Page:Ambassador Morgenthau's Story.djvu/425

Rh disagreeable and unimportant subjects. The Grand Vizier showed his attitude when the Greek Chargé d'Affaires spoke to him about the persecutions of the Greeks. Saïd Halim said that such manifestations did the Greeks more harm than good.

"We shall do with them just the opposite from what we are asked to do," said the Grand Vizier.

To my appeals the nominal chief minister was hardly more statesmanlike. I had the disagreeable task of sending him, in behalf of the British, French, and Russian governments, a notification that these Powers would hold personally responsible for the Armenian atrocities the men who were then directing Ottoman affairs. This meant, of course, that in the event of Allied success, they would treat the Grand Vizier, Talaat, Enver, Djemal and their companions as ordinary murderers. As I came into the room to discuss this somewhat embarrassing message with this member of the royal house of Egypt, he sat there, as usual, nervously fingering his beads, and not in a particularly genial frame of mind. He at once spoke of this telegram; his face flushed with anger, and he began a long diatribe against the whole Armenian race. He declared that the Armenian "rebels" had killed 120,000 Turks at Van. This and other of his statements were so absurd that I found myself spiritedly defending the persecuted race, and this aroused the Grand Vizier's wrath still further, and, switching from the Armenians, he began to abuse my own country, making the usual charge that our sympathy with the Armenians was largely responsible for all their troubles.

Soon after this interview Saïd Halim ceased to be Minister for Foreign Affairs; his successor was Halil