THE FUTURE OF CONSTANTINOPLE. T HE new Peace Conference in Paris
has no more difficult question to settle than the future of Con- stantinople. The influences which are pulling in contrary directions are all strong and are all familiar. The natural and long-established desire of most Englishmen is that the Turk should disappear altogether from Europe, where he has been a foreign ingredient continually setting up festering sores in the whole body politic of the Continent. The French and the Italians, on the other hand, have reasons for wishing to allow the Turk to stay where he is. Nor ought we to be blind to the fact that, although, as we believe, the vast majority of Englishmen would be glad to see the " bag and baggage," or expulsion, policy of Mr. Gladstone put into force, there .is in this country a group of pro-Turkish politicians and students who are powerful beyond their numbers. In pleading for the Turk they continually predict awful disasters which will visit the British Empire if anything is done " to outrage Moslem sentiment." We print elsewhere a long letter from a corre- spondent who takes this view. We have chosen his letter from among many, and we may as well say here that, with all the will in the world to hear the other side, we have not space for a lengthy correspondence on this subject.
Our own opinion of the right manner in which to treat the Ottoman Turks may be expressed in a sentence. We believe that we ought to do exactly what we think is right on the merits of the case, without being deflected one inch by timid fears as to what might be the results of an uprising of Moslem sentiment. This policy has always been ours in the past, and it has always served us well and safely. The result of it has been that though the Turk has intrigued incessantly against us, and has struggled violently in the grasp of his fate, saying reproachful and bitter things, he has always in his moments of greatest need turned to Great Britain as the Power on whose justice and impartiality he could rely. If we had allowed ourselves to be intimidated by prophecies of the break-up of the British Empire through Mohammedan disaffection, we should have done nothing to free the many small races which groaned under Turkish rule. We would ask our readers when they are being besieged by arguments in favour of the Turk to remember a few simple but important facts. There was no need for Turkey to join Germany in the Great War. She did it coolly and deliberately. There was no question of a Holy War. She did not fight for religious reasons. Turkeyjoined herself with Lutheran Germany, with Roman Catholic Austria, and with Orthodox Bulgaria in order to attack Great Britain, Russia, and France. We cannot forget the terrible cruelties which the Turks have practised against all subject to them. They have massacred Armenians, Greeks, and Syrians. British soldiers, and also our own Indian soldiers who are now supposed to be seething with discontent at the idea that Turkey should be deprived of Constantinople, had more than a taste of Turkish cruelty when they were taken prisoners by the Turks after the surrender of gut. Why should it be assumed that Islam throughout the British Empire will turn against us when the perfectly natural and foreseen results of our winning the Great War are visited upon the Turks ? The fact that Mohammedans all over the British Empire gladly fought on our side in the Great War would seem to indicate the exact contrary. Moreover, the Mohammedan troops of Great Britain and the Arabs of the Hedjaz were not alone in fighting against the Sultan. Mohammedan soldiers of France and Russia did the same thing. If the argument that we must now hold our hand for fear of what may happen if we deal justly with the Turk were sound, we ought not to have ventured to fire a single bullet or a single shell at the holy persons of the Sultan's troops. The reason why we have all along been assured of the allegiance of the Mohammedan subjects of the British Empire is that they have always known that they were guaranteed complete religious freedom. Every one who has had any experience of the ways of British soldiers and administrators in Mohammedan parts of the Empire - knows that it is almost a subject of jesting how much more considerate they are to mosques and other Turkish religious property than to Christian property. We need not ask for credit from Moslems on this account. The explanation is simple ; it is that British soldiers and administrators have always regarded a mosque and such-like as a symbol of the great fact of British toleration. They have known that if a mosque were interfered with or suffered any injury, the result might be a passionate riot, and perhaps a local war, for which the officer or administrator in the district would be held. responsible. A similar injury to Christian property might indeed lead to civil actions, but it would never become a great question of State or an international question. In brief, we have persistently maintained a policy of toleration, not because we were trying to appease Islam, but because we believed in tolera- tion on principle. The Turkish policy has been the very reverse. The Turks have persecuted on principle ; and when it comes to a question of choosing between the two policies, it would. be cowardly as well as silly to think that we ought to give way. As we have said, if we had been frightened in the past, our policy would have been emasculated and would have become a thing of contempt. One of Lord Canning's first acts when he became Viceroy of India- in 1856 was to go to war with Persia because the Persians had invaded. Northern Afghanistan and Herat. What is being said now about the baleful results of offending Moham- medans was said then. Undoubtedly the war against Persia was heartily disliked by Indian Mohammedans, but that fact did. not deter us. The pro-Turkish school seems to forget that Moslem disaffection cannot certainly be bought off even when we try to buy it off. In the Crimean War we made the prodigious mistake of backing the Turk against Russia, and we were rewarded immediately afterwards by the Mutiny in India. The Mutiny of course was largely a Moslem rising, and, though the grievances of the rebels were local and peculiar to India, the rebels were not restrained by any recollection that we had poured out money and sacrificed thousands of lives in the interests of Islam on the terrible plateau of Sebastopol. When the Great War began we hoped that Constanti- nople would pass into the keeping of Russia, who would have been its natural custodian. But that hope has proved to be vain, and we recognize now that, since the Greeks cannot have Constantinople, the stewardship must be international. In this connexion we should like to say something in favour of a proposal made by several signa- tories of a letter in the Times of Tuesday. These corre- spondents suggest that Constantinople should become the permanent seat of the League of Nations. They suggest that Constantinople in the hands of any single nation would be a potential cause of war. " A strong Power would be made too strong " by its ownership. They also argue that the capital of the League should be ex-territorial and be endowed with pomp and circumstance. These qualities would certainly belong to Constantinople, which is his- torically and geographically a perfect seat of authority. It is the junction of East and West. The Roman Empire made it a capital too late in that Empire's life, but the choice of Constantinople as a natural place of authority was unquestionably correct. As Napoleon said to Alexander I. on the raft at Tilsit when they were discussing the terms of peace after Friedland, " Constantinople is the Empire of the world." The writers to the Times go on to point out that the historical and religious associations of Con- stantinople would appeal to all creeds and countries. Con- stantinople is as intimately connected with Christianity as with Mohammedanism. Indeed we might well say that Constantinople is even more closely connected with Christi- anity than with Mohammedanism. It was the centre of Eastern Christendom for 1,100 years, and for several cen- turies was a more important place in the Christian world than Rome itself. The Turkish occupation since 1453 has not transformed the old Christian city into a city that belongs solely to Islam. Still less is Constantinople a Moslem " Holy Place." It is no more a Holy Place than Budapest or Belgrade or Bucharest or Sofia, each of which was conquered and temporarily held by the Turks. But let us freely admit that it is both a satisfaction and a convenience to be considerate to Moslem feeling when- ever this can be done without being unfaithful to out principles. It could. be done easily enough if Constanti- nople became the capital of the League of Nations. Mohammedans would be turned out of it only in the sense in which Christians would be turned out of it. Both would owe an equal respect to the international capital of reconstructed Europe.
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