TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE FUTURE OF THE TURK.
WE hope that the Allies will soon come to an agreement among themselves regarding the future of the Turk. They summoned the Turkish Grand Vizier to Paris last month, and, after hearing his blandly impudent demand that Turkey should resume her old place with her territory intact, they read him a sharp lecture. It would have been much better if the Council of Ten could hare given Damad Fetid Pasha the terms of Peace. The Allies' delay merely encourages the Turk to pursue his customary intrigues not only in Europe but also in Egypt, Persia, and India, in the hope of stirring up trouble for the Allies, and especially for Great Britain. The uncertainty of the situation has led to some sharp fighting in the Smyrna vilayet, where Greek troops have been sent to act as an army of occupation, and to a rising in the wild hills of Kurdistan, which has been promptly suppressed by our Mesopotamian forces. But the Turk has ceased to be a military Power, and trusts rather to his native gift for secret diplomacy and unscrupulous propaganda to save himself from ruin. He is making the utmost use of his religion for his own secular ends, and is trying to persuade the credulous West that all Islam will be mortally offended if a hair of his wicked head is touched. Sonie of the Indian Moslem leaders have been induced to take part in the pro-Turkish agitation which has been started, and a few of our own people have joined them. Sir Theodore Morison, for example, has an article in the current Nineteenth Century, declaring quite gravely that " the Muhamadan world is ablaze with anger from end to end at the proposed partition of Turkey," and proceeding to argue that, in deference to " the Muhamadan world," we must draw the veil of oblivion over the events of the last five years, and take the Turk to our bosoms once more. We are accustomed to strange doctrines in these days, but we must confess that Sir Theodore Morison's proposal fills us with amazement. We are to forget that Turkey deliberately allied herself with Germany and attacked Russia and Great Britain. We arc to forget that the Turks massacred the Armenians, Greeks, and Syrians, and that they showed gross cruelty to the gallant British and Indian soldiers who surrendered at Kut. We are to forget also our untold sacrifices of lives and treasure in Palestine and Mesopotamia, and to disregard the wishes of the natives who for the first time in their lives have had a taste of civilized rule. Sir Theodore Morison, and the few who think with him, deceive themselves if they imagine that Great Britain can act with such levity. The unprovoked Turkish declaration of war was the end of an old song." Years ago the late Lord Salisbury admitted that we had " backed the wrong horse " in supporting Turkey in the Crimean War, and we shall assuredly never revert to that fatal policy, whatever " the Muhamadan world " may think. We commend to the timid the fine old Jewish apophthegm : " They say. What say they ? Let them say."
As the Allies told the Grand Vizier, " there was little evidence of sectarian animosity " on the part of any of the belligerents, except when the Turks slaughtered their Christian subjects. Even in that case it is probable that the Armenians suffered rather because they were not Turks than because they were not Moslems. The Turks certainly did not go to war for religious reasons. When they banded themselves together with Lutheran Germany, Roman Catholic Austria, and Orthodox Bulgaria, they did not embark on a " Jehad," but on a campaign of plunder with which Islam had nothing to do. The Mohammedan troops of Great Britain, of France, and of Russia, and the Hedjaz Arabs, who are the most orthodox of believers, fought against the Sultan with the greatest goodwill. If " the Muhamadan world " really cherished such an affection for the Sultan as the fainthearts suppose, this would not have happened. Indeed, the logical conclusion of Sir Theodore Morison's theory is that we ought not to have gone to war with Turkey, choosing rather to endure the insults of the Young Turks than to strike a blow for fear of what " the Muhamadan world " might say. This is not the British way. In our dealings with Islam, or with Buddhism, or Brahminism, or any other religion we have always endeavoured to be scrupulously just. We have never persecuted, nor have we tried as a State to proselytize. We have taken as our guiding principle, " Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's," and have respected the native creeds of the peoples with whom we have come in contact while our Empire was being formed. It is well known throughout Islam that a Mohammedan under British rule is as free to practise his religion as he would be in Mecca, that the properties of the Mohammedan Church are a great deal more sacred to a British administrator than to a Turkish official, and that any anti-Mohammedan agitation, as in India, is sternly repressed. We act in this way, not because we have any desire to placate Islam, but because we believe firmly in religious toleration and abhor persecution. Wherever our rule has been criticized by Mohammedans, as in Egypt, it has been condemned on the ground that it was too tolerant. The Moslem fanatic, like some other fanatics, would rid the world of all who do not agree with him, and is impatient with the stolid British administrator who stands in the way. We have, therefore, a clean record in this matter, as all Islam knows, or ought to know. But it must not be supposed that because we are tolerant we are also timid. " The Muhamadan world " must not think that we treat our Moslem subjects fairly because we are afraid of them. Above all, it must beware of trying to intimidate us. British people have never been moved by threats, and are still less likely to pay attention to them at the close of the greatest and most successful war in our history. We shall deal justly with Turkey because it is our habit. We shall not condone the crimes of the Turk and allow him once again to work his will on his miserable subjects—most of whom were not Turks— because certain Moslems and their friends tell us that there will be trouble if we deal out stern justice to our beaten foe.
The only true solution of the Turkish problem is to expel the Turkish Government, " bag and baggage," from Europe, and to confine it to Anatolia, where, under European supervision; it may conceivably build up a civilized State. All the rest of the former Turkish Empire should be divided into autonomous provinces -under European guidance. Armenia, Mesopotamia, Palestine, Syria and Cilicia, the Hedjaz, the Greek lands of Western Asia Minor, have languished for centuries under the alien Turkish rule, but their natural fertility is so great that they are assured of a prosperous future as soon as they are given peace and order. There is no greater tragedy in the world's history than the contrast between ancient and modern Asia Minor, and the severest critic of the Allied peacemakers would not suppose that they could fail so completely in their duty as to miss the chance of restoring Asia Minor to its former state. The Turk has known how to conquer, but he has never _known how to govern. The Allies could tell the Grand Vizier with perfect truth that there has been no case " in which the withdrawal of Turkish rule has not been followed by a growth in material prosperity and a rise in the level of culture." It is equally clear to us that Constantinople should be placed under international control, since it cannot be assigned to Greece. The suggestion that Constantinople is a " Holy Place " of Islam is preposterous. One might as well say that Budapest or Belgrade, Bucharest or Sofia, is a sacred Moslem city, for the Turks held all those places as well as Constantinople by the right of conquest. But to any one who considers the history of Constantinople the idea is offensive as well as absurd. Byzantium was a very ancient Greek city when Constantine made it his capital in the early fourth century. For eleven hundred years it was the centre of Eastern Christendom, and for centuries it played a far greater part in the Christian world than Rome itself. We shall not be induced by sophistries or menaces to admit that the Turkish occupation since 1453 has transformed the old Greek and Christian city into an inseparable appendage of Mecca. The Turk on the Bosphorus is a religious parvenu. Constantinople is in fact only the political capital of the Turks, and we may and should take it from them, just as we have taken Baghdad from them, because they are not fit to be trusted with its possession. To talk of the Moslem faith and the Turks as if they were one and the same thing is to commit the worst and most foolish of political errors. We are well aware that Mr. Lloyd George in an unfortunate speech of January 5th, 1918, said that we were not " fighting to deprive Turkey of its capital, or of the rich and renowned lands of Asia Minor and Thrace which are predominantly Turkish in race." But that statement, which was wildly inaccurate as regards Thrace, elicited no response from the Turks/ Had Turkey chosen to make peace at that time, she might fairly have expected to retain Constantinople. As she preferred to go on fighting, she must take the consequences. Mr. Lloyd George's offer of January 5th, 1918, lapsed when it was rejected ; it has no binding force for him or our Allies. We are free to impose on Turkey any terms that we may deem wise and just. We cannot conceive of a lasting peace which would leave the Turks at Constantinople, free to intrigue in the Balkans and to obstruct the commerce of the Black Sea, and gaining increased prestige in the East by the suggestion that the victorious Allies were afraid to expel them from the European city where they had played the conqueror. The Turk's proper place is in Asia. Europe must be rid of him, not as a Moslem, but as an incorrigible barbarian whom we can endure no longer.
Previous page
