his fellow inmates but gets word about the death of
Rasputin (11 January, in bold below) and British air
bombardment of İstanbul and environs (13 January, in
bold below) .//
death of Rasputin click here for a detailed account.
air bombardment of Istanbul 1916-1917 click here for
details.
8 January 1917
Monday
Compared to
yesterday, the weather is cloudier. Three fellows, only
with great difficulty, were able to get
permission to go to Adlifinski in
the afternoon. I joined them. When we got there the Mevlid
(anniversary
of the Prophet Mohammed’ birthday) was being read. We listened. We
drank sugar water and another kind of water mixed with sugar. After
Mevlid the fellows
offered us each tea, after which we returned home.
We baked bread at home today and
had a lesson from Franz at night.
9 January 1917
Tuesday
The weather is
bad. Lots of snow has fallen. News: according to
Russian newspapers, the French got word
from Switzerland that the
Germans were preparing an army to attack French territory and so
the French are considering a separate peace accord with Germany. In
the event that they do
so they will ensure that they emerge without
damage from this war. In fact, Monsieur
Kayu is working on this in
Italy. Their goal is to have all the reparations
assigned to the Russians
and the English.
Today a really aggravating incident occurred. Halis had an argument
with the
dolt Trabzonlu Hasan. The cause was the ass Hasan. Thinking
that the matter was closed, Halis
didn’t pay it any more mind. For some
reason, I wasn’t aware of any of this. After the evening
meal, this jerk
Hasan complained to Çerkes Mehmet who then questioned them in the
servants’ room in an effort to reconcile
the two. Anyway, first Hasan
confessed that he didn’t say
anything against Halis and essentially
apologized. Halis then said that his
words weren’t directed
at Hasan.
Just as the matter seemed to be settled, Hasan treacherously threw
a fist at Halis. I
was elsewhere at this time. But I heard a noise. Even
though I rushed outside, Çerkes Mehmet had
already separated the two
of them. Anyway, Salah came and begged us to let them try to
reconcile
again, saying that Hasan was sorry and ashamed. He brought Halis
over to Hasan.
Then the lowlife, vile Hasan made an apology, saying
‘forgive me’ but without any shame at all.
But this remains in our heart
and won’t be forgotten. For sure, the day will come when we’ll
lower
a much heavier blow on him. Oh, fortune what’s stopping me? I
should have
crushed that lowdown fellow. God, you’re heaping
calamity after calamity on me. Pity me and damn
crude fellows
like these for attacking us…
10 January 1917
Wednesday
Although I went to
bed quite late at night, I woke up very early in the
morning. I’m continually aggravated. I
don’t know what I’ll do. Oh
God…captivity, then this crudeness. I’m thinking,
I’m thinking. It’s
probably because of this callous Hasan. Consequently, we’ll have to
take
revenge on his neighbors.
Dear God, when will you give us this
opportunity? When will you let my beloved Halis’s
revenge be taken
and his wrangled nerves set at ease? In any case, grant us this
opportunity
soon. Because since we didn’t take revenge the last time
we suffered for it. In any case, I
await approval of this request from
your majesty. The weather is still cloudy
but it’s not so
cold…the
Romanians are being followed. As the Romanians abandon Romania
they’re sending greetings
to their homelands. The Russians are
welcoming them and consoling them. The German Emperor has
gone
to the front and gave a speech, saying ‘look at us. How shall we make
ourselves known to
our enemies.’ In the afternoon, we walked around
a bit. We got a new lesson from Franz at
night. Again, I went to sleep
late at night and thought quite a bit. I get
upset when I think about the
fellows from Trabzon and my mood goes sour. Because none of them
has any sense of humanity.
One’s a trouble-maker, one’s a lout, one’s
just ignorant, the other one’s a runny nose insect,
sticking his nose in
everywhere. God willing, all their noses will one day drop
and they’ll cringe
in degradation.
One of the
Ministers in St. Petersburg was Recently Murdered
11 January 1917
Thursday
The weather
remains bad. Lots of snow has fallen. News: a Russian
newspaper has written something. We had
heard something about the
murder of a minister in St. Petersburg recently. Finally,
it was
determined that this man was a mujik but he had engaged in
improper relations with
some of the wives of important people
(Kinyaz) and as a result he had started
to touch on a number
of
matters of state. Finally, a relationship with on Kinyaz’s wife
became known and when the
Kinyaz became aware of it he
immediately had the mujik killed. This mujik had done quite a
few things. He had an effect on some of the changes that
occurred in the cabinet.
In the
afternoon I went to the other house for a visit. We chatted for
quite a while. The lowdown
fellows have broadcast the minor incident
in our house all over. We had a
lesson again tonight. But
these days I’m
not able to work on my lessons. Lots of aggravation…oh, oh, let there
be
revenge! Let there be revenge! I will never be able to forget this.
However it
happens, let there be
revenge! Today I heard that there is
some propaganda about to be spread against the jerk who
manages these
lowdown fellows and they’ll be run out of here. This could
happen.
When it does I
want to fight with this heartless fellow and take revenge.
Tonight I sat for
quite a while. I’m
really aggravated.
12 January 1917
Friday
The weather is
still bad. Today since morning I’ve been in a very bad
mood. Until evening I
passed the time feeling
this way. Halis and Burhan
didn’t come for the German lesson at night. I too
was more or less
bored.
So it was just Saffet and me.
Franz had us write a short letter. Up to this
point I hadn’t said a
word to Saffet. He went outside for a stroll. Then he
came back. I still didn’t
say anything. When I
finished the letter I got up
and left. After sitting in the big room for a bit
I went to my spot. Saffet
caught me and asked me why I hadn’t said anything to hime. I didn’t
reply. He kept on insisting
and wanted to understand but all I said was
‘there’s nothing wrong.’ He kept this up for a
while but after a bit he
gave up and left. I’m mad at Saffet because he’s close
friends with Salah,
not
just casually but really close. The fact that he’s always whispering
with this trouble-making,
depraved fellow proves this. These whispers
are without a doubt both for and against me. Later,
Saffet told Salah
everything. I’m angry and this anger came to the boiling
point
today. That’s why
I didn’t say anything…and he didn’t come over to
us even once and say something about the incident
of 9 January. When
I think of these things I get irritable.
13 January 1917
Saturday
The weather has
improved. Just a few clouds. It got cloudy again toward
evening. News: the Germans are on the
attack again. Terrific battles in
Champagne and Riga. The Russians captured a few Turks and
Bulgarians
from Riga. There’s an offensive again in Romania. It seems that
Manastir
has fallen to the
Germans. In Iran the Russians took Sultanabad but the
Turks mounted a counter-offensive and got
it back. The was there is quite
fierce. An English plane bombed the area around Luleburgaz and
destroyed a bridge over the Meriç River. Wilhelm has told his soldiers
‘our
enemies don’t accept the
peace proposal. We will press on until we
force them to accept it by the force
of our swords and the
strength of our
bayonettes.’ I’m aggravated and bored today. I lay down for quite a while.
Halis is angry about my mood. I had a hard time just passing time. After
the evening meal I felt
somewhat better and got busy with German. At
this point Saffet, not able to
bear it, came over to me
and asked some
questions about German. Of course, I didn’t leave his questions
unanswered. I went
to bed very late. At midnight the bells are ringing,
announcing that the new year has come to
the Russians.
//END of PART LXI//
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