Author: Geoff Berridge
Tilkidom and the Ottoman Empire: The Letters of Gerald Fitzmaurice to George Lloyd, 1906-15
2008
I decided to bring out the letters separately for three reasons. First, I had found it necessary roughly to transcribe most of them for the purposes of writing the biography. Fitzmaurice often wrote in haste and seemed to feel the need for economy in notepaper. As a result, the handwriting in the letters is often difficult and is compounded by his tendency to join up words and also squeeze numerous postscripts into the margins and letterhead. Having transcribed them just to be able to understand them, I assumed – naively as it turned out – that it would be relatively straightforward to knock them into shape for publication. Secondly, it soon became obvious to me that – probably because of the difficulty of the letters and because Fitzmaurice had no previous biographer – they had been little used at all by previous historians. Thirdly, and most importantly, I concluded that other students of the last years of the Ottoman Empire, and particularly of Britain’s relations with it, would find them to be of immense value – and spot in them many points of significance that I had missed.
Fitzmaurice was a great writer of private letters, a form of diplomatic correspondence which became popular in Britain in the nineteenth century because it avoided the risk that their publication in a Blue Book might be required. But some ‘private letters’ were more ‘private’ than others! Those that Fitzmaurice wrote to the powerful William Tyrrell can be found in Foreign Office Private Office papers at The National Archives and an even larger number written from the Yemen frontier to Sir Nicholas O’Conor in 1902-5 are held in the O’Conor papers at the Churchill Archives Centre in Cambridge. Smaller collections can be found in the Herbert papers in the Somerset County Archives at Taunton, the Ryan papers in the Middle East Centre Archives at St. Antony’s College Oxford, and the Sykes papers in Hull University Archives. However, these were all tame and for the most part rather thin compared to the ones he wrote to George Lloyd. Indeed, there is no doubt whatever that it is this collection of almost 60 private letters that reveals most fully the workings of Fitzmaurice’s mind and his deepest and most private thoughts – as well as the greatest wealth of varied and colourful detail. It is also this collection that provides the most significant and authentic detail; for example, on the Embassy’s role in supporting Kiamil Pasha after the Young Turks’ revolution in July 1908. These letters are also held at the Churchill Archives Centre at Cambridge (GLLD 7/1-4 and 9/1/3), and are now published here for the first time.
How have I approached my task? In the interests of brevity, I describe myself on the title page of this book as its ‘Editor’. However, a more accurate description would probably be ‘transcriber and annotater’, for – except for italicizing the dates in order to highlight them – I have transcribed the text of the letters exactly as I found them. Using digital photographs of the originals, I have gone over them with a microscope and reproduced everything they contain: nothing at all of the text has been deleted. Furthermore, I have wittingly made no alterations to the punctuation or spelling, though I have occasionally added ‘[sic]’ after a word to indicate that an eccentric or anachronistic spelling is not a typo of my own and also used inserts in square brackets to add explanations of letters or words obviously omitted by Fitzmaurice by mistake. As a linguist with a classical education, he peppered the letters not only with Latin and Turkish phrases but with French and occasionally German, Italian and Arabic ones as well. He also loved lengthy and sometimes bizarre metaphors, and was fond of quoting Kipling without attribution. I have, therefore, offered translations where necessary and added a few footnotes to illuminate certain references. (To have provided background in the footnotes to all of the subjects dealt with in the letters would probably have doubled the length of the book. Such background can be found in my biography of Fitzmaurice. As a rule, I have only footnoted in The Letters subjects not dealt with in the biography.) As to the headings I have given to each of the letters under ‘Contents’ in these preliminary pages, they are quotations from the letters concerned that seem to capture their flavour or their most important theme.
I have added a ‘Glossary of Turkish words, abbreviations, and private words and phrases used in the letters and endmatter’ and a very long ‘List of persons mentioned in the letters’. In making sense of the many Turkish words and phrases used in the letters I have been assisted chiefly by Professor Dr. A. Nuri Yurdusev of the Dept. of International Relations at METU in Ankara and formerly Vice-President of the Turkish Academy of Sciences but also by the writer, David Barchard. I am, of course, most grateful to both of them.
CORRECTIONS AND FURTHER CLARIFICATIONS
It is inevitable that at odd points Fitzmaurice’s handwriting should have defeated me. This forced me to leave a query here and there ‘[?]’, and also to make mistakes of transcription where knowledge of Turkish and a better grasp of the context would have enabled me to deduce his meaning. Three readers have already picked up some of these and kindly sent them on. They are Christopher Young (CY), formerly Judge of the Crown Court in Leicester and in his retirement doing a Ph.D. on Harry Lynch at the Oriental Institute in Oxford; Peter Clark (PC) , formerly of Ace Cultural Tours; the late Andrew Mango (AM); and Mrs Pamela Button (PB), a freelance Home Office interpreter for Turkish and Greek, and great-granddaughter of Joseph Bowman, who was second messenger and gaoler at the British consulate-general in Constantinople for the last four years of Fitzmaurice’s time there as chief dragoman. For the benefit of others, I note their corrections and comments in the following list. I also encourage anyone who spots any more to inform me so that I can add them to it:
p. 23, line 9, DARGIN: I suggest “angry” rather than “resentful” (PB).
p. 35: ‘Senniyeh ‘, not ‘Servia [?]’. This was another name for the Ottoman line of steamers on the Tigris (CY).
p. 35 and subsequently: ‘D’arcy’, not ‘Darey’. W. K. D’arcy was an Anglo-Australian oil prospector (CY)
p. 43, para 2, line 5, BALTA LIMAN: This merits explanation. A small village on a bay on the European side of the Bosphoros. It had a stream, fields and forests, also a coastal white palace with the same name, subsequently a hospital. A popular place for outings, meals out, relaxing. A place of great beauty in Fitzmaurice’s days. Joseph’s son, Henry, built a house there, the house in which I was born and grew up! The Baltaliman Convention was signed in this Palace in the 19th Century (PB).
p. 43: Yusuf Effendi was Yussuf Tatorian an Armenian Catholic from Mardin (CY)
p. 43 (line 2 up): trsl. of ‘Tamam’. ‘Well, that’s all’ is better than ‘Agreed’ (PC)
p. 46: ‘Chok chok shukur, I think, is really a thankyou to Lloyd for sending him the carpet, not Thank Goodness’ (PC).
p. 47, line 3, YAVRI PONY : “young pony”. “Yavri” is from the Constantinople Greek dialect, derived from the Turkish “Yavru”, meaning “the young of an animal”. “Yavri” is still commonly used colloquially by modern-day Istanbul Greeks as a term of endearment, including by my own parents. It is often used by a parent to a young child. It is an affectionate term for a “little one”. It can also be used between close adult friends, married or otherwise, typically by the older to the younger, where there is a significant age difference, as between Fitzmaurice and Lloyd. Fitzmaurice would have heard the word being regularly used within the (very much larger!) Greek-speaking Community in his day. There is no obviously equivalent word in English. … [It is] incidentally the only one of Ottoman Greek origin I have spotted so far used by Fitzmaurice (PB).
p. 47, para 1, line 16, KOUSH : “bird” (PB).
p. 48, par 1, line 1, also p. 65, line 7, also p.93, para 2, line 9 : GHIAOUR.
This is a slightly contemptuous Farsee word, and means “non-muslim”. If used metaphorically, can mean “merciless” or “cruel” (PB)
p. 51, para 3, line 3 : BAKSHEESH. Our generation generally fully aware means “TIP” or “BRIBE”, but younger students might not know the word (PB).
p. 51, para 4, line 7 : NASREDIN stories. Refers to Nasreddin Hoja, writer ot wit, wisdom and fables, who lived in Turkey in the 13th Century. I would suggest equivalent to Aesop in Western literature (PB).
p. 54, para 2, line 10: CONSOLOS BEY. “Mr Consul” (PB)
p. 55: (line 9 down) ‘Mersina (Mersin)’, not ‘Messina’ (AM)
p. 57: ‘Hamdi Bey – Osman Hamdi – might have merited a footnote and a biographical note. He was a remarkable man – a painter and archaeologist, and founder of the Archaeological Museum. Some of his paintings are quite iconic in an “orientalist” tradition – he studied art in Paris. They can be seen in the Pera Museum, between the Pera Palas and the Grande Hotel de Londres. And I suspect Behek should be Bebek …’ (PC).
p. 72, line 13, SCALA : the second Greek word I have found. “Pier” is OK, but a bit more specific, namely “boat station”. These boat stations were the lifeline for the Bosphoros villages in the days before roads were built. Some were grand structures, others more basic, little more than piers. Turkish word is “iskele” (PB).
p. 73, line 11 : INGLIZ SERAI : “English Palace” (Embassy) (PB).
p. 81: ‘Balin’ was the German-Jewish chairmam of the Hamburg Amerika Line (CY)
p. 82, para 2 : INFLUENZIJ : “without influence” – a multi-lingual hybrid word (PB).
p. 86, para 3, line 5 : YAVRI : “little one” or “baby” (PB).
p. 87: (line 13 up) ‘Khanakin’, not ‘Kharakin’ (AM)
p. 93: The ‘Jewish deputy’ for Bagdad referred to here was, writes Christopher Young, “Haskiel Sassoon, usually known as Sassoon Effendi. He was a Young Turk of considerable influence, with connections to the British Sassoons. If there was one individual who was principally responsible for the failure of Lynch to obtain his monopoly on the river, it was he (see pp. 129-130). I find it strange that Fitzm doesn’t mention this, especially when one recalls his anti-semitic views. After the Great War, Sassoon became financial advisor to King Feisal of Iraq, and was rewarded for his services with an honorary KBE from the British Government. More than anything poor old Fitzm ever got.”
p. 95, line 5: INTRIJA : “intrigue” – a multi-lingual hybrid word (PB).
p. 103, line 1, BAZARLIK : ” bargaining” (PB)
p. 132: ‘”Fueris” is future perfect, so the translation should read, “of which you will have played a great part”‘(PC).
p. 133, para 3, reference to “English School “. This is the English High School for Boys in Nisantas, Istanbul. Building Plans drawn up in 1910. Built in 1912. Closed in 1914 due to War and used as barracks. Re-opened 1920. Integrated into Turkish Educational Sysem in 1951 as “Ingiliz Lisesi”. Went co-educational in 1969. Now known as “Anadolu Lisesi”. This information from my personal School Yearbook for 1971 to 1972, Editor’s Letter. HM Queen Elizabeth 11 visited the School in 1971 whilst I was a pupil! (PB)
p. 134: ‘Elchi Bey’s brother was James Lowther, the Speaker of the House of Commons’ (PC).
p. 146: (line 16 down), ‘istim’, not ‘islim’ (AM)
p. 146, end of para 2, BIMBASHI. Turkish Military Officer (Captain) in charge of 1000 Men (PB)
p. 150, para 2, line 2 : ROUM : “Byzantium”, “Eastern Rome” or “Constantinople” (PB).
Additions to ‘GLOSSARY …[etc.]’
B.I. British Indian Steam Navigation Company (CY)
H.A. Hamburg Amerika Line (CY)
Socio-Linguistic Observations,
by Mrs Pamela Button (nee Bowman)
Fitzmaurice follows the Levantine trend of using metaphors, words and sentences etc of the “lingua franca”. He does so for dramatic effect, also to maintain element of secrecy. He also “borrows” from other languages, such as Italian, Arabic, Farsee. Not surprising, given he would have heard all those languages being spoken as part of the daily course.
100 years on, modern Turkish-speakers can still understand his fragments of Turkish, that despite Ataturk’s reforms of the Turkish Language in 1928, when the Arabic alphabet was replaced, and in 1932, when Arabic and Farsee words were removed and replaced with Turkic words.
Using the English alphabet, he manages to get his Turkish words as close as phonetically possible to the originals, in some cases identical to the modern spelling. He was using the vernacular language and idioms, as he heard spoken around him every day. Such language is the very basis of modern Turkish, as spoken today.
First published by The Isis Press (Istanbul, 2008) and subsequently in Turkish translation by Kirmizi Kedi in Gerald H. Fitzmaurice: İngiliz Gizli Belgelerinde ‘Yahudi Dönmesi İttihatçılar’.
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British Diplomacy and the Descent into Chaos: The career of Jack Garnett, 1902-19
I am in favour of biographies of relatively obscure individuals like Jack Garnett because there are plenty of them on the famous; moreover, studies of this kind often turn up interesting details (including how the famous were seen from the foothills) and stimulate thought on bigger questions. John Fisher’s well written and thoroughly researched study of this early twentieth century British diplomat, into which contextual detail is expertly woven, is no exception.
Gerals Firzmaurice (1965-1939), Chief Dragoman of the British Embassy in Turkey
International Diplomacy Volume IV: Public Diplomacy
The Architecture of Diplomacy: Building America’s Embassies, 2nd ed
Munitions of the Mind: A history of propaganda from the ancient world to the present era
Getting Our Way: 500 Years of Adventure and Intrigue: The Inside Story of British Diplomacy
Back Channel to Cuba: The hidden history of negotiations between Washington and Havana
This book went to press after the much-publicised handshake between US president Barack Obama and Cuban president Raul Castro at the memorial service for Nelson Mandela in December 2013 – but before their historic, simultaneous announcements a year later, assisted by a prisoner exchange and the good offices of the Vatican, that they were resolved to end their 50 years of estrangement and normalise relations.
Guicciardini’s Ricordi: The Counsels and Reflections of Francesco Guicciardini
Francesco Guicciardini was born into a long-established patrician family in Florence in 1483. He trained and then practised successfully as a lawyer, but in January 1512 was sent by the signoria, despite his youth, as ambassador to Spain.1 His mission was conducted against a background of acute tension and at a time when the goodwill of Ferdinand the Catholic — that master of deceit’ 2 — was of the first importance to the republic. (Ferdinand’s soldiers, only recently allied to those of Pope Julius II against Florence’s ally, France, were entering the nearby Romagna.) Guicciardini re...
A kind of diplomatic incantation: Exchanging British and Japanese diplomats in the Second World War
The Imperial Component in Iran’s Foreign Policy: Towards Arab Mashreq and Arab Gulf States
One of the most important developments the Middle East has witnessed in the 20th centaury was the success of the Iranian revolution of Islamist ideology, with ambitions to control.
The Washington Embassy: British ambassadors to the United States, 1939-77
British Diplomacy in Turkey, 1583 to the Present: A Study in the Evolution of the Resident Embassy
U.S. Propaganda in the Middle East – The Early Cold War Version
The First Resort of Kings: American cultural diplomacy in the twentieth century
The History of Diplomatic Immunity
This is a massive book in more than one sense. It is over 700 pages long, including an invaluable bibliography which itself stretches over 70 pages. While dwelling chiefly on the Western tradition, it also takes in the Ottoman Empire and the Far East. It begins in ancient times (though having less on the second […]
Negotiating with the Chinese Communists: The United States Experience, 1953-1967
King Cotton Diplomacy: Foreign Relations of the Confederate States of America
British Envoys to Germany 1816-1866
A History of Diplomacy in the International Development of Europe, vol. 3
The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey
If God ever gave mankind a mission – it was not so much to multiply as to walk. And walk we did, to the farthest corners of the earth. Homo sapiens sapiens is the only mammal to have spread from its place of origin, Africa, to every other continent – before settling down to sedentary life ogling a TV screen or monitor, that is.
US Public Diplomacy: A Cold War Success Story?
The post-'9/11' revival of interest in US public diplomacy encompasses a wide variety of opinions, all overwhelmingly critical.
Side-Lights on English Society, or Sketches from Life, Social and Satirical
Nation, Class, and Diplomacy: The dragomanate of the British embassy in Constantinople, 1814-1914
In Markus Msslang and Torsten Riotte (eds.), The Diplomats’ World: A Cultural History of Diplomacy, 1815-1914 (Oxford University Press for the German Historical Institute, London: Oxford and New York, 2008), pp. 407-31
Blundering Into Disaster: Surviving the First Century of the Nuclear Age
Ellsworth Bunker: Global Troubleshooter, Vietnam Hawk
The Cinderella Service: British Consuls since 1825
Diplomacy with a Difference: The Commonwealth Office of High Commissioner, 1880-2006
In writing her history of the origins and evolution of the office of high commissioner, Dr Lloyd, who is a Senior Lecturer in International Relations at Keele University, has drawn on a vast range of sources. She has sifted through archives of public and private papers not just in Britain but in Ireland, Canada, and South Africa; and she has conducted many interviews and much correspondence with former high commissioners.
The origins, use and development of hot line diplomacy
International Diplomacy Volume III: The Pluralisation of Diplomacy
Notes on the origins of the diplomatic corps: Constantinople in the 1620s
The Law of Nations or Principles of the Law of Nature Applied to the Conduct and Affairs of Nations and Sovereigns
The Queen’s Ambassador to the Sultan: Memoirs of Sir Henry A. Layard’s Constantinople Embassy, 1877-1880
Once more students of Ottoman diplomatic history are in debt to the scholar-publisher, Sinan Kuneralp, for Sir Henry Layard was one of the most remarkable and controversial of British ambassadors to Turkey in the nineteenth century and served there during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-8 – and yet the volumes of his memoirs dealing with this period have hitherto languished unpublished in the British Library, in part perhaps because of their size. (Layard admits himself to having been ‘somewhat minute, perhaps a great deal too much so’, p. 692.)They are here published almost in their entir...
The Collision of Two Civilisations: The British Expedition to China 1792-4
Under the Wire: How the Telegraph Changed Diplomacy
Review by Geoff Berridge
International Diplomacy Volume II: Diplomacy in a Multicultural World
Philosophy of Rhetoric
There are several reasons which have induced the author of the following sheets to give the public some account of their origin and progress, previously to tbgir coming unaer its examination. They are a series of Essays closely connected with one another, and written on a subject in the examination of which he has at […]
Renaissance Diplomacy and the Reformation
We invite you to continue our walk along timeline of Evolution of diplomacy and technology. In May, our next stop is Renaissance diplomacy and the impact of the invention of the printing press on diplomacy in the Reformation period.
Misunderstood: The IT manager’s lament
Communication between information technologists and their clients – including diplomats - does not work as well as it should. We know that information technology has become ubiquitous. We also know that diplomats rely extensively on web services, electronic mail and documents in electronic form. Yet when communication does not work well, technologists poorly understand the needs of the diplomatic community. As a result, technical solutions may not address the real needs of end-users. This paper is a study on inter-professional miscommunication.
Beyond diplomatic – the unravelling of history
In his paper, Robert Alston travels through time to rekindle an important highlight – as well as a personal highlight – in the history of knowledge management. His journey takes him back to the 1850s, which saw Antonio Panizzi’s efforts in creating a universal repository of knowledge in the British Museum; and to the 1990s, a time in which he acquired first-hand experience at the same museum, drawing conclusions on the various available ways of navigating large bibliographical and archival databases.
To Begin the World Anew: The Genius and Ambiguities of the American Founders
When I feel dispirited about the current crop of political leaders in Switzerland or around the world, I like to take refuge in one of the most uplifting political stories of mankind – the American Revolution.
The British Diplomatic Service 1815-1914
The Invisible Weapon: Telecommunications and International Politics 1851-1945
A History of Diplomacy in the International Development of Europe, vol. 2
History and the evolution of diplomacy
Update: Visit our page on History of Diplomacy and Technology, where we try to discover how civilizations dealt with ‘new’ technologies, from simple writing, via the telegraph, to the internet.
The Rise of Modern Diplomacy, 1450-1919
Amarna Diplomacy: A Fully-fledged Diplomatic System in the Near East?
The Parliament of Man: The Past, Present and Future of the United Nations
Evolution of Diplomatic Privileges and Immunities
Excerpt from the lecture 1: Principles and concepts, evolution and instruments; Online course on Diplomatic Law: Privileges and Immunities.
