Tilkidom and The Ottoman Empire The Letters of Gerald Fitzmaurice to George Lloyd, 1906-1915

1906,9 September “I'm off to town to hang around the Council of Ministers” 13 September “Elchi's dovecot has been fairly fluttered” 23 September “Rottenness and flabbiness ... has grown around the nation's heart” 29 September “Theoretical ravings ... [about] ... home life” 1907, 1 February “Chok-chok lonely oldum since the two tilkis left” 4 February “1906-7 has been a red-letter year to me ... I had fallen and you saved me” 27 February “I often feel very very lonely and miss much” 12 March “Get photo'ed and send me one to see what a biyikli Yavri looks like” 11 May “Turks are more reliable than some British Ambassadors” 20 May “You will be sorry to learn that poor Onik Effendi died rather suddenly last week” 21 June “Condemned to everlasting waiting at the everlasting Porte” 15 July “And, Tilki, let me tell you a dead secret” 15 August “I met Miss Bell and was delighted tho' somewhat timid and humble” 5 November “I went to St Sophia the night of Power ... I felt the throb of Islam more than I ever did before” 26 November “The beast must go” 8 December “I may get into A.H.'s political harem yet” 21 December “In an autocratic country like this being sound at the core or in the fish's head matters more” 27 December “[Your] last actually contained 3 numbered questions requiring a straight answer which of course we never give in the East” 1908, 9 February “So let my pen distil black treason” 3 March “I'm sorry to have drawn you over Ireland” 12 March “I have consulted the Turkish Sphinx [on who should be the next Ambassador]” 26 March “le Roi est mort – Vive le roi” 10 April “I am a cosmopolitan but it is a long way off ... . With me it has been the outermost of a lot of concentric circles of which Ireland is the Bull's Eye” 11 May “You must not think me callous to human suffering. We have got certain things done but there is no use talking about them in public” 3 June “What do you think of our new chief? He isn't at all a bad choice” 9 June “I think you had better go on to the end as an uncompromising hater of Ireland” 21 June “I would never have gone to the extent of an ‘entente' with Russia and above all not openly and gratuitously championed an anti-Turkish policy with her” 8 July “We have been quietly clearing off a number of ‘current matters' to try and present a smooth surface to Lowther” 29 July “You remember one used to say in the Bodega that one must always be prepared in this country for the touch of the magician's wand to set Turkey on her legs. It has come” 7 October “The ‘children' have received a cruel blow ... but they are showing great self restraint” (?) October “Abdul Hamid was unkind in keeping me seven hours at the Palace today (Sunday) but I forgive him” 25 November “I have been intriguing frightfully during the last few weeks and frequently find myself in quaint places in Stamboul after dark” 16 December “We are now in the second phase of our revolution” 18 December “Yesterday (the opening of Parliament) I was busy from morning till bedtime. ... He [the Sultan] is certainly the best comedian in two continents and played his part perfectly” 1909, 10 January “We shan't be hard on the Bulgarians. ... I have called them the Japs of the Balcans and think they may one day be the nucleus of something big” 19 January “And now poor Turkey – all the romance gone – must take up the white man's burden and have done with childish days. ... No, it cannot be, Tilki, and we must quietly prepare some fresh surprise” 25 February “The ‘children' have ... been naughty” 28 February “I yesterday assisted at a Bagdad Rly interpellation and debate” 6 March “We all wonder whether we are preparing some new neat little surprise for our friends in Europe” 30 May “The mutiny of April 13th was in no way a reaction to the old regime” 26 June “My pen is practically ‘broke' like my spirit! ... Excuse paper and pen. They are both old régime tho' not reactionary” 29 June “I am getting most keen on Sionism which is the great feature of our new life” 28 July “Your kind treatment of the children's represen-tatives is producing an excellent effect here” 4 August “The Cretan imbroglio is full on us and as usual is labyrinthine” ca. 8 August “Constitutionalism is a blatant farce” 11 August “Anent the funny things said of me at home” 8 October “You gleaned that one had a little shadow of doubt lurking in the folds of one's conscience as to whether baddish mistakes had not been made. I was much cheered by your verdict” 17 December “I'm for George Lloyd and not for Lloyd George. ‘What's in a name'? The fate of an Empire” 1910, 26 February “You must have felt awed as a neophyte when you entered the Chamber instilled with the centuries old direction of the affairs of an Empire which looms so large on four if not five continents” 27 May “I have been deep down in the bowels of the earth and have only come up today to find your note to H.E.” 3 June “Yesterday I wired to Lamb only to learn in reply that you had turned your brush away from us and gone to Crete. ... One of the points I wanted to talk to you about was Freemasonry” 27 July “It looks as if the time were not far distant when we shall have to make up our minds as to whether Petersburgh is not more important for us than Consple” 3 August “There is no news here. The cruelties to animals – the street dogs on the Black Hole of Calcutta-like Island of Oxia is as bad as my treatment at Perim” 15 October “The whole loan matter [in Paris] ... is vitally important. It is pivotal and the most important event since July 1908” 9 November “The loan with the Germans is not yet signed and they don't feel at all comfortable about undertaking the responsibility of financing Young Turkey” 17 November “How naughty Welshmen are!” 1 December “I rejoice to hear you are sane about Ireland” 1912, 4 November “A last hurried note from Stamboul. ... No matter what may happen to me I shall have done my duty to Great Britain, Turkey and Islam” 1915, 5 September “For God's sake push ahead without losing a second. Hours mean Empires now” Glossary of Turkish words, abbreviations, and private words and phrases used in the letters and end matter, List of persons mentioned in the letters, List of works cited, Index