Birds Without Wings (73 page)

Mustafa Kemal sends a delegation to the London Conference, in tandem with one from the Istanbul government. The Italians considerately provide a warship for transport. The conference is relatively pointless, however, because the Turks are demanding Greek withdrawal from Thrace and Anatolia, whereas the Greeks still think they can win. The Turks make agreements on the side with the French and the Italians, and only Lloyd George holds out for a Greek presence in Anatolia. From now on, however, the Allies have made it known that they will be neutral in any conflict between Greece and Turkey. At the other end of Europe, the Bolshevik Russians agree to supply Kemal with a stupendous quantity of arms in return for leaving them to occupy Georgia.

General Papoulas attacks again at Inönü, and again the Turks retreat, only to return victoriously after some desperate moments. Ismet Pasha adds new lustre to his star. In the south the Greeks are forced out of Afyon Karahisar, but now the Greek line is a straight and much more invulnerable one. The French and the British send unofficial officials to Ankara to negotiate their future terms of reference.

Mustafa Kemal sets up his own political party, which means that epiphenomenally he has created his own opposition in parliament. He will always be a dictator who has a democratic future for his country in mind, and this is not the only time that he will set up his own opposition.

The Sultan’s grandson arrives to join the nationalist cause, but Kemal politely sends him back to Istanbul.

King Constantine arrives in Smyrna, symbolically landing in the place once used by crusaders, rather than in the port. The reference is not lost on local Muslims. Massive Greek reinforcements arrive, and a new offensive takes place, with considerable Greek success. They win decisively at Kütahya, partly because of chaotic Turkish organisation. Only five divisions are actually fighting, whilst thirteen are marching about with no definite plan. Mustafa Kemal hurries to the front and consults with Ismet Pasha.

The Turks counterattack, but fail. More chaos ensues. The Turks lose Eskişehir, and some 48,000 Turkish soldiers desert, fleeing along the railway line with the civilian refugees.

Mustafa Kemal orders a retreat to the Sakarya River, and this causes a crisis in parliament and among the civilian population. Sakarya is rather close to Ankara, and evacuation to Kayseri is planned. Parliament demands the resignation of the military commanders responsible for the disaster, and the Prime Minister, Fevzi Bey, responds boldly that solely he is responsible. Mustafa Kemal gives all his money to the wife of a colleague so that she can flee with her children. A rapid recruitment drive is inaugurated, and new troops are dispatched to Sakarya. The assembly persuades Mustafa Kemal to take command of the armed forces personally. He is suspicious that this is really because his political opponents want someone to blame in the event of failure, and he worries about being away from the centre of power. He agrees to take command for three months.

The Russians send new supplies of weapons and ammunition, and much of this is driven to the front by peasant women in ox-carts. They are the heroines of the Turkish War of Independence, and without them it probably would not have been won.

Mustafa Kemal requisitions from every household one pair of boots and
one set of underwear, and forty per cent of all stocks of candles, soap, flour, leather and cloth. All vehicle owners have to provide one hundred kilometres’ worth of free transport every month. All civilians must disarm and send their weapons to the army. All horse-drawn vehicles are to be given up. The massive resentment that this causes among civilians can only possibly be assuaged by victory.

Kemal’s command is delayed for five days when he falls off a horse and breaks a rib, but he is at the front in time for the new Greek offensive. In his headquarters he is joined by Halide Edip, the first truly notable Turkish feminist. She has been made a corporal, and she is impressed to see Kemal at work, although she does not enjoy the rough conditions. Kemal has periods of despair in between his times of superhuman determination.

The Greeks are superior in numbers, and better armed, and at once they succeed in capturing Mount Mangal and several other hills, but the Turks nearly capture General Papoulas and the King’s brother, Prince Andrew—he who once bragged that he had paved his courtyard with Muslim tombstones. The Greek success has the effect of shortening the Turkish line, making it both stronger and easier to control. The Greeks finally capture Mount Çal, which everybody considers to be the most crucial objective. It looks as if the Turks have lost.

The Greek troops, however, are utterly exhausted by the heat, the lack of food and the losses. They have few supplies because the Turks have large numbers of cavalry who are moving about and constantly raiding behind their lines.

Mustafa Kemal endures more despair, and it is a curious irony that both the Greeks and the Turks are contemplating withdrawal. General Papoulas is the first to lose his nerve, and the Turks, heartened by his withdrawal, immediately go into attack. They regain Mount Çal and the banks of the Sakarya River, but they are too exhausted to go on, and in any case they have no motorised transport. Only the cavalry can pursue the Greeks, and during one raid they succeed in capturing General Papoulas’s medals. Mustafa Kemal breaks the terms of the armistice and orders a general mobilisation. He becomes a marshal, and is awarded the honorific “Ghazi.”

He is now Ghazi Mustafa Kemal Pasha, Saviour of the Nation.

Back in Eskibahçe, Rustem Bey has become the saviour of the town. His campaigns against the brigands have made it almost impossible for them to operate in the locality, and they are seeking their fortunes elsewhere. It has become common for people to say: “Thank God we have Rustem Bey as aga, and not one of the usual bastards.”

In Rustem Bey’s house, Philothei grows more pale and listless as she waits for the return of Ibrahim, and Leyla whiles away the time playing the oud and working out ways to cook what little there is. Pamuk lazes under the orange tree in the courtyard.

In his unkempt house Daskalos Leonidas writes through the night in exultant celebration of the imminent restoration of Byzantium, whilst not far off Father Kristoforos sleeps beside Lydia, dreaming of the saints in Heaven playing backgammon, gambling with their robes and golden crowns. Some of them have been reduced to nakedness, but Kristoforos is unable to identify them. He thinks they must be the Catholic ones. In the brothel Tamara gazes into a mirror, and contemplates its story of infection, hunger, misuse and decay. She has achieved the sad detachment of an anchoress who expects nothing, and is therefore never disappointed by it. The bulbuls and nightingales sing through the night as if there were no catastrophes.

One day Mehmet the Tinsmith arrives on his quarterly mission to tin everybody’s pans, and he is bearing a message for Iskander the Potter from Georgio P. Theodorou in Smyrna. Iskander has to take it to Leonidas to be read, and it transpires that Theodorou would like five hundred more clay birdwhistles for export to Italy. He is offering a good price, but Iskander is appalled by the prospect of all that repetition, and resolves to make twenty a day, so that he will also have time to make more interesting things.

Ayse is amazed one morning when she is standing outside her house and a pigeon flies straight past her head and crashes into the wall. She takes the dying bird in her hands and feels the softness and stiffness of the feathers. It has blood dripping out of its mouth. It is a gift from Heaven, and later, when she is cooking it on a skewer, she is still incredulous, exhilarated by the tiny miracle. She leaves one leg, and later covers it with honey, and takes it to Polyxeni as a little treat.

CHAPTER 83

Lieutenant Granitola Takes His Leave

“These have been three very enjoyable years,” said Granitola. It was early evening, and he was sitting on cushions facing Rustem Bey. Between them was a small beaten brass table on to which had been engraved allegorical animals, and pieties from the Koran in Arabic. Upon the table there was a large waterpipe which the two men were sharing, and the room was heavy with cool and aromatic smoke. On the walls around them Rustem Bey’s formidable collection of clocks ticked synchronously.

“I am very sorry you are leaving,” said Rustem Bey. “You have become one of us. I was fully expecting to have to find you a wife and a little bit of land. I had in mind a pleasant meadow and orchard down by the river.”

“A very pretty dream indeed,” said Granitola.

“I hope you will return,” said Rustem Bey. Granitola looked a little surprised and concerned, but then his face opened up into a wide smile and he said, “It hadn’t actually occurred to me, but now that you suggest it, I will certainly do so. I have been an occupier and I hadn’t thought that I might simply return as a guest.”

“I think you can easily get a boat from Rhodes,” said Rustem Bey, “and within a short time there will be motor vehicles here. I fully intend to get one myself. I have seen them in Smyrna, and I find them very impressive. I think they will become the thing of the future.”

“I doubt if they will ever replace the horse,” said Granitola, sagely. “Horses can go anywhere more or less, and motor vehicles require not only petrol and expert knowledge, but reasonably wide and level surfaces.”

“Well, you might be right. In any case, I shall look forward with pleasure to your return. May I ask you a question?”

“Of course, my friend, of course.”

“Why do you think that your occupation has been so peaceful around here, when the French had nothing but disaster in Cilicia?”

“Well, we didn’t bring Armenian troops in to cause havoc and wreak revenge … and we have always treated Mustafa Kemal with sensible respect, and we were good to all the Muslim refugees from the Greek sector. And we allowed the Turkish chettas to operate from our territory.”

“Why? Surely the Greeks were Allies?”

“Allies don’t stick together after victories. It was a thing between us and the Greeks. It’s a question of who dominates in the eastern Mediterranean. The French don’t like the Greeks either, especially with the old King back on the throne, and now the British have the big embarrassment of being the only people left who are reluctantly supporting them.”

“Does anyone know why the French left?”

Granitola laughed. “I understand that they decided to be the first to break ranks because they came up with an excellent commercial deal with Mustafa Kemal.”

“So why are you leaving?”

“Because I’ve been recalled, my friend. I’m afraid I have no choice at all.”

“No, I mean why are all of you leaving? Why has Italy recalled you?”

“I suspect it might be something similar. On top of that, it’s obvious that Mustafa Kemal is going to win, and why should we face up to him when there’s nothing to be gained by it? We’ve had a lovely time here, and now it’s time to go, and the important thing was to prevent the Greeks from getting anything we might have wanted for ourselves.”

“I heard that the Greeks are in full retreat,” said Rustem Bey. “I just hope they don’t burn Smyrna if they leave. I have a lot of friends there, and that’s where all my money’s in the bank.”

“They’ve burned everything else, I am sorry to say, but, speaking as a soldier, there would be no point in burning Smyrna because one only burns towns to make them useless to an advancing enemy. It slows him up a great deal because then he can’t supply or accommodate himself locally. Once the Greeks are at sea, Mustafa Kemal will have no reason to follow them any further, and there would be no point in burning it. Personally I am more worried about what Kemal’s troops are going to do when they get the freedom of the Armenian quarter.”

“Mustafa Kemal is becoming a giant,” observed Rustem Bey, his thoughts looping away on a different track. Then, returning to the subject, he asked, “If you and the Greeks are both leaving, am I right in thinking that only the British will still be here?”

“Well, yes. They control Istanbul and the Dardanelles. Whether or not Mustafa Kemal will turn on them after the Greeks have gone, I wouldn’t
care to say. The British will be the last of the Allies, allied in the end to no one at all. Not an enviable position.”

“Surely Mustafa Kemal wouldn’t dare take on the British? He doesn’t even have a navy.”

Granitola laughed and shook his head. “You’re a Turk. What would you do in his place?”

“I think I would threaten the British and see what happens. Like a cat that bushes up its tail to frighten a dog.”

“As an Italian, I think I would do the same.”

“I shall miss our discussions,” said Rustem Bey.

“We have sorted out the world so much that now it cannot help but become absolutely perfect.” Granitola looked at his watch, twisted his mouth into a wry expression, and continued: “But unfortunately I really must go and make ready. We leave very early in the morning.”

“I shall come down to the meydan to see you off.”

As he left, Granitola kissed Rustem Bey on each cheek, according to the custom that he had quite unconsciously acquired, and then he said, “Did you know that the sergeant of the gendarmes has given Sergeant Oliva his backgammon set as a farewell present?”