Confidential.
Mr. Foreign Minister,
In my earlier reports I have already several times had the opportunity to mention the hatred that the Young Turk government has been showing with less and less ambiguity against the aliens in Turkey since the beginning of the war and the abrogation of the capitulations, and particularly against the Christians.
In spite of the repeated promises that the Grand Vizier has given to the Apostolic delegate [Monseigneur Angelo Maria Dolci] and to the mission chiefs, many of the monasteries and other religious institutions that have been seized have not yet been reopened, and they are still being treated with the utmost arbitrariness, often under the pretext of military necessity.
The Catholic church in Bebek by the Bosporus has even been placed at the disposal of the local Muslims, who have converted it into a mosque; and a property belonging to the Holy See in Kadikeui, near Constantinople, has been taken over in order to establish a Muslim school.
All of these violations, though, amount to nothing compared to a very vital step, that I have learned today has been taken by the government to remove the protected status which the Catholics have enjoyed in Turkey from old times.
The government has established a non-clerical council, made up of 12 Catholic Ottoman subjects – naturally chosen among followers of the government – who must choose a chairman among themselves.
This council is supposed to administrate the Catholic Church in Turkey (i.e., the Latin, not the Greek, Armenian, etc.), and will thus become some sort of a new Patriarchate.
This way, the representative of the Papal delegate and of the countries that have Catholic interests in Turkey will be robbed of any opportunity of attending to such interests, in that all monasteries and churches, and everything that the Catholic Church owns in this country, will be administrated by this new council and seized by the Caliphate.
Not surprisingly, the Papal delegate has refused to receive the 12 newly appointed gentlemen in corpore.
In Catholic circles there had been hopes that under these circumstances the German ambassador, who represents so many millions of Catholics, as well as the representative of the ”Apostolic king” [i.e., the Austrian ambassador Johann Pallavicini], would have a moderating influence on the Young Turk government, but this seems not to be the case.
The German ambassador says that it must be due to a misunderstanding if one thinks that Germany or any other power has any influence here, because the Turkish government disregards the daily efforts he makes to direct its attention to the many unwise acts by which it makes itself still more hated, and the Austrian-Hungarian ambassador expresses himself in a similar way, in that he, among other things, complains about the arrogant way the Turks try to give the impression that the advancement of the Austrian armed forces is first and foremost caused by the Turkish victories against the Allied forces at the Dardanelles and elsewhere.
With the highest esteem I remain, Mr. Minister, yours faithfully
[Wandel]