Chapter IX: Turkey and the Slavs (12)

When King Hussein planned to join the Hejaz and Nejd to Syria, Ibn Saud refused to let Nejd fall under the suzerainty of the King of the Hejaz, who was powerful merely because he was supported by Europe and because Syria is a rich country. Most likely the religious question had something to do with this conflict. In August, 1919, the Wahhabis, who had asked the Emir Ibn Saud for his support, suddenly attacked the troops of the sons of the King of the Hejaz which were in the Taif area, and defeated them at Tarabad. The Wahhabi Emir gained a few more victories, and was about to threaten the Holy Cities when the rising of the Orthodox Moslem tribes compelled him to retreat.

So the hostility of the Wahhabis, whose independence was threatened by the Sunnis of the Hejaz, whom they look upon as heretics, still embittered the dissensions in the Arab world.

It has been asserted that this Wahhabi movement was at first started by the Turks, which would not have been unlikely at a time when it was Turkey’s interest to divide Arabia in order to raise difficulties to the Allies after the Sherif’s treason; but now it was no longer her interest—and it was beyond her power—to stir up an agitation.

The Ishmaelites, who laid waste Persia and Syria in the eighth century, and played an important part in the East till the twelfth century, have also broken off with the Shia.

Lastly, the Druses, who inhabit the slopes of Lebanon and the greater part of Anti-Lebanon between Jebeil and Saida along the Mediterranean, profess the creed of the Caliph Al-Hakem, who lived at the beginning of the eleventh century. They had withdrawn to Lebanon and long repelled the attacks of the Turks, whose suzerainty they acknowledged only in 1588. In 1842 the Porte gave them a chief, but practically they have remained almost independent. They have often fought with the Maronite Christians living to the north, especially in 1860, and there is still much hostility between them.

Moreover, all Moslem communities, without exception—whether the communities governed by independent national sovereigns such as Afghanistan; or by sovereigns owing allegiance to non-Moslem Powers such as Egypt, India, Tunis, Khiva, Bokhara; or the communities living under a non-Moslem rule, as is the case with those of Algeria, Russia, and also India and China—give their allegiance to the Sultan as Caliph, though they are always at liberty to refuse it. Even the Moslem communities of Algeria and Tunis, which are connected with those of Morocco by their common origin and language, and live close by them, do not deem it a sufficient reason to recognise the Emir of Morocco as Caliph that he is a descendant of the Prophet.

An even more striking argument is that the community of the Hejaz, which rebelled against Turkish sovereignty during the war and has made itself politically independent, still maintains its religious allegiance to the Sultan; and the present King, Hussein, who is the most authentic descendant of the Prophet, and who rules over the two holiest towns of Islam, Mecca and Medina, soon after the armistice addressed the Sultan a telegram of religious allegiance drawn up in the most deferential terms. The possession of Mecca and Medina being one of the attributes of the Caliph, and these towns having a great religious and political importance owing to the great annual pilgrimage, King Hussein might have taken advantage of this to dispute with the Sultan the title of Caliph. England had strongly urged him to do so, but King Hussein obstinately refused. Then the British Government, giving up all hope of bringing about the transference of the Caliphate from the Ottoman dynasty to another sovereign, concluded a secret alliance with Vahid ed Din.

Considering the intricate situation in the East due to the variety of races and religions, and the movements of all sorts by which the populations of those countries are swayed, it seems most unwise to increase the general restlessness by a vain intervention of the Powers, and to dismember what remains of Turkey in Europe and Aria Minor, a dismemberment which would necessarily have violent repercussions throughout the deeply perturbed Moslem world. Though the recent movements of emancipation in the East to a certain extent meet the legitimate wishes of the peoples and have somewhat cleared the situation in Asia Minor, yet it is obviously most perilous to infringe upon the Sultan’s sovereignty, to endeavour to drive away the Turks into Asia, and to set up a kind of fictitious official Islam by compelling the Moslem peoples of the East to give up their cherished independence and submit to an Arab imperialism which would soon become British imperialism. At the present moment all the Moslem elements are determined to unite together against any enemy of their liberty; and all Moslems, without any distinction of creed or race, might very well one day flock to the standard of a bold leader who should take up arms in the name of Islam, in order to safeguard their independence.

* * * * *

These movements, and many other similar ones, were encouraged and strengthened by the development of the principle of nationalities and the support given to it by Mr. Wilson, who was bent upon carrying it out to its strictly logical consequences, without paying heed to the limitations imposed by the present material and political conditions. But we do not think it is true to say, as has been urged, that the assertion of the right of self-determination of peoples was the initial cause of these movements. The movement in favour of the rights of nationalities originated long before Mr. Wilson’s declarations, which merely hurried on this powerful movement, and also caused it to swerve somewhat from its original direction.

This movement, on the whole, seems chiefly to proceed—though other factors have intervened in it—from a kind of reaction against the standardising tendency, from a material and moral point of view, of modern Western civilisation, especially the Anglo-Saxon civilisation, and also from a reaction against the extreme unification aimed at by russifying the numerous peoples living within the Russian Empire. Modern civilisation, having reached its present climax, has aimed—and its political and social repercussions have had the same influence—at doing away with all differences between human minds and making the world homogeneous; thus all men would have been brought to live in the same way, to have the same manners, and their requirements would have been met in the same way—to the very great advantage of its enormous industrial development. Of course, all this proved an idle dream; human nature soon asserted itself, amidst the commotions and perturbations experienced by the States, and a reaction set in among those who hitherto only aimed at enslaving various human groups, or linked them together politically in a most artificial way. Then the same feeling spread among all those peoples.

All this enables us to see to what extent this movement is legitimate, and to know exactly what proportions of good and evil it contains.

It rightly asserts that various peoples have different natures, and by protecting their freedom, it aims at ensuring the development of their peculiar abilities. For let us not forget that the characters of peoples depend on physical conditions, that even the features we may not like in some peoples are due to the race, and that if, by blending and mixing populations nowadays these features are modified, they are generally altered only from bad to worse.

But this principle is true only so far as it frees and enables to shape their own destinies peoples who have distinctive qualities of their own and are able to provide for themselves. It cannot be extended—as has been attempted in some cases—to States within which men descending from various races or having belonged in the course of centuries to different nationalities have long been united, and through a long common history and a centuries-old co-operation have formed one nation. This is one of the erroneous aspects of Mr. Wilson’s conception, and one of the bad consequences it has entailed.

The eviction of the Turks from Constantinople, which the British wished for but which they dared not carry into effect, does not thwart the scheme of the Turkish Nationalists; it can only bring about a reaction of the Moslem populations against foreign intervention, and thus strengthen the Pan-Turanian movement. Though this movement cannot carry out all its aims, the eviction of the Turks obviously must urge those populations to constitute a State based both on the community of religion and the community of race of its various elements, and from which all alien ethnic elements would be expelled—viz., Slavs, Armenians, Greeks, and Arabs, who were all an inherent source of weakness to the Turkish Empire. This new State would include Anatolia, Russian Azerbaïjan, and Persian Azerbaïjan, the Russian territories in Central Asia—viz., Russian Turkistan, Khiva, Bokhara—the whole of the region of the Steppes; and towards it the Tatar populations of the Volga, Afghanistan, and Chinese Turkistan would necessarily be attracted.

As to the Arabs, the Turks have never been able to gain their friendship, though they have done their best to do so, and have drawn but little profit from the money squandered plentifully in their vast deserts. And the Russians have always stood in the way of an understanding between Turkey and the Arabian territories, because it would have benefited the cause of Islam and therefore would have hindered both their own designs on the territories of Asia Minor and the ambitions of the Orthodox Church. Yet to the Turks as well as the Arabs—and even to the Europeans—it would be a great advantage not to injure the understanding and goodwill that Islam engenders among these peoples, since its creed has both a religious and a political aspect.

The maintenance of this Islamic union has been wrongly called—in the disparaging sense of the word—Pan-Islamism. Yet its ideal has nothing in common with such doctrines as those of Pan-Germanism, Pan-Slavism, Pan-Americanism, Pan-Polism, Pan-Hellenism, etc., which are all imperialistic doctrines aiming at territorial conquests by military or economic means, and also by the diffusion of their own religious creeds and the extension of the influence of their Churches. While Pan-Germanism aims at the hegemony of the world; while Pan-Americanism wants to control the whole of America; while Pan-Slavism wishes to gather together all the Slavonic elements—which is defensible—but also means to supplant the old civilisation of Western Europe, which it considers as “rotten,” and to renovate the world; while Pan-Polism, which has not such ambitious aims, merely seeks, like Pan-Hellenism, to conquer wider territories in order to restore Greater Poland or Greater Greece—Islam, which does not try to make any proselytes, has no other ambition than to group all Moslem elements according to the commandments of the Koran. Yet, Islam having both a political and a religious purpose, a Pan-Islamic concept might be defensible, and would be legitimate from the Moslem point of view, whereas it cannot be so from the Christian point of view. Pan-Catholicism, on the contrary, is an impossible thing, because Christianity does not imply a political doctrine, and is distinct from temporal power—though such a doctrine has sometimes been advocated. For in the doctrine of monarchy, especially in France, religion has always been held merely as a help, a support, and the monarch, though he has often been a defender of the Faith, has never looked upon his power as dependent on the Papacy or bound up with it. Islam, however, does not want to assert itself in, and give birth to, a huge political movement—a Pan-Islamic movement in the imperialistic sense of the word—aiming at constituting a huge theocratic State, including all the 300 million Moslems who are now living. But there is between all Moslems a deep moral solidarity, a mighty religious bond which accounts for their sympathetic feeling towards Turkey, and owing to which even the Moslem inhabitants of countries which have lost their independence still earnestly defend and jealously maintain the privileges and dignity of the Caliph.

So it is a mistake to speak of the ambitious designs of Islam, and the mistake has been made wilfully. Those who profess such an opinion are Pan-Slavic Russians who want to deceive public opinion in the world as to their true intent, and thus prepare for territorial annexations, because Pan-Slavism is the enemy of Islamism. As this Pan-Slavism has always been, and is still more than ever, a danger to Europe, it is the interest of the latter, in order to defend its civilisation, not to fight against Islamism, but even to support it. This necessity has been understood by many Catholics who have always been favourable to Turkey and by the Mussulmans, which accounts for the long friendly intercourse between Moslems and Catholics, and the Moslems’ tolerance toward the devotees of a religion which, on the whole, is in complete contradiction to their own faith. On the other hand, Islam appears as counterbalancing Protestantism in the East, and it seems the future of thought and morality and of any culture would be endangered if the 60 million Indian Moslems and the 220 million Indian Brahminists, Buddhists, and the members of other sects ever listened to Mr. Lloyd George and were connected with Protestantism.

Moreover, King Hussein, in the course of the audience that he granted in July, 1920, to Prince Ruffo, the leader of the Italian mission to Arabia, before his departure, after saying that the Moslem world resented the hostile attitude of the Powers towards the Sultan of Constantinople, declared that the Moslems are not actuated by any feeling of conquest or proselytism, but simply claim the right to preserve their independence.

Footnotes:

36: _Hayassdan_, July 6, 1915; No. 25.

37: We are the more anxious to correct these figures as in 1916,
at a time when it was difficult to control them, we gave about
the same figures in a note to the Société d’Anthropologie as to
the demographic consequences of the war. We then relied upon the
documents that had just been published and on the statements of the
Rev. Harold Buxton.

38: _Le Mouvement pan-russe et les Allogènes_ (Paris, 1919).

39: _The Times_, March 15, 1920.

40: H. Vambéry. _Cagataische Sprachstudien_ (Leipzig, 1867);
_Etymologisches Wörterbuch der Turko-Tatarischen Sprachen_
(Leipzig, 1875); _Das Turkenvolk_ (1885).

41: Léon Cahun, _Introduction à l’histoire de l’Asie, Turcs et
Mongols, des origines à 1405_ (Paris, 1896).

42: Liman von Sanders, _Fünf Jahre Türkei_, pp. 330-331.

43: _Le Temps_, July 21, 1920.

VIII

THE MOSLEMS OF THE FORMER RUSSIAN EMPIRE AND TURKEY

The Supreme Council, in the course of one of its last sittings, decided in January, 1920, practically to recognise the independence of Georgia,[44] Azerbaïjan, and Armenia.

It is deeply to be regretted that this decision came so late, for, considering the circumstances under which it was taken, it seemed to have been resorted to _in extremis_ and under the Bolshevist threat.

It was even announced, then denied, that the Allies were going to send contingents to the Caucasus in order to check the Bolshevist advance towards Armenia, Turkey, Persia, and possibly towards Mesopotamia and India. But under the present circumstances, the Allies were not likely now to get all the benefit they might have derived from this measure if it had been taken long ago; and, on the other hand, this measure was not likely to produce any effect if the new States were not recognised definitely and could not rely on the Allies’ moral and material support.

Since Georgia, Azerbaïjan, and Armenia seemed to have been recognised as independent States, in order to incite them to check the Reds’ advance, how was it that the Republic of Northern Caucasus had not been treated similarly? The reason given by the Supreme Council was that, as the greater part of this State was occupied by Denikin’s forces, it did not think it proper to take a decision about it. The true reason was that the Supreme Council wanted to favour the Pan-Russian general, and it was even rumoured that Koltchak and Denikin had demanded this rich country to be set aside for the Tsar, whom they wanted to restore to the throne.

Out of the 25 or 30 million Moslems living in the whole of Russia, 6 or 8 millions were scattered in the region of the Volga (Orenburg, Kazan) and in the Crimea; they were about 6 millions in Turkistan and 7 millions in the Caucasus region; about 2 millions in Northern Caucasus, 300,000 to 500,000 in Kuban, 600,000 in Georgia, 3,500,000 in Azerbaïjan. Half the population is Moslem in the new Armenian State, for only in two districts are the Armenians in a majority, the Tatars being in a majority in the others. It should be borne in mind that all these Moslems, after the downfall of Tsardom, had turned their hopes towards the Allies, especially England, to safeguard their political independence. Unfortunately neither Great Britain nor France paid any heed to the repeated entreaties of M. Haidar Bammate, then Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Northern Caucasus, or later on to the appeals of the Georgian statesmen.

This omission appears all the more unaccountable if we remember that the Allies, by settling the fate of Armenia on this occasion, encroached upon the Turkish question and confused it with the Russian question, which was already intricate enough; and as it is clear that another obvious reason for the Allies’ decision was to befriend the Moslem populations of those regions, that they might not join the Bolshevist cause, why then had Christian Armenia been included in the aforesaid settlement, while Northern Caucasus had been excluded from it? Of course, it is not to be regretted that Armenia benefited by the Allies’ decision, but it is impossible logically to explain how it came to be included in their measure on account of its close relations with Georgia and Azerbaïjan, when, as a matter of fact, the latter republics want to form a close union with Caucasus. It was quite as urgent, therefore, to recognise the Republic of Northern Caucasus as the other three countries.

Moreover, as the Allies wanted to keep Bolshevism out of Transcaucasia, it seemed obvious that their first measure, from a military point of view, should have been to hold a strong position in the Caucasus Range, whose slopes were being lapped by the Red tide, and to organise its defence.

Indeed, the key to the defence of Transcaucasia lies to the north of the Caucasus Range. Four passes, crossing the mountains from the north to the south, give access to it: the defile of Sukhum; the road leading from Alatyr to Kutaris; the Georgian military road from Vladikavkaz to Tiflis; lastly, the gates of Derbent, along the Caspian Sea. Only the first of these defiles was held by the Georgians; the other three were in the hands of the mountaineers, “the Gortsy”—viz., the Chechens, the Ossetes, the Ingushes, the Kabardians, and the Daghestanians, who make up the Republic of Northern Caucasus. It was easy for the mountaineers to set up a first line of defence on the Rivers Terek and Malka, which constitute a good strategic position, a second line before the defiles, and, should some detachments venture across the latter, they would be quickly stopped by the mountaineers. If, on the contrary, nothing was done, the Bolshevists could easily cross the defiles and destroy the Batum-Baku railway. These tribes, who had displayed so much energy sixty years ago for the conquest of their liberty, had fought against the Bolshevists from November, 1917, till February, 1919; so they had a right to expect the Allies would support their claims.

Unfortunately, French policy resorted again to the same manœuvre to which it was indebted for its failure on the Baltic coast, and which repeatedly deferred a solution of the Russian question. For the Allies refused to settle the condition of the Baltic States definitely, and even tried to restore Russia to its former state; they even urged the Baltic States, till Yudenitch, Denikin, and Koltchak had been defeated, to carry on the onerous struggle they had undertaken and to make all sacrifices of men and money to capture Petrograd, which they were not eager to do, as they would have merely paved the way to the coming of the Pan-Russian generals.

The Allies made a similar mistake when they indirectly asked the mountaineers of Caucasus, who wanted to be independent, to attack the Bolshevists, but gave them no guarantee they would recognise their independence. Of course, the mountaineers refused to play such a part, for they risked finding themselves confronted one day or another with a Russia that would despise their national aspirations and would oppress them.

The situation could have been saved and the balance between the States on the confines of the Russian Empire could have been restored only by a close understanding of all the Caucasian peoples, after their independence should have been recognised; the representatives of Georgia and Azerbaïjan agreed on this point with the representatives of Northern Caucasus, and these peoples were ready to help each other mutually.

In the course of the last sitting of the Supreme Council to which the delegates of Georgia and Azerbaïjan had been invited, the latter declared “that the mountaineers were brave, that they had constituted some of the best units of the former Russian army, and were bent upon stopping the Bolshevists, but they lacked arms and ammunition.”

Under such circumstances it seemed the Allies could not possibly ignore these peoples’ determination and turn a deaf ear to their earnest request, yet they took no decision.

With regard to the Moslem question this attitude of the Conference, which seemed bent upon ignoring Northern Caucasus, was equally strange, for it was bound to bring about discontent among these Moslem populations. It was the more unaccountable as the Bolshevists, who set up as protectors of these populations, had sent many emissaries among them, who could not but derive profit from the Allies’ attitude. The Bolshevists had, of course, immediately recognised Daghestan a Moslem State.

Nor had the Republic of Northern Caucasus any reason to be satisfied with the attitude assumed by the British mission sent to Baku, for this mission had constantly supported General Denikin, and seemed to endeavour to destroy the economic and political Caucasian union it had formed with Georgia and Azerbaïjan. The only theory which accounts for the British attitude is that the English meant to remain masters of Baku, and to leave the Russians the oil-field of Groznyi in Northern Caucasus, the output of which was already important before the war, and would certainly increase. But they were mistaken in thinking that the petroleum of Groznyi, which was partly used as fuel by the Vladikavkaz railway and partly sent to the Black Sea ports to be sold to Western Europe, was utilised in Central Russia; it is chiefly the petroleum of the Baku area, lying farther south, which is easily conveyed to Russia across the Caspian Sea and up the Volga.

Again, the Allies ought to have taken into account that the troublous state into which the Moslem world had been thrown by the settlement of the Turkish question as it was contemplated by the Peace Conference might have most important reactions in all directions on the populations of the former Russian Empire which now wanted to be independent.

Yet the claims which the delegations of the Republics of Georgia and Azerbaïjan—together with Northern Caucasus—had set forth in January in the course of their reception by the Supreme Council concerning the support they might expect from the Great Powers in case they should be attacked by the Soviets, brought forth no answer; and the Allies adjourned both the question of the defence of the Transcaucasian Republics and the question of their independence.

In consequence of all this, Northern Caucasus soon fell a prey to Bolshevism, and some insurrections broke out in Georgia. The Soviet Government sent a great many agitators to these regions. Then the Red army advanced in two columns, one of which defeated Denikin and crossed the Kuban to invade Caucasus, and the other spread over Kurdistan, whence, after winning over to its cause the Tatar and pro-Russian elements of the neighbouring regions, it extended its field of action as far as Persia and Mesopotamia.

As early as February the Russian Bolshevists concentrated important forces near the northern frontier of Azerbaïjan under pretence of driving away the remnants of Denikin’s army, and after hurriedly getting up a “Soviet Government” at Daghestan, drew near the frontier of Azerbaïjan.

Meanwhile their agents carried on an energetic propaganda at Baku, where the inexperienced Moslem leaders of Azerbaïjan had foolishly left almost all the administration of the country in the hands of functionaries of the old régime or Russian officers who thought that Bolshevism, especially with the national character it had newly assumed, might restore Russia to its former state.

Within the country an economic crisis on the one hand, and on the other hand the Armenians’ aggressions, in the course of which they had massacred many Mussulmans, especially at Karabagh, had raised a widespread discontent against the Cabinet.

Emboldened by the success of the Bolshevists, who benefited by these disturbances, their local accomplices, some Russian workmen supported by about a hundred Moslem workmen, helped to organise a series of raids. During the night of April 26-27 the northern frontier of Azerbaïjan was crossed at the railway station of Jalama by a Bolshevist armoured train, for the main body of the army of Azerbaïjan had been dispatched to Karabagh and Kasakg to repel an Armenian attack, so that only one armoured train and a few hundred soldiers had been left on the northern frontier. This small detachment could not prevent the advance of the Red forces which followed the train, though it did its duty bravely and destroyed the railway track. On April 27 the Bolshevist forces reached the station of Khatchmaz, where they were greeted by a group of local communists.

At Baku, where the population lived in a state of indifference and passivity, the local communists, encouraged by the advance of the Russian Bolshevists, addressed an ultimatum to the Government, which had declared itself in favour of armed resistance, demanding the resignation of the Cabinet and the handing over of the Government to the revolutionary committee which had just been formed. This ultimatum was enforced by the threat of the bombardment of the town by the fleet of the Caspian Sea.

The Government, which had vainly asked Georgia for assistance, and had proposed to Armenia, before the common danger, to put an end to the hostilities at Karabagh in order to withdraw its troops and dispatch them to the northern frontier, was compelled on April 28 to hand over the power to the people’s commissioners. The members of the Cabinet, against whom the Bolshevists had issued a writ of arrest, hurried away and the communists immediately resorted to their usual methods of terrorism and plunder.

Instead of the “Moslem Brethren” the Bolshevist emissaries had spoken of, the inhabitants of Baku saw some Russian Bolshevists, accompanied by Armenians who had been expelled by the former Government, take possession of the town. As soon as they arrived, the latter arrested all the foreign missions, except the Persian mission. As the national army was detained on the southern frontier by constant Armenian attacks, the invaders dispatched Russian detachments in all directions, to take possession of the entire country. They addressed an ultimatum to Armenia, demanding the evacuation of Karabagh. At the same time Russian forces were sent via Zakatali towards the Georgian frontier. At Baku the Moslem militia was replaced by Russian workmen, and at the same time orders were given immediately to disarm the population of Ganjha (Elisavetpol), where the governor and some notables were arrested and incarcerated.

It is reported that at Ganjha 15,000 Moslems were slaughtered by the Reds.

A correspondent of _Il Secolo_, on coming back from Caucasus, wrote an article entitled “The East on Fire” on May 25, 1920:

“The information that we have just received from Constantinople,
Anatolia, Caucasus, and Persia could not possibly be worse.
Bolshevism has won over Caucasus to its policy, and from Baku it
is carrying on a more and more energetic propaganda in Persia and
Turkistan. The British are already fighting in the latter country
with Bolshevism. All this might have been foreseen.

“As it is cut off from Europe and encircled by hostile bayonets,
Bolshevism, which originated in Asia, is now spreading over Asia.
This does not mean that Caucasus and Asia are ripe for a revolution
of the poor against the rich. It would be a foolish thing to say
this. In Asia everybody is poor, but nobody starves. In Asia
there is no industry, there are no organisations; therefore,
there is no socialist movement on the whole. But anybody who has
been to Caucasus lately must necessarily have noticed, to his
great surprise, evidences of a Moslem Bolshevism headed by Enver
Pasha and his brother Noury. The Republic of the mountaineers of
Daghestan, the first that joined the Bolshevist movement and made
easier the advance of the Reds towards the south, is headed by
Enver Pasha. In Azerbaïjan many fanatic admirers of Russia are to
be met with.

“And what are the reasons for this? They are many. First, the
desperate condition of the new States which came into being
immediately after the Brest-Litovsk peace. In Paris the Conference
laid down frontiers, but never thought the first thing to do was to
put an end to the economic crisis prevailing in those countries.
And so an absurd thing happened—wealthy countries living in
frightful misery, and issuing paper currency which was of no value
on the world’s markets. Typical is the case of Azerbaïjan, which
had millions of tons of petroleum at Baku, but did not know where
or how to export them.”

In July it was announced that the situation of the Moslems in Armenia had become critical, as for the last two months the Erivan Government and the “Tashnak” party had been carrying on a policy of violence and massacres against them. What remained of the Moslem populations had been compelled to leave their homes and property and flee to Persia. The Armenian Government had even appointed a Commission especially to draw up a list of the crops left by the Moslems and the Greeks in the district. At the end of June, in the district of Zanguibazar, about twenty Moslem villages had been destroyed by bombardments and their inhabitants put to death. By that time the Moslem population of Transcaucasia was being attacked both by the Armenians and the Bolshevists.

M. Khan-Khoiski, ex-Prime Minister, and Dr. H. Aghaef, former Vice-President of the Parliament of Azerbaïjan, were assassinated at Tiflis, where they had sought refuge, the former on June 19 and the latter on July 19, by Armenians belonging to the “Tashnak” party, of which the leader of the Armenian Government and most Ministers are members.

This murder of the leaders of Azerbaïjan, who carried on the war against the invaders of their country, served the Bolshevist cause, but aroused much resentment among the Moslems of Azerbaïjan and Georgia, who were exasperated by the Bolshevists’ frightful tyranny and now hated Bolshevism as much as they had formerly hated Tsardom.

The delegation of Azerbaïjan handed to the Spa Conference a note in which they drew its attention to the condition of their country. On the other hand, the members of the former Cabinet made energetic efforts to rid their country of the Bolshevist invasion. For this purpose they sent delegates to Daghestan and Northern Caucasus to plan a common resistance, as Daghestan, the tribes of the mountains of Northern Caucasus, and Azerbaïjan were on friendly terms and shared the same views. By this time a small part of the Red armies still occupied the Baku area, whence the Bolshevists sent reinforcements to the detachments fighting in Persia.

About the same time it was announced that Enver Pasha had been appointed commander-in-chief of the Bolshevist forces advancing towards India, and the Bolshevist troops in Caucasus, Persia, Afghanistan, and Turkistan had been put under his command. In this way the Soviets probably sought to compel England to make peace with Russia at once.

At Tabriz a separatist movement was beginning to make itself felt with a view to bringing about the union of Persian Azerbaïjan, of which this town is the centre, with the Republic of Azerbaïjan, the capital of which is Baku.

All this Bolshevist activity naturally caused much anxiety among those who closely watched the development of Eastern events, for Soviet Russia in another way and with different aims merely carried on the work of Russian imperialism both in order to hold Great Britain in check in the East and to give the whole world the benefit of the Soviet paradise. As the Allied policy with regard to Turkey had roused the whole of Islam, the union of the Bolshevist elements and the Turkish Nationalists seemed inevitable when the question of the future fate of Caucasus should be settled. It was only too much to be feared, after what had just taken place in Azerbaïjan, that Soviet Russia, feeling it necessary to get the start of the Turkish Nationalists, would try to take possession of Georgia now she held Azerbaïjan, as a guarantee both against the hostility of England and against the opposition that might sooner or later arise on the Turkish side. It then appeared that the Turkish Nationalists had come to a merely provisional agreement with the Russian Bolshevists to disengage themselves on the Russian side, and secure their help against Europe, which threatened Turkey; and that, on the contrary, the Angora Government, some members of which are Chechens and Ossetes, when brought face to face with the old historical necessities, would be one day compelled to resort to the old policy of defending the Moslem world against the Slavonic world. For notwithstanding the inherent incompatibility between the minds of these two peoples, the Allied policy, through its blunders, had achieved the paradoxical result of making a Russo-Turkish alliance temporarily possible, and to bring together the Moslems—so unresponsive as a rule to the idle verbiage and subversive tendencies of revolutionists—and the Bolshevist Slavs, who were still their political enemies. And so it turned out that the attitude assumed by the various European Powers in regard to the Turkish problem and the solution that was to eventuate were prominent factors in the future relations between each of those Powers and Asia. Now the Turks, who alone are able to bring about an understanding between the Moslems of Caucasus and those of Asia, are also the only people who can bring about a lasting peace in that part of the confines of Europe and Asia, and settle the relations between those Moslem populations and the West.

Footnote:

44: Since the French edition of this book was published, Georgia
was recognised, _de jure_, by the Supreme Council in January, 1921.

IX

TURKEY AND THE SLAVS

Through a singular aberration, the dismemberment of Turkey and the Turks’ eviction from Europe were being advocated at a time when the idea of the restoration of Russia had not yet been given up, for the various States now detached from the former Russian Empire had not yet been definitely recognised; and among the promoters or supporters of this policy were many defenders of old Russia under a more or less transparent disguise.

Though, from the point of view of European policy, the situation of the two countries widely differed, by dismembering Turkey before the Russian question was settled, at least in its solvable part—viz., with regard to the heterogeneous peoples—the Allies made a mistake of the same kind, or at least of the same magnitude, as the one they had made when they dismembered the Dual Monarchy and yet did not destroy German unity, or rather Prussian hegemony.

Russia had already taken possession of several Turkish territories, and not so long ago she plainly declared she had not given up her ambitious designs on Constantinople.

This open hostility of the Russians toward the Turks is of very long standing.

The first Russian attacks against Turkey, as explained in the early part of this book, date back to 1672. After the victory of Poltava, in 1709, which the next year gave him Livonia, Esthonia, and Carelia, Peter the Great turned against the Turks, the allies of Charles XII, King of Sweden. But Charles XII, who had sought shelter at Bender, in Turkey, after the battle of Poltava, brought over the Grand Vizier Baltaji Mohammed to his views, and induced him to declare war on Turkey. Peter the Great, encircled by the Turks at Hush, between the Pruth and the marshes, was going to capitulate when Catherine I, in order to save him, made peace by bribing the Grand Vizier, who soon after was exiled to Mytilene. The Turks only demanded the restitution of Azov in 1711. In 1732 Peter the Great took from Persia the provinces of Daghestan, Derbend, Shirwan, Mazandaran, and Astrabad. At that time, while Villeneuve was ambassador at Constantinople (1728-41) and Austria and Russia began to turn greedy eyes on Turkey, France declared “the existence of Turkey was necessary to the peace of Christendom,” and later on Choiseul-Gouffier, who was the French king’s last ambassador from 1784 to 1792, strove to save the Turks from the ambitious designs of Catherine II.

Catherine, taking advantage of the intrigues carried on in the Morea with two Greeks, Papas-Oghlou and Benaki, dispatched a fleet to the Mediterranean to bring about a Greek rising against Turkey; the Ottoman fleet which sought shelter at Tchesmé, on the coast of Asia Minor, was burnt by Russian fireships on July 7, 1770.

After the 1770-74 war, the Porte, which was Poland’s ally, lost Bukovina and Lesser Tatary, whose independence was recognised by the treaty of Kuchuk-Kainarji on July 21, 1774, but which became a Russian province in 1783. The treaty of Kuchuk-Kainarji ceded Kinburn and Yenikale to Russia, left to the Christians the principalities lying to the north of the Danube, and guaranteed the Orthodox Greeks’ liberty under the patronage of the Russian ambassador at Constantinople. Catherine II also compelled the Turks by the same treaty not to defend the independence of Poland, threatened by Russia with the complicity of the Great Powers, and to give her a right of intervention in their home affairs. The Tatars of the Crimea and Kuban, detached from Turkey, soon after fell under the Russian sway, in 1783. The Sultan even had to sign a treaty granting a right of free navigation in the Black Sea and in the rivers of his empire.

About the same time the European Powers began to interfere in Turkey: that was the beginning of the “Eastern question.” In opposition to the Austro-Russian alliance of Catherine and Joseph II, England, dissatisfied with Russia’s attitude in the American War of Independence, and wishing to find allies in Germany to counterbalance Russian influence in Europe, concluded an alliance with Prussia, Sweden, Poland, and Turkey. The death of Frederic II soon put an end to this coalition, and Russia’s unfriendly attitude, her encroachments in Caucasus, and her territorial claims in Bessarabia, compelled Turkey on August 16, 1787, to declare war on Catherine, and Joseph II entered into the war in 1788. The Austrians took Khotin; the Turkish fleet was destroyed at Otchakov; Belgrade fell on October 8, 1789. Then Leopold, Joseph II’s brother, left the Turks and made peace with Turkey at Sistova on August 4, 1791. The Russians, who had defeated the Turks at Machin, were about to invade the Empire when, as a result of the intervention of England and Prussia, a treaty of peace was signed at Jassy, by which the Dniester became the new frontier between the two States. Thus Russia, who owing to the perturbed state of Europe was preparing to dismember Poland, was compelled to give up her dream of restoring the Byzantine Empire.

After the 1809-12 war, Turkey lost the provinces lying between the Dnieper and the Danube which were ceded to Russia by the treaty of Bukharest.

Russia, who, by the convention of Akkerman in October, 1826, had compelled Turkey to recognise the autonomy of Serbia and Moldo-Wallachia and cede her the ports of the coast of Circassia and Abkasia, declared war on her again on April 26, 1828, after the manifesto she had issued to her Moslem subjects on December 28, 1827. The Russians took Braila, advanced as far as Shumla, captured Varna, and laid siege to Silistria, but the plague and food shortage compelled them to make a disastrous retreat. In Asia they took Kars, Akhalzikel, and Bayazid. The next year they entered Erzerum; Diebitch captured Silistria, outflanked the Grand Vizier’s army shut up in Shumla, crossed the Balkan mountains, and laid siege to Adrianople. On September 14, 1820, Turkey signed a treaty in the latter town, which put Moldavia, Wallachia, and Serbia under Russian protectorate, and by which she ceded to Russia all the coast of Transcaucasia, granted her the free passage of the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles, and promised to pay a war contribution of 137 million francs.

In 1833 Mehemet Ali, Pasha of Egypt, who, not having been able to obtain the Morea through the Powers’ support, wanted to capture Syria, defeated the Turks at Konia and threatened Constantinople. The Tsar, Nicholas I, who hoped he could turn Turkey into a kind of Russian protectorate, then sent Mouraviev to Mahmoud to offer to put at his disposal a fleet and an army to fight with Mehemet Ali. A Russian fleet came and cast anchor before Constantinople, and a Russian detachment landed in the town. But then France, Austria, and Prussia, perhaps foreseeing the danger of a Russian occupation which might pave the way to a definite possession, asked the Sultan to make the necessary concessions to his vassal, and the latter to accept them. The treaty of Kutahia, signed on May 4, 1833, gave the Pasha of Egypt the whole of Syria and the province of Adana. Russia withdrew her troops, but did not lay down arms, and thus Count Orlov compelled the Porte to sign the treaty of Unkiar-i-Skelessi, which stipulated an offensive and defensive alliance between Russia and Turkey, and the closing of the Dardanelles to the other Powers. Turkey was now under Russian tutelage.

After the defection of Ahmed Pasha, who led the Turkish fleet at Alexandria, Great Britain, lest Russia should establish her protectorate over Turkey, offered to France, through Lord Palmerston, to participate in a naval demonstration, but France declined the offer. Metternich then suggested a conference between the representatives of the five Great Powers, in order to substitute their guarantee for a Turkish protectorate. On July 27, 1839, the ambassadors handed the Sublime Porte a note communicating their agreement, and advising that no definite decision should be taken without their co-operation. Then England, having no further fear of Russian intervention, turned against Mehemet Ali, and Baron de Brunov even proposed an Anglo-Russian agreement.

Owing to the intervention of Austria, which was averse to a war with France, the question of Egypt was only settled on July 13, 1841, by a hatti-sherif, which gave Mehemet Ali the hereditary possession of Egypt, and by the treaty of London, which guaranteed the neutrality of the Straits, as Russia wanted to control the Straits and conquer Constantinople to free the Christians in the Balkan Peninsula from the so-called Ottoman tyranny, and “relight the tapers which had been put out by the Turks” in St. Sophia, restored to Orthodoxy. France, following the old traditions of her foreign policy and in agreement with England, confined the Russians within the Black Sea by the convention of the Straits in 1841, and thus secured, not the integrity, but the existence of the Turkish Empire.

But the Tsar, Nicholas I, who was bent on defending the Greek faith within the Ottoman Empire, was anxious to see Turkey pursue the work of the Tanzimat—_i.e._, the new régime—confirmed by the promulgation by Abdul Mejid of the hatti-sherif of Gulhané on November 3, 1839. In 1844 he made overtures concerning the partition of Turkey, to England, to which the latter country turned a deaf ear. Thanks to the support of Great Britain and France, the Turkish troops, which had been sent to Moldavia and Wallachia after the riots which had broken out after the revolution, compelled the Tsar in 1849-51 to withdraw his army beyond the Pruth.

In 1850 France protested against the encroachments of Russia in the East, who, in order to protect the Greek monks living in Palestine and secure her own religious domination, wanted to deprive the Roman monks of their time-honoured rights over the Christian sanctuaries.

In 1853 the Tsar sent Prince Menshikov to Constantinople in order to demand a formal treaty granting the Greek Church religious independence and temporal privileges. The Sublime Porte, backed by France and England, rejected the ultimatum. The latter Powers then sent a fleet to the Dardanelles, and the next month—on July 4, 1853—Russia occupied Moldavia and Wallachia. At the instigation of Austria, the Powers assembled at Vienna on the 24th of the same month drew up a conciliatory note, which was rejected by Russia. Then the English fleet sailed up the Dardanelles, and on October 4 Turkey declared war on Russia. Austria tried again, at the Vienna Conference which she reopened in December, 1853, to bring about an understanding between Russia and Turkey. But Nicholas I declared that he meant to treat only with England and Prussia to restore peace in the East, which Turkey looked upon as an affront. He also rejected Napoleon III’s mediation on January 29, 1854, and the Franco-English summons on February 27, upon which France declared war on him. Notwithstanding the political views which unfortunately are still held by most of the present diplomatists, and in pursuance of which the Powers had already checked Mehemet Ali’s success and prevented Turkey resuming her former state, France and England realised the dangerous consequences of the Russian threat and backed Turkey. In consequence of the manœuvres of Austria and the unwillingness of Prussia, who had declared “she would never fight against Russia,” the Allies, who were at Varna, instead of attacking the principalities, decided to launch into the Crimean expedition. Finally, after the ultimatum drawn up by Austria, to which the Emperor Alexander submitted at the instigation of Prussia, a treaty of peace signed in Paris on March 30, 1856, recognised the integrity of Turkey, abolished the Russian protectorate over the principalities, and guaranteed the independence of Serbia, Moldavia, and Wallachia, under the suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire. Our diplomats seem then to have partly realised the extent of the danger constituted by the Slavs, and to have understood that the Turks, by driving back the Slavs and keeping them away from Western and Mediterranean Europe since the fourteenth century, had enabled Western civilisation to develop.

As the influence of France in Turkey was imperilled after her defeat in 1870, Russia took advantage of this to declare she would no longer submit to the most important clauses of the London treaty of March 13, 1871. Russia, whose ambassador in Turkey at that time was General Ignatiev, took in hand the cause of the independence of the Bulgarian Church, for which, in 1870, she had obtained the creation of a national exarchate with its own hierarchy, which had exasperated the Phanar at Constantinople and brought about deadly encounters between Turks and Bulgarians.

In 1875 Russia, alarmed at the reforms instituted by Turkey, and fearing the European organisation she was attempting to introduce into the Empire might strengthen it and thus prove an obstacle to the realisation of her designs, fomented a Christian rising in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was a pretext for her to declare war on Turkey. Russia, backed by the Bulgarians, obliged Turkey to agree to an armistice and to an International Conference at Constantinople. In consequence of the rejection by Turkey of the protocol of London and the Russian comminatory note which followed it, Russia carried on the hostilities which, after the defeat of Plevna in Europe and the capture of Kars in Asia, led to the negotiations of San Stefano, on March 3, 1878.

Lastly, in the same year, on the occasion of the treaty of Berlin, which gave Kars to Russia and modified the San Stefano preliminaries by cancelling several of the advantages Russia hoped to obtain, France, pursuing her time-honoured policy, showed clearly her sympathy for Turkey, by bringing to bear on her behalf the influence she had regained since 1871.

By so doing, France incurred Germany’s anger, for we have already shown the latter country’s sympathy for Slavism. As recent events have proved once more, an alliance with Russia could only be brought about by a corresponding understanding with Germany, since Russia, where German influence has been replaced by Slavonic influence, is now being invincibly drawn towards Germany, where Slavonic influence is now prevalent. This twofold understanding could only be brought about by sacrificing the whole of Western Europe and all her old civilisation. The Europe “which ends on the Elbe,” as has been said, would become more and more insignificant in such a political concept, and there would only remain in the world, standing face to face for a decisive struggle, the Germano-Russians and the Anglo-Saxons.

Spurred on by the annexation of Eastern Rumelia to Bulgaria, consequent on the rising of September 18, 1885, at Philippopolis, the Macedonian Slavs carried on an agitation the next year, in 1886, in favour of their union with Bulgaria, and resorted to an insurrection in 1895-96.

Lastly, the two Balkan wars of 1912-13, notwithstanding the complexity and intricacy of the interests at stake, may be looked upon to a certain extent as a fresh outcome of the Slavonic pressure and the ambitions of Orthodoxy.

* * * * *

The Russians, who had driven back the Turanian peoples to Turkistan, began the conquest of this country in 1815. From 1825 to 1840 they subdued the Khirgiz. They took Khiva in 1854, and in 1864 conquered the lower valley of the Syr Daria. In 1863 they occupied Tashkent, and in 1867 grouped the territories they had conquered under the authority of the Governor-General of Turkistan. In 1873 they occupied all the country lying between the Caspian Sea and the Aral Sea, and in 1876 took Kokand.

Even before the war, as has already been seen, Russia had turned her attention in the East towards Armenia, who, owing to her situation, could best serve her policy of expansion in Asia Minor. According to the plans of the Imperial Russian Government set forth on June 8, 1813, Armenia was to be converted into an autonomous province under the power of a governor-general, including the vilayets of Erzerum, Van, Bitlis, Diarbekir, Kharput, and Sivas, with the exception of a few territories whose boundaries had not yet been fixed. But in a memorandum presented at the same time, the Imperial Russian Government insisted upon “the close connection between the Armenian question and the problems the Russian administration had to solve in Transcaucasia.” These plans lay in abeyance, for they were opposed by the German policy, which was hostile to any Russian encroachment on Turkish territories; and Russia, on the other hand, prevented Germany obtaining the concession of a railway line which was to connect the Turkish ports on the Black Sea, Samsun and Trebizond, with the Baghdad Railway and the Mediterranean Sea at Alexandretta, and settling down on the coast of the Black Sea.

As the Entente had given Russia a free hand, the latter country, as has been seen, resumed the realisation of her plans as soon as war broke out. Russia, who had begun the conquest of Caucasus in 1797 and of the Transcaspian isthmus from 1828 to 1878, occupied Upper Armenia in 1914-15. The Young Turks, who believed in the triumph of Germany, expected that, thanks to the latter, they could hold in check the Russian designs, and for this reason stood by her side.

Meanwhile the Russian policy with regard to Turkey asserted itself more and more energetically, especially in reference to Constantinople, so that the antagonism of the two nations, created by Muscovite ambition, had grown into a deep and lasting hostility.

It was recommended in the testament which is supposed to have been written by Peter the Great—

“Article 9. To draw as close as possible to Constantinople and
India, for he who rules over that city will rule over the world.
It is advisable, therefore, to bring about continual wars, now in
Turkey, now in Persia, to establish shipbuilding yards on the Black
Sea, gradually to get the mastery of that sea and of the Baltic
Sea—the possession of these two seas being absolutely necessary
for the triumph of our plans—to hurry on the decay of Persia, to
advance as far as the Persian Gulf, to restore the once thriving
Eastern trade, if possible through Syria, and to advance as far as
India, the emporium of the world.

“When once we are there, we shall no longer be dependent on English
gold.

“Article 11. To show the House of Austria it has an interest in
ejecting the Turks from Europe, and to neutralise her jealousy when
we shall conquer Constantinople, either by bringing about a war
between her and the old European States, or by giving her a share
of the conquest—and take it back from her later on.”