AT THE SUBLIME PORTE

I was back in Berlin from my mission to the Far East on March 10, 1905. The next four months were rather commonplace--odd little commissions of no particular interest or importance.

On July the 5th, however, there came a hurried summons from Captain von Tappken for me to report at Koenigergratzerstrasse 70. I lost no time in getting around, nor did I have to wait to be ushered up. I was shown direct to the Captain's office and as he received me, I noticed that he was in a rather excited frame of mind.

"Verdammt! Doctor! I am going to lose you. I am requested by the Wilhelmstrasse to hand you over to them. Very annoying. I do not like to lose you from our branch here. But we must obey."

I expressed my regrets.

"Doctor, you are bettering yourself. It is seldom that they over there take any notice of us over here, or request the services of any of my men. But your work has attracted some attention. I shall request that your services are not entirely lost to this department. Herr Stammer will take you over. Good-by and good luck!"

He gave me a hearty handshake and my connection with the Intelligence Department of the Imperial Navy came to an end. Stammer and I hailed a taxi and drove to the Wilhelmstrasse, where the doorkeeper put me through an official ceremony similar to the procedure of Koenigergratzerstrasse 70. Stammer gave the commissaire his card and we were shown into a chamber and bidden to wait. I was frankly curious about what was in store for me, but I knew better by now than to ask questions. Presently there entered a tall, thin, iron-gray gentleman, the very type of a Prussian bureaucrat. Walking with quick nervous steps to his desk he acknowledged our bows with a curt nod and turning to Stammer he said:

"Well, Stammer?"

"This is Dr. Graver, your Excellency."

"Ah, yes. Sehr schÖn. Convey my thanks to Captain Tappken, Stammer."

Stammer then bowing himself out, I was asked to step into an anteroom. There a secretary took me in hand and informed me that the tall, thin, iron-gray gentleman was Graf Botho von Wedel, Wirklicher Geheimrat and Vortragender Rab Botho Kaiser--(Privy Councilor to the German Emperor).

So--Count Wedel. H'm! Although this was the first time I had seen the Count, I had heard a great deal about him. The Emperor's Privy Councilor and right hand was the head of the political sections of the Secret Service. This promised to be interesting. I wondered what the likely upshot would be, but I was interrupted in my soliloquy by a summons to reenter the Count's chamber.

I was shown to a seat. Graf Wedel looked me over carefully and minutely for a considerable length of time with a frank stare of appraisal.

"How old are you, Doctor?"

I must confess my extreme youth always made this question one of secret annoyance.

"Twenty-five, your Excellency."

"Very young, very young." He stared at me again and after a pause said:

"Yet the reports about your work are satisfactory and show discretion and intelligence above your years."

I bowed in acknowledgment.

"You will from now on," he said, "become attached to this section of the Service. You will be trusted with some very grave and important matters. You will receive your orders and instructions only from me. You will report only to me direct. On no account will you see any subordinate or any person, no matter what his official status, without my expressed permission. Verstehen sie?"

"Yes, sir."

"For funds," he continued, "you will apply to my secretary. Of your expenses you will furnish a monthly account. How soon can you be ready to go on a mission?"

I told him in two hours.

"Good!" he exclaimed; "the sooner the better. This is what I want you to do. You will go at once to Constantinople and find out which of the court officials are in French and Russian pay. You will find out the favorites of the high officials and officers, especially the nationality of these women. I will not give you any points of introductions. They might lead you to be suspected. They are a crafty lot down there. Be careful and take your time. You know nothing can be done in a hurry down in that country,"--he paused as if waiting for questions from me. We discussed a few minor points then he said:

"Your official number with us from now on will be 1734. You will always use 17 to sign personal cipher messages sent to me. You will use 34 in signing official reports and communications."

The necessary arrangements for my preliminary expenses were discussed with one of his secretaries and I then went back to my quarters to think over a plan of campaign and prepare myself for the mission. The transfer from Captain Tappken's department pleased me for I knew that at the Wilhelmstrasse I would be in closer touch with the bigger affairs of diplomacy. Tappken had hinted at my finding favor with the Wilhelmstrasse and I guessed that coming on top of my Port Arthur success a delicate private mission was responsible for it. To cite the case:

Germany keeps a watch on all her officers. When one of them is spending more money than his income, he is promptly investigated. I recalled how they had sent me to the Spandau Garrison to inquire into the affairs of an officer who was too lavish with his money to suit the Intelligence Department. He was an ordnance officer in a small arms factory at Spandau and it was the natural conclusion that he was obtaining this extra money by selling state secrets.

I encountered, however, an entirely different situation. I learned that he was absolutely innocent on that score but that he was receiving money from a certain princess who had become infatuated with him. She was of a very high house and I realized that her name could not be mentioned in a report to Captain Tappken. This situation required delicate treatment. I solved the dilemma by reporting to Tappken that the ordnance officer was guiltless of any act of treason against his country. I then made a private report, covering the intimate facts, which went direct to officials of higher responsibility. The princess' name did not appear as far as subordinates were concerned and the whole affair was hushed up. My fortunate discretion in this matter undoubtedly strengthened my standing with the Wilhelmstrasse.

By this time I had installed myself in quiet quarters on the Mittelstrasse, and Kim, who had been transformed from a Basuto boy into an efficient man servant, looked after my comforts. To secure myself from the questions of prying neighbors, I had caused it to be known that I was a retired South African planter inclined to poor health. This was the most likely explanation for my curious mode of living and my sudden periodical disappearances, for I was away from the Mittelstrasse for months at a time. Presumably I was traveling about to the different watering places on the Continent for my health.

My mission to Constantinople called for some considerable thought in selecting the most advisable character to impersonate. A tourist came first to mind. A tourist was out of the question, because tourists do not stay long in one place and I expected to be three or four months in Turkey. There was nothing to study in Constantinople. I thought of a student of botany, the rÔle I had used at Port Arthur. But that would not do. The idea of a merchant came to me, but I dismissed the idea of a prosperous merchant, for it would necessitate making business connections, a careful and slow process, the fulfillment of which would consume entirely too much time. I finally decided to travel as a physician, or to use the Turkish word a Hakim. A Hakim is always accorded respect, even reverence, by Turks and Arabs. This character determined upon, I went to the telephone and requested the Service Intelligence Department to give me letters of introduction to the German hospital and the Pera Hospital in Constantinople. They were sent to me signed by the authorities of the Charitee in Berlin and described that I was going to study tropical and Asiatic diseases and requested that the hospitals give me every facility for research work. I had Kim pack a case of medical instruments and told him to have everything in readiness to leave Berlin that night, on the Orient Express. He was necessary to my plans and was to accompany me. A messenger from Wedel brought a few final verbal instructions, my funds and sealed instructions. I was bidden to keep away from all official German intercourse in Constantinople. Wedel might have saved himself the trouble of that word of caution for I knew enough of the subtle Oriental mind to keep away from anything that would raise the slightest suspicion in regard to my identity. If I pride myself on anything, it is a knowledge of Eastern character. With the instructions were a thousand marks cash and a draft for 5000 marks on the Ottoman Bank of Constantinople that had been deposited in my name.

It may strike the reader as curious that I took Kim with me, but I knew he could be of tremendous use to me in Constantinople. In addition to speaking his Kaffir dialects, he knew Arabic. Any negro boy who could speak Arabic could learn almost anything in Constantinople, which abounds in black men of all tribes and nationalities. Among the servants of every household, Kim would find many compatriots from whom he could get information, impossible for any European to obtain.

After an uneventful trip to Constantinople, I took preliminary quarters in the Brasserie Kor, a quiet, second-rate hostelry on the Rue Osmanly. I went to an unpretentious place to avoid attracting any particular attention. Had I put up at an expensive hotel there would immediate]y bave been queries about me. Who is this stranger? He seems to have money. If it isn't his money, whose money is he spending? It is not well to invite a Turk's suspicion. As I was totally unacquainted with Constantinople, I used the first week for getting familiar with the geography of the city. It was necessary that I learn the location of the various legations and the residences of high court officials. The next week I found lodgings in the very center of the district of court residences and began to seek out the haunts and places of rendezvous of demi-mondaines, favorites and hangers-on of the Turkish officials. On the second day of my arrival, I had presented my credentials and letters at the German Pera Hospital, and had my name entered as a visiting honorary surgeon. Every day thereafter, rain or shine, I made it a point to spend some time at these hospitals, and it was well that I did. Once a day and often twice I would sign the book at the hospital and I believe that the signature Dr. Franz von Graver appears on the record books of the Pera and German Hospitals in Constantinople, at least one hundred times. Was I not fulfilling my duties as a physician doing research work?

I finally located myself in the residential district of Pera where I rented a small residence, typical of the well-to-do Turk of the middle class and quite in keeping with my assumed character. An elaborate residence would have aroused immediate suspicion, for there is no country on earth where curiosity and suspicion is so easily roused as in Turkey. Kipling, who knows the East so well, portrayed Port Said as the dwelling place of concentrated wickedness. He is right, but I do not think he has ever visited Stamboul. In Stamboul there is with no exception the most conglomerate mixture of nondescript nationalities on the face of the earth. Not only are all nationalities represented but breeds of men that defy all pathological research, hideous in their conglomerate intermixtures. If an Albanian bandit, himself a mixture of Greek and Nubian mulatto, has issue by an Arab woman with French blood--find the genealogy. Can you imagine a more difficult field of operations for an Occidental and a stranger?

In the course of my preliminary observations, I found Constantinople to be a city of sharp contrasts. The quarters inhabited by your true Ottoman are characteristically clean and comfortable. The remainder of the city except foreign quarters is intolerably dirty. With true Oriental tolerance, the Turk lets things gang their ain gait. The casual observer and traveler always confounds the Turk with the rest of the nondescript mass of humanity that swarms in Constantinople. That is a crass mistake. Your true descendant of Ossman is a clean, dignified, easy-going gentleman with a deep philosophical strain in his make-up, contaminated by hundreds of years of contact--not association, for your true Turk does not associate--with the outcast Mischling of southern Europe and Asia Minor.

My mission was indeed a difficult one and only by tedious, painstaking work, observing the life of the city and its character, I succeeded in isolating the individual who gave me the key to the circumventuous political life and the government of Constantinople. It took me a full month of night work to become familiar with the innumerable demi-mondaines. They were of French, Russian and Circassian birth and extraction, and were identified with the various Turkish court officials from the Grand Vizier down to an officer in the Ganitsharies. This preliminary work is always exhausting, but it is so necessary on a mission of this kind. One blunder, one step in the dark, and you are gone. One spends months without any tangible results, often going on the wrong track. One has to be excruciatingly circumspect in one's inquiries. To use a hunter's expression, there is no quarry so wary, sharp-sighted and keen at smelling the wind as a political demi-mondaine.

In this work Kim was of inestimable value to me. In fact, without him I would not have succeeded at all. All the households kept by the Turkish officials and their favorites swarm with negroes of the various types. A white man has not the slightest chance of finding the way into their confidences. The universal golden key does not unloose tongues in such cases in the Orient. But Kim as a member of the once mighty Zulu nation (he was really a descendant of a prince of the house of Dingnan) was able, through a mysterious free masonry still existing among colored races the world over, to obtain most valuable information.

My method of campaign was to ascertain the name of one of the favorites of the Turkish officials, to locate her residence and then put Kim to work. Finally locating one of these women, I would manage to learn her name and where she lived. Then it was time for Kim.

"Kim," I said, "I want you to find out who comes to see her, whether it is always the same official and if so, how frequently. I want you to learn everything you can about any letters she may receive. I want to know just where she gets her money from, if she has any outside sources of revenue, other than in Constantinople. I want every scrap of any kind of information about her."

And Kim would go his way, seek out the servants in that household and he would generally come back with all this information.

Now I noticed that a certain Mlle. Balniaux was very much in the company of Abdulla, who was at that time the influential adviser of the Grand Vizier. It was known in Berlin that the Grand Vizier had lately become very deaf and antagonistic to German influence. The Wilhelmstrasse knew that France and Russia were at work, but were in the dark as to the channels. Therefore I sent Kim to ascertain if Mlle. Balniaux was visited by Abdulla at her private residence. I told him to learn the exact hour of arrival in each instance and the length of the visits. The bare fact that Abdulla might be seen in her company in public bore no particular significance. These women are always accompanied by a whole retinue of officers and young Turkish noblemen. It is part of their work. Their method of procedure is to bewitch young officers and officials, attach them to their person, make them spend huge sums of money and then play their card. I noticed that the money Turkish officers squandered on these women compared to their pay and income was tremendous. They think nothing of going ahead blindly and buying the most expensive jewels; I have seen them even buy motorcars. The result is not difficult to forecast. The young officer soon finds himself head over heels in debt. Two courses are open to him. Either he must pay the debt or be transferred to some dreary interior post, and a Turk who has been in the gay life of Constantinople would rather commit suicide than go to any inland garrison. Those women then pay the debts, exacting state secrets as the price of their timely assistance.

Abdulla, therefore, might only be one of these hangers-on. Kim established connections with Mlle. Balniaux's household and soon I had the required information. He brought me letters and scraps of paper that Mlle. Balniaux's dark skinned servants had stolen for him. He supplemented this by conversations that the servants had overheard and told to Kim. All this showed me that more by good luck I had stumbled upon the hotbed of the prime mover of the whole intrigue, Mlle. Balniaux. There was not the slightest hope of intimidating or buying over this particular lady's allegiance. I had to learn exactly who was subsidizing her machinations and there was no possibility of obtaining the clew from her.

I must find the accessible person among her intimate friends. From time to time I had seen her with a pretty little dark-haired girl who danced in the Folies Arabic. I learned her name was Cecelia Coursan. I began to frequent the Folies, a kind of cabaret crowded every night with Turkish officers. Admiration was no longer a delight to her and she accepted it with a wooden smile.

The Folies is quite dissimilar from its European or American prototypes, by reason of its Oriental atmosphere. Most of the year round it is conducted in the open. Picture a large court, the center of which is covered with a priceless Smyrna carpet. Seated around on little divans and silk cushions are the principal native performers, Neulah girls wearing the teasing Yamashk, covering half their faces although the rest of their figures are visible through gauzy Damascene shawls. The European performers, dressed in the latest and most startling Paris creations, flirt and flitter among the audience--seated round on dainty marble-topped bamboo tables, inhaling, in the case of Madame, a dainty "Regie," or if Bey or Effendi, a Tshibuk or Narghile, gravely drawing on the amber mouthpiece and slowly exhaling the perfumed smoke. The gorgeous officers' uniforms, mostly a vivid red, blue and gold; the picturesque flowing robes and burnouses, with here and there a six-foot stalwart silk trousered Albanian with gold and silver inlaid daggers and pistols thrust in his sash, make a picture reminding one of the Sheherezade.

Observing that everybody was bent on spoiling this popular little houri by emphatic admiration, I made myself conspicuous by a peculiarly British stony indifference. Nor was I wrong in my tactics. The piqued little dancer was not to be ignored.

One night she approached my table and challenged me in French, at which I gave a noncommittal smile. I pretended that I did not know French. Then she tried indifferent German and I looked at her with puzzled blankness. Finally she spoke to me in a piquant English and I answered. She spoke English extremely well and it developed that she had been a choriphyÉe at the London Empire. I let the acquaintance grow leisurely. One night I found her in a fit of despondency, over a quarrel with her friend, Mlle. Balniaux. My subterfuge getting effective, I was just beginning to ply her with questions when a Turkish officer full of cognac wandered by and dropped a remark to her in French. It went against the grain for those swine to cast innuendoes to a white woman and forgetting my play acting, I told him his comments were uncalled for and advised him to draw in his horns a bit. After a little bluster to which I angrily replied in French, he disappeared, and, as I sat down at the table, Cecelia was looking at me with a queer smile.

"I thought you did not understand French," she said. "I observe you have a pretty good Parisian accent." Then the full significance of my blunder came to me and I felt like the classic capricornus, meaning goat. She said she was tired of the Folies that night and suggested a drive. I called a careta and as we were driving down the boulevard I said to her:

"Is this existence always pleasant? Is it not as it was with that officer, often unendurable?"

She replied in a bantering tone, only half hiding a hurt undernote.

"I'm getting used to it," she said. "A Turkish pig is no worse than an English cad or a German boor."

The typical, philandering Broadway or Bond Street masher makes the physiological mistake of undervaluing the innate sense of decency inherent in every woman. Gentle courtesy and manners impress a courtesan by reason of the novelty. The inverse is often useful in dealing with a pampered society woman.

Much to the annoyance of the Turkish officers, I often thereafter took the pretty Cecelia away from the Folies, after her performance, for a drive, and I began to compare her small confidences with certain bits of information that Kim had given me. I knew, or I could pretty well guess, that she was not staying in Constantinople, enduring the insults of those Turkish officers, simply for the money she could earn as a dancer. Then I made my second dramatic play for confidence. I suddenly stopped going to the Folies. I suppose it was rather lonesome in Constantinople and a man who was not a Turk was a novelty.

One afternoon she sent for me and I was confronted with a human situation which I must in this narrative of Secret Service operations treat as impersonal though it is full of pathetic implications. I found her with her luggage packed.

"Why haven't you come to the Folies lately?" she demanded with a pretty air of bossing the situation.

I told her my work at the hospital had made heavy inroads upon my time.

"Oh!" she began, tapping a little boot impatiently on the floor; after a pause, "I have to leave for Paris.... Well?"

"That is most unfortunate."

"Is that all?"

"To say anything more would only be painful, Machere Cecelia."

"But there is no need of our being blue. Why not make the occasion a happy one? Why not come along to Paris?"

She looked up at me with an impudent little smile.

"My dear little girl," I said, "I am no man of means and I cannot go gadding about Europe. Besides, I have my work here. I will be busy at the hospital for another month."

That seemed to displease her. She looked at me carefully, unconsciously her manner changed. She became somewhat appraising. It seemed as though a different woman was speaking,

"Franz," she said, "a man like you is wasting his time pottering around a hospital with your evident knowledge of the world and people. With your education and travels you ought to be very valuable to certain men back in Paris."

I felt what was coming, but I asked her to explain. She did so and from her I received a tentative offer to enter the French Secret Service. I had difficulty in mastering the muscles of my face to keep from betraying the laughter that was almost ready to break out. Very gravely I asked her to tell me more about Secret Service. Proudly, Cecelia showed me letters that she had received from Paris. From the addresses and the signatures I thus learned the individuals in direct control of the system that was undermining German influence by using demi-mondaines such as Mlle. Balniaux. I gathered that Cecelia Coursan was only a go-between for Mlle. Balniaux in making her reports to the French government. I asked her some more questions, exclaiming that her proposal interested me tremendously.

I pretended to be particularly anxious as to what pay I would receive were I to come to an understanding with "her friend in Paris." She assured me it was liberal and urged me to hasten to Paris. I told her that as soon as I finished my work at the hospitals I would do so. She then asked me to take charge of her mail and to forward any letters that might come for her. I did--to the Wilhelmstrasse.

That incident is one of those in my Secret Service work of which I am not entirely proud. Of course from my viewpoint Cecelia Coursan was not a woman, she was simply the paid agent of another government and it was a case of her wits against mine; at least with this sophistry I quieted my doubts.

Three years later I found the same little woman in an obscure cafÉ in Antwerp. She was no longer in the French Service. I concluded that her blunder in Constantinople had "broken" her, for she seemed to have gone down the ladder. She did not recognize me, but as she seemed to be in straitened circumstances, I found a way to assist her to at least three months' board and lodging by sending her anonymously 500 francs. It was conscience money.

When I had thus located and coupled up the chiefs of the French Secret Service with the situation in Constantinople, I began quietly to cultivate the acquaintance of the average Turkish officer. I had to learn the tendency of their thoughts. I met officers and merchants, administrators and students. From them all I learned that they were sick of the intrigues and wire-pulling of the harems. I learned of the discontent of the Young Turk party. I gathered that the time was ripe for an overturning of the government. In my report I made a correct forecast of the trend of affairs. I drew attention to Enver Bey, who was even then considered clever, even dangerous, by the Grand Vizier. As a most aggressive Young Turk, they had sent him to an obscure post in Thessalonia, but upon sounding out the younger officers I found that he was still regarded highly. Without doubt my reports in addition to the reports made by von der Golz, the accredited German instructor of the Turkish Army, helped to shape the policy of the German Foreign Office. I learned beyond all doubt that the Sultan Abdul Hamid was nothing but a figurehead, that the Grand Vizier, bought by Russian and French gold, was running the government in a way that was antagonistic to German influences and that the swarms of demi-mondaines in French and Russian pay were corrupting the higher Turkish officials to their cause. All these things I included in my report and after four months I was back in Berlin.

To better understand the diplomatic significance of this mission, I shall recast the political situation. The modern German policy in the European Orient, inaugurated by Bismarck as a defense and check against Russia, has always been keen on the friendship and good will of the Turk for reasons which will be obvious enough later. During the Caprivi Chancellorship, the relation between the two empires became rather lax. Wilhelm II with his keen farsightedness set about to remedy this. In his usual spectacular, but in most cases efficient, manner, he went with his royal consort in state to Palestine, calling first on the Sultan. The tremendously enthusiastic reception that the Moslem countries accorded him is a matter of contemporary history. This was really a master stroke of diplomacy although sharply criticised at the time.

Until the Kaiser's visit, France, with more or less right, considered herself protector general of all Mohammedans. From now on this began to change. The immediate result of the Emperor's visit was a close understanding between the Wilhelmstrasse and the Sublime Porte. The buying of vast quantities of guns, ammunition, and the influx of Prussian officers and drilling instructions, besides huge orders of all sorts of German goods was significant.

The always uneasy jealousy of France and Russia was at once aroused, England, in this instance, not taking any decided stand in affairs. England had spent many lives and much money, notably in the Crimean War, to keep Russia out of Turkey and was averse to encouraging Russo-French influences at the Sublime Porte. How far England would like either Germany or France to acquire control of the Dardanelles remains to be seen. With Russia, it has been bloody wars and grim struggles since the days of Catherine, misnamed the Great, to gain control of the Dardanelles. Unceasing intrigues have been and are still going on in Stamboul. Russia's influence has been steadily undermined by Germany, in Turkey and Asia Minor. Since the disastrous campaign against Japan, Russia has made strenuous efforts to recoup her sphere of influence through her coalition of the principal Balkan States. Of this you will learn later.

Germany, always including Austria (the external policy of both countries on all these questions is synonymous), found French-Russian influences at work. Through their marvelous, efficient Intelligence System, Germany soon learned who were the prime movers and puppets; in this instance the Grand Vizier and the Seraglio officers; the then sultan, Abdul Hammid, "The Damned," being completely cowed and under the thumb of his Grand Vizier, could not be relied on for a moment. After my mission they knew in Germany that the time was ripe for a radical change, and they engineered it. Result: A revolution and the Young Turks in power, with Enver Bey, Tuofick Pasha, Ibrahim Mander Bey and similar men, with German training and learning, directing affairs. Germany regained complete sway and is to-day easily the most powerful influence in Turkey. What significance this has on the general bearing of European politics, I shall discuss in a later chapter.