TURKEY AND THE WAR " The present War undoubtedly was largely a war for the control of Asia Minor." — Nineteenth Century, June, 1916. TURKEY AND THE WAR BY VLADIMIR JABOTINSKY (War Correspondent of the " Russkia Vedomosti " of Moscow). LONDON T. FISHER UNWIN, LTD ADELPHI TERRACE First published in igiy [All rights reserved'] D It is my pleasant duty gratefully to ac- knowledge that — so far as the linguistic form of this essay is concerned — the follow- ing pages were written with the friendly and constant collaboration of Miss Violet Ross- Johnson. v. J. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2013 http://archive.org/details/turkeywarOOjabo CONTENTS PART I : THE AIM OF THIS WAR PAGE I. AIMS AND CAUSES 13 II. THE ALLEGED AIMS OF THE WAR : (a) FREEDOM OF SMALL NATIONALITIES . . 25 (b) ALSACE-LORRAINE . . 28 (c) MILITARISM 35 III. ASIATIC TURKEY . . -49 IV. PARTITION AND WAR . . 65 PART II: THE INNER STATE OF TURKEY V. AFTER SIX YEARS OF CON- STITUTION ... 77 vii CONTENTS PAGE VI. THE YOUNG TURKS ... 85 VII. THE TURKISH MINORITY IN TURKEY . . ' . . 105 VIII. ILLUSIONS AND DISAPPOINTMENTS 121 ix. "est delenda" . . .135 PART III : CONTROVERSIAL POINTS OF THE PARTITION SCHEME X. A LIST OF CLAIMS . . . 149 XI. THE STRAITS .... 165 XII. SYRIA AND PALESTINE . . 187 XIII. THE ARABS .... 213 XIV. THE GERMAN CLAIM . . 233 PART IV : SOME MILITARY ASPECTS XV. THE MAIN FRONT . „ n 249 viii PART I— THE AIM OF THIS WAR I— AIMS AND CAUSES I Aims and Causes This little book is an attempt to define the real aims of the present war. That is to say, we presume that there may be a difference between what people, even people in leading positions, suppose to be the aim of the war, and what it really is. The current formulas on this subject circulated in this country may prove, on more atten- tive analysis, to reflect popular feelings rather than immanent realities of the universal situation. Mr. Asquith's well- known statement, twice repeated in 1914 and 1916, is perhaps one instance. Noble 13 TURKEY AND THE WAR in spirit and energetic in form though it be, it cannot pretend to give a full enumera- tion of all the problems involved in the actual conflict. Even more : some points upon which it dwelt are, perhaps, not so important as other points which it did not mention. To be sure, popular feeling plays a great role in every war. The masses of a belli- gerent country must have before them a clear goal for which they think it worth while to fight ; and this constitutes, as a German would say, the " subjective " aim of the war. But besides this, perhaps above this, there is the " objective " aim. It is, in some way, independent of the people's mood or inclination. It is in- herent in the situation, produced and imposed by the force of things. 14 AIMS AND CAUSES What is the way to find out these " objective " aims in the intricacies of the present conflict ? First of all, by defining its causes. That is to say, from among the different things which are generally quoted as " causes of the war " we must separate those which made the war in- evitable. Analysing the different factors, we shall easily see that many of them would not have been able by themselves to provoke so enormous a conflagration ; they may have added fuel, but did not make the fire ; whilst a few of them, or perhaps just one of them, would inevitably have produced the conflict even if the others had not existed. The removal of these essential roots of the struggle is the natural immanent aim of the war. With- out this, the settlement would not be 15 i TURKEY AND THE WAR effective even if the secondary causes were removed, and a new and perhaps more terrible war must follow. In dealing with this analysis we must ignore every sentimental consideration. Some battlecries which excite our greatest sympathies may prove, on test, to be of secondary importance ; in that case we shall have to accept the truth and to draw from it the necessary solutions, however unpalatable they may be. Again, what our inquiry ascertains to be the " real aim " may not in itself inspire us with enthusiasm : but we must submit to its imperative necessity and carry it through To make our meaning still clearer lei us have recourse to an old-fashioned bul still useful device : to the parable. Imagine an old town in which an epidemic disease 16 AIMS AND CAUSES suddenly breaks out. People are naturally mxious to discover the source of the scourge md to remove it. Some think that the :ause lies in the absence of vegetation ; others say that the streets of the town ire too narrow and the houses too dark, others again insist on the necessity of mproving the underground drainage, rhus a complete scheme of reconstruction 3f the old town is formed, which attracts sympathies and excites enthusiasms. It works its own way further : Mr. Somebody s suddenly reminded of his own old feud with his neighbour, a field-boundary dis- pute unjustly decided by the court, and ie goes around saying that there can be 10 health where there is no justice, and that a radical struggle against the disease mplies a reform of the tribunals — and 17 B TURKEY AND THE WAR the revision of some old quarrels. But the Doctor knows that the real cause of the epidemic is the bad quality of the potable water, because the source from which it comes is infected ; and to dis- infect it the picturesque beauty of the river-margin must be deformed by a plain but hygienic embankment. That is the difficulty, because many of his fellow- citizens love the romantic river-side in its wildness. So the Doctor says : " Your scheme is very good. I grant you, green spaces are necessary : wide streets and bright houses are healthy : a more perfect drainage is of the greatest importance. I even agree with the desirability of a reform of the courts. Try it all if you can. I shall be glad if you succeed. But don't forget that even if you succeed in 18 AIMS AND CAUSES all this you don't destroy the root of our plague, and it will persist. If you want to get rid of it you must embank the river. That is the main thing — that is the thing to be done. I know you don't like it ; but I can't count with your nice feel- ings in this question. Drop the whole scheme if necessary, but remember the river." The popular list of the " aims of the war " includes the freedom of small nation- alities, a fair solution of the Alsace problem, and what people call the destruction of Prussian militarism. We intentionally ab- stain from mentioning such axioms as the restoration of Belgium : it is a holy and imperative duty of the Allies, but the redressing of a consequence of the war cannot be considered as one of those aims 19 TURKEY AND THE WAR which determine or underlie human con- flagrations. Nor will we indulge in such beautiful ideals as the " prohibition " of wars and the creation of a compulsory International Tribunal — we are dealing with plain realities, not with ideals. On the other hand, the three points mentioned just above are certainly within the bounds of practical politics. Everybody to whom freedom is not merely an empty word must fully recognise that their realisation would be a blessing for humanity ; and he will encourage the Allies to insist, cost what might, upon this noble platform. Its fulfilment, we hope, will be the conse- quence of the war ; but we are now concerned with the causes. Let it there- fore be said at once, without further pre- amble, that the present war owes its birth 20 AIMS AND CAUSES directly and beyond doubt to the problem of the Near and Middle East. We strongly reject every suspicion that we are underrating the great value oi such principles as protection of the smaller nations, the re-annexation of Alsace-Lor- raine, and the taming of the shrew whose name is German Junkerdom. It would indeed be a heavy disappointment, perhaps a moral disaster for the civilised world if these goals could not be attained in con- nection with this war. But the root of the present plague is in Asia Minor, and the first and last aim of the war is the solution of the Eastern question. In the following chapters we shall try to recall the facts and arguments which led us to this conclusion. 21 -THE ALLEGED AIMS OF THE WAR II The Alleged Aims of the War (a) Freedom of Small Nationalities Is the establishment of the freedom of small nations an indispensable aim of the war, a conditio sine qua non of peace ? This question is tantamount to another one : was it the absence of such freedom that caused the war ? Let some serious and unsweetened words be said on this subject. The list of small nationalities to whom freedom is denied is very long. It includes not only the Slavs, Roumanians, Italians of Ger- many, Austria and Hungary, not only the 25 TURKEY AND THE WAR Armenians of Turkey. It includes also the Finns, Poles, Ukrainians, Jews and many, many other small peoples — Armenians not excepted — in Russia. Some malignant people may add that it includes so far the Irish nation which has no more autonomy than Poland. And, since we place among the oppressed nations the Czechs, who possess two Universities where their lan- guage is predominant, it may be worth while to mention the Flemish of Belgium for whom the " flamandisation " of the Ghent Academy is still only a hope of the future. We do not inquire who was right and who was wrong in all these cases. We do not even intend to repeat, " Phy- sician, heal thyself." But one thing is obvious : the sufferings of the smaller nationalities, taken alone, could not have 26 THE ALLEGED AIMS OF THE WAR provoked a European conflict. Our sym- pathy with them does not go so far — and none of the greater belligerent countries ever seemed disposed to draw the sword for their sake. Italy was the ally of the ruler of the Trentino and Istria ; Austria, where the Poles were all-powerful, was the ally of Germany where Polish children were forbidden to pray to God in Polish ; and the sincerest sympathy with the descend- ants of Kosciuszko did not prevent France from concluding the alliance with Russia and from keeping silence over every- thing that happened in Warsaw. It is useless to insist further upon this point, except to say that the status quo of many small nationalities could have yet lasted for years and years without provoking a conflict between Great Powers. The recog- 27 TURKEY AND THE WAR nition of this truth compels us to conclude that even after this war a quite durable peace could be signed and kept without implying any radical improvement in the condition of subject peoples. This plain truth is so well understood elsewhere that the French insist upon " freedom of small nations " with much less emphasis than the English, and official Russia with still less. (b) Alsace-Lorraine The Great War has shown that France keeps the memory of Alsace-Lorraine with a freshness almost unaffected by time. For many observers this fact seemed little short of a revelation. Andr6 Lichten- berger, in a book on Alsace published in 1912, told us how a French captain had 28 THE ALLEGED AIMS OF THE WAR asked fifty recruits : " What is Alsace ? " Thirty-eight of them had answered " a peu pres convenablement," whilst twelve- — that is a quarter of the whole — " ignoraient de quoi il s'agissait." On the other side, the younger generations in the annexed provinces passed through the German schools, while they were artificially severed from any French influence ; considerable numbers of German " immigres," especi- ally from Prussia, had been poured into the country, so that Metz, for instance, had in 1907, out of 6,450 electors, 4,300 immigrants and only 2,150 natives. The psychological effects of these circumstances seemed to be undeniable ; and we have only to recall Rene Bazin's novel " Les Oberle " in order to remind our readers that indifference towards France and 29 TURKEY AND THE WAR inclination to a lasting settlement with Berlin were not limited exclusively to the new-comers, but showed themselves even amongst the old Alsatian families. The political elections gave what seemed even a more striking test of this change of spirit. In 1887 all the fifteen deputies which the annexed provinces returned to the Reichstag belonged to the Alsace- Lorraine party ; in 1912 only nine re- mained faithful to the old banner of pro- vincial particularism — the other six seats were conquered by different Imperial parties. These figures seem to speak very clearly, especially if compared with the numbers of the Polish club in the same Reichstag which, from thirteen in 1887, rose to eighteen in 191 2 — in spite of a German immigration to Posen far more 30 THE ALLEGED AIMS OF THE WAR formidable than that to Alsace. Even after the war began the Temps, discussing the probabilities of a referendum in Alsace- Lorraine on the question of re-annexation, seemed to be not completely sure of a unanimous reply. But the apprehension on both sides proved rather groundless. The Prussians themselves had the happy inspiration, through the famous incident of Zabern which happened just on the eve of the war, to refresh and strengthen all the grievances and bitternesses of the Alsatian heart, and it is now officially admitted in Germany that the attitude of the native population in the Imperial land is " not satisfactory." Alsace has not forgotten France. Nor has France forgotten Alsace. The 3i TURKEY AND THE WAR war has at once revived the old love that slept, but was alive ; and to-day, if any fifty recruits were asked " What is Alsace ? " every man would reply : " It is what we are fighting for." This mutual faith after half a century of severation is one of the most impressive features of this war. But in trying to weigh the exact part it plays in the present conflict we must be careful to avoid any exaggeration. Now that France is at war, she wants to recover her own fringes whose children long to return home. But it would be a striking injustice to demo- cratic France, even an outrageous calumny, to say that France would have ever will- ingly provoked the war, even for that holy cause. None of her enemies, cer- tainly none of her friends could admit 32 THE ALLEGED AIMS OF THE WAR such a possibility. The Revanche party had never, in the course of the last decades, arisen to a strength sufficient to influence the foreign policy of the French Republic. If this war had not come France would certainly have continued to keep a Memory and a Will in the depths of her national heart, but her actual policy would still have remained as it was seen to be on the occasion of Agadir — a policy tending to peace and prepared for sacrifices for the sake of peace. The question of Alsace cannot be considered as a cause of the war. We must insist upon this, and insist, first of all, in fairness to France, whose hands bear no stain of all this blood. We hope our words will be rightly under- stood. Even supposing that the present 33 c TURKEY AND THE WAR war proves unable to solve such questions as Alsace-Lorraine, the Trentino, or Poland, that will not imply that the concerned nations renounce their respective claims. Neither France nor Alsace will ever recon- cile themselves with the brutal fact of 1871 ; never will Italy forget the terre irredente ; the Polish nation will strive and struggle against her three rulers, just as the other nationalities of Russia and Austria-Hungary will never bow to their yoke. But the nature of all these as- pirations does not necessarily imply a European war as the only, or even the main way of realization. Other ways are open — internal developments of the back- ward countries, international bargains and compensations in the case of eventual oversea acquisitions, and in general that 34 THE ALLEGED AIMS OF THE WAR vague but still undeniable thing which we call progress. It may assume forms of revolution or evolution ; in either case it is a slow process, certainly much slower than a decision enforced by war. But we can be assured that everybody in the civilized countries of Europe will prefer the slow way to a repetition of the uni- versal horror that is passing before our eyes. Now that the world is at war, the Allies must undoubtedly do their utmost to achieve a fair settlement of the men- tioned ethnical and territorial problems ; but a failure in this regard, sad though it would be, is not likely to set the world at war again. (c) Militarism What is meant by " destruction of Prussian militarism " ? Mr. Asquith, the 35 TURKEY AND THE WAR responsible author of the phrase, gave an explanation of it some time ago that seemed to restrict its meaning very closely. He said : "As a result of the war we intend to establish the principle that inter- national problems must be handled by free negotiations on equal terms ^between free peoples, and that this settlement shall no longer be hampered and swayed by the overmastering dictation of a Govern- ment controlled by a military caste. That is what I mean by the destruction of the military domination of Prussia. " Put this way the crushing of Prussian militarism is an obvious necessity. It can- not even be said to be one of the distinct aims of the war — it is simply an essential and inherent element of victory. The vic- tory of the Allies, whatever be the peace 36 THE ALLEGED AIMS OF THE WAR terms after the struggle is won, will nat- urally imply the liquidation of the German dream of an " overmastering dictation/' Perhaps it can be said that the buzzing of this dream has been already stopped even in the most sanguine German heads. It is already killed, the victory of the Allies will bury it for ever. But this sensible and obviously fair scheme has nothing to do with the des- truction of militarism. Militarism is a system applied nowadays in the major- ity of civilized countries : it consists in employing a big part of the State's resources, directly or indirectly, for arma- ments. It is a very wicked system ; it obstructs the development of education and social reforms ; it poisons the soul of the civilized peoples ; the removal of 37 TURKEY AND THE WAR it would be a blessing for the world. But it is clear that it cannot be removed in Prussia without being removed at the same time and in the same measure in all the other countries. It is again the old question of limitation of armaments — a question of ideals, while we must not forget that in this war we are dealing with realities. It is a favourite formula with many of us to say that militarism by itself is a mutual provocation to war, that the weight of military expenditures in the different countries compels them, as it were, to make good their sacrifices by utilizing the formidable weapons which they have ac- cumulated. It may be true. But there are truths which, like medals, have their reverse. The facts of the last thirty-five 38 THE ALLEGED AIMS OF THE WAR years of world's history hardly suggest that militarism means frequency of wars between militaristic countries. It cannot be denied that the last decades which witnessed an unparalleled flourishing of militarism, have been just those in which conflagrations between Great Powers have occurred much more seldom than before. The only real exception was the Russo-Japanese war. The Spanish-American war was a conflict between two nations to which the reproach of militarism can hardly be applied. The same must be said of the Anglo-Boer war : as a land-power England has never been accused of " militarism " even in paci- fist pamphlets. The Italian Tripoli cam- paign was rather a military expedition than a war : it is enough to recall that the Italian casualties in the conquest of 39 TURKEY AND THE WAR Tripoli amounted to a few thousands. The Chino-Japanese war belonged to the same category, and also the European expedition against the Boxers. In the Graeco-Turkish war, and in the two recent Balkan wars, however cruel the latter may have been, none of the leading militaristic Powers were engaged. The leading militaristic Powers managed to avoid the danger for a longer period than would have been possible in the middle of the nineteenth century, when armaments were cheap and childish in comparison with ours of to-day. The long European peace may have been a chance ; but it may have been also, and perhaps with more probability, a consequence of the formidable development of armaments. Knowing what it costs in money and 40 THE ALLEGED AIMS OF THE WAR guessing what it might cost in human lives, the Great Powers felt naturally afraid of taking irreparable steps. Buckle proved that the invention of gunpowder, instead of increasing the frequency of wars, dimin- ished it in a very considerable proportion. The cheaper the easier — it is a rule for wars as for goods. All this will certainly not prevent us from hating militarism ; but on the other hand there is no direct proof that the present war is simply or mainly " a result of excessive armaments/ ' Militarism is responsible for the cruel character of the tragedy, but the causes of the tragedy are to be found in the presence of conflicting interests, not of modern weapons. The liquidation of militarism, in Prussia and everywhere, is a thing fair, holy and necessary, but it 4i TURKEY AND THE WAR is not one of the natural, objective, im- manent aims of the Great War. This particular question of armaments as cause of wars includes one especially crucial point : the Anglo-German naval competition. This was perhaps one of the chief causes of England's entry into the war, but certainly not of the war itself. Speaking as we are of its aims we could dismiss this point even with- out consideration. No responsible man in England has ever formulated any intention of including in the peace terms a clause preventing Germany from further increase of her navy. Of course there was, and there is still, a hope that engagements on the sea will result in a de facto reduc- tion of the strength of the German fleet. But from this hope to the view that a 42 THE ALLEGED AIMS OF THE WAR Power of seventy million inhabitants can be " forbidden " ship-building is a long way, and so far w T e have no proof that anybody here intends to press this special point at the peace negotiations. So we have the right to leave this question out. Still let us remember that it presents the same pros and cons of the greater con- troversy of armaments. Naval militarism is, after all, a sub-division of general militarism. The one can no more than the other be made directly responsible for conflicts between State and State. Here again we have only a weapon which serves warlike purposes but does not create them. Two strong naval Powers can live in peace side by side indefinitely just as two strong military Powers, unless con- tending interests force them to draw the 43 TURKEY AND THE WAR swords — or to weigh the anchors. Of course an international agreement for mutual limitation of naval armaments would be a very useful reform just as in the case of land armaments. But it would be risky to think that the time has already come for such an arrangement on land or sea. It is not likely that peoples, all conscious of the mighty re- sources within their grasp, would willingly renounce using them. It is the same psychological impossibility that we should meet if we advised a healthy youth to abstain from sport under the pretext that he may become too strong and thus dan- gerous to his neighbours. We do not think that the innate human tendency to develop one's full strength is likely yet to be bound. It is much easier to deal 44 THE ALLEGED AIMS OF THIS WAR with the contending interests : they are the causes of wars, and they do admit practical settlements which are within the boundaries of real life, not within those of Utopia. * * * * Thus it is to the contending interests that we have to return in our search for the root of the present evil. Of those, we have already seen that none either of the western or the northern ethnical problems, was ripe enough or bad enough to provoke the European war ; and, in consequence, none of them is likely to provoke a new conflagration even if this one leaves their settlement to future times. So we are forced to turn our minds and eyes, once and for always, to the Near 45 TURKEY AND THE WAR East. A closer examination will show us that the manifold contending interests knotted here could not have been untied in any other way but by war ; and that, in consequence, should the present war leave them tangled as before, they would inevitably lead to another. 4 6 -ASIATIC TURKEY Ill Asiatic Turkey Everybody, of course, remembers that the European war originated from events in the Near East : the crime of Serajevo, the Austrian ultimatum to Serbia, Russia's desire to defend her natural ally in the Balkans. And yet it seems sometimes as though we have forgotten it. Since August, 1914, other developments filled the fore- ground ; and even the Gallipoli campaign did not restore the Near East to its due place in the public's attention. It almost looks as if the circumstances which preceded the Russian mobilization had only been 49 d TURKEY AND THE WAR futile accidents, mere pretexts used and then deservedly dismissed. It is time to remind ourselves that it was not so. We say remind, because surely it is only a question of temporary distraction, not of ignorance. Whoever has any notion of politics knows that the death of the Arch- duke Franz Ferdinand was a consequence of the old Austro-Serbian tension, that the Austro-Serbian tension was a result of a phenomenon called " Drang nach Osten," and that the Drang nach Osten is the greatest driving force in the Balkans. This point need not be explained — simply recalled. What has to be explained is the geo- graphical meaning of the term Near East. The Near East which has magnetized the lusts of nations for ages and still magnetizes 50 ASIATIC TURKEY them now, is not Serbia, not Albania, not Macedonia — it is Asia Minor. Our imme- diate attention for the last years has been too much absorbed by the little, though bloody, struggles of little Balkan peoples, and we forgot that the real problem of the Near East is a problem of Western Asia, not of the Balkans. The Balkans may constitute the final aims of Greece, Bulgaria or Serbia ; for the Great Powers, whose relations determine the destinies of the world, the Balkans are nothing more than an antechamber leading some- where else. Put in plain words the Near East question is the question of the parti- tion of what remains of Turkey. " Drang nach Osten " is a term generally applied to both Austria and Germany. Let us begin with Austria. Is her " Drang " 5i TURKEY AND THE WAR circumscribed to the Balkans, do her dreams end at Salonika ? What is Salon- ika by itself ? A little provincial town of 150,000 inhabitants with an annual harbour trade of some £2,500,000 in im- ports and some £1,200,000 in exports.* It cannot justify the historical policy of a Great Power, unless we admit that the Great Power saw and sees in the possession of the small town only a starting-point for a further push.f Look at the Austrian * Cf. Trieste with £47,750,000 imports, £42,300,000 exports ; Smyrna with £3,725,000 imports, £5,722,000 exports. f " Salonik ist eine Zukunftshoffnung. Dereinst, wenn Vorderasien der Kultur erschlossen, wenn die Eisenbahn Mesopotamien durchziehen und der Per- sische Meerbusen durch einen Schienenstrang mit Smyrna verkniipft sein wird, dann wird Mazedonien als Durchzugsgebiet fur den grossen Ueberlands- verkehr zwischen Mitteleuropa und Vorderasien wohl zu neuer Blute emporsteigen, und Salonik zu grosser Bedeutung gelangen." — (Leopold Freiherr von Chlum- ecky, " Oesterreich-Ungarn und Italien," 1907, p. 233.) 52 ASIATIC TURKEY exports : they prove that the focus of Austrian interests, even commercial, is in Asia Minor and Syria, not in the Bal- kans. Look at the admirable organization of the Austrian Consular Service in Western Asia, at the elaborate system of education which prepares officials for this service ; look at the programmes of the commercial academies in Vienna and Budapest which include much more Arabic and Turkish than Serbian or modern Greek, and care much more for the geography of Anatolia and Mesopotamia than for that of Albania or Thrace. These facts speak with a clear tongue. No matter whether we can or whether we cannot find in books, articles or speeches of Austria's leading men direct hints pointing to ambitions which go be- yond Salonika. Even for ambitions point- 53 TURKEY AND THE WAR ing to Salonika such literary evidence is not abundant. Acts are more eloquent than words or absence of words. Even admitting for a moment that Austria would politically stop at Salonika we see the prospect unchanged. From this harbour Austria would overflow Western Asia's ports with her own and German products and thus cut a thoroughfare for both her- self and Germany. Austrian and German policy in the Orient has always been con- sidered as one and the same thing, Austria playing the part of propeller on tracts which were beyond Germany's immediate reach. Be it for herself or for her ally, Austria coveted the borderless spaces and the bottomless resources of Asiatic Turkey, not the strip of second-rate land leading to a third-rate coast town on the iEgean. 54 ASIATIC TURKEY The case of Germany is even clearer. Here there is no lack of plain words either. Beginning with Moltke and up to Professor Hasse, the Pan-Germanists have always pointed to Syria, Palestine, Anatolia, Ar- menia, even Mesopotamia as to future German dominions.* In the well-known series of Pan-Germanist pamphlets pub- lished by Lehmann in Munich under the general heading " Kampf urns Deutsch- tum," a special issue written by a good specialist has been dedicated to these ambitions. It dwelt especially upon the * Cf. The excellent book of Mr. P. Evans Lewin, " The German Road to the East," 1916. — Mr. Barker in the Nineteenth Century, June, 1916, produces the * following list of authors who at different times advo- cated the idea of " Deutsch Kleinasien " : Wilhelm Roscher, Friedrich List, Paul de Lagarde, Lassalle, Rodbertus, Karl Rittel, Moltke, Ernst Hasse, Dehn, Rohrbach, Sprenger, Sachau, von der Golz, Kaerger, Nauman, Schlagintweit. . . . 55 TURKEY AND THE WAR value of the German colonies in Palestine and Anatolia as forerunners of the coming German rule. Another pamphlet of the same series wore the suggestive title : " Germany's claim on the Turkish heri- tage " (" Deutschlands Anspruch an das Tiirkische Erbe ").* To these full-mouthed * Other suggestive titles : Amicus Patriae, .." Ar- menien und Kreta — eine Lebensfrage fur Deutsch- land," 1896 ; Dr. Karl Kaerger, " Kleinasien, ein deutsches Kolonisationsfeld," 1892. We read in this pamphlet : " Nicht Hunderte und Thausende, nein, Millionen von Kolonisten konnen hier eine zweite Heimath finden " — and, in order to get Turkey's permission for such a flood, the author suggests that Germany should, in recompense, guar- antee Turkey's integrity " gegeniiber fremden Angriffen." — A. Sprenger, " Babylonien, das reichste Land in der Vorzeit und das lohnendste Kolonisations- feld fur die Gegenwart," 1886. M. A. Cheradame quotes from this book the following lines which we give in his translation : " De toutes les terres du globe il n'y en a pas invitant davantage a la colonisa- tion que la Syrie ou l'Assyrie. ... Si l'Allemagne ne manque pas l'occasion . . . elle aura dans le partage du monde acquis la meilleure part." The same French writer quotes from the famous review 56 ASIATIC TURKEY manifestations we can add the Kaiser's journey to Palestine in 1898. Before the war we used to treat as nothing such pamphlets and visits. Now we have seen that what pamphlets said and visits fore- shadowed Governments really meant and were preparing for. Some people tried even to deny the political intention under- lying the colossal project of the Bagdad railway : recent events, we hope, have told them the truth. Germany was per- haps not exactly aiming at the partition of Turkey, because she would prefer to swallow Turkey as a whole. Alldeatsche Blaetter, number for 8th December, 1895 : " L'interet allemand demand que la Turquie d'Asie, au moins, soit placee sous la protection allemande. Le plus avantageux serait pour nous 1' acquisition en propre de la Mesopotamie et Syrie et Fobtention du protectorat de l'Asie Mineure habitee par les Turcs." — (A. Cheradame, " Le chemin de fer de Bagdad et les puissances," pp. 5 and 7.) 57 TURKEY AND THE WAR The French claim on Syria, the British on Mesopotamia, the Russian on the Straits and Armenia, the Italian on Adalia, Greece's pretence upon Smyrna, and some other simi- lar demands will be partially dealt with in the last part of this book. Here it is enough to mention them. They give us, in con- junction with what we have said of Austria and Germany, a whole net of political wills and tendencies converging to the same end : destruction of Turkey. It is mere commonplace to say : Austria sent the ultimatum to Serbia because she wanted to get nearer to Salonika. But if we look deeper we at once disclose what this commonplace means. Austria sent the ultimatum to Serbia because she wanted to get nearer to the Turkish heritage in Asia Minor. The real cause of the Austro- 58 ASIATIC TURKEY Serbian conflict was the problem of further partition of the Ottoman Empire. It is mere commonplace to say : Russia wanted to shield Serbia because the little Slav kingdom was her main fortress in the Balkans. If we look deeper we see at once why Russia wants fortresses in the Near East. She wants them because of her need to push towards the warm seas, through the Straits or through the mountain chains of Armenia. The real cause of the Russo-Austrian conflict was the problem of further partition of the Ottoman Empire. It is mere commonplace to say : Ger- many wanted to shield Austria because Austria was her only reliable ally. Were it only for this reason, then it would have been much easier for Germany to advise 59 TURKEY AND THE WAR Austria to settle the Serbian conflict in some peaceable way. Germany chose the other more dangerous course, because she wanted Austria to conquer the little Slav kingdom. Why ? The answer is given in the now fashionable battlecry : Berlin to Bagdad. The real cause of the Russo- German conflict was the problem of the future domination of Asia Minor. Now it would be, of course, an exaggera- tion to say that France and England have also been involved in the war because of their respective " claims upon the Turkish heritage/' The immediate con- siderations which forced France to abide with her ally and Great Britain to join them were surely of quite another nature. But this fact does not affect the truth upon which we insist. When once the 60 ASIATIC TURKEY whirlpool sets in movement, it is natural that boats passing within the circle of its force should be caught into the maelstrom. What matters is to discover the thing which started the vortex. Just in the same way, had the initial conflict arisen because of Alsace, Russia would probably have been driven into the war, though she has nothing to do with this particular question. But Alsace did not and could not generate the initial conflict. It was born in the Near East by the peculiar problem of the Near East, and this fact is the essential feature of the whole situation. That is not all. The problem of the " Turkish heritage " is one which can be settled only by war. Alsace-Lorraine con- stitutes only one thirty-sixth of the Ger- man territory, the Italian Irredenta is TURKEY AND THE WAR not more than one-sixteenth of the Haps- burg Monarchy. Their separation from their present owners would not mean destruction of the Central Empires. If one day, by some unforeseen influences, perhaps by a good bargain, Germany or Austria could be persuaded to cede these provinces, it would not mean their suicide. Whoever is sanguine enough to believe in the miracles of progress may also believe in the possi- bility of this miracle. With Turkey the situation is different. The " claims " cover more than three-quarters of her present area. No optimist in the world can dream of a peaceable settlement for a litigation of such character and size. Here it is no question of bargain, cession, arrangement : it is a question of " heritage/ ' To leave a heritage the owner must die. 62 -PARTITION AND WAR IV Partition and War Is it, however, inevitable that the old owner's death should be accompanied by a fight between the heirs ? Can we not imagine a joint European action against Turkey based upon a previous compact which should allot to every Power its fair portion of the estate, thus excluding any danger of a second European war ? Could not the successful experience of the first Balkan war be repeated on a greater scale ? To this question, sad to say, we must reply with a doubt. Let it never be forgotten that the first Balkan war was followed 65 E TURKEY AND THE WAR by the second, and the lesson of this ex- perience is perhaps much more human than the other. The claimants on Turkey's future spoils are England, France, Russia, Germany, Italy, perhaps Austria, then also Greece and Bulgaria. Even forgetting for a moment that they are divided into two hostile camps, it needs too much imagination and optimism to admit the probability of an agreement conciliating such a host of different wills in such a delicate matter. When Venizelos suc- ceeded (and only for a moment) in bringing three little Balkan Powers to a mutual accommodation in a question touching historical national lusts, he was proclaimed a genius ; and yet his task was so much easier because the little Powers felt very dubious about their own capacity to kill 66 PARTITION AND WAR the Bear, and it is known that such doubts make people more conciliatory. When they saw the bearskin in their hands the conciliatory spirit vanished and the only voice heard was that of greed. For a " concert " including all the great Euro- pean Powers the acquisition of the bear's skin would be a sure and easy job ; that is why the voice of greed would be loud from the very beginning. Where is the genius able to conciliate half a score of mighty appetites under these conditions ? Ger- many looks to Bagdad with the same insistence as England ; Armenia and Kur- distan, claimed by Russia, are at the same time included in the most popular schemes of " Drang nach Osten " ; Con- stantinople is coveted at least from three different sides. And what about Turkey 6 7 TURKEY AND THE WAR herself ? She would never submit to lie still and " wait and see " how her neigh- bours conspire against her : she would conspire herself, she would make alluring offers to one of them in order to keep him apart from the others ; she would com- plicate the game, mix the cards and render a general concert impracticable, even if it were feasible by itself. The partition of Turkey can only be a result of a Euro- pean war, not of a concerted European expedition. Some soft-hearted people may perhaps ask: But is it not possible for all these great Powers to renounce their claims on Ottoman property ? We believe that it is humanly impossible. Of course the world knows instances of renounced and forgotten claims. The best example is 68 PARTITION AND WAR the Italian indifference to such parts of the Terre Irredente which are under French or Swiss rule. Corsica speaks an Italian dialect ; Savoy is the cradle of the dynasty which united Italy ; Garibaldi was born in Nice and bitterly resented her non- inclusion in the young State which he more than helped to create. To-day all those vindications are more than for- gotten : they are dead, dead in Italy as well as in Corsica, Nice and Savoy. The canton of Ticino is Italian in tongue and Swiss in soul, and no Italian Nationalist dreams of annexing it. There is a power- ful force in the world known by the much abused name of Culture. This force se- cures a State's dominions better than any wall of bayonets. Culture is impervious. Where its fertilizing presence is felt, where 6 9 TURKEY AND THE WAR it constantly produces higher standards of life and work, where it unceasingly causes all the vital energies to play, all the germs to grow, there a foreigner's claim, meeting no echo, is soon stifled, worn out, drowned in indifference on both sides. What excites and feeds again and again a neighbour's greed is the emptiness and lifelessness of waste ground that could be turned into gardens, the consciousness of rich possibilities which the present owner is impotent to exploit. It has something to do with the old belief that Nature abhors a vacuum. The push towards cultureless spaces is humanly irresistible. Their desolation itself is a constant provocation. That is why the thirst for the " Turkish heritage " can never die — except through satisfaction. 70 PARTITION AND WAR And it can be satisfied in no other way but through war. That is how the present conflict was born. That is why, if this war leaves Turkey undivided, a new war of the same size will follow sooner or later, with the inevitability of the tide. 7* PART II— THE INNER STATE OF TURKEY -AFTER SIX YEARS OF CONSTITUTION \ V After Six Years of Constitution It is a painful duty to insist upon the destruction of a living body. It is es- pecially painful for a writer who knows the people he dooms to death. If there are good peoples and bad peoples, the Turks certainly belong to the first sort. As a rule they are honest, modest, hos- pitable, chivalrous. Their ancient glory as soldiers stands in spite of all. They are fine statesmen — of course for con- ditions which are no more. It is hardly possible to get in touch with them and not to love them. If politics could — or 77 TURKEY AND THE WAR should — be based upon sympathy, nobody would like the idea of destroying an Empire founded and maintained by these nice fellows. Unhappily politics are based upon other factors. The whole world hailed the Young Turkish Revolution of 1908 in the sincere hope that a new era of real progress had opened before the Ottoman Empire. On the eve of the Great War the disappoint- ment was general and for ever incurable. Experience has clearly shown that there was practically no difference between the Old Turkish and the Young Turkish regime. The Parliament, almighty in the early days of the Revolution, was reduced to practical slavery. The administration was as bad as in Abdul Hamid's days. The condition of the Christian races " im- 78 AFTER SIX YEARS OF CONSTITUTION proved " only in as much as they were admitted to compulsory military service ; but the most precious stronghold of their national existence, the communal and edu- cational autonomy which even Abdul Hamid had respected, was made a target for menaces and attempts. Never had the Old Turk tried to interfere with the national individuality of his non-Turkish subjects : he was indifferent to the lan- guage they spoke at home or in school. The Young Turk did not hide his object of gradually imposing his language upon Arabs, Albanians, Armenians, Greeks and Slavs of the Empire. Bribery in office, muddle and corruption in court showed no promise of disappearing — rather the opposite. The Albanians, the most loyal of Ottomans in former days, were driven 79 TURKEY AND THE WAR into revolt by stupid governmental pro- ceedings. The massacre of Armenians in Adana left nothing to desire for one who remembers the high standards of the massacres of 1894-1896; and the Young Turkish Government left the official cul- prits unpunished like the Old Turkish. Against all this not one step, not one act of any progressive character can be written on the credit side. We mean progress in any sense — political, social or economic. The obsolete laws ruling the tenure of land are still unchanged in spite of all efforts, although they constitute the greatest obstacle to the economic development of the country. Mortgage of rural properties is still practically impossible, and so no sound system of agricultural credit can be created. The recognition of the " persona 80 AFTER SIX YEARS OF CONSTITUTION juridica/' indispensable condition to a free immigration of foreign capital, is still a pious wish. It has been said that the Young Turkish Government " had no time to do things. " This is an exaggeration. The constitutional regime was consolidated in the early sum- mer of 1909 ; the Tripoli War began only in the autumn of 1911. Two years are sufficient to show a good will and a fair understanding. Of course nobody pretends that the Young Turks could have carried out social reforms in two years ; but it is an awful exaggeration to say that such reforms could not have been passed in Parliament. They were not even proposed. Whoever witnessed in those years the life of the Ottoman Chamber will attest that it had plenty of time to 81 f TURKEY AND THE WAR legislate ; but the time was spent in futile intrigues behind the curtain. Was it lack of patriotism ? Certainly not. Was it lack of statecraft ? Perhaps. But first of all the cause of this innate impotence of the " new 99 r6gime is to be found in the organic construction of the Turkish Empire. Before we deal with this organic defect of the country it will be of some use to throw a glance upon the men. We said, just now, that one of the reasons of the failure was perhaps lack of statecraft. Let us shortly recall the essential features of the human element known by the name of Young Turks. 82 VI-THE YOUNG TURKS VI The Young Turks The morning after the Turkish Revolution everybody in Constantinople, Salonika, etc., was " a Young Turk," " a member of the Committee/ ' a Somebody or a Something in the then victorious conspiracy. But the real Young Turks who prepared and carried out the Revolution were not numer- ous. They formed two distinct groups : we shall describe them roughly as the Young Turks of Paris — and those of Turkey. When we say Paris we mean not only the French capital but also London, Geneva, in general all the western towns where 85 TURKEY AND THE WAR Turkish emigrants used to concentrate in the long days of Hamid. Paris was the main centre. Here Ahmed-Riza published his organ, the " Meshveret," in two edi- tions — the Turkish one for his fellow- countrymen in the distant homeland, and the French one for Europe. Here Prince Sabaheddin conceived his own programme of Ottoman reconstruction which included in a rather unexpected combination the two battlecries of decentralization and private initiative. The few members of the Liberal Turkish intelligentsia who were lucky enough to get permission to go abroad, used to make their pilgrimage to Paris as to a kind of political Mecca. Even those among the emigrants who lived in England or Switzerland drew their political wisdom only from Paris. It is useless for 86 THE YOUNG TURKS us to inquire why they chose France — of all the European countries the most un- like their own — to be the school and the model of their constitutional lore. Enough to know that it just happened so, and that in describing the Young Turkish emigrants as a Paris group we point not only to a geographical fact but also to the main factor which influenced their intellectual development. France is a strongly centralized country, uniform and ruled by a uniform system which is applied everywhere in the same way. There are even Frenchmen who think this uniformity too exaggerated. But it is a consequence of a past disease — of the excessive provincialism which divided and sterilized France before 1789. Every province was almost a different 87 TURKEY AND THE WAR state, with different laws and taxes ; it was not uncommon to talk of a " nation Normande," " nation Picarde," or " nation Auvergnate." The great Revolution had before it the task of amalgamating them all into one nation. That is why it in- sisted upon the principle of uniformity and centralization with such emphasis that even now the average French politician recognizes in them one of the holiest dogmas of 1789, one of the main assets of freedom and progress. The Young Turks imbibed these ideas without any criticism or discrimination. They knew that the greatest misfortune of their own country was also the fatal disunion of the different elements of population ; and they conceived the naive belief that the remedy which saved France would be equally fit 88 THE YOUNG TURKS to save Turkey. It seemed to them that differences between Turks and Armenians, Greeks and Bulgars, Serbs and Albanians were to be taken and treated in the same way as differences between Normans and Picardians. Thus was born and rooted their deep enthusiasm for the system of centralization and assimilation. Sabahed- din, with his confused programme which admitted a shadow of local distinctions, remained in a hopeless minority. The Armenian Revolutionists tried several times to persuade the " Meshveret " party that the only system fit for a constitutional Turkey is that applied in Switzerland or at least in Austria — system of provincial self-government and national autonomy. But the Young Turks abhorred their scheme, and so it came, towards the end 8 9 TURKEY AND THE WAR of the 'nineties, to a definite break between the followers of Ahmed-Riza and the Dashnaktzutiun. Such curious political aberration implies of course a tremendous ignorance of the real conditions in Turkey. And ignorance it was. The Young Turks were not the first example of emigrants who lost in exile every feeling of the realities in the Motherland. We have instances of no lesser miscomprehension in the schemes and tactics of the Russian Revolutionists who tried to " lead 99 from abroad the popular movement of 1905. Their mis- takes showed how deeply they ignored the most essential facts of Russia's intellectual and social life. Yet Russia was not an unexplored country like Turkey is ; they had at their disposal exact statistics, mono- 90 THE YOUNG TURKS graphies dealing in a scientific way with the different problems of the country, a highly developed monthly and daily Press, a constant intercourse with tens of thou- sands of educated Russians travelling abroad. The Young Turks of Paris lacked all that. For long, long years they were practically cut off from any living touch with the milieu which they struggled to free and revive. Visitors from Turkey were rare, shy and uninformed. No wonder if they gradually lost all sense of possi- bilities, distances and proportions. This reproach could not be fairly applied to the other group — the Young Turks in Turkey. These were humble, poor fellows living in the everyday life, little post clerks like Taraat, schoolmasters like Djavid, soldiers like Enver. They worked among 9 1 TURKEY AND THE WAR the masses and knew them thoroughly. They fully realized the deep gulf fixed between the various races which hated each other in Macedonia and Armenia. They knew their own country. But this was the only thing they knew. It must not be imputed for blame to a person brought up in Turkey if we admit certain gaps in his education — or even if in some cases we consider his whole education as one big gap. Hamid's system of censor- ship was ideal in its own way — it was impenetrable. The Young Turks in Turkey were doomed to ignore many things which are written in books. But the thing about which their ignorance was really fabulous was one that cannot be learnt from books. This thing was; — Constitution. Its bless- ings and its failures can be taught only by 92 THE YOUNG TURKS life itself, by life in a constitutional country. Peoples accustomed to Parliaments and responsible Governments know that a con- stitution is not the solution of difficult problems — it is only the way through which the contending forces of a country can search for settlements of problems. They know that a constitution means growth and development of internal struggles, not pacification. For a people living under tyranny the constitution is a dream, perfect and absolute as only things in dreams can be. It is the con- ciliation of all the dissensions, settlement of all the quarrels, it transforms enemies into brothers and hate into love. Such was the political dream of the Young Turks in Turkey. Well they knew how serious was the clash of conflicting interests 93 TURKEY AND THE WAR between the different nationalities of their country ; but firm and strong was their belief that there is one magic remedy and its name is Constitution. So the two groups represented two different types of misinformation. Those in Paris were acquainted with the lights and shades of representative government, but they did not know the country to which it had to be applied. Those in Turkey knew the country, but had a queer idea about the omnipotence of a parlia- mentary regime. With a little good luck the two groups might have been the complement each of the other. The Parisian Turks might have contributed their knowledge of constitutional life, the local workers their acquaintance with local realities. It might have made quite 94 THE YOUNG TURKS a valuable combination of statesman- ship. But the Young Turks had in this sense bad luck. Their misfortune was the too easy victory of the revolutionary move- ment. In a fortnight's time, without a shot, without any bloodshed, they became the rulers of Turkey. Easy victories are dangerous. They make people too con- fident, frivolously sanguine, inclined to believe in the practicability of every dream. Such was the atmosphere when, the day after the Revolution, the two groups met after long years of separation. Instead of amalgamating their truths they amalga- mated their mistakes. The combined pro- gramme included a Parisian ignorance of real Turkey and a childish belief in the miracu- lous almightiness of The Constitution/' 95 TURKEY AND THE WAR Do you remember the Arabian tale of the ingenious association of the blind and the legless ? The blind man took the legless man on his shoulders and the trust thus formed had at its disposal one pair of good legs and one pair of good eyes. In the case of the Young Turks the opposite happened : the legless was entrusted to carry and the blind to lead. We saw them at work. The spirit which permeated the average Young Turk re- sulting from this amalgamation is best shown by a living portrait. We choose for such purpose one of the most influential and of the least known leaders of the " new " Turkey. His name is Dr. Nazim. He is a rare and curious personification of both types. He was a student of medicine in Paris, but for some years before the 9 6 THE YOUNG TURKS Revolution he worked among the masses under heavy risks and privations. The legend tells that, when troops were sent from Anatolia to Salonika to crush the revolutionary movement, Nazim-bey, dis- guised as a " kaffedjee" (coffee seller), managed to get on board the military transport — and, when the ship reached the rebel town, officers and soldiers were all under his influence. Even if exagger- ated this tale shows the man. After the victory he became, behind the curtain, the soul and the gist of the Committee " Union and Progress." He declined all offers of ministerial posts, even of a seat in Parliament. While streams of gold were pouring, from all sides, into the coffers of the Committee — and also into some individual pockets of the Committee — 97 g TURKEY AND THE WAR Dr. Nazim, the chief secretary, accepted only a ridiculously modest monthly pay — people said, about five or six Turkish pounds. His working day oscillated be- tween 16 and 20 hours. He never ap- peared in public, but everybody knew that " Dr. Nazim is the Committee/ 1 And in truth by his strong will, by his cold fanaticism, by his unbending one- sidedness he influenced all the policy of the Young Turkish headquarters between 1909 and 1912. His speciality, his strong point, was of course the main problem of Turkey — the racial problem. His point of view in this question was very simple : he denied its importance. He was per- suaded that differences of language, national habits, etc., are only a sham doomed to disappear by the mutual consent of all 98 THE YOUNG TURKS the races in the Ottoman Empire. They needed such distinctions only so long as they had to struggle against tyranny. " Once freedom is proclaimed and every- body has equal rights, they will be only glad to throw away their superfluous foreign tongues in favour of Turkish. As a matter of fact, you see, it is not Turkish — it is the Ottoman language." Dr. Nazim was sure that Arabs, Greeks, Armenians would accept this programme without any serious reluctance. The opposition to it would be limited to small factions of worn- out leaders, most of them in the secret pay of foreign Governments. The bulk of the people would be sensible, they would overthrow their former nationalist chiefs and follow the call of " Ottomanization." Does not the same thing happen in all the 99 TURKEY AND THE WAR constitutional countries ? About this last point, too, Dr. Nazim was absolutely sure. He " knew from the best sources " that in free countries racial questions do not exist. And Austria, Hungary, Belgium, Canada, Ireland, Switzerland ? " Oh, tout cela n'a pas d'importance," Dr. Nazim used to reply, imperturbably. Besides, his great hope was Socialism. He was sure that this movement would soon develop into Western proportions (and that in a country where the first industrial factory, so to say, was yet to be created). And he " knew from the best sources," that the Socialists fight everywhere against the con- servation of local idioms in favour of the one and indivisible language of the one and indivisible State. His conclusion was : " Les nationality ? nous les digererons toutes." ioo THE YOUNG TURKS These were not the ideas of one indi- vidual. As we said, they inspired the Young Turkish policy which led to the revolts in Albania, to the loss of Macedonia, and to the loss of what was far more precious than any portion of land — the loss of trust. But, in fairness to the Young Turks, we must repeat : the main cause of their failure was elsewhere. Had they been wise as Solomon and wily as Macchiavelli they would have failed all the same. IOI H -THE TURKISH MINORITY IN TURKEY VII The Turkish Minority in Turkey The essential feature of the Ottoman Empire is the fact that its ruling nation, the Turks, is a relatively small minority of the population. Precise statistics for Turkey do not exist, but it can be assumed that out of the roughly estimated 21 million inhabitants of the Empire on the eve of the war, 7 million were Turks, 9 million Arabs, ij million Armenians, i| million Greeks, i| million Kurds, the remainder Jews, Druses and smaller tribes. The ruling race was only one third of the whole. Yet we must remember that 105 TURKEY AND THE WAR this is the most favourable proportion ever attained in Turkish history. A hun- dred years ago the Ottoman Empire em- braced the whole of the Balkan Peninsula, with Roumania and Bessarabia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cyprus and Crete and all the Isles of the Archipelago, Egypt, Tripoli, and, at least nominally, the better part of what is now the French Colonial Empire along the Southern Mediterranean coast. In that Greater Turkey the Turks were perhaps one sixth of the population. Yet they not only conquered that colossal area — they kept it and ruled it through centuries. Such an achievement could not be performed by the bare strength of sword. It implies also a great deal of true and wise statesmanship. The old Sultans were mighty warriors and clever 106 TURKISH MINORITY IN TURKEY rulers — clever, of course, in their own way. But they had naturally to pay a heavy price for the keeping of their Empire. The small Turkish race was forced to concentrate all its energies on two objects : war and government. Peasantry as the natural storehouse of vital forces of the race, soldiers, and officialdom — these three elements form the whole structure of the Turkish nation. The heavy burden of defending and running the State's machine made it impossible for them to develop a commercial, industrial, or intellectual middle class. This fact is at the bottom of all the decisive events of Turkish history past and present. Of course the world knows other and even modern instances of Empires where the ruling nation is a minority. The best 107 TURKEY AND THE WAR example is Austria (apart from Hungary). Its German population is only 37 per cent, of the whole, but this minority still dominates the country. In spite of the fact that paragraph 19 of the Austrian Constitution establishes complete equality of all the racial elements and all the lan- guages, the German tongue is still de facto the true " Staatssprache," and the Germans, although they have no numerical majority in Parliament, constitute the overwhelming element in Government and bureaucracy. It would be unjust to suppose that such predominance is simply the result of abuse of power. It is rather a natural conse- quence of the real superiority of the German factor in various provinces of social life. The German culture as a whole is of course stronger than that of the 108 TURKISH MINORITY IN TURKEY Poles, Czechs or Ruthenes ; the level of individual culture is also far higher with the Germans than with any other element, and we can say that the Austrian intelligentsia is two-thirds German. The material wealth is also accumulated, from days immemorial, in German hands. The industrial capital in Austria — even if we speak of Bohemian or Galician industries — is almost exclusively German. So are the great majority of industrial staffs. The organized proletariat — one of the main factors of Austrian political life — is also pre- dominantly German. The same statement must be repeated speaking of Austrian com- merce, inner and international. Last but not least — the big landowners, the feudal lords whose influence is felt in that country not less than in Prussia, is thoroughly 109 TURKEY AND THE WAR German, with the exception of Galicia and a part of Bohemia. Thus the German element prevails in the life and in the politics of Austria owing not so much to State's protection as to its own real weight. It will be useful to compare this state of things with the position of the Turkish element in Turkey. The comparison will be highly instructive. Take the cultural side. In Austria the Germans are unquestionably the leading factor in this respect. Their language is understood in the whole Empire not be- cause it is forced upon the people, but because it is indispensable for both in- tellectual and economic life. The Turks can hardly boast any such natural privi- lege. Of all the races in the Ottoman no TURKISH MINORITY IN TURKEY Empire which possess any culture at all, the Turks are the last and the weakest. Their culture has no right even to be mentioned in comparison with the bottom- less riches of Hellenism. The Arabs possess a great old civiliza- tion, a mighty literature which constitutes practically the only base of the scanty intellectual wealth of the Turks. The literary Turkish is so permeated with Arabic words that, not only in books dealing with learned matters, but even in simple newspaper leaders nearly all the nouns are generally Arabic. The little Armenian nation invented its curious alphabet in the end of the fourth century of the Christian era. Its old litera- ture is comparatively very rich ; its modern literature, which includes also translations in TURKEY AND THE WAR of almost everything that is valuable in European knowledge and fiction, is in- comparably above the Turkish standard. It is an unforgettable merit of the two Mehitarist monasteries, in Vienna and Venice, that even in the worst times of Armenia's last century they never inter- rupted their patient work of compilers, translators, and publishers. The Armenian press is up to good Russian standards, a praise that means a lot. Their theatre, without being first-rate, still does exist, while the Turkish stage is so far practically a mere project. Before the severation of Macedonia, Turkey had numerous Bulgarian and Ser- bian subjects, who again had no reason to look upon the Turks as their superiors or even their equals in matters of culture. 112 TURKISH MINORITY IN TURKEY The Ottoman Jews, with the exception of those in Palestine, have no national culture in the modern sense, but they are educated in French schools, read French books and newspapers and would consider " turquisation " as a sort of degradation. The only peoples over whom the Turks can really claim cultural superiority are Albanians and Kurds. The most unfortunate feature of this humiliating position of a ruling race is the fact that all the subject nations are receiving a constant intellectual support and impulse from abroad — Greeks and Slavs from their respective kingdoms, Arabs from Egypt, Armenians from Rus- sian Armenia, etc. The only race which has no intellectual centres beyond the frontier are the Turks. Quite opposite ii3 TURKEY AND THE WAR to this is the condition of the Austrian Germans. They are only 10 million, but their civilization is the product of 60 million Germans who live outside Austria — while their main opponents, the Czechs, have nobody to support them from abroad. The consequence of all this is the insig- nificant part the Turkish language plays in the Turkish Empire. In the Arab provinces it practically does not exist : nobody knows it, nobody minds it. But even in Constantinople it has hardly any importance outside of the pure Turkish quarter of the town. In commercial re- lations French and Italian are predominant, Greek very useful, Turkish hardly ever heard. The non-Turkish educated class very seldom knows enough Turkish to read a book, and hardly ever enough 114 TURKISH MINORITY IN TURKEY to write a decent letter. "As a rule a Christian in Stamboul knows Turkish only if he is an Armenian or a lawyer/' said an observer, and his word can be taken roughly as the truth. The Armenian com- munity on the Golden Horn had been forced to learn Turkish by horrible per- secution in Hamid's days ; of the other races, not so cruelly tried, only those rare individuals need to know Turkish who come in constant immediate touch with Turkish courts or governmental offices. Otherwise there is no need of Turkish in Turkey. In the economic life the Turkish element has no part or significance whatever. Of course there are about 6 million Turkish peasants ; and among the small shop- keepers and lower artisans we find a good ii5 TURKEY AND THE WAR many Turks. But in the somewhat higher grades of economic activity we find none. In the sea-borne trade, which constitutes in Turkey the main source of wealth and social influence, no presence of Turkish capital or mind can be traced. The capital is mostly foreign, the personnel partly foreign, partly Greek, Armenian, Jewish, Syrian, or Arab ; and most frequently it is recruited from that mixture of all Euro- pean races which is called the Levantines. A Turkish clerk is indeed a rarity. Also in the few existing embryos of Ottoman industry — mines and tobacco — the capital is foreign, the staff entirely non-Turkish. It is true that the big landowners in Anatolia are mostly Turkish pashas and beys, and so it was in Macedonia. But those " feudal lords " cannot be compared 116 TURKISH MINORITY IN TURKEY with their prototypes in Austria. The mighty landlords of old Europe are tied by innumerable bonds to their hereditary estates, to their peasants, to the population of the neighbouring towns and suburbs. From grandfather to grandson they were looked upon as patrons, protectors, or tyrants of their shires ; they lived in their castles, they were loved or feared, they left indelible traces on every page of local history. Tradition and social intercourse, not the bare fact of ownership, give them that tremendous specific weight which makes the political strength of the feudal class — in our instance of the feudal class in Austria. The Turkish landlord has, as a rule, nothing to do with his estate. The " djiftlik " is mostly allot ed to the meri- torious official or general as a reward or a 117 1 TURKEY AND THE WAR favour ; the owner never saw it, is not likely ever to see it, will certainly not pitch his tent amid its primitive wilderness. The estate is administered, or to be more exact, is bled, by a manager, and so even the hatred of the villagers is limited to the servant without reaching the master. To be sure, there are exceptions, but this is the general type of big landownership in Turkey. It is a source of revenue, not of influence. It is almost as impersonal as an investment in foreign shares.* * " When speaking of the Turks of the higher class, it is well to remember that there are no wealthy men in the European sense among them. Nor is there any class of nobles. There are no great families proud of their descent, and possessing historic estates. ... In Turkey there are no ' country houses,' no Moslems or even Christians who display wealth in the villages." — (Sir Edwin Pears, " Turkey and its People," 1911.) Il8 VIII-ILLUSIONS AND DISAPPOINTMENTS VIII Illusions and Disappointments These are the conditions with which one has to reckon if one wants to realize how hard a task it is to keep the Turkish rule in Turkey. A small minority in num- bers, they have not even the comfort of being, as our often-mentioned Germans in Austria, a relative majority : whilst, against 10,000,000 Germans, there are only 6,435,000 Czechs, 5,000,000 Poles, etc., in the Ottoman Empire the Arabs outnumber the Turks. The Turkish culture is one of the poorest in Turkey, their language is one of the least considered ; their part 121 TURKEY AND THE WAR in the higher levels of economic life is little short of nothing. Peasants, soldiers and officials, they rule the country only as long as they are able to keep the sword and the seal in their hands. Their author- ity is not supported by any fact of the life outside the barrack and the office ; it is built upon itself alone and can only last as long as every seat representing any infinitesimal fraction of power is kept by a Turk. The conclusion is clear. Turkish rule in Turkey can be assured only by autoc- racy, and rather a mediaeval autocracy. When we say mediaeval our intention is to point to the well-known fact that ab- solutism in the middle ages meant practi- cally much more individual freedom than for instance " V absolutisme eclair e " of 122 ILLUSIONS AND DISAPPOINTMENTS the eighteenth century. The latter en- deavoured to interfere with every detail of private or municipal life. The former cared for recruits, taxes, obedience — and nothing else. Such was the system of the Old Turkish Sultans, taken as a whole and apart from exceptions. The Old Turk- ish imperial formula was : " sovereignty, power, politics are our exclusive business ; the inner affairs of the non-Turkish com- munities are their own exclusive business." So the Old Turk kept every thread of political power jealously in Turkish hands. But he despised and avoided, as a rule, every meddling with the communal, ecclesi- astical, or scholastic affairs of his Christian and Jewish subjects. They enjoyed a kind of communal autonomy which ought to be studied even for purposes of modern legis- 123 TURKEY AND THE WAR lation. Every non-Mahommedan nation- ality throughout the Empire was considered as a legally constituted and organized " millet " (Turkish for "nation"). There was the " millet-i-rum," including all the Greeks of the Ottoman Empire, " millet- i-bulgar " for the Bulgarian schismatics, " millet-i-ermeni " for the Armenians, 11 millet-i-moussevie " for the Jews. Every millet was ruled by a representative body, called " Medjliss," i.e., Parliament, or Diet, and a spiritual Chief, Patriarch or Exarque, or Chief Rabbi. The ecclesiastical titles must not mislead us : the functions of these dignitaries were far from being purely ecclesiastical. The Chief was the acknow- ledged legal representative of his millet before the Sublime Porte in all political matters. On the other side he was the 124 ILLUSIONS AND DISAPPOINTMENTS constitutional leader of his " nation." The organization of the little " parliaments " was sometimes very interesting. The most complete of all those miniature constitu- tions was the so-called " Sahmanadrutiun " — the Statute of the Armenian community, passed law in 1862. It included elaborate provisions for the election of members of the medjliss. The latter was divided into two boards^ — one for purely ecclesiastical affairs, one for the secular matters of the community. These secular matters em- braced a very wide province of civil life : education, hospitals, charity, marriages, divorces, questions of heritage, dowries, etc., transfer of real property from one member of the community to another. Such wide inner autonomy was especially valuable in matters of education. The 125 TURKEY AND THE WAR f schools, elementary or higher, belonging to the different communities, were free from any interference of the Government : they chose by themselves their language, programme, school books, and teachers. In numerous schools, where even foreign languages were taught, the teaching of Turkish was completely neglected. The Old Turk did not care a snap for it. " Speak what you like and learn what you prefer, only do not interfere with my State's power," was the basic principle of his political wisdom. Then the Young Turks came, and " ils ont change tout cela." On the one side they introduced a constitution which ad- mitted non-Turks to the control of State's affairs. On the other side they showed an unquestionably keen intention to inter- 126 ILLUSIONS AND DISAPPOINTMENTS fere with the inner affairs of the up-to-then autonomous communities. Their formula was : " We meddle in your business and you meddle in ours." It was quite the opposite of the old system — the old system which kept the Ottoman Empire through centuries, because it left to the subject races an illusion of freedom in the things that were most sacred to them. The new system frightened and exasperated them by its menace to get under the thumb of the State the last remnants of their national life ; it made of them even more implacable foes of the Ottoman idea than before. At the same time it handed to them a big share of the State's power ! A Parliament is supposed to reflect the co-relation of the social forces existing in 127 TURKEY AND THE WAR the country. Those social forces are con- stituted not only of numbers of men belonging to the different groups of popu- lation. Their respective wealth, culture, the part they play in the vital branches of the country's activity — all these count not less than bare numbers. Votes are not simply counted — they are weighed says a modern political proverb. Here in Turkey everything was against the Turks — numbers, culture, economic role. How- ever, they managed to secure something like a Turkish majority at the first elections owing to the unpreparedness and disunion of the Christian races, the disorganization of Arabs and Albanians. But it soon became clear that at the following elec- tions the numerical and economic pre- dominance of the non-Turkish elements 128 ILLUSIONS AND DISAPPOINTMENTS would inevitably find its expression in the structure of the Parliament. In the beginning of the constitutional era the Young Turks overlooked this per- spective. They were yet under the spell of the illusion which we have just described — the illusion of the coming " ottomaniza- tion " of the non-Turkish races. At that moment they were, or sincerely believed that they were, utterly and thoroughly democratic. We remember the outburst of their indignation when, in 1909, Damad Ferid, one of the Senators, proposed to strengthen the constitutional powers of the Crown. His argument was that, owing to the overwhelming predominance of non- Turks, the only asset which was and would remain Turkish for ever was the Osman dynasty : therefore, the State's power 129 TURKEY AND THE WAR should be vested rather in the unchanging Crown than in the unstable Parliament. This Senator happened to be a Damad — the Sultan's son-in-law. His proposal was generally attributed to this delicate re- lationship. The Young Turks unanimously refused to accept his point of view. The objections then formulated on their side had a frankly republican accent. Even ecclesiastical members of the Lower Chamber declared that it was against the spirit of the Koran to strengthen the throne. Two years after, the Damad's argument became the keystone of the whole Young Turkish policy. In Decem- ber, 1911, when Said Pasha introduced a bill enlarging the Crown's rights for dissolution of the Chamber, Ahmed Riza showed, as president of the assembly con- 130 ILLUSIONS AND DISAPPOINTMENTS cerned, the most unexpected energy in checking every attempt of opposition to this measure. Before the outbreak of the Tripoli campaign — i.e., before the be- ginning of the systematic destruction of Turkey — the republican coquetries were entirely forgotten and the Young Turks represented what they are now — a purely monarchist, nationalist, conservative party. They abhor every idea of real political progress, not because they like inertia, but because in Turkish conditions progress means liquidation of Turkish rule in Tur- key. Life, the great Counsellor, forced them to return to the old wisdom of the Old Turks. 131 •EST DELENDA" IX " Est Delenda " This natural fear of progress is not only felt in political matters. It can be said without exaggeration that it became the main spring of the whole Young Turkish system, applied even to problems of a purely economical character. The absence of a Turkish commercial, industrial or intellectual middle class means that any step forward in the economical develop- ment of the country must inevitably result in enriching the non-Turks and conse- quently in weakening the Turkish element. This fatality lends a dangerous political 135 TURKEY AND THE WAR flavour to the most harmless enterprises, such, for instance, as creation of electric tramways or building of harbour-quays. What is the use of it since directors, officials, clerks, engineers, foremen will in- evitably be Greeks, Armenians, Jews, Levantines, if not foreigners altogether ? It had been thought that the Old Turk's instinctive dislike of introducing foreign capital in Turkey was caused only by fear of international complications. Now in the case of the Young Turk we see that it was and is rather the apprehension of inner complications. We have repeated the word fatality several times. Let it not pass unnoticed or be taken for a mere rhetorical ornament. The progress of Turkey is a thing of objec- tive impossibility. After all, the Revolu- 136 " EST DELENDA " tion of 1908 was not the first attempt to open the gates of progress to the Ottoman Empire. Midhat Pasha was once a greater Liberal than any of the Young Turkish leaders of to-day, and he was surely a great and wise statesman ; and even before Midhat's time the important reforms of 1839 and 1856 — the so-called Tanzimat — were unquestionably inspired by broad liberal ideas. The Tanzimat resulted practically in failure, and Midhat's career in tragedy. It would be naive and short-sighted to attribute these miscar- riages simply to personal attitudes of Sultans or to intrigues of Ambassadors. Nor can they be fairly ascribed to the influence of Mahomet's law. Did Islam prevent the mediaeval Arabs from becom- ing the leading race of western civiliza- 137 TURKEY AND THE WAR tion ? We sometimes hear travellers and journalists talk of a " negative spirit of Islam." It is a mistake. A great religion, whatever be its minor errors, is always a positive and a constructive driving-force, unless it becomes a weapon in the hands of a Power which has negative interests. Such a Power is the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire : not the Turkish race. Were the Turks, so to say, left alone in the limits of a strictly-national State, with- out the burden of ruling a huge majority of other races, they would unquestionably have shown themselves second to none in that corner of the world where the standards of modern culture are kept by Bulgars and Roumanians. They would have de- veloped a quite decent commercial and professional middle class ; they would have 138 " EST DELENDA " created an industry, a literature, a theatre of their own. But fate, glorious and tragic, made of them gardeners in a garden too big for their resources. So it inevitably became their only concern to prevent grass from growing, buds from flowering — if pos- sible, sun from shining. This was their only way to keep, somehow, the colossal household from overgrowing, throttling and ejecting its masters. Optimists may ask : is there no possi- bility of a change in the Turkish psycho- logy ? Could they not make up their minds to submit to the inevitable loss of their own dominating position in Turkey for the sake of Turkey's unity ? Could they not give in to the necessity of their own submersion by a flood of non-Turkish elements for the sake of the preservation 139 TURKEY AND THE WAR of an Ottoman Empire that would be Ottoman no longer ? To all these questions everyone who has any understanding of what is called a nation's soul will find only one reply : No, never. Ruling races hardly submit to such transformations even where the change evolves slowly and gradually. Since it became evident in Austria that the growth of the Slavs menaced, though in a remote future, to undermine the dominating part which belonged to the German element, the German Nationalists lost every interest for the conservation of Austria's unity. On the contrary, they began to look for a possible reduction of Austria's size in order to carve out a country not so vast — but with a solid German majority. Their programme of 1882 — so called " Das Linzer Programm " 140 " EST DELENDA " — asked for the " Sonderstellung " of Galicia, i.e., for exclusion of the main Slav province from the number of the " king- doms and lands represented in the Reichs- rath." Their battlecry was, as an ironic verse put it, " Das Vaterland soil kleiner sein " — let the Fatherland be smaller. This is the natural attitude of a ruler who has to choose between loss of power and reduction of his State's boundaries. Un- less he is a saint — which peoples never are — he will prefer to remain the chief in a village rather than to become one of the crowd in Rome. Old Turks or Young Turks, they will never accept the perspec- tive of an Ottoman Empire where the power of the Turkish race would be reduced to a share proportionate to its numerical, economical, and cultural nullity. Shall this 141 TURKEY AND THE WAR be the reward and the result of centuries of glorious military exploits and wise statesmanlike decisions which made the names of so many Sultans and Viziers immortal ? The Turks — Old or Young — will try their utmost to prevent this national catastrophe ; and, as the only way to prevent it is to block the natural evolution of the vital forces of the country, that is what they will do. Turkey under Turkish rule is doomed to remain backward, unenlightened, barren. This doom is irremovable so long as the Ottoman Empire shall last, and its heavy burden crushes and condemns to death every spiritual bud that sprouts from either Turkish or non-Turkish stalks. The destruction of the historical absurdum called the Ottoman Empire will be a bless- 142 " EST DELENDA " ing for both Turks and non-Turks. The latter, independent or placed under pro- tection of mighty civilizing Powers, will freely develop their long-subdued vitali- ties ; the former, liberated from the op- pressive load of Imperial responsibilities, will enter an era of peaceful and productive renaissance. He who wishes Turkey's destruction is a friend, not a foe of the Turkish race. 143 PART III — CONTROVERSIAL POINTS OF THE PARTITION SCHEME X — A LIST OF CLAIMS X A List of Claims The purpose of this introductory chapter is simply to recall the extent of the various territorial claims which have any serious chance to be considered in the emergency of the coming dismemberment of the Otto- man Empire. We say to recall, and this term marks the exact limits of our present task. We are not prepared to try to explain all such claims, to defend them, to sup- port them : our object consists mainly in, so to say, drawing a map of the existent aspirations. To discuss whether the rea- sons and interests upon which they seem 149 l TURKEY AND THE WAR to be founded are valid in every case is beyond our intentions. Such discussions are, as a rule, useless and in the majority of the cases impossible. The arguments generally employed to support territorial claims are mostly as hard to refute as to prove. Is, for instance, the presence of French-speaking inhabitants a sufficient reason for the establishment of a French protectorate ? It is and it is not : it is in the case of Beyrouth, but it is not in the case of Salonika or Constantinople, although French is much more frequently spoken in the two latter towns than in the Syrian harbour. Or, to take another example, does the existence of invested Italian capital constitute a fair base for Italian annexation ? It certainly does for Valona, but it would not for Syria, al- 150 A LIST OF CLAIMS though, from a pure economical stand- point, Italy's capital is much more in- terested in Syrian than in Albanian enter- prises. What matters is the will of a great nation to expand in a given direction : interests, reasons, arguments, historical recollections, religious senti- ments and what not are only of secondary importance. In one case only does it seem to us advisable to call the reader's attention to the real interests involved in the issue : when the situation shows germs of a controversy between the Allies themselves, or between Allies and neutrals. To make a comparison between two contending claims is much easier than to give a plausible proof of the absolute well- foundedness of one. We only know of two 151 TURKEY AND THE WAR instances where a unanimous agreement between the Allies (although attained and secured between the Governments) is not fully realized by the public. One is the fate of Constantinople and the Straits. It has been ascertained from reliable sources that the Entente Cabinets have arrived at a full mutual understanding on this secular problem ; but public opinion in England and Italy does not yet seem sufficiently prepared to welcome the solu- tion foreshadowed by the Allied diplomacy in accordance with the vital interests of Russia. The second question which is still unsettled so far as uninitiated circles are concerned is the delimitation of French and English spheres of in- fluence in Syria. It seems that a com- plete and satisfactory agreement in this 152 A LIST OF CLAIMS matter has been reached at one of the Paris Conferences ; but here again public discussion in both France and England remains behind the progress realized by their own diplomatists. To these two questions we will dedicate special chapters. In connection with the problem of Syria's future another question arises which, in days to come, is bound to play a prominent role in Eastern politics. It is the question of Arab national aspira- tions. The Governments do not seem very much concerned with this movement as yet, and indeed it looks as if they were right in refusing to attribute any exaggerated importance to a promising but unripe phenomenon. What an observer* * Andre Dubosq, " Syrie, Tripolitaine, Albanie," 1914. 153 TURKEY AND THE WAR recently said seems to be true and recog- nized as true by all those who know the Orient : " What is prematurely called 1 the Arab movement ' is as yet not more than the expression of local tendencies with no concordance between them. The Yemen, the Nedjed, Bagdad, and Syria are not on the eve of marching under the same flag to the conquest of an Arab supremacy." The ordinary public, however — we mean of course that part of the public who know of the existence of such a thing as an Arab Nationalism — may be sometimes in- clined to feel puzzled at the seeming con- tradiction between European and native interests. We try to point out some as- pects of this interesting problem in one of the following chapters. Another and the last chapter will deal 154 A LIST OF CLAIMS with the German claims on the Turkish heritage. We think that victory, however complete, must not relieve the winning side of the obligation of reckoning with the vital necessities of the conquered foe. Of course, we are not going to advocate a " generous treatment " of the " crushed " German Empire — this would be ridiculous in dealing with an enemy who will be beaten but never crushed, and who will never require nor accept generosities. But the interests of a durable peace would be irrevocably compromised were Germany excluded from — at least — commercial ex- pansion in the Orient. At the same time, the rights of the Turkish race must not be forgotten ; and it would be only fair to every side concerned if both claims, Turkish and German, 155 TURKEY AND THE WAR could be settled by one and the same arrangement. Another national problem is connected with the settlement of Palestine's fate. The Jewish question has been brought into special prominence by the horrible suffer- ings of the Russian and Galician Jews in the war-zone, and the fact that the Government responsible for these sorrowful events is an Allied Government makes of this question a debt of conscience for the Western members of the Entente. At the same time various manifestations of the Zionist idea, especially the one which took the form of a " Zion Corps " attached to the British Expeditionary Force in Gallipoli,* called the attention of the * Lt.-Col. J. H. Patterson, " With the Zionists in Gallipoli," London, 1916. 156 A LIST OF CLAIMS English public to this old undying hope, to the endeavours of the Zionist Organiza- tion, and to the existing Jewish colonies in Palestine. But we do not think that this problem, however " actual' ' it may be, and whatever may prove its impor- tance for the future of the Near East, belongs naturally to the special category with which we are now dealing. It has no immediate and necessary connection with the question of delimitation of fron- tiers. The Zionist aspirations tend not so much to full independence — at least for the present — as to a sort of " Charter " including guarantees of self-government and privileges for colonization. Such a Charter could be granted, theoretically speaking, by any liberal government, be it French or English. 157 TURKEY AND THE WAR For the remainder we shall confine our- selves to a bare recital of the main revin- dications formulated by the Allies or friendly Powers, officially or unofficially, in connection with the present war. England seems to include in her aspired zone of influence the whole of Mesopo- tamia and the Southern part of the Syrian coast land, including probably also the control over the corresponding portion of the Hedjaz railway. The French zone of aspirations em- braces the whole of Syria including Alex- andretta in the north, Damascus and Aleppo in the east, and Palestine in the south ; the last claim, however, seems to have been abandoned in deference to British interests. Russia demands the possession of the 158 A LIST OF CLAIMS Straits ; this implies the annexation of Constantinople and the adjacent part of the present vilayet of Constantinople on the European side of the Bosphorus, as well as of Scutari and surroundings on the Anatolian side ; further, the possession of all the islands in the Sea of Marmora, of the Gallipoli Peninsula and of the Asiatic coast of the Dardanelles. Russia also claims control over the whole of his- torical Armenia, embracing the vilayets of Erzerum, Van, Bitlis, Kharput (Mam- uret-el-Aziz), and Diarbekir, As an alter- native to the annexation of the Straits it has also been spoken of leaving to Russia the ancient region of Cilicia, corresponding to the present vilayet of Adana ; this would evidently imply the possession of a fairly wide " thoroughfare " leading from 159 TURKEY AND THE WAR Adana-city in this region to Kharput in Armenia. Italy claims control over the ancient region of Pamphylia — the present Adalia in the vilayet of Konia. It is also a matter of common knowledge that Smyrna began to attract, during the last years, a good deal of attention from official and commercial Italy. If Greece joins the war on the side of the Entente, Smyrna, and probably the whole vilayet of Aidin which forms Smyrna's " hinterland/' will be claimed by this Power on the ground of important ethnical affinities and serious commercial interests. Greece will also insist on having a share in the future control of Constantinople and Gallipoli. Roumania, even having joined the war on 160 A LIST OF CLAIMS our side, does not seem to have any posi- tive claims on the Turkish heritage ; but she will countenance the annexation of Constantinople to Russia only under some arrangement securing a strong representa- tion of Roumanian interests. 161 -THE STRAITS XI The Straits Constantinople is claimed by Russia, Greece and Bulgaria. The part Bulgaria has chosen in this war does not fit her for the role of a pretender to a town which belongs to one of her allies. The partition of Turkey implies a victory of the Entente, and we can hardly imagine such victory resulting in a reward for Bulgaria. Be- sides, the Bulgarian pretence is not backed by any serious argument of either ethnical or economical character. Constantinople has no more than 15,000 inhabitants of Bul- garian race and speech, out of a total 165 M TURKEY AND THE WAR population of 1,125,000 ; another 10,000 could be found perhaps in the environs of the city. The commercial interests of Ferdinand's kingdom have been completely settled since the conquest of Dedeagatch : Bulgaria possesses what is denied to Rou- mania and to Russia — an ice-free port on the right side of the Straits. The Bul- garian claim on Constantinople is a rare example of a political pretence absolutely void of any plausible justification, being an outcome of mere ambition and mania grandiosa. The Greek case has much better founda- tions. It may be questioned whether the so-called historical rights have any prac- tical value in our prosaic days ; but it is undeniable that the historical rights on Byzantium can be claimed by none but 166 THE STRAITS Greece. In addition Constantinople has a Greek population of more than 200,000, who play prominent parts in every vital branch of local life. That is no small matter — but that is all. Greece cannot support her claim by any argument show- ing on her side a real practical need for Constantinople. Her maritime position is ideal without the Golden Horn. And even the racial argument cannot be accepted without objection. A town or a country can be claimed on purely ethnical grounds only if the majority of the population belong to the claimant's race. This is not the case in Constantinople where the Greeks are only one-fifth of the inhabitants. So the only title which indeed cannot be questioned in itself is the historical right as aforementioned. It is a great 167 TURKEY AND THE WAR factor, but it can hardly stand against a claim based upon vital economical interests. Such is Russia's claim. Its unpopu- larity with the English public must be mainly attributed to the fact that it was always considered as a mere product of Panslavistic ideas. It may be true psy- chologically or it may not : we leave it undiscussed because it really does not matter. Whatever may have been the motives of him who first formulated " By- zantium for Russia " and of those who supported or inherited this battlecry, it is now strongly supported by people who have nothmg to do with Panslavism. Even if there were no Slavs at all in the Balkan Peninsula, or if Russia were not a Slav but a Latin or a Chinese Empire, its push 168 THE STRAITS towards the Straits would remain what it is — a natural and obvious necessity, We hardly think it worth while to indulge in proving this commonplace truth. A look at the map would be sufficient, even if the well-known events of the war had not previously brought this fact to the consciousness of every impartial observer. Still a few figures may be useful to recall some experiences in the good old days of peace — experiences which were in their own way not much sweeter than those of war-time. Russia's export of cereals amounted in 1910, for instance, to 847,100,000 pounds, of which more than a half were forwarded through the Black Sea and Azov Sea ports. The part which these ports play in Russia's shipping traffic can also be seen from the following dis- 169 TURKEY AND THE WAR tribution of tonnage (entered and cleared) between the three sea-shores of European Russia in the same year, 1910 : Entered. Cleared. Tons. Tons. White Sea - 830,000 829,000 Baltic Sea - - - 5,547,000 5,629,000 Black and Azov Seas - 7>555,ooo 7,424,000 Total - - 13,932,000 13,882,000 Thus more than a half of Russia's ex- ports is under the absolute and unlimited control of the ruler of the Straits. Worse than that : Russian commerce depends upon the goodwill not only of the Turk but of any of his innumerable enemies, big or small. Every complication in the Near East is bound to result in the closing of the Dardanelles. So in the three years preceding the war the Straits were closed twice. The result can be clearly shown 170 THE STRAITS by figures illustrating the effect which the Tripoli and Balkan wars had on the Russian exports. The grain exports sunk from 847,100,000 pounds in 1910 to 547,900,000 pounds in 1912 ; the shipping traffic in the Black and Azov Seas de- creased from 7,555,000 tons entered and 7,424,000 cleared in 1910 to respectively 5,712,000 and 5,575,000 in 1912. What it means for Russia can be seen in the instance of Odessa. The two successive closings of the Straits resulted in com- pletely shattering the economic health of this once flourishing town. Since then Odessa is visibly declining, and many of Russia's leading authorities on trade matters doubt whether she will be able to recover from her wounds. We do, however, notice even now a 171 TURKEY AND THE WAR strong instinctive aversion in the average English mind to Russia having Constan- tinople and the Straits. It is time to insist upon a fair and thorough revision of this almost hereditary feeling. We in- sist upon it not because Russia is Britain's ally, but because a durable peace can only be built on bases which will satisfy the vital necessities of each among the great leading Powers. The British public must realize once and for always that a State of Russia's size and resources cannot be indefinitely held away from the ice-free sea. The new ice-free haven on the Mur- man coast, now completed and connected with the main Russian railway lines, will be not more than a provisional remedy good for war-time, faute de mieux ; but it is of no value as a permanent solution. It is 172 THE STRAITS situated in the interesting region of the famous midnight-sun, so dear to the hearts of the Scandinavian poets : that is to say, it has plenty of sunlight by day and by night in the summer months, when this port is not needed, and no sunlight at all, even by day, just in those winter months when the other havens of Russia are ice- bound. Imagine Liverpool being com- pelled to perform all the operations of piloting, loading and unloading at night- time only, and ask any expert whether it can be considered as a relief for a country of Russia's magnitude and riches. In addition, the Murman port is a port in a desert — in a desert that is doomed to remain a desert for all eternity. Such a port is an absurdum. And even a bigger absurdum is to think that the Russian 173 TURKEY AND THE WAR Empire can declare itself satisfied with this makeshift. Russia will strive for the free sea in spite of the world's and her own pacifist tendencies, impelled by irresistible necessity. Her way to Port Arthur was barred eleven years ago by the events of Liaoian and Tsushima, and everybody in Russia is definitely reconciled to the idea that it is barred for ever and that the attempt was itself a mistake. So there are only three ways for Russia. She must look for a free sea port either on the western coast of Norway, or on the southern coast of Persia, or on the Mediterranean. Geo- graphy does not allow of any other choice. Let the British public think over this choice, having in mind not Russia's but Britain's interests. Should Russia be com- 174 THE STRAITS pelled to look for a footing on the Scandi- navian coast, it would mean a Russian base just facing the British Isles, and not even too distant from the Firth of Forth. Sven Hedin, the famous Swedish traveller and the intellectual leader of Swedish " Activism/' said, among too many ex- aggerations, one sensible thing : he showed that, if Russia chose to establish herself on the Norwegian coast, the northern fjords of Norway — Narvik for instance — would be of no use to her for the same reasons which depreciate the Murman port — midnight - sun and desert. In Sven Hedin's opinion Russia would then prefer some harbour on this side of the Polar circle, blessed by darkness at midnight and sun at midday all through the year and leading into a populated country : 175 TURKEY AND THE WAR Trondheim, for instance. This Trondheim is only 648 nautical miles from the Firth of Forth. Of course we firmly believe in the complete harmony of Russian and British interests. Bui the balance of forces in the North Sea is already such a delicate and complicated thing that many common- sense Englishmen will prefer it to remain as it is without further complications. The alternative is, as we said, a port on the Persian Gulf. This perspective, we suppose, is even less alluring to English opinion. Instead of explaining why, let us repeat the good French proverb : A bon entendeur, peu de paroles. From the British point of view the solution which means the least inconveni- ence or apprehension for the future is to see Russia established on the Eastern 176 THE STRAITS Mediterranean. The Mediterranean Sea is an open sea leading freely to any part of the world's ocean. But God and History shaped it into a form very convenient to British Imperial interests. The way to India from the Mediterranean leads through the Suez Canal which is controlled by Britain, and the way to the British Isles from the Mediterranean leads through the Straits of Gibraltar which are also controlled by Britain. We refuse to admit that England's past policy towards Russia was ever inspired by the desire to prevent the free development of her natural maritime possibilities. We interpret the shade of diffidence, felt and expressed on this matter by the English public in days past and forgotten, as a legitimate anxiety to keep the control of the seas in the hands of a 177 TURKEY AND THE WAR nation to whom sea-power means every- thing. We choose to believe that even in those days English opinion would gladly have agreed to any settlement conciliating Russia's right to an access to the free sea with England's natural jealousy of the ocean. The Dardanelles solution serves both purposes in a most admirablejway. We use, indiscriminately, the names Constantinople and the Dardanelles be- cause they express the same thing. The possession of the Golden Horn would be of no use without that of Gallipoli. Timid people suggest the compromise of sub- mitting the Bosphorus to one rule and the Dardanelles to another. But what is the good of free traffic through the Bosphorus if the Dardanelles shall remain liable to be closed as before at the least shadow of 178 THE STRAITS a quarrel in which Russia has nothing to say ? The possession of the Straits im- plies the possession of both passages on both sides, Anatolian and Roumelian, in- cluding Constantinople and Scutari, Princes' and Marmora Isles, Gallipoli and Dar- danelles-city. We do not see why this scheme should be considered an odious annexation clashing with the principle of nationality, holy to the Allies. This principle, as already said, can be fully applied only where there is a clear and decisive pre- dominance of one race, in numbers as well as in cultural value, over the others. Such is by no means the case of the territories indispensable to assure Russia's control of the Straits. Here is an approximate, but reliable, statistical estimate of the main 179 TURKEY AND THE WAR elements of the population in the region including Constantinople with its Asiatic dependencies (the suburbs of Kanlidja, Scutari, Kadikeuy, the cazas of Princes' Isles, Ghezb6, Beykos, Kartal, and Shile), the sandjaks of Chataldja and Gallipoli, and the mutessarriflik of Dardanelles : Turks - 600,000 Greeks ------ 325,000 Armenians ----- 200,000 Levantines ----- 75,000 Jews 70,000 Bulgarians ----- 30,000 Foreigners - 130,000 Total (including smaller groups) - 1,450,000 This motley composition absolutely re- fuses to support any claim based on ethnical grounds. The Straits cannot be annexed to a State " of their own race " because they have no race of their own. Their destinies can only be discussed and decided 180 THE STRAITS from the standpoint of economical neces- sity and political efficiency. Of course we know that a strong party, especially in Roumania, suggests a com- promise : neutralization of the Straits and of Constantinople. At the first glance this project seems alluring as all compromises do ; but, as almost all of them, it is an utterly inefficient scheme, bound to create a precarious and dangerous state of things. Russia needs a passage completely and absolutely free, independent of the good will of her neighbours, big and small, near and far. What neutralization means, the world has learnt on the first day of this war. This lesson will never be forgotten. The " neutralized " Straits could be seized and occupied in spite of scraps of paper before Russia could oppose it by force, 181 N TURKEY AND THE WAR and all that would remain to her would be the moral comfort of writing diplomatic notes. Would England ever agree to a neutralization of the Suez Canal without having secured for herself the control — the military control — of its approaches ? The situation at the Dardanelles is quite analogous. Even more : the Suez Canal after all is not the only way to India, whilst the Dardanelles are indeed the only access to Russia's South. Some international agreement concerning the free use of the Straits may prove indispensable and would certainly not be opposed by Russian opinion in principle ; but Russia could accept it only as a corollary in a settlement which should leave to her the full sovereignty, the military and administrative control of the two shores of the Bosphorus and of the 182 THE STRAITS two shores of the Dardanelles.* Any other decision of the half-way sort would in- evitably lead to this one result : that Russia would seize the first opportunity to help herself out of a precarious " neutral- ization" which would leave her, just as now, under the sword of Damocles. On the other side, there is no need to complicate the question by alleging that, in order to secure her future position on * The Rech of Petrograd, the leading daily of the Constitutional-Democratic Party, wrote in 1915 : " With the idea of neutralization the discussion is not yet closed for us. . . . The forms and degrees of neutralization can be extremely various, from that applied to the Strait of Magellan to that of the Panama Canal where the United States has the right to raise fortifications just for the security of the Canal. ... If this problem has been settled for Panama, there is no reason to think that it could not be settled with the same success for the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles." — (Quoted, in a French transla- tion, by M. N. Dascovici, " La question du Bosphore et des Dardanelles," 1915, p. 293.) 183 TURKEY AND THE WAR the Straits, Russia must claim an unin- terrupted land approach from Batum to Scutari. England and France keep their over-sea dominions without land ap- proaches. The Russian Black Sea fleet, under future conditions, will be completely equal to the task of connecting the little colony to the great metropolis. 184 XII— SYRIA AND PALESTINE XII Syria and Palestine If we eliminate the Drang nach Osten, France has practically no competitors as far as Syria is concerned. True, Colonel Churchill wrote in the 'sixties that Syria is geographically and historically the indispensable corollary of Egypt, and that both ought to belong to England. But, although one-half of this prophetic wish has been fulfilled, we think that nobody in Britain would press for the execution of the second moiety. If such a tendency can be discovered anywhere in our days, it is perhaps among 187 TURKEY AND THE WAR a section of Arab Nationalists in Egypt and Syria. Their argument may be worth mentioning. It presents a new feature in the development of Arab political opinion. Until recent times the Arabs, especially those of Syria, were understood to be strongly Francophil — inasmuch as they did not consider the possibility of complete independence. It was a natural result of their education, as most of the modern-taught Arabs passed through the numerous French schools of Syria. But since the beginning of this war several symptoms pointed to a notable change in this attitude, at least among a section of Syrian leaders. One of them, who lives in Paris, gave us the following explanation of this new departure. " Before the war broke out it had always 188 SYRIA AND PALESTINE been an axiom with us that England did not want Syria. So the only alternative to Turkish rule, for those who did not believe in independence, was France. The Turkish menace to Egypt changed the whole situation. My friends from Cairo write me that now on all sides the con- viction is growing that England will not be able to remain indifferent to the future of Syria. They think England will claim for herself the southern part of the Syrian coast, if not the whole of it. If it is true, then we Arabs have to reconsider our attitude. If we really have a choice be- tween France and England, many of us would prefer England. We do not feel any particular love for either ; as a matter of feeling, our instinctive sympathy goes rather to the French than to the English. 189 TURKEY AND THE WAR But the French rule is centralistic and tends to impose on the native population the French language and customs. Eng- land is incomparably more liberal. We have two examples before our eyes : Tunis and Egypt were occupied at the same time. Tunis has been completely " frenchified * in everything — administration, tribunals, schools, even religious education ; whilst in Egypt our national language plays a prominent role in schools and public life. This difference is eloquent enough. Be- sides, there is another consideration of no less importance. The populations of the southern and eastern Mediterranean coasts, who all speak Arab dialects and could form in the future a great united nation, have been cut up into sections under different rule : Morocco, Algeria and Tunis 190 SYRIA AND PALESTINE are French, Tripoli is Italian, Egypt is British, and now they are speaking of Syria about to become French. I think it is trop de morcellement. Many of us will certainly prefer Egypt and Syria to be one, under the same rule, and so to constitute a powerful nucleus of Arab nationhood." * * Cf. also the impressions of a French observer close at the eve of the war : "De toutes les puissances qui cherchent a £tendre leur influence sur la Syrie et la Palestine, l'Angleterre est avec la France la seule vers qui aillent les aspirations des populations desireuses d'echapper de quelque maniere an gou- vernement des Turcs. . . . Sans vouloir mettre en doute la bonne foi du gouvernement anglais lorsqu'il declara l'annee derniere n'avoir ' ni intention d'agir, ni dessein, ni aspiration politique dans ces regions,' il n'en est pas moins vrai que les musulmans se tour- nent vers lui et qu'il ne fait rien pour les decourager. Certes, aucune propagande omcielle n'est faite par l'Angleterre en Syrie, mais il faut que les musulmans aient ete, comme on dit, fortement ' travailles ' precddemment par ses agents pour qu'ils la regardent comme leur protect rice naturelle. On vit au prin- temps dernier les notables musulmans reclamer au i 9 i TURKEY AND THE WAR These ideas did not 'pass unnoticed. In the early spring of 1915 they formed the subject of a lively polemic between some leading vernacular papers of Cairo. A little later, one of the most important Paris dailies spoke with some anxiety of " a section among the Syrian Arabs who are said to turn their eyes towards a Power other than France/' and tried to persuade them that France is still the fittest alternative for them. We think that this last opinion is en- tirely shared by all responsible men in consul d'Angleterre a Beyrouth aide et assistance contre les autorit6s ottomanes, et les journaux de France epiloguerent longuement sur l'incident. Que les diplomates anglais n'agissent plus aujourd'hui sur les musulmans de Palestine et de Syrie, il n'en reste pas moins que l'Angleterre a conserve sur eux une influence politique dont ils sont devenus eux- memes les propagateurs." — (Andre Dubosq, " Syrie, Tripolitaine, Albanie," 1914, pp. 32, 33.) 192 SYRIA AND PALESTINE British politics and press. The only ques- tion that remains and really concerns vital English interests is to know where the southern frontier of the future French Syria should be drawn. In other terms : Syria must unquestionably go to France, but what shall be the fate of that southern part of the Syrian coast which bears the historic name of Palestine ? This question has met with little interest on the part of the British public, with the exception of some official circles in this country and in Egypt. Not so in France. The question of Palestine is vividly dis- cussed in papers and at public meetings ; the battlecry is " il nous faut la Syrie integrate." Among the leaders of this pro- paganda we find many prominent names — for one instance, that of Senator Leygues. 193 TURKEY AND THE WAR Although not in the least supported by the Government, which keeps a correct silence on the whole matter, this movement shows that French political sentiment is almost as keen on Palestine as on the rest of Syria. Analysing, however, this part of the French claim, one cannot help seeing that it is hardly supported by anything but sentiment. Palestine occupies less than a sixth of the total surface of Syria, and includes less than a sixth of Syria's total population. In the present conditions it is the poorest part of Syria. The large commercial towns, Beyrouth, Damascus and Aleppo lie outside of Palestine ; compared with them Jerusalem is small and poor. Palestine has no natural harbour com- parable to Alexandretta or Beyrouth. And 194 SYRIA AND PALESTINE indeed commercial arguments do not play any noticeable part in the agitation in favour of a French Palestine, whilst they predominate in any expose of the French case concerning the rest of Syria. The case for Palestine is supported exclusively by motives of an ideal sort, such as recol- lections of the first Crusade when Godfrey of Bouillon and Baudoin of Flanders founded the kingdom of Jerusalem, doomed to disappear in one century, or the tradi- tion which from 1535 and 1604 to 1878 entrusted to France the protection of all the Christians in the Orient and particu- larly of the pilgrims going to the Holy Places. It would be cynical to underrate the value of ideal motives. Supposing that after the partition of Turkey there could 195 TURKEY AND THE WAR arise a question of entrusting the " pro- tection of Christians/' or the guardianship of the Holy Places, to one Power, no nation would be better entitled to perform this honourable task than France. But the protection of Christians has been as- sumed long ago by all the Christian Powers for their respective dependents, reducing the French privilege to practically nothing.* * M. Delcasse said in the French Chamber, on January 19th, 1903 : " Le protectorat de la France (i.e. the protectorate over the Christians in Turkey) ne s'etend pas ■ il s'etend de moins en moins a des Strangers. Depuis quelques annees, il a evolue. Tout en gardant son caractere universel (?), il tend de plus en plus . . . a ne s'exercer qu'en faveur des Francais et a leur benefice exclusif." — (Quoted by M. A. Cheradame, " Le chemin de fer de Bagdad et les Puissances/' 1903, p. 309.) " C'est surtout depuis le traite de Berlin que les droits de la France furent contestes et battus en breche. . . . Le protectorat, ce n'etait plus, en effet, comme jadis, la protection des marchands et des pelerins, chaque nation se chargeant aujourd'hui de proteger les siens. On pouvait meme contester qu'il fut question des ordres 196 SYRIA AND PALESTINE Besides, such protection was needed only as long as Palestine was under Moham- medan rule. The partition of Turkey will remove this state of things purely and simply, leaving no ground even for the slightest fiction of ex-territorial protection. Whichever be the State that will inherit Palestine, it will be just as able to protect Christians as England in Egypt or France in Tunis. religieux latins, des ev£ques latins, etc., puisque T article 62 reconnaissait a chaque puissance le droit de prot6ger ceux de sa nationalite. On pouvait soutenir que le protectorat ne consistait plus que dans les prerogatives honorifiques ..." " Dans ces trente dernieres annees, c'est la volonte du Saint- Siege qui empeche notre protectorat de s'effriter sous les efforts de nos rivaux. Mais aujourd'hui la France a rompu avec le Saint-Siege j il pent en resulter, un jour ou 1' autre, 1' abandon formel ou tacite des instructions de 1888 et de 1898 \ ce jour-la le protectorat, dans sa forme ancienne, aura vecu." — (Rene" Pinon, " L J Europe et 1' Empire Ottoman," 1905, PP. 553 and 568.) 197 o TURKEY AND THE WAR But the essential point which removes the foundation itself of France's ideal argument is the question of guardianship of the Holy Places. In this matter it would be idle and dangerous to cherish any illusions. To avoid confusion, the strictest distinction must be kept in mind between Palestine as a whole, and the Holy Places in particular. The latter in- clude a large part of Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth, and two or three minor locali- ties. No arrangement is thinkable leaving them in the hands of one Christian Power. France in her Orient policy was and is a Roman Catholic Power. It does not seem that even Protestant States would like, or simply tolerate, the establish- ment of her one-sided control over cities and villages considered as the common 198 SYRIA AND PALESTINE property of all the Christian Churches. But there is certainly one Power which would oppose such a solution with all its energy, and that is Russia. Militant Or- thodoxy, jealously exclusive — especially in its relations to the Roman Church — is an avowedly prominent factor in Russia's inner and foreign politics. The keen interest for the Holy Places shown by the Russian Church is a well-known fact, and it is supported by the unparal- leled numbers of Russian pilgrims annually flooding Jerusalem at Easter time. So far, however, official Russia has shown no sign of political intentions as regards Palestine ; she is not one of France's competitors for this portion of the Turkish heritage. But any attempt to bring the Holy Places under the rule of a Roman Catholic Power 199 TURKEY AND THE WAR would provoke very undesirable complica- tions. We can scarcely imagine anything so likely to imperil the harmony of the Entente as the idea of a French Holy Sepulchre. This idea is impracticable, and we understand that it has already been dropped. The Holy Places will form a group of enclaves governed by an inter- national commission. Nothing remains then of the ideal value which the possession of Palestine could have for France. The two glorious titles which make the fascination of the " crown of Jerusalem " — protector of Christians in the Orient and defender of the Holy Places — have been irremediably cancelled by time and the force of events. What remains is the memory of the short-lived Crusaders' kingdom of seven hundred years 200 SYRIA AND PALESTINE ago. Is it enough to nourish a steadfast enthusiasm for the idea of " Syrie inte- grale " ? And is it enough to counter- balance the heavy, the really vital military reasons which force expert observers on the English side to recognize in Palestine the natural bulwark of the Suez Canal ? As we said, this truth is only slowly filtering through the minds of this country. We remember having read, a little more than a year ago, the following lines in the Fortnightly : " ... It is difficult to ima- gine any British Government voluntarily assuming such a burden (protectorate over Palestine), unless as a proved military necessity, and no one can seriously main- tain that proposition. The desert may not be an impregnable frontier, but it is at least a formidable one, and the line of 201 TURKEY AND THE WAR the Suez Canal is much easier defended than any frontier that could be drawn between Palestine and Syria. ... It has always been British policy to avoid, wherever possible, having land frontiers coterminous with those of great military States."* The author expressed a view very com- mon at that time, and not altogether forgotten even now. It is worth closer consideration. The Sinai campaign, though poor in events, is rich in lessons. In the following we quote a letter dealing with these lessons, written by a foreign journa- list who witnessed the engagements on the Suez Canal in February, 1915. "I am afraid you in England confuse two things : the defence of Egypt and * J. B. Firth, " The Partition of Asia Minor," The Fortnightly Review, April, 1915. 202 SYRIA AND PALESTINE that of the Suez Canal. The former, of course, is secure — but not owing to the desert. The desert did not prevent the enemy from approaching El-Kantara and Serapeum. But for the Canal, he could have approached Zagazig as well. What protects Egypt is the Suez Canal, and not in the least the desert. I admit that the Canal is an impregnable barrier : but then you must consider it only as a means of defence. That is what your generals do. But can you forget that the Suez Canal is by itself a value which must be protected ? I always thought that the Canal was the only reason why England chose to keep Egypt — that its value for England is much greater than that of Egypt. Now you treat the Canal simply as a first-line trench, or an outpost of the 203 TURKEY AND THE WAR Egyptian fortress. First-line trenches and advanced outposts are susceptible of being seriously damaged even by an enemy who is too feeble to take the fortress itself. So it is in the case of the Suez Canal. An enemy having Palestine for his base is hardly likely to penetrate into Egypt ; but are you sure he is not likely to make your Canal useless and impracticable for the whole time of the hostilities ? " I fear that it is not only possible but even easy. The depth of the Canal is II metres (12 yards) ; its width on the surface varies between 80 and 120 metres (88-132 yds.) ; but the width which is more important is that at the bottom, and it does not exceed 45 or 50 metres (49*5-55 yds.). It would be sufficient to sink in the Canal a medium-sized warship, or even a big 204 SYRIA AND PALESTINE merchant vessel, to bar the road to trade traffic, to military transports, and to other men-of-war. The raising of a sunk ship is always a hard job ; even in peace time it would take a good twelve days to lift up a big boat ; the work is very com- plicated, you need a lot of dredges, barges, working men and so on. All this is abso- lutely impracticable when your enemy holds the approaches and is able not only to handicap the work, but even to sink your dredges at the side of the first vic- tim. ... I heard from people who know the Canal as their own pocket that a clever and well-equipped enemy could em- ploy in some places a simpler and more effective method by blowing up a part of the eastern bank, in order to upset enormous masses of sand and stone into the water. 205 TURKEY AND THE WAR " Of course the Turk is not likely to have at his disposal all the necessary means to damage the Canal. But if some day in the future Palestine should serve as a base for a real great Power, equipped with all the devilries of modern technique — then, believe me, it would be quite another story. " I asked your officers why they chose the Canal as their first line of defence instead of establishing this line just on the frontier of Egypt, between El-Arish and Akaba. The answer was : because of the desert. If the defenders of Egypt had met the enemy at El-Arish, they would have the desert at their back. They would suffer all the difficulties which now paralyse the action of the Turks : the remoteness from the base, the slow- 206 SYRIA AND PALESTINE ness of transport service, the lack of water, in one word — the desert. Because the desert does perhaps protect you a little if it is before you, but it kills you if it backs your positions. The least re- coil, sometimes inevitable even in success- ful campaigns, throws you then just in the middle of sands where you get not one tiny hamlet to give you a backing, while your enemy has immediately behind him a whole country full of men and supplies. " The only logical conclusion of all that is this : the military value of the desert is rather negative in your case. The proper defence of the Suez Canal cannot be secured unless you put between this precious strip of water and any future enemy a strip of land, combining two essential qualities : (i) It must be de- 207 TURKEY AND THE WAR cently spacious, so as to permit large-scale operations ; and (2) it must be inhabited and cultivable, fit to supply necessaries to an army of which it forms the back- ground. This is an exact description of Syria, or at least of Palestine. I think it was Nelson who said of Tangiers : ' This port must belong to England or to nobody.' Palestine is to the Suez Canal exactly what Tangiers is to Gibraltar/' We think this long quotation from an unpublished source will not seem super- fluous. Of course " it has always been British policy to avoid having land frontiers coterminous with those of great military States." When practicable, this is the wisest policy. The sea is an ideal frontier, because it allows no encroachments. But since the boundary between Egypt and 208 SYRIA AND PALESTINE Syria is a " land frontier/ ' we cannot see any advantage in its being a desert. Of all possible frontiers a desert is the one which makes encroachments easy, and more than easy : it is a constant invitation to infringe. It may be neighbour's land in theory, but it looks too much like no man's land and seems to repeat by its magnetic silence the old dictum which expresses the psycho- logy of all the colonial wars in history : res nullius cedit primo occupanti. Let us remember here what has been said before of " the irresistible push towards culture- less spaces/' and of the force of culture which secures frontiers better than any wall of bayonets. Syria must become unquestionably French. Palestine