The Man Who Created the Middle East: A Story of Empire, Conflict and the Sykes-Picot Agreement. Christopher Sykes Simon
Читать онлайн книгу.
she was still ‘Miss Gorst’, while he had given himself a nickname, ‘The Terrible Turk’, that was accompanied by a drawing, and was an allusion to a phrase originally used by Gladstone when condemning the slaughter by the Turks of thousands of Bulgarians in 1876.
A month later, he was beginning his letters with the words ‘Honourable and Well-Beloved Co-Religionist’ shortly to be abbreviated to ‘H. and W.B. Co-Relig’. As soon as he returned to Cambridge he invited her to dinner. ‘You may remember,’ he said, ‘how … little I spoke at dinner, and then only did I know that I had a real affection for you’, adding, ‘I tell you, if … you had a hump in the middle of your back, a beard like a Jew, eyes that squinted both ways, were bald as a highroad, and had only three black teeth in a mouth like a cauldron, still my affection for you would be the same.’37
However much his thoughts may have been on Edith, he was also fired by a desire to return to the East. ‘I am preparing already for my next journey,’ he wrote to Henry Cholmondeley in August. ‘Entering Turkey by Russia on the Van Side, my rough scheme so far is to buy a complete Equipment gradually & send it to Erivan in small quantities, and then to arrange with Maunsell to send me mules to the frontier, & a certain dragoman I know of there. Then to use those mules & my own equipment for about 5 months, thoroughly visiting Koordistan [sic], presently working down to Baghdad where another dragoman & fresh mules would await, from Baghdad I should work across to Jebel Hauran and thence southward.’38
Such a journey, which was to take up the better part of a year, was expensive, in spite of his attempt to save money by buying his mules outright rather than renting them by the day. He calculated the expenses as follows: ‘Jacob, his servant, £40; Dragoman, £50; Cook, £30; Soldiers, £60; Fodder, £60; Mules, £54; Outfit, including carriage, £200; Muleteers, £30; Cash, £200; and Journey to Turkey and back to London, £35.’ By his very poor mathematics, he reckoned this as adding up to £819, the actual sum being £759, or approximately £82,000 at today’s values. ‘I include, as you see,’ he explained to Cholmondeley, ‘£200 cash for accidents etc, but I count on selling my mules and equipment for at least £150 at the end.’ His intention was to leave England on 15 June 1900, towards the end of the summer term, and end up in Cairo on 10 May 1901, and, with this trip in mind, he intended to devote his next year at Cambridge to the study of the Middle East and its political aspects. ‘I think if I am able to do as I propose,’ he told Cholmondeley, ‘I shall be as well informed on Eastern subjects as many M.P.s who pose as Orientalists.’39
Chapter 4
In spite of Professor Browne’s reservations about Mark’s capacity for ‘not learning’, he found him a delightful companion, and he was the perfect choice to tutor him in the history and politics of the Middle East. Though Browne had paid only one visit there, to Persia between 1887 and 1888, he had made good use of his time, travelling through the whole country, and mixing with the company of Persians, mystics and Sufi dervishes. It was a trip that eventually resulted in the publication of his book A year amongst the Persians, as well as numerous articles on subjects such as the rise of the Babi movement. Together he and Mark spent many a happy hour exchanging anecdotes about their travels, while he also did his best to instil a little history into his pupil, as well as attempting to increase his Arabic vocabulary. Their political views, however, were poles apart, with the Professor adopting a Nationalist view, while those of the undergraduate Mark veered towards the Imperialist.
Browne could only do so much tutoring with Mark, whose mind was almost permanently elsewhere. Firstly he was writing up an account of his recent travels with a view to having it published under the title Through Five Turkish Provinces, an ambition that was to be realized the following year. At the same time he was involved in numerous journalistic activities, contributing several pieces, for example, to the Cambridge student magazine The Granta, edited by his old friend George Bowles. In No. 266, for instance, he not only provided the leader, an article on the Militia titled ‘A Sangrado Policy’, but also a skit called ‘The Granta War Trolley’, a cartoon entitled ‘Taste’, the dramatic criticism, and an illustrated limerick. In addition he drew a series of sketches caricaturing various aspects of some of the British newspapers. These included ‘The Pillory of Truth’, ‘The Times’ Sphinx’, and ‘The Imperial Ecstasy of the Daily Mail’.
In October he wrote to Henry Cholmondeley, ‘I am starting a newspaper named ‘The Snarl.’ I calculate the loss on three copies about £10. I think the venture is worth trying … it may possibly pay its expenses. I calculate on a certain sale, but at the same time I am paying somewhat for the contributions and also on the necessary advertisement, so please send me a cheque book. I shall not tell my mother I have one, or use it for any other purpose but that of paying contributors … If you think my father will write to stop me, do not tell him as the production is well worth trying & may make me a certain kind of reputation.’1 The Snarl, was co-edited by a Cambridge friend, Edmund Sandars, but appears to have been entirely written by Mark, who also designed and drew the cover. The magazine was subtitled An Occasional Journal for Splenetics, and was a vehicle for him to let off steam on a variety of subjects.
Say what you please – say ‘D—n!’ say ‘H-ll!’
Say ‘botheration!’ Say ‘You Tease!’
Say ‘Don’t!’ Say ‘Dreary me!’ Say ‘Well!’
Say what you please!
Say that the Transvaal’s made of cheese!
Call Chamberlain Ahitophel!
Say women ought to have degrees! –
Say printers might know how to spell!-
Say petits pois means little peas! –
So long as this line ends in l,
Say what you please.2
In the only two issues that were published, he railed against compulsory chapel, attacked the Cambridge Union for degenerating ‘hopelessly and finally into the recognized organ of the great conformist conscience’, described the degree of Master of Arts as being nothing more than ‘the triumph of mediocrity’, and criticized the dons for their ‘narrow-minded ignorance of the world’. In the barely concealed anger and snappish tone of its articles, The Snarl anticipated the modern-day journalism of writers like Will Self and Charlie Booker.
The Cambridge life that Mark was now thoroughly enjoying was rudely interrupted by a conflict which erupted at the outer reaches of the British Empire. At the end of the Napoleonic Wars, the British had acquired the colony of South Africa to which the government had then actively encouraged British settlers to emigrate. This was the cause of conflict with the original, Afrikaans-speaking, Dutch population, who were known as ‘Boers’, many of whom migrated northwards, on ‘The Great Trek’, where they established two independent Boer republics, the Transvaal and the Orange Free State, both of which were eventually recognized by the British. However, the discovery in the second half of the century of, first of all, diamonds at Kimberley, on the borders of the Orange Free State, and then of vast gold deposits in the Transvaal brought a massive influx of foreigners, ‘uitlanders’, mainly from Britain, who were needed to develop these resources. This caused increasing tensions with the Boers, who began to fear that