The Germany Train with Vahdettin: The 1917 Journey Through Mustafa Kemal's Eyes

This video recounts the joint Germany journey that Crown Prince Vahdettin and Mustafa Kemal Pasha undertook at the end of 1917. The narrator, Diamond Tema, names his source openly: Falih Rıfkı Atay's book of Vahdettin memories told in Mustafa Kemal's own voice. The trip covered the German General Headquarters and the Western Front, starting on 15 December 1917 and ending in the first days of 1918, a date range that present-day sources confirm.

The story opens with Mustafa Kemal leaving his Yıldırım Armies post and returning to Istanbul broke. With no money left, he sells his horses and mares; Cemal Pasha brokers the sale at a high price and forwards the difference to him. The video praises this as an act of dignity and loyalty in hard times. The same chapter stresses that he turned down every self-serving offer made to him in armistice-era Istanbul.

Mustafa Kemal settles into a suite at the Pera Palace and describes those days as a wait swinging between despair and hope. Because the reigning sultan, Mehmed Reshat, is ill, the German invitation falls to Crown Prince Vahdettin. When Mustafa Kemal is asked to join the escort delegation, he accepts at once, reasoning that such a journey would be genuinely interesting for him.

Before departure, an introductory meeting is arranged at the palace, with Naci Pasha, his old war-school instructor, at his side. According to the account, the man who enters last and goes unnoticed in the crowded room turns out to be Vahdettin himself. The prince utters a brief courtesy sentence with his eyes opening and closing, then falls silent again. Mustafa Kemal describes the scene as the feeling of facing someone of unsound mind, and in a private carriage talk with Naci Pasha the two men wonder what can be expected of the man who will take the throne tomorrow.

Before the station, the delegation is told to wear uniform as befits a military journey, yet Vahdettin arrives on the platform in civilian dress. The explanation is that a higher rank once granted to him was revoked and replaced with a lower one, a demotion his pride could not accept. After a short tension with the protocol official, the ceremony reveals that Vahdettin does not even know how to salute troops; Mustafa Kemal talks him through each step while Enver Pasha watches. A lesson in waving to the public from the train window belongs to the same evening.

The first night on the train is shaped by Vahdettin's inner circle placing Mustafa Kemal in a compartment far from the prince. The arrangement is justified as household order and sounds reasonable at first. As the train crosses Thrace, an invitation arrives and Mustafa Kemal enters Vahdettin's salon; the prince is now alert and prepared, delivering a long eulogy that lists the Gallipoli victories one by one. Mustafa Kemal leaves the room with the sense of facing a clever man, quite unlike the palace impression, and in the following days he starts treating the prince's education as a patriotic duty.

In the town hosting the German headquarters, the delegation is received by a lined-up battalion with the Kaiser himself present. The reception hall holds the Kaiser, Hindenburg, Ludendorff and their staff. During introductions the Kaiser asks in German whether the general before him is the Mustafa Kemal of Gallipoli. Answering in French, Mustafa Kemal instantly notices his wrong choice of address; he confesses a similar slip years earlier before the Bulgarian king.

At the Hindenburg visit the marshal offers comforting words meant to raise Ottoman morale, which Mustafa Kemal reads as hospitality politeness and lets pass without debate. In the Ludendorff meeting, as a brilliant northwestern offensive is being described, he interrupts to ask how far the advance can actually reach. Ludendorff answers that events will show the outcome. Mustafa Kemal records this as a command style that leaves results to fate, adding that he later searched Ludendorff's memoirs for any trace of the exchange.

One evening at the headquarters hotel, while the delegation discusses the future in the prince's room, the Kaiser walks in unannounced. After general remarks on trust in Enver Pasha and the value of Ottoman loyalty, Mustafa Kemal says he wants concrete guarantees that would stop the blows aimed at his country's heart. The Kaiser rises, turns to the prince and implies that his mind has been poisoned by others. Though Vahdettin adds that his anxiety is not dispelled, the Kaiser leaves the room without sitting back down.

The corridor handshake at the farewell is told as the journey's most human moment. The Kaiser shakes hands with the prince and Naci Pasha, then passes the distant Mustafa Kemal, who fails to realise he should have stepped forward. A few paces later the Kaiser turns back, apologises and shakes his hand. The dinner seating is equally detailed: Vahdettin on the Kaiser's right, the Berlin ambassador on his left, Mustafa Kemal next to him and Ludendorff on his other side; the French conversation between the generals is cut short by the Kaiser's German rebuke.

At the table Hindenburg claims the Syrian situation has improved and a fresh cavalry division has reached the front. Mustafa Kemal answers that he personally witnessed how weak that division was at its founding and that his reports showed it unfit for use. He puts the contradiction to the marshal directly and asks what objective the offensive can safely hope for, receiving no clear answer. The narrator adds with humour that the served champagne may share some credit for such bold questions, noting that Vahdettin drank as well.

On the Western Front tour the delegation first listens to a polished briefing over a large colour-marked map. Impressed, Vahdettin asks his companion's opinion, and Mustafa Kemal demands to see the depicted positions on the ground. Dropping the ready-made visit plan, he walks to a firing-line point of his own choosing from the map and climbs to an observer's post in a tree to study the terrain himself. Front officers admit their infantry is inadequate and that cavalry is being used as infantry. On the way back the escorting German corps commander keeps guessing his rank upward; learning that he commanded whole armies, the officer switches to addressing him as Excellency and never drops the respect.

At a dinner in the governor's house in Alsace the talk turns to the Armenian question. The governor speaks of grave Turkish assaults on Armenians and of a people that did not deserve such treatment, while Vahdettin proposes listening to Mustafa Kemal as a commander who has seen the fronts. Mustafa Kemal replies with sharp irony at opening such a case against an ally sacrificing everything for the alliance. The governor retreats, saying his words rest on hearsay, and Mustafa Kemal closes the subject by noting the delegation came to see front realities.

The final stops include a dinner at arms-maker Krupp's castle and the stay at Berlin's Adlon Hotel, where Vahdettin holds meetings and gives interviews. When Naci Pasha says the prince wants him as aide-de-camp, Mustafa Kemal advises him to accept for the country's sake despite disliking palace service. After the journalists leave and Vahdettin asks what he should do, Mustafa Kemal tells him to request an army command upon returning to Istanbul, pointing at the 5th Army guarding the Straits; the vague answer he receives dashes his hopes. Back in Istanbul his kidney ailment returns and sanatorium weeks in Vienna begin, while the sultan's death and Vahdettin's accession are left as the next episode's subject.