TICKLING THE TURK.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LX, Issue 17076, 1 September 1917, Page 7

TICKLING THE TURK.

SUDDEN GERMAN AFFECTION

DELMER'S OBSERVATIONS

(In one of his special articles to "The Times/ Mr. F. Sefton Delmer, the Australian who was in Berlin from the beginning of the war until May 23 last, tells of the German wooing of the Turk.)

Berlin is making heroic efforts t 0 keep up appearances. By hook->r by crook, neutral and ally visitors must be impressed. It is no doubt good business. . .

The museums have been kept-open, though certain departments within them have been closed. Theatres and concerts continue as in peace time. The race meetings at the Hoppegarten and (xrunewald courses are, with an effort it is true, ostentatiously kept going. The Berlin crowd of " flaneuses" in the Taiientzienstrasse 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 tha streets and squares are as carefully filled with gay pot-plants as of yore. The Tiergarten, Berlin's Hyde Park, looks just as carefully tended as ever, but "the chief gardener told me that he had hard work to keep it watered with the old wornout hoses at his disposal, and he complained, too, of hungry poachers that netted fish in the Tiergarten' lakes b*y night and stole the hundreds .of wild j 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 Brandenburger Tor. For the past year and a half no guard had stood there; spiders were the only denizens of the deserted

guardroom, and the rifle-stands outside were rusty. But, all at once, at the beginning of spring, soldiers, like newborn flowers, were there again, and the usual two sentries, looking nght and leit, ready to turn out the guard to salute, should any high officer heave in sight. On "the farther side of the Pariser Platz one saw the reason why. Above the Hotel Adlcm a red flag with a white crescent was floating. A Turivish mission on its. way to the Kaisei was staying there for a day or two, and for the 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 saj, a mission from one of our Allies came to London!

A sentry-box, with a sentry in from, of it, had also been placed at the entrance to the hotel. The sentries, by. the way, in front of the various princes palaces in the Wilhelnwtrasse and elsewhere, suddenly vanished about nine month's ago. In spite of this official outward show of respect for Turkey, the Germans m conversation do not scruple to express "Die Turkei wurden wir billig abgeben !" ("We'd let Turkey go cheap") 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 Humbolt Academy, which is a sort of institute for university extension lee- : tures, and has branches in all parts of the town, the 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 Are brigades, pointing out somewhat sati- .

rieally that the Turkish fire brigade was rather more feared by the populace tiian the fir<« themselves, for it was their .custom on the merest excuse of fire to, fiing; into the street all the most valuable articles and inarch off 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 uacorafort-a-bly like th<j love of the gourmand for the oyster, and quito recently he lias passed various laws making it very plain to the Germans that Turkey is for tho Turks. Nobody is to be allowed, for example, to open a place of busiEess in Turkey who cannot read, write, and speak the Turkish language. I remember th« incliojitibn tha German newspapers ?liow*d to shriek when they felt tho shock of this cold douche, but they shiverL'igly smiled instead, determined to reaoh "Eheir goal notwithstanding. TIiRKS IN BERLIN isLilOOl^ In about iO Eeriiu. schools grotips of 20 or 30 Turkish youths of about "J5 or 13 yea.i-fi of aigo have, at the instance of the Government, been admitted to study German. Tho Government have given instructions that they are to be treated with the utmost eonsiderax-ion, but schooLmaflters have told me that the.:-.e <3r:eniais, many of whom are already warrimsi, are a nuisance, and that their presence amongst ration younger beys is undesirable, both for pedagogic and other reasons. Much the same is said of the large numbers of Turkish •youths introduced as apprentices in various trades in Berlin and. other towns.

Tha specimens of riiir-raff Turkish soldiery in their dark-rod tea and dirty uniform that ono ocoasionaUy sees in twos -or thrnos in the streets of Berlin excite nothing but contemptuous curiosity on the part of the sfpj'ck-and-span Be-'-iimjr. SEDUCING MAHOMETAN PRISONERS. i c-oinetiinfls saw «ir vtualaads of Ma-

hoiuetan prisoners decked out in picturesque rcbes being driven through the Berlin streets siiightseeina;, 1..c cajavans of Cook's tourists. They were taken to admire the wooden idol that Berlin has feet up to Hindenburg under the shadow of the almost equally ugly Column of victory. These Mahometans are .made much of by everyone, and uo wile is left untried to win them over to the German side. At a lantern lecture I went to in the Berlin Abgeordnetnhaus (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 Germans outwardly observed. The Germans succeeded, too, in cajoling numbers of these naive men, into fighting with the Turks. They went unwillingly enough to their dishonourable task, and 1 heard from the wife of a German officer that many v of these men wept bitterly on leaving their camp for the front. The German authorities, on thi* 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 the war, but tbe articles t-hejy sell are of little importance. High-priced goods, such as Turkey carpets, are no longer allowed to be imported, as their purchase would unfavourably affect the value of the mark. Oriental rugs and carpets consequently are now at a premium and cost three times as much as they did before the war. On selling my furniture just before leaving I was besieged by dea.lers, Germans. Poles, Galirians, all agog for my Afghan carpets. Their first breathless question was invariably, " Ray.' yon any real carpets?" Ib is said that these dealers are buying then ip.) in nnt.k-ipntion of a great r\pmnnri in Bol.nr.m, Poland, and F-issr Prussia when tho houses de.ttroye-cl ii: j the war arflj^juilt. '