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Russian promises, of course, are often superseded by subsequent arrangements, and in Moscow last week another German Ambassador, Count Friedrich Werner von der Schulenburg, may have been discussing an arrangement about Turkey with Russia's new Premier. Access to the Mediterranean Sea is still a preoccupation with all Russian statesmen, and an offer of joint control of the Dardanelles might cause Premier Stalin to forget his promise to Turkey. In the meantime, in Ankara, Franz von Papen already had a jimmy in the doorjamb.
Before he left for his holiday in Germany, Ambassador von Papen laid plans for the "commercial encirclement" of Turkey, persuading such satrap States as Hungary, Rumania and Bulgaria to make economic agreements with Turkey. Cut off from her best markets for tobacco and grains, Turkey had to accept the best arrangements she could get, and for the past month negotiations have been proceeding for a barter agreement with Germany. Such Nazi agreements have a way of corrupting by persuasion and bribery a nation's business element: they preceded German occupation of most of the Balkan countries. But in Ankara Franz von Papen is dealing with a tougher character than any other statesman in the Balkans. Furthermore, he is dealing with one who has his country solidly behind him.
Inönü of Inönü. Turks have recently added still another prayer to their long nightly list: a prayer for the health of President Inönü. Ismet Inönü is highly susceptible to attacks of malaria, which he first contracted when he was eight years old and which began his deafness.
Cholera, which he caught during the 1912 uprising in Yemen, made him deafer, but that deafness has often been, and is today, his greatest asset as a statesman. He hears what he wants to hear. After failing to hear something he does not want to hear he has been known to remark: "Allah be praised, I am deaf." If he is not in perfect health otherwise, there is no sign of it in his daily routine.
Each morning at 8 he leaves his house in Cankaya, an Ankara suburb, after being blessed by his wife and mother, and walks two miles to his office, striding so fast that his aide-de-camp has to scamper to keep up. Before lunch the President goes for an hour's gallop through Kamâl Atatürk's farm zoo at Ciftlik. He loves horse racing as well as riding, becomes boyishly animated at meetings. In the evening his recreation is quieter: he likes to have three musicians come to his house and play quartets with him, taking the cello himself. In spite of such relaxation, his countrymen are afraid he will die of over work, as Kamâl Atatürk died of over indulgence. This fear is a tribute, a sign of Turkey's trust in him.
Although he lacks the fire of his predecessor Kamâl Atatürk, he has captured the loyalty and devotion of all Turks.
They know him, first, as a great soldier who fought in the Balkan and First World Wars, then helped Kamâl Atatürk to drive the Greeks out of Turkey in 1922. At the village of Inönü, near Eskisehir, Ismet Pasha broke the Greeks' resistance. When Kamâl Atatürk ordered all Turks to take family names he asked his great friend to call himself Inönü. Ismet means Chastity.