TICKLING THE TURK

Otago Daily Times, Issue 17104, 8 September 1917, Page 10

TICKLING THE TURK

SUDDEN GERMAN AFFECTION.

DELMER'S OBSERVATIONS.

In ono of his special articles to The Times, Mr F. Scfton Delmer, the Australian who was in Berlin from the beginning of the war until May 23 last, tells of the German wooing of tho Turk. Berlin is making heroic efforts to keep up appearances. By hook or by crook, neutral and all visitors must be impressed. It is no doubt good business. Tho museums havo been kept open, though certain departments within them have been closed. Theatres and concerts continue aa in peace time. The race meetings at the Hoppegarten and Grunewald courses are, with an effort it is true, ostentatiously kept going. The Berlin crowd .of " flaneuses" in tho Tauenteienstrassc and Kurfurstendamm was never smarter or more "outre" than it is to-day, in spite of Bezugsscheine (clothing or boot tickets), and the flower-beds in the streets and squares aro as carefully filled with gay pot-plants as of yore. The Tiergarten, Berlin's Hyde Park, looks just aa carefully tended as ever, but the chief gardener told me that he had hard work to keep it watered with the old worn-out horses at his disposal, anrl ho complained, too, of hungry poachers that netted the fish in, the Tiergarten lakes by night and stole tho hundreds of wild ducks that had their nests on the islands. STAGING A COMEDY. I was greatly astonished at the beginning of last month suddenly to find the guard again on duty at the Brandenburg Tor. For the past year and a-half no guard had stoou there; spiders were the only 'denizens of the deserted guardroom, and the riflestands outside were rusty. But, all at once, at the beginning of spring, soldiers, lika new-born flowers, were there again, and the • usual two sentries, looking righi; and left, } ready to turn out the guard to salute, should any-high officer heave in sight. On the farther side of tho Pariser Platz one saw the reason why. Above the Hotel Adlon a red flag with a white crescent was floating. A Turkish mission on its way to the Kaieer was staying there for a day or two, and for thd special benefit of these gentlemen this little comedy had been staged. Imagine the Life Guards at Whitehall being removed for a year, and then suddenly reappearing when, let us say, a mission from one of our.allies came to London! A sentry-box, with a sentry in front of it, had also been plaoed at the entrance to the hotel. Tho sentries, by 'the way, in fronS of; the various princes' palaces in tho Wilhelmstraeso and elsewhere suddenly vanished about nine months ago, ! In spite of this official outward show of respect for Turkey, the Germans in conversation do not scruple to express their contempt' for their Turkish ally. "DiVTurkei ■wu'rden wir billig abgeben!" (" We'd let Turkey go cheap!") is the opinion even in Government circles. CULT OF THE ORIENT. Anyone who has lived in Berlin for the past two years could not but be vastly entertained to see the eager advances Germany at first made to Turkey. At the Oriental Seminary and at the Humboldfc Academy, whach, is a sort of institute for university extension lectures, and has branches in all parts of the town, tho courses for Turkish were simply thronged with students, and in the bookshops Turkish grammars were sold in thousands., In a lecture I heard on Constantinople the lecturer rather indiscreetly dwelt upon the peculiar organisation of the Turkish fire brigades, pointing out somewhat satirically that the Turkish fire brigade was rather more feared by the populace than the firea themselves, for it was their custom on the , merest excuse of fire to fling into the street all the most valuable articles and march oft with them as loot in lieu of salary. So ardent, indeed, was this sudden "affection that the Turk grow a little alarmed. He felt it to be uncomfortably like the love of the gourmand for the oyster, and quite recently he has passed various laws making it very plain to the Germans that Turkey ia for the Turks. Nobody is to be allowed, for example, to open a place of business in Turkey who cannot read, write, and speak the Turkish language. I remember tho inclination the German newspapers showed to shriek when they felt the shock of this cold douche, but they shiverrngly smiled instead, determined to reach their goal notwithstanding. TURKS IN BERLIN SCHOOLS. In about 10 Berlin schools groups of 20 or 30 Turkish youths of about 15 or 16, years of age have, at. the instance of the Government, been admitted to study German. The Government have given instructions that they are to be treated with the utmost consideration, } but school masters have told me that these Orientals, many of whom are already married, are a nuisance, and that their presence amongst much younger boys is undesirable, both for pedagogic and other reasons. Much tho same is said of the large numbers of Turkish" youths introduced as apprentices in various trades in Berlin and other towns. The specimens of riff-raff Turkish soldiery in their dark-red fez and dirty uniform that one occasionally sees in twos or threes in the streets of Berlin excite nothing but contemptuous curiosity on tho part of tho spick-and-span Berliner. SEDUCING MAHOMETAN PRISONERS. I sometimes saw big vanloads of Mahometan prisoners decked out in picturesque , robes being driven throutrh the Berlin streets sight-seeing, like caravans of Cook's tourists. They were taken to admire the wooden idol that Berlin has set up to Hindenburg under tho shadow of the almost equally" ugly Column of Victory. These Mahometans are made much of by everyone aud no wile is left untried to win them over to the German side. At a lantern lecture I went to in the Berlin Abgeordnetnliaus (House of Deputies), I saw the mosques erected in the camps of such prisoners, and one noticed' the scrupulous attention to their ritual that the, Germansoutwardly o! served. The Germans sucoeeded, too, in cajoling numbers of these naive men into fighting with tho Turks. They went unwillingly enough to their dishonourable task, and I heard from the wifo of a German officer that many of these men wept bitterly on leaving their camp for tho front. The German authorities, on the other hand, explained the tears as tears of affection and gratitude. TURKISH TRIFLES ON SALE. Turkish sellers of Oriental fancy . wares seem to have multiplied in Berlin since the beginning of thp war, but the articles they sell aro of little importance. High-priced goods, such as Turkey carpets, aro no longer allowed to be imported, as their purchase would unfavourably affect the vdue of the mark. Oriental rugs and carpets consequently are now nt a premium and cost three times as much as they did before tho war. On selling my furnituro just before leaving I was brsiesred by dealers. Germans, Poles, Galicians, all agog for my Afghan carpets. _ Their first breathless question was invariably, "Have you any real carpets?" It is said that theso dealers are buying them up in anticipation of a great demand in Belgium, Poland, and East Prussia when the houses destroyed in the war are rebuilt