Paris 1919 - Margaret Macmillan [240]
When the two men put their signatures to the armistice on October 30, they cheerfully toasted each other in champagne. Rauf, the Agamemnon’ s captain wrote to his wife, “made me a very graceful little speech thanking me for my hospitality and consideration to him as a technical enemy.” The photograph of the captain’s young twin sons, said Rauf, had been a source of inspiration to him. “Wasn’t that nice?”4
In London, the British cabinet received the news of the armistice with delight and fell to discussing how Constantinople ought to be occupied, given “the mentality of the East.” The British and their allies had every intention of enforcing the armistice rigorously. All Turkish garrisons were to surrender; all the railways and telegraphs would be run by the Allies; and Turkish ports were to be available for Allied warships. But the most damaging clause was the seventh, which read simply: “The Allies have the right to occupy any strategic points in the event of a situation arising which threatens the security of the Allies.” Years later Rauf looked back: “There was a general conviction in our country that England and France were countries faithful not only to their written pacts, but also to their promises. And I had this conviction too. What a shame that we were mistaken in our beliefs and convictions!” 5
From his post far away to the south, by the Syrian border, a friend of Rauf’s who was also a war hero wrote to his government with dismay: “It is my sincere and frank opinion that if we demobilize our troops and give in to everything the British want, without taking steps to end misunderstandings and false interpretations of the armistice, it will be impossible for us to put any sort of brake on Britain’s covetous designs.” Mustafa Kemal—better known today as Atatürk—dashed north to Constantinople and urged everyone he could see, from leading politicians to the sultan himself, to establish a strong nationalist government to stand up to the foreigners. He found sympathy in many quarters, but the sultan, Mehmed VI, preferred to placate the Allies. In November 1918, Mehmed dissolved parliament and tried to govern through his own men.6
The great line of sultans that had produced Suleiman the Magnificent had dwindled to Mehmed VI. His main achievement was to have survived the rule of three brothers: one who was deposed when he went mad; his paranoid and cruel successor, so fearful of enemies that he employed a eunuch to take the first puff of every cigarette; and the timid old man who ruled until the summer of 1918. Mehmed VI was sane but it was difficult to gauge whether there were many ideas in his bony head. He took over as sultan with deep misgivings. “I am at a loss,” he told a religious leader. “Pray for me.”7
The power of the throne, which had once made the world tremble, had slipped away. Orders from the government, reported the American representative, “often receive but scant consideration in the provinces and public safety is very poor throughout Asia Minor.” Although Constantinople was not officially occupied at first, Allied soldiers and diplomats “were everywhere—advising and ordering and suggesting.” Allied warships packed the harbor so tightly that they looked a solid mass. “I am ill,” murmured the sultan, “I can’t look out the window. I hate to see them.” Atatürk had a very different thought: “As they have come, so they shall go.” 8
Atatürk was a complicated, brave, determined and dangerous man whose picture, with its startling blue eyes, is still everywhere in Turkey today. In 1919 few foreigners had ever heard of