Chapter XXV: France and the Khemalists

France’s participation in the Near Eastern tragedy is well known. Her motives are not far to seek: A frank, bitter and undiluted hatred of King Constantine and everything connected with him, and suspicion of England’s expansion in a region to which France herself has been devoting great attention for many years. French capitalists and the French Government have been investing heavily in Turkey and Gallic propaganda has been pushed by a vast network of Catholic schools officially supported, whose object, in so far as the government’s interest is concerned, has been to catch the natives young and make Frenchmen of them. British or other expansion and predominating influence in Turkey has meant the imperiling of the great sums invested and the annulment of years of patient labor.

This invasion of the Ottoman Empire is admirably set forth in a lecture delivered in 1922 by Monsieur Passereau, Director of the French Commercial Bureau of Constantinople, and published _in extenso_ in the _Echo de France_ of Smyrna. Extracts are herewith given:

“To-day one unconsciously associates such places as
Constantinople, Jerusalem, Beirut, Syria and the Lebanon
with French influence, and here are in fact presented almost
innumerable proofs of the many ways in which the French now
exert and have for a long time exercised a vast and beneficial
influence from one end of the Orient to the other.

“Our schools, our welfare institutions, hospitals, asylums
for the aged, homes for the foundlings and orphanages are
established in every port in the Levant. In every city of the
interior, in all of the important villages, along the entire
length of the railways completed or under construction, there
are French instructors, people who teach the children our name,
our language and our history.

“Let us now make a survey of French financial interests in the
Ottoman Empire and see to what extent French influence has made
itself felt in this connection. Some of these interests are
herewith listed and enlarged upon:

“_Ottoman Public Debt_: France’s share of the Public Debt,
external and internal, is 250,000,000,000 francs, or 60.31% of
the capital of the entire debt. The remainder of the debt is
principally divided between England and Germany, the former
holding 14.19% and the latter 21.31%;

“_Turkish Loans_: The history of governmental loans in Turkey
dates back to the Crimean War. Since that time, France has
without cessation, upon every occasion where the public debt
was threatened by internal difficulty, intervened either in the
form of assistance in reorganization or financial subscription.

“_French Private Enterprises in Turkey_: France has
approximately 1,100,000,000 francs invested in private concerns
in the Ottoman Empire. Her participation in the industrial
activities of the Empire aggregates 53.5% of the total, as
opposed to 13.68% enjoyed by Great Britain and 32.77% by
Germany. These organizations embracing activities in the form
of banks, railways, ports, electric power plants, telephones,
tramways, etc., extend over the entire domain of Turkey and
surround the economic life of the Orient with a network of
French interests. (Among interests of this sort mentioned by
the lecturer are the Imperial Ottoman and other banks, the
tobacco monopoly, etc.)

“_Railways_: France has under construction and exploitation
2,077 kilometres, with an invested capital of 550,238,000
francs, as opposed to Germany’s 2,565 kilometres and England’s
610. France has 42,210,000 francs invested in mines in Turkey,
besides about 80,000,000 in quays and ports.”

In addition, the lecturer gives a list of thirty-nine important miscellaneous enterprises, including industrial, commercial, insurance, shipping and other corporations. It should be remembered that the investments listed above were made in gold.

French sentiments, especially as regards England, are revealed in a work by the French writer, Michel Paillares, entitled _Le Khemalism devant Les Allies_, published in 1922. Monsieur Paillares is one of the editors of the journal _L’Eclaire_ of Paris.

The following quotation is from one of the conversations held by Paillares with French officers at Constantinople, showing their strong pro-Turk, anti-Christian and anti-English feelings:

“I am introduced to an officer in command. He is a man all
of one piece. He does not mince his words. He is like a man
carved out of rock, for he is unmovable in his sympathies and
his antipathies. Like the lieutenant of the Navy whom we have
already heard, but more furiously still, he is the enemy of the
Armenians, the Greeks, the Jews and—the English.

“‘As for me,’ he snaps, ‘there is not even room for discussion!
We ought to be completely, absolutely Turkophiles—I will say
more, Turko-enthusiasts. (Turcomanes.) I love the Mussulmans
and I hate their non-Mussulman subjects, who are rubbish.
Assure these brave men their independence and their territorial
integrity and we shall have in them the most faithful and
the most loyal of allies. What do we seek here? A rampart
against Russia and British imperialism? The maintenance of our
prestige? The free development of our commerce, the expansion
of our language? The respect of our schools and colleges? The
safeguarding of our financial interests? We shall have all
that by means of a French-Turkish collaboration. We ought no
longer to hear the Jeremiads of the Armenians and the Greeks
and the Jews. We must no longer play the game, neither of
England nor of Russia. Russia, although split up by Bolshevism,
must always be watched. She has intentions with regard to this
country which we must not encourage. But I do not think that
she is an immediate danger. It is Great Britain which, above
all, is becoming troublesome. We are, nearly all of us (French
officers) for the Khemalists and against the British and the
Greeks.”

Though this is the opinion of a single individual, it expresses pretty clearly the general French attitude of mind as shown by French policy since the Armistice. It is evident that the sentiments of this French officer and of his colleagues, for whom he speaks, display a keen note of discord among the Allies, helpful to the Turk even in his gruesome work of massacring Christians.

Professor Davis says in _A Short History of the Near East_:[11]

“In August, 1922, apparently with French munitions and French
counsellors, the Khemalists suddenly attacked the Greek
positions in Bithynia. The Greeks were in poor morale, worn
out by long campaigning and miserably led. Their army was
utterly routed and evacuated Anatolia with almost incredible
speed. The Turks drove straight onward to Smyrna which they
took (September 9, 1922) and then burned. The world was again
horrified by one of the now standardized Ottoman massacres of
conquered populations.”

It is to be noted that neither the French nor the Italians permitted the Greek navy to search the ships of their nationals proceeding to Turkish ports, which is in itself a breach of neutrality and can have but one interpretation—that they were carrying arms and supplies to the Khemalists, with the consent and protection of their governments.

For these reasons the battle-ships of the brave and chivalric French, “Protectors of the Christians in the Orient,” were obliged to sit quietly among the dead bodies floating in the Bay of Smyrna and watch the massacre going on.

The following typical incident illustrates the perfect harmony prevailing in naval circles in the Harbor of Smyrna resulting from international discords and how punctiliously the amenities were observed: Am admiral of a battle-ship had been invited to dine with one of his colleagues. He arrived some minutes late and apologized for the delay, which had been caused by the dead body of a woman getting tangled up in the propellor of his launch.

That lucid and well-informed writer, Doctor Herbert Adams Gibbons, in an article in the _Century Magazine_ for October, 1921, gives the best analysis of the French and Italian attitude with regard to the Turks that I have seen anywhere. It can not, of course, be reproduced _in extenso_ here, but a few quotations will be sufficient to show that French support of the Turks was due to fear and jealousy of the British. Says Doctor Gibbons:

“The British regarded Greece as a sort of protectorate,
financially and militarily under the control of Great Britain.
The scheme was spoiled by the fall of Venizelos and the
subsequent defeat of the Greek armies in Asia Minor.

“The Near East had been culturally French since the Crusades.
From Saloniki to Beirut, France was determined to reign
supreme. Palestine represented the very last concession that
it was possible for the French to make. Of course the French
did not hope to possess Constantinople, but they were not going
to let the British settle themselves on the Bosphorus, as they
had done at Gibraltar and Port Said, in Malta and Cyprus. For
this would mean British domination of the Mediterranean and
the Black Seas, and for British capital and British goods the
priority in markets which had been traditionally French.

“I am not conjecturing. The trend of the French press, inspired
by the government, leaves no room for doubt as to what is
prompting France to send arms and money to Khemal Pasha.

“During the war one of the telling indictments against Germany
was her friendship for and alliance with Turkey when the
Armenians were being massacred. Germany was held responsible
for the massacres on the ground that she could have stopped
them had she used her influence with her ally. This was
true; but is it not equally true now that France must bear
the opprobrium and in a measure the responsibility, of the
Armenian and Greek massacres of 1920 and 1921? A French
general negotiated with the Nationalists in Cilicia without
stipulating that the massacres should cease. French diplomats
have negotiated with the Angora Government of Khemal Pasha,
conniving at the massacres of Armenians and Greeks. The sole
thought of the Germans during the war was to use the Turks and
not run any risk of offending them by protesting against the
massacres. This is exactly what the French are doing now.”

This is plain talk and—horrible. The question that naturally arises in the mind of any decent American is, what, if anything, was the United States, the great Christian country, the hope of the world and fountain of missionary activities, doing while all this was going on? What influence was she using, what resounding note of protest and horror was she giving utterance to?

Various historical events connected with the French pro-Turk, but really anti-English activities, are interesting to the student of diplomatic psychology, and the ease with which peoples can be influenced in their predilections and hatreds by those governing them.

At a critical period of the War, on the Balkan front, the Allies demanded the demobilization of the Greek army, the surrender of half of the Greek fleet and a great part of the Greek artillery. King Constantine, after his successful campaigns in the Balkans, had become an object of almost divine worship to the Greeks, and the Allies were afraid of him. On December 2, 1916, a party of French Marines marched into Athens to take possession of the Greek material demanded. They were fired on by Greek soldiers and a number of French Marines were killed.

This was a most regrettable act on the part of the Greeks, and foolish. It was more foolish to send a few foreign Marines into a capital city to drag off its artillery and expect them to be received with open arms. This unfortunate event is the basis to-day of deep-seated hatred of French against Greek. G. F. Abbott, in his work, _Greece and the Allies_, gives the results of the so-called “Battle of Athens,” as follows:

“And so the ‘pacific demonstration’ was over, having cost
the Greeks four officers and twenty-six men killed and four
officers and fifty-one men wounded. The Allied casualties were
sixty killed, including six officers, and one hundred and
seventy-six wounded.”

On April 10, 1920, the Khemalists treacherously massacred the French garrison at Urfa, killing one hundred and ninety men and wounding about one hundred more, and on October 20, 1921, Franklin Bouillon, in the name of the French Republic signed a separate treaty with the Turks. Immediately after the burning of Smyrna he rushed to the still-smoking city and, seizing Mustapha Khemal in his arms, kissed him.

This kiss of Franklin Bouillon has become historic, and while bearing no resemblance to a certain other famous and sinister caress, deserves to rank with it as one of the two most famous kisses in sacred and profane history.