THE TURKS AND EUROPE

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

Culture et Kultur. 1 vol. gr. in-8, 242 p. Berger-Levrault, Paris, 1916.

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Les Jésuites et le Germanisme. 29 p. Giard et Brière, Paris, 1918.

Amérique Latine et Europe occidentale. 1 vol. in-12, 301 p. Berger-Levrault, Paris, 1918.

L’Allemagne et le Baltikum. 1 vol. in-8 raisin, 279 p. et 7 cartes. Chapelot, Paris, 1919.

Le Mouvement pan-russe et les Allogènes. 1 vol. in-8 raisin, 79 p. Chapelot, Paris, 1919.

Les Turcs et l’Europe. 1 vol. in-12, 384 p. Chapelot, 1920.

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THE TURKS AND
EUROPE

BY
GASTON GAILLARD

LONDON: THOMAS MURBY & CO.
1 FLEET LANE, E.C.
1921

CONTENTS

THE TURKS AND EUROPE

I
THE TURKS

The peoples who speak the various Turkish dialects and who bear the generic name of Turcomans, or Turco-Tatars, are distributed over huge territories occupying nearly half of Asia and an important part of Eastern Europe. But as we are only considering the Turkish question from the European point of view, no lengthy reference is needed to such Eastern groups as those of Turkish or Mongol descent who are connected with the Yenisseians of Northern Asia and the Altaians. The Russians call these peoples Tatars, and they, no doubt, constituted the “Tubbat” nation, referred to by the Chinese historians under the name of “Tou-Kiou” up to the seventh century after Christ. These very brief facts show the importance of the race and are also sufficient to emphasise the point that these people are akin to those Turks of Western Asia who are more closely connected with the Europeans.

The Western Turkish group includes the Turcomans of Persia and Russian or Afghan Turkistan; the Azerbaïjanians, who are probably Turkisised Iranians, living between the Caucasus Mountains and Persia; and, lastly, the Osmanli Turks, who are subjects of the Sultan, speak the Turkish language, and profess Islam.

Close to this group, but farther to the East, the central group also concerns us, for some of its representatives who now inhabit the boundaries of Europe made repeated incursions into Europe in various directions. In the plains lying between the River Irtish and the Caspian Sea live the Kirghiz-Kazaks, and in the Tien-Shien Mountains the Kara-Kirghiz, who have preserved many ancient Old Turkish customs, and seem to have been only slightly Mohammedanised. The Usbegs and the Sartis of Russian Turkistan, on the other hand, have been more or less Iranised. Finally, on the banks of the Volga are to be found the Tatars of European Russia. Among them the Tatars of Kazan, who are descended from the Kiptchaks, came to the banks of the Volga in the thirteenth century and mingled with the Bulgars. These Tatars differ from the Tatars of Astrakhan, who are descendants of the Turco-Mongols of the Golden Horde, and are connected with the Khazars, and from the Nogaïs of the Crimea, who are Tatars of the steppes who more or less inter-married with other races—the Tatars of the Tauris coast being the hybrid descendants of the Adriatic race and the Indo-Afghan race. They are to be found near Astrakhan and in the Caucasus Mountains, and even, perhaps, as far as Lithuania, “where, though still being Mohammedans, they have adopted the language and costume of the Poles.”[1]

The invasion of Europe by the Turks appears as the last great ethnic movement that followed the so-called period of migration of peoples (second to sixth centuries A.D.) and the successive movements it entailed.

Let us consider only the migrations of those who concern us most closely, and with whom the Turks were to come into contact later on. First the Slavs spread westward towards the Baltic and beyond the Elbe, and southward to the valley of the Danube and the Balkan Peninsula. This movement brought about the advance of the Germans towards the west, and consequently the advance of the Celts towards Iberia and as far as Spain. Owing to the invasion of the Huns in the fifth century and in the sixth of the Avars, who, after coming as far as Champagne, settled down in the plains of Hungary and the territories lying farther to the south which had already been occupied by the Dacians for several centuries, the Slavs were cut into two groups. About the same time, the Bulgars came from the banks of the Volga and settled on the banks of the Danube.

In the ninth century, owing to a new migration of masses of Slavonic descent, the Hungarians, driven by tribes of Petchenegs and Polovts into Southern Russia, crossed the Carpathian Mountains and took up their abode in the valley of the Tirzah. While the Magyar Turks settled in Hungary, the Kajar Turks occupied the hinterland of Thessalonica in Macedonia. In the twelfth century, the Germans, driving the Western Slavs as far as the banks of the Vistula, brought about a reaction towards the north-east of the Eastern Slavs, whose expansion took place at the expense of the Finnish tribes that lived there.

Only in the thirteenth century did the Turco-Mongols begin to migrate in their turn; they occupied the whole of Russia, as far as Novgorod to the north, and reached Liegnitz in Silesia. But, although they soon drew back from Western Europe, they remained till the fifteenth century in Eastern Russia, and in the eighteenth century they were still in the steppes of Southern Russia, and in the Crimea.

Finally, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the Osmanli Turks invaded the Balkan Peninsula, where they met such of their kindred as the Kajars, the Tchitaks, and the Pomaks, who were heathens or Christians, and later on embraced Islam. They invaded Hungary and made incursions into Lower Austria.

Then began the migration of the Little Russians into the upper valley of the Dnieper, and in the sixteenth century they set off towards the steppes of Southern Russia, while the Great Russians began to advance beyond the Volga towards the Ural, a movement which reached Siberia, and still continues.

It follows, necessarily, that in the course of these huge migrations, the so-called Turkish race was greatly modified; the Turks of the Eastern group mixed with the Mongols, the Tunguses, and the Ugrians; and those of the Western group in Asia and Europe with various Indo-Afghan, Assyrian, Arab, and European elements, especially with those living near the Adriatic: the Greeks, the Genoese, the Goths, etc. Thus the Osmanli Turks became a mixture of many races.

Though ethnologists do not agree about the various ethnic elements of the Turco-Tatar group, it is certain, all the same, that those who came to Asia Minor early associated for a long time with the people of Central Asia, and Vambéry considers that a Turkish element penetrated into Europe at a very early date.[2]

Though the Arabs in the seventh century subdued the Turks of Khiva, they did not prevent them from penetrating into Asia Minor, and the Kajars, who were not Mohammedans, founded an empire there in the eighth century. At that period the Turks, among whom Islam was gaining ground, enlisted in the Khalifa’s armies, but were not wholly swallowed up by the Arab and Moslem civilisation of the Seljukian dynasty, the first representatives of which had possibly embraced Nestorian Christianity or Islam. Henceforth Asia Minor, whence the previous Turkish elements had almost disappeared, began to turn into a Turkish country.

All the Turks nowadays are Mohammedans, except the Chuvashes (Ugrians) who are Christians, and some Shamanist Yakuts.

As will be shown later on, these ethnographic considerations should not be neglected in settling the future conditions of the Turks and Slavs in Europe, in the interest of European civilisation.

About half a century ago Elisée Reclus wrote as follows:

“For many years has the cry ‘Out of Europe’ been uttered not only against the Osmanli leaders, but also against the Turks as a whole, and it is well known that this cruel wish has partly been fulfilled; hundreds of thousands of Muslim emigrants from Greek Thessaly, Macedonia, Thrace, and Bulgaria have sought refuge in Asia Minor, and these fugitives are only the remnants of the wretched people who had to leave their ancestral abodes; the exodus is still going on, and, most likely, will not leave off till the whole of Lower Rumelia has become European in language and customs. But now the Turks are being threatened even in Asia. A new cry arises, ‘Into the Steppes,’ and to our dismay we wonder whether this wish will not be carried out too. Is no conciliation possible between the hostile races, and must the unity of civilisation be obtained by the sacrifice of whole peoples, especially those that are the most conspicuous for the noblest qualities—uprightness, self-respect, courage, and tolerance?”[3]

For a long time this state of affairs did not seem to change much, but after the recent upheaval of Europe it has suddenly become worse.

Very different races, who have more or less intermingled, live on either side of the Bosphorus, for Elisée Reclus says:

“The Peninsula, the western end of the fore part of the continent, was a place where the warlike, wandering, or trading tribes, coming from the south-east and north-east, converged naturally. Semitic peoples inhabited the southern parts of Anatolia, and in the centre of that country their race, dialects, and names seem to have prevailed among numerous populations; in the south-west they seem to have intermingled with coloured men, perhaps the Kushits. In the eastern provinces the chief ethnic elements seem to have been connected with the Persians, and spoke languages akin to Zend; others represented the northern immigrants that bore the generic name of Turanians. In the West migrations took place in a contrary direction to those that came down from the Armenian uplands; Thracians were connected by their trade and civilisation with the coastlands of Europe and Asia sloping towards the Propontis, and between both parts of the world Greeks continually plied across the Ægean Sea.”[4]

Thus the common name of “Turks” is wrongly given to some Moslem elements of widely different origin, who are to be found in Rumelia and Turkey-in-Asia, such as the Albanians, who are akin to Greeks through their common ancestors, the Pelasgians, the Bosnians, and the Moslem Bulgars, the offspring of the Georgian and Circassian women who filled the harems, and the descendants of Arabs or even of African negroes.

After the internal conflicts between some of these elements, the quarrels with other foreign elements, and the keen rivalry which existed generally, each section seems to have held the Turk responsible for whatever wrong was done, and the Turk was charged with being the cause of all misfortunes—almost in the same way as the Jews: the Turks have become, as it were, the scapegoats.

Yet, in 1665, in his account of his travels in the East, M. de Thévenot, who died at Mianeh in 1667, praised Turkish morality and tolerance.

Elisée Reclus wrote:

“Turkish domination is merely outward, and does not reach, so to say, the inner soul; so, in many respects, various ethnic groups in Turkey enjoy a fuller autonomy than in the most advanced countries of Western Europe.”

Ubicini speaks in the same manner, and Sir H. Bulwer states that:

“As to freedom of faith and conscience, the prevailing religion in Turkey grants the other religions a tolerance that is seldom met with in Christian countries.”

Unfortunately the Turk’s mentality, in spite of what his enemies say, does not help him. Owing to his nature, he is quite unable to defend himself and to silence his slanderers.

For, as E. Reclus remarked:

“They are not able to cope with the Greeks, who, under pretence of pacific dealings, take vengeance for the war of extermination, the traces of which are still to be seen in Cydonia and Chio. They do not stand an equal chance of winning; most of them only know their own language, while a Greek speaks several languages; they are ignorant and artless by the side of clever, shrewd adversaries. Though he is not lazy, the Turk does not like to hurry; ‘Haste is devilish, patience is godly,’ he will often say. He cannot do without his ‘kief,’ an idle dream in which he lives like a mere plant, without any exertion of his mind and will, whereas his rival, always in earnest, can derive profit even from his hours of rest. The very qualities of the Turk do him harm: honest, trustworthy, he will work to the end of his life to pay off a debt, and the business man takes advantage of this to offer him long credits that shall make a slave of him for ever. There is an axiom among business men in Asia Minor: ‘If you wish to thrive, do not grant a Christian more credit than one-tenth of his fortune; risk ten times as much with a Mohammedan.’ Encumbered with such a credit, the Turk no longer possesses anything of his own; all the produce of his work will go to the usurer. His carpets, his wares, his flocks, even his land, will pass gradually into the hands of the foreigner.”[5]

But since the time when this was written the Turkish mind has changed. The Turks have set to work to learn languages, especially French. A large part of the younger generation concern themselves with what takes place in the West, and this transformation, which the Greeks and other Europeans looked upon as endangering their situation in Turkey, may be one of the factors of the present conflict.

Besides, E. Reclus added: “The Greeks already hold, to the great prejudice of the Turks, numerous industries and all the so-called liberal professions, and as dragomans and journalists they are the only informers of the Europeans, and control public opinion in the West.”[6]

Footnotes:

[1] J. Deniker, Les Races et les peuples de la terre (Paris, 1900), p. 438. Zaborowski, Tartares de la Lithuanie (1913).

[2] Deguignes, Histoire générale des Huns (1750 and 1756); L. Cahun, Turcs et Mongols, des origins à 1405 (Paris, 1896); Vambéry, Das Turkenvolk (1885).

[3] Elisée Reclus, Nouvelle géographie universelle (1884), ix., p. 547.

[4] Ibid., p. 536.

[5] Elisée Reclus, Nouvelle géographie universelle (1884), ix., p. 546.

[6] Ibid., p. 550.

II
THE TURKISH EMPIRE

The Turks who lived in Turkistan and territories lying to the north of China arrived in the tenth century and settled down in Persia and Asia Minor, together with some allied or subject races, such as the Tatars. There they founded several dynasties. Out of the numerous branches of the Turkish race we will only deal with the Ottomans, who were to establish their rule in Asia Minor and Europe.

People too often forget the wonderful rise of the Turkish Empire, which for nearly three centuries increased its power and enlarged its territories; and they lay too much stress on its decline, which began two centuries and a half ago.

The Oghouz tribe of Kaï, following the Seljuks more or less closely in their migrations, reached the uplands of Asia Minor about the end of the tenth century. While part of the latter retraced their steps towards the territories from which they had started, the others settled down and founded the Empire of Rum. The Seljukian chief, Ala Eddin Kaï Kobad I, gave to Erthoghrul, a son of Suleiman Khan, the ancestor of the Seljukian dynasty of Konia, the summer pasturage of Mount Toumanitch, south of Brusa, on the boundaries of the Roman Empire of Byzantium. Erthoghrul and his successors strengthened and enlarged their dominions and laid the foundation of Ottoman power.

Othman, or Osman, settled at Karahissar about the end of the thirteenth century, at the time when the Seljukian Empire of Rum was destroyed by Mongol inroads, and he conquered several of its principalities.

Orkhan conquered the rest of Asia Minor and set foot in Europe in 1355. Amurath I took Adrianople, subjugated Macedonia and Albania, and defeated the Serbs at the battle of Kossowo in 1389. By the victory of Nicopolis in 1396 Bajazet I conquered Bulgaria and threatened Constantinople, but Tamerlain’s invasion and Bajazet’s defeat in 1402 at Ancyra postponed the downfall of the Byzantine Empire. The Turkish Empire recovered under Mohammed I and Amurath II, who made new conquests and entirely subdued the Serbians in 1459, Mohammed II took Constantinople in 1453, quickly subdued the Greek peninsula, and annihilated the Byzantine Empire. He also took Carmania, the Empire of Trebizond in 1461, Bosnia, Wallachia in 1462, and Lesser Tartary, and even made an incursion into Italy. The Turkish Empire continued to expand for nearly another century. In 1517 Selim I turned Syria, Palestine, and Egypt into Ottoman provinces; he took Mecca and acquired Algiers in 1520. Soliman II made new conquests. In Asia he added to the Empire Aldjeziresh and parts of Armenia, Kurdistan, and Arabia; in Europe, after capturing part of Hungary, Transylvania, Esclavonia, and Moldavia, and taking Rhodes from the Knights, he came to the gates of Vienna in 1529, and in 1534 added Tunis to his empire, and Tripoli in 1551. At the beginning of his reign Selim II conquered the Yemen, and in 1571 took Cyprus from the Venetians; but next year the Turkish fleet was utterly destroyed at the battle of Lepanto.

Turkish domination then reached its climax, and from this time began its downfall. Internal difficulties soon showed that the Ottoman Empire was beginning to decline. From 1595 to 1608 Turkey lost territory in Hungary, though, on the other hand, by the battle of Choczim, she conquered new districts in Poland. After a few perturbed years, in 1669 Mohammed IV took Candia, which Ibrahim had vainly attempted to conquer.

But henceforth the decline of the Empire was rapid, and its territories were dislocated and dismembered. The regencies of Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli became practically independent. By the fall of Carlovitz, which put an end to the 1682-1699 war, the Turks lost nearly the whole of Hungary. By the treaty of Passarovitz, they lost Temesvar and a part of Serbia, which was restored to them by the peace of Belgrade in 1740. The Russians, with whom they had been fighting since 1672, and who began to get the upper hand during the 1770-74 war, took from them Bukovina and Lesser Tartary, the independence of which was recognised by the treaty of Kuchuk-Kainarji. After a new war from 1809 to 1812, the treaty of Bukharest gave to Russia the provinces lying between the Dnieper and the Danube. In 1809 Turkey lost the Ionian Islands, which became independent under an English protectorate. The victory of Navarino made Greece free in 1827. The Turks were obliged to cede Turkish Armenia to Russia in 1829, and, after a new war with Russia, Wallachia, Moldavia, and Serbia were put under Russian protection by the treaty of Adrianople. France conquered Algeria in 1831. In 1833 the pasha of Egypt, Mehemet Ali, rebelled, captured Syria, defeated the Turks at Konia, and threatened Constantinople. Turkey, lying at the mercy of Russia, opened the Bosphorus to her ships and closed the Dardanelles to the other Powers by the treaty of Hunkiar-Iskelessi in 1833.

Yet a reaction took place, and it seemed that Mehemet Ali, who helped the Sultan to subdue the insurgent Greeks, was likely to stop the downfall of Turkey. But his fleet was annihilated at Navarino, October 20, 1827, by the combined fleets of England, France, and Russia. He received Candia from the Sultan as a reward for his co-operation, but, not having been able to obtain Syria, he broke off with the Sublime Porte. An intervention of the European Powers put an end to his triumph. Turkey recovered the territories she had lost, and, in return for this restitution and for giving back the Turkish fleet, he obtained the hereditary government of Egypt under the suzerainty of the Porte.

Turkey then attempted to revive and to strengthen her condition by organisation on European lines.

As early as 1830 a liberal movement had made itself felt in Turkey as in many other States. The Ottoman Government realised, too, that it was necessary to get rid of the Russian influence imposed upon her by the treaty of Hunkiar-Iskelessi, and so was compelled to institute reforms.

As early as 1861 Midhat Pasha, first as vali of the Danubian province, then as vali of Baghdad in 1869, and later on in Arabia, showed much enterprise and evinced great qualities of organisation and administration. When recalled to Constantinople, he became the leader of the Young Turk party.

Mahmoud II and Abdul Mejid renewed the attempts already made by Selim III at the end of the eighteenth century, with a view to putting an end to the utter confusion of the Empire, and instituted various reforms borrowed from Europe. In 1853 France and England helped Turkey to repel a new Russian aggression, and the treaty of March 30, 1856, after the Crimean war, guaranteed her independence.

But the reign of Abdul Aziz, which had begun in such a brilliant way, proved unfortunate later on. A rising in Crete was suppressed with great difficulty in 1867; in 1875 Herzegovina and Bosnia, urged on by Russia, rebelled, and Serbia, who backed the rebels, was defeated in 1876. Abdul Aziz, on account of his wasteful financial administration as well as his leaning towards Russia, which he considered the only State to be favoured because it was an autocratic government, unconsciously aided the Tsar’s policy against his own country, and uselessly exhausted the resources of Turkey. Yet under his reign the judicial system, the army, and the administration were reorganised, the legislation was secularised, and Mussulmans and non-Mussulmans were set on a footing of equality. These reforms, prepared by his two predecessors, were carried out by him. He was forced to abdicate by an insurrection in 1876, and committed suicide.

His successor, Mourad V, became mad and reigned only a few months. He was dethroned and replaced by his brother Abdul Hamid, who, on December 23, 1876, suspended the liberal constitution that the Grand Vizier Midhat Pasha had promulgated. On February 5, 1877, he disgraced Midhat Pasha, who left the country and lived abroad. Midhat Pasha was allowed to come back to Turkey later, and ordered to reside in the Isle of Crete. He was then appointed governor of the vilayet of Smyrna, but was charged with the murder of Abdul Aziz, imprisoned in the fortress of Taïf in Arabia, and assassinated on February 26, 1883.[7] A rising of Bulgaria, which the Turks put down ruthlessly, caused European intervention and a new war with Russia backed by Rumania and Montenegro. The Turks, beaten in 1877, had to sign the preliminaries of San Stefano, modified by the treaty of Berlin in 1878. Rumania, Serbia, and Montenegro became independent States; Eastern Rumelia an autonomous country; and Bulgaria a tributary principality. Austria occupied Bosnia and Herzegovina, England Cyprus, and in Asia the Russians received Kars, Ardahan, and Batum. The Berlin Conference in 1880 allowed Greece to occupy Larissa, Metzovo, and Janina.[8]

In 1898 Turkey slightly recovered, and in seventeen days her armies routed Greece, and the country would have ceased to exist but for the Tsar’s intervention with the Sultan.

However, as the condition of Turkey at the end of Abdul Hamid’s reign was growing more and more critical, the old ambitions entertained by several Great Powers revived. At the meeting of Edward VII and Nicholas II at Reval, the question of the extension of the European control which already existed in Macedonia was discussed.

The revolution of July 23, 1908, which put an end to Abdul Hamid’s autocratic rule, instituted constitutional government in Turkey. The Great Powers were at first taken aback, but without troubling themselves about Turkey’s chance of regeneration, they carried on their rivalries, all trying to derive some profit from Turkey in case she should become prosperous and powerful, and at the same time doing their best to prevent her from reviving in order to be able to domineer over her and exhaust her the more easily.

For a long time previously many Turks of the younger generation, who regretted the condition of the Empire, and were acquainted with European ideas, had realised that, if Turkey was not to die, she must reform herself. They had tried to further this aim by literary methods and had carried on propaganda work abroad, being unable to do so in Turkey. The reign of Abdul Hamid, during which the old régime had become more and more intolerable, was to bring about its overthrow, and in this respect the revolutionary movement was the outcome of Turkey’s corruption. Among the numerous instigators of this movement, Enver Bey and Niazi Bey, who were then only captains garrisoned in Macedonia, soon became the most prominent. The revolutionary elements were chiefly recruited from the university students, especially those of the School of Medicine and of the Mulkieh School. Officers of the highest rank, such as Marshal Redjeb Pasha, who, when governor of Tripoli, had plotted against Abdul Hamid, were on the committee; but the masses, among whom the Young Turk propaganda had not penetrated, at first stood aloof, as they did not know the views of the members of the committee, who, before the revolution, had been obliged to carry on their propaganda very cautiously and among few people, for fear of the Sultan’s reprisals.

The movement started from Albania. Macedonia, the province which was most likely to be wrested from the Empire, and Syria immediately followed the lead, and the revolutionary movement soon met with unanimous approval.

On April 13, 1909, a reactionary movement set in which failed only because of Abdul Hamid’s irresolute, tottering mind. It was supported by the garrison of Constantinople, which comprised Albanian troops, the very men who had lent their aid to the revolution at first, but had been brought back to the Sultan’s party by the lower clergy and politicians whose interest it was to restore Abdul Hamid’s autocratic rule, or whose personal ambitions had been baulked. Troops, comprising Albanians, Bosnians, and Turkish elements, and reinforced by Greek, Bulgarian, and Serbian volunteers, old komitadjis, were summoned to Salonika.

The reaction of April 13 seems to have been partly due to foreign intrigue, especially on the part of England, who, anxious at seeing Turkey attempt to gain a new life, tried to raise internal difficulties by working up the fanaticism of the hodjas, most of whom were paid and lodged in seminaries, and so were interested in maintaining Abdul Hamid’s autocratic government. These manœuvres may even have been the original cause of the reactionary movement.

Mr. Fitzmaurice, dragoman of the English embassy, was one of the instigators of the movement, and the chief distributor of the money raised for that purpose. He seems to have succeeded in fomenting the first internal difficulties of the new Turkish Government. After the failure of the reactionary movement, the Committee of Union and Progress demanded the dismissal of Mr. Fitzmaurice, who later on settled at Sofia, where he continued his intrigues.

Then the government passed into the hands of the Committee of Union and Progress which had brought on the revolution, and which practically governed the country from 1908 till the signing of the armistice between the Allies and Turkey.

The Committee of Union and Progress, which at the outset had shown a liberal and enlightened spirit, soon became very powerful; but, being the only ruling power in the country, they soon left the straight path and began to indulge in corrupt practices. The leaders’ heads were turned by their sudden success, and they were not sufficiently strong-minded to resist the temptations of office in a time of crisis. All the power was soon concentrated in the hands of a few: Talaat, Enver, and Jemal, all three men of very humble origin, who, when still young, had risen rapidly to the highest eminence in the State.

Enver, born on December 8, 1883, was the son of a road-surveyor. At twenty he left the cadet school of Pancaldi, and became a prominent figure at the time of the revolution. After Abdul Hamid’s downfall, he was sent to Berlin, whence he returned an enthusiastic admirer of Germany. After distinguishing himself in Tripoli, he was made War Minister at the end of the Balkan war. He was naturally very bold; his brilliant political career made him vain, and soon a story arose round him. He became rich by marrying a princess of the Imperial Family, the Sultan’s niece, but it was wrongly said that he married a daughter of the Sultan—a mistake which is easily accounted for as in Turkey anybody who marries a princess of the Imperial Family bears the title of imperial son-in-law, Damad-i-Hazret-i-Shehriyari. At any rate, Enver’s head was turned by his good fortune.

Talaat is supposed to be the son of a pomak—that is to say, his ancestors were of Bulgarian descent and had embraced Islam. He was born at Adrianople in 1870, received an elementary education at the School of the Jewish Alliance, then became a clerk in a post-office and later on in a telegraph-office. Owing to the liberal ideas he propounded and the people he associated with, he was sentenced to imprisonment. Two years after, in 1896, when he came out of prison, he was exiled to Salonika, a centre of propaganda of the Young Turks who were then attempting to overthrow Abdul Hamid. He had learned very little at school, but had a quick wit and great abilities; so he soon obtained a prominent place among the leaders of the revolutionary movement, and in a short time became a moving spirit in the party, together with Enver, Marniassi Zadé Refik Bey, and Javid Bey. Very strongly built, with huge, square fists on which he always leant in a resolute attitude of defiance, Talaat was a man of great will power. When the constitution was granted to the Turkish people, he went to Adrianople, where he was returned Member of Parliament. Soon after he became Vice-President of the Chamber, then Minister of the Interior. But he always remained an unassuming man and led a quiet life in a plain house. He was among those who desired to turn his country into a modern State, in the Anglo-Saxon sense of the word, with the help of Germany and by using German methods, which was perhaps his greatest mistake. When war broke out, Talaat was Minister of the Interior in the Cabinet in which the Egyptian prince Said Halim was Grand Vizier. On February 4, 1917, when this Ministry resigned, he became Grand Vizier, and on February 17, in the course of the sitting of the Constantinople Parliament, he declared that he intended to maintain the alliance with Germany to the end.

Jemal Pasha is of Turkish descent. He left the War Academy as Captain of the Staff, and married the daughter of Bekir Pasha, who commanded a division of the second army garrisoned at Adrianople. This Bekir Pasha had risen from the ranks, and when he was still a non-commissioned officer had throttled Midhat Pasha with his own hands. It has been wrongly stated that his father was the public executioner at Constantinople during the reign of Mahmoud II. Whereas Talaat’s and Enver’s manners were distant, Jemal professed to be affable and strove to please, though he was very cruel at heart. He was looked upon as a friend of France when he came to Paris in 1914 to raise the Ottoman loan. He was appointed military governor of Constantinople after Nazim Pasha’s murder, January 10, 1913, in which he and Talaat and Enver had a share; then he became Minister of Marine.

Talaat fully represented the Committee of Union and Progress, and was supported by it, but Enver and Jemal, though also members, did not make use of their connection with the party. Indeed Enver, who disagreed with Talaat, had nothing to do with the party after he had been appointed War Minister, and when he was called upon to resign during the war, he retained his office with the support of Germany. Only the difficulties which the Empire experienced could have brought together three men who were actuated by such widely different motives; at any rate the omnipotence of the Union and Progress Committee, which even caused some liberals to regret the passing of the old régime, was contrary to the constitutional system which the party had purposed to institute in Turkey.

Though the leaders of the Unionist movement drove Turkey to the verge of ruin, yet the movement itself to a certain extent aroused in the Turkish people a consciousness of their rights, which they had nearly given up under the control of foreign countries; the movements of opinion brought about, and even the reaction that set in finally, roused that national feeling, which found expression soon after the events of the last war.

It must be acknowledged that the Capitulations, the extension of which led to the improper interference of foreign nations in the home affairs of the Ottoman State and gave them a paramount power over it, formed one of the chief causes of the modern ruin of Turkey, by weakening and disintegrating it. The extension of the economic Capitulations was made possible by the carelessness of the Mussulmans in commercial matters, and by their natural indolence, while the extension of the judicial Capitulations, which originated in a Moslem custom dating from the Middle Ages, seems to have been due to the condescension of the Sultans.

It is a well-known fact that Mehmet II, by the treaty he signed in 1434, granted to the Republic of Venice extra-territorial privileges consisting of commercial immunities, the benefit of which was claimed afterwards by the Powers the Porte had then to deal with. Those immunities, renewed with slight alterations, constituted what was later on called the Capitulations.

In 1528 Soliman II officially ratified the privileges which French and Catalonian merchants living in Constantinople had been enjoying for a long time, according to an old custom. The treaty signed by this monarch in 1535 confirmed the old state of affairs. By this treaty the French king, Francis I, both secured the help of Turkey against his enemies, and promised the Ottoman Empire the protection of France; at the same time he obtained for French merchants the privilege of trading in the Eastern seas, preferential customs duties on their goods, the obligation for all foreigners trading in the East to sail under the French flag, and the privilege of appointing consuls in the Levant who had jurisdiction over their fellow-countrymen. Lastly, the treaty not only secured to France the protectorate of the Holy Places, but also entrusted her with the defence of all the Latin religious orders, of whatever nationality, which were beginning at that time to found establishments in the East.

These stipulations, renewed in 1569, 1581, 1604, and 1673, secured to France both commercial supremacy and much prestige throughout the Ottoman Empire, and gave a permanent character to the concessions made by Turkey. The agreement that sealed them and seemed unchangeable soon induced other foreign nations to claim further privileges.

By the end of the sixteenth century Turkey had to grant similar privileges to Great Britain, and the contest between the British representative, Sir Thomas Glover, and Jean de Gontaut-Biron, the French ambassador, has become historical. Nevertheless France for nearly two centuries maintained her position and influence.

So it was with Russia in 1711 and the United States in 1830. The Ottoman Empire had even to concede almost equal advantages to Greece and Rumania, countries which had enlarged their boundaries at her expense.

Such privileges, which were justifiable at the outset, soon brought on unrestricted and unjustifiable interference by foreign Powers in Turkish affairs. The Powers attempted to justify the establishment and maintenance of this régime by alleging they had to protect their subjects against the delays or evil practices of the Turkish courts of justice, though the Powers that had managed to gain great influence in Turkey were already able, through their embassies, to defend fully the rights and interests of their own subjects.

In virtue of the judicial privileges, all differences or misdemeanours concerning foreigners of the same nationality were amenable to the consuls of the country concerned, whose right of jurisdiction included that of arrest and imprisonment; cases between foreigners of different nationalities were heard in the court of the defendant, this applying to both lawsuits and criminal cases; while, in lawsuits between Turkish subjects and foreigners, the jurisdiction belonged to the Ottoman tribunals; but, as the Consul was represented in court by an assessor or a dragoman, the sentence depended chiefly on the latter. As a matter of fact, these privileges only favoured the worst class of foreigners, and merely served to make fraud easier.

Lastly, from an economic point of view, the Capitulations injured the Turkish treasury by binding the Ottoman State and preventing it from establishing differential duties, at a time when a war of tariffs was being carried on between all States.

During the reign of Abdul Hamid, owing to the facilities given by this state of things, the interference of the Powers in Turkish affairs reached such a climax that they succeeded not only in bringing Turkey into a condition of subjection, but in disposing of her territories, after dividing them into regions where their respective influence was paramount. The greediness of the Powers was only restrained by the conflicts their rivalry threatened to raise. If one of them obtained a concession, such as the building of a railway line in the region assigned to it, the others at once demanded compensation, such as the opening of harbours on the sea-fronts assigned to them. Things went so far that Russia, though she could not compete with the Powers whose rivalry gave itself free scope at the expense of the Ottoman Empire, intervened to hinder Turkey from constructing a system of railways in Eastern Asia Minor, alleging that the building of these lines would endanger her zone of influence. The railway concessions had to be given to her, though she never attempted to construct any of the lines.

In addition, by laying stress on the Capitulations, in which nothing could be found that supported their demands, the Great Powers established foreign post-offices in the ports of the Empire. These post-offices, which enjoyed the privilege of extra-territoriality, were only used by foreign merchants and persons of note to smuggle in small parcels, and by native agitators to correspond safely with agitators living abroad.

Of course Turkey, being thus brought into subjection, did not develop so rapidly as the nations which, not being under any foreign tutelage, enjoyed independence; and it is unfair to reproach her with keeping behind them.

After the revolution, and owing to many requests of the Turkish Government, some economic alterations were made in the Capitulations, such as the paying of the tradesman’s licence tax by foreigners, and the right of the State to establish monopolies. Austria-Hungary, when the question of Bosnia-Herzegovina was settled, consented to give up her privilege concerning the customs duties, on condition that other Powers did the same. A short time after Germany promised to do so, but, among the other Powers, some refused, and others laid down conditions that would have brought more servitude to Turkey and would have cost her new sacrifices.

The Unionist Government, as will be shown later, cancelled the Capitulations during the last war.

After recalling the wonderful political fortune of the Turkish Empire, we should remember that, after bringing Eastern influences to Western countries, it had also an influence of its own which was plainly felt in Europe. Western art drew its inspiration from Eastern subjects, and at the end of the eighteenth century everything that was Turkish became the fashion for a time.

This influence was the natural outcome of the close intercourse with the Levant from the Renaissance till the eighteenth century, and of the receptions given in honour of Eastern men of mark during their visits to European courts. It is not intended to discuss the question of the relation between Turkish art and Arabian art, and its repercussion on Western art, or of Eastern influence in literature; but it will be well to show how much attraction all Turkish and Eastern things had for the people of the time, and how happily the imitation of the East influenced decorative art and style, as if the widely different tastes of societies so far apart had reached the same stage of refinement and culture.

Records are still extant of the famous embassy sent by the Grand Turk during the reign of Louis XIV, and the embassy sent by the Sultan of Morocco to ask for the hand of the Princess de Conti, for in Coypel’s painting in the Versailles Museum can be seen the ambassadors of the Sultan of Morocco witnessing a performance of Italian comedy in Paris in 1682. Later on the Turkish embassy of Mehemet Effendi in 1721 was painted by Ch. Parrocel.

Lievins’ “Soliman” in the Royal Palace of Berlin, a few faces drawn by Rembrandt, his famous portrait known as “The Turk with the Stick” in MacK. Tomby’s collection, which is more likely to be the portrait of an aristocratic Slav, the carpet in “Bethsabe’s Toilet after a Bath,” bear witness to the Eastern influence. So do the Turkish buildings of Peter Koeck d’Aelst, who was the director of a Flemish manufactory of tapestry at Constantinople during Soliman’s reign; the scenes of Turkish life and paintings of Melchior Lorch, who also lived at Constantinople about the same time and drew the Sultan’s and the Sultana’s portraits; and the pictures of J.-B. van Mour, born at Valenciennes, who died in Constantinople, where he had been induced to come by M. de Ferriol, the French King’s Ambassador; of A. de Favray; and of Melling, the Sultana Hadidge’s architect, who was called the painter of the Bosphorus.[9]

There may also be mentioned Charles Amédée van Loo’s pictures: “A Sultana’s Toilet,” “The Sultana ordering the Odalisks some Fancy Work,” “The Favourite Sultana with her Women attended by White and Black Eunuchs,” “Odalisks dancing before the Sultan and Sultana,” most of which were drawn for the king from 1775 to 1777, and were intended as models for tapestries; and also the portrait of Madame de Pompadour as an odalisk, “The Odalisk before her Embroidery Frame,” and “A Negress bringing the Sultana’s Coffee,” by the same painter. To these may be added Lancret’s Turkish sketches, the drawings and pastels of Liotard, who left Geneva for Paris about 1762, then lived in the ports of the Levant and Constantinople, and came back to Vienna, London, and Holland, and whose chief pictures are: “A Frankish Lady of Pera receiving a Visit,” “A Frankish Lady of Galata attended by her Slave”; and also Fragonard’s “New Odalisks introduced to the Pasha,” his sepia drawings, Marie Antoinette’s so-called Turkish furniture, etc.

In music any sharp, brisk rhythm was styled alla turca—that is, in the Turkish style. We also know a Turkish roundelay by Mozart, and a Turkish march in Beethoven’s “Ruins of Athens.”

At the end of the eighteenth century, not only did people imitate the gorgeousness and vivid colours of Turkish costumes, but every Turkish whim was the fashion of the day. Ingres, too, took from Turkey the subjects of some of his best and most famous paintings: “The Odalisk lying on her Bed,” “The Turkish Bath,” etc.

Lastly, the Great War should teach us, in other respects too, not to underrate those who became our adversaries owing to the mistake they made in joining the Central Powers. For the “Sick Man” raised an army of nearly 1,600,000 men, about a million of whom belonged to fighting units, and the alliance of Turkey with Germany was a heavy blow to the Allied Powers: Russia was blockaded, the Tsar Ferdinand was enabled to attack Serbia, the blockade of Rumania brought on the peace of Bukharest, Turkish troops threatened Persia, owing to which German emissaries found their way into Afghanistan, General Kress von Kressenstein and his Ottoman troops attacked the Suez Canal, etc. All this gave the Allies a right to enforce on Turkey heavy terms of peace, but did not justify either the harsh treatment inflicted upon her before the treaty was signed, or some of the provisions of that treaty. It would be a great mistake to look upon Turkey as of no account in the future, and to believe that the nation can no longer play an important part in Europe.

[7] Midhat Pacha, Sa vie et son œuvre, by his son Ali-Haydar-Midhat Bey (Paris, 1908).

[8] Janina was occupied by Greece in 1912-18.

[9] Cf. A. Boppe, Les Peintres du Bosphore au dix-huitième siècle (Paris, 1919).

III
TURKEY AND THE WAR

It is a well-known fact that Germany, while carefully organising the conflict that was to lay waste the whole world and give her the hegemony of the globe, had not neglected Turkey. Her manœuvres ended, before the war, in concluding a Turco-German treaty of alliance, signed in Constantinople at four o’clock in the afternoon of August 2, 1914, by Baron von Wangenheim and the Grand Vizier Said Halim, an Egyptian prince, cousin to the former Khedive of Egypt and Mehemet Ali’s grandson. It seems that the Turkish negotiators had plainly told the German representatives that they only meant to fight against Russia, and they did not even require any guarantee against the action of France and England.

The spirit in which these negotiations were carried on has been lately corroborated by a statement of M. Bompard, former French Ambassador at Constantinople, who, in answer to a newspaper article concerning the circumstances under which Turkey entered into the war, and the episode of the Goeben and the Breslau,[10] wrote in the same newspaper:[11]

“Owing to the treaty of August 2, Turkey was ipso facto a belligerent; yet though the military authorities acted in conformity with the treaty, the civil authorities—i.e., the Government, properly speaking—had a somewhat different attitude. In the first place, the Government denied it was at war with France and England. The Grand Vizier had even made a formal declaration of neutrality in Paris and London; it only had to do with Russia; besides, the thing was not urgent, as the Russian decree of mobilisation had just been issued.”

In the first article of the treaty it was stated that both Powers should maintain a strict neutrality in the conflict between Austria-Hungary and Serbia. This clause, however, was only intended to give the treaty a pacific appearance, for it was said in Clause 2 that if Russia intervened and thus compelled Germany to support her ally, Austria-Hungary, Turkey should be under the same obligation.

Now, on the previous day, Germany had declared war on Russia, and thus the second article came into effect immediately. So by this treaty Germany really wanted to throw Turkey into the war by the side of the Central Powers.

The other clauses laid down the conditions of a military co-operation. The most important one was that Turkey pledged herself to let the German military mission have the control in the conduct of operations, “according to what was agreed between His Excellency the War Minister and the President of the Military Mission.” Theoretically the treaty was to come to an end on December 31, 1918, but, if not denounced six months before that date, it was to be renewed for five years more.

Clause 8 and last expressly said that the agreement was to be kept secret.

On October 29, 1914, two Turkish torpedo-boats entered the port of Odessa, sank a Russian gun-boat, and fired at the French liner Portugal, and a Turco-German squadron made a surprise attack upon Theodosia and Novorossisk. Then the Allied Powers declared war on Turkey on November 5.

Yet, after keeping neutral during the first three months of the war, Turkey seems to have had some hesitation in entering the conflict, notwithstanding German pressure. Most of her statesmen, who had weighed the financial and political consequences of her intervention, did not seem to consider they were to the advantage of their country; but the ambitious aims of Enver Pasha, who was devoted to Germany, for his success depended on her triumph, prevailed upon Turkey to yield. On the other hand, the Grand Vizier, Said Halim Pasha, pointed out on October 2, 1914, to the Austrian ambassador, who urged Turkey to utilise her fleet, that if the latter was ever defeated by the Russian fleet, Constantinople would be endangered. But a few days after, on October 15, he declared that the only obstacle to Turkish intervention was the penury of the treasury. Indeed, it is probable that Javid Bey, Minister of Finance, who had just signed an agreement with France concerning Turkish railways and finance, was not very eager to declare war on a country whose financial help was indispensable. He had even made overtures on several occasions to the ambassadors of the Entente, on behalf of the moderate members of the Ministry. In August, 1914, he offered to come to an agreement with the Entente providing that the Capitulations were suppressed, and in September he asked them to recognise the suppression of the Capitulations in order to be able to demobilise the Ottoman army. He resigned after the declaration of war, but consented to be member of a new Cabinet the next year.

It seems probable, too, that Talaat for rather a long time favoured an attitude of neutrality in order to obtain for Turkey, among other political and economic advantages, the suppression of the Capitulations, and that only later on he finally, like Jemal, Minister of Marine, sided with Enver Pasha and the Germans. On September 6 Talaat Bey told Sir L. du Pan Mallet that there was no question of Turkey entering the war,[12] and on September 9 he declared to the same ambassador, with regard to the Capitulations, that the time had come to free Turkey from foreign trammels.[13]

Ghalib Kemaly Bey, Turkish Minister at Athens, in a telegram addressed to Said Halim Pasha on June 15, 1914, had informed him he had just learnt that “Greece, by raising a conflict, expected a general conflagration would ensue which might bring on the opening of the question of Turkey-in-Asia.” On August 7, 1914, he stated in another dispatch sent from Athens to the Sublime Porte:

“In the present war England, according to all probabilities, will have the last word. So if we are not absolutely certain to triumph finally, it would be a highly venturesome thing for us to rush into an adventure, the consequences of which might be—which God forbid—fatal to our country.”

In a long report dated September 9, 1914, he added:

“The present circumstances are so critical and so fraught with danger that I take the liberty humbly to advise the Imperial Government to keep a strict neutrality in the present conflicts, and to endeavour to soothe Russia....

“The compact lately signed in London by the Allies shows that the war is expected to last long.... A State like the Ottoman Empire, which has enormous unprotected sea-coasts and remote provinces open to foreign intrigues, should certainly beware of the enmity of a malignant and vindictive country like England....”

So it appears that the decision of Turkey was not taken unanimously and only after much hesitation.

Henceforth the operations engaged in by both sides followed their due course.

In Europe the Franco-British squadrons under the command of Admiral Carden began on November 3 to bombard the forts which guarded the entrance of the Dardanelles. On February 25, 1915, a combined attack of the Allied fleets took place, and on March 18 a general attack was made by the Franco-British squadrons, in which three of their ironclads were sunk, four were severely damaged, and other ships were disabled.

On April 25 to 27 the English and French troops landed in Gallipoli, and after driving back the Turks advanced on May 6 to 8. But when the expeditionary corps had failed to reach Krithia and the Kareves-Dere, then, after a violent offensive of the Turks, which was repulsed on June 21, and the failure of a diversion against the Sari-Bair Mountains, it was withdrawn on January 8, 1916.

In Asia, after the Turkish naval action in the Black Sea, and the march of the Turkish troops against Kars and Tiflis, the Russians invaded Armenia, in Asia Minor, on November 4, 1914, and took Ardost. On November 8 they captured Bayazid and Kuprikeui; Ardahan and Sary-Kamysh, where, as will be seen later on, the Armenians were partly responsible for the Turkish retreat, December 21 and 22; on May 19, 1915, Van fell; then, in the following year, Erzerum (February 16, 1916), Mush (February 18), Bitlis (March 2), Trebizond (April 18), Baiburt (July 16), and Erzinjan (July 25). Thus the Russian troops had conquered the four provinces of Erzerum, Van, Trebizond, and Bitlis, extending over an area of 75,000 square miles.

In Mesopotamia the British brigade of Indian troops came into action on November 8, 1914, and captured the little fort at Fao, which commands the entrance of the Shatt-el-Arab. On November 17 it was victorious at Sihan, took Basra on the 22nd, and Korna on December 9 of the same year. Next year, on July 3, 1915, the British troops captured Amara, Suk-esh-Shuyukh on July 21, Naseriya on the 25th of the same month, and on September 29 they occupied Kut-el-Amara, which the Turks recaptured on April 18, 1916, taking General Townshend prisoner. On February 28, 1917, Kut-el-Amara fell again to British arms, then Baghdad on March 11. On April 2, 1917, the English and Russian forces joined together at Kizilrobat on the main road to Persia, and all the Indian frontier was wholly freed from the Turco-German pressure.

But after the Russian revolution, the Turks successively recaptured all the towns the Russian troops had conquered in Transcaucasia and Asia Minor, and soon threatened Caucasus.

Meanwhile in Arabia the Turks had suddenly invaded the Aden area, where they were beaten on the 21st by the British at Sheikh-Othman and on the 25th at Bir-Ahmed.

On June 10, 1916, the Arab rising broke out. On June 14 they were masters of Mecca. On July 1 they took Jeddah, then Rabagh, then Yambo on the Red Sea. On November 6, 1916, the Sherif of Mecca, the Emir Hussein, was proclaimed King of the Hejaz, under the name of Hussein-Ibn-Ali.

As early as November 3, 1914, Turkey, which occupied all the Sinai Peninsula, threatened Egypt. A first Turkish offensive against the Suez Canal was checked from February 2 to 4 simultaneously before El-Kantara, Al-Ferdan, Toussoun, and Serapeum. A second Turkish offensive, started on July 29, 1916, was also crushed before Romani near the Suez Canal, on the 5th at Katia and on the 11th at Bir-el-Abd.

The British army then launched a great offensive in December, 1916, which resulted, on December 21, in the capture of El-Arish, on the boundary of the Sinaitic desert, and in the occupation of Aleppo on October 26, 1918. On January 9, 1917, they took Rafa, then Beersheba on October 31, 1917, Gaza on November 7, and Jaffa on November 17; and on December 11, 1917, General Allenby entered Jerusalem.

In September, 1918, a new offensive took place, backed by the French troops that took Nablus, and the French navy that made the British advance possible by bombarding the coast. General Allenby entered Haïfa and Acre on September 23 and Tiberias on the 24th, and on the 28th he effected his junction with the troops of the King of the Hejaz. He entered Damascus on October 1 with the Emir Feisal, who commanded the Arabian army. On October 6 the French squadron sailed into the port of Beyrut, which was occupied on the 7th. Tripoli was captured on the 13th, Homs on the 15th, Aleppo on the 26th of October, 1918. By this time Syria, Lebanon, Mesopotamia, and Arabia had fallen into the hands of the Allies.

Meanwhile the disintegration of the Turkish troop was completed by General Franchet d’Espérey’s offensive and the capitulation of Bulgaria. Turkey applied to General Townshend—who had been taken prisoner at Kut-el-Amara—to treat with her victors. The negotiations of the armistice were conducted by Rauf Bey, Minister of the Navy; Reshad Hikmet Bey, Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs; and Sadullah Bey, head of the general staff of the Third Army.

As early as 1916 Turkey of her own authority had suppressed the Capitulations—i.e., the conventions through which the Powers, as has been seen, had a right, amongst other privileges, to have their own tribunals and post-offices; and by so doing she had freed herself from the invidious tutelage of Europe.

The Ottoman Government, in a note sent on November 1, 1916, by the Turkish ambassadors in Berlin and Vienna to the German and Austrian Ministers of Foreign Affairs, notified to their respective Governments and the neutrals that henceforth they looked upon the two international treaties of Paris and Berlin as null and void.

Now the treaties of Paris in 1856 and of Berlin in 1878 were the most important deeds that had hitherto regulated the relations between the Ottoman Empire and the other European Powers. The treaty of Paris confirmed the treaty of 1841, according to which the question of the closing of the Straits to foreign warships was considered as an international question which did not depend only on the Turkish Government.

The Berlin treaty of 1878, too, asserted a right of control and tutelage of the Powers over Turkey, and in it Turkey solemnly promised to maintain the principle of religious liberty, to allow Christians to bear evidence in law-courts, and to institute reforms in Armenia.

As the King of Prussia and the Emperor had signed the treaty of Paris, and the Austrian Emperor and the German Emperor had signed the treaty of Berlin, Turkey could not denounce these treaties without the assent of these two allied countries, which thus gave up the patrimonial rights and privileges wrested from the Sultan by Western Europe in the course of the last three centuries. This consideration accounts for the support Turkey consented to give the Central Powers and the sacrifices she engaged to make.

In order to understand the succession of events and the new policy of Turkey, the reader must be referred to the note of the Ottoman Government abrogating the treaties of Paris and Berlin which was handed on November 1, 1916, by the Turkish ambassadors in Berlin and Vienna to the German and Austrian Ministers of Foreign Affairs. This note, recalling the various events which had taken place, pointed out that they justified Turkey in casting off the tutelage of both the Allied Powers and the Central Powers:

“Owing to the events that took place in the second half of the last century, the Imperial Ottoman Empire was compelled, at several times, to sign two important treaties, the Paris treaty on March 30, 1866, and the Berlin treaty on August 3, 1878. The latter had, in most respects, broken the balance established by the former, and they were both trodden underfoot by the signatories that openly or secretly broke their engagements. These Powers, after enforcing the clauses that were to the disadvantage of the Ottoman Empire, not only did not care for those that were to its advantage, but even continually opposed their carrying out.

“The Paris treaty laid down the principle of the territorial integrity and independence of the Ottoman Empire; it also stipulated that this clause should be fully guaranteed by all the Powers, and forbade any meddling, either with the relations between the Imperial Government and its subjects, or with the interior administration of the Ottoman Empire.

“Nevertheless, the French Government kept on interfering by force of arms in Ottoman territory, and demanded the institution of a new administrative organisation in Lebanon. Then the Powers signatory to the treaty were compelled to participate in this action by diplomatic ways, in order not to let France have a free hand in carrying out her plans, which were contrary to the Paris treaty and paved the way to territorial encroachments.

“On the other hand, the Russian Government, pursuing a similar policy, held in check by an ultimatum the action of the Porte against the principalities of Serbia and Montenegro, where it had raised an insurrection, and which it had fully provided with arms, supplies, officers, and soldiers; and after demanding the institution of a new foreign administration in some Ottoman provinces and of a foreign control over their home affairs, it finally declared war against Turkey.

“In the same manner the clauses of the Paris treaty did not hinder either the French Government from occupying Tunis and turning this province of the Ottoman Empire into a French protectorate—or the English from occupying Egypt to become the ruling power there, and from encroaching upon Ottoman sovereignty in the south of the Yemen, in Nejed, Koweit, Elfytyr, and the Persian Gulf. In spite of the same clauses the four Powers now at war against Turkey have also recently modified the condition of Crete and instituted a new state of things inconsistent with the territorial integrity that they had guaranteed.

“Finally Italy, without any serious reason, merely in order to have territorial compensations after the new political situation created in Northern Africa, did not hesitate to declare war against the Ottoman Empire, and did not even comply with the engagement she had taken, in case of a contention with the Imperial Government, to refer the case to the mediation of the Powers signatory of the treaty before resorting to war.

“It is not necessary to mention all the other cases of interference in the home affairs of the Ottoman Empire.

“The Berlin treaty, concluded after the events of 1877-78, completely remodelled the Paris treaty by creating in European Turkey a new state of things, which was even modified by posterior treaties. But soon after the Berlin treaty the Russian Government showed how little it cared for its engagements. Even before capturing Batum it managed to annex that fortified place by declaring openly and officially its intention to turn it into a free trade port. The British Government consented to renew some of its engagements. Yet the Cabinet of Petrograd, after fulfilling its aspirations, simply declared that the clause relating to this case was no longer valid, and turned the town into a naval station. As for the British Government, it did not carry out any of the protective measures it had hinted at, which shows how little it cared for the régime instituted by the Berlin treaty.

“Though the Imperial Ottoman Government scrupulously submitted to the harsh, heavy clauses of the treaty, a few previsions that were favourable to it were never carried out, in spite of its own insistence and that of its protectors, because one of the Powers thought it its own interest to raise difficulties to the Ottoman Empire.

“It ensues from all this that the fundamental and general clauses of the treaties of Paris and Berlin, concerning the Ottoman Empire, were annulled ipso facto by some of the signatories. Now, since the clauses of an international deed that are to the advantage of one of the contracting parties have never been carried out, it is impossible that the obligations contracted by this party should be considered as valid still. Such a state of things makes it necessary, as far as the aforesaid party is concerned, to annul such a treaty. It should also be borne in mind that, since the conclusion of these two treaties, the situation has completely changed.

“Since the Imperial Government is at war with four of the signatory Powers, to whose advantage and at whose eager request the aforesaid treaties were concluded, it follows that these treaties have become null and void, as far as the relations between Turkey and these Powers are concerned.

“Besides, the Imperial Government has concluded an alliance on a footing of complete equality with the other two signatory Powers. Henceforth the Ottoman Empire, being definitely freed from its condition of inferiority and from the international tutelage some of the Great Powers had an interest in maintaining, now sits in the European concert with all the rights and privileges of a completely independent State; and this new situation cancels even the causes of the aforesaid international agreements.

“All these considerations deprive the aforesaid contracts of any binding value.

“Nevertheless, that there may lurk no uncertainty on this head in the mind of the contracting Powers that have turned their friendly relations into an alliance with Turkey, the Imperial Government begs to inform the German and Austro-Hungarian Governments that it has annulled the treaties of 1856 and 1878.

“It also feels bound to declare that, in accordance with the principles of international law, it will certainly avail itself of such rights as are to its advantage, and have not yet been recognised.

“On the other hand, the Imperial Government, under the pressure of France, had been compelled to grant the sanjaks of Lebanon a strictly administrative and restricted autonomy, that might be a pretext to a certain extent to the intervention of the Great Powers. Though this situation was never sanctioned by a regular treaty, but by interior laws in 1861 and 1864, the Imperial Ottoman Government, in order to avoid any misunderstanding, feels bound to declare that it puts an end to that state of things, and, for the reasons mentioned above, it institutes in this sandjak the same administrative organisation as in the other parts of the Empire.”

After the military defeat of autumn, 1918, the leaders of the Committee of Union and Progress who had governed the Ottoman Empire since 1905 disappeared, and the statesmen of the former régime came into office again. In the very first days of October, 1918, the Talaat Pasha Cabinet had offered its resignation, which had not been accepted at first by the Sultan.

The new Ottoman Cabinet made a declaration of policy to Parliament on Wednesday, October 23, 1918. In the opening address, read by the Grand Vizier Izzet Pasha, an amnesty was promised to all political offenders. Turkey stated she was quite ready to accept a peace, based on Mr. Wilson’s fourteen points, and to grant at once to all the elements of the population, without any distinction of nationality or religion, full political rights and the right to a share in the administration of the country. She also promised to solve the question of the Arabian vilayets, to take into consideration their national aspirations, and to grant them an autonomous administration, provided the bonds existing between them, the Caliphate, and the Sultan, should be maintained. The whole Chamber, with the exception of ten deputies who refused to vote, passed a vote of confidence in the new Cabinet.

After the French victory in the East and the capitulation of Bulgaria, the political changes, which had already begun in Turkey, soon became quite pronounced. Talaat Pasha, whose ideas differed utterly from those of Enver Pasha, and who had more and more confined his activity to the war department, had gradually lost his influence over the policy of the Empire since the death of Mehmed V. After having taken his share, together with Enver and Jemal, in bringing Turkey into the war by the side of the Central Powers in 1914, he now realised that the game was up. Besides, the Ottoman Press now openly attacked the Cabinets of the two Empires, and reproached them with neglecting the interests of the Porte when the additional treaty of Brest-Litovsk was drafted, during the negotiations of Bukharest, and later on in the course of the negotiations with the Cabinet of Sofia.

Talaat, Javid, and Enver sought shelter in Berlin. Their flight greatly affected the new Constantinople Government on account of some financial malversations which had occurred while the leaders of the Committee of Union and Progress were in office. So the Sublime Porte in December, 1918, demanded their extradition, which Germany refused to grant. In April, 1919, Talaat, who lived in Berlin under the name of Sali Ali Bey, and who later on opened a public-house in that city, was sentenced to death by default in Constantinople, and a year later, in March, 1920, England, according to a clause of the Versailles treaty, put him down on the list of the war-criminals[14] whose extradition might be demanded.

[10] L’Éclair: “Comment le Goeben et le Breslau échappèrent aux flottes alliées,” by Henry Miles, June 16, 1921.

[11] M. Bompard’s letter to the editor of the Éclair, June 23, 1921.

[12] Blue Book, No. 64.

[13] Ibid., No. 70.

[14] Since the publication of the French edition of this book Talaat was murdered on March 15, 1921, at Charlottenburg, by an Armenian student named Solomon Teilirian, aged twenty-four, a native of Salmas in Persia.

IV
TURKEY AND THE CONFERENCE

As early as 1916 the Allies seem to have come to an agreement over the principle of the partition of the Ottoman Empire. In their answer to President Wilson they mentioned among their war aims “to enfranchise the populations enslaved to the sanguinary Turks,” and “to drive out of Europe the Ottoman Empire, which is decidedly alien to Western civilisation.”

According to the conventions about the impending partition of Turkey concluded between the Allies in April and May, 1916, and August, 1917, Russia was to take possession of the whole of Armenia and Eastern Anatolia, Constantinople, and the Straits. In virtue of the treaty signed in London on May 16, 1916, fixing the boundaries of two zones of British influence and two zones of French influence, France and England were to share Mesopotamia and Syria, France getting the northern part with Alexandretta and Mosul, and England the southern part with Haïfa and Baghdad. According to the treaty of August 21, 1917, Italy was to have Western Asia Minor with Smyrna and Adalia. Palestine was to be internationalised and Arabia raised to the rank of an independent kingdom.

But, following the breakdown of Russia and the entrance of America into the war, the conventions of 1916 and 1917 were no longer held valid. President Wilson declared in the fourteenth of his world-famous points that: “The Turkish parts of the present Ottoman Empire should be assured of secure sovereignty, but the other nations now under Turkish rule should be assured security of life and autonomous development.”

It follows that the partition of Turkish territories such as Mesopotamia or Syria between Powers that had no right to them, as was foreshadowed in the conventions of 1916, was no longer admitted; and the Conference in February, 1919, decided, at Mr. Wilson’s suggestion, that all territories that belonged to the Ottoman Empire before should be put under the control of the League of Nations, which was to assign mandates to certain Great Powers.

According to the decisions taken at that time, and at the special request of M. Venizelos, the Greeks obtained all the western coast of Asia Minor between Aivali and the Gulf of Kos, with Pergamus, Smyrna, Phocœa, Magnesia, Ephesus, and Halicarnassus, and a hinterland including all the vilayet of Aidin, except the sanjak of Denizli and part of that of Mentesha (Mughla).

The Italian delegation thought fit to make reservations about the assignment of Smyrna to Greece.

It seems that in the course of the conversations at St-Jean-de-Maurienne—Greece being still neutral at the time—M. Ribot asked Baron Sonnino whether Italy, to facilitate the conclusion of a separate peace with Austria-Hungary, would eventually consent to give up Trieste in exchange for Smyrna. The Italian delegation had merely noted down the offer, without giving an answer. The Italian diplomats now recalled that offer as an argument, not so much to lay a claim to Smyrna—as their subsequent attitude showed—as to prevent a change to Italy’s disadvantage in the balance of power in the Eastern Mediterranean, and an infringement of the London treaty that guaranteed her definite possession of the Dodecanese.

Moreover, according to Article 9 of the London treaty, in case of a partition of Asia Minor, or merely in case zones of influence should be marked out in it, Italy was to have the same share as the other Powers and receive, together with the province of Adalia, where she had acquired a paramount influence and obtained a recognition of her rights from Turkey in 1912, the neighbouring regions. In accordance with this article, the Conference seemed inclined to give Italy an international mandate for all the part of Asia Minor that was to be left to the Turks—namely, all the Anatolian plateau, including the vilayets of Kastamuni, Brusa, Angora, Konia, and Sivas. It is obvious that the difficulties raised by the assignment of Smyrna to Greece could not but be aggravated by the new political situation in case this mandate should be given to the Italians.

Consequently, when the Italians saw Smyrna assigned to Greece, they were all the more anxious to give to their new zone of influence in Asia Minor an outlet to the sea that should not depend on the great port of Western Asia Minor. After considering Adalia, Makri, and Marmaris, which are good harbours but do not communicate with the interior and are not connected with the chief commercial routes of the continent, their attention was drawn to Kush-Adassi, called by the Greeks New Ephesus and by themselves Scala Nuova, a port that numbered about 6,000 souls before the war, lying opposite to Samos, in the Gulf of Ephesus, about ten miles from the ruin of the old town of the same name and the Smyrna-Aidin railway.

This port, which is situated on the mouth of the Meander, might easily be connected by a few miles of railroad with the main railway line to the south of Ayasaluk which brings towards the Ægean Sea all the produce of Asia Minor; then it would divert from Smyrna much of the trade of Aidin, Denizli, and the lake region. To the merchants of Asia Minor—who deal with Syria, Egypt, Greece, Italy, and all Western Europe, excepting those who trade with the Black Sea—the Kush-Adassi line would be both faster and cheaper, if this port was as well equipped as Smyrna.

But, as Kush-Adassi happened to be in the zone which at first had been assigned to Greece and whose frontier goes down to the south as far as Hieronda Bay, Italy endeavoured in every way to carry farther to the north the boundaries of the Italian zone, in order to include this port in it. For this purpose, Italy took advantage of the troubled condition of the area round Aidin, Sokia, and Cape Mycale to send a police force up the Meander and the railway line along it, in order to carry her control up to the Gulf of Ephesus. Of course the territory lying between Hieronda and Kush-Adassi still remained part of the Greek zone of occupation, but, all the same, Italy set foot in it. Her diplomats soon turned this fact into a right of possession.

M. Tittoni soon after agreed to play the part of arbiter in the question of the southern frontier of Bulgaria; and in July, 1919, it was announced that after some conversations between M. Venizelos and M. Tittoni an understanding had been reached about Thrace and Northern Epirus, whereby Greece agreed to enlarge the northern part of the Italian zone of occupation in Asia Minor, and gave up to Italy the valley of the Meander. So, though on the whole M. Tittoni’s arbitration was in favour of Greece, Italy obtained the territorial triangle included between Hieronda, Nazili, and Kush-Adassi, the control over the Meander, and to a certain extent over the railway. In return for this, Italy promised to cede to Greece the Dodecanese except one, captured by Italy in 1912 during her war with Turkey, together with the Isle of Rhodes, though she had a right to keep the latter for at least five years. In case England should grant the inhabitants of Cyprus the right to pass under Greek sovereignty, Italy was to hold a plebiscite in Rhodes and let the native population become Greeks if they wished. By supporting the Greek claims in Thrace, Italy won the sympathies of Greece at a time when the latter both consolidated the rights of Italy on the continent and strengthened her own situation in the Dodecanese.

The control over the eastern part of Asia Minor which was to fall to the lot of the Armenians and included the vilayets of Erzerum, Van, Bitlis, Kharput, Diarbekir, and probably Trebizond—the population of the latter vilayet consisting chiefly of Moslems with a Greek minority—was to be assumed, so the Great Powers thought, by the United States.

It should be remembered that the question of the eastern vilayets was raised for the first time by the Tsars of Russia, and gave them a pretext for intervening in the domestic affairs of Turkey and thus carrying out their plans of expansion in Asia Minor. As a matter of fact, those vilayets were not really Armenian. The Armenians were in a minority there, except in two or three districts where, as throughout the Ottoman Empire, they were mixed up with Turks. They had lived peaceably together till the Powers thought fit to support the claims of the Armenians and incite them to rebel, in order to further their own aims in Turkey, by a misuse of the privileges granted them by the Capitulations.

Constantinople and the Straits seemed likely to be internationalised.

Lastly, the Arabian part of the Turkish Empire was to be cut off from it, though nobody could tell expressly in what manner, but in a way which it was easy to foresee.

We shall deal later on with the negotiations that took place during the war between the British Government and Hussein, Grand Sherif of Mecca, the Emir Feisal’s father, and we have already mentioned the help given to the British army by the Emir Feisal’s troops, after the aforesaid negotiations. These facts throw a light on the policy pursued by England later on; and besides, immediately after the hostilities, in a speech made in London on Friday, November 1, 1918, Mr. Barnes, a Labour member of the British Cabinet, while speaking on the armistice with Turkey, acknowledged:

“We could have signed it before, for we held the Turks at our discretion. For the last fortnight the Turks had been suing for peace, but we were on the way to Aleppo, which is to be the capital of the future independent Arab State, established in an Arab country and governed by Arabs. So we did not want to have done with the Turks till we had taken Aleppo.”

Such was the condition of the Turkish problem when the Peace Conference took it in hand for the first time.

Rivalries naturally soon arose.

The Emir Feisal, supported by England, laid claim not only to the whole of Arabia, but also to Palestine, Syria, and Mesopotamia to make up a huge Arab Empire, under his father’s rule. France, who opposed that plan, convened a Syrian Congress in Marseilles, to raise a protest against the partition of Syria as had been laid down by the Franco-English agreement of 1916.

Soon after the landing of Greek troops in Smyrna on the morning of May 15, 1919, brought about a serious conflict.

It is noteworthy that after General Allenby’s victories in Palestine and the resignation and flight of Talaat, Enver, and Jemal, General Izzet Pasha, who had been appointed Grand Vizier, had signed, on October 31, 1918, a convention of armistice, which put Turkish ports and railways under the Allies’ provisional control and allowed them “in case things should become alarming for them” to occupy “all strategic points.” This armistice had been concluded on the basis of Mr. Wilson’s principle that “to the Turkish regions of the Ottoman Empire an unqualified sovereignty should be ensured.” In no respect had the Turks broken the agreement when the Allies infringed it by allowing the Greeks to occupy Smyrna. This occupation, carried on in spite of France, who was not energetic enough, and one might almost say in spite of Italy, created a very serious situation.

Indeed, no good reason could be given in support of this decision. By the help of misleading or false information cleverly worded and widely distributed by a propaganda which overwhelmed the Press—and was only equalled by the propaganda carried on by Poland—political manœuvres induced the Allies to allow Greece, who wished to become “Greater Greece” and wanted Epirus, Thrace, Constantinople, Smyrna, Trebizond, and Adana, to occupy a region belonging to Anatolia, where the Turkish element predominates more than in all the rest of the Ottoman Empire, for there are only 300,000 Greeks against about 1,300,000 Turks. This permission granted to Greece was the more surprising as it seems to have been obtained because the Greek Government had informed the Supreme Council that the disorder prevailing in the vilayet of Smyrna was a danger to the non-Turkish populations.

Now the report of the Inter-allied Commission about the Greek occupation of Smyrna and the neighbouring territories which was sent later on and was dated from Constantinople, October 12, 1919, began as follows:

“The inquiry has proved that since the armistice the general condition of the Christians of the vilayet of Aidin has been satisfactory, and their security has not been threatened.

“If the occupation of Smyrna was ordered by the Peace Conference owing to inaccurate information, the primary responsibility lies with the individuals or governments that gave or transmitted inconsiderately such information as is mentioned in No. 1 of the established facts.

“It is obvious, therefore, that this occupation was not at all justifiable, and violated the terms of the armistice concluded between the Powers and Turkey.”

Moreover, to quote the very words of that report, the Greek occupation, “far from appearing as carrying out a civilising mission, has immediately put on the aspect of a conquest and a crusade.”

This inquiry, on the one hand, acknowledged that the responsibility for the events that took place at Smyrna on May 15 and 16 and in the immediate neighbourhood during the first days following the landing, lay with the Greek headquarters and some officers who did not perform their duty. On the other hand it stated that part of the responsibility rested with the Turkish authorities at Smyrna, who took no step to prevent the escape and arming of common law prisoners before the coming of the Greeks. Then it went on as follows:

“In the person of the high civil authority that represents it at Smyrna, the Greek Government is responsible for the serious disturbances that ended in bloodshed in the interior of the country during the advance of the Greek troops.... The Greeks alone are responsible for the bloodshed at Menemen.... The Greek officers who were at Menemen quite neglected their duty.”

And the Commission wound up its report with this:

“In the occupied region, putting aside the towns of Smyrna—where the number of Christians is high, but the number of Greek Christians much inferior to that of the Turks—and Aivali, the predominance of the Turkish element over the Greek element is undeniable.”

So we easily understand the violent and justifiable indignation felt by the Turks when the Greek troops landed, for they could not forget that now there were no Turks in Thessaly, where they numbered 150,000 in 1878, or in the Morea, where there had once been 300,000, and that in Greece only about 20,000 were left of the 100,000 that had once lived there.

M. Venizelos, in a letter addressed on May 29 to the President of the Conference, thought it his duty to give particulars about the way the occupation had been effected. After setting right what he styled “the wrong and misleading information given by newspapers,” he stated that the Greeks had “arrived at Aidin, on the southern side, east of Nymphaton and north of the River Ermos.” The Great Powers having asked the Greek Government, as he said expressly in his letter, “to occupy Smyrna and its environs” without stating exactly how far the environs of Smyrna reached, he thought he had a right to look upon this operation—which had been attended with a few incidents and had not been received everywhere with unmixed joy—as the outcome of a settled policy. After this occupation public meetings of protest took place in Constantinople.

An important Crown Council was held in the afternoon of May 26 at Yildiz-Kiosk, in order to enable the various political groups to express their opinion concerning the recent events.

The Sultan, attended by the princes of the Imperial Family, opened the meeting, and stated it had been thought necessary to call together the most eminent men of Turkey that they might express their opinion about the critical condition of the country.

The Grand Vizier, after recalling the events that had taken place in Turkey since the beginning of the war, asked the audience to let him have their opinions.

The Unionist group said they were dissatisfied with the composition of the Ministry, and demanded a Coalition Government, in which all parties should be represented.

Another political group asked the Crown Council to form itself into a National Assembly.

Somebody else showed the inanity of such suggestions and proposed to entrust the mandate of the administration of Turkey to a Great Power—without mentioning which Power. He added: “Otherwise Turkey will be dismembered, which would be her ruin.”

As the assembly had merely consultative powers, no decision was reached.

At the beginning of June, 1919, the Ottoman League sent from Geneva to Mr. Montagu, British Secretary for India, the following note:

“The Ottoman League has examined the statements which your Excellency was so kind as to make at the Peace Conference, regarding the subsequent fate of the Ottoman Empire.

“We have always been convinced that His Britannic Majesty’s Government in its relations with our country would resume its traditional policy, which was started and advocated by the most famous English statesmen, and that, after obtaining the guarantees required for the safety of its huge dominions, it would refuse to countenance any measure aiming at the oppression and persecution of Moslems.

“The British Government can realise better than any other Power the disastrous consequences that would necessarily follow throughout Islam on the downfall of the Ottoman Empire and any blow struck at its vital parts, especially at its capital, the universally revered seat of the Khilafat, where the best works of Moslem civilisation have been gathered for centuries.

“We feel certain that your Excellency will also realise better than anybody else of what importance would be to Great Britain the loyalty, not only of the Ottoman Moslems without any distinction of race, but of all the Mohammedans whose destiny is presided over by His Britannic Majesty.”

At last, about the end of the month, the treaty with Turkey was drafted by the Conference, and on June 11 the Turkish representatives were brought to France on board the French ironclad Démocratie.

The delegation included Tewfik Pasha, Riza Tewfik Bey, with Reshid Bey, former Minister of the Interior, as adviser. At its head was Damad Ferid Pasha, the Sultan’s brother-in-law, who, after the resignation of the Tewfik Pasha Cabinet at the beginning of March, 1919, had formed a new Ministry.

As was stated in the Allies’ answer to the Porte in the letter addressed to the Turkish Premier, Damad Ferid Pasha, Turkey had not attempted in the memorandum handed to the Conference to excuse the Germano-Turkish intrigues which had paved the way for her to take part in the war on the side of the Germans; neither had she attempted to clear herself of all the crimes she was charged with. Damad Ferid Pasha had simply pleaded that only the “Young Turks” of the Committee of Union and Progress were responsible for the Ottoman policy during the last five years, and that, if they had governed the Empire, as it were, in the name of the Germans, the whole Turkish nation could not be held responsible for this.

The Allies pointed out in their reply that they could not accept the distinction which cast all the blame on the Government and alleged the misdeeds were not imputable to the Turkish people merely because these misdeeds were abhorrent to Turkish ideas, as shown in the course of centuries. So the Allies informed the delegation they could not grant their request to restore Ottoman sovereignty over territories that had been taken away from them before.

Yet the Council, though they declared they could not accept such views or enter upon such a controversy, launched into considerations on Turkish ideas and Turkish influence in the world which, to say the least, were most questionable, as will be seen later on.

They stated, for instance, that no section of the Turkish people had ever been able to build up a lasting political organisation, the huge Empires of the Hioung-nous, the Ouigours, and the Kiptchaks having been of short duration. The Supreme Council also asserted that the lack of stability of the Ottoman Empire—which was represented as unable to develop—was due to the various origins of its elements. But other influences were laid aside, which have been at work, especially during the modern period, since the beginning of the decline. It should be borne in mind that three centuries ago the civilisation and prosperity of the Ottoman Empire were not inferior to those of the Western nations, and its inferiority appeared only nowadays, when Germany and Italy founded their unity, while the European States did not do anything in Turkey to improve—or even did much to aggravate—a condition of things that left to Turkey no possibility of recovery. If Moslem civilisation is quite different from Western civilisation, it does not follow necessarily that it is inferior to it. For several centuries its religious and social ideals safeguarded and ruled, to their satisfaction, the lives of numerous populations in the Levant, whereas more modern ideals in the West have not yet succeeded in bringing about conditions of life that can meet the requirements of man’s mind and physical nature. As to the so-called combativeness of the Turks and their supposed fanaticism—which may be only due, considering they were nomads at first, to their quick and headstrong nature—they both were certainly lessened by their intercourse and especially intermarriages with the Mongols, a quiet and peaceful people largely influenced by Buddhism and Lamaism, which they all profess, except a few Bouriate tribes that are still Shamanist. Moreover, even if such suppositions were true, their mixing with Western people could only have a good influence in soothing their original nature, whereas their eviction to Asia, by depriving them of any direct and close contact with Europe, would have the effect of reviving their former propensities.

Finally, the aforesaid document, though it was really superficial and rather vague on this point, purposed to give a crushing answer to the arguments of the Ottoman memorandum about the religious rivalries; yet these arguments were well grounded and most important, as appeared when the Protestant campaign broke out and Anglo-American opinion demanded the ejection of the Turks.

On June 27, 1919, the President of the Peace Conference in Paris addressed a second letter to Damad Ferid Pasha to inform him that the solution of the Turkish problem was postponed.

After stating that the declarations made before the Peace Conference by the Ottoman delegation “have been, and will continue to be, examined most attentively, as they deserve to be,” the letter went on to say that “they involve other interests than those of Turkey, and raise international questions, the immediate solution of which is unfortunately impossible; and it ended thus:

“Therefore, though the members of the Supreme Council are eager to restore peace definitely and fully realise it is a dangerous thing to protract the present period of uncertainty, yet a sound study of the situation has convinced them that some delay is unavoidable.

“They are of opinion, therefore, that a longer stay in Paris of the Ottoman delegation, which the Ottoman Government had asked to be allowed to send to France, would not be conducive to any good.

“Yet a time will come when an exchange of views will be profitable again; then the Allied and Associated Powers will not fail to communicate with the Ottoman Government as to the best means to settle the question easily and rapidly.”

One of the reasons given for this adjournment was the protest handed to Mr. Montagu, Secretary of State for India, by the Maharaja of Bikanir in the name of the Moslems of India, a protest which is supposed to have shaken the decisions already taken by the British Government.

At any rate, instead of maintaining the negotiations on a sound basis, and dealing squarely with the difficulties of the Turkish question, which would have made it possible to reach a better and more permanent solution, the Allies seemed to wish to break off the debates, or at least to postpone the discussion, in order to manœuvre and gain time. Perhaps they did it on purpose, or the negotiations came to an untimely end because, among the men who had assumed the charge of European affairs, some meant to intervene in them all the more eagerly because they did not know anything about them. They were not aware or had forgotten that in dealing with Eastern affairs or in pursuing negotiations with people of ancient civilisation, a great deal of delicacy, discretion, and shrewdness is required at the same time, and that generally diplomatists must expect plenty of haggling and procrastination, must avoid clashing with the adversary, and be able repeatedly to drop and resume a discussion smoothly, sometimes after long delays.

Somebody then quoted the words of the well-known French traveller Chardin in regard to Chevalier Quirini who, about 1671, carried on negotiations in Constantinople with the Vizier Ahmed Küprüli on behalf of the Republic of Venice:

“I heard M. Quirini say, when I had the honour of calling upon him, that the policy of the Turks far excelled that of the Europeans; that it was not restrained by maxims and regulations, but was wholly founded on, and regulated by, discernment. This policy, depending on no art or principles, was almost beyond anybody’s reach. So he candidly confessed that the vizier’s conduct was an utter mystery to him, and he was unable to fathom its discrimination, depth, secrecy, shrewdness, and artfulness.”

It is noteworthy that the same vizier was also able to cope successively with three ambassadors of Louis XIV.

The direction taken from the outset by the deliberations of the Conference, and the standpoint it took to settle the Turkish question, showed it was about to give up the traditional policy of the French kings in the East, which had been started by Francis I, and the last representatives of which had been the Marquis de Villeneuve, Louis XV’s ambassador, and the Comte de Bonneval.

As early as the end of the eighteenth century Voltaire, though he extolled Turkish tolerance throughout his “Essai sur la tolérance,” and wrote that “two hundred thousand Greeks lived in security in Constantinople,” advocated quite a different policy in his “Correspondance,” and took sides with the Russians against the Turks. After confessing that “he had no turn for politics,” and stating in “Candide” that he only cared for the happiness of peoples, he wrote to Frederick II:

“I devoutly hope the barbarous Turks will be driven out of the land of Xenophon, Socrates, Plato, Sophocles, and Euripides. If Europe really cared, that would soon be done. But seven crusades of superstition were once undertaken, and no crusade of honour will ever be undertaken; all the burden will be left to Catherine.”

He did not conceal how highly pleased he was with the events of 1769-71, and he wrote to the “Northern Semiramis,” as he styled her:

“It is not sufficient to carry on a fortunate war against such barbarians; it is not enough to humble their pride; they ought to be driven away to Asia for ever. Your Imperial Majesty restores me to life by killing the Turks. It has always been my opinion that if their empire is ever destroyed, it will be by yours.”

Indeed, some people maliciously hinted at the time that Voltaire’s opinion of the Turks was due to his disappointment at the failure of his play “Mahomet, ou le fanatisme,” and that it was for the same reason he wrote in his “Essai sur les mœurs et l’esprit des nations” while he was Madame du Chatelet’s guest:

“Force and rapine built up the Ottoman Empire, and the quarrels between Christians have kept it up. Hardly any town has ever been built by the Turks. They have allowed the finest works of antiquity to fall to decay; they rule over ruins.”

It seems that the members of the Supreme Council, in their answer to the Turkish delegation, only harped upon this old theme, and amplified it, and that in their settlement of the question they were inspired by similar considerations, evincing the same misunderstanding of Turkey and the same political error. The Supreme Council might have remembered J. J. Rousseau’s prophecy in his “Contrat Social,” which might very well be fulfilled now: “The Russian Empire will endeavour to subjugate Europe, but will be subjugated. The Tatars, its subjects and neighbours, will become its masters and ours too.”[15]

The negotiations which had just been broken off could only have been usefully carried on if the Allies had quite altered their policy and had realised the true condition of the Ottoman Empire and the interests of the Western nations, especially those of France.

The condition of the Ottoman Empire, as will be seen later on, when we shall dwell upon the slow and deep disintegration which had taken place among the Turkish and Arabian populations, was on the whole as follows: The Young Turk revolution, on which great hopes were built, had ended lamentably: the Austrians had wrested Bosnia-Herzegovina from Turkey; the Turco-Italian war had taken from her another slice of her territory; then the coalition of the Balkan States had arisen, which seems to have been prepared and supported by England and by the other nations which followed her policy. Finally, the treaty of Bukharest confirmed the failure of the principle—once solemnly proclaimed by France and England—of the territorial integrity of Turkey. So the Turks no longer had any confidence in Europe, and, being sacrificed once more in the Balkan war, and as they could no longer trust England, they were necessarily thrown into the arms of Germany.

After Abdul Hamid, Mehmed V, with his weak, religious mind, allowed himself to be led by Enver, and his reign, disturbed by three wars, cost Turkey huge territorial losses. Mehmed VI, being more energetic and straightforward, tried to restore order in the State, and to put an end to the doings of the Committee of Union and Progress.

Then, too, the Crown Prince, Abdul Mejid, a man about fifty, who speaks French very well, evinces the same turn of mind. After seeing what Germany could do with the Turkish Empire, such men, who had not kept aloof from modern ideas, and to whom European methods were not unfamiliar, had made up their mind that the Turks should not be driven out of Europe. But Mejid Effendi was soon deprived of influence through intrigues, and henceforth engaged in his favourite hobby, painting, in his palace on Skutari Hill, and kept away from politics.

Mustafa Kemal, who had been sent to Amasia as Inspector-General of the Eastern army, had secretly raised an army on his own account, with the help of Reouf Bey, once Minister of Marine in the Izzet Cabinet. When recalled to Constantinople by the Turkish Government in July, 1919, he had refused to obey, and had proclaimed himself his own master. Though he had once gone to Berlin with the Sultan, who was only Crown Prince at the time, the latter degraded him and deprived him of the right of wearing his decorations—which could only have been a political measure intended to show that the throne and the Government could not openly countenance the movement that was taking place in Anatolia.

Mustafa Kemal, brought up at Salonika, had only become well known in Constantinople during the Revolution of 1908. During the war in the Balkan Peninsula he had distinguished himself at Chatalja, and after being promoted colonel he was sent as military attaché to Sofia, and then charged with a mission in Paris. He came back to Constantinople in 1914, a short time before war broke out.

Of course, when he had started his career a long time previously, Mustafa Kemal had been connected indirectly with the Union and Progress party, as he was at the head of the revolutionary group in which this association originated, but he was never a member of the Merkez-i-Oumimi, the central seat of the Committee of Union and Progress. He was a good officer, very fond of his profession, and, as he loathed politics, he had soon kept away from them, and consequently never played any part in them, and was hardly ever influenced by them. Yet the supporters of the Committee of Union and Progress, who have made great mistakes, but have always been patriots, have necessarily been compelled lately to co-operate with him, though they did not like to do so at the outset.

Mustafa Kemal was undoubtedly the real leader of the movement which had already spread over the whole of Anatolian Turkey. As his influence was enormous and he had an undeniable ascendancy over the Turkish troops he had recruited, his power was soon acknowledged from Cartal, close to Constantinople to the Persian frontier. He had compelled Liman von Sanders to give him command of a sector at a moment when the Turks seemed to be in a critical situation during the attack of the Anglo-French fleet in the Dardanelles, and by not complying with his orders he had saved the Turkish army by the victory of Anafarta, and perhaps prevented the capture of Constantinople, for two hours after the Allies, whose casualties had been heavy, retired.

But he had soon come into conflict with Enver Pasha. Their disagreement had begun during the war of Tripoli; it had increased during the Balkan war, and had now reached an acute state. The chief reason seems to be that they held quite different opinions about the organisation of the army and the conduct of the war operations. Mustafa Kemal having always refused to take part in politics after the Young Turk revolution of 1908, it seems difficult to believe this hostility could be accounted for by political reasons, though the situation had now completely changed. As to Mustafa Kemal’s bickerings and petty quarrels with several German generals during the war, they seem to have had no other cause than a divergence of views on technical points.

In consequence of this disagreement Mustafa Kemal was sent to Mesopotamia in disgrace. He came back to Constantinople a few weeks before the armistice. After the occupation of Smyrna he was appointed Inspector-General of Anatolia, where he organised the national movement.

By Mustafa Kemal’s side there stood Reouf Bey, once Minister of Marine, who, during the Balkan war, as commander of the cruiser Hamidié, had made several raids in Greek waters, had then been one of the signatories of the Moudros armistice, and now was able to bring over to the Anatolian movement many naval officers and sailors, and General Ali Fuad Pasha, the defender of Fort Pisani at Janina during the Balkan war, who had a great prestige among the troops.

Bekir Sami Bey, once Governor-General, and Ahmed Rustem Bey, formerly ambassador at Washington, were the first political men of note who joined the nationalist movement. On Mustafa Kemal’s arrival at Erzerum, Kiazim Karabekir, together with the other commanders, acknowledged him as their chief, and pledged themselves to support him against Constantinople.

Mustafa Kemal openly charged the Government with betraying Turkey to the Allies, and asked all those who wanted to defend their country and their religion to join him. At that time he only had at his disposal two divisions of regular troops; he sent an appeal to the populations of Sivas and Ushak, and many volunteers joined his colours. Colonel Bekir Sami, who commanded the Panderma-Smyrna line and all the district, also rebelled against the Constantinople Government, and soon his 10,000 soldiers joined the troops of Mustafa Kemal, who assumed the general command of all the insurgent troops. On the other hand, Kiazim Bey threatened to resume hostilities, in case too heavy conditions should be forced on Turkey. Mustafa Kemal, as he refused to make any concessions to the victors of Turkey, and opposed any separatist idea or the cession of any Ottoman territories, of course had with him a large section of public opinion, which was roused by the Allies’ threat to take from Turkey half her possessions, Thrace, Smyrna, and Kurdistan, and to drive the Sultan into Asia.

On July 23, a Congress of the committees which had been established in various parts of the Empire for the defence of the national rights was held at Erzerum.

The proceedings were secret, but at the end of the congress an official report was sent to the High Commissioners of the Allies in Constantinople.

An “Anatolian and Rumelian League for the Defence of the National Rights” was formed, which later on was called the “National Organisation.” According to what has become known about the sittings of the Congress, the principles that were to control the action of the National Organisation and to constitute its programme were the following: (1) Grouping of the various Moslem nationalities of the Empire into a whole politically and geographically indivisible and administered so as to ensure the respect of their ethnic and social differences. (2) Equality of rights for non-Moslem communities so far as consistent with the principle of the political unity of the State. (3) Integrity of the Empire within the boundaries of Turkish sovereignty as they were in September, 1918, when the armistice was concluded—which are almost the same as the ethnic boundaries of Turkey. (4) No infringement whatever on the sovereignty of the Turkish Empire. A special article expressed the sincere wish on the part of the Turkish nation, with a view to the general restoration of Turkey, to accept the support of any Western country, providing the latter did not aim at an economic or political subjection of any kind.

This programme was sanctioned in the course of a second Congress which was held at Sivas at the beginning of September, 1919, to allow the local committees which had not been able to send delegates to Erzerum to give their approbation to it and to adhere to the national movement.

The executive functions of the Congress were entrusted to a representative committee presided over by Mustafa Kemal, and consisting of members chosen by the Congress, who were: Reouf Bey, Bekir Sami Bey, Hoja Raif Effendi, Mazhar Bey, once vali of Bitlis, and later on Ahmed Rustem Bey, once Turkish ambassador at Washington, Haidar Bey, once vali of Kharput, and Hakki Behij Bey.

The local militias which had been raised took the name of national forces; and when they had been linked with the regular army, they were put by Mustafa Kemal under the command of Kara Bekir Kiazim Pasha, who became commander-in-chief in Eastern Anatolia, and Ali Fuad Pasha, who had the command of the forces of Western Anatolia.

Two delegates of the “Liberal Entente,” some leaders of which group seemed open to foreign influence, were sent to Constantinople to ask the Central Committee what attitude was to be taken, and were prudently ordered to enjoin the supporters of the Liberal Entente to be most careful.

But though part of the Constantinople Press seemed to deny any importance to the Anatolian movement, the Stambul Government deemed it proper to send missions to Trebizond, Angora, and Eskishehr, headed by influential men, in order to restore order in those regions. It also directed two of its members to go to the rebellious provinces to see how things stood, and come to terms with Mustafa Kemal. Some of these missions never reached the end of their journey; most of them had to retrace their steps, some did not even set out. In September, 1919, Marshal Abdullah Pasha, who had instructions to reach Mustafa Kemal at Trebizond, and enjoin him to give up his self-assumed command, did not stir from Constantinople. The Government also sent General Kemal Pasha, commander of the gendarmerie, to scatter the nationalist irregular troops, but nothing was heard of him after a while, and he was supposed to have been taken prisoner by, or gone over to, the rebels. The Anatolian valis and commanders who had been summoned to Constantinople did not come, protesting they could not do so or were ill.

On the other hand, Mustafa Kemal sent back to Constantinople Jemal Bey, vali of Konia, and a few functionaries, who had remained loyal to the Stambul Government. Ismaïl Bey, vali of Brusa, one of the most important leaders of the Liberal Entente, was driven out of office by both Governments.

In addition, the cleavages already existing in the Ottoman Empire, which since 1913 only included the prominently Moslem provinces, had widened, and endangered the unity of the Empire. In the provinces where the Arabic-speaking Moslems were in a majority the authority of the Turkish Government dwindled every day; they meant to shake off the Ottoman yoke, and at the same time to keep off any Western influence; they also wished more and more eagerly to part from the provinces where the Turks and Ottoman Kurds—who aim at uniting together—are in a majority.

For the last four centuries France had enjoyed an exceptional situation in Turkey. Her intellectual influence was paramount; French was not only known among the upper classes, but it was also in current use in politics and business, and even a good many clerks in post-offices and booking-offices at Constantinople understood it.

French schools, owing to their very tolerant spirit, were very popular among nearly all classes of the Turkish population, and the sympathies we had thus acquired and the intellectual prestige we enjoyed were still more important than our material interests. Nearly 25,000 children attended the French elementary schools, most of them religious schools, which bears witness both to the confidence the Mahommedans had in us, and the tolerance they showed. The Grammar School of Galata-Serai, established in 1868 by Sultan Abdul Aziz with the co-operation of Duruy, French Minister of Public Education, and several other secondary schools which are now closed, diffused French culture and maintained sympathy between the two peoples. The Jesuits’ school of medicine at Beyrut also spread our influence.

The material interests of France in Turkey were also of great importance; and it was, therefore, a great mistake for France to follow a policy that was bound to ruin the paramount influence she had acquired. The other Western States had as important interests as France; and it was necessary to take all these facts into account if an equitable settlement of the Turkish question was to be reached.

France, England, and Germany were, before the war, the three Powers that owned the most important financial concerns in Turkey, France easily holding the premier position, owing to the amount of French capital invested in Turkish securities, Government stocks, and private companies.

From 1854 to 1875 thirteen loans—almost one every year—were issued by the Ottoman Government, ten being entrusted to the care of French banks or financial establishments controlled by French capital.

These thirteen loans have only an historical interest now, except the three loans issued in 1854, 1855, and 1871, secured on the Egyptian tribute, which still exist with some modifications, but may be looked upon as Egyptian or rather English securities, and were not included in the settlement effected in 1881 which converted them into new bonds, and the 1870-71 loan, styled “Lots Turcs,” the whole of which at the time was subscribed by Baron Hirsch in return for the concession of railways in Europe. To them let us add another financial operation effected about 1865, consisting in the unification of the various bonds of the interior debt and their conversion into bonds representing a foreign debt.

Most of these operations were controlled by the Imperial Ottoman Bank, founded by the most influential English and French financial groups, to which the Ottoman Government by its firmans of 1863 and 1875 granted the privilege of being the State bank. It thus has the exclusive right of issuing banknotes, and has the privilege of being the general paymaster of the Empire and the financial agent of the Government, both at home and abroad.