Chapter IX: Turkey and the Slavs (10)

As early as 1905 the Armenian committees had decided at a congress held in Paris to resort to all means in order to make Cilicia an independent country. Russia, on the other hand, strove hard to spread orthodoxy in the districts round Adana, Marash, and Alexandretta, in order to enlarge her zone of influence on this side and thus get an outlet to the Mediterranean. At the same time, the Bishop of Adana, Mosheg, did his best to foment the rebellion which was to break out soon after.

In this way the Armenian Christians contributed to the extension of the Russian Empire. In 1904-05, the Nestorians asked for Russian priests and expressed their intention to embrace the Orthodox Faith. The Armenians of Bitlis, Diarbekir, and Kharput in 1907 handed the Russian consul a petition bearing over 200,000 signatures, in which they asked to become Russian subjects.

The Huntchagist leader, Sabah-Gulian, even owned in the _Augah Hayassdan_ (Independent Armenia) newspaper that the members of the committee had taken advantage of the Turks’ carelessness to open shops, where rifles were being sold at half-price or even given away.

The Armenian committees took advantage of the new parliamentary elections to stir up a new agitation. They increased their activity, and, contrary to their engagements, corresponded with the members of the opposition who had fled abroad.

During the Balkan war in 1913 the Tashnakist committees issued manifestoes against the Ottoman Government and the Union party. The Russian consuls at Erzerum and Bitlis did not conceal their sympathy, and at Van the Russian consul threatened to the vali to ask Russian troops to come through Azerbaïjan under the pretext of averting the fictitious dangers the Armenians were supposed to run, and of restoring order.

Now, whereas Russia at home unmercifully stifled all the attempts of the Armenian committees, she encouraged and energetically supported the agitators in Turkey. Moreover, in the report addressed by the Russian consul at Bitlis to the Russian ambassador in Constantinople, dated December 24, 1912, and bearing number 63, the Russian Government was informed that the aim of the Tashnakists was, as they expressly said, “to bring the Russians here,” and that, in order “to reach this end, the Tashnakists are resorting to various means, and doing their best to bring about collisions between Armenians and Moslems, especially with Ottoman troops.” In support of this statement he mentioned a few facts that leave no doubt about its veracity.

This report contained the following lines, which throw considerable light on the Allies’ policy:

“Your Excellency will understand that the future collisions between
Armenians and Moslems will partly depend on the line of conduct
and activity of the _Tashnaktsutioun_ committee, on the turn
taken by the peace negotiations between Turkey and the Slavonic
States of the Balkans, and on the eventuality of an occupation of
Constantinople by the Allies. If the deliberations of the London
Conference did not bring about peace, the coming downfall of the
Ottoman capital would certainly influence the relations between
Moslems and Armenians at Bitlis.

“Both in towns and in the country the Armenians, together with
their religions leaders, have always displayed much inclination
and affection for Russia, and have repeatedly declared the Turkish
Government is unable to maintain order, justice, and prosperity
in their country. Many Armenians have already promised to offer
the Russian soldiers their churches to be converted into orthodox
places of worship.

“The present condition of the Balkans, the victory of the Slav and
Hellenic Governments over Turkey, have delighted the Armenians and
filled their hearts with the cheerful hope of being freed from
Turkey.”

Of course, the coming to Bitlis of a mixed Commission of Armenians and Turks under the presidency of an Englishman, in order to carry out reforms in the Turkish provinces near the Caucasus, did not please the Armenians and Russians who had sacrificed many soldiers to get possession of these regions.

Taking advantage of the difficulties experienced by the Ottoman Government after the Balkan war, the committees agreed together to raise anew the question of “reforms in the Eastern provinces.” A special commission, presided over by M. Boghos Nubar, was sent by the Catholicos of Etchmiadzin to the European Governments to uphold the Armenian claims. At the same time a campaign was started by the Armenian newspapers of Europe, Constantinople, and America, especially by the _Agadamard_, the organ of the _Tashnaktsutioun_ committee, which had no scruple in slandering the Turks and announcing sham outrages.

In 1913 Russia proposed a scheme of reforms to be instituted in Armenia. It was communicated by M. de Giers to the Six Ambassadors’ Conference, which appointed a commission to report on it. As the German and Austrian representatives raised objections to the Russian scheme before that Commission of Armenian Reforms, which met from June 20 to July 3, 1913, at the Austrian embassy at Yeni Keui, Russia, after this defeat, strove to bring over Germany to her views.

In September, 1913, M. de Giers and M. de Wangenheim came to terms on a programme to which the Porte opposed a counter-proposal. Yet the Russian representatives succeeded in concluding a Russo-Turkish agreement, January 26 to February 8, 1914.

When the scheme of reforms was outlined, and the powers and jurisdiction of the inspectors and their staff were settled, the Catholicos sent a telegram of congratulation to M. Borghos Nubar and the latter sent another to M. Sazonov, for the Armenian committees considered the arrangement as a first step towards autonomy. Encouraged by this first success, the committees exerted themselves more and more. The _Tashnaksutioun_ transferred its seat to Erzerum, where it held a congress. The _Huntchag_ committee sent to Russia and Caucasus several of its most influential members to raise funds in order to foment a rising to attack the Union and Progress party especially, and to overthrow the Government. Such was the state of things when war broke out.

The Patriarch, who passed himself off as representing the Armenian people, gathered together under his presidency the leaders of the _Tashnaktsutioun_, the _Huntchag_, the _Ramgavar_, and the _Veragaznial-Huntchag_, and the members of the National Assembly who were affiliated to these committees to decide what attitude they were to take in case the Ottoman Government should enter into the war. No decision was taken, the Huntchagists declining to commit themselves and the Tasknakists stating they preferred waiting to see how things would turn out. Yet these committees carried on their activities separately, and sent instructions to the provinces that, if the Russians advanced, all means should be resorted to in order to impede the retreat of the Ottoman troops and hold up their supplies, and if, on the contrary, the Ottoman army advanced, the Armenian soldiers should leave their regiments, form themselves into groups, and go over to the Russians.

The committees availed themselves of the difficulties of the Ottoman Government, which had recently come out of a disastrous war and had just entered into a new conflict, to bring about risings at Zeitun, in the sandjaks of Marash and Cesarea, and chiefly in the vilayet of Van, at Bitlis, Talori, and Mush in the vilayet of Bitlis, and in the vilayet of Erzerum.

In the sandjaks of Erzerum and Bayazid, as soon as the decree of mobilisation was issued, most of the Armenian soldiers went over to the Russians, were equipped and armed anew by them, and then sent against the Turks. The same thing occurred at Erzindjan, where three-fourths of the Armenians crossed the Russian frontier.

The Armenians of the vilayet of Mamouret’ ul Azig (Kharput), where the Mussulmans were also attacked and where depots of arms had been concealed, provided with numerous recruits the regiments dispatched by Russia to Van and the Persian frontier. Many emissaries had been sent from Russia and Constantinople to Dersim and its area to raise the Kurds against the Ottoman Government. So it was in the vilayet of Diarbekir, though the Armenians were in a minority. Depots of arms of all descriptions were discovered there, together with many refractory soldiers.

In the Karahissar area, where several revolutionary movements had broken out during and after the Balkan war, the Armenians refused to obey the decree of mobilisation and were only waiting for the coming of the Russians to rebel.

Similar incidents—such as mutinous soldiers, attacks against the Turks, threats to families of mobilised Ottomans—occurred in the vilayet of Angora.

In the vilayet of Van, when the Russians, reinforced by Armenian volunteers, started an offensive, some Armenian peasants gathered together and prepared to attack the Ottoman officials and the gendarmerie. At the beginning of 1915 rebellions took place at Kevash, Shatak, Havassour, and Timar, and spread in the kazas of Arjitch and Adeljivaz. At Van over five thousand rebels, seven hundred of whom attacked the fortress, blew up the military and Government buildings, the Ottoman Bank, the offices of the Public Debt, the excise office, the post and telegraph offices, and set fire to the Moslem quarter. When this insurrection subsided about the end of April, numerous Armenian bands, led by Russian officers, attempted to cross the Russian and Persian frontiers.

After the capture of Van, the Armenians gave a great dinner in honour of General Nicolaiev, commander-in-chief of the Russian army in Caucasus, who made a speech in which he said: “Since 1826, the Russians have always striven to free Armenia, but political circumstances have always prevented their success. Now, as the grouping of nations has been quite altered, we may hope Armenians will soon be free.” Aram Manoukian, known as Aram Pasha, soon after appointed provisional Governor of Van by General Nicolaiev, replied: “When we rose a month ago, we expected the Russians would come. At a certain moment, our situation was dreadful. We had to choose between surrender and death. We chose death, but when we no longer expected your help, it has suddenly arrived.”[36]

The Armenian bands even compelled the Ottoman Government to call back troops from the front to suppress their revolutionary manœuvres in the vilayet of Brusa and the neighbourhood. At Adana, as in the other provinces, all sorts of insurrectionary movements were smouldering.

Under such circumstances, the Turkish Government tried to crush these revolutionary efforts by military expeditions, and the repression was merciless. A decree of the Government about changes of residence of the Armenian populations included measures for the deportation of Armenians. As the Turks are generally so listless, and as similar methods had been resorted to by the Germans on the Western front, these measures may have been suggested to the Turks by the Germans.

Tahsin Pasha, Governor of Van, was replaced by Jevdet Bey, Enver’s brother-in-law, and Khalil Pasha, another relation of Enver, had command of the Turkish troops in the Urmia area. Talaat sent Mustafa Khalil, his brother-in-law, to Bitlis.

The revolutionary manœuvres of the Armenians and the repressive measures of the Turks, with their mutual repercussions, could not but quicken the old feuds; so the outcome was a wretched one for both parties.

One cannot wonder that under such conditions continuous conflicts arose between the two elements of the population, that reprisals followed reprisals on either side, first after the Turco-Russian war, again after the events of 1895-96, then in the course of the Adana conflict, during the Balkan war, and finally during the late war. But it is impossible to trust the information according to which the number of the Armenians slaughtered by the Turks rose to over 800,000 and in which no mention is made of any Turks massacred by the Armenians. These figures are obviously exaggerated,[37] since the Armenian population, which only numbered about 2,300,000 souls before the war throughout the Turkish Empire, did not exceed 1,300,000 in the eastern provinces, and the Armenians now declare they are still numerous enough to make up a State. According to Armenian estimates there were about 4,160,000 Armenians in all in 1914—viz., 2,380,000 in the Ottoman Empire, 1,500,000 in Russia, 64,000 in the provinces of the Persian Shah and in foreign colonies, and about 8,000 in Cyprus, the isles of the Archipelago, Greece, Italy, and Western Europe.

The best answer to the eager and ever-recurring complaints made by the Armenians or at their instigation is to refer the reader to a report entitled “Statistics of the Bitlis and Van Provinces” drawn up by General Mayewsky, who was Russian consul first at Erzerum for six years and later on at Van, and in this capacity represented a Power that had always showed much hostility to Turkey. It was said in it:

“All the statements of the publicists, which represent the Kurds as
doing their best to exterminate the Armenians, must be altogether
rejected. If they were reliable, no individual belonging to an
alien race could have ever lived in the midst of the Kurds, and
the various peoples living among them would have been obliged to
emigrate bodily for want of bread, or to become their slaves.
Now nothing of the kind has occurred. On the contrary, all those
who know the eastern provinces state that in those countries the
Christian villages are at any rate more prosperous than those of
the Kurds. If the Kurds were only murderers and thieves, as is
often said in Europe, the prosperous state of the Armenians till
1895 would have been utterly impossible. So the distress of the
Armenians in Turkey till 1895 is a mere legend. The condition of
the Turkish Armenians was no worse than that of the Armenians
living in other countries.

“The complaints according to which the condition of the Armenians
in Turkey is represented as unbearable do not refer to the
inhabitants of the towns, for the latter have always been free and
enjoyed privileges in every respect. As to the peasants, owing to
their perfect knowledge of farmwork and irrigation, their condition
was far superior to that of the peasants in Central Russia.

“As to the Armenian clergy, they make no attempt to teach religion;
but they have striven hard to spread national ideas. Within the
precincts of mysterious convents, the teaching of hatred of
the Turk has replaced devotional observances. The schools and
seminaries eagerly second the religious leaders.”

After the collapse of Russia, the Armenians, Georgians, and Tatars formed a Transcaucasian Republic which was to be short-lived, and we have dealt in another book with the attempt made by these three States together to safeguard their independence.[38]

The Soviet Government issued a decree on January 13, 1918, stipulating in Article 1 “the evacuation of Armenia by the Russian troops, and the immediate organisation of an Armenian militia in order to safeguard the personal and material security of the inhabitants of Turkish Armenia,” and in Article 4, “the establishment of a provisional Armenian Government in Turkish Armenia consisting of delegates of the Armenian people elected according to democratic principles,” which obviously could not satisfy the Armenians.

Two months after the promulgation of this decree, the Brest-Litovsk treaty in March, 1918, stipulated in Article 4 that “Russia shall do her utmost to ensure the quick evacuation of the eastern provinces of Anatolia. Ardahan, Kars, and Batum shall be evacuated at once by the Russian troops.”

The Armenians were the more dissatisfied and anxious after these events as they had not concealed their hostile feelings against the Turks and their satisfaction no longer to be under their dominion; they now dreaded the return of the Turks, who would at least make an effort to recover the provinces they had lost in 1878.

In April of the same year fighting was resumed, and Trebizond, Erzinjan, Erzerum, Mush, and Van were recaptured by the Turks. After the negotiations between the Georgians and the Turks, and the arrangements that supervened, the Armenians constituted a Republic in the neighbourhood of Erivan and Lake Sevanga (Gokcha).

* * * * *

After the discussion of the Armenian question at the Peace Conference and a long exchange of views, Mr. Wilson, in August, 1919, sending a note direct to the Ottoman Government, called upon it to prevent any further massacre of Armenians and warned it that, should the Constantinople Government be unable to do so, he would cancel the twelfth of his Fourteen Points demanding “that the present Ottoman Empire should be assured of entire sovereignty”—which, by the by, is in contradiction with other points of the same message to Congress, especially the famous right of self-determination of nations, which he wished carried out unreservedly.

The Armenians did not give up the tactics that had roused Turkish animosity and had even exasperated it, for at the end of August they prepared to address a new note to the Allied High Commissioners in Constantinople to draw their attention to the condition of the Christian element in Anatolia and the dangers the Armenians of the Republic of Erivan were beginning to run. Mgr. Zaven, Armenian Patriarch, summed up this note in a statement published by _Le Temps_, August 31, 1919.

Mr. Gerard, former ambassador of the United States at Berlin, in a telegram[39] addressed to Mr. Balfour on February 15, 1920, asserted that treaties for the partition of Armenia had been concluded during Mr. Balfour’s tenure of the post of Secretary for Foreign Affairs and at a time when the Allied leaders and statesmen had adopted the principle of self-determination of peoples as their principal war-cry. He expressed distress over news that the Allies might cut up Armenia, and said that 20,000 ministers, 85 bishops, 250 college and university presidents, and 40 governors, who had “expressed themselves in favour of unified Armenia, will be asked to join in condemnation of decimation of Armenia.” He added that Americans had given £6,000,000 for Armenian relief, and that another £6,000,000 had been asked for. Americans were desirous of aiding Armenia during her formative period. “Ten members of our committee, including Mr. Hughes and Mr. Root, and with the approval of Senator Lodge, had telegraphed to the President that America should aid Armenia. We are earnestly anxious that Britain should seriously consider American opinion on the Armenian case. Can you not postpone consideration of the Turkish question until after ratification of the treaty by the Senate, which is likely to take place before March?”

Mr. Balfour, in his reply dispatched on February 24, said:

“In reply to your telegram of February 16, I should observe that
the first paragraph seems written under a misapprehension. I
concluded no treaties about Armenia at all.

“I do not understand why Great Britain will be held responsible
by 20,000 ministers of religion, 85 bishops, 250 university
professors, and 40 governors if a Greater Armenia is not forthwith
created, including Russian Armenia on the north and stretching to
the Mediterranean on the south.

“Permit me to remind you of the facts.

“1. Great Britain has no interests in Armenia except those based
on humanitarian grounds. In this respect her position is precisely
that of the United States.

“2. I have always urged whenever I had an opportunity that the
United States should take its share in the burden of improving
conditions in the pre-war territories of the Turkish Empire and
in particular that it should become the mandatory in Armenia.
Events over which Great Britain had no control have prevented this
consummation and have delayed, with most unhappy results, the
settlement of the Turkish peace.

“3. There appears to be great misconception as to the condition of
affairs in Armenia. You make appeal in your first sentence to the
principle of self-determination. If this is taken in its ordinary
meaning as referring to the wishes of the majority actually
inhabiting a district, it must be remembered that in vast regions
of Greater Armenia the inhabitants are overwhelmingly Mussulman,
and if allowed to vote would certainly vote against the Armenians.

“I do not think this conclusive; but it must not be forgotten.
Whoever undertakes, in your own words, to aid Armenia during her
formative period must, I fear, be prepared to use military force.
Great Britain finds the utmost difficulty in carrying out the
responsibilities she has already undertaken. She cannot add Armenia
to their number. America with her vast population and undiminished
resources, and no fresh responsibilities thrown upon her by the
war, is much more fortunately situated. She has shown herself most
generous towards these much oppressed people; but I greatly fear
that even the most lavish charity, unsupported by political and
military assistance, will prove quite insufficient to deal with the
unhappy consequences of Turkish cruelty and misrule.

“If I am right in inferring from your telegram that my attitude on
the question has been somewhat misunderstood in America, I should
be grateful if you would give publicity to this reply.”

On February 28 Mr. Gerard telegraphed to Mr. Balfour that in referring to treaties made during Mr. Balfour’s period of office he had in mind the Sykes-Picot compact. After saying that “Great Britain and France could not be justified in requiring American aid to Armenia as a condition precedent to their doing justice to Armenia,” he declared that “Armenia’s plight since 1878 is not unrelated to a series of arrangements, well meant, no doubt, in which Great Britain played a directive rôle,” and he concluded in the following terms:

“Our faith in chivalry of Great Britain and France and our
deliberate conviction in ultimate inexpediency of allowing Turkish
threat to override concerted will of Western civilisation through
further sacrifice of Armenia inspire us to plead with you to
construe every disadvantage in favour of Armenia and ask you to
plan to aid her toward fulfilment of her legitimate aspirations,
meanwhile depending on us to assume our share in due time, bearing
in mind imperative necessity of continued concord that must exist
between our democracies for our respective benefit and for that of
the world.”

Soon after, Lord Curzon said in the House of Lords: “It must be owned the Armenians during the last weeks did not behave like innocent little lambs, as some people imagine. The fact is they have indulged in a series of wild attacks, and proved blood-thirsty people.” _The Times_ gave an account of these atrocities on March 19.

At the beginning of February, 1920, the British Armenia Committee of London had handed to Mr. Lloyd George a memorandum in which the essential claims of Armenia were set forth before the Turkish problem was definitely settled by the Allies.

In this document the Committee said they were sorry that Lord Curzon on December 17, 1919, expressed a doubt about the possibility of the total realisation of the Armenian scheme, according to which Armenia was to stretch from one sea to the other, especially as the attitude of America did not facilitate the solution of the Armenian question. After recalling Lord Curzon’s and Mr. Lloyd George’s declarations in both the House of Lords and the House of Commons, the British Armenia Committee owned it was difficult, if the United States refused a mandate and if no other mandatory could be found, to group into one nation all the Ottoman provinces which they believed Armenia was to include; yet they drafted a programme which, though it was a minimum one, aimed at completely and definitely freeing these provinces from Turkish sovereignty. It ran as follows;

“An Ottoman suzerainty, even a nominal one, would be an outrage,
as the Ottoman Government deliberately sought to exterminate the
Armenian people.

“It would be a disgrace for all nations if the bad precedents of
Eastern Rumelia, Macedonia, and Crete were followed, and if similar
expedients were resorted to, in reference to Armenia. The relations
between Armenia and the Ottoman Empire must wholly cease, and the
area thus detached must include all the former Ottoman provinces.
The Ottoman Government of Constantinople has for many years kept
up a state of enmity and civil war among the various local races,
and many facts demonstrate that when once that strange, malevolent
sovereignty is thrust aside, these provinces will succeed in living
together on friendly, equable terms.”

The British Armenia Committee asked that the Armenian territories which were to be detached from Turkey should be immediately united into an independent Armenian State, which would not be merely restricted to “the quite inadequate area of the Republic of Erivan,” but would include the former Russian districts of Erivan and Kars, the zone of the former Ottoman territories with the towns of Van, Mush, Erzerum, Erzinjan, etc., and a port on the Black Sea. This document proclaimed that the Armenians now living were numerous enough “to fortify, consolidate, and ensure the prosperity of an Armenian State within these boundaries, without giving up the hope of extending farther.” It went on thus:

“The economic distress now prevailing in the Erivan area is due
to the enormous number of refugees coming from the neighbouring
Ottoman provinces who are encamped there temporarily. If these
territories were included in the Armenian State, the situation
would be much better, for all these refugees would be able to
return to their homes and till their lands. With a reasonable
foreign support, the surviving manhood of the nation would suffice
to establish a National State in this territory, which includes but
one-fourth of the total Armenian State to be detached from Turkey.
In the new State, the Armenians will still be more numerous than
the other non-Armenian elements, the latter not being connected
together and having been decimated during the war like the
Armenians.”

Finally, in support of its claim, the Committee urged that the Nationalist movement of Mustafa Kemal was a danger to England, and showed that only Armenia could check this danger.

“For if Mustafa Kemal’s Government is not overthrown, our new
Kurdish frontier will never be at peace; the difficulties of its
defence will keep on increasing; and the effect of the disturbances
will be felt as far as India. If, on the contrary, that focus of
disturbance is replaced by a stable Armenian State, our burden will
surely be alleviated.”

Then the British Armenia Committee, summing up its chief claims, asked for the complete separation of the Ottoman Empire from the Armenian area, and, in default of an American mandate, the union of the Armenian provinces of the Turkish Empire contiguous to the Republic of Erivan with the latter Republic, together with a port on the Black Sea.

In the report which had been drawn up by the American Commission of Inquiry sent to Armenia, with General Harboor as chairman, and which President Wilson had transmitted to the Senate at the beginning of April, 1920, after the latter assembly had asked twice for it, no definite conclusion was reached as to the point whether America was to accept or refuse a mandate for that country. The report simply declared that in no case should the United States accept a mandate without the agreement of France and Great Britain and the formal approbation of Germany and Russia. It merely set forth the reasons for and against the mandate.

It first stated that whatever Power accepts the mandate must have under its control the whole of Anatolia, Constantinople, and Turkey-in-Europe, and have complete control over the foreign relations and the revenue of the Ottoman Empire.

Before coming to the reasons that tend in favour of the acceptance of the mandate by the United States, General Harboor made an appeal to the humanitarian feelings of the Americans and urged that it was their interest to ensure the peace of the world. Then he declared their acceptance would answer the wishes of the Near East, whose preference undeniably was for America, or, should the United States refuse, for Great Britain. He added that each Great Power, in case it could not obtain a mandate, would want it to be given to America.

The report valued the expenditure entailed by acceptance of the mandate at 275 million dollars far the first year, and $756,140,000 for the first five years. After some time, the profits made by the mandatory Power would balance the expenses, and Americans might find there a profitable investment. But the Board of Administration of the Ottoman Debt should be dissolved and all the commercial treaties concluded by Turkey should be cancelled. The Turkish Imperial Debt should be unified and a sinking fund provided. The economic conditions granted to the mandatory Power should be liable to revision and might be cancelled.

Further, it was observed that if America refused the mandate the international rivalries which had had full scope under Turkish dominion would assert themselves again.

The reasons given by the American Commission against acceptance of the mandate were that the United States had serious domestic problems to deal with, and such an intervention in the affairs of the Old World would weaken the standpoint they had taken on the Monroe doctrine. The report also pointed out that the United States were in no way responsible for the awkward situation in the East, and they could not undertake engagements for the future—for the new Congress could not be bound by the policy pursued by the present one. The report also remarked that Great Britain and Russia and the other Great Powers too had taken very little interest in those countries, though England had enough experience and resources to control them. Finally, the report emphasised this point—that the United States had still more imperious obligations towards nearer foreign countries, and still more urgent questions to settle. Besides, an army of 100,000 to 200,000 men would be needed to maintain order in Armenia. Lastly, a considerable outlay of money would be necessary, and the receipts would be at first very small.

On the other hand, the British League of Nations Union asked the English Government to give instructions to its representatives to support the motion of the Supreme Council according to which the protection of the independent Armenian State should be entrusted to the League of Nations.

According to the terms of the Treaty of Peace with Turkey, President Wilson had been asked to act as an arbiter to lay down the Armenian frontiers on the side of the provinces of Van, Bitlis, Erzerum, and Trebizond.

Under these circumstances the complete solution of the Armenian problem was postponed indefinitely, and it is difficult to foresee how the problem will ever be solved.

2. THE PAN-TURANIAN AND PAN-ARABIAN MOVEMENTS.

The attempts at Russification made immediately after the 1877 war by means of the scholastic method of Elminski resulted in the first manifestations of the Pan-Turanian movement. They arose, not in Russia, but in Russian Tatary. The Tatars of the huge territories of Central Asia, by reason of their annexation to the Russian Empire and the indirect contact with the West that it entailed, and also owing to their reaction against the West, awoke to a consciousness of their individuality and strength.

A series of ethnographic studies which were begun at that time by M. de Ujfalvi upon the Hungarians—all the peoples speaking a Finno-Ugrian idiom descending from the same stock as those who speak the Turkish, Mongol, and Manchu languages—and were continued by scholars of various nationalities, gave the Pan-Turanian doctrine a scientific basis; the principles of this doctrine were laid down by H. Vambéry,[40] and it was summed up by Léon Cahun in his _Introduction a l’histoire de l’Asie_.[41] This Turco-Tartar movement expanded, and its most authoritative leaders were Youssouf Ahtchoura Oglou; Ahmed Agayeff, who was arrested at the beginning of the armistice by the English as a Unionist and sent to Malta; and later Zia Geuk Alp, a Turkish poet and publicist, the author of _Kizil-Elma_ (The Red Apple), who turned the Union and Progress Committee towards the Pan-Turanian movement though he had many opponents on that committee, and who was arrested too and sent to Malta.

Islam for thirteen centuries, by creating a religious solidarity between peoples of alien races, had brought about a kind of religious nationality under its hegemony. But the ambitious scheme of Pan-Islamism was jeopardised in modern times by new influences and widely different political aspirations. It was hoped for some time that by grouping the national elements of Turkey and pursuing a conciliatory policy it would be possible to give a sound basis to that religious nationality. But that nationality soon proved unable to curb the separatist aspirations of the various peoples subjected to the Turkish yoke, and then, again, it wounded the pride of some Turkish elements by compelling them to obey the commandments of Islam, to which all the Turanian populations had not fully adhered. The Pan-Islamic movement later on grew more and more nationalist in character, and assumed a Pan-Turkish tendency, though it remained Pan-Turanian—that is to say, it still included the populations speaking the Turkish, Mongol, and Manchu languages.

Without in any way giving up the Pan-Islamic idea, Turkish Nationalism could not but support the Pan-Turanian movement, which it hoped would add the 18 million Turks living in the former Russian Empire, Persia, and Afghanistan, to the 8 million Turks of the territories of the Ottoman Empire.

Owing to its origin and the character it has assumed, together with the geographical situation and importance of the populations concerned, this movement appears as a powerful obstacle to the policy which England seems intent upon pursuing, and to which she seeks to bring over Italy and France. It also exemplifies the latent antagonism which had ever existed between the Arabian world and the Turkish world, and which, under the pressure of events, soon asserted itself.

Indeed, the mutual relations of the Arabs and the Turks had been slowly but deeply modified in the course of centuries.

After the great Islamic movement started by Mohammed in the seventh century, the Arabs who had hitherto been mostly confined within the boundaries of the Arabian peninsula spread to the west over the whole of Northern Africa as far as Spain, and to the east over Mesopotamia and a part of Persia. In the twelfth century Arabian culture reached its climax, for the Arabian Caliphs of Baghdad ruled over huge territories. At that time Arabic translations revealed to Europe the works of Aristotle and of the Chaldean astronomers, and the Arabs, through Spain, had an important influence on the first period of modern civilisation.

In 1453, when the Turks, who had extended their dominion over all the shores of the Mediterranean, settled at Constantinople, which became the capital of the Islamic Empire, the influence of Arabia decreased; yet the Arabs still enjoyed in various parts political independence and a kind of religious predominance.

For instance, the Arabs settled in the north of Western Africa, after losing Spain, became quite independent, and formed the Empire of Morocco, which was not under the suzerainty of Constantinople.

The Arabian tribes and Berber communities of Algeria and Tunis, which had more or less remained under the suzerainty of the Sultan, were no longer amenable to him after the French conquest. The Pasha of Egypt, by setting up as an independent Sovereign, and founding the hereditary dynasty of the Khedives, deprived the Ottoman dominion of Egypt, where the Arabs were not very numerous, but had played an important part in the development of Islam. The Italian conquest took away from Turkey the last province she still owned in Africa. Finally, when the late war broke out, England deposed the Khedive Abbas Hilmi, who was travelling in Europe and refused to go back to Egypt. She proclaimed her protectorate over the Nile valley, and, breaking off the religious bond that linked Egypt with the Ottoman Empire, she made Sultan of Egypt, independent of the Sultan of Constantinople, Hussein Kamel, uncle of the deposed Khedive, who made his entry into Cairo on December 20, 1914.

The Turks, however, kept possession of the Holy Places, Mecca and Medina, which they garrisoned and governed. This sovereignty was consolidated by the railway of the pilgrimage. The investiture of the Sherif of Mecca was still vested in them, and they chose the member of his family who was to succeed him, and who was detained as a hostage at Constantinople. But after the failure of the expedition against the Suez Canal during the late war, and at the instigation of England, the Sherif, as we shall see, proclaimed himself independent, and assumed the title of Melek, or King of Arabia.

On the other hand, the province of the Yemen, lying farther south of the Hejaz, has always refused to acknowledge the authority of Constantinople, and is practically independent. Lastly, at the southern end of the Arabian peninsula, the English have held possession of Aden since 1839, and have extended their authority, since the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, over all the Hadramaut. All the sheiks of this part of Arabia along the southern coast, over whom the authority of Turkey was but remotely exercised and was practically non-existent, naturally accepted the protectorate of England without any difficulty, in return for the commercial facilities she brought them and the allowances she granted them, and in 1873 Turkey formally recognised the English possession of this coast.

On the eastern coast of the Arabian peninsula the territory of the Sultan of Oman, or Maskat, lying along the Persian Gulf, has been since the beginning of the nineteenth century under the authority of the Viceroy of India. This authority extends nowadays over all the territories lying between Aden and Mesopotamia, which are in consequence entirely under English sway.

Moreover, the English have proclaimed their protectorate over the Sheik of Koweit.

Koweit had been occupied by the British Navy after the Kaiser’s visit to Tangier, and thus Germany had been deprived of an outlet for her railway line from Anatolia to Baghdad. The Rev. S. M. Zwemer, in a book written some time ago, _Arabia, the Birthplace of Islam_, after showing the exceptional situation occupied by England in these regions, owned that British policy had ambitious designs on the Arabian peninsula and the lands round the Persian Gulf.

Since the outbreak of the war, Ottoman sovereignty has also lost the small Turkish province of Hasa, between Koweit and Maskat, inhabited entirely by Arabian tribes.

The rebellion of the Sherif of Mecca against the temporal power of the Sultans of Mecca shows how important was the change that had taken place within the Arabian world, but also intimates that the repercussions of the war, after accelerating the changes that were already taking place in the relations between the Arabs and the Turks, must needs later on bring about an understanding or alliance between these two elements against any foreign dominion. In the same way, the encroachments of England upon Arabian territories have brought about a change in the relations between the Arabs and the English; in days of yore the Arabs, through ignorance or because they were paid to do so, more than once used English rifles against the Turks; but the recent Arabian risings against the British in Mesopotamia seem to prove that the Arabs have now seen their mistake, and have concluded that the English were deceiving them when they said the Caliphate was in danger.

Finally, in order to pave the way to a British advance from Mesopotamia to the Black Sea, England for a moment contemplated the formation of a Kurdistan, though a long existence in common and the identity of feelings and creed have brought about a deep union between the Kurds and the Turks, and a separation is contrary to the express wishes of both peoples.

* * * * *

It is a well-known fact that the descendants of Ali, the Prophet’s cousin, who founded the dynasty of the Sherifs, or Nobles, took the title of Emirs—_i.e._, Princes—of Mecca, and that the Emir of the Holy Places of Arabia had always to be recognised by the Sherif to have a right to bear the title of Caliph. This recognition of the Caliphs by the Sherifs was made public by the mention of the name of the Caliph in the Khoutba, or Friday prayer.

In consequence of political vicissitudes, the Emirs of Mecca successively recognised the Caliphs of Baghdad, the Sultans of Egypt until the conquest of Egypt by Selim I in 1517, and the Sultans of Turkey, whose sovereignty over the Holy Places has always been more or less nominal, and has hardly ever been effective over the Hejaz.

When the Wahhabi schism took place, the Wahhabis, who aimed at restoring the purer doctrines of primitive Islam, and condemned the worship of the holy relics and the Prophet’s tomb, captured Mecca and Medina.

Mehmet Ali, Pasha of Egypt, was deputed by the Porte to reconquer the Holy Places, which he governed from 1813 to 1840. Since that time the Ottoman Government has always appointed a Governor of the Hejaz and maintained a garrison there, and the Porte took care a member of the Sherif’s family should reside in Constantinople in order to be able to replace the one who bore the title of Sherif, should the latter ever refuse to recognise the Caliph.

Long negotiations were carried on during the war between the British Government and Hussein, Sherif of Mecca, the Emir Feisal’s father, concerning the territorial conditions on which peace might be restored in the East. These views were set forth in eight letters exchanged between July, 1915, and January, 1916.

In July, 1915, the Sherif offered his military co-operation to the British Government, in return for which he asked it to recognise the independence of the Arabs within a territory including Mersina and Adana on the northern side and then bounded by the thirty-seventh degree of latitude; on the east its boundary was to be the Persian frontier down to the Gulf of Basra; on the south the Indian Ocean, with the exception of Aden; on the west the Red Sea and the Mediterranean as far as Mersina.

On August 30, 1915, Sir Henry MacMahon, British resident in Cairo, observed in his answer that discussion about the future frontiers was rather premature.

In a letter dated September 9, forwarded to the Foreign Office on October 18 by Sir Henry MacMahon, the Sherif insisted upon an immediate discussion. As he forwarded this letter, Sir Henry MacMahon mentioned the following statement made to him by the Sherif’s representative in Egypt:

“The occupation by France of the thoroughly Arabian districts of
Aleppo, Hama, Homs, and Damascus would be opposed by force of arms
by the Arabs: but with the exception of these districts, the Arabs
are willing to accept a few modifications of the north-western
frontiers proposed by the Sherif of Mecca.”

On October 24, 1915, by his Government’s order, Sir Henry MacMahon addressed the Sherif the following letter:

“The districts of Mersina and Alexandretta and the parts of Syria
lying to the west of the districts of Damascus, Homs, Hama, and
Aleppo cannot be looked upon as merely Arabian, and should be
excluded from the limits and frontiers that are being discussed.
With these modifications, and without in any way impairing our
present treaties with the Arabian chiefs, we accept your limits
and frontiers. As to the territories within these limits, in
which Great Britain has a free hand as far as she does not injure
the interests of her ally, France, I am desired by the British
Government to make the following promise in answer to your letter.

“‘With the reservation of the above-mentioned modifications, Great
Britain is willing to recognise and support Arabian independence
within the territories included in the limits and frontiers
proposed by the Sherif of Mecca.’”

On November 5, 1915, the Sherif, in his answer, agreed to the exclusion of Mersina and Adana, but maintained his claims on the other territories, especially Beyrut.

On December 13 Sir Henry MacMahon took note of the Sherif’s renunciation of Mersina and Adana.

On January 1, 1916, the Sherif wrote that, not to disturb the Franco-British alliance, he would lay aside his claims to Lebanon during the war; but he would urge them again on the conclusion of hostilities.

On January 30, 1916, Sir Henry MacMahon took note of the Sherif’s wish to avoid all that might be prejudicial to the alliance between France and England, and stated that the friendship between France and England would be maintained after the war.

On June 10, 1916, a rebellion broke out at Mecca. At daybreak the barracks were encircled by Arabs. Hussein ibn Ali, who was at the head of the movement, informed the Turkish commander that the Hejaz had proclaimed its independence. On June 11 the Arabs captured the Turkish fort of Bash-Karacal, and on the 12th Fort Hamadie. Soon after Jeddah surrendered, and on September 21 El Taif.

In a proclamation dated June 27, 1916, the Sherif Hussein ibn Ali stated the political and religious reasons that had induced him to rebel against the Ottoman Government. He declared the latter was in the hands of the Young Turk party, that the Committee of Union and Progress had driven the country to war, was destroying the power of the Sultan, and had violated the rights of the Caliphate.

On October 5 the Sherif Hussein formed an Arabian Cabinet, convened an Assembly, and on November 6 caused himself to be proclaimed King of the Arabs.

In November, 1916, he issued a second proclamation, not so lofty in tone, but more wily in its wording, which seemed to lack personality in its inspiration. It began thus: “It is a well-known fact that the better informed people in the Moslem world, Ottomans and others, saw with much misgiving Turkey rush into the war.” He then stated that—

“The Ottoman Empire is a Moslem empire, whose wide territories have
a considerable sea-frontage. So the policy of the great Ottoman
Sultans, inspired by this twofold consideration, has always aimed
at keeping on friendly terms with the Powers that rule over the
majority of Moslems and at the same time hold the mastery of the
seas.”

He went on as follows:

“The one cause of the downfall of the Ottoman Empire and the
extermination of its populations was the short-sighted tyranny
of the leaders of the Unionist faction—Enver, Jemal, Talaat,
and their accomplices; it is the giving up of the political
traditions established by the great Ottoman statesmen and based
on the friendship of the two Powers that deserve most to be
glorified—England and France.”

He shared the opinion of those who reproached the Turks with the “atrocities committed by Greeks and Armenians”; he called upon them “the reprobation of the world”; and he wound up his proclamation with these words:

“Our hatred and enmity go to the leaders who are responsible for
such doings—Enver, Jemal, Talaat, and their accomplices. We will
not have anything to do with such tyrants, and in communion with
all believers and all unprejudiced minds in the Ottoman Empire and
Islam throughout the world we declare our hatred and enmity towards
them, and before God we separate our cause from their cause.”

Great Britain later on insisted upon this point—that the question of the territorial conditions with a view to restoring peace had not been dealt with since the beginning of 1916, except in the above-mentioned exchange of notes. In September, 1919, in a semi-official communication to the Press, she emphatically declared that it followed from these documents:

(1) That in the letter dated October 24, 1915, which formulates the only engagement between Great Britain and the Sherif, the British Government had not pledged itself to do anything contrary to the Anglo-French treaty of 1916.

(2) That no fresh engagement had been entered into by Great Britain with the Sherif since the beginning of the negotiations that M. Georges Picot had been directed to carry on in London to pave the way to the treaty of 1916. For the negotiators had met for the first time on November 23, 1915, and the last two letters exchanged in January, 1916, added nothing to the engagements made with King Hussein in the letter of October 24 of the previous year.

Finally, on March 5, 1917, Hussein, now King of the Hejaz, sent an appeal to all the Moslems of Turkey against the Ottoman Government, which he charged with profaning the tomb of the Prophet in the course of the operations of June, 1916.

On October 1, 1918, Feisal entered Damascus at the head of his own victorious troops, but not with the Allied armies, after fighting all the way from Maan to Aleppo, a distance of above 400 miles. By his military and political activity, he had succeeded in quelling the private quarrels between tribes, and grouping round him the Arabian chiefs, between whom there had been much rivalry not long before, at the same time protecting the right flank of the British army, which was in a hazardous position.

Without giving up his favourite scheme, he was thus brought face to face with the Syrian question.

Though the Arabian movement cannot be looked upon merely as the outcome of the arrangements concluded in regard to Syria between the Allies during the war, the latter seem at least to have brought about a state of things which reinforced the Syrian aspirations and encouraged them to assert themselves.

The Syrians had once more taken advantage of the events which had convulsed Europe, and had had their after-effects in Asia Minor, to assert their determination to be freed from Ottoman sovereignty; and now they hoped to bring the Peace Conference to recognise a mode of government consistent with their political and economic aspirations.

The suppression of the autonomy of Lebanon, the requisitions, the administrative measures and prosecutions ordered in 1916 by Jemal Pasha against the Syrians, who wanted Syria to be erected into an independent State, had not succeeded in modifying the tendency which for a long time had aimed at detaching Syria from the Ottoman Empire, and at taking advantage of the influence France exercised in the country to further this aim.

In 1912 M. R. Poincaré, then Minister of Foreign Affairs, clearly stated before the French Chamber that the French and British Governments shared exactly the same views concerning the Syrian question. Yet later facts soon proved that the English policy would necessarily conflict with French influence and try to destroy it after turning it to her own advantage. Simultaneously the Turks saw that the time had come to modify the existing régime.

M. Defrance, who is now French High Commissioner in Turkey, but was then French Consul-General at Cairo, informed the French Government that the Ottoman Committee of decentralisation was of opinion that Syria should become an autonomous country, governed by a Moslem prince chosen by the people, and placed under the protection of France.

On March 11, 1914, M. Georges Leygues again raised the Syrian question before the French Parliament. He maintained that the axis of French policy lay in the Mediterranean—with Algeria, Tunis, and Morocco on one side and on the other side Syria and Lebanon, the latter being the best spheres open to French action on account of the economic interests and moral influence France already exercised there. And the French Parliament granted the sums of money which were needed for developing French establishments in the East.

About the same time the Central Syrian Committee expressed the wish that the various regions of Syria should be grouped into one State, under French control. Fifteen Lebano-Syrian committees established in various foreign countries expressed the same wish; the Manchester committee merely asked that Syria should not be partitioned. A Syrian congress, held at Marseilles at the end of 1918 under the presidency of M. Franklin Bouillon, declared that for various economic and judicial reasons France could be of great use to Syria, in case the direction of the country should be entrusted to her.

But the establishment of a Syrian State, whether enjoying the same autonomy as Lebanon has had since 1864 under the guarantee of France, England, Russia, Austria, Prussia, and later on Italy, or being governed in another way, was in contradiction to the arrangements made by France and England in 1916. Though the agreement between these two Powers has never been made public, yet it is well known that it had been decided—contrary to the teaching of both history and geography—that Syria should be divided into several regions. Now, the centre of Syria, which stretches from the Euphrates to the sea, happens to be Damascus, and this very town, according to the British scheme, was to be included in an Arabian Confederation headed by the Hejaz.

At the beginning of 1916, the Emir Feisal came to Paris, and, after the conversations held in France, a satisfactory agreement seemed to have been reached.

The Emir Feisal was solemnly received in January, 1919, at the Hôtel de Ville in Paris, and in the course of a reception at the Hôtel Continental, the Croix de Guerre of the first class was presented to the Arab chief on February 4, with the following “citation”:

“As early as 1916, he resolutely seconded the efforts of his
father, the King of the Hejaz, to shake off the Turkish yoke and
support the Allied cause.

“He proved a remarkable, energetic commander, a friend to his
soldiers.

“He planned and carried out personally several important operations
against the Damascus-Medina railway, and captured El-Ouedjy and
Akaba.

“From August, 1917, till September, 1918, he led numerous attacks
north and south of Maan, capturing several railway stations and
taking a great number of prisoners.

“He helped to destroy the 4th, 7th, 8th, and 9th Turkish armies by
cutting off their communications to the north, south, and west of
Deraa, and after a very bold raid he entered Damascus on October 1,
and Aleppo on the 26th with the Allied troops.”