Part 22 (1/2)

Of the maze of plot and counterplot in the city, of the death-throes of the old regime, and of our own small part in the history of that time, this record of moods and misadventures is not the place to write. My life as a prisoner was finished: my brief career as a minor diplomat, keeping his finger on the feverish pulse of Turkish politics, had only just begun, and the story of those crowded weeks would fill a volume.

Up to the last moment, the Government, in the person of Taalat Pasha, hoped to hold the real, if not the ostensible, reins of power. Until the flight of the Union and Progress triumvirate, the average Turk affected a certain lightheartedness about his country's losses. True, huge territories were lost to the Ottoman revenue, but on the other hand they had gained the Caucasus. So long as there was taxable territory, what did it matter whence the tribute came?

One night, when my newspaper work permitted, I visited a friend of Taalat Pasha, without disclosing my ident.i.ty.

”n.o.body but Taalat can possibly manage Turkey,” he told me--”and the English, if they come, will be well advised to deal with him.”

”It is not the English only,” I suggested modestly, ”but the whole world-set-free, that is coming to Constantinople.”

”Then the world must deal with Taalat. His party has all the money, and all the brains and energy as well.”

”Everything except imagination,” I replied.

But I did not myself imagine that only thirty-six hours later Taalat, the fat telegraphist whom Fate caught in her toils, and Enver, with his peac.o.c.k-grace and peac.o.c.k-wits, and Djemal, with cruelty stamped on him like the brand of Cain, would pa.s.s disguised, and in darkness, and in fear of death, through the city they had ruled as kings.

Neither did I imagine that in another fortnight the streets of Pera would be decked with banners, and the capital of the Turks a playground for the peoples against whom they had lately been at war. Nor did I know that I should soon be listening to the strains of ”Rule Britannia,” at the Pera Palace Hotel, while an enthusiastic crowd showered confetti on the bald head of the Colonel who had just arrived as the first British representative. Nor did I know that I should telephone to the papers to stop their press, while I motored down with the first interview from our delegate. Nor, again, could I realise that the pomp of the Prussians would be so suddenly replaced by pipes and walking-sticks and dogs. Nor did I even dream that the fifty-sixty horse-power Mercedes car in which General Liman von Sanders was still racing through the streets would soon be my property, bought and paid for in gold, complete with all accessories, including even the chauffeur's diary, and that I should garage it in a garden where a performing bear stood guard against any attempt at theft by the disorderly and demoralised Germans. These things are another story.

BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD, ENGLAND

Telegrams: ”Scholarly, London.” 41 and 43 Maddox Street, Telephone: 1883 Mayfair. Bond Street, London, W. 1.

_October, 1919._

Mr. Edward Arnold's AUTUMN ANNOUNCEMENTS, 1919.

JOHN REDMOND'S LAST YEARS.

By STEPHEN GWYNN.

_With Portrait. 1 vol. Demy 8vo._ =16s. net.=

The ”History of John Redmond's Last Years,” by Stephen Gwynn, is in the first place an historical doc.u.ment of unusual importance. It is an account of Irish political events at their most exciting period, written by an active member of Mr. Redmond's party who was in the confidence of his chief. The preliminary story of the struggle with the House of Lords and the prolonged fight over Home Rule is described by a keen student of parliamentary action. For the period which began with the war Mr. Gwynn has had access to all Redmond's papers. He writes of Redmond's effort to lead Ireland into the war from the standpoint of a soldier as well as a member of parliament. The last chapter gives to the world, for the first time, a full account of the Irish Convention which sat for eight months behind closed doors, and in which Redmond's career reached its dramatic catastrophe.

The interlocking of varying chains of circ.u.mstance, the parliamentary struggle, the rise of the rival volunteer forces, the raising of Irish divisions, the rebellion and its sequel, and, finally, the effect of bringing Irishmen together into conference--all this is vividly pictured, with increasing detail as the book proceeds. In the opening, two short chapters recall the earlier history of the Irish party and Redmond's part in it.

But the main interest centres in the character of Redmond himself. Mr.

Gwynn does not work to display his leader as a hero without faults and incapable of mistakes. He shows the man as he knew him and worked under him, traces his career through its triumphs to reverses, and through gallant recovery to final defeat. A great man is made familiar to the reader, in his wisdom, his magnanimity, and his love of country. The tragic waste of great opportunities is portrayed in a story which has the quality of drama in it. Beside the picture of John Redmond himself there is sketched the gallant and sympathetic figure of his brother, who, after thirty-five years of parliamentary service, died with the foremost wave of his battalion at the battle of Messines.

A MEDLEY OF MEMORIES.

By the Rt. Rev. Sir DAVID HUNTER BLAIR, Bart.

_With Ill.u.s.trations. 1 vol. Demy 8vo._ =16s. net.=

Sir David Hunter Blair, late Abbot of Fort Augustus, in the first part of these fifty years' recollections, deals with his childhood and youth in Scotland, and gives a picture full of varied interest of Scottish country house life a generation or more ago. Very vivid, too, is the account of early days at what was then the most famous private school in England; and the chapter on Eton under Balston and Hornby gives thumbnail sketches of a great many Etonians, school-contemporaries of the writer's, and bearing names afterwards very well known for one reason or another. Eton was followed by Magdalen; and undergraduate life in the Oxford of 1872 is depicted with a light hand and many amusing touches. There was foreign travel after the Oxford days; and two of the most pleasantly descriptive chapters of the book deal with Rome in the reign of Pius IX. and Leo XIII., both of which Pontiffs the author served as Private Chamberlain. There is much also that is fresh and interesting in the section treating of the lives and personalities of some of the great English Catholic families of by-gone days.

Sir David entered the Benedictine Order at the age of twenty-five; and the latter half of the book is concerned with his life as co-founder, and member of the community of, the great Highland Abbey of Fort Augustus, of which he rose later to be the second abbot. The intimate account given in these pages of the life of a modern monk will be new to most readers, who will find it very interesting reading. The writer's monastic experiences embrace not only his own beautiful home in the Central Highlands, but Benedictine life and work in England, in Belgium, Germany and Portugal, and in South America. One of the most novel and attractive chapters in the book is that dealing with the work of the Order in the vast territory of Brazil.

The volume is ill.u.s.trated with an excellent portrait, and with some clever black-and-white drawings, the work of Mr. Richard Anson, one of the author's religious brethren, and a member of the Benedictine community at Caldey Abbey, in South Wales.