Young Turkish nationalism—One-sided abolition of capitulations—Anti-foreign efforts at emancipation—Abolition of foreign languages—German simplicity—The Turkification of commercial life—Unmistakable intellectual improvement as a result of the war—Trade policy and customs tariff—National production—The founding of new businesses in Turkey—Germany supplanted—German starvation—Capitulations or full European control?—The colonisation and forcible Turkification of Anatolia—"The properties of people who have been dispatched elsewhere"—The "Mohadjirs"—Greek persecutions just before the Great War—The "discovery" of Anatolia, the nucleus of the Ottoman Empire—Turkey finds herself at last—Anatolian dirt and decay—The "Greater Turkey" and the purely Turkish Turkey—Cleavage or concentration? From the Germans we now turn again to the Turks, to try to fathom the exact mentality of the Young Turks during the great war, and to discover what were the intellectual sources for their various activities.
[Pg 152]
To give a better idea of the whole position I will just preface my remarks by stating a few of the outstanding features of the present Young Turkish Government and their dependents. Their first and chief characteristic is hostility to foreigners, but this does not prevent them from making every possible use of their ally Germany, or from appropriating in every walk of life anything European, be it a matter of technical skill, government, civilisation, that they consider might be profitable. Secondly they are possessed of an unbounded store of jingoism, which has its origin in Pan-Turkism with its ruling idea of "Turanism." Pan-Turkism, which seems to be the governing passion of all the leading men of the day, finds expression in two directions. Outwardly it is a constant striving for a "Greater Turkey," a movement that for a large part in its essence, and certainly in its territorial aims, runs parallel with the "Holy War"; inwardly it is a fanatical desire for a general Turkification which finds outlet in political nationalistic measures, some of criminal barbarity, others partaking of the nature of modern reforms, beginning with the language regulations and "in[Pg 153]ternal colonisation" and ending in the Armenian persecutions.
It is worthy of note that of the two intellectual sources of the "Holy War," namely Turanism—which one might reverse and call an extended form of Old-Turkism—and Pan-Islamism, the men of the "Committee for Unity and Progress" have only made logical though unsuccessful use of the former, although theoretically speaking they recognise the value of the latter as well. While Turkish race-fanaticism, which finds practical outlet in Turanistic ideas, is still the intellectual backbone of official Turkey to-day and has to be broken by the present war, the Young Turkish Islam policy is already completely bankrupt and can therefore be studied here dispassionately in all its aspects. We propose to treat the matter in some detail.
All New-Turkish Nationalistic efforts at emancipation had as first principle the abolition of Capitulations. The whole Young Turkish period we have here under review is therefore to be dated from that day, shortly before Turkey's entry into the war, when that injunction was flung overboard which Europe[Pg 154] had anxiously placed for the protection of the interests of Europeans on a State but too little civilised. It was Turkey herself that did this after having curtly refused the Entente offer to remove the Capitulations as a reward for Turkey's remaining neutral. Germany, who was equally interested in the existence or non-existence of Capitulations, never mentioned this painful subject to her ally for a very long time, and it was 1916 before she formally recognised the abolition of Capitulations, long after she had lost all hold on Turkey in that direction.
As early as summer 1915 there were clear outward indications in the streets of Constantinople of a smouldering Nationalism ready to break out at any moment. Turkey, under the leadership of Talaat Bey, pursued her course along the well-trodden paths, and the first sphere in which there was evidence of an attempt at forcible Turkification was the language. Somewhere toward the end of 1915 Talaat suddenly ordered the removal of all French and English inscriptions, shop signs, etc., even in the middle of European Pera. In tramcars and at stopping-places the French[Pg 155] text was blocked out; boards with public police warnings in French were either removed altogether or replaced by unreadable Turkish scrawls; the street indications were simply abolished. The authorities apparently thought it preferable that the Levantine public should get into the wrong tramcar, should break their legs getting out, pick flowers in the parks and wander round helplessly in a maze of unnamed streets rather than that the spirit of forcible Turkification should make even the least sacrifice to comfort.
Of the thousand inhabitants of Pera, not ten can read Turkish; but under the pressure of the official order and for fear of brutal assault or some kind of underhand treatment in case of non-compliance, the inhabitants really surpassed themselves, and before one could turn, all the names over the shops had been painted over and replaced by wonderful Turkish characters that looked like decorative shields or something of the kind painted in the red and white of the national colours. If one had not noted the entrance to the shop and the look of the window very carefully, one might wander helplessly up and down the Grand Rue de[Pg 156] Péra if one wanted to buy something in a particular shop.
But the German, as simple-minded as ever where political matters were concerned, was highly delighted in spite of the extraordinary difficulty of communal life. "Away with French and English," he would shout. "God punish England; hurrah, our Turkish brothers are helping us and favouring the extension of the German language!"
The answer to these pan-German expansion politicians and language fanatics, whose spiritual home was round the beer-tables of the "Teutonia," was provided by a second decree of Talaat's some weeks later when all German notices had to disappear. A few, who would not believe the order, held out obstinately, and the signs remained in German till they were either supplemented in 1916, on a very clear hint from Stamboul, by the obligatory Turkish language or later quite supplanted. It was not till some time after the German had disappeared—and this is worthy of note—that the Greek signs ceased to exist. Greek had been up to that time the most used tongue and[Pg 157] was the commercial language of the Armenians.
Then came the famous language regulations, which even went so far—with a year of grace granted owing to the extraordinary difficulties of the Turkish script—as to decree that in the offices of all trade undertakings of any public interest whatsoever, such as banks, newspapers, transport agencies, etc., the Turkish language should be used exclusively for book-keeping and any written communication with customers. One can imagine the "Osmanic Lloyd" and the "German Bank" with Turkish book-keeping and Turkish letters written to an exclusively European clientèle! Old and trusty employees suddenly found themselves faced with the choice of learning the difficult Turkish script or being turned out in a year's time. The possibility—indeed, the necessity—of employing Turkish hands in European businesses suddenly came within the range of practical politics—and that was exactly what the Turkish Government wanted.
The arrangement had not yet come into operation when I left Constantinople, but it was hanging like the sword of Damocles over[Pg 158] commercial undertakings that had hitherto been purely German. Optimists still hoped it never would come to this pass and would have welcomed any political-military blow that would put a damper on Turkey's arrogance. Others, believing firmly in a final Turkish victory, began to learn Turkish feverishly. Be that as it may, the new arrangements were hung up on the walls of all offices in the summer of 1916 and created confusion enough.
Many other measures for the systematic Turkification of commercial life and public intercourse followed hard on this first bold step, which I need scarcely mention here. And in spite of the ever-growing number of German officials in the different ministries, partly foisted on the Turkish Government by the German authorities, partly gladly accepted for the moment because the Turks had still much to learn from German organisation and could profit from employing Germans, in spite of the appointment of a number of German professors to the Turkish University of Stamboul (who, however, as a matter of fact, like the German Government officials, had to wear the fez and learn Turkish within a year, and be[Pg 159]sides roused most unfavourable and anti-German comment in the newspapers), it was soon perfectly evident to every unbiased witness that Germany would find no place in a victorious Turkey after the war if the "Committee for union and Progress" did not need her. Some sort of light must surely have broken over the last blind optimism of the Germans in the course of the summer of 1916.
Hand in hand with the nationalistic attempt to coerce European businesses into using the Turkish language there went more practical attempts to turkify all the important branches of commerce by the founding of indigenous organisations and the introduction of reforms of more material content than those language decrees. These efforts, in spite of the enormous absorption of all intellectual capabilities and energies in war and the clash of arms, were expressed with a truly marvellous directness of aim, and, from the national standpoint, a truly commendable magnificence of conception.
This latter has indeed never been lacking as a progressive ethnic factor in Turkish politics. The Turks have a wonderful understanding,[Pg 160] too, of the importance of social problems, or at least, as a sovereign people, they feel instinctively what in a social connection will further their sovereignty. The war with its enormous intellectual activity has certainly brought all the political and economic resources of the Turks—including the Young Turkish Government—to the highest possible stage of development, and we ought not to be surprised if we often find that measures, whether of a beneficent or injurious character, are not lacking in modern exactness, clever technicality, and thoroughness of conception. Without anticipating, I should just like to note here how this change appears to affect the war. No one can doubt that it will enormously intensify zeal in the fight for the existence of the Turkey of the future, freed from its jingoistic outgrowths, once more come to its senses and confined to its own proper sphere of activity, Anatolia, the core of the Empire. But, on the other hand, iron might and determined warfare against this misguided State are needed to root out false and harmful ideas.
If, after this slight digression, we glance for a moment at the practical measures for a com[Pg 161]plete Turkification of Turkey, the economic efforts at emancipation and the civic reforms carried through, we find first of all that the new Turkey, when she had thrown the Capitulations overboard, then proceeded to emancipate herself completely from European supervision in the realm of trade and commerce.
A very considerable step in advance in the way of Turkish sovereignty and Turkish economic patriotism was the organisation and—since September 1916—execution of the neo-Turkish autonomic customs tariff, which with one blow gives Turkish finances what the Government formerly managed to extract painfully from the Great Powers bit by bit, by fair means or foul, at intervals of many years, and which with its hard-and-fast scale of taxes—which there appears to be no inclination in political circles at the moment to modify by trade treaties!—means an exceedingly adequate protection of Turkey's national productions, without any reference whatever to the export interests of her allies, and is a very strong inducement to the renaissance of at any rate the most important national industries. The far-flung net of the "Djemiet" (whose[Pg 162] acquaintance we have already made in another connection), that purely Turkish commercial undertaking with Talaat Bey at its head, regulating everything as it did, taking everything into its own hands, from the realising of the products of the Anatolian farmers (and incidentally bringing it about that their ally Germany had to pay heavily and always in cash, even although the Government itself owed millions, to Germany and got everything on credit from flour out of Roumania to paper for their journals) to the most difficult rationing of towns, forms a foundation for the nationalising of economic life of the very greatest importance.
The establishment of purely Turkish trade and transport companies, often with pensioned Ministers as directors and principal shareholders, and the new language regulations and other privileges will soon cut the ground away from under the feet of European concerns. Able assistance is given in this direction by the Tanin and the Hilal (the "Crescent"), the newly founded "Committee" paper in the French language (when it is a question of the official influencing of public opinion in Euro[Pg 163]pean and Levantine quarters, exceptions can be made even in language fanaticism!) in which a series of articles invariably appear at the founding of each new company praising the patriotic zeal of the founders.
Then again there are the increasingly thinly veiled efforts to establish a purely Turkish national banking system. Quite lately there has been a movement in favour of founding a Turkish National Bank with the object of supplanting the much-hated "Deutsche Bank" in spi............