'File F/1 Criminal Intelligence, Circular Memoranda: Pan-Islamism' [‎22r] (43/68)

now opened an anti-English campaign. It was impossible for the represent
atives of the British Government in Turkey to do more than they had done
during this period : the British Government too had done its utmost for the
new regime. England's relations with Austria-Hung.-iry had been cordial
for nearly a century, yet England had openly manifested her displeasure
at the Austro-Hungarian Tiolation of the Treaty of Berlin and the blow struck
at the hopes of the Turkish new regime. She had given Turkey advisers at
least as competent as, and less costly than, those supplied by the German
Embassy, her press had hailed the Ottoman revolution in enthusiastic terms.
The ingratitude of the Young Turks was, therefore, the more regrettable.
It did not, however, occur to the British Government that this was more than
a mere outburst of pique inspired by the belief that Great Britain had become
slightly sceptical, not of the good intentions, but of the political finesse of the
Committee of Union and Progress. After a while the press agitation against
Great Britain seemed to die down, but late in 1009 incidents occurred in the
Turkish House of Commons which showed the extent to which German
influence had made its way among Ottoman politicians.
Ferid Effendi, a well-known Deputy, on the occasion of the debate
crmcerning the payment of the Kilometric Guarantees to the Baghdad Railwar-
Company, made a most violent attack on Great Britain which, though reproved:
by the Grand Vizier Hilmi Pacha, was not disavowed by the leading members
oi the parliamentary wing of the Committee of Union and Progress. A few
weeks later there came the question of the concession promised by the Sublime
Porte to the Lynch firm, which had demanded greater facilities for river
navigation on the Tigris and Euphrates. The Government did indeed obtain
a vote authorising it to grant the concession, but the debate showed that the
Committee majority in the Chamber of Deputies was hostile to and suspicious
of Great Britain, and there can be no doubt-that German and Jewish wire
pullers, Baron Von Oppenheim and Ezkiel Sassoon, the M. P. for Baghdad,
among them, had won the Young Turks to their side. A little later Hussein
Hilmi Pacha resigned. The Committee party did not altogether approve his.
conduct of affairs, the Germans had the affair of the Lynch concession against
him, and there can be little doubt that it was this that brought about his fall.
To him succeeded as Grand Vizier Hakki Pacha, a venal and subtle favourite
of Abdul Hamid, who had contrived to make his peace with Abdul Hamid's.
successors. He was on terms of intimacy with the German Ambassador and
had paid several visits to Berlin. In a few weeks Hakki had become a regular
visitor, one might almost say a client, at the German Embassy, while Germany
did her utmost to improve her position in Turkey, she lost no chance of
impressing Turkish visitors to her cities. Turkish Parliamentary Delegates
who visited Prance and England were shown factories and workshops,
philanthropic institutions and museums: in Germany no opportunity was lost of
hypnotising them with the spectacle of endless, masses of marching troops,
of dazzling them with the splendour of Court ceremonial, of compelling: their
belief in the military power and the unsurpassed national efficiency of
Germany.
The Congress of the Committee of Union and Progress which met at
Salonica in the summer of 1910 discussed the question of Turkey's future
foreign policy at considerable length and eventually decided that, while
Turkey had most to grain from an alliance with the Central Powers, the Porte
would be well-advised to abstain from any immediate entanglements, till the
reorganisation of the army had made greater progress.
In the autumn of 1910, Germany sold two antique ironclads and four
modern destroyers to the Porte. This produced a fresh outbreak of journals
istic enthusiasm in favour of Germany and the Porte began foolish to
encourage anti-French intrigues in N. Africa. Articles of an highly
inflammatory description were written by Tunisian agitators and pub
lished (with the permission of a normally severe Censorship) in the Turkish,
Press. Large military orders # were placed in Germany and many Turkish
Qfficers sent there for purposes of study. Enver Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. , Military Attache at