169 Maxwell, Richard Ponsonby 116, 169 Mehmet Ali Pasha 67 Merriman, John Xavier 169 Mersina consulate 67, 72 Mesopotamia and George Lloyd 15, 21-63 passim, (report on) 89

EMPIRE

and oil 28, 35, 42 and Young Turks 145 see also Gulf shipping and trade Milner, Lord (Alfred) 31, 104, 170 Mizzi, Dr. 111,170 Monson, Edmund St. J. 39, 170 Mosul 44 Muktar, Ghazi Ahmed 170 Muktar Pasha, Mahmud 113, 170 mutes 16 National Bank, see Cassel Newmarch, Lieut.-Col. L. S. 44, 49, 170 Niazi Bey, Ahmed 115, 170 Nicolson, Sir Arthur 73, 76, 81-2, 145, 170 Obeidullah Bey 119,143 O'Conor, Lady 17, 68, 75 O'Conor, Sir Nicholas ('Elchi') 170 character and incompetence of 26, 28, 32, 34, 37, 40, 53, 55, 56, 64, 65, 76 and Fehim Pasha 24, 26 and Fitzmaurice 15, 23, 30, 35, 45, 48, 55, 58, 66-7, 78 illness and death of 68-75 passim and Ireland 86 see also 3 per cent question Oecumenical Patriarch 34 Oliphant, Lancelot 170 Oliphant, Laurence 80 n.l Onik Effendi 36-7, 40, 170 Ottoman Bank 141, 142, 143 Ottoman Deputies' London visit (July 1909) 119-25 passim Owen, Capt. R. C. R. 170 Panislamism 141, 145, 150, 151 Parker, Alwyn 65, 170 Parnell, Charles Stewart 171 Patterson's mines 33-4, 56 patriotism 79, 127-8 Pears, Sir Edwin 122, 171 Peckham by-election 77 Perim 139 see also Yemen frontier Persia 18-19, 26, 59, 64, 82, 121, 137, 143 Picot, Lieut.-Col., Henry Philip 26, 36, 171

181

INDEX Preziosis 92 Primrose, Neil private letters

19-20, 171 10

Rahmi Bey, Mustafa 143, 171 Raif Pasha 52 Ramsay, Major (later Lieut.-Col.) J. 76, 81, 171 Ramsay, The Hon. Patrick 15, 21, 39, 46-7, 55, 58, 81, 85, 126, 129, 171 Ramsay, Sir W. 57 red letter year (1906-7) 23, 129 Redmond, John 171 Reshid Bey 64-5 Revai 86-7,89,114 see also Russia Rifaat Bey 76, 79 Ritchie, Sir Richmond 86, 171 Riza Bey, Ahmed 117, 133, 171 Riza Bey, Dr Tevfik 138 Roberts, Lord 139, 171 Roche, Sir Boyle 56 Rodd, Sir Rennell 171 Roumania 154 Russia and Britain 84, 86-7, 90, 98, 121-2, 137-8, 145, 149, 150, 156 and Young Turks 114,121 see also Japan, Nicolson, Persia Ryan, Andrew 45, 55, 60, 134, 172 Said Pasha, Mehmed 89, 172 Salisbury, Lord 41, 66, 129 Samos 84 Sandison, Sir Alfred 84, 172 Sassoon 119 Saxe Coburg, Duke of 88 Serbia 103, 154-7 passim Shah Mahomed Ali 172 Sheik ul-Islam 114, 118-19, 127 'Sheri', see Islam Shevket Pasha, Mahmud 113,117, 131, 133, 143, 146, 172, shipping experts 32-3 Sibyline books 154

Sinai boundary dispute (1906) 16, 17, 18, 34 South Africa 132, 138, 170 Spring-Rice, Sir Cecil 18-19, 172 Stratford de Redcliffe, Lord 172 Strick's 69 suffragettes 18 n.l, 85, 98, 104, 113, 127, 138 Surtees, Col. Herbert Conyers 88, 121, 172 Sykes, Capt. Mark 25, 32, 53, 172 Tahsin Pasha 97-8, 107, 172-3 Tala't Bey, Mehmet 119, 133, 136, 143, 173 Tanin 96, 113, 119 Tarantism 104 Tariff Reform ('True Creed') 16, 18, 20, 31, 48, 66, 77, 79, 98, 127, 140 Tewfik Pasha, Ahmed 173 109, 114, 120, 163-4 The Times 3 per cent question 16-34 passim, 412, 45, 54, 56 3rd steamer 22-36 passim, 104 Tigris shipping 22 n.2, 33, 36, 45, 128 tilkidom 15, 119, 129 Tilley, John 173 Townley, Walter Beaupré 78, 173 Triple Alliance 141, 142, 143 Triple Entente 141, 143, 153-7 passim, 161, 163 Turks and Padishah 40-1 preference of for English over Germans 113 stoicism of 67 unchangeability of 71-2, 106 virility of 35-6, 106, 139 see also Young Turks 2 power standard 60-1 Tyrrell, William 52, 65, 80, 115, 119, 173 Vernon, Lord 71, 173 Waugh, Alexander Telford

54, 173

182

TILKIDOM AND THE OTTOMAN

Weakley, Ernest 28, 33, 34, 3940, 47, 54-5, 59, 76, 86, 88, 91, 92 Weitz, Paul 20, 126, 173 Whitehead, James Beethom 78, 173 Whittall, Sir (James) William 94, 173 Whittall, Miss 68, 74, 173 Willcocks, Sir William 70, 73, 76, 84, 94, 104, 111, 115, 117, 124, 128, 173 Wilson Fox, Arthur 110 Wratislaw, Albert Charles 173 Yemen frontier 15, 23, 86, 110 n. 1 Young, (Horace Edward) Wilkie 60, 66, 91, 173 Young Turks 133, 139, 140-1 and Bosnia crisis 90, 93

EMPIRE

and Britain 89, 90, 94, 97, 108, 110, 121, 123, 126-7, 135, 138, 145 and foreign loans 140-2, 146, 147 and government responsibility 114, 120, 124, 138 and Kiamil Pasha 95-8, 105-6, 107-9 andMizzi 111 revolution of (July 1908) 89 and Russia 114,121 warlike tendencies of 122, 133 see also Abdul Hamid, Balkan Committee, Balkan War (1912), counter-revolution (April 1909), Crete, Freemasons, Germany, Triple Alliance Zionism 120, 142 Zonaro, Fausto 55, 91, 173