TURKEY AND GREECE.
ONE might laugh in order not to cry at the discovery how very old the new world is and how very much it goes on in the old way. Tile Greek and Turkish dele- gations who came to London to discuss the Treaty of Sevres behaved just as might have been expected, on the assumption that they had no part or lot in the new world and no particular liking for it. They pitched their demands in the old key, which is the very highest to which their political instruments can be screwed up. The further you go east the more it becomes the practice to make the maximum demands, not in any hope that the maximum demands will be granted but in the devout anticipation that by that method more will be got because when the original demands have been pared down there will still be a great deal left. It is this practice which makes negotiations with eastern peoples, and similarly with Balkan peoples who have acquired some eastern traits, so trying and so tedious. The British custom of having every article marked in what the shops call " plain figures " is much more convenient. You know where you are. Besides, shopping on these terms can be done quickly. Whereas on the Greek and Turkish plan when you begin you do not know whither the argument will lead and you can only dimly guess what prices a Greek or Turkish bargainer really has in his mind. The discussion with the Greeks and Turks last week almost gave us the impression that we were back in the sad old days of the Concert of Europe. Both delegations made impossible requests, apparently in the hope that the Allies, like the Concert of Europe, would never agree sufficiently to thwart them. The Turks were quite mag- nificent in their audacity. To read their arguments you might suppose that they had won the war, and that the Allies were coming meekly. to have a foot put upon their necks, or to be loaded with chains, or to have a chariot driven over them. Of course the Turks proposed that their frontiers should be restored to them exactly as they were in 1913. But if we go back to 1913, why not go back to 1878 ? Why not wash out the Treaty of Berlin and pretend that there was never any subject race to be released from the grinding and bloody oppression of the Turk, and that Asia Minor and the South-East of Europe have never been peopled with the ghosts of the massacred ? The Turks—equally as a matter of course—regarded the management of the Straits by the Allied Commission as a " humiliation " for Turkey. By a form of words which meant nothing if it did not mean the abolition of the Capitulations, they went on to demand that in future the nationals of foreign Powers should submit themselves to the unvarying injustice of Turkish justice. To crown all, the Turks spoke of " mutual reparations," which signified that the Allies ought not to be paid what is owed to them unless Turkey herself also received an indemnity. So it does seem that after all Turkey won the war. - One of the Greek delegates said that Greece had always been faithful to the Allies, and of course the Greek delegates, knowing that their country had been more than amply rewarded for help to the Allies after the fall of King Constantine, demanded that the Treaty of Sevres should stand untouched.. Perhaps the most wonderful part of the discussion was the almighty crash of statistics by which the Greeks and Turks sought to prove their racial rights to possess Smyrna and Thrace. Of course if the Allies consent to reopen these discussions there will be no end to them—at least no real end. The methods of Producing ethnological statistics such as used to be regularly laid before the Concert of Europe are perfectly well known. The children in particular districts are forced into Greek schools by the Greeks, into Turkish schools by the Turks, and into Bulgarian schools by the Bulgars, and so on. Religious statistics add to the welter ; these are particularly misleading and confusing. The Patriarchs and the agents of the Sheikh-ul-Islam are alike past-masters at the game. Then there is the kind of statistics which are procured by ascertaining the origin of a particular family and ignoring the political, national, or religious allegiance which that family may subsequently have adopted and indeed have professed through more than one generation. Ultimately, if the statistics are still found to be intractable, there is always the solution of resorting to massacre in order to reduce numbers which are inconveniently large. All this being so, it was difficult to believe that the Allies would propose to reopen the old questions on the old lines. Yet that is what they have done. They have offered the Greeks and Turks a new inquiry into the populations of Thrace and Smyrna, in the slender hope that the rest of the Treaty will be accepted witho it question. It is true that the Greek Assembly has rejected the proposal and that no answer has yet been received from the head- quarters of the Turkish rebel Kemal in Angora—the Turkish rebels had to be represented in the deputation, as although they are rebels against the Government of Constantinople, they are nevertheless the only people who count in Turkey—but the offer of the Allies still holds the field.
It may be asked why, if the Greeks are so anxious to retain all that M. Venizelos acquired for them, they should have been so brutal to M. Venizelos. This is a puzzle and there is no very easy answer. We imagine that what happened was that when M. Venizelos was touring Europe or staying in Paris in the interests of his country, his enemies, the friends of King Constantine, got to work and undermined his position with very skilful propaganda. The Greeks live in a ferment of political thought, and that is only another way of saying that they are peculiarly susceptible to propaganda. It is clear that M. Venizelos secured for them all that they have long demanded. Ho made good for them their dreams of expansion. Yet when these dreams had come true in Asia Minor and Thrace the Greek soldiers objected to the conscript service which was necessary for garrisoning the new possessions. A moment's thought will show that military service is likely to be not lighter but more severe under King Constantine, because M. Venizelos had the confidence and support of the Allies and King Constantine has not. The propaganda which described conscript service as a terrible tyranny due to the ruthless ogre Venizelos will no doubt be swept away sometime by fresh propaganda which will point out that King Constantine is just as ruthless in his exactions. The really safe line of action for Greece was followed during the reign of King George, the father of King Con- stantine. King George was related to the most powerful Sovereigns in Europe, and by spending his holidays at their courts he could get for Greece not merely safety but territorial concessions such as Greece can never hope to grasp or retain by force of arms. M. Venizelos vastly improved on King George's method by doing everything that the King did, only doing it much better. Moreover, when he combined a policy of war against Turkey with the Georgian policy he brilliantly eliminated the possibility of failure.
For the time being the Treaty has been shelved. Of two things we are certain, however, that public opinion here will not allow the Turks to be given fresh opportunities for killing either Greeks or Armenians, and, with that reservation clearly kept in view, the Greeks cannot expect a continuance of that trusting generosity on the part of the Allies which they have deliberately forfeited.
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