by Ann Bridge
By early June it became as clear to the Allied Powers as it had long been to Kemal that the Greeks were about to try conclusions once more with the Turks, in an attempt to realise their ambitions. Plans for mediation were mooted by the Allies, but before anything was done, the Greek Army began to move forward, through difficult country, to attack the Turkish positions. They had an advantage of 3 to 2 in guns, and of 8 to 3 in machine-guns, as well as a slight superiority in manpower; also they were in all respects better equipped and supplied. Their two-fold object was to destroy the Turkish Army, and to occupy Ankara—and to those who lived in that city their success seemed all too probable. When the news of the Greek advance broke, the life of the new capital became gready disrupted. Ahmet, who had recently been transferred to Ismet Pasha’s staff, took a sad farewell of Nilüfer; she clung to him, weeping. “Oh, may Allah preserve you, my very dear husband!”
“Look to her,” Ahmet said to his sister, hastening up to take farewell of her too, in the house on die citadel wall.
“My brother, bid her come to me, here—then she will be under my eyes, and I can look after her properly. This running to and fro is impossible!” said poor Féridé, who had heard that morning from Orhan that Temel, his batman, had been ordered to the front, leaving her with only Kezban to help in the house. “You take Demir, I suppose?”
“But of course.”
“Then she cannot stay there. Send her to me.”
“I will—” And off he went.
Féridé had another caller a little later. There came a knock on the great door that gave on the street; she was in her courtyard kitchen, Kezban in the house, so she went and opened it. A soldier—ragged, shabby, with the belt and rifle-sling of lamp-wick which Orhan had described to her—stood on the threshold.
“Is the Gaiety of My House within?” he asked, humbly.
She was familiar with the charming paraphrase—Turks do not readily say “My wife.”
“It is Kezban that you seek?” she asked, kindly.
“Yes, if it please you, Effendim.”
“Come in—she is here. Kezban!” she called, and hurried back to the kitchen to get some food for him; even in these straitened circumstances, so different from the spacious ways of keeping open house at the yali, she clung to the Turkish tradition of hospitality. A little meal was set out in the hall, and she left husband and wife together while she went back to her cooking. But before he left the soldier came to her too, and thanked her for her goodness to Kezban, who stood by weeping silently. When he had gone Féridé did her best to comfort the good creature, and then sent her about her tasks, while she went on cooking the beans, the aubergines and the shallots that, served cold with oil, were to form part of Orhan’s supper; opening the oven door now and then to baste the fowl that was roasting in it. Before long a loud clamour of weeping arose in the courtyard—Féridé went out to see what was the matter now. It was Sitaré Hanim, their landlady, her round merry face convulsed with crying. “They have taken my Osman, Féridé Hanim,” she sobbed out—“only seventeen, and they have taken him!”
Osman was the only son of Ibrahim and Sitaré, and owing to Ibrahim’s position as clerk in the Vali’s Bureau, he had managed to get the boy a job as messenger in one of those one-room Government Depart ments. They had a girl too, called—like Féridé’s own elder sister-Étamine, a pretty child of twelve with a round face like her mother’s, who still ran about unveiled, in the bas-ortü, a long scarf of tinselled muslin which floated loose from her round dark head; but when strangers appeared, already with a swift gesture she would twitch it across her small face, so that only her immense black eyes peered out, as big as gooseberries, above the glittering folds.
Féridé—thinking all the while of what Orhan would probably say about his dinner that night, and wondering who would fetch the charcoal now that Temel was mobilised—gave her sympathy to poor Sitaré, of whom she had become very fond. Much comfort she could not give—there is no comfort for wives and mothers when a war is on; underneath all her practical preoccupation and worries she felt a steady nagging ache of anxiety about Ahmet, her adored brother. But she did what she could, and at last got rid of the good soul.
Late in the afternoon, having been down with Kezban to fetch the charcoal, and staggered up the hill again with one of the two sacks, Féridé slipped away to see Nilüfer. She was determined to get her sister-in-law into her own house as soon as she could, now that Ahmet was gone to the front. She found her sitting on one of those hard divans under the window, her feet on a chair, her elbow on the sill, gazing out towards the west, where Eski-sehir and Afion-Karahissar lay. Féridé usually walked straight into Ahmet’s house, as Nilüfer did into hers; she had done so now. After a little talk she said gently—“Dji-djim, will you not now come up to us? We want you so much.”
Nilüfer turned her splendid eyes, suddenly tragic, full onto her sister-in-law.
“Yes,” she said, “I will—really, dearest, I must. Fatma has gone!”
“Fatma gone! Gone where?” Féridé asked in astonishment.
“But to the front; to carry munitions, water, food—que sais-je? Anyhow, she is gone—and oh Féridé, he is gone too, and I cannot be here all alone!” The eyes brimmed over with tears, and she hid her face on Féridé’s shoulder.
So that evening ended with Nilüfer being escorted up to the house on the wall, with a small bag for the night. Féridé said that she would send Kezban—since they had no batman any more—down next day to bring up the rest of Nilüfer’s things. But next morning Kezban came to her young mistress and announced, with gawky apologies, that she was going to the front too, that very day. And went.
“Well, really!” Féridé said to herself, standing alone in the empty courtyard, after the outer door had closed behind Kezban and her little bundle—“Now we must rely on ourselves alone!” She went to the carved marble well-head, drew up water, and filled the jars for the house, which in the excitement of departure Kezban had forgotten to do—hauling up the heavy bucket and tipping it out made her back and arms ache. She put fresh charcoal on the stove—which had also been one of Kezban’s tasks—and began on another, that of washing and cutting up vegetables. Then she ran in to Nilüfer to tell her that she was going down to the market to fetch the meat. She took Étamine with her, and on the way home they collected some more of Nilüfer’s belongings and brought them up; while her sister-in-law unpacked, she went back to the kitchen, and put on the rice for pilau.
The Greek Army began its advance on the 9th of July. Knowing that it was imminent, before that date Mustafa Kemal went down to the front to review the troops, and put heart into them; as at Gallipoli, as in the retreat from Palestine, he was always happiest when in touch with his soldiers, whom he knew, understood and loved. They marched past him in fine fighting style, in the shabby uniforms and bad boots, presenting arms smartly with their rifles. But alas, the rifles for the most part had no bayonets—there was no steel at Ankara with which to make them. Now the Turk is by nature a close fighter, and loves to use cold steel, as those who have ever fought against him know to their cost; and partly to encourage his own nation, partly to intimidate the Greeks, Mustafa Kemal sent off a long telegram to Zia Bey, the editor of “National Sovereignty” the Ankara paper, instructing him to describe the review, and to say how the Turkish army had marched past him with fixed bayonets, the bright steel glittering in the sun.
The battle begun on July the 9th lasted till the 20th. Far away in Ankara the dull mutter of the distant guns rumbled like thunder through the blazing merciless heat—and for some days that was all the news those who were left in the capital had; when the thunder grew louder, it could only mean that the battle was drawing nearer, and that spelt retreat. Actually very few were left; practically every man who could move, and nearly all the women, had gone to the front, the latter to do the work of draught-animals. Even Orhan had gone off on some mysterious mission; the two girls were now quite alone. Her elderly women neighbour
s began to cast nasty glances at Féridé, tall, active and lithe of movement, as she went to and from the market, and to mutter audible speculations as to why she was not gone to carry water and munitions to the troops. One day Sitaré Harfim actually came in to see her, and spoke of this. “Féridé Hanim, you are young and strong—are you not going to the front?”
“No,” said Féridé, rather coldly—“Are you, Sitaré Hanim?”
“I, no—I have my husband and Étamine to care for. I cannot leave them.”
“And I have my sister-in-law to care for, who is about to bear a child for the nation—I cannot leave her either; she is ill. You will oblige me. Sitaré Hanim, if you do not refer to this subject again,” said Féridé, with a haughtiness which Réfiyé Hanim herself could not have surpassed. “But if you care to silence those muttering gossips outside, you may do so.”
And Sitaré Hanim, cowed, retreated, and did in fact tell the gossips the state of the case.
The long hot days, filled with exhausting tasks, and still more the long hot nights, vibrating with the distant sound of the guns, combined with anxiety about her husband and brother, pressed heavily on Féridé—most intolerable of all was the absence of news. One night she felt that she could bear it no longer. The Red Crescent, the Turkish version of the Red Cross, had an office down in the lower town, at the foot of the citadel hill; and when she had put Nilüfer to bed she muffled herself in her çarşaf, and slipping out of the big courtyard door she sped away, out through the gateway, and down the hill by the Kara-oglan Çarsisi, the large street leading up to the citadel from the town below. Near the bottom stood a mosque, its dome and minarets black against the pale summer sky, the Zinçirli Kami; just beyond it a litde street turned off to the right, the Zinçirli Kami Sokak. There, she knew, was the Red Crescent office—and if anyone had news, they would have it. But could she find the place? She stood in the narrow street, between the dilapidated wood-and-plaster houses; at the further end rose a tall building with arched and recessed balconies, rather like those she had admired at Kastamonu. Could that be it? She walked towards it, and then observed that light was coming from behind shutters in a very small building on her left—light, and the sound of voices. Féridé moved nearer; stood, and listened. At that moment a man came running up the street, and banged on the door; it was flung open, and through the stream of light that poured out she caught a glimpse of a very small room indeed, furnished like an office, with men sitting and standing about—in the light she saw, too, that the new arrival wore the brassard of the Red Crescent on his arm. He panted out an urgent enquiry—a train-load of wounded had just come in, he had run from the station, his Commandant wanted to know where they were to be put? Standing in the shadows, she could overhear also the discussion which followed, and the decisions come to: 560 men? then they could all be put in that big school half-way up the hill. Carts were ordered for transport, and one of the men walked off with the messenger to the station, while others were despatched to knock up the two or three doctors and nurses known still to be in Ankara. When only two men were left in the office, through the open door she heard one say to the other, “How, in Allah’s name, are two women to nurse 560 men? And where are the dressings to come from? We have almost nothing left here—it all went to the front.”
“Yes, and where are we to get mattresses and bedding for 560 men?” his colleague asked dismally, lighting a cigarette. “And who is to cook for them? I tell you, Esref Effendi, this affair is not going to be so easy. No hospitals, no dressings to mention, no nursing staff, no hospital staff, and three doctors! And this is only the beginning.”
Féridé now stole forward, and presented herself, rather timidly, at the open door.
“Esref Effendi,” she said, speaking to the man whom his companion had so addressed, “may I trouble you for a moment?”
Surprised, he got up and came to the door.
“Yes, what is it, Hanim Effendi? What do you want?”
“I came to ask for news,” she said, a little nervously. “My brother is at the front, and my husband too, I believe.”
He looked slightly annoyed. “And who may your husband be?”
“Orhan Bey. My brother is Ahmet Bey; he is on Ismet Pashas staff.”
The other man leant forward over the table at which he sat.
“Your husband is not Orhan Bey, who is in the Bureau privé of Mustafa Kemal Pasha?”
“The same, Effendim.”
He got up. “And what news do you seek, Hanim Effendi?”
“But of the battle! We hear the guns, but we hear nothing else!” said Féridé, energetically. The two men laughed. “I should be so grateful to know—how does it go, well or ill?”
“Ill!” said the man called Esref, dully. “Afion-Karahissar has fallen, Kütaya has fallen, Eski-sehir will fall at any moment.”
“Oh.” She paused for a moment, swallowing the evil tidings. “I thank you,” she said then. She paused again. “I have a mattress or two to spare, and some blankets. I will see that they are got down to the school tomorrow morning.”
“That is well—thank you,” he said.
Féridé glided quickly away into the shadows again; but as she walked up the steep incline of the Kara-oglan Çarsisi towards the citadèl, whose irregular outline, broken by crenellated towers, stood out black against the immensity of the summer night, full of stars, she thought over what she had just heard. It was fearful news. It meant that the whole Turkish line had gone, or was about to go, and with it the vital railway from Afion-Karahissar to Eski-sehir, of which Orhan had spoken so often; in his enthusiasm he had made diagrams for her of the fortified positions covering the precious line. If the army had to retreat from there, where would they stop? And what would happen to the wretched population of the surrendered towns?
Those were in fact almost precisely the questions that Kemal Pasha had been asking himself for the last twenty-four hours, ever since, on the heels of an urgent telegram from Ismet Pasha, the Commander-in-Chief, he had hurried to the front a second time. If he was to save his army, such as it was, he must withdraw, and withdraw rapidly, leaving the civil populations, his faithful people who trusted him, to the frightful brutalities—little suspected in the West—of the Greek soldiers. But his army was the only thing he had with which to face a hostile world —it was the one instrument of salvation for the Turkish people. Mustafa Kemal was, first and foremost, a professional soldier, and he took a professional soldier’s decision. Eski-sehir was to be evacuated, and the troops withdrawn eastwards with all possible speed to behind the Sakarya River, some seventy kilometres distant. This would at once lengthen the Greek lines of communication, and, if the movement were executed swiftly enough, give a breathing-space in which to re-form and reorganise his weary and battered regiments.
The movement was carried out—in its ultimate results one of the most successful strategic retreats in history. The day after Féridé had crept down at night to seek news at the Red Crescent office in Ankara, King Constantine of Greece arrived at the front in person to direct operations. Ho found, really, no front. A brisk Turkish attack all along the line the following day covered the retreat of the main forces; the Greeks, counter-attacking, repulsed the enemy, but after that the enemy vanished. The Turkish Army, whose annihilation had been one of the two main Greek objectives, had retired practically intact; losses on both sides were roughly equal, between 7000 and 8000 men. But for the Greeks, though they were technically victorious, failure to inflict a decisive and ruinous blow on the enemy in fact spelled a defeat—and Kemal knew it. He sent out an Order of the Day to his weary troops, when they had finally reached and crossed the Sakarya River: “We have lost, now. But we shall reorganise, we shall win; and in the end, the Sakarya will be like the tomb of the Greek Army.”
Chapter Fourteen
When the news of the retreat became known in Ankara there was great consternation. Orders of the Day to the troops, to whom Kemal Pasha was both familiar and an idol, were one
thing, but to persuade a frightened civilian population that it was all for the best to have the enemy two days’ march from their doors was quite another. The evidences of defeat were there before their eyes: buildings choked with wounded, and the open spaces in the ramshackle lower town full of tents set up by the wretched refugees from Beylikoprü, Polatli, and Eski-sehir itself, who camped there in the open beside the cagnés and waggonettes in which they had fled from their homes, their disordered belongings piled about them, spreading their tales of misery to whoever would listen.
Fortunately, the people who had no time at all to spare to listen to horror-stories, however pitiful, were the house-wives of Ankara, who though shorthanded themselves—since all their domestic help had gone to the front—nevertheless now proceeded to shoulder the fantastic task of cooking, washing, and supplying necessaries for a hospital population of three or four thousand wounded men. Some doctors and a few nurses had come back with the wounded from the front; but the supply, of nurses in particular, was altogether inadequate. Now in Turkey, in those days, for a grown woman, veiled, to go and nurse men, wash their bodies and change their dressings was almost unthinkable—more unthinkable even than Florence Nightingale’s activities at Scutari had been to Victorian England sixty years before. A handful of “advanced” women volunteered for the task, but the main work in those improvised wards of mattresses spread along the floors of schools was done by little girls of thirteen or less, who had not yet put on the çarşaf, working under the immediate direction of the doctors. One shudders to think of what they may have done—but Turkish girls are handy, resourceful, and above all obedient, and the Turkish soldier is a tough and hardy animal—a surprisingly high proportion of cases survived.