where King Ferdinand, Russia's ally, has retreated to the
eastern city of İasi, under pressure from Germany and its
allies. The Russians have sent a train to take the King and
his treasures to Russia.
Meanwhile, the status of the Austrian and German privates
who serve tea to Fuad Bey and his companions (!) is a hot
topic, as is the molestation of a German private in another
house by a Turkish Major (in bold below.)
Also, Fuad Bey had his 25th birthday on 21 January.//
19 January 1917
Friday
The weather is
crystal clear. But it didn’t last long. Clouds came again
in the evening. I
wrote a letter to my father today
and sent it. May God
see it to its destination. Today the guard ustarşi,
changed places with the
Malaşova ustarşi. Again, today passed in idleness. We didn’t have a
lesson. We
wrote a telegram in
hopes of getting news from Halis’s
family in Erzincan. Toward evening the
Commander signed it and sent
it back.
The Romanians are
Evacuating İasi
20 January 1917
Saturday
The weather is
cloudy. Windy. There’s quite a dry cold. News: the
Romanians are evacuating İasi. The German offensive
on this front
continues. The Romanian King will live in southern Russia. The
Russian railroad company
will provide ten wagons for the transport of
the King’s palace. This train is
en route to İasi. The
Crimean Tercüman
newspaper that we have a subscription for came in the evening.
More
than news about
the war, there were summaries of the sermons given
in celebration of Mevlid-i Nebevi (Birth of
the Prophet). These talk
about a feeling of love toward Islam and its nations.
They are publicly
calling for victory for their religious brethren fighting in Anatolia.
During
the day we sent Halis’s
telegram to the post office. A receipt for
it came back a bit later. God
willing, good news will come and the
poor
fellow will be happy. Tonight we got a new lesson from Süleyman.
This was all about sentence
construction.
21 January 1917
Sunday
The weather is
nice, especially sunny at noontime. The cold is not too
bad. We went for a walk
in the afternoon. We
made a tour and a half,
passing by the beer factory, and then we came back. We didn’t get cold
during the walk. We didn’t have a lesson tonight. We just had a
discussion
among ourselves. Today
is my birthday. I finished my
twenty-fifth year. Oh, what’s the use! I’m still
in torment, in
aggravation and thought. God give me happiness…
22 January 1917
Monday
The weather is
still cloudy. Not very cold. I was aggravated again today.
The prolongation of
captivity, staying in the
same place, seeing the
same faces, make a person fed up. Dear God, give me a
happy day. We
had a
lesson again tonight. Franz is teaching us these lessons.
Süleyman promised to
give us lessons but
he’s doing so reluctantly.
May God allow a person to not need another. Tonight
we thought
that by
having Franz give us lessons during the day, as well, we
could learn German in less time. We freed
Franz from his tea duty
in order to start to ensure free time for him to give
us lessons. We
gave
his tea duty to Joseph and Joseph’s duty to someone else. So
instead of Franz serving us tea
he’ll give us lessons during that time.
23 January 1917
Tuesday
The weather is
overcast. It’s rather cold. There was light snow, too.
Tercüman came again. Kör Mehmet and Geveze
İsmail came to our
house in the morning. They brought new and regrettable news. There
was
another incident of attempted sodomy in the Lieutenant Colonels'
house
(Lebedof). As a result there
was a fight. Once again, Major
Murat Bey attacked (molested) an Austrian
soldier. How shameful!
What
a hateful thing! And a major, no less…that soldier will got back
to his country and spread bad
ideas about Turks…even if it’s not true
the gossip is very grave. The soldier(said
to be a German soldier)
who
suffered the attack, escaped to the Kazarma (main barracks). We had a
lesson in the afternoon
and at night. We couldn’t take full advantage,
though, because we know there’s
a shortcoming. We’re
still on the
subject of a clause. Süleyman is halfhearted about it anyway…
24 January 1917
Wednesday
The weather is
nice. Essentially cloudless. The cold has increased.
The sun warms a person
well inside the room. I gave the ustarşi the
letter I wrote last
night to my father. May God send this and bring a
response.
I’m very worried. It’s been ten months. In fact, a year has
passed and I
haven’t gotten any news.
Two days of Tercüman
newspaper came. We went for a walk in the afternoon. Again, we
walked
around where the factory is. The cold made me shiver. We
had a lesson in the afternoon and at
night. During noontime we write
sentences. At night we spend our time learning lots and lots of
words.
25 January 1917
Thursday
The weather is
clear. Sunny. But it’s much colder than it has been before.
In the morning the thermometer showed
28 degrees below zero. One
cannot stay outside for long. Tercüman came again today. In it
there
were copies of the notes that Germany and Austria have given again to
the neutral
countries and to their enemies. They say quite a bit about
themselves and their allies. In
particular, the enemies say this bout the
Turks: ‘they should throw the Turks
out of Europe, the
Russians should
take Istanbul, freedom should be given to all the other nations within
Turkey and
they should be saved from the Turkish grasp henceforth.’
In response: ‘if theTurks leave Europe
and if Istanbul is taken from the
Turks, not just Europe’s but the entire world’s
equilibrium will be upset.
Our enemies ar especially eager to grant rights to
the foreign nationalities
in
Turkey, but there are Moslems, Turks and Tatars in Russia that have
been
deprived of just about all
their rights and the same is true in India,
in Africa. In short, there are such nationalities in
our enemies’ countries
and colonies. Why is it that they’re not thinking about the rights of more
than one hundred million people, while they protect the one or two
million foreigners in
Turkey?’ At the conclusion, it says that the
continuation of the war is
entirely the responsibility of
the Allied Powers.
We had a lesson from Franz today. Everyone is still talking about how
the
great shamefulness that took place in the other house could have
happened. Really, I feel
very badly about it.
//END of PART LXIII//
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