" GREY WOLF " [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Sul,— In your issue of October 4th, 1932, we have read a review of the recently published Grey Wolf, by Mr. H. C. Armstrong. We feel obliged to point out certain inaccuracies which concern ourselves and our friends who have formed the Progressive Republican Party in 1924 and to which the author refers as the Opposition throughout, the book. On page 244, speaking about a religious reaction in Turkey, Mr. Armstrong speaks of us thus : " They have grouped themselves round Abdul-Mejid, the Caliph in Constantinople." Again, on page 245, he says, " Last of all came his (Mustafa Kemal Pasha's) opponents Rauf, Adnan, Refet, and Kiazim Kara Bekir. They planned to make Abdul-Mejid the consti- tutional sovereign of Turkey, with themselves as his ministers." The same is repeated on page 261.
The Progressive Republican Party was formed by men who believed that the time for the Sultanate and the Caliphate had passed in Turkey and nothing but a Republic could be maintained. The party published its programme, a copy of which could be found in extenso in the Oriente Modern, No. 12, dated December 15th, 1924. As sincere Republicans the creators of the said party were all against dictatorship, but there is no evidence, external or internal, to prove that they have attempted to restore a monarchy while hiding behind a republican mask. None of the members could be accused or was accused of intrigue or duplicity by the public opinion in Turkey. To our belief Turkey cannot go back to a monarchical system, all the forces which have upheld it having disappeared within the last twenty years.
On page 268 Mr. Armstrong speaks of us as having " escaped while yet there was time." We had left Turkey freely some time before the Regime of Terror was constituted. Our past life and work would show we had always served the best interests of our country as we conceived them, and never weighed the personal risks involved.
In conclusion we wish to refer to page 301, in which Mr. Armstrong gives a summary of the characteristics of the Turkish nation as vicious, brutal, lecherous, opposed to Wilily life, and finally declaring that those are Turkish national vices. We believe that there are no such things as national vices or virtues in an absolute sense. The West as well as the East has vicious or virtuous individuals. Mr. Armstrong might have met such individuals or groups in Turkey, but his sweeping statement of Turkish national vices are contrary to the impressions of a large number of historians, including Englishmen, who have written about the Turks as a people.—We are, Sir, &c., H. RAUF, Ex-Prime Minister.
ADNAN, Ex-Vice-President of the Great National Assembly.
2 Rae Georges Porto-Riche, Paris.
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