Chapter IX: Turkey and the Slavs (2)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Footnotes:

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

11: M. Bompard’s letter to the editor of the _Éclair_, June 23, 1921.

12: Blue Book, No. 64.

13: _Ibid._, No. 70.

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

IV

TURKEY AND THE CONFERENCE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Constantinople and the Straits seemed likely to be internationalised.

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

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

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

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

Rivalries naturally soon arose.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And the Commission wound up its report with this:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * * * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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