by Colin Smith
‘Ah, Herr Maeltzer,’ said Kressenstein, catching sight of him. ‘You have heard the news?’
‘Of the battle? Of course . . . I. . .’
‘No, no. Not that,’ said the Bavarian impatiently. ‘I know you know that. A poor newspaperman you’d be if you had not already informed Zürich of that. No, I mean about the British prisoners?’
‘Prisoners?’
‘Yes, three hundred of them. English and Australians. Our Turkish friends are showing them round the holy sights at this very moment.’
‘Showing them the sights?’ Maeltzer often greeted von Kressenstein’s announcements with an air of astonishment even if, as was now the case, they were already the gossip of the souk. It was one of the reasons the colonel enjoyed telling him things.
‘Yes, I mean it. Giving them a tour of the Holy Sepulchre, St Anne’s, the Dome of the Rock, el Aksa mosque, the Jews’ wailing place, everything. Real chivalry, eh? The world has not seen such a thing since Saladin sent Richard Coeur de Lion fruit for his fever.’
Maeltzer had noticed that most of the Austro-German officer corps were obsessed with the Crusades. The trouble was that, as the allies of the Turks, they were on the wrong side. The English talked of the ‘Last Crusade’ and ending six hundred years of Muslim domination.
‘There was France on Christmas Day ‘14, sir,’ interrupted a young Oberleutnant with an empty left sleeve. ‘When we had a truce with the Tommies and beat them at football. Their own sport!’
‘And now you beat them at your sport,’ said Maeltzer whose admiration for German military skills was apparently boundless.
They liked that. Even two Turkish officers attached to the staff for mainly cosmetic reasons joined in the laughter. It was the kind of remark which renewed the Swiss journalist’s popularity among his German contacts. That and his unashamedly pro-German despatches – his loyalty to the father tongue, as it were. The only one who did not join in the laughter was a tall cadaverous-looking major, whose yellow skin was stretched tight over high cheek-bones. This was Erwin Krag, the senior German intelligence officer on the staff; people would have been surprised if he had.
Kressenstein finished saying his goodbyes to his Corset Staves, as the German advisers liked to call themselves because they thought they were essential for keeping the Ottoman forces in shape. Maeltzer guessed that he was off to Damascus to give Djemal Pasha a first-hand account of the way they had twice rebuffed a greatly superior British army. Liman von Sanders, the head of the German mission to the Turkish army, would also be there and eager to know how it had been done. Unlike many of his compatriots, von Kressenstein knew how to handle the Turks, how not to damage their precious amour propre. To Djemal Pasha he would praise, and rightly so, the fighting qualities of mehmedjik, the ordinary Turkish soldier, and understate the part German staff officers and Austrian 75mm Skoda gun batteries had played in the proceedings.
Before he left, the Bavarian turned to Maeltzer again. ‘Get your friend Oberleutnant Weidinger to show you the British prisoners,’ he said. ‘I’m sure they’ll make an excellent article for you.’
Maeltzer allowed himself to be steered into the main foyer area by Weidinger, the one-armed Oberleutnant. One of the amazing things about Fast’s was although all its bedrooms had been taken over by the military, it continued to attempt to function as an ordinary hotel as far as its public rooms were concerned. Once they were seated on a sofa, a barefoot waiter – who wore a fez with a matching cummerbund around his baggy trousers – padded up to them and asked if they wanted coffee. Both ordered medium-sweet cups.
‘Do you think we can see them?’ Maeltzer asked.
‘Who?’
‘The British prisoners.’
‘Of course: those are my instructions,’ said Weidinger, who smiled to show that this was an order he was happy to comply with. He was pleased that Kress should have noted and obviously approved of his growing friendship with Karl Maeltzer.
The journalist was almost twice Weidinger’s twenty-three years. He was well over six foot, and his height diminished the belly he had acquired through years of good living in the capitals of Europe though sometimes his jackets seemed too tight for his powerful shoulders. Weidinger always thought of him as ‘bearlike’.
He had pepper-and-salt moustache and hair, and a large, almost macrocephalic head that the Oberleutnant was convinced had grown that way in order to accommodate its owner’s extra brain power. Few people who had known him for long were fooled by Maeltzer’s air of perpetual bewilderment. His eyes betrayed him first. Weidinger sometimes found them a little disconcerting. They were so dark brown as to be almost black, and could project the kind of cruel intelligence found in a bird of prey. Sometimes Weidinger had noticed similar eyes in the Bedouin both sides used as scouts.
The coffee arrived on a copper tray. Fast’s, which had opened a few years before the war, was undoubtedly the best hotel in Jerusalem. Though only a few minutes’ walk from the Jaffa Gate, it was well outside the walls and the pestilential stench of what was becoming known as the Old City – where the bulk of the population lived in the awful hovels that, over the centuries, had accreted like coral reef around the various mosques, churches and synagogues to become the Muslim, Christian and Jewish quarters.
The hotel’s healthier location, plus the fact that it was German-owned and managed, made it the obvious choice when von Kressenstein was looking for billets for officers on his staff. In summer when, even at Jerusalem’s altitude, the heat could become unpleasant, its rooms were cooled by electric propeller fans. The power came from the hotel’s own petrol-driven generator, which also provided electric light in the public rooms and on the first floor, the bedrooms of which had now become the headquarters of the Eighth Army Corps.
When they had sipped their coffee and lit up faintly scented Turkish cigarettes, Weidinger said, ‘Of course, you know why my master was so anxious that you should see the British prisoners?’
‘Now let me think,’ said Maeltzer, scratching his massive head and drawing deeply on his cigarette. ‘Well, apart from the obvious one – to have the German ambassador in Switzerland report that the Zürich press is full of Kressenstein’s famous victory – I’d say “Kut”.’
‘Exactly. Kress wishes to see an esteemed and highly neutral organ such as yours present our gallant Turkish allies as the honourable fellows they are, chivalrous to a fault, the reincarnation of Saladin. Especially now that Baghdad has fallen and every citizen who has remained behind will be bending Tommy’s ear about how awful the terrible Turk was to the Kut prisoners.’
Two years before, after a brilliant start to the Mesopotamia campaign against demoralised Arab levies, General Townshend had collided with the Turkish army proper. His Anglo-Indian force had ended up being besieged at Kut on the Euphrates, where they had surrendered after several attempts to relieve them had failed.
Maeltzer nodded. ‘Quite so,’ he said. ‘Well, if the British had made more of what happened to their men after Townshend had surrendered that might be difficult. The neutral consuls who saw British and Indian soldiers being whipped through the streets of Baghdad by those Kurdish and Arab regiments were most upset about it. Especially the Americans. Half-starved men trying to march with bits of bloody puttee cloth wrapped around their feet because their guards had stolen their boots. Terrible business.’
‘I know,’ said Weidinger. ‘I was talking to Major Krag about it, the other day. He’s seen the report of a medical officer who saw the prisoners come into Baghdad. Almost all of them had dysentery. They were dropping like flies. It must have been terrible seeing a pack of Arabs treating Europeans like that and not being able to do anything about it.’
Weidinger paused to take another sip of coffee. ‘There was something else in that report too,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell you, but you’ll have to promise me that it will go no further.’
‘That’s always a difficult promise for a newspaperman to make,’ said Maeltzer solemnly. He knew th
at the young Berliner could rarely resist passing on some morsel of gossip, the more scandalous the better.
‘Oh, but it’s not the kind of stuff you could get into a newspaper, at least not into a respectable newspaper like yours. Do I have your word that you won’t repeat it to anyone?’
The journalist gave an almost imperceptible nod.
Weidinger dropped his voice to a whisper for, apart from security considerations, there were women present at some of the other tables. ‘It is a known fact,’ he said, ‘that some of the prisoners were raped on that death march. The doctor whom Krag spoke to knew this because he personally treated two of them for their, hmm, injuries.’
‘My God!’ said Maeltzer, genuinely impressed.
‘Yes,’ said Weidinger. ‘A fate worse than death.’ He giggled nervously, not quite certain whether this was the kind of joke a German officer should make, let alone to a foreign civilian, however friendly. ‘I agree with you,’ he said, suddenly serious. ‘It’s surprising the English did not make more of it.’
‘Perhaps they didn’t want to make a fuss because of their line on Turkey.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, they’ve always taken the position that the Turkish people have merely been misled by the government, which is the dupe of the Central Powers. With the Germans it’s different. You’re the new Huns, spiking Belgian babies on your bayonets.’
‘What nonsense,’ said Weidinger. ‘If the Turks are our puppets then the puppet-master ought to be shot. Look at Mustapha Kemal, the hero of Gallipoli. Even von Sanders can’t handle him.’
‘True,’ said Maeltzer. ‘I’m simply saying that this is what the English believe – not that it’s a fact. It has always seemed to me that the English are a nation with a great capacity for self-delusion.’
The foyer was filling up. A fat, sweating Austrian prelate called Liebermann, who acted as chaplain to the German-speaking Catholics among the Jerusalem military, and for whom the journalist bore what he admitted was an irrational dislike, was speaking to a nursing sister. The nurse, who was no older than Weidinger, was carrying a bundle of mail and looked anxious to get away.
Maeltzer noticed that there were now quite a few women present – some of them ladies and some of them definitely not. A couple of German aviators, one of whom had draped a knee-length leather jerkin over a chair, were in deep conversation with a pair of Levantine beauties in western clothes who were just a touch over-dressed for the time of day.
Seated a little apart from the rest were a rather plump young woman with her hair parted down the middle and flicked back at the sides, and a stocky, broad-shouldered male of about the same age wearing a brown tweed suit and an improbable monocle. Maeltzer recognised the woman as a Rumanian Jewess called Sarah Aaronsohn, who came from Zichron Jacob, a Zionist settlement on the slopes of Mount Carmel, near the northern port of Haifa. She was the younger sister of the famous agronomist Aaron Aaronsohn, a man admired by Djemal Pasha, who had put him in charge of Palestine’s locust control programme. Now with Enver and Talaat, one of Constantinople’s ruling triumvirates, Djemal was Governor and Commander-in-Chief of the Ottoman forces throughout Syria – and must, Maeltzer thought, look back on the locust wars with some nostalgia.
In any case, Aaronsohn was no longer in the country, and there were confused reports about his whereabouts. He had sailed for the United States almost a year before, having persuaded the authorities that he needed to do some research there on a project to extract oil from sesame seeds. Some said that his ship had been intercepted by a British destroyer, and that a boarding party had seized Aaronsohn as an enemy alien. Others claimed that Aaronsohn had in fact reached New York, but was unable to return now that the United States was at war with Germany.
Maeltzer wondered what Sarah Aaronsohn and her man friend were doing down here such a long way from home and how large a bribe they had paid for their travel documents. Written permission was needed to cross from one vilyat to another – a great source of income for threadbare railway clerks and gendarmerie moudirs.
He watched as the Aaronsohn woman gave a little wave to a passing major, who answered it with a broad smile and walked over to where they were sitting. The young man got to his feet and shook hands. Maeltzer thought he looked a bit sullen.
Weidinger followed the journalist’s gaze. ‘Ah, Major Tiller,’ he said. ‘A lucky fellow.’
‘How so?’
‘He was in command of the town garrison in Gaza and nobody remembered to tell him we were winning. He was almost out of ammunition, had blown up his wireless and was about to surrender when the British attack stopped and they started to retreat.’
‘So it was that close?’ said Maeltzer.
‘It couldn’t have been closer. If they weren’t such incompetents the British would be here by now. It’s well known they outnumber us in men and guns. You know they even used gas and tanks? A real Western Front-type assault and we still beat them! Shook them off like a dog getting rid of his fleas. Of course, well led the Turk is one of the best defensive fighters in the world – no doubt about that.’
Like most of his colleagues Weidinger positively glowed with this latest proof of what good German staff work could do with unpromising material. Maeltzer guessed that von Kressenstein had set the tone when it came to a pat on the back for the ‘well led Turk’. Most of the time his officers found their allies exasperatingly indolent. By comparison, they said, the Austro-Hungarians were military paragons. Nor was the journalist altogether surprised at British incompetence. Seventeen years before he had watched the Boers make fools of Tommy Atkins because they were better led, better armed and better motivated – at least at the beginning. Mind you, as he often used to tell his German friends, when it came to the Empire on which the sun never set, he had to admit to a certain prejudice. Maeltzer had spent six months in a British PoW camp on Ceylon before his newspaper got him out. Luckily, he had managed to get rid of the Mauser he was carrying before he was captured – otherwise he might have been shot.
‘Well, the Syrians have never doubted that the British would fail,’ said Maeltzer now. ‘You know their prophecy? “When the waters of the Nile come to Palestine then shall Jerusalem be taken from the Turks.”‘
‘We should be safe then,’ observed Weidinger. ‘As long as there are a few Germans around to watch the waters that is. Ah, I see Major Tiller is closing on the spoils of war.’
The journalist saw that Sarah Aaronsohn was now deep in conversation with the major. Every now and then she would respond to something he had said with a coquettish little laugh. The young man at her side looked increasingly sulky and ill at ease.
A tall man, tanned like a peasant, with a drooping gingerish moustache, walked into the hotel. His whipcord breeches were tucked into lace-up riding boots which were covered in dust, as was his clothing. His broad-brimmed hat reminded Maeltzer of the Transvaal. He removed it to reveal hair of deeper ginger than his moustache, and then looked around the foyer until his eyes alighted on the Swiss journalist. This was Doctor Jacob Rosenblum, a German Jew of some influence among the Zionists who came from a settlement along the River Jordan near the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee.
‘Good morning, Herr Maeltzer,’ he boomed. ‘Nothing but good news to report, eh?’
Rosenblum represented a distinctly pro-German stratum among the Zionists. His affection for the Fatherland had, if anything, grown in his years of living away. Forgotten now were the slights, the remorseless prejudice whose tiny darts could spoil a perfect day. Rosenblum was one of those who had opposed the decision of the Zionist Congress to move its headquarters from Berlin to neutral Copenhagen for the duration of the war.
Maeltzer introduced the Zionist to Weidinger, and motioned him to sit down.
‘Just for a moment,’ he said, sinking into an armchair opposite their couch and laying his hat on his knees. ‘I have business with Fraulein Aaronsohn over there.’
‘And are you going to ask th
e whereabouts of her brother, by any chance?’ murmured Maeltzer.
‘Among other things. A brilliant man, of course, but it is possible that he may have been misguided. I have often found that the scientific intellect does not mix readily with politics. There is – what shall I say? – a chemical reaction that can spell disaster.’
‘You would put Dr Weizmann, the chemist, in the same category?’ inquired Maeltzer innocently.
‘Indeed I would, sir.’
‘What chemist is this?’ Weidinger wanted to know.
‘Weizmann is one of the leaders of the Jews in England,’ Maeltzer explained. ‘I think he was born in Russia.’
‘Poland actually,’ said Rosenblum. ‘Near Pinsk. I believe he is working for the British navy now.’
‘A Jewish sailor?’ said Weidinger. ‘With respect, Herr Doktor, I didn’t think that a love of sea was among the many accomplishments of your race.’
‘No, he isn’t a sailor, Herr Oberleutnant,’ said Rosenblum. ‘He is, as Herr Maeltzer said, a chemist. He is probably working on explosives. One day the British may well give the fruits of his labours to the Russians and the next time they feel like having a pogrom they will use it to kill more Jews. I can tell you, gentlemen, it makes me sick. It makes me quite sick to think about it. In this war the English have become our enemies by becoming the friends of our enemies. Any Jew who thinks otherwise is a traitor to his race.’
No one could doubt Rosenblum’s sincerity. His eyes were blazing, his face set. Weidinger felt flattered. It was always a pleasure to meet a Jew who was quite unequivocal about where his true interests lay. ‘Talking of Russia, Dr Rosenblum,’ he said, ‘what do you make of recent events in Petrograd?’
‘I think it’s excellent news. They can’t stand up to your soldiers and face revolution at home. The Russian army will crumble. You mark my words, it’ll collapse. They’re a bunch of half-starved, highly superstitious, illiterate peasants. I know them. Now they won’t be sure whether they should be fighting or looting their officers’ homes and ravishing their Dresden china ladies.’