Constantinople, 28 July 1917.
Confidential.
Mr. Foreign Minister,
The rumors that I have mentioned in my earlier reports concerning the forthcoming forming of a new Turkish government have surfaced here once again during the last couple of days.
The Grand Vizierate has been offered to Tewfik Pasha and Rifaat Pasha in the event of Talaat Pasha’s resignation, but they have both declined the offer, it is being said, to take over a government that has been tied on its hands and feet, and where they will only be allowed to use their executive powers if they conform to certain dictated conditions, among which the retaining of H.E. Enver Pasha as Minister of War perhaps seems especially onerous to them.
Hakki Pasha, the Turkish ambassador at Berlin, is also being mentioned as a possible Grand Vizier candidate.
The reason for these manoeuvres is, among other things, probably that the German government does not want to strengthen Talaat Pasha’s position unconditionally by granting the necessary new loans to his government, but seeks to use the opportunity now, when Turkey’s monies have run out again, to gain new concessions and a greater amount of assurance that it will continue to lead a German policy than Talaat Pasha’s attitude hitherto seems to guarantee.
The Germans assumably want a Grand Vizier who does not simply conduct German policy out of necessity, like Talaat Pasha, but also out of desire and without reservations so that they will not be subjected to a sudden change here if they have a reversal of fortunes, and from the Turkish side they therefore seek to give the impression that if they do not reach an agreement with Talaat Pasha they only subject themselves to another Grand Vizier who will be even less manageable than he already is. At the last change of Grand Viziers it did also become apparent that the Germans were not able to impose their will.
A high-ranking freemason, who believes that he is in Talaat Pasha’s confidence, tells me, however, that if nothing unforeseen happens things will not develop into a crisis. Talaat Pasha is not seriously talking about resigning, and since Germany has to keep on granting the loans, a compromise will most likely be reached.
The German government will, says my informant, once again place 40 million Turkish pounds in German treasury bills at Turkey’s disposal, and the contract will most likely be signed within the next few days by the director of Deutsche Bank, Mr. Bassermann, who is staying here for the moment on a visit.
These 40 million will, I am told, be used in the usual manner as backing for a continued issuing of new Turkish bank notes, and for the time being the placing of the German treasury bills has been renounced here since it is believed that the market would not be able to absorb more than 5 to 8 million.
Also, a member of the Ottoman parliament told me today that as long as Enver Pasha is alive, he believes that the government here will continue to rely on Germany and blindly follow this country, for better or for worse, because it has no other option.
Talaat Pasha very well realizes, he says, that the game is lost, and it is only apparently that he now and then seeks to hold back in order to keep an appearance of independency; he knows that the German condominium gives Enver Pasha such power that he has to give in, and the only aim of his resistance is to achieve a better position for himself in the eyes of the public, something which may be beneficial to him later, while the Minister of War is made to appear as bearing the sole responsibility for the government’s policy, something that gets him more enemies for each day that passes, and has as a consequence that the public opinion blames him for all the misrule that is the country’s misfortune and for all the demoralization within the administration.
As opposed to the Minister of War’s intransigent and consistent policy, Talaat Pasha’s attitude is therefore often tinctured by duplicity, something which disturbs the Germans and reminds them that he at a given moment will not be a yes-man.
It is almost always close friends of Talaat Pasha who, when they are visiting neutral countries, try to get in contact with the enemy and learn about his peace conditions, even though they know that they will be disavowed if the Germans learn about it.
This, they say in the Foreign Ministry, seems also to have been the case recently for Bedri Bey, the police prefect of Constantinople, when he was in Stockholm and Switzerland.
Bedri Bey is Talaat Pasha’s right hand, and even though he has now been transferred due to German objections, there is no reason to believe that he has acted against the Grand Vizier’s secret wishes or that he has really fallen from grace.
Bedri Bey’s appointment as governor in Aleppo, which may soon become General von Falkenhayn’s headquarters, and where it is important for the Grand Vizier to have a man he can trust, seems to me rather to be a good example of how Talaat Pasha seeks to menagere "la chèvre et le chou" [roughly: ”keep both sides happy”] in a way that is not always pleasant for the Germans.
If the events develop in such a way that Talaat Pasha is dealt some better cards than the ones he has now, he will surely know how to use the opportunity as the clever opportunist he undoubtedly is.
With the highest esteem I remain, Mr. Minister, yours faithfully
[Wandel]