Chapter XII: The Struggle for the Bagdad Railway Is Resumed (2)

It is difficult, nevertheless, to see how the Chester concessions, and their affiliated enterprises can be kept scrupulously free from political complications. The French Government, in defence of the interests of its nationals, has announced semi-officially that American support of the concessions might lead to “a diplomatic incident of the first importance.”[49] Furthermore, the United States Navy is said to be vitally interested in the Chester project. The oilfields to which Admiral Chester’s Ottoman-American Development Company obtain rights of exploitation may prove to be important sources of fuel supply to American destroyers operating in the Mediterranean—Mr. Denby, Secretary of the Navy, said apropos of the concessions that the Navy “is always concerned with the possibility of oil supplies.”[50] Furthermore, an American-built port at Youmourtalik, on the Gulf of Alexandretta, might conceivably be utilized as an American naval base. Such a station, less than 150 miles from Cyprus and less than 400 miles from the Suez Canal, could hardly be expected to increase the British sense of security in the Eastern Mediterranean.

The American Navy has already been very active in the Near East. “Soon after the armistice, Rear Admiral Bristol was sent to Constantinople to command the small American naval forces there. A large part of his efforts was immediately devoted to the promotion of American business in that unsettled region, including the countries bordering on the Black Sea. He soon established for himself such an influential position by sheer force of character and by his intelligent grasp of both the political and economic situations that he was appointed high commissioner by the State Department.

“Early in 1919 several American destroyers were ordered to Constantinople for duty in the Near East. Although these destroyers are good fighting ships, it costs some $4,000,000 a year to maintain them on this particular duty, which does not train the crews for use in battle.... The possible development of the economic resources of this part of the world was carefully investigated by representatives of American commercial interests. These representatives were given every assistance by the Navy, transportation furnished them to various places, and all information of commercial activities obtained by naval officers in their frequent trips around the Black Sea given them. The competition for trade in this part of the world is very keen, the various European countries using every means at their disposal to obtain preferential rates. The Navy not only assists our commercial firms to obtain business, but when business opportunities present themselves, American firms are notified and given full information on the subject. One destroyer is kept continuously at Samsun, Turkey, to look after the American tobacco interests at that port. ... The present opportunities for development of American commerce in the Near East are very great, and its permanent success will depend largely upon the continued influence of the Navy in that region.”[51] This is the situation as diagnosed by the Navy Department itself.

“With the assistance of a small force of destroyers based on Constantinople,” according to an instructor in the United States Naval Academy, “our commercial representatives are establishing themselves firmly in a trade which means millions of dollars to the farmers of the American Middle West. By utilizing the wireless of destroyers in Turkish ports, at Durazzo, and elsewhere, commercial messages have been put through without delay.... Destroyers are entering Turkish ports with ‘drummers’ as regular passengers, and their fantails piled high with American samples. An American destroyer has made a special trip at thirty knots to get American oil prospectors into a newly opened field.” Here is “dollar diplomacy” with a vengeance! “If this continues, we shall cease to take a purely academic interest in the naval problems of the Near East. These problems are concerned with the protection of commerce, the control of narrow places in the Mediterranean waterways, and the naval forces which the interested nations can bring to bear. They cannot be discussed without constant reference to political and commercial aims.”[52]

Americans would do well to take stock of this Near Eastern situation. Mustapha Kemal Pasha invites the participation of American capital in railway construction in Anatolia for substantially the same reasons which prompted Abdul Hamid to award the Bagdad Railway concession to German bankers. In 1888, Abdul Hamid considered Germany economically powerful but politically disinterested. Today, Mustapha Kemal Pasha believes that American promoters, engineers, and industrialists possess the resources and the technical skill which are required to develop and modernize Asia Minor. And, from the Turkish point of view, the political record of the United States in the Near East is a good record. America never has annexed Ottoman territory or staked out spheres of interest on Turkish soil; America has not participated in the Ottoman Public Debt Administration; America has few Mohammedan subjects and therefore is not fearful of the political strength of Pan-Islamism; America did not declare war on Turkey during the European struggle; America was not a party to the hated treaty of Sèvres. America alone among the Western Powers seems capable of becoming a sincere and disinterested friend of Turkey.[53] The avowed foreign policies of the United States appear to confirm the opinion of the Turks that Americans can be depended upon not to infringe upon Turkish sovereignty. America must be kept scrupulously free from all “foreign entanglements”; therefore an American mandate for Armenia has been firmly declined. Splendid isolation is declared to be the fundamental American principle in international affairs.

The political theory of isolation, however, is not altogether in harmony with the economic fact of American world power. The enormous expansion of American commercial and financial interests during and since the Great War brings the United States face to face with new, difficult, and complicated international problems. American business men will be increasingly interested in the backward countries of the world, in which they can purchase raw materials, to which they can sell their finished products, and in which they can invest their capital. American financiers, manufacturers, and merchants will look to their government for assistance in the extension of foreign markets and for protection in their foreign investments. Already there is grave danger that the United States may “plunge into national competitive imperialism, with all its profits and dangers, following its financiers wherever they may lead.”[54]

The situation is not unlike that which faced the German Empire in 1888. When the _Deutsche Bank_ initiated its Anatolian railway enterprises, it inquired of the German Government whether it might expect protection for its investments in Turkey. Bismarck—who desired to avoid imperialistic entanglements and to limit German political interests, as far as possible, to the continent of Europe—replied with a warning that the risk involved “must be assumed exclusively by the entrepreneurs” and that the Bank must not count upon the support of the German Government in “precarious enterprises in foreign countries.” But Bismarck’s policy did not take full cognizance of the phenomenal industrial and commercial expansion of the German Empire, whose nationals were acquiring economic interests in Asia and in Africa and on the Seven Seas. William II was more sensitive than Bismarck to the demands of German industrial, commercial, and financial interests that they be granted active governmental support and protection abroad. Bismarck tolerated German enterprises in Turkey; William II sponsored them. It was under William II, not under Bismarck, that Germany definitely entered the arena of imperial competition.[55]

The development of American interests in Turkey puts the Government of the United States to a test of statesmanship. The temptations will be numerous to lend governmental assistance to American business men against their European competitors; to utilize the new American economic position in Turkey for the acquisition of political influence; to use diplomatic pressure in securing additional commercial and financial opportunities; to emphasize the economic, at the expense of the moral, factors in Near Eastern affairs. To yield to these temptations will be to destroy the great prestige which America now possesses in the Levant by reason of disinterested social and educational service. To yield will be to forfeit the trust which Turkish nationalists have put in American hands. To yield will be to intrench the system of economic imperialism which has been the curse of the Near East for half a century. To yield will be to involve the United States in foreign entanglements more portentous than those connected with the League of Nations, or the International Court of Justice, or any other plan which has yet been suggested for American participation in the reconstruction of a devastated Europe and a turbulent Asia.

The Chester concessions may be either promise or menace. They will give promise of a new era in the Near East insofar as they contribute to the development and the prosperity of Asia Minor, without infringing upon the integrity and sovereignty of democratic Turkey, and without involving the Government of the United States in serious diplomatic controversies with other Great Powers. They will be a menace—to Turkey, to the United States, and to the peace of the world—if, unhappily, they should lead republican America in the footsteps of imperial Germany.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES

[1] Mufty-Zade Zia Bey, “How the Turks Feel,” in _Asia_, Volume XXII (1922), p. 857.

[2] “Declaration of the Rights of the Toiling and Exploited People,” Article III. Available in English translation in _International Conciliation_, No. 136 (New York, 1919).

[3] _Supra_, Chapter VII.

[4] The text of the Russo-Turkish Treaty of March 16, 1921, is given as an appendix to an article by A. Nazaroff, “Russia’s Treaty with Turkey,” in _Current History_, Volume XVII (1922), pp. 276–279.

[5] Bowman, _op. cit._, p. 398.

[6] _Cf._ _supra_, pp. 202–203. Professor Toynbee now speaks of this feature of the Entente in terms of contempt: “Its direct motive was covetousness, and it rested locally on nothing more substantial than the precarious honor among thieves who find their business threatened by a vigorous and talented competitor. Some of the thieves, at any rate, never got out of the habit of picking their temporary partners’ pockets.“ _Op. cit._, p. 46.

[7] _Ibid._, pp. 45–46.

[8] It seems to be established that Mr. Lloyd George compelled a readjustment of the terms of the Sykes-Picot Treaty by threatening M. Clémenceau with a complete exposure and repudiation of all of the secret treaties. _Cf._ Baker, _op. cit._, Volume I, pp. 70–72.

[9] See Minutes of the Council of Four, March 20, 1919, reported in full by Baker, _op. cit._, Volume III, Document No. 1.

[10] Regarding the claims of the Turkish Petroleum Company, _cf._ _supra_, p. 261.

[11] _Parliamentary Papers_, No. Cmd. 675 (1920). _Cf._, also, the “Franco-British Convention of December 23, 1920, on Certain Points Connected with the Mandates for Syria, the Lebanon, Palestine, and Mesopotamia,” _Parliamentary Papers_, No. Cmd. 1195 (1921). For a general discussion of the oil situation, see: H. Bérenger, _La politique du pétrole_ (Paris, 1920); F. Delaisi, _Le pétrole—La politique de la production_ (Paris, 1921); A. Apostol and A. Michelson, _La lutte pour le pétrole_ (Paris, 1922).

[12] _Cf._ _supra_, Chapter X, Note 18.

[13] _Supra_, pp. 301–302.

[14] Interesting sidelights on these points will be found in the correspondence between the French and British Governments regarding the Angora Treaty of October 20, 1921, _Parliamentary Papers_, No. Cmd. 1571, Turkey No. 1 (1922). _Cf._, also, Toynbee, _op. cit._, Chapter III, “Greece and Turkey in the Vicious Circle”; Jean Lescure, “Faut-il détruire la Turquie?” in _Revue politique et parlementaire_, Volume 103 (1920), pp. 42–48; “Where Diplomacy Failed,” _The Daily Telegraph_ (London), September 19, 1922.

[15] M. de Montille to the Marquess Curzon of Kedleston, November 17, 1921, in the official correspondence cited in Note 14.

[16] _Cf._ a statement by M. Briand regarding the purposes and the scope of the agreement, _Journal officiel, Débats parlementaires, Chambre des députés_, March 16, 1921, pp. 1272–1273. The text of the agreement is available in _Current History_, Volume XIV (1921), pp. 203–204, and in the _Contemporary Review_, Volume 119 (1921), pp. 677–679.

[17] Regarding the Heraclea coal mines _cf._ _supra_, p. 14. During the War the mines were operated by Hugo Stinnes.

[18] For the text of the Turco-Italian treaty see _L’Europe Nouvelle_ (Paris), May 28, 1921, or _The Nation_, Volume 113 (New York, 1921), p. 214. _The New York Times_, April 13, 1921, contains a good summary of the treaty and the circumstances of its negotiation.

[19] The text of the Angora Treaty is given in _Parliamentary Papers_, No. Cmd. 1556, Turkey No. 2 (1921). It has been reprinted in Current History, January, 1922. For a statement by M. Briand regarding the purposes and scope of the treaty, _cf._ _Journal officiel, Débats parlementaires, Sénat_, October 28, 1921, pp. 818–819.

[20] Aleppo remained within the French mandate for Syria, so that for a time—until the Turks construct a substitute line—through trains will have to pass through French territory for a short distance. Guarantees against interruption of either military or commercial traffic were exacted by the Turks, however. In addition, Turkey was guaranteed full use of the port of Alexandretta on a basis of absolute equality with Syria.

[21] Most of the supplementary economic concessions are provided for in a covering letter of Yussuf Kemal Bey and in an exchange of notes which coincided with the signature of the treaty. These were kept absolutely secret until December, when their contents were made known to the British Government.

[22] _Supra_, p. 83.

[23] The italics are mine. Discrimination against British trade from Mosul to Alexandretta, for example, might be used to force Great Britain to abandon many of her claims in northern Mesopotamia.

[24] _The Times_ (London), August 2, 1922; _Manchester Guardian Commercial_, August 31, 1922; _Chicago Tribune_, Paris edition, August 21, 1922.

[25] For the text of the correspondence, _cf._ _Parliamentary Papers_, No. Cmd. 1571, Turkey No. 1 (1922).

[26] _Cf._ _supra_, pp. 301–302.

[27] A not unrepresentative Greek view is the following: “Nationalist Turkey became, in a military sense, French territory. Political missions, military missions, propaganda missions, financial missions, found their way from Paris to Angora. The entire credit of the French Republic was placed behind Kemal. The warships of France and the liners of the _Messageries Maritimes_ became Turkish transports, and the French arsenals were placed at the disposal of the Turks. Once the ally of Kemal, France supported him to the fullest extent of its ability and its resources.” A. T. Polyzoides, “The Greek Collapse in Asia Minor,” in _Current History_, Volume XVII (1923), p. 35.

[28] Material regarding the Lausanne Conference is scattered and fragmentary. The text of the proposed treaty is to be found in _L’Europe Nouvelle_ (Paris), February 24 and March 10, 1923; a summary is given in _The Times_ (London), February 1, 1923. The newspaper accounts which I have used are those of _The New York Times_, _The Times_ (London), _The Manchester Guardian_, _The World_ (New York), and the _Christian Science Monitor_ (Boston). For reports and editorial comment in weekly periodicals I have consulted _The Near East_, _L’Europe Nouvelle_, _Journal des Débats_, _The New Statesman_ (London), _The Nation_ (New York). The following magazine articles have proved useful: “The Lausanne Conference,” in _Current History_, Volume XVII (1923), pp. 531–537, 743–748, 929–930; Saint-Brice, “De la Ruhr à Lausanne,” in _Correspondance d’Orient_ (Paris), February, 1923; “The Oriental Labyrinth at Lausanne,” in the _Literary Digest_, April 21, 1923, pp. 19–20; H. Froidevaux, “Les négociations de Lausanne et leur suspension,” in _L’Asie Française_, 33 year, No. 208 (Paris, 1923), pp. 8–10; J. C. Powell, “Italy at Lausanne,” in _The New Statesman_, Volume XX (1922), pp. 291–292; A. J. Toynbee, “The New Status of Turkey,” in the _Contemporary Review_, Volume 123 (1923), pp. 281–289; P. Bruneau, “La question de Mossoul,” in _L’Europe Nouvelle_, February 3, 1923, pp. 138–140. For some of my information regarding the Lausanne Conference I am indebted to Djavid Bey.

[29] _Cf._ _supra_, Chapters IX and X, _ad lib._

[30] Compare with the provisions of the Treaty of Sèvres, _supra_, pp. 301–302.

[31] _The New York Times_, February 5, 1923.

[32] _Cf._ _supra_, pp. 324–325.

[33] The Chester concessions will be treated more fully in the succeeding pages.

[34] _Supra_, pp. 245–249, 325–326. It was the Turkish contention that the Black Sea concessions were invalid for the following reasons: they were negotiated by a government for the acts of which the National Assembly assumed no responsibility; they never had been ratified by the Turkish Parliament; the French bankers had not fulfilled all the conditions upon which the concessions were predicated.

[35] _The New York Times_, April 12, 1923.

[36] Regarding the _Bank für orientalischen Eisenbahnen_, _cf._ _supra_, p. 32. Accounts of the purchase by British interests are to be found in _The New York Times_, April 28, May 15 and 16, 1923, and _The Times_ (London), May 18, 1923.

[37] The Chester concessions conflict, to a degree, with the rights of the British-owned Turkish Petroleum Company (_cf._ _supra_, Chapter X) in the vilayet of Mosul. The area in conflict is so small, compared to the total of the two concessions, however, that it is extremely doubtful if there will be any serious difficulty in reaching a satisfactory adjustment.

[38] “Report of the King-Crane Mission to the Near East,” published as a supplement to the _Editor and Publisher_, Volume 55 (New York, 1922), pp. I-XXVIII. _Cf._, also, “Report of the American Military Mission to Armenia,” Senate Document No. 266, Sixty-sixth Congress, First Session (Washington, 1920).

[39] E. J. Bing, “Chester and Turkey, Inc.,” in _The New Republic_, Volume XXXIV (New York, 1923), pp. 290–292.

[40] _Cf._ E. M. Earle, “The Outlook for American Imperialism,” in the _Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science_, Volume CVIII (Philadelphia, 1923).

[41] For the text of this correspondence, _cf._ _Parliamentary Papers_, No. Cmd. 675 (1921).

[42] _The New York Times_, October 29, 1922.

[43] _Statistical Abstract of the United States_, 1921, _passim_; “The Trade of Turkey During 1920,” _Commerce Reports_, Special Supplement (Washington, 1921).

[44] Compare with the terms of the Bagdad Railway concession, _supra_, pp. 70–71, 77–84.

[45] The text of the Chester concessions—in an English translation which leaves much to be desired—is to be found in _Current History_, Volume XVIII (1923), pp. 485–489. For an official copy of the concessions, with a map, I am indebted to Mr. M. Zekeria, Secretary of the Turkish Information Service in New York.

[46] The Chester concessions contain the usual provisions for the utilization of the railways by the gendarmerie and the military, both in time of peace and in time of war.

[47] _The World_ (New York), April 10, 1923.

[48] The remarks are those of Mr. Ernest Filsinger, of the firm of Lawrence & Company, exporters. Mr. Filsinger has been good enough to supply me with a copy of his speech.

[49] _The New York Times_, April 12, 1923.

[50] _Ibid._, April 23, 1923.

[51] _The United States Navy as an Industrial Asset_ (Washington, Office of Naval Intelligence, 1923). _Cf._, also, C. Merz, “Bristol, Quarterdeck Diplomat,” in _Our World_, December, 1922.

[52] Allen Westcott, “The Struggle for the Mediterranean,” in _Our World_, February, 1923, pp. 11–17.

[53] _Cf._, _supra_, pp. 63–65.

[54] _Cf._ W. E. Weyl, _American World Policies_ (New York, 1917),