The outlook for the future—The consequences of trusting Germany—The Entente's death sentence on Turkey—The social necessity for this deliverance—Anatolia, the new Turkey after the war—Forecasts about the Turkish race—The Turkish element in the lost territory—Russia and Constantinople; international guarantees—Germany, at peace, benefits too—Farewell to the German "World-politicians"—German interests in a victorious and in an amputated Turkey—The German-Turkish treaty—A paradise on earth—The Russian commercial impetus—The new Armenia—Western Anatolia, the old Greek centre of civilization—Great Arabia and Syria—The reconciliation of Germany. We have come to the end of our sketches. The question before us now is: What will become of Turkey? The Entente has pronounced formal sentence of death on the Empire of the Sultan, and neither the slowly fading military power of Turkey, nor the help of Germany, who is herself already virtually conquered, will be able to arrest her fate.
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On the high frost-bound uplands of Armenia the Russians hold a strategic position from which it is impossible to dislodge them, and which will probably very soon extend to the Gulf of Alexandretta. In Mesopotamia, after that enormously important political event, the Fall of Baghdad, the union was effected between the British troops and the Russians, advancing steadily from Persia. The Suez Canal is now no longer threatened, and the British troops have been removed from there for a counter-offensive in Southern Palestine, and probably, when the psychological moment arrives, an offensive against Syria, now so sadly shattered politically. It is quite within the bounds of possibility, too, that during this war a big new Front may be formed in Western Anatolia, already completely broken up by the Pan-Hellenic Irredenta, and the Turks will be hard put to it to find troops to meet the new offensive. Arabia is finally and absolutely lost, and England, by establishing an Arabian Caliphate, has already won the war against Turkey. Meantime, on the far battlefields of Galicia and the Balkans, whole Ottoman divisions are pouring out their life-[Pg 260]blood, fighting for that elusive German victory that never comes any nearer, while in every nook and corner of their own land there is a terrible lack of troops. Enver Pasha, at length grown anxious, has attempted to recall them, but in vain.
That is a short résumé of the military situation. This is how the Turkey of Enver and Talaat is atoning for the trust she has placed in Germany.
To a German journalist who went out two years ago to a great Turkey, striving for a "Greater Turkey," it does indeed seem a bitter irony of fate to see his sphere of labour thus reduced to nothingness. The fall of Turkey is the greatest blow that could have been dealt to German "world-politics"; it is a disappointment that will have the gravest consequences. But from the standpoint of culture, human civilisation, ethics, the liberty of the peoples and justice, historical progress, the economic development of wide tracts of land of the greatest importance from their geographical position, it is one of the most brilliant results of the war, and one to be hailed with unmixed joy. When I look back on how wonderfully things[Pg 261] have shaped in the last two and a half years I am bound to admit that I am happy things have turned out as they have. If perchance any Turk who knows me happens to read these lines, I beg him not to think that my ideas are saturated with hatred of Turkey. On the contrary, I love the country and the Turkish race with those many attractive qualities that rightly appealed to a poet like Loti.
I have asked myself thousands of times what would be the best political solution of the problem, how to help this people—and the other races inhabiting their country—to true and lasting happiness. From my many journeys in tropical lands, I have grown accustomed to the sight of autochthonous civilisations and semi-civilised peoples, and am as interested in them as in the most perfectly civilised nations of Europe. I have therefore, I think, been able to set aside entirely in my own mind the territorial interests of the West in the development of the Near East, and give my whole attention to Turkey's own good and Turkey's own needs. But even then I have been obliged to subscribe to the sentence of death passed on the Turkey of the Young Turks and the sovereignty of the[Pg 262] Ottoman Empire. It is with the fullest consciousness of what I am doing that I agree to the only seemingly cruel amputation of this State. It is merely the outer shell covering a number of peoples who suffer cruelly under an unjust system, chief among them the brave Turkish people who have been led by a criminal Government to take the last step on the road to ruin. The point of view I have adopted does not in any way detract from my personal sympathies, and I still have hopes that the many personal friendships I made in Constantinople will not be broken by the hard words I have been obliged to utter in the cause of truth, in the interests of outraged civilisation, and in the interests of a happier future for the Ottoman people themselves.
The amputation of Turkey is a stern social necessity. Someone has said: "The greatest enemy of Turkey is the Turk." I have too much love for the Turkish people, too much sympathy for them, to adopt this pessimistic attitude without great inward opposition; but unfortunately it is only too true. We have seen how the Turkey of Enver and Talaat has reacted sharply against the Western-minded,[Pg 263] liberal era of the 1876 and 1908 constitutions, and has turned again to Asia and her newly discovered ideal, Turanism. To the Turks of to-day, European culture and civilisation are at best but a technical means; they are no longer an end in themselves. Their dream is no longer Western Europe, but a nationally awakened and strengthened Asiatentum.
In face of this intellectual development, how can we hope that in the new Turkey there will be a radical alteration of what, in the whole course of Ottoman history, has always been the one characteristic, unchangeable, momentous fact, of what has always shattered the most honest efforts at reform, and always will shatter every attempt at improvement within a sovereign Turkey—I refer to the relationship of the Turk to the "Rajah" (the "herd"), the Christian subjects of the Padishah. The Ottoman, the Mohammedan conqueror, lives by the "herd" he has found in the land he has conquered; the "herd" are the "unbelievers," and rooted deep in the mind of this sovereign people, who have never quite lost their nomadic instincts, is the conviction that they have the right to live by the sweat of the brow of their Chris[Pg 264]tian subjects and on the fruits of their labour. That we Europeans think this unjust the Turk will never be able to grasp.
A Wali of Erzerum once said: "The Turkish Government and the Armenian people stand in the relationship of man and wife, and any third persons who feel sympathy for the wife and anger at the wife-beating husband will do better not to meddle in this domestic strife." This quotation has become famous, for it exactly characterises the relationship of the Turk to the "Rajah," not to the Armenians. In this phrase alone there lies, quite apart from all the crimes committed by the present Turkish Government, a sufficient moral and political foundation for the sentence of death passed on the sovereignty of the present Turkish State. For so long as the Turks cling to Islam, from which springs that opposition between Moslem rulers and "Giaur" subjects so detrimental to all social progress, it is Europe's sacred duty not to give Turkey sovereignty over any territory with a strong Christian element. That is why Turkey must at all costs be confined to Inner Anatolia; that is why complete amputation is necessary; and why the[Pg 265] outlying districts of Turkey, the Straits, the Anatolian coast, the whole of Armenia must be rescued and, part of it at any rate, placed under formal European protection.
Even in Inner Anatolia, which will probably still be left to the Ottomans after the war, the strongest European influence must be brought to bear—which will probably not be difficult in view of Turkey's financial bankruptcy; European customs and civilisation must be introduced; in a word, Europe must exercise sufficient control to be in a position to prevent the numerous non-Turks resident even in Anatolia from being exposed to the old system of exploiting the "Rajah." Discerning Turks themselves have admitted that it would be best for Europe to put the whole of Turkey for a generation under curatorship and general European supervision.
I, personally, should not be satisfied with this system for the districts occupied more by non-Turks than by Turks; but, on the other hand, I should not go so far in the case of Inner Anatolia. I trust that strong European influence will make it possible to make Inner Anatolia a sovereign territory. I have pinned[Pg 266] my faith on the Ottoman race being given another and final opportunity on her own ground of showing how she will develop now after the wonderful intellectual improvement that has taken place during the war. I hope at the same time that even in a sovereign Turkish Inner Anatolia Europe will have enough say to prevent any outgrowths of the "Rajah principle."
The Turks must not be deprived of the opportunity to bring their new-found abilities, which even we must praise, to bear on the production of a new, modern, but thoroughly Turkish civilisation of their own on their own ground. Anatolia, beautiful and capable of development, is, even if we confine it to those interior parts chiefly inhabited by Ottomans, still quite a big enough field for the production of such a civilisation; it is quite big enough too for the terribly reduced numbers now belonging to the Osmanic race.
The amputation and limitation of Turkey, even if they do not succeed in altering the real Turkish point of view—and this, so far as the relationship to the Christians is concerned, is the same, from the Pasha down to the poorest[Pg 267] Anatolian peasant—will at least have a tremendously beneficial effect. The possibilities in the Turkish race will come to flower. "The worst patriots," I once dared to say in one of my articles in spite of the censorship, "are not those who look for the future of the nation in concentrated cultural work in the Turkish nucleus-land of Anatolia, instead of gaping over the Caucasus and down into the sands of the African desert in their search for a 'Greater Turkey.'" And in connection with the series of lectures I have already mentioned about Anatolian hygiene and social politics, I said, with quite unmistakable meaning: "Turkey will have a wonderful opportunity on her own original ground, in the nucleus-land of the Ottomans, of proving her capability and showing that she has become a really modern, civilised State."
My earnest wish is that all the Turks' high intellectual abilities, brought to the front by this war, may be concentrated on this beautiful and repaying task. Intensive labour and the concentration of all forces on positive work in the direction of civilisation will have to take the place of corrupt rule, boundless neglect,[Pg 268] waste, the strangulation of all progressive movements, political illusions, the unquenchable desire for conquest and oppression. This is what we pray for for Anatolia, the real New Turkey after the war. In other districts, also, now fully under European control, the pure Turkish element will flourish much more exceedingly than ever before under the beneficent protection of modern, civilised Governments. Frankly, the dream of Turkish Power has vanished. But new life springs out of ruin and decay; the history of mankind is a continual change.
Russia, too, after war, will no longer be what she seemed to terrified Turkish eyes and jealous German eyes dazzled by "world-politics": a colossal creature, stretching forth enormous suckers to swallow up her smaller neighbours; a country ruled by a dull, unthinking despotism.
From the standpoint of universal civilisation it is to be hoped that the solution of the problem of the Near East will be to transform the Straits between the Black Sea and Aegea, together with the city of Constantinople, uniquely situated as it is, into a com[Pg 269]pletely international stretch with open harbours. Then we need no longer o............