Page:Ambassador Morgenthau's Story.djvu/424

358 times Talaat hit around the edges of the card, but he could not duplicate Enver's skill.

"If it had been a man I was firing at," said the bulky Turk, jumping on his horse again, "I would have hit him several times."

So ended my attempts to interest the two most powerful Turks of their day in the fate of one of the most valuable elements in their empire!

I have already said that Saïd Halim, the Grand Vizier, was not an influential personage. Nominally, his office was the most important in the empire; actually, the Grand Vizier was a mere place-warmer, and Talaat and Enver controlled the present incumbent, precisely as they controlled the Sultan himself. Technically the ambassadors should have conducted their negotiations with Saïd Halim, for he was Minister for Foreign Affairs; I early discovered, however, that nothing could be accomplished this way, and, though I still made my Monday calls as a matter of courtesy, I preferred to deal directly with the men who had the real power to decide all matters. In order that I might not be accused of neglecting any means of influencing the Ottoman Government, I brought the Armenian question several times to the Grand Vizier's attention. As he was not a Turk, but an Egyptian, and a man of education and breeding, it seemed not unlikely that he might have a somewhat different attitude toward the subject peoples. But I was wrong. The Grand Vizier was just as hostile to the Armenians as Talaat and Enver. I soon found that merely mentioning the subject irritated him greatly. Evidently he did not care to have his elegant ease interfered with by such