Operation Nemesis: The Assassination Plot that Avenged the Armenian Genocide - Bogosian Eric. Страница 59

The Tashnag spy network contrived an elaborate escape plan. Upon learning that Shiragian and Yerganian would be moved from their prison to another, more formidable and probably fatal incarceration, they went into action. On the day of the transfer, as the prisoners left the building surrounded on all sides by soldiers, a humble fruit seller approached the entourage. Shiragian recognized the man as one of his fellow fedayeen. Weapons materialized, the Georgian soldiers were disarmed, and Shiragian and Yerganian were set free.

Unfortunately, by this time the political climate in Armenia had deteriorated for the Tashnags. The entire region was now under siege as fighting broke out all around Baku. Although Constantinople was still dangerous for Shiragian (since he was being sought for the murder of Ihsan), he and Yerganian had few options. So they returned to the imperial city and the de facto Tashnag headquarters, the editorial offices of the newspaper Jagadamard.

Pursuit of Enver was put on hold and a new target was assigned: Said Halim Pasha, the wartime Ottoman prime minister. Though Said Halim was one of the CUP leaders arrested by Britain after the war, he had been traded for British hostages held by the Kemalists and set free. Now he was residing in a well-appointed villa in Rome on a fashionable street not far from the Spanish Steps. Said Halim Pasha was, like the Armenian Boghos Nubar, a member of the old Ottoman elite. Both had roots in the Egyptian aristocracy established by Muhammad Ali, the man who had wrested Egypt from direct control of the sultan in the early 1800s. (Today Muhammad Ali is considered by many to be the “Father of Modern Egypt.”) For this reason Said Halim was unlike the other Young Turks. He was not a military man, nor had he fought his way up the ranks. Neither a hotspur nor an ideologue, Said Halim actually had clashed openly with Enver and the “hawks” when Enver sought an alliance with Germany at the outset of the war in 1914.

Though he was a moderate by Ottoman standards, Said Halim had survived the revolution against the sultan in 1908 and was acting—some would say “figurehead”—Grand Vizier during the actions against the Armenian population. His signature had legitimized the deportation orders. When the Armenian patriarch Zaven appealed to Said Halim and begged him to spare his people, the Grand Vizier replied that reports of the arrests and deportations were greatly exaggerated. For this reason, the Tashnags considered him culpable and placed his name high on “the list.”

In Rome, Said Halim presided over a group of exiled CUP leaders who awaited the inevitable victory of Mustapha Kemal and a triumphant return to Turkey. He led meetings of the Ittihad in exile and, unbeknownst to Nemesis, was about to sign off on a large loan with which to purchase arms for Kemal’s rebels in Asia Minor. Secret British reports from the period are detailed:

Enver had gone to Moscow and had obtained support for Mustapha Kemal in Armenia. Some two hundred thousand rifles and two and a half million pounds had been delivered and promises of more had been made. Enver’s supporters had been given “carte blanche” to organize Moslems from Turkestan to Asia Minor to incite them to embarrass English everywhere in the East. He did not approve of the conditions which the Soviet Government was anxious to impose.… Reverting to the present situation Talaat said the treaty of Sevres was now driving the Turkish nationalists into the arms of the Bolshevists.¹⁴

In his introduction to The Legacy, Leon Surmelian writes: “It would be a mistake to consider these political assassinations by Arshavir [Shiragian] and his comrades—they were a handful of young men, six or seven altogether—merely acts of vengeance, though they were that too. Arshavir fought against the extension of Turkish power across the Caucasus and the Caspian to Central Asia and Afghanistan: the cherished dream of Pan-Turkism.”¹⁵

Whether they supported a dream of an ethnically cleansed Anatolian homeland or that of a vast pan-Turkic empire, the Muslims of postwar Turkey felt the powerful tug of nationalism. The Greek invasion of the Turkish coast (followed by Greek atrocities against Turkish citizens) hardened the solidarity of the Turks. The Greek invasion was a crime against their humanity, and every former leader would work to preserve what was left of the Ottoman Empire and hope to see a new Turkey rise from the ashes of the World War I debacle. Still, those residing outside Turkey, lacking the protection of a fully operational police and spy network, were vulnerable.

The CUP leadership may have presented a united face to the rest of the world—that of patriotic Turks committed to preserving the nation—but Enver, Talat, and Said Halim had disagreed strongly when it came to deciding how best to run the empire or any possible republic that might follow. Most Ittihadists were fervent nationalists, but not all of them were racists, especially when it came to Armenians. Some prominent Ittihadists were reluctant pragmatists when it came to violence, and most subscribed to some code of ethics. But others had committed war crimes with relish and were motivated by greed or an appetite for sadistic violence in their persecution of minorities. The men in the Central Committee of the CUP were for the most part from Balkan Ottoman territories. They were very familiar with the massacres of Muslims during the Balkan wars and had held little sympathy for the Armenians once the decision was made to wipe them out.

Memoirs indicate that high-ranking Young Turks in exile, like Bekir Sami Bey, Kemalist minister of foreign affairs, were aware of being hunted. On one or two occasions, in Berlin and in Rome, the quarry came face-to-face with their Armenian pursuers. The Ittihadists in exile knew that the Armenians were fluent in Turkish and could position themselves in public places like coffeehouses to overhear key discussions, so when possible they tried to meet in private. Dr. Nazim in particular was always on the alert, surveying his surroundings whenever he stepped outdoors, moving his place of residence often. (Nazim would be the one high-priority target who would elude Nemesis completely.) A review of memoirs by prominent Ittihadists living abroad at the time shows that their own spy networks were urging caution only a few months later, by the spring of 1922. “Just about everybody is changing their locations. Haci Adil Bey has left Munich, Nesimi and Halil Bey are about to leave soon, but not right away in these days. But a second assassination is to be expected after a period of calm. In here, I too survey everywhere at all the times.”¹⁶

Shiragian’s assassination of Said Halim was the most flamboyant of the Nemesis kills. After arriving in Rome, Shiragian befriended a young war widow named Maria, who invited him to live with her. While stringing Maria along, Shiragian located Said Halim’s villa at 18 Via Bartolomeo Eustachio, only a short train ride from the city center. The former Grand Vizier had established for himself the life of an Italian gentleman with an entourage, having hired a full-time Italian chef, a Swiss woman as housekeeper, a bodyguard Tevfik Azmi, as well as “the Moor Bilal,” a young man Halim had adopted in Turkey who was always at his side. Loitering in the neighborhood renowned as a lover’s lane, Shiragian began to woo a young Greek girl who lived nearby, curbing any suspicions as to his perpetual presence in the neighborhood. He made himself familiar with Said Halim’s habits and schedule, particularly when he was likely to leave or return to his villa.

Like Tehlirian, Shiragian was impatient to act. But unlike his fellow avenger, he was not going to wait forever for approval from higher-ups. Like Tehlirian, Shiragian was plagued by a fear of failure, but his solution was to move forward. (Perhaps because he had not been a soldier, he was not as obedient to the chain of command.) Fearing that Halim might suddenly decide to leave Rome, Shiragian made a decision to act. Unlike Tehlirian, who had spent the night before Talat’s assassination alone in his room weeping as he sang sad songs, Shiragian went shopping. He bought eye-catching new clothes designed to create drama and distract observers from his personal features. He found a wide-brimmed black hat and a large black overcoat. Perhaps anticipating a possible inspection of his corpse by the police coroner, he made sure that everything he wore was brand-new, from his underwear outward.