A study of The Good Soldier Švejk’s manuscript suggests that at least one person came close to having his name included in the world-famous novel, only to be omitted at the last moment.
Johannes Merten: the man Lukáš overlooked
Johannes Merten as an Ottoman officer.
In chapter [I.14,3], Oberleutnant Lukáš tells hop trader Wendler about three Turkish officers who had been decorated, namely Enver Paşa, Usedom Paşa, and Cevat Paşa. Most of his monologue was taken verbatim from Kronika světové války, although Národní politika and other publications also mentioned it. Here, however, a fourth officer appears: rear admiral Mertens. Unlike the three others, he is not mentioned by Lukáš.
In Jaroslav Hašek's handwriting: Merten was only a few dots away from having his name mentioned in Švejk.
© LA-PNP
Studies of the novel’s manuscript show that the admiral came extremely close to achieving a place in world literature. In Hašek’s handwriting, after “Dževad paša”, the letters “a kon” can be seen, but these have been crossed out, suggesting that the author changed his mind at the last moment. The “kon” here is almost certainly the beginning of “kontredmirál”, which is the exact wording used in Kronika světové války.
It should also be noted that “Mertens” is a misspelling, and that his rank in 1915 was Vizeadmiral, not Konteradmiral (rear admiral). The real name of this German naval officer serving in the Ottoman armed forces was Johannes Merten (1857-1926). He retired in 1910, but after the outbreak of war he took up a command in the Turkish army at the Dardanelles. He was also a well-known pilot, and in 1912 newspapers referred to him as President of the German Airmen's Association.