Several days after the end of the conference on Mosul in June 1924, it was ‘settled’ that Gilbert Bagnani was to go to Trebizond together with the Honorary Italian Consul of Trebizond, Amedeo Guglielmo, who suggested that he continue inland through western Armenia to Erzurum, where a devastating earthquake had just killed a reported 136 people. So the inland part of his trip to Erzurum was an afterthought. Similarly, he did not sail back from Trebizond directly to Constantinople as he had originally thought but traveled further east to Batum across the border in Russian Georgia. Gilbert was not deciding his itinerary by himself but in concert with officials in the Italian Embassy, where he was staying. Gilbert would investigate the political situation on the eastern frontiers under the guise of seeing eastern churches.
Despite warnings of the dangers and a recent diplomatic flare-up between Italy and Turkey over an Italian military presence on Rhodes, Gilbert sailed up the Bosphorus and out into the Black Sea eastward, following the route of Jason and the Argonauts along the Anatolian coast, toward Trebizond. By day he saw the Pontic mountain range all along the coast, which acted as a geographical and cultural barrier between the dry upland plains of Anatolia and the rainy and lush semi-tropical coast.
“Life here is not so bad and there is no danger so you can put your mind at ease. My difficulties are with the lingo but I manage to stagger along; at least in the streets and restaurant. Have bought a couple of antiques but there isn’t much. Lovely sea bathing. To return to my plans, I shall go next week to Erzerum and catch the next Lloyd [steamship] which will get me to Constant on the 10th [July]. Go to Broussa and then to Athens on the 19th stay there a few days and so home. … The heat here is great and stuffy without sunlight. It is a nuisance not speaking the lingo. I should have been back from Erzerum by now if I had been able to. It is such a nuisance to have to rely on people who have no idea of the value of time. Food quite good but the place is fairly dirty & my nerves are rather on edge.” (Thursday, 19 June 1924)
During the War, Tsarist Russia had occupied eastern Anatolia including the cities of Trebizond and Erzerum but the Bolsheviks abandoned it. After Kemal signed his agreement with the Bolsheviks, they re-established the Russian consulate in Trebizond to facilitate trade and information-gathering. Gilbert later wrote that “at Trebizond, the port of Armenia, nearly all the little trade there is passes either directly or indirectly through Greco-Russian hands. Since the present regime in Turkey is by no means well-disposed towards foreign merchants, there are endless quarrels between the Turkish authorities and the merchants, supported by their diplomatic and Consular representatives.” (Bagnani, “Turkey and Russia: The Reason for Strained Relations,” Morning Post, August 27, 1924) The foreign consulates around Anatolia were not only reporting to their governments on social and political developments in Turkey but also were being spied upon by the xenophobic Turkish Nationalists, particularly in Trebizond, where there was an “exceptionally high level of Soviet espionage and propaganda activity in this district.” (Berridge, British Diplomacy in Turkey, 1583 to the present, 2009, p. 161) It was through the Russian consul, Aron Samoiloviç Trabon, that Gilbert obtained his travel visa to Batum in Russian Georgia.
“Treb is quite attractive but very hot. The scenery is lovely but the antiques are not very numerous. One church only is very interesting. There are a certain number of nice Christian [presumably Russian] families which are quite nice. I am living in an empty room of a house belonging to the convent, together with two employees of the Ottoman bank. One is a Jew, prewar Austrian now Pole, born in Cairo, son of a doctor, a very nice gentlemanly fellow. I am great friends with the Ottoman bank and with the Soviet consulate. At lunch one talks French English Italian German Greek Turkish Arabic and Russian which is not bad considering that we are only six or seven people.” (Thursday, 19 June 1924)