THEY ALL MADE PEACE—WHAT IS PEACE?
All of the Turks are gentlemen and Ismet Pasha is a little
deaf. But the Armenians. How about the Armenians?
Well the Armenians.
Lord Curzon likes young boys.
So does Chicherin.
So does Mustapha Kemal. He is good looking too. His eyes are too close together but he makes war. That is the way he is.
Sayfa 63Kitabı okudu
The prisoners’ photos soon arrived in Paris. The Allies were stunned to learn who had slipped through their fingers. The thin man was Enver Pasha, the fat one Bahaeddin Şakir. They were two of the world’s most wanted war criminals. The blood of a million murdered Armenian, Greek, and Jewish civilians was on their hands.
Meanwhile, the mastermind of the operation waited patiently in Berlin. He was another Turk, Talaat Pasha, aka the Grand Vizier. As wartime leader of the Ottoman government headed by the Young Turks, allied with Germany during the war, he was the principal architect of the genocides. Before the war, the Young Turks cooperated with the Ottoman Empire’s ethnic Armenians in politics. But by the spring of 1915, Talaat had decided to destroy the Armenians, along with Greek Christians who lived in Anatolia. He also began an attack on the Jews. But he could not have pulled off the murders without the help of Enver, his war minister, and Bahaeddin, his propaganda chief. When the Ottoman Empire collapsed at the end of the First World War, the three fled under threat of execution. In the fall of 1918, their German military allies helped them escape justice and gave them sanctuary.
Sayfa 208 - pdfKitabı okudu
Konferans yerine girince şaşırdım. Ön sıralarda oğlanlar oturuyorlardı. Arka sıralarda peçeli, bir kısmı da çadır içindeki kız öğrenciler.. Bana merak oldu. Bunlar ne diye gelmişlerdi? Söyleyeceklerimin ne manası olacaktı bu çadır altındaki kızlara? Ben bunları düşünürken, kürsüde beraber oturduğumuz bölüm başkanı ayağa kalktı. Sözde beni takdim edecekti. Uzun bir nutka başladı. Sanki oradakiler onu dinlemeye gitmişlerdi. Türkler İslamlığı Avrupa'ya yayacaklardı. Ta Viyana kapılarına kadar dayanmışlardı. Avrupa'yı İslamın kılıcı ile titretmişlerdi. «But the Turks finally failed» («Fakat Türkler sonunda muvaffak olamadılar.» Bu «they failed» sözcüğü en çok kullanılan sözlerden). Neden Türkler «failed»? Onu da izah etti. Çünkü İslamı yaymayı ihmal ettiler. Hakimiyetleri altına aldıkları kavimleri kılıç kuvvetiyle Müslüman etmediler.
Sayfa 13 - Çağdaş Yayınları
Chapter Twelve - The Turks
As the days and weeks wore on, respect between the Turks and the Anzacs for each others' bravery and tenacity grew. Small but significant events illustrated the changes in the soldiers' attitudes. Some Turkish defenders around Quinn's Post tasted chocolate for the first time when Anzacs threw some of their rations instead of grenades. The Turks reciprocated with tomatoes and apples. One day a white handkerchief tied to a bayonet appeared in the Turkish lines. A small boy dashed out unhindered and ran to the Anzac trenches, dropped some bags and ran back. When the Anzacs opened the bags, they found fine-cut tobacco with a note saying, 'I tobacco ... you papier every day, every day.' The Anzacs responded in kind. They scrounged all the paper they could - old letters, newspapers, some 'rollies' (cigarette papers) - and tossed them over. For a brief moment amid the bloodshed, there was an unofficial ceasefire as both sides contentedly puffed away.
Chapter Twelve - The Turks
Turkey was a secular country but the soldiers' underlying religious beliefs were Islamic. They believed that the spirit of any Turkish soldier killed on a battle ground would go directly to paradise as a martyr.
The Allied commanders were now in a quandary: they couldn't crush the Turkish guns unless they came in close eneough to bring their massive firepower to bear, but they couldn't be sure that the mines had been cleared so that it was safe for them to venture in that close.
Following a last-minute change in command after Admiral Carden