Posthumous Memoirs of Talaat Pasha/Beginning

FROM the beginning of the revolution of 1907 down to the Balkan war, Turkey had no definite foreign policy. One day a pro-English feeling would prevail at the Porte, the next we would turn toward Germany. We were in a hesitating state, not knowing where to go, whose hand to shake. We followed the exigencies of the hour, trying to be equally good to all the European powers. After the Balkan War we thought that the loss of Turkey's European provinces was largely due to our undecided and vacillating policy. Consequently, we thought it necessary to settle all our difficulties and disputed problems with the European powers, and, discarding all pretexts of European intervention, to devote our efforts to the social and economic reconstruction of our country. With this aim in view, the Cabinet of Mahmoud Shevket Pasha organized a commission under the Presidency of Hakky Pasha—the former Turkish Prime Minister, who was Turkish Ambassador to Germany during the war, and who died in 1917 at Berlin —and invested it with the extraordinary mission of visiting all the European capitals, with full authority to solve unsettled problems and to reach an agreement with the nations of Europe about their supposed interests in Turkey. Hakky Pasha began his work, going first to England. After concluding an. arrangement with the English Government he was to go to Paris, then to Germany, &c. But just at that time Russia sent a vigorous note to the Porte. After the Balkan War there was a worldwide belief that Turkey had become very weak and was lying on her death-bed. Russia, taking advantage of this opportunity, demanded the application of the Treaty of Berlin to the eastern provinces of the empire. This treaty had been violated many times after its signature, and its stipulations had become obsolete. Russia, however, wished to use it as a means of aggression at a time when she knew that Turkey was not able to resist. This unexpected hostility of Russia created great anxiety at the Porte. Trying, on the one hand, to get the help of the other Ambassadors at Constantinople to frustrate the consequences of the Russian note, we gave, on the other hand, a telegraphic order to Hakky Pasha at London to sign an agreement with England and secure her help for the realization of a constructive program by the Turkish Government in the eastern provinces. According to the Treaty of Berlin, the integrity of these Turkish provinces, where our interests were clashing with those of Russia, was assured by England. Hakky Pasha, starting from this point, asked the English Government to appoint English subjects as supervisors of the constructive work to be carried on in this disputed area. The English Government accepted this proposal, and some of the English inspectors who were to go to Turkey for this purpose were even selected and their names announced. The application of this agreement would have eliminated the dangerous effects of the Russian note and would have saved Turkey from great embarrassment. St. Petersburg, realizing this, immediately applied to London and began to use its influence against the agreement. Unfortunately, she succeeded. As a consequence, the English Government subsequently withdrew its consent, and the project to get English help for the constructive work failed.