CRESCENT AND IRON CROSS

BY E. F. BENSON

_Crescent and Iron Cross, Preface_

In compiling the following pages I have had access to certain sources ofofficial information, the nature of which I am not at liberty to specifyfurther. I have used these freely in such chapters of this book as dealwith recent and contemporary events in Turkey or in Germany inconnection with Turkey: the chapter, for instance, entitled 'Deutschlandüber Allah, ' is based very largely on such documents. I have tried to bediscriminating in their use, and have not, as far as I am aware, statedanything derived from them as a fact, for which I had not foundcorroborative evidence. With regard to the Armenian massacres I havedrawn largely on the testimony collected by Lord Bryce, on that broughtforward by Mr. Arnold J. Toynbee in his pamphlet _The Murder of aNation_, and _The Murderous Tyranny of the Turks, _ and on the pamphletby Dr. Martin Niepage, called _The Horrors of Aleppo_. In the firstchapter I have based the short historical survey on the contribution ofMr. D. G. Hogarth to _The Balkans_ (Clarendon Press, 1915). The chaptercalled 'Thy Kingdom is Divided' is in no respect at all an officialutterance, and merely represents the individual opinions and surmises ofthe author. It has, however, the official basis that the Allies havepledged themselves to remove the power of the Turk from Constantinople, and to remove out of the power of the Turk the alien peoples who havetoo long already been subject to his murderous rule. I have, in fact, but attempted to conjecture in what kind of manner that promise will befulfilled. 

Fresh items of news respecting internal conditions in Turkey arecontinually coming in, and if one waited for them all, one would have towait to the end of the war before beginning to write at all on thissubject. But since such usefulness as this book may possibly have isinvolved with the necessity of its appearance before the end of the war, I set a term to the gathering of material, and, with the exception oftwo or three notes inserted later, ceased to collect it after June 1917. But up to then anything that should have been inserted in surveys andarguments, and is not, constitutes a culpable omission on my part. 

E. F. BENSON

_Crescent and Iron Cross, Contents_

CHAPTER I

THE THEORY OF THE OLD TURKS

CHAPTER II

THE THEORY OF THE NEW TURKS

CHAPTER III

THE END OF THE ARMENIAN QUESTION

CHAPTER IV

THE QUESTION OF SYRIA AND PALESTINE

CHAPTER V

DEUTSCHLAND ÜBER ALLAH

CHAPTER VI

'THY KINGDOM IS DIVIDED'

CHAPTER VII

THE GRIP OF THE OCTOPUS

_Crescent and Iron Cross, Chapter I_

THE THEORY OF THE OLD TURKS

The maker of phrases plies a dangerous trade. Very often his phrase isapplicable for the moment and for the situation in view of which hecoined it, but his coin has only a temporary validity: it is good for amonth or for a year, or for whatever period during which the crisislasts, and after that it lapses again into a mere token, a thing withoutvalue and without meaning. But the phrase cannot, as in the case of amonetary coinage, at once be recalled, for it has gone broadcast overthe land, or, at any rate, it is not recalled, and it goes on beingpassed from hand to hand, its image and superscription defaced by wear, long after it has ceased to represent anything. In itself it isobsolete, but people still trade with it, and think it represents whatit represented when it came hot from the Mint. And, unfortunately, itsometimes happens that it is worse than valueless; it becomes a forgery(which it may not have been when it came into circulation), and deceivesthose who traffic with it, flattering them with an unfounded possession. 

Such a phrase, which still holds currency, was once coined by LordAberdeen in the period of the Crimean War. 'Turkey is a sick man, ' hesaid, and added something which gave great offence then about theadvisability of putting Turkey out of his misery. I do not pretend toquote correctly, but that was the gist of it. Nor do I challenge thetruth of Lord Aberdeen's phrase at the period when he made it. Itpossibly contained a temporary truth, a valid point of view, which, ifit had been acted on, might have saved a great deal of troubleafterwards, but it missed then, and more than misses now, the essentialand salient truth about Turkey. The phrase, unfortunately, stillcontinued to obtain credit, and nowadays it is a forgery; it ringsfalse. 

For at whatever period we regard Turkey, and try to define thatmonstrous phenomenon, we can make a far truer phrase than LordAberdeen's. For Turkey is not a sick man: Turkey is a sickness. He isnot sick, nor ever has been, for he is the cancer itself, the devouringtumour that for centuries has fed on living tissue, absorbing it andkilling it. It has never had life in itself, except in so far that thepower of preying on and destroying life constitutes life, and such apower, after all, we are accustomed to call not life, but death. Turkey, like death, continues to exist and to dominate, through its function ofkilling. Life cannot kill, it is disease and death that kill, and fromthe moment that Turkey passed from being a nomadic tribe movingwestwards from the confines of Persia, it has existed only and thrivedon a process of absorption and of murder. When first the Turks came outof their Eastern fastnesses they absorbed; when they grew more or lesssettled, and by degrees the power of mere absorption, as by some failureof digestion, left them, they killed. They became a huge tumour, thatnourished itself by killing the living tissues that came in contactwith it. Now, by the amazing irony of fate, who weaves stranger dramasthan could ever be set on censored stages, for they both take hundredsof years to unravel themselves, and are of the most unedifyingcharacter, Turkey, the rodent cancer, has been infected by another withgreater organisation for devouring; the disease of Ottomanism isthreatened by a more deadly hungerer, and Prussianism has inserted itscrab-pincers into the cancer that came out of Asia. Those claws arealready deeply set, and the problem for civilised nations is first todisentangle the nippers that are cancer in a cancer, and next to depriveof all power over alien peoples the domination that has already beenallowed to exist too long. 

The object of this book is the statement of the case on which alldefenders of liberty base their prosecution against Turkey itself, andagainst the Power that to-day has Turkey in its grip. 

Historical surveys are apt to be tedious, but in order to understand atall adequately the case against Turkey as a ruler and controller ofsubject peoples, it is necessary to go, though briefly, into herblood-stained genealogy. There is no need to enter into ethnologicaldiscussions as to earlier history, or define the difference between theOsmanli Turks and those who were spread over Asia Minor before theadvent of the Osmanlis from the East. But it was the Osmanlis who werethe cancerous and devouring nation, and it is they who to-day rule overa vast territory (subject to Germany) of peoples alien to them byreligion and blood and all the instincts common to civilised folk. UntilGermany, 'deep patient Germany, ' suddenly hoisted her colours as achampion of murder and rapine and barbarism, she the mother of art andliterature and science, there was nothing in Europe that could comparewith the anachronism of Turkey being there at all. Then, in August 1914, there was hoisted the German flag, superimposed with skulls andcross-bones, and all the insignia of piracy and highway robbery on landand on sea, and Germany showed herself an anachronism worthy to impaleher arms on the shield of the most execrable domination that has everoppressed the world since the time when the Huns under Attila raged likea forest fire across the cultivated fields of European civilisation. To-day, in the name of Kultur, a similar invasion has broken on shoresthat seemed secure, and it is no wonder that it has found its mostvaluable victim and ally in the Power that adopted the same methods ofabsorption and extermination centuries before the Hohenzollerns everstarted on their career of highway robbery. But like seeks like, andperhaps it was not wholly the fault of our astonishing diplomacy inConstantinople that Turkey, wooed like some desirable maiden, cast inher lot with the Power that by instinct and tradition most resembledher. Spiritual blood, no less than physical blood, is thicker thanwater, and Gott and Allah, hand-in-hand, pledged each other in the cupsthey had filled with the blood that poured from the wine-presses ofBelgium and of Armenia. 

For centuries before the Osmanli Turks made their appearance in AsiaMinor, there had come from out of the misty East numerous bodies ofTurks, pushing westwards, and spreading over the Euphrates valley andover Persia, in nomadic or military colonisations, and it is not untilthe thirteenth century that we find the Osmanli Turks, who give theirname to that congregation of races known as the Ottoman Empire, established in the north-west corner of Asia Minor. Like all previousTurkish immigrations, they came not in any overwhelming horde, withsword in one hand and Koran in the other, but as a small compact bodywith a genius for military organisation, and the gift, which they retainto this day, of stalwart fighting. The policy to which they owed theirgrowth was absorption, and the people whom they first began to absorbwere Greeks and other Christians, and it was to a Christian girl, Nilufer, that Osman married his son Orkhan. They took Christian youthsfrom the families of Greek dwellers, forced them to apostatise, gavethem military training, and married them to Turkish girls. It was out ofthis blend of Greek and Turkish blood, as Mr. D. G. Hogarth points out, that they derived their national being and their national strength. Thissystem of recruiting they steadily pursued not only among the Christianpeoples with whom they came in contact, but among the settlements ofTurks who had preceded them in this process of pushing westwards, andformed out of them the professional soldiery known as Janissaries. Theydid not fight for themselves alone, but as mercenaries lent their armsto other peoples, Moslem and Christian alike, who would hire theirservices. This was a policy that paid well, for, after having deliveredsome settlement from the depredations of an inconvenient neighbour, andwith their pay in their pocket, they sometimes turned on those who hadhired their arms, took their toll of youths, and finally incorporatedthem in their growing empire. Like an insatiable sponge, they mopped upthe sprinklings of disconnected peoples over the fruitful floor of AsiaMinor, and swelled and prospered. But as yet the extermination of thesewas not part of their programme: they absorbed the strength and manhoodof their annexations into their own soldiery, and came back for more. They did not levy those taxes paid in the persons of soldiers for theirarmies from their co-religionists, since Islam may not fight againstIslam, but by means of peaceful penetration (a policy long sinceabandoned) they united scattered settlements of Turks to themselves bymarriages and the bond of a common tongue and religion. 

Their expansion into Europe began in the middle of the fourteenthcentury, when, as mercenaries, they fought against the Serbs, and fiftyyears later they had a firm hold over Bulgaria as well. Greece was theirnext prey; they penetrated Bosnia and Macedonia, and in 1453 attackedand took Constantinople under Mohammed the Conqueror. Still true to thepolicy of incorporation they continued to mop up the remainder of theBalkan Peninsula, and at the same time consolidated themselves furtherin Asia Minor. By the beginning of the seventeenth century theirexpansion reached its utmost geographical limits, but already the Empireheld within it the seeds of its own decay, and by a curious irony theforce that should still keep it together was derived not from its ownstrength, but from the jealousies of the European Powers amongthemselves, who would willingly have dismembered it, but feared thequarrels that would surely result from the apportionment of itsterritories. The Ottoman Empire from then onwards has owed its existenceto its enemies. 

Its weakness lay in itself, for it was very loosely knit together, andno bond, whether of blood or religion or tongue, bound to it theassembly of Christian and Jewish and non-Moslem races of which it was solargely composed. The Empire never grew (as, for instance, the BritishEmpire grew) by the emigration and settlement of the Osmanli stock inthe territories it absorbed: it never gave, it only took. From thebeginning right up to the last quarter of the nineteenth century, it hasbeen a military despotism, imposing itself on unwilling and alien tribeswhom it drained of their blood, and then left in neglect until somefurther levy was needed. None of its conquered peoples was ever given ashare in the government; they were left unorganised and, so to speak, undigested elements under the Power which had forced them intosubjection, and one by one the whole of the European peoples included inthat uncemented tyranny have passed from under Turkish control. Turkeyin Europe has dwindled to a strip along the Bosporus to the Sea ofMarmora and the Dardanelles, Egypt has been lost, Tripoli also, and theonly force that, for the last hundred years has kept alive in Europe theexistence of that monstrous anachronism has been the strange politicalphenomenon, now happily extinct, called the Balance of Power. No one ofthe Great Powers, from fear of the complications that would ensue, couldrisk the expulsion of the Turkish Government from Constantinople, andthere all through the nineteenth century it has been maintained lest theKey of the Black Sea, which unlocked the bolts that barred Russia'sdevelopment into the Mediterranean, should lead to such a war as we arenow passing through. That policy, for the present, has utterly defeatedits own ends, for the key is in the pockets of Prussia. But all throughthat century, though the Powers maintained Turkey there, they helped toliberate, or saw liberate themselves, the various Christian kingdoms inEurope over which at the beginning of the eighteenth century Turkeyexercised a military despotism. They weakened her in so far as theycould, but they one and all refused to let her die, and above allrefused to give her that stab in the heart which would have been impliedin her expulsion from Constantinople. 

For centuries from the first appearance of the Osmanlis in north-westAsia Minor down to the reign of Abdul Hamid, the Empire maintaineditself, with alternate bouts of vigour and relapses, on the generalprinciple of drawing its strength from its subject peoples. Internally, from whatever standpoint we view it, whether educational, economic, orindustrial, it has had the worst record of any domination known tohistory. Rich in mineral wealth, possessed of lands that were once thegranary of the world, watered by amazing rivers, and with its strategicposition on the Mediterranean that holds the master-key of the Black Seain its hands, it has remained the most barbaric and least progressive ofall states. Its roads and means of communication remained up till thelast quarter of the nineteenth century much as they had been in the daysof Osman; except along an insignificant strip of sea-coast railways werenon-existent; it was bankrupt in finance and in morals, and did notcontain a single seed that might ripen into progress or civilisation. Mesopotamia was once the most fertile of all lands, capable ofsupporting not itself alone, but half the civilised world: nowadays, under the stewardship of the Turk, it has been suffered to become adesert for the greater part of the year and an impracticable swamp forthe remainder. Where great cities flourished, where once was reared thepride of Babylon and of Nineveh, there huddle the squalid huts offever-stricken peasants, scarce able to gain their half-starved livingfrom the soil that once supported in luxury and pomp the grandeur ofmetropolitan cities. The ancient barrages, the canals, the systems ofirrigation were all allowed to silt up and become useless; and at theend of the nineteenth century you would not find in all Mesopotamia anagricultural implement that was in any way superior to the ploughs andthe flails of more than two thousand years ago. But so long as there wasa palace-guard about the gates to secure the safety of the Sultan andhis corrupt military oligarchy, so long as there were houris to diverttheir leisure, tribute of youths to swell their armies, and taxes wrungfrom starving subjects to maintain their pomp, there was not one ofthose who held the reins of government who cared the flick of an eyelashfor the needs of the nations on whom the Empire rested, for thecultivation of its soil that would yield a hundredfold to the skilledhusbandman, or for the exploitation and development of its internalwealth. While there was left in the emaciated carcase of the TurkishEmpire enough live tissue for the cancerous Government to grow fat on, it gave not one thought to the welfare of all those races on whom it hadfastened itself. Province after province of its European dominionsmight be lost to it, but the Balance of Power still kept the Sultan onhis throne, and left the peoples of Asia Minor and Syria at his mercy. They were largely of alien religion and of alien tongue, and theirindividual weakness was his strength. Neglect, and the decay consequenton neglect, was the lot of all who languished under that abominabledespotism. 

With the accession in 1876 of Abdul Hamid, of cursed memory, theredawned on the doomed subject peoples of the Ottoman Empire a day ofbloodier import than any yet. The year before and during that year hadoccurred the Bulgarian atrocities and massacres, and the word 'massacre'lingered and made music in Abdul Hamid's brain. He said it over tohimself and dwelt upon it, and meditated on the nature and possibilitiesof massacre. The troubles which massacre had calmed had arisen beforehis accession out of the establishment of the Bulgarian Exarchate, whichcorresponded to the Greek Patriarchate, and was given power overdistricts and peoples whom the Greeks justly considered to belong tothem by blood and religion. Greek armed bands came into collision withBulgarian bands, and in order to calm these disturbances by thoroughlyeffectual means, irregular Turkish troops were sent into Bulgaria, charged with the command to 'stop the row, ' but with no otherinstructions. Indiscriminate killing, with all the passions and horrorsthat bloodshed evokes in the half-civilised, followed, and there was nomore trouble just then in the disturbed districts, for there was none tomake trouble. In 1876 Abdul Aziz was deposed by a group of king-makersunder Midhat Pasha, Murad V. Reigned shadow-like for three months, andduring the same year Abdul Hamid was finally selected to fill thethrone, and stand forth as the Shadow of God. It was a disturbed andtottering inheritance to which he succeeded, riddled with the dry-rot ofcorruption, but the inheritor proved himself equal to the occasion. 

For a little while he was all abroad, and at the bidding of Midhat, whohad placed him on the throne, he summoned a kind of representativeTurkish Parliament, by way of imbuing the Great Powers with the ideathat he was an enlightened Shadow of God bent on reform. This parody ofa Parliament lasted but a short time: it was no more than a faint, dissolving magic-lantern picture. In the spring of 1877 Rumania, underRussian encouragement, broke away from Turkish rule. Turkey declared waron Russia, and in 1878 found herself utterly defeated. At Adrianople wasdrawn up the Treaty of San Stefano, creating an independent Bulgarianstate, and, in the opinion of Great Britain and Germany, giving Russiafar greater influence in the Balkan Peninsula than was agreeable to thatdisastrous supporter of Turkey, the Balance of Power. In consequence theTreaty of San Stefano was superseded by the Treaty of Berlin. 

In those arrangements Abdul Hamid had no voice, but he was well contentto sit quiet, think about what was to be done with what was left him, and thank his waning crescent that once again the Balance of Power hadsecured Constantinople for him, leaving him free to deal with hisAsiatic dominions, and such part of Europe as was left him, as hethought fit. He could safely trust that he would never be ejected fromhis throne by a foreign Power, and all he need do was to make himselfsafe against internal disturbances and revolutions which might upsethim. And it was then that he begot in the womb of his cold and cunningbrain a policy that was all his own, except in so far as the Bulgarianatrocities, consequent on feuds between Bulgars and Greeks, may beconsidered the father of that hideous birth. But it was he who suckledand nourished it, it was from his brain that it emerged, full-grown andin panoply of armour, as from the brain of Olympian Zeus came PallasAthene. This new policy was in flat contradiction of all the previouspolicy, as he had received it from his predecessors, of strengtheningTurkey by tributes of man-power from his subject tribes, but it would, he thought, have the same result of keeping the Turk supreme among thealien elements of the Empire. Times had changed; it behoved him tochange the methods which hitherto had held together his haplessinheritance. 

Now Abdul Hamid was not in any sense a wise man, and the ability whichhas been attributed to him, in view of the manner in which hesuccessfully defied the civilisations of Europe, is based on premissesaltogether false. He never really defied Europe at all; he alwaysyielded, secure in his belief that Europe in the shape of the Balance ofPower, was unanimous in keeping him where he was. He never even riskedbeing turned out of Constantinople, for he knew--none better--that allEurope insisted on retaining him there. As regards wisdom, there wasnever a greater fool, but as regards cunning there was never a greaterfox. He had a brain that was absolutely impervious to large ideas: thenotion of consolidating and strengthening his Empire by ameliorating itsinternal conditions, by bringing it within speaking distance of theinfluence of civilisation and progress, by taking advantage of anddeveloping its immense natural resources, by employing the brains andthe industry of his subject races, seems never to have entered his head. He could easily have done all this: there was not a Power in Europe thatwould not have lent him a helping hand in development and reform, in theestablishment of a solvent state, in aiding the condition of the peoplesover whom he ruled. In whatever he did, provided that it furthered thewelfare of his subjects, whether Turk, Armenian, or Arab, the wholeConcert of Europe would have provided him with cash, with missionaries, with engineers, and all the resources of the arts and sciences of peaceand of progress. But being a felon, with crime and cunning to take theplace of wisdom, he preferred to develop his Empire on his own originallines. In Europe he was but suffered to exist. There remained Asia. 

The policy of previous Osmanli rulers has already been roughly defined. They strengthened themselves and the military Turkish despotism roundthem by absorbing the manhood of the tribes over which they had obtaineddominion. Abdul Hamid reversed that policy; he strengthened the Turkishsupremacy, not by drawing into it the manhood of his subject peoples, but by destroying that manhood. In proportion, so his foxlike brainreasoned, as his alien subjects were weak, so were the Turks strong. Aconsistent weakening of alien nations would strengthen the hold of thosewho governed the Ottoman Empire. It was as if a man suffered from goutin his foot: he could get rid of the gout by wholesome living, theresult of which would be that his foot ceased to trouble him. But theplan which he adopted was to cause his foot to mortify by process ofinhuman savagery. When it was dead it would trouble him no longer. 

He was well aware that the Turkish people only comprised some forty percent, of the population of the Turkish Empire: numerically they wereweaker than the alien peoples who composed the rest of it. Something hadto be done to bring the governing Power up to such a proportionatestrength as should secure its supremacy, and the most convenient planwas to weaken the alien elements. The scheme, though yet inchoate, hadbeen tried with success in the case of the Bulgarians and Greeks, and totest it further he stirred up Albanians against the inhabitants of OldServia with gratifying results. They weakened each other, and he furtherweakened them both by the employment of Turkish troops in Macedonia toquell the disturbances which he had himself fomented. There weremassacres and atrocities, and no more trouble just then from Macedonia. Having thus tested his plan and found no flaw in it, he settled to adoptit. But European combinations did not really much interest him, for hewas aware that the Great Powers, to whose sacred Balance he owed thepermanence of his throne, would not tolerate interference with Europeanpeoples, and he turned his attention to Asia Minor. There wereexcrescences there which he could not absorb, but which might bedestroyed. He could use the knife on living tissues which the impaireddigestion of the Ottoman Empire could not assimilate. So he hit on thisfresh scheme, which his hellish cunning devised with a matchless senseof the adaptation of the means to the end, and he created (though he didnot live to perfect) a new policy that reversed the traditions of fivehundred years. That is no light task to undertake, and when we considerthat since his deposition, now nine years ago, that policy has reapedresults undreamed of perhaps by him, we can see how far-sighted hiscunning was. To-day it is being followed out by the very combinationthat deposed him; his aims have been fully justified, and for thatprecise reason we are right to classify him among the abhorred ofmankind. He had an opportunity such as is given to the few, and he madethe utmost of it, even as his greater successor on the throne of Turkeyfor the present, namely Wilhelm II. Of Prussia, has done, in the serviceof the devil. 'Well done, thou good and faithful servant, ' must surelyhave been his well-deserved welcome, when he left the hell he had madeon earth for another. 

Of all his subjects the Armenians were the most progressive, the mostindustrious, the most capable. They therefore contributed, according tothat perverted foxlike mind, one of the greatest menaces to thestability of his throne, which henceforth should owe its strength to theweakness of those it governed. They, as all the world knows, are apeaceful Christian people, and it was against them that Abdul Hamiddirected the policy which he had tested in Europe. The instruments heemployed to put it in force were the Kurds, a turbulent shepherd racemarching with and mixed up among the Armenians. By this means he had theexcuse ready that these massacres were local disturbances among remoteand insubordinate tribes, one of whom, however, the Kurds, he armed withmodern rifles and caused to be instructed in some elementary militarytraining. Their task was to murder Armenians, their pay was theprivilege to rape their girls and their women, and to rob the houses ofthe men they had killed. The Armenians resisted with at first some smallsuccess, upon which Abdul Hamid reinforced the Kurds with regulartroops, and caused it to be proclaimed that this was a war of Moslemsagainst the infidel, a Holy War. Moslem fanaticism, ever smoulderingand ready to burst into flames, blazed high, and a fury of massacresbroke forth against all Armenians, east and west, north and south. Thestreets of Constantinople ran with their blood, and before Abdul Hamidwas obliged by foreign civilised Powers to stop those holocausts, he hadso decimated the race that not for at least a generation would theyconceivably be a menace again even to that zealous guardian of thesupremacy in its own dominions of the Ottoman power. Very unwillingly, when obliged to do so, he whistled off his bands of Kurds, and dismissedthem: unwillingly, too, he gave orders that the Armenian hunts which hadso pleasantly diverted the sportsmen of Constantinople, must beabandoned: then was decreed a 'close time' for Armenians, the shootingseason was over. There is no exaggeration in this: eye-witnesses haverecorded how at the close of the business day in Constantinople, shooting parties used literally to go out, and beat the coverts oftenement houses for Armenians, of whom there were at that time inConstantinople some 150, 000. But when Abdul Hamid had finished hissport, I do not think more than 80, 000 at the most survived. These weresaved by the protests of Europe, and perhaps by the knowledge that ifall the Armenians were killed, there could never be any more shooting. The Kurds also had lost a considerable number of men, and that was farfrom displeasing to the yellow-faced butcher of Yildiz. A littleblood-letting among those turbulent Kurds was not at all a bad thing. 

Here, then, we see defined and at work the new Ottoman policy withregard to its peoples. Hitherto, it had been sufficient to take fromthem its fill of man-power, and leave the tribe in question to its owndevices. There was no objection whatever to its developing the resourcesof its territory, to its increasing in prosperity and in population. Indeed the central Power was quite pleased that it should do so, forwhen next the gathering of taxes and youths came round the collectorswould find a creditable harvest awaiting them. Such a tribe received noencouragement or help from the Government; that would have been toomuch to expect, but as long as it kept quiet and obedient it might, without interference, prosper as well as it could. But now, in the lastquarter of the nineteenth century, all that was changed; instead of apolicy of neglect there was substituted a policy of murder. The state nolonger considered itself secure when in various parts of its dominionsits subjects showed themselves progressive and industrious. They had tobe kept down, and clearly the most efficient way of keeping people downwas killing them. Let it not be supposed for a moment that either thefirst massacre, or any that followed, was the result of localdisturbances and fanaticism. It was nothing of the sort: each wasarranged and planned at Constantinople, as the official means, inventedby the arch-butcher, Abdul Hamid, of maintaining in power the mostdevilish despotism that has ever disgraced the world. Something had tobe done to prevent the alien tribes in Asia slipping out of the noose ofOttoman strangulation, even as the European tribes had done, andforming themselves into separate and independent states. A ruler withprogressive ideas, one who had any perception of the internal prosperitywhich alone can render an empire stable, would have made the attempt toweld his loose and wavering domination together by encouraging andworking for the prosperity of its component peoples, so that he might, though late in the day, give birth to a Turkey that was strong, becauseits citizens were prosperous and content. Not so did Abdul Hamid; theTurkey that he sought to establish was merely to be strong because hehad battered into a blood-stained pulp the most progressive and the mostindustrious of the alien peoples over whom he ruled. 

It is significant that, while yet the blood of the murdered Christianswas scarcely washed from the streets of Constantinople, the EmperorWilhelm II. Visited his brother-sovereign at Yildiz, after making histour throughout the Holy Land. The two can hardly, in their intimateconversations, have completely avoided the subject of the massacres; butafter all, that was not such an unmanageably awkward topic, for WilhelmII. Could tactfully have reminded Abdul Hamid that his own throne alsowas based on the murderous progress of the Teutonic Knights. Then therewas the war between Turkey and Greece only lately concluded to discuss, and there again--for the Emperor's sister was Crown Princess ofGreece--conversation must have been a shade difficult. Altogether, inspite of the Emperor's lifelong desire to visit the Holy Places inPalestine, it was an odd moment for a Christian monarch to visit thebutcher of Constantinople. But the truth is that Wilhelm II. Had a verystrong reason for going to see his brother, for the fruit of Germanpolicy in Turkey was already ripening and swelling on the tree, and theminor disadvantages of visiting this murderous tyrant while still hishands were red with blood was more than compensated for by theadvantages of having a heart-to-heart talk with him on other subjects. Germany had already begun her peaceful penetration, and the real motiveof the Emperor's visit was, after swords and orders had been exchanged, to make the definite request that bodies of colonising Germans should beallowed to settle on the Sultan's dominions in Asia Minor, and a hint nodoubt was conveyed that there would be plenty of room for them now thatthere were so many Armenian farms unfortunately without a master. But, like Uriah Heep, the Emperor had attempted to pluck the fruit before itwas ripe, or, to use a more exact simile, before he was tall enough toreach it. In vain he represented to Abdul Hamid the immense advantageswhich would result to Turkey by the establishment of those Gott-likeGerman settlers in Asia Minor. Out of his colossal egalo-megalomania, ofwhich we know more now, he thought that any request which theAll-Highest should deign to make must instantly be granted. But he metwith a perfectly flat refusal, and the baffled All-Highest leftConstantinople in an exceedingly bad temper, which quite undid all thegood that the balm in Gilead and the sacred associations of Jerusalemhad done him. It is pleasant to think of the Pan-Islamic merriment withwhich Abdul Hamid must have viewed the indignant exit of his Christianbrother, who had come such a long way to see him, and was so tactfulabout the Armenian atrocities. He might perhaps--for those Christianswere very odd pigs--have expressed horror or remonstrance. Not at all:he was much too anxious to get his request granted, to make himselfdisagreeable. But did his Christian brother really think that all thosemassacres over which Abdul Hamid had spent so much time and money, hadbeen arranged in order to settle those nasty progressive Germans in thelands that had been so carefully depopulated? Why, the whole point ofthem had been that the Armenians were too progressive and prosperous, thus constituting a menace to the central Government, and certainlyAbdul Hamid was not meaning to put in their place settlers even moreprogressive and with a stronger backing behind them. So off went theAll-Highest back home again, very much vexed with Abdul Hamid, andpossibly (if that was not sacrilegious) with himself for having been intoo great a hurry. There was more spade-work to be done yet beforeTurkey was ripe for open and avowed colonisation by the Fatherland. 

The episode, strictly historical, is of a certain importance, for itshows the date at which Wilhelm II. Thought that the time had come forGermans to colonise Turkey. The peaceful penetration (which now amountsto perforation) was even then pretty far advanced. But Abdul Hamid seemsto have seen the significance of the request, and for some little whileafter that German influence had a certain set-back in Turkey. The dateof this marks an era, and Germany, 'deep patient Germany, ' set to workagain, in no way discouraged, to set her cancer-nippers in the cancerthat already had begun to eat the live tissues round it. 

_Crescent and Iron Cross, Chapter II_

THE THEORY OF THE NEW TURKS

In the year 1908 a military group in Constantinople, styling itself the'Young Turk' party, seized and deposed Abdul Hamid, and shut him up atSalonika, there to spend the remainder of his infamous days. They putforth a Liberal programme of reformation, one that earned them at themoment the sympathy of civilised Europe (including Germany), and theBalance of Power very mistakenly and prematurely heaved a sigh ofrelief. For upwards of a century it had maintained in Constantinople thecorrupt and bloody autocracy of the Sultans, fearing the Europeanquarrels that would attend the dismemberment of that charnel-house ofdecay known as the Ottoman Empire, and now (just for the moment) itseemed as if a sudden rally had come to the Sick Man, and he showedsigns of returning animation and wholesome vitality. The policy of thePowers, after a century of failure, looked as if it was justifyingitself, and they were full of congratulations towards Turkey and eachother. But never, in the whole century of their pusillanimous cacklings, had they made a greater mistake. 

Whether the Young Turks ever meant well or not, whether there was or wasnot a grain of sincerity in this profession of their policy, is adisputed question. There are those who say that originally they wereprompted by patriotic and high-minded aims, when they proclaimed theirobject of 'Organisation, ' and of reform. But all are agreed that itmatters very little what their original aims were, so speedily did theirLiberal intentions narrow down to an Ottomanisation such as Adbul Hamidhad aimed at, but had been unable to accomplish before his evil sceptreceased to sway the destinies of his kingdom. In any case this programmeearned its authors the sympathy of Europe, and probably this, and nomore than this, prompted it. They wished to establish themselves, unquestioned and undisturbed, and did so; and I do not think we shallbe far wrong if we take the original Young Turk programme about asseriously as we took the parody of a Parliament with which Abdul Hamidopened (as with a blessing) his atrocious reign. The very next year(1909) they permitted (if they did not arrange) the Armenian massacresat Adana, and the Balance of Power began faintly to wonder whether theYoung Turks in their deposition of Abdul Hamid had not slain an asp andhatched a cockatrice. Given that their aims originally were sincere, wecan but marvel at the swiftness of the corruption which in little morethan a year had begun to lead them not into paths of reform and Liberalpolicy, but along the road towards which the butcher they had deposedhad pointed the way. It must have made Abdul Hamid gnaw his nails andshake impotent hands to see those who had torn him from his throne sosoon pursuing the very policy which he invented, and to which henominally owed his dethronement. Strange, too, was it that his overthrowshould come from the very quarter to which he looked for security, forit was on the army that each Sultan in turn had most relied for thestability of his throne. But Abdul Hamid, in order, perhaps, to dealmore effectually with the subject races he wished to exterminate, hadintroduced a system of foreign training for the officers of his army, acourse of Potsdam efficiency, and it was just they, on whom Sultans fromtime immemorial had relied, who knocked the prop of the army away fromhim. Though publicly, for the edification of Europe his deposersprofessed a Liberal policy, it was not on account of Armenian massacresthat they turned him off his throne, but because of the muddle andcorruption and debility of his rule. Herein we may easily trace the handof Germany, no longer publicly beckoning as when Wilhelm II. , just afterthe first Armenian massacres, made his request of the Sultan for theestablishment in Turkey of German colonists, but working underground, sapping and mining like a mole. For Germany, her mind already fixed onsecuring Turkey as an instrument of her Eastern policy, wanted a strongTurkey, and without doubt desired to bring an end to the disorganisationand decay of the Empire, and create and at the same time interpenetratean efficient state that should be useful to her. We may take it forgranted that she, like the rest of Europe, welcomed any sign ofregeneration in the Ottoman Empire, but there was an ulterior purposebehind that. Turkey, already grasped by the Prussian hand, must be inthat hand a weapon fit for use, a blade on which she could rely. Shestrengthened the Turkish army by the introduction of Prussiandiscipline, and worked on good material. Already she has realised herambition in this respect, and now controls the material which she thenworked on. 

The troubled years of the Balkan wars which followed this false dawn, coupled with the loss of all the territory which remained to the OttomanEmpire in Europe, with the exception of Thrace, caused an immediatereaction from the open-minded policy of the Young Turks, if we decide tocredit them at the outset with a sincere purpose. Organisation by aslightly different spelling became Ottomanisation, and the aims of theYoung Turks were identified with those of the Nationalist party whichfollowed out and developed into a finished and super-fiendish policy thedreams of Abdul Hamid. He, as we have seen, had invented the idea ofsecuring Ottoman supremacy in the Empire, not as before by absorption ofthe strength of its subject peoples, but by their extermination, andthis formed part of the new programme which was to be more efficientlyadministered. Already, in 1909, the experimental massacre at Adana tookplace, and the Young Turk party, with its possibly Liberal aims, hadbecome a party that had as its main object a system of tyranny andmurder such as the world had never seen. Simultaneously Turkey itself, Nationalist party and all, became enslaved to German influence. Link bylink the chains were forged and the manacles welded on, and before theEuropean War broke out in 1914, the incarceration of Turkey in Germanywas complete, and Wilhelm II. Had a fine revenge for the snub inflictedon him by Abdul Hamid when he proposed the scheme of Germancolonisation in the lands depopulated by the Armenian massacres of 1895. 

From the first the aim of the Nationalists, who thus formed so deadly ablend with the Young Turk party, was Ottomanisation, or theestablishment within the Empire of an Ottoman domination which should bepure and undefiled, and in which none of the subject peoples, be theyArmenians or Kurds, Arabs or Greeks or Jews, Christian or Moslem, shouldhave any part. The inception of the scheme was no doubt inspired by theexample given by Prussia's treatment of the Poles, and Hungary's ofRoumans and Slovaks. But in thoroughness of method Prussia's pupil wasto prove Prussia's master, for it aimed not merely at expropriation, butextermination, and sought to become strong, not merely by weakeningalien elements, but by abolishing them. It did not set this out quiteexplicitly in its manifestoes and the resolutions of its congresses, buttwo extracts, the first from the proceedings of the 'Committee of Unionand Progress, ' held in Constantinople in 1911, have a sinistersuggestiveness about them for which the acts and measures of theCommittee had already supplied the comment. 

'The formation of new parties in the Chamber or in the country must besuppressed, and the emergence of new Liberal ideas prevented. Turkeymust become a really Mohammedan country, and Moslem influence must bepreponderant. Every other religious propaganda must be suppressed. .. . Sooner or later the complete Ottomanisation of all Turkish subjects mustbe effected; it is clear, however, that this can never be attained bypersuasion, but that we must resort to armed force. .. . Othernationalities must be denied the right of organisation, fordecentralisation and autonomy are treason to the Turkish Empire. '

Could there be a completer reversion to the policy of Abdul Hamid, thanthis formal resolution, passed within three years of the time when theYoung Turks deposed him? The conviction begins to dawn on one--as itbegan to dawn on the Balancers of Power--that he owed his downfall notto his illiberal and butcherous policy, but because he was not thoroughenough. 

The second extract, from a pamphlet by Jelal Noury Bey, may be added, which defines the policy, not with regard to the Christian or Jewishsubjects of the Turks, but with regard to the Arabs, Moslem by creed, and the guardians of the Holy Cities. 

'It is a peculiarly imperious necessity of our existence for us toTurkise the Arab lands, for the particularistic idea of nationality isawaking among the younger generation of Arabs, and already threatens uswith a great catastrophe. Against this we must be fore-armed. '

The design of Ottomanisation soon began to take practical form. Ottomanisation was to be the highest expression of patriotism, and anymeans which secured it, massacres such as, in 1909, had taken place atAdana, or the treatment accorded to the Greeks and Bulgarians whoremained in Thrace after the Balkan wars, were in accordance with thenew 'Liberal' gospel. Thrace was the only territory left to the Turks inEurope, and as it was largely populated by Greeks and Bulgarians, itcould not be considered as sufficiently Ottomanised. A massacre underthe very eyes of Europe was perhaps dangerous, so it sufficed to put theentire non-Turkish population over the frontier and lay hands on theirproperty. In fact this was the first of the 'deportation' schemes which, in 1915, proved so successful with the Armenians, and the effect of itwas that neither Greeks nor Bulgarians were left in Thrace. Thenfollowed the expulsion of Greeks from the Mediterranean sea-board, butthis was never completely carried out because the European warintervened, and the attention of the Nationalists was claimed by theirover-lord. Later, as we shall see, a further deportation of Greeks wasbegun, but again that was stopped, for Germany saw that it would neverdo to have her Turkish allies murdering settlers of the same blood asthose she hoped would become her allies. Of course, when it was only aquestion of Armenians she did not interfere. 

The design, then, of the new 'Liberal' regime, of which those threemeasures, the massacres at Adana, the expulsion of Greeks and Bulgariansfrom Thrace, and of Greeks from the sea-board of the Mediterranean, wereearly instances, was to restore the absolute supremacy of the Turks inthe Ottoman Empire. It was obvious that the problem was one ofconsiderable difficulty, since the Turks at the time composed only someforty per cent, of the whole population. They numbered about 8, 000, 000, while in the Empire were included about 7, 000, 000 Arabs, 2, 000, 000Greeks, 2, 000, 000 Armenians, and 3, 000, 000 more of smallernationalities, such as Kurds, Druses, and Jews. But the Turks werebacked by Germany, and nowadays, since the abolition of theCapitulations, which leaves all alien races unprotected by foreignPowers, such as survive, after the extermination of the Armenians, arecompletely at the mercy of the Government in Constantinople. All thesepeoples speak a different language from the Turks, and have a differentreligion, for the Nationalist party, with a view to the Ottomanisationof the Arabs, have definitely stated that Arab Moslems are not of thetrue faith, and that their own Allah (in whose name they subsequentlyexterminated the Armenians) is the God of Love--German equivalentGot--whereas the Arab Allah is the God of vengeance. The sinister motivein this discovery needs no comment, for it is obvious that it releasesthe Ottoman Government from the prohibition in the Koran, whereby Moslemmay not fight against Moslem. Therefore the Arabs were declared not tobe true Moslems. Later on, that motive was translated into practicalmeasures. 

Among the first tasks with regard to the Arabs that faced theNationalist party from what we may call the pacific side of theirmission was to substitute the Turkish language for Arabic. Kemal Bey, aNationalist of Salonika, with the help of Ziya Bey, collected round hima group of young writers, and these proceeded to translate the Koran outof Arabic into Turkish, and to publish the prayers for the Caliphate intheir own language, and orders went out that these revised versionsshould be used in all mosques. Turkish was to be the official languagefor use in all public proclamations, and, with Prussian thoroughness, itwas even substituted on such railway tickets as had hitherto beenprinted in Arabic. The new Turkish tongue (Yeni Lisan) had also to bepurged of all foreign words, but here some difficulty was experienced, for Persian and Arabic formed an enormous percentage in the language ashitherto employed, and the promoters of this Ottoman purity of tonguefound themselves left with a very jejune instrument for the rhapsodiesof their patriotic aims. Poets in especial (for the Nationalists, likeall well-equipped founders of romantic movements, had their bards) foundthemselves in sore straits owing to the limited vocabulary; and we readof one, Mehmed Emin Bey, who was forced to publish his odes in smallprovincial papers, since no well-established journal would admit soscrannel an expression of views however exalted. [1] But the translationof the Koran was the greatest linguistic feat, and Tekin Alp, the mostprominent exponent of Nationalism, refers to it as one of the noblesttasks undertaken by the new movement. It mattered not at all that byreligious ordinance the translation of the Koran into any other tonguewas a sin. 'The Nationalists, ' he tells us, 'have cut themselves offfrom the superstitious prejudice. ' A further attempt was made tosubstitute Turkish letters for Arabic letters in the alphabet, but thisseems to have presented insuperable difficulties, and I gather that ithas been abandoned. 

[Footnote 1: This thwarted poet retired from the Committee of Union andProgress not long after, and his place was taken by Enver. ]

The Ottomanisation of religion and language, then, was among the pacificmethods of spreading Pan-Turkism through the Empire. A monstrous idolwas set up, a Hindenburg idol, in front of which all peoples andlanguages, not Christians alone, but Moslems, were bound to prostratethemselves. Indeed it was against Arabs mainly that these provisionswere directed, for the Arabs constituted the most menacing obstacle tothe spread of Ottomanisation, since they numbered in the Empire only amillion less than the Turks themselves. It was ordained by statute thatno Arab could have a seat on the Committee of Union and Progress, andthe Cabinet similarly was purged of any Greek or Armenian element. Neverany more must there be new parties in the Chamber, never any more mustLiberal ideas (to champion which the New Turk party had come into being)be allowed to prick up their pernicious heads. For the Nationalistparty, with whom the New Turks were now identical, had taken as theircreed all that the deposed Abdul Hamid stood for, and only differed fromhim in that as their schemes developed they looked forward to logicalconclusions far beyond what he had ever dreamed of. But Abdul Hamid may, I think, be taken to be the true founder of the new Nationalism: at anyrate it was he who had first seen the possibilities of massacre as ameans of maintaining Ottoman supremacy. In the hands of Nationaliststhat was to prove a more effective weapon than the printing of railwaytickets in Turkish. But already before the European War the Nationalistshad vastly extended his ideas, and had seen the danger of allowing evenArabs to have a standing of any kind in the new state. Henceforth allsubject people were to be _rayas_, cattle, as in the old days of theSultans who absorbed the strength of the aliens, but did not exterminatethem. But now the cattle were not only to be used for milk, but were tobe slaughtered when advisable. Till then they must be dumb, or speak thelanguage of their masters only, for this alone can save them from theshambles. Ahmed Sherif Bey, a prominent Nationalist, lays this down. 'Itis the business of the Porte to make the Arabs forget their ownlanguage, and to impose upon them instead that of the nation that rulesthem. If the Porte loses sight of this duty, it will be digging itsgrave with its own hands, for if the Arabs do not forget their language, their history, and their customs, they will seek to restore theirancient empire on the ruins of Ottomanism and of Turkish rule in Asia. '

Here, then, is the definite statement of the Nationalists' hostility toall things Arab, and we shall see how they translated it into practice. Even Moslems were but cattle for them, as also were Armenians and Greeksand Kurds. Armenians were doomed to be the first complete sacrifice onthe bloody altar of the Nationalists, and, as a Turkish gendarme engagedin that sacrifice said to a Danish Red Cross nurse, 'First we kill theArmenians, then the Greeks, and then the Kurds. ' And if he had been aProgressive Minister he would certainly have added, 'And then theArabs. '

It was not only within the present limits of the Ottoman Empire that theCommittee of Union and Progress proposed to accomplish their unitivepurpose, for after having seen a glorious and exclusive Turkey ariseover the depopulated territories of their alien peoples, a vastervision, for an account of which we are indebted to Tekin Alp, openedbefore their prophetic eyes. Out of the 10, 000, 000 inhabitants of Persiathey claim that one-third are of true Turkish blood, and in the newTurkey which, so they almost pathetically hope, will be established atthe conclusion of the European War by the help of Wilhelm II. , thosePersian Turks must be incorporated into the true fold of Allah, God ofLove. The province of Adarbaijan, for instance, the richest and mostenlightened district of Persia, they claim, is entirely Turkish, andhere the needful rectification will be made in the new atlases that bearthe imprimatur of Potsdam. Similarly, all the country south of theCaucasus must rank as Turkish territory, since the Turks form from fiftyto eighty per cent, of the population; all Kazan, for the same reason, is truly Turkish, with the alluvial plains of the Volga, while theCrimea, so Tekin Alp discovers, is also a lost sheep longing for theTurkish fold. All this is Turkey (or Turania) Irredenta, and, may we notadd:--

'Jerusalem and MadagascarAnd North and South Amerikee. '

And then what a glorious future awaits the Power that Europe oncethought of as a sick man. 'With the crushing of Russian despotism, 'exclaims Tekin Alp, 'by the brave German, Austrian, and Turkish armies, thirty to forty million Turks will receive their independence. With theten million Ottoman Turks this will form a nation of fifty millions, advancing towards a great civilisation which may perhaps be compared tothat of Germany, in that it will have the strength and energy to riseeven higher. In some ways it will be even superior to the degenerateFrench and English civilisations. '

The arithmetic and the enthusiasm of the foregoing paragraph are, ofcourse, those of Tekin Alp, from whose book, _The Turkish andPan-Turkish Ideal_, the quotation is made. The work was published in1915, and, appearing as it did after the beginning of the European War, it is but natural to find in it an expression not only of theNationalist aims for Turkey, but of the Prussian aims for Turkey, or, tospeak more correctly, of the dream which Prussia has induced in ahypnotised Turkey. It sets forth in fact the bait which Prussia hasdangled in front of Turkey, the hunger for which has inspired theprojected future which is here sketched out; and significantly enoughthis book has been spread broadcast over Turkey by the agency of Germanpropagandists. The Ottomanisation of the Empire, the vision of itsfurther extension, free from all consideration of subject peoples, wasexactly the lure which was most likely to keep the Turks staunch totheir Prussian masters. It will be noticed that there is no suggestionof the Turks recovering their lost provinces and kingdoms in Europe, Greece, Bulgaria, Rumania, Servia, and the rest, for it would never doto let Fox Ferdinand awake from _his_ hypnotic sleep of a sort ofCzardom over the Balkans, or cease to dangle dreams, that included evenConstantinople before the shifty eye of King Constantine So, beforeTurkey was spread the prospect of appropriating Russian and Persianspoils: Prussia had already given the lost Turkish kingdoms in Europeelsewhere, but would there not be a dismembered Russian Empire todispose of? The Crimea, the province of Kazan, the province ofTrans-Caucasia: all these might be held before Turkey's nose, as a doghas a piece of meat held up before it to make it beg. Then there was theprovince of Adarbaijan: certainly Turkey might be permitted to promiseherself that, without incurring the jealousy of Austria or Bulgaria. Greedily Turkey took the bait. She gulped it down whole, and neverconsidered that there was a string attached to it, or that, should everthe time come when Germany, the conqueror of the world, would be in aposition to reward her Allies with the realisation of the dreams she hadinduced, the string would be pulled, and up, with retchings andvomitings, would come these succulent morsels of Russia and Persia. Indeed these bright pictures flashed on to the sheet as the visions ofNationalists are but the slides in a German magic-lantern, designed tokeep Turkey amused, and it was with the same object that Ernst Marré, inhis _Die Türken und Wir nach dem Kriege_, was bidden to make otherpictures ready in case Turkey grew fractious or sleepy. 'From the ruinsof antiquity, ' he says, when speaking of the Ottoman Empire, 'new lifewill spring, if we can manage to raise the treasures which time and sandhave covered. ' Then he remembers that he must be less Pan-Germanic forthe moment, and dangles the bait again. 'In doing this, ' he adds, 'weare benefiting Turkey. The Turkish state is no united whole, and it hasalways been very difficult to govern. Turks, Arabs, Greeks, Armenians, Kurds, cannot be welded together. This is a war of liberation forTurkey. .. . Only by energetic interference, and by "expelling" theobstinate Armenian element could the Ottoman Empire get rid of a Russiandomination. .. . The non-Turkish population of the Ottoman Empire must beOttomanised. '

There is no need for further quotations, which might be multipliedindefinitely. The Prussian programme is for the moment identical withthe Turkish Nationalist programme: Turkey, in order to be kept 'in with'Germany, must be encouraged to dream of depopulated Armenia (that dreamhas come tragically true) and of annexations in Russia and Persia. Allthis fitted in with the Turkish programme: Germany had scarcely toinspire, only to encourage. That encouragement she gave, for, simultaneously she was penetrating Turkey as water penetrates a sponge, and reducing it to the position of a vassal state. To keep Turkey happyshe allowed the Armenian massacres to run their deadly course, and onlyinterfered with other massacres when they did not suit her purpose. Butsupposing (to suppose the impossible) that a peace to the European Warwas dictated by Germany, how much of the future Pan-Turkish programmewould be realised? Would there be a Turkey at all? I think not: therewould be a Germany in Europe, and a Germany in Asia, where Turkey oncewas. Indeed, in all but name, they are in existence now; so complete, aswe shall see, has been Germany's penetration of the Ottoman Empire. Justfor the present she calls herself Turkey in those regions; that is herincognito. But Turkey as an independent Power has already ceased toexist, and Tekin Alp and the Nationalists still dream on with rainbowvisions of Ottomanisation, the vistas of which stretch far into Persiaand the plains of the Volga. And all the while she has been put out likea candle, and all that is left of her is the smouldering wick ready tobe pinched between the horny fingers of her stepmother. There shestands, her stepmother, with her grinning teeth already disclosing theWolf. .. . 

Whatever the end of the European War may be, in no circumstances can thedreams of the Nationalists be realised. Even if Germany and her armswere so victorious that Russia lay at her feet a mere inert carcaseready for the chopper, she would no more dream of giving Russianprovinces to an independent Turkey than she would hand over to herBerlin itself. And if, as we know, Germany can never be victorious, willthe Allies once more strive to keep the Sick Man alive, or leave in hisruthless power the peoples whom he is longing to exterminate? Even TekinAlp can hardly expect that. 

Here then, in brief, is the policy of New Turkey. Its subjectpeoples--Armenians, Arabs, Greeks, Kurds, and Jews--are to be totallyunrepresented in its councils, though together they number sixty percent, of the population of the Empire. But they are not only to beunrepresented in Government--they are, if the programme is to be carriedconclusively out, to have no existence. In accordance with the plans ofthe murderous ruffians who to-day administer the Nationalist policy, those of the Armenians who have not fled beyond the frontiers havealready been exterminated, and the same fate threatens Arabs, Greeks, and Jews. Hence, when the Allied Governments wrote their joint note toPresident Wilson, they stated that among their aims in the war was 'theliberation of the peoples who now lie beneath the murderous tyranny ofthe Turks. ' From that avowed determination they will never recede. 

 * * * * *

NOTE. --It is to be hoped that Tekin Alp's pamphlet, _Turks and thePan-Turkish Ideal_, may soon be accessible to English readers. Theauthor is a Macedonian Jew who writes under the pseudonym of Tekin Alp, and his mind is such that he appears to find romance in the idea of aunited Turkey purged by indiscriminate massacre from all alien elements. But he sets forth with admirable lucidity the aims of the Nationalistparty and the steps already achieved by them in their progress towardstheir ideal. Already the sequestered ladies of the harem have come outof their retirement and join in the crusade, and not only do men givelectures to women, but 'women mount the platform and address the men. 'There are corporations to advance economic organisations, boy-scoutcentres all over the Empire, and 'intellectual parties' among the guildsof merchants--England and Russia appear as the most virulent foes ofPan-Turkism, 'the colossus of darkest barbarism joined with the colossusof a degenerate civilisation. '

In the second part of his pamphlet Tekin Alp passes on with anenthusiasm which is as sincere as it is pathetic to the vision of atremendous Turkey, extending from Thrace on the west to the Desert ofGobi on the east. It embraces, as his map shows, Egypt as far south asVictoria Nyanza, Arabia, Persia, the greater part of India, the littoralof the Black Sea, the plains of the Volga, the circuit of the CaspianSea and the Aral Sea, and in the north-east nearly touches Tomsk. Allthis naturally is dependent on complete German victory in the war, and, pathetically enough, Tekin Alp appears to think that his ideal Turkeywill meet with the approval of Germany. Indeed it is no wonder that hispamphlet is circulated broadcast by German propagandists, for it isprecisely what Germany wants Turkey to believe. 

The romance of the movement appeals also very strongly to Ziya Gök Alp, the official bard of the butchers of Constantinople. He has written asort of Ode to Attila, quoted by Tekin Alp, which is a fine frenzy infavour of barbarism. This preposterous poem begins:

'I do not read the famous deeds of my ancestors in the dead, faded, dusty leaves of the history books, but in my own veins, in my own heart. My Attila, my Huns, those heroic figures which stand for the proud fameof my race, appear in those dry pages to our malicious and slanderousage as covered with shame and disgrace, while in reality they are noless than Alexander and Caesar, ' etc. Etc. 

I have been at present unable to ascertain whether it is true that theGerman Emperor has set it to music, under the impression that it refersto him and the German armies. It is very popular in Prussia, which needarouse no surprise. 

_Crescent and Iron Cross, Chapter III_

THE END OF THE ARMENIAN QUESTION

We have traced in brief the backward progress of Ottoman domination, andhave seen how, from the rough and ready methods of a military barbarism, the Turks evolved a more emphatic and a more highly organised negationof all those principles which we may sum up under the general term ofcivilisation. The comparatively humane neglect of the unfortunate alienpeoples herded within the frontiers of earlier Sultans was improved uponby Abdul Hamid, who struck out the swifter and superior methods ofmaintaining the dominating strength of the Turkish element in thekingdom not by the absorption of subject peoples, but by theirextermination. This in turn, this new and effective idea, served as afirst sketch of an artist with regard to his finished picture, andstarting with that the Nationalist party enlarged and elaborated itinto that masterpiece of massacre which they exhibited to the world inthe years 1915 and 1916 of the Christian Era, when from end to end ofthe Empire there flashed the signal for the extermination of theArmenian race. Abdul Hamid was but tentative and experimental ascompared to their systematised thoroughness, but then the Nationalistparty had learned thoroughness under the tutelage of its Prussianmasters. And in addition to instruction they had had the advantage ofseeing how Prussian firmness, with the soothing balm of Kultur tofollow, had dealt with the now-subject remnant of Belgians. That was theway to treat subject people: 'the first care of a state is to protectitself, ' as Enver and Talaat could read in the text-books now translatedinto Turkish, in copies, maybe, presented to them by their Master inBerlin, and Turkey could best show the proof of her enlightenment andregeneration, by following in the footsteps of Prussian Kultur. Perhapsa few thousand innocent men might suffer the inconvenience of havingtheir nails torn out, of being bastinadoed to death, of being shot, burned or hanged, perhaps a few thousand girls and women might die bythe wayside in being deported to 'agricultural colonies, ' might fallvictims to the lusts of Turkish soldiers, or have babes torn from theirwombs, but these paltry individual pains signified nothing compared tothe national duty of 'suffering the state to run no risks. ' As one ofthis party of Union and Progress said, 'The innocent of to-day may bethe guilty of to-morrow, ' and it was therefore wise to provide that forinnocent and guilty alike there should be no to-morrow at all. Yearsbefore the statesmanship of Abdul Hamid had prophetically foreseen thedawning of this day, when he remarked 'The way to get rid of theArmenian question is to get rid of the Armenians, ' and temporarily fortwenty years he did get rid of the Armenian question. But when, in 1915, Talaat Bey completed his arrangements for a further contribution to thesolution of the same problem, he said, 'After this, there will be noArmenian question for fifty years. ' As far as we can judge, he ratherunder-estimated the thoroughness of his arrangements. [1]

[Footnote 1: Lately (September 1917), when the massacres were all over, Talaat, speaking at a Congress of the Committee of Union and Progress, upheld as right and proper the treatment of the Armenian race. ]

The race thus marked out for extermination was one of the oldestsettlements in Asiatic Turkey. Originally it was confined to Armeniaproper, a highland district comprising part of what is now the Russianprovince of Trans-Caucasia, part of Persia, notably the province ofAdarbaijan, and, within the Turkish frontier, the province of Armenia, itself. According to legend, which may well be correct, the Armenianswere the oldest national Christian Church in the world, with a liturgythat dates from the first century of the Christian Era, while theirtranslation of the Bible dates from the early years of the fifth centuryA. D. Here in these uplands they formed a compact and homogeneouspopulation, spread over towns and country alike, and were occupied inthe main with agrarian and pastoral pursuits. But they had in additionmuch of the versatility and business capacity of the Jews, as well as astrong liberal-mindedness towards progress and education, and thus, while they still continued up to the present day their pastoral life inthe countryside, others gravitated towards towns, and by degrees theyspread over a large part of the Turkish Empire, until most of the townsin Turkey had a progressive and peaceful quota of Armenian citizens, tolerated by their Moslem neighbours, and, though possessed of no greatshare of political influence, powerful, in that the trade and commerceof inland Turkey was largely in their hands. Wherever they went theyestablished their schools; many were lawyers, doctors, and professors ofeducation. Certain repressive measures were brought to bear on them;they were not, for instance, allowed to carry arms, except when, inaccordance with Turkish conscriptive laws, they served in the Ottomanarmy. But many of them, by paying their exemption money, got offmilitary service, and they confined themselves to the arts of peace, whether pastorally in their native highlands, or in the shops andoffices of the towns to which they migrated. They were not, till thetime of Abdul Hamid, held to be in any sense a national danger, for, except in Armenia proper, they were too scattered and too peace-lovingan element of the population to be capable of united action, and neverdo they seem to have provoked any outburst of Moslem fanaticism. Theyhad local quarrels and fights with the more warlike Kurds who encroachedon Armenia, and in the towns where they settled they often incurred thevague jealousy and dislike which are the penalties of a race superiormorally and intellectually to those among whom they live. But thatsuperiority constituted in course of time the 'Armenian question, ' towhich Abdul Hamid alluded. In all, some sixty years ago their entirerace numbered about 4, 000, 000 persons, of whom about 1, 250, 000 inhabitedRussian Trans-Caucasia, about 150, 000 were in the province ofAdarbaijan, and there were smaller bodies of them in Austria and India. The remainder, some 2, 500, 000, were spread over Armenia, over thevillages and towns of Turkey, notably the eastern edge of the Cilicianuplands, while in Constantinople itself there were certainly not lessthan 150, 000, and probably as many as 200, 000. To-day, the male portionof the Armenian race in the Ottoman Empire has practically ceased toexist: a quarter of a million men and women escaped over the Russianfrontier, five thousand escaped to Egypt, and there are a few thousandwomen and girls (it is impossible to ascertain the exact number) inTurkish harems. Turkism, as administered by Abdul Hamid first, then, farmore efficiently, by Enver Pasha, and Talaat Bey, has solved theArmenian question. 

The history of its solution falls under two heads, of which the firstconcerns the manner in which it was solved in Armenia itself, where thepopulation was almost exclusively Armenian, both in towns and in thecountry. Here the eastern and north-eastern frontiers of Turkey, acrosswhich lie the province of Russian Trans-Caucasia and Persia, passthrough the middle of districts peopled by men of Armenian blood, andwhen, in the autumn of 1914, the Turks made their entry into theEuropean War, their eastern armies, operating against Russia, foundthemselves confronted by troops among whom were many Armenians, while intheir advance into the Persian province of Adarbaijan, there were in theranks of their opponents, Armenians and Syriac Christians. They advancedin fact, in the first weeks of the war, into a country largely peopledwith men of the same blood as those on their own side of the frontier. Though the edict had not yet come from Constantinople for the massacreof the Armenians (Talaat Bey did not complete his arrangements till thefollowing April), the slaughter of them began then, first in the advanceof the Turkish armies, and following on that movement, which lasted buta few weeks, in their subsequent retreat before the Russians. Allvillages through which the Turkish armies passed were plundered andburned, all the inhabitants on whom the Turks could lay their hands werekilled. Sometimes women and children were given to the Kurds, who formedbands of irregular troops in conjunction with the Turkish army, andthese were outraged before they were slaughtered. A price was put onevery Christian head, and in the Turkish retreat the corpses were thrustinto the wells in order to pollute them. The excuse for this, as givenby German apologists (not apologists, perhaps, so much as supporters andadherents of the policy), was that since behind the Turkish lines thecountry was populated by a race of the same blood as that through whichthey advanced, and then retreated, extermination was necessary in orderto prevent or to punish treachery and collusion. But I have been nowhereable to find that there were instances of such, nor that the Turks putforward that excuse themselves. Indeed it would have been an unnecessaryexplanation, for but a few months after the opening of the war, TalaatBey's plans were complete, and the extermination of Armenians hundredsof miles from any sphere of military operations rendered it needless tosay anything about it, or to invent instances of treachery if there wereactually none to hand. 

Simultaneously the massacre of Armenians behind the Turkish linesbegan. The whole male population of the district round Bitlis wasmurdered, so too were all males in Bitlis itself. Then all women andchildren were driven in, as a herdsman might drive sheep, from thereeking villages round, and, for purposes of convenience, concentratedin Bitlis. When they were all collected, they were driven in a flock tothe edge of the Tigris, shot, and the corpses were thrown into theriver. That was the solution of the Armenian question in Bitlis. 

North-west of Bitlis, and some sixty miles distant, lies the town ofMush. It used to contain about 25, 000 Armenian inhabitants, and in thedistrict round there were some three hundred villages chiefly consistingof Armenians. Arrangements were on foot for a general massacre therewhen the arrival of Russian troops at Liz, some fifteen hours' marchaway, caused the execution of it to be put off for a while, and up tillJuly a few folk only had been shot, and a few beaten to death, as awarning to those treacherously inclined. Then the Russians, in the faceof superior forces, had to retire again, and the massacres were put on asystematic footing. The account which follows is based on fourindependent authorities: (1) The statement of a German eye-witness inMush in charge of an Armenian orphanage; (2) the statement of a womandeported from a village near, and subsequently killed by Kurds; (3)information from refugees escaped to Trans-Caucasia; (4) the journal_Horizon_ of Tiflis. These supplement each other, often verify eachother, and in no instance are contradictory. 

Rumours of an impending massacre reached Mush before the end of 1914, ata time when the massacres across the frontier had begun. The Mutessarifof Mush, an intimate friend of Enver Pasha, had openly declared that 'atan opportune moment' the slaughter of the whole Armenian race wascontemplated, and later Ekran Bey corroborated this in the presence ofthe American and German Consuls. Enver indeed seems to have been thechief organiser with regard to the massacres in Armenia itself, whileTalaat Bey saw to the fate of those dispersed in towns throughout therest of Turkey. During the whole of that winter, a very severe one, signs of the approaching extermination multiplied. In the villages roundfresh taxes were introduced, and when Armenians were unable to pay theywere beaten to death, while, if they resisted, the village in questionwas burned. But by July 1915 (after the unavoidable delay caused by theproximity of Russian troops) all was ready, and the massacre began inearnest. 

Four battalions of Turkish troops arrived from Constantinople, and anorder was given that all Armenians must leave the town within threedays, after 'registering themselves' at the Government office. The womenand children were to remain, but their money and their property would beconfiscated. Within two hours after that, owing, I suppose, to freshorders from Constantinople, the guns opened fire on the crowds in thestreets flocking to the registry offices, and after that systematichouse-to-house murder began. Prominent Armenians were tortured todeath, houses containing women and children were set on fire, a body ofmen collected together was thrown into the river, girls were outragedand slaughtered. For two days the massacre continued, and by the end ofthe second day the Armenian question was solved as regards Mush. 

In the surrounding villages the same Prussian thoroughness was observed, and out of all the inhabitants of the plain 5000 only seemed to havesurvived, who fled to Sasun (there to be subsequently massacred in1916), while a few from outlying villages escaped to the Russian troops. In certain villages the girls and young women were given to the Kurdsoldiery, who raped them publicly in the presence of their families, notsparing girls of eight and ten years of age, who then, bleeding andviolated, were shot in company with the old women, for whom the Kurds(inspired by Allah, the God of Love) had no use. Elsewhere, as the storyof a deported woman from Kheiban tells us, the women guarded by Kurdishtroops were driven out of their villages, leaving behind the corpses ofthe men and of old women who could not walk, and for days were marchedalong the roads, nearly naked, under the fierce heat of the July sun. Once every other day they were given bread, but all did not get it, andmany fell exhausted by the wayside, and were either whipped to theirfeet again or allowed to lie down and die. As they passed throughvillages Kurds would come out and rape a girl or two, and when theyhalted at night their guards would come among them. .. . Some few escaped;the rest, in dwindling company, went on through days of blinding sun andnights of shame till at last there were only a few remaining. It was notworth while going farther, for the work of Enver Pasha was nearly done, and the rest were pushed into the river. One alone survived, who couldswim, and she, with her two-year-old baby on her back, got across thestream and made her way to a village where were a party of Armenians whohad escaped massacre. She arrived there at midnight, and at first theythought she was a ghost. To them she told her story of the outraged andever-dwindling caravan of helpless women and girls driven onwards allday beneath the smiting arrows of the sun, and encamped by the wayside, where they halted with their barbarous guards and their lusts for aterror by night. Of them none but this one was left, who had carried herbaby with her every step of that infernal pilgrimage. Two daysafterwards he died from want of nourishment, and before the week was outthe mother fell into the hands of a body of patrolling Kurds, and waskilled. 

So the problem of the village of Kheiban was solved, and if in thehistory of the crimes that have blackened the earth with wanton crueltyand made God to hide His face, there is any so atrocious a tale, I donot know it. But if among the annals of heroism and of mother-love wewant to find a nobler record than that of this woman of Kheiban, equallyam I at a loss as to where we should look for it. Among the true andgolden legends of the world shall that which she did be inscribed for amemorial of her. 

Northward from Mush, and Bitlis lies the province of Erzerum, with thetown of the same name, that contained in the autumn of 1914 some 20, 000Armenians. Here the first hint of coming trouble was the order that allArmenian soldiers serving in Turkish ranks should be disarmed. This wasfollowed in June by another order that all the inhabitants of thehundred villages in the district should leave their homes at two hours'notice. They numbered between 10, 000 and 15, 000 persons. Of these a fewtook refuge with friendly Kurds, but of the remainder a few only livedto reach Erzinjan, where they were again deported, and the rest weremurdered as they marched. In Erzerum itself orders were received byTahsin Bey, the Vali of the town, that all Armenians were to be killedwithout distinction of age or sex. He refused to carry this order out, but his unwillingness was overruled. [1] Simultaneously, the GermanConsul telegraphed protests to his Ambassador at Constantinople, andwas told that Germany could not interfere in the internal affairs ofTurkey. 

[Footnote 1: At Angora a similar refusal on the part of the Governorresulted in his dismissal, and the same thing happened at Konia and atKutaia. ]

Here the method employed was deportation: the victims were murdered, notin the town itself, but were given orders to leave their homes, andunder guard march (for no conveyances were given them) to otherdistricts. The first company was to go to Diarbekr. All these, with theexception of one man and forty women, were murdered on the first day'smarch. The remainder reached Kharput, which was another station orcollecting place for the deported. A German eye-witness tells us whatfate waited them. 'They have had their eyebrows plucked out, theirbreasts cut off, their nails torn off; their torturers hew off theirfeet, or else hammer nails into them as they do in shoeing horses. Thisis all done at night-time, in order that people may not hear theirscreams and know of their agony. Soldiers are stationed round theprisons, beating drums and blowing whistles. It is needless to relatethat many died of these tortures. When they die, the soldiers cry, "Nowlet your Christ help you. "' A second caravan of five hundred familiesleft Erzerum: at Baiburt they were joined by another contingent deportedfrom that town, and the account that follows is based on the informationsupplied by the Rev. Robert Stapleton, an American minister at Erzerum, and by an Armenian woman who was among the deported, and whose life wasspared on her embracing Islamism. 

The convoy numbered, when it left Baiburt, some 15, 000 persons, and itreached Erzinjan in safety. There the massacres had already taken place, and the women and children had been deported, for they found noArmenians there. But the convoy had not yet arrived at its goal, and itstarted out again moving south by east till it came to Kamakh. Therebands of Kurds descended on them, and in the space of seven days everymale above fifteen years of age, including an aged priest of ninety, waskilled. Thereafter a pilgrimage of women, as from Kheiban, movedsouthwards across plain and mountain, and every day its numbers werediminished, for the youthful and the good-looking were carried off bybrigands. At night they were halted outside villages, and the gendarmesand villagers took what they chose. Many died from hunger andheat-stroke: others were left by the wayside. When they came to thebanks of the river Kara-Su there was a debauch of horror. Women andgirls and little children were raped and mutilated, and the children whostill survived were thrown into the river. Those who could swim wereshot. Thereafter the movements of this caravan are hard to trace. Probably there was then but little left of it. But others followed onthe same route 'through fields and hillsides dotted with swollen andblackened corpses that filled and fouled the air with their stench. 'Some of them reached Mosul, some reached Aleppo, another collectingstation, where, by the mouth of other witnesses, we shall hear of themagain. 

Corroborative and additional evidence is given by the Danish Red Crossnurses who, with a noble disregard of their own safety, accompanied oneof these caravans from Erzerum to Erzinjan. They speak of the massacresat Kamakh, of the killing by the river, and of a _battue_ through thecornfields, where the wheat was high, into which some Armenians hadescaped. At one time these Danish Sisters were in the charge of agendarme who had superintended a massacre of 3000 women and childrendriven from their homes into the country, rounded up and killed. He toldthe Sisters that this was the best method of getting rid of them, forthey should be made to suffer first, and besides it would beinconvenient for Moslems to live in a village with so many corpsesabout. At another place they came to a shambles, where Armeniansoldiers, deprived of their arms, and sent to make roads, had beenslaughtered: at another there were three gangs of labourers, one Moslem, one Greek, and one Armenian. These latter were guarded. Presently, asthey proceeded along their road, they looked round and saw that theArmenian gang was being formed up by itself, a little off thehighroad. .. . 

And so the ghastly record went on all over Armenia. At one place only, the town of Van, was any resistance organised. There, after the massacrehad begun, some 1500 Armenians got hold of arms (probably many of thesemen were soldiers who had not yet had their arms taken from them), andfor the space of twenty-seven days defended themselves against fivethousand Turkish troops, till the Russian advance relieved them. Duringthat advance Armenian refugees, into whose districts the massacres hadnot yet penetrated, fled for refuge to the invading army, and in allsome 250, 000 Armenians under its protection crossed in safety theRussian frontier into Trans-Caucasia. How many died on the way fromhunger and exhaustion is not known. Cholera, dysentery, and spottedfever broke out among them, and the path of their passage was lined withdead and dying. Companies of Kurds made descents upon them, taking tollof their maidenhood, but, with the Russian line to protect them at theirrear, they struggled on out of the cemetery and brothel of their nativecountry, and out of the accursed confines of that hell on earth, theOttoman Empire, leaving behind them the murdered myriads of theirhusbands and their sons, their violated wives and daughters. Throughincredible hardships they passed, but, unlike the other pilgrimages wehave briefly traced, they moved not towards death, but towards safetyand life, and their dark steps were lightened with Hope. 

Before the last of those who survived the hunger and the pestilence ofthat pilgrimage had reached Russian soil, it is probable that in allArmenia there was not a man of their race left alive, nor a woman eitherunless she had accepted Islamism and the life of the harem. A peacefuland progressive nation had been wiped out with every accompaniment ofhorror and cruelty and bestial lust, and in Armenia itself there wouldnever more be an Armenian question. Abdul Hamid had hinted at thesolution of it, and had made, as we have seen, experiments in thatdirection; but it was reserved for Enver Pasha and Talaat Bey, enlightened men of the Young Turk party, with the advantages of aPrussian example, to complete the work. Already Enver had said that hewould never rest until the last Armenian in the Ottoman Empire had beenkilled, and before the end of 1915, as far as Armenia itself went, hewas able to see a reasonable prospect of repose before him. But therewas much work still left to do in other provinces. 

We have seen that for the extirpation of Armenians in Armenia proper, the excuse put forward, if not by the Turks themselves, by their Germanapologists, was the necessity of guarding against treachery in thevicinity of the Turkish army, and against spying and collusion betweenthe Armenians behind the Russian lines and those behind Turkish lines. The same pretext was put forward for the massacres and deportations fromThrace, from Constantinople, and from the shores of the Sea of Marmora. Here, if anywhere, there may be thought to be some justification formeasures which might have been undertaken for the sake of public safety. At any rate, there were definite charges brought against Armenians inthese districts, and the Armenian boatmen of Silivri, for instance, wereimprisoned, but not, as far as I know, massacred, on the charge ofrevictualling English submarines, which at that time, as the reader willremember, had penetrated into the Sea of Marmora, and indeed had reachedConstantinople itself. It is not, of course, consonant with Turkish orPrussian justice to substantiate charges before inflicting penalties, itis sufficient in the new World-justice to accuse. But here roundConstantinople, there was some pretence at procedure before resorting tomurder and deportation. A register was drawn up of all Armeniansresident in the capital, dividing into separate classes those who wereborn in Constantinople, and those who were immigrants from Armenia, witha view to deporting those who were not native to the city. Here, Ithink, we may see traces of the Prussian instinct for tabulation, forclassification, for category-mongering. Enver and his colleagues lostpatience with these dilatory tactics. The Armenians of the province ofBrussa were deported wholesale, and long before the registration listsof Constantinople were finished, all Armenians were moved out of thetown. Ten thousand males were massacred in the mountains of Ismid, andthe Armenian women and children taken into collecting stations fordeportation to 'agricultural colonies' (so the phrase ran in thePecksniff language of Prussia) situated in the Anatolian desert, in thedesert of Arabia, and in malarious marshes on the Euphrates. With thisclearing out of Armenians from Thrace, from Constantinople, and fromArmenia itself, we have finished with our first class of the Armenianatrocities. For it reasons were at least invented by German apologists. Military necessities, which here, as in Belgium, knew no law, dictatedit; the frightfulness involved was incidental to War. But suchconsiderations were not even alleged for the second class of themurder-scheme. Before passing on, it will be well to review, quiteshortly, the reasons which dictated it, and penetrate into the infernalcouncils of Enver Pasha and Talaat Bey. 

The text of the scheme is to be found in the defined policy of theYoung Turk party as set forth in their Congress of 1911. 'Turkey mustbecome a really Mohammedan country, and Moslem ideas and Mosleminfluence must be preponderant. .. . Sooner or later the completeOttomanisation of all Turkish subjects must be effected: it is clear, however, that this can never be attained by persuasion, but that we mustresort to armed force. '

There is the text that was expanded into the discourse of murder; it isthe definition of a policy. Within a few years there followed theEuropean War, and that probably was the immediate cause of its being putinto effect. No more admirable opportunity for Ottomanisation couldpresent itself, for the entry of Turkey into the war was most unpopularwith the bulk of the Turkish population, and it was advisable to bribethem into acceptance of it. The bribe was the houses, the property, themoney and the trade that throughout the length and breadth of Turkey wasin Armenian hands. For the Armenians were by far the wealthiest of thealien populations, and some 90 per cent. Of Turkish trade passed throughtheir shops and offices. Here, then, was the psychological moment:Turkey for the Turk was the aim of the Committee of Union and Progress, and with a discontented population, unwilling to fight, the moment hadcome for restoring to the Turk this mass of property which at presentbelonged to an alien race. War might have its drawbacks and its clouds, but war would be seen to have its advantages and its silver linings, ifout of it there came this legacy of Armenian wealth. And by the samestroke Turkey could get rid of those thousands of meddlesomemissionaries, American and French, who spread religion and learning andother undesirable things among the cursed race. Once remove the cursedrace, and there would be an end of their instructors also, for therewould be none to instruct. 'Thanks to their schools, ' so we read in the_Hilal_, an organ of the Young Turks, 'foreigners were able to exercisegreat moral influence over the young men of the country. .. . By closingthem (i. E. By exterminating their pupils) the Government has put an endto a situation as humiliating as it was dangerous. '

Such, then, was the spirit that animated Enver and Talaat, and duringthe winter of 1914-15 they perfected their plans. The Armenian race wasto cease, and the Valis and other officials were, each in his district, to see to the thoroughness of its cessation. Sometimes, as happened atErzerum, the Vali in question, not having the broad out-look of Enver, or quaintly and curiously having a womanish objection to the nationalduty of flogging men to death and giving over young girls to a barbaroussoldiery, remonstrated with the authorities, or even refused to obeyorders. Such a one was instantly removed from his office, and astauncher patriot substituted. All was put on an orderly footing: hereKurds were to be employed on the old Abdul Hamid formula, who by way ofwage would enjoy the privilege of raping as many women and girls out oftheir hapless convoy as seemed desirable, while in agriculturaldistricts they were allowed also to take over the sheep and cattle oftheir murdered victims. Here, in towns where there was more chance ofresistance than in scattered homesteads, it would be wise to employregular troops, backed, if necessary, by artillery, to whom would beentrusted the murder of the whole male population, after suitabletortures, supposing the executioners had a taste for the sport, and tothem was given the right of general plunder. Then, as soon as the numberand capacity of the vacant houses were telegraphed to Constantinople, occupiers from the discontented townsfolk and natives of Thrace wereassigned to them. Sometimes there would be a big school building to giveaway as well, but that was not always so, for it might be moreconvenient to assemble Armenians there for purposes of registration orso forth, and then, if it happened to catch fire, why Enver wouldunderstand that such accidents would occur. Among other careful andwell-thought-out instructions came the order that, when possible, themurders should not take place in the town, but outside it, for cleanAllah-fearing Moslems would not like to live in habitations defiled byChristian corpses. But, above all, there must be thoroughness; not a manmust be left alive, not a girl nor a woman who must not drag heroutraged body, so long as breath and the heart-beat remained in it, to, or rather towards those 'agricultural colonies, ' as Talaat Bey, in aflash of whimsical Prussian humour, called them. One was advantageouslysituated in the middle of the Anatolian desert at the village ofSultanieh. There, for miles round, stretched the rocks and sands of awaterless wilderness, but no doubt the women and children of this veryindustrious race would manage to make it wave with cornfields. Anotheragricultural colony, by way of contrast, should be established a coupleof days' journey south of Aleppo, where the river loses itself inpestilential and malarious swamps. Arabs could not live there, but whoknew whether those hardy Armenians (the women and children, of them atleast who had proved themselves robust enough to reach the place) wouldnot flourish there out of harm's way? After the swamps one came to theArabian desert, and there, a hundred miles south-east, was a placecalled Deir-el-Zor; wandering Arab tribes sometimes passed through it, but, arrived there, the Armenians should wander no more. In those aridsands and waterless furnaces of barren rock there was room for all andto spare. Sultanieh, the swamps, and Deir-el-Zor: these were the chiefof Talaat Bey's agricultural colonies. 

There must be collecting stations for these tragic colonists, centres towhich they must be herded in from surrounding districts: one atOsmanieh, let us say, one at Aleppo, one at Ras-el-Ain, one at Damascus. And since it would be a pity to let so many flowers of girlhood wastetheir sweetness on the desert air of Deir-el-Zor, slave markets must beestablished at these collecting stations. There would be plenty ofgirls, and prices would be low, but the reverend ministers of Allah theGod of Love, the Ulemas, the Padis and the Muftis, should be accorded apreferential tariff. Indeed they should pay nothing at all; they shouldjust choose a girl and take her away, and, with the help of Allah theGod of Love, convert her to the blessed creed. No one was too young forthese lessons. .. . A little abstemiousness would not hurt these pamperedChristians, so when they set out on their marches they need not beprovided with rations or water. Perhaps some might die, but Talaat hadno use for weaklings at his agricultural colonies. Nor must there be anypoking and prying on the part of those interfering Americanmissionaries; and so Talaat Bey put all the agricultural colonies out ofbounds for foreigners. .. . 

There was no hurry over these deportations, for the plea of militaryexigencies, which had caused the deportations in Armenia itself to beterminated by massacre with a rapidity almost inartistic, did not applyto Armenians so far from the seat of war. Their picnics could beconducted quietly and pleasantly in the leisurely Oriental manner. Eventhe men need not be murdered absolutely out of hand. Strong youngfellows might be stripped and tied down and then beaten to death bybastinadoing the feet till they burst, or by five hundred blows on thechest and stomach. Their cries would mingle with the screams of theirsisters in the embrace of Turkish soldiers. And, talking of embraces, ifa woman was desirable, she need not walk all the way to Deir-el-Zor, butby embracing Islamism be transferred to a harem. But these were detailsthat might be left to individual taste: there were no preciseinstructions save that no Armenian men must be discoverable in theOttoman Empire at all, and no women save those who had become Turkishwomen, or who were at work on the waterless and the malarialagricultural colonies. 

Talaat Bey reviewed his finished scheme. He thought it would do, andEnver Pasha agreed with him, and Jemal Bey (who soon after styledhimself Jemal the Great), the Military Governor of Syria, and soresponsible for the last stages of their pilgrimage, thought it would dovery well indeed. And instructions were sent out to every town in theEmpire where there were Armenians, in accordance with the programme ofTalaat Bey. 

How Enver carried out his part of the programme in Armenia itself wehave seen, and by the end of the year (1915) his work was done, andArmenia was Armenia no longer. But operations, as I have said, wereconducted in a more leisurely manner elsewhere, and the agony of thatbutchery protracted. But Jemal got to work at once in the thicklypopulated district round Zeitun. He had had no success in the campaignof the winter in the direction of the Suez Canal, and his troops werehungry for some sort of victory. The Zeitunlis were hardy independentmountaineers, who were possessed of arms, and Jemal thought it moreprudent not to dally with deportations, but conduct a regular campaignagainst them. For two or three months they resisted, entrenchingthemselves in the hills, but they could not hold out against artilleryand the modern apparatus of war, and the whole tribe was wiped out. Thatdone, Jemal became Jemal the Great by reason of his national services, and paid a visit to Germany. On his return we shall hear of him again. 

Meanwhile, from all the reports that have arrived from missionaries andothers, we may take one or two, almost at random. At certain places, asin the governments of Ismid, Angora and Diarbekr, the Armenianpopulation was completely wiped out. Sometimes tortures were added, asat a certain Anatolian town where there was a big Armenian school, inwhich a number of professors and instructors, some of whom had studiedin America, in Scotland, and in Germany, had for years been working. 

What happened to them was this:--

(1) Professor A served the College thirty-five years, and taughtTurkish and history. He was arrested without charge, the hair of hishead and beard were pulled out in order to secure damaging confessions. He was starved and hung up by the arms for a day and a night andrepeatedly beaten. He was then murdered. 

(2) Professor B, who had served the College thirty-three years, andtaught mathematics, suffered the same fate. 

(3) Professor C, head of the preparatory department, had served theCollege for twenty years. He was made to witness the spectacle of a manbeing beaten almost to death, and became mentally deranged. He wasmurdered with his family. 

(4) Professor D, who taught mental and moral sciences, was treated inthe same way as Professor A. He also had three finger nails pulled outby the roots, and was subsequently murdered. 

Similarly, at Diarbekr, the Armenians were collected in batches of 600, taken out of the town, and killed to the last man. Among them was theArmenian Archbishop; his eyes and nails were dragged out before he wasbutchered. 

Or let us take a look at some of the collecting camps. At one, describedby an eye-witness, we find that the convoy had arrived after severalmonths of travel. More than half were already dead, they had beenpillaged by bandits and Kurds seven times. They were forbidden to drinkwater when they passed by a stream, three-quarters of the young womenand girls had been kidnapped, the rest were compelled to sleep with thegendarmes who conducted them. At Osmanieh it was decided to deport thewomen and children by train. They lay about the station starving andfever-stricken. When the train arrived many were jostled on to the line, and the driver yelled with joy, crying out, 'Did you see how I smashedthem up?'

At another camp typhus broke out; those who died of it were leftunburied, as vouched for by a Turkish officer, in order to increase theinfection. .. . 

Urfa was another collecting camp for the Armenians in that district, andthe following account is based on the information of an eye-witness. Here, before the concentration began, the Armenians living in the townoffered resistance to the Turks, and held out until Fahri Bey, second incommand to Jemal the Great, arrived with artillery, bombarded the town, and massacred every Armenian there. Quiet being thus restored, the bandsof deported began to arrive. They came by rail or on foot, and, withthe Prussian love of tabulation, were divided into three groups. 

The first group consisted of old men, old women, and young children. They, guarded by gendarmes, were sent marching through the desert toDeir-el-Zor. Few, if any, ever arrived there, all dying by the way. 

The second group, consisting of able-bodied men, was led off in batchesand slaughtered. Among them were Zohrab and Vartkes, Armenian deputieswho had been brought there from Constantinople. 

The third group consisted of young marriageable girls. Some, perhaps, found their way into harems. 

From Aleppo (one of the final concentration camps before such as wereleft of the convoys set forth for their goal, the swamps or the desertround Deir-el-Zor) we have the detailed evidence of Dr. Martin Niepage, High Grade teacher in the German Technical School. This gentleman, witha courage and a humanity to which the highest tribute must be paid, addressed a report of protest to the German Ambassador atConstantinople, and wrote an open letter to the Reichstag on the subjectof what he had seen with his own eyes in that town. In his preliminarymatter he speaks as follows:--

'In dilapidated caravanserais I found quantities of dead, many corpsesbeing half-decomposed, and others still living among them who were soonto breathe their last. In other yards I found quantities of sick anddying people, whom nobody was looking after. .. . We teachers and ourpupils had to pass them every day. Every time we went out we saw throughthe open windows their pitiful forms, emaciated and wrapped in rags. Inthe morning our school children, on their way through the narrowstreets, had to push past the two-wheeled ox-carts on which every day, from eight to ten rigid corpses without coffin or shroud, were carriedaway, their arms and legs trailing out of the vehicle. '

From the report itself:--

'Out of convoys which, when they left their homes on the Armenianplateau, numbered from two to three thousand men, women, and children, only two or three hundred survivors arrived here in the south. The menwere slaughtered on the way, the women and girls, with the exception ofthe old, the ugly and those who are still children, have been abused byTurkish soldiers and officers. .. . Even when they are fording rivers theydo not allow those dying of thirst to drink. All the nourishment theyreceive is a daily ration of a little meal sprinkled on their hands. .. . Opposite the German Technical School at Aleppo, a mass of about fourhundred emaciated forms, the remnant of such convoys, is lying in one ofthe caravanserais. There are about a hundred children (boys and girls)among them, from five to seven years old. Most of them are sufferingfrom typhoid and dysentery. When one enters the yard, one has theimpression of entering a madhouse. If one brings food, one notices thatthey have forgotten how to eat. .. . If one gives them bread, they put itaside indifferently. They just lie there quietly waiting for death. '

Dr. Niepage wrote this report in the hope of saving such as then (1915)survived. No notice whatever was taken of it, and his postscript, written in May 1916, records the fact that 'the exiles encamped atRas-el-Ain on the Bagdad Railway, estimated at 20, 000 men, women andchildren, were slaughtered to the last one. '[1]

[Footnote 1: It is right to add that at Aleppo an officer called BekirSami guarded 50, 000 Armenians whom he had collected from neighbouringdistricts, who were threatened with massacre, and I find that a Germanmissionary states that there were 45, 000 Armenians alive in Aleppo. Thisforms confirmatory evidence, but at the same time there is nothing toshow that they were not subsequently deported to Deir-el-Zor. In thiscase it is highly improbable that any survive. ]

In Dr. Niepage's view, as I have stated elsewhere, the Germans aredirectly responsible for the continuance of the massacres. Such, too, isthe opinion, he tells us, of the educated Moslems, and his courage instating this has lost him his post at Aleppo. It is to be sincerelyhoped that he has escaped the fate of a certain Dr. Lepsius, who, fordrawing attention to the fact that Germany allowed the Armenianmassacres, has been arrested for high treason. 

Before the end of 1915 the German authorities, who had refused tointerfere in the massacres, and both in the official press and throughofficial utterances had expressed their support of this Ottomanisationof the Empire, began to think that you might have too much of a goodthing, and that the massacres had really gone far enough. Their reasonwas clear and explicit: there would be a very serious shortage of labourin the beet-growing industry and in the harvest-fields, for which theyhad sent grain and artificial manures from Germany. There had been sometalk, they said, of saving 500, 000 Armenians out of the race, but, inthe way things were going on, it seemed that the remnant would notnearly approach that figure. Would not the great Ottomanisers tempertheir patriotism with a little clemency? Talaat Bey disagreed: he wantedto make a complete job of it, but Jemal the Great, fresh from his visitto Germany, supported the idea, and, in spite of Talaat's opposition, made a spectacular exhibition of clemency, in which, beyond doubt, wecan trace an 'Imitatio Imperatoris, ' in the following manner. 

There was at the time a large convoy of men and women in Constantinoplewhich was to be led out for murder and deportation, and Jemal gaveorders that it should be spared and sent back to its highland home. Hegave orders also that the entire convoy should be informed who was theirsaviour, and should be led in procession past his house and show theirgratitude. All day the sorry pageant lasted, the ragged, half-starvedcrowd streamed by the house of Jemal the Great, with murmurs ofthanksgiving and uplifted hands, and all manner of obeisances, whileJemal the Great stood in his porch with stern, impassive face, and handon his sword-hilt in the best Potsdam manner, and acknowledged thesethanksgivings. .. . [1]

[Footnote 1: In support of Jemal's claim to clemency it must be addedthat, according to a report coming from Alexandria, he hanged twelve ofthe worst assassins sent to Syria as ringleaders of the massacres. Icannot find corroboration of this. ]

Here, then, is the absurd, the Williamesque side of this ludicrouspopinjay, Jemal the Great, and it contains not only the obvious seeds oflaughter, but the more helpful seeds of hope. He has a strong hand onthe very efficient army of Syria, and his visits to Berlin seem perhapsto have turned his head not quite in the direction that theMaster-egalo-megalomaniac of Berlin intended. I gather that Jemal theGreat was not so much impressed by the magnificence of William II. As tofall dazzled and prone at the Imperial feet, and lick with enrapturedtongue the imperial boot polish, but rather to be inspired to do thesame himself, to become the God-anointed of the newly acquired Germanprovince, which is Turkey, and make a Potsdam of his own. This is only aguess, but the conduct of Jemal the Great in the matter of theseArmenian refugees, and in other affairs, has been distinctly imperial. In June of this year, for instance, he telegraphed to H. E. The Vali ofSyria, and an extract from his text is truly Potsdamish. 'One and a halfmillion of sandbags, ' he wrote, 'are required for the fortress ofGaza. .. . The bags should be made, if necessary, of all the silk-hangingsin houses of Syria and Palestine. ' With his army behind him, he hastwice already defied the orders of Talaat, and I am inclined to thinkthat he is the coming Strong Man of the effete Empire with whom it wouldbe well worth while to make friends, even at a highish price. The AlliedPowers should keep an undazzled eye on him, for it is quite possiblethat, having defied Talaat successfully, he may go on to defy the realrulers of Turkey, who live in Berlin. His Syrian army, from such sourcesas are available, appears to be more efficient than any other body oftroops the Turks can put into the field, and he has them in control. Probably in the winter of 1917-1918 our troops will come into collisionwith them. But in the interval, also quite probably, Jemal the Great mayresent German superintendence. [1]

[Footnote 1: See note at end of this chapter. ]

But in addition to his ludicrous side, there is in him a refinedhypocrisy and a subtle cruelty worthy of Abdul Hamid. One instance willsuffice. 

There had been some talk that at certain of these concentration campsthere was no water supply, and he gave orders, did Jemal the Great andthe Merciful, that water should be sent. A train consisting of trucksof water accordingly was despatched to one of those camps, situated inthe desert, with no supply nearer than six miles, and an eye-witnessdescribes its arrival. The mob of Armenians, mad with thirst, surroundedit, and, since everything must be done in an orderly and seemly manner, were beaten back by the Turkish guards, and made to stand at a duedistance for the distribution. And when those ranks, with their parchedthroats and sun-cracked lips, were all ready, the Turkish guards openedthe taps of the reservoirs, and allowed the whole of their contents torun away into the sand. Whether Jemal the Great planned that, or whetherit was but a humorous freak on the part of the officials, I cannot say. But as a refinement of cruelty I have, outside the page of Poe's tales, only once come across anything to equal it, and that in a letter fromthe _Times'_ correspondent at Berne on April 11, 1917. He describes thetreatment of English prisoners in Germany: 'An equally commonentertainment with those women (German Red Cross nurses) was to offer awounded man a glass, perhaps, of water, then, standing just outside hisreach, to pour it slowly on the ground. ' Could those sisters of mercyhave read the account of Jemal's clemency, or is it merely an instanceof the parallelism of similar minds?

So the empty train returned, and Jemal the Great caused it to be knownin Berlin that he was active in securing a proper water supply for thefamous agricultural settlements in the desert, and loud were theencomiums in the press of the Central Powers over the colonisation ofSyria by the Armenians, the progress and enlightenment of the Turks, andthe skilful and humane organisation of Jemal the Great. 

There is no difficulty in estimating to-day the number of Armenian menwho survive in the Turkish Empire. All appeals to the Prussianoverlords, such as were made by Dr. Niepage, and the belatedremonstrance of the Prussians themselves when they foresaw a dearth oflabour for the husbandry of beet and cereals, fell on deaf ears, and Icannot see any reason for supposing that Armenian men exist any more inthe Empire. It is more difficult to judge of the numbers of women who, by accepting the Moslem creed and the harems, are still alive. Certainlyin some districts there were considerable 'conversions, ' and Dr. Niepagerates them as many thousands. But the willingness to accept thoseconditions was not always a guarantee for their being granted, and Ihave read reports where would-be converts were told that 'religion' wasa more serious matter than that, and, instead of being accepted, theywere massacred. But even if Dr. Niepage is right, we can scarcelyconsider these women as constituting an Armenian element any more in thecountry. The work of butchery, the torture, the long-drawn agonies ofthose inhuman pilgrimages have come to an end because there are no moreArmenian victims available. Apart from those who escaped over theRussian frontier, and the handful who sought refuge in Egypt, the raceexists no longer, and the seal has been set on the bloodiest deed thatever stained the annals of the barbarous Osmanlis. It is not in revengeon the murderers, but in order to rescue the other subject peoples, Arabs, Greeks, Jews, who are still enclosed within the frontiers of theEmpire, that the Allied Governments, in their answer to PresidentWilson, stated that among their aims as belligerents, was the'liberation of the peoples who now lie beneath the murderous tyranny ofthe Turks. ' There is defined their irreducible demand: never again, after peace returns, will the Turk be allowed to control the destiniesof races not his own. Too long already--and to their disgrace be itspoken--have the civilised and Christian nations of Europe tolerated attheir very doors a tyranny that has steadily grown more murderous andmore monstrous, because they feared the upset of the Balance of Power. Now at least such Powers as value national honour, and regard a nationalpromise as something more than a gabble of ink on a scrap of paper, haveresolved that they will suffer the tyranny of the Turk over his aliensubject peoples to continue no longer. It is the least they can do (andunhappily the most) to redeem the century-long neglect of their duty. Even now, as we shall see in a subsequent chapter, the direst perilthreatens those other peoples who at present groan under Turkish rule, and we can but pray that the end of the war will come before Arabs orGreeks or Jews suffer the same fate as has exterminated the Armenians. Too often have we been too late; we must only hope that another itemwill not have to be added to that miserable list, and that, when the dayof reckoning comes, no half-hearted and pusillanimous policy will stayour hands from the complete execution of that to which we stand pledged. The Balance of Power has gone the way of other rickety makeshifts, butthere must be no makeshift in our dealings with the Turk, no compromiseand no delay. What shall be done with those who planned and executed thegreatest massacres known to history matters little; let them be hangedas high as Haman, and have done with them. But what does matter is thatat no future time must it be in the power of a Government that has neverbeen other than barbaric and butcherous, to do again as it has donebefore. 

NOTE ON JEMAL THE GREAT

Jemal the Great has very obligingly done what I suggested we mightexpect him to do, and has kicked against the German control of theSyrian army. General von Falkenhayn was sent to take supreme command, and on June 28th of this year Jemal the Great refused to receive ordersfrom him. In consequence General von Falkenhayn refused responsibilityfor any offensive movement there if Jemal remained in command. 

This promised well for trouble between Turks and Germans, but we mustnot, I am afraid, build very high hopes on it, for Germany has dealtwith the situation in a masterly manner. Jemal was already Minister ofMarine as well as commander of the Syrian army, so the Emperor asked himto pay another visit to Berlin, and he has been visiting Krupp's worksand German naval yards, and we shall find probably that in the futurehis activities will be marine rather than military, and that vonFalkenhayn will have a free hand in Syria. 

But this will prove rather disappointing for Jemal, since it seemsbeyond mere coincidence that towards the end of August Herr vonKuhlmann, the new German Foreign Minister, induced the TurkishGovernment (while Jemal was at Berlin) to put their navy and theirmerchant fleet under the orders of the German Admiralty, and alreadymany Turkish naval officers have been replaced by Germans. Thus Jemalwill find himself deprived of his military command, because the navy sourgently needed his guiding hand, while his guiding hand over the navywill be itself guided by the German Admiralty. .. . In fact, it looksrather like checkmate for Jemal the Great, and an end to the trouble hemight have given the German control. 

On the eve of his leaving Germany, as yet unconscious probably of thesubordination of the entire Turkish fleet to the German Admiralty, hegave an interview to a representative of the _Cologne Gazette_, whichdeserves more than that ephemeral appearance. It shows Jemal the Greatin a sort of hypnotic trance induced at Potsdam. 'The German fleet, ' hesays, 'is simply spotless in its power, and a model for all states whichneed a modern navy--a model which cannot be surpassed. ' . .. He went fora cruise in a submarine which proceeded 'so smoothly, elegantly, calmlyand securely that I had the impression of cruising in a greatsteamship. ' . .. He was taken to Belgium, and describes the 'idyllic lifethere': in the towns 'the people go for walks all day long, ' and in thecountry the peasants blithely gather in the harvest with the help ofhappy prisoners. ' (He does not tell us where the harvest goes to, anymore than the Germans tell us where the Turkish harvests go to. ) He wastaken to General Headquarters, which he describes as 'majestic. ' Finallyhe was taken into the presence of the All-Highest, and seems to haveemerged in the condition in which Moses came down from Sinai. .. . But onemust not altogether despair of Jemal the Great. It is still possiblethat, on his return to Constantinople, when he found that his position, as Minister of Marine was but a clerkship in the German Admiralty, thehypnotic trance began to pass off, and his ambitions to re-assertthemselves. He may yet give trouble to the Germans if properly handled. 

_Crescent and Iron Cross, Chapter IV_

THE QUESTION OF SYRIA AND PALESTINE

It is impossible to leave this heart-rending tale of the sufferings ofthe Armenian people under the Turks without some account of that devotedband of American missionaries who, with a heroism unsurpassed, andperhaps unequalled, so eagerly sacrificed themselves to the ravages ofpestilence and starvation in order to alleviate the horrors thatdescended on the people to whom they had been sent. Often they wereforcibly driven from the care of their flocks, often in theextermination of their flocks there was none left whom they couldshepherd, but wherever a remnant still lingered there remained thesedauntless and self-sacrificing men and women, regardless of everythingexcept the cause to which they had devoted themselves. They reckednothing of the dangers to which they exposed themselves so long asthere was a child or a woman or a man whom they could feed or nurse. Terrible as were the sufferings through which the Armenians passed, theymust have been infinitely more unbearable had it not been for theseAmerican missionaries; small as was the remnant that escaped into thesafety of Persia or Russian Trans-Caucasia, their numbers must have beenhalved had it not been for the heroism of these men and women. While theGerman Consuls contented themselves with a few faint protests to theirAmbassador at Constantinople, followed by an acquiescence of silence, the missionaries constituted themselves into a Red Cross Society ofintrepid workers, and, as one well-qualified authority tells us, 'suffered as many casualties from typhus and physical exhaustion as anyproportionate body of workers on the European battlefields. ' Fullyindeed did they live up to the mandate of the American board that sentthem out: 'Your great business is with the fundamental doctrines andduties of the Gospel. '

At the opening of the European War the American Missions had been atwork for nearly a hundred years, and were disseminated over Anatolia andArmenia. They had opened 163 Protestant churches and 450 schools, theyestablished hospitals, and in every possible way spread civilisation ina country where the spirit of the governing class was barbarism. It wasnot their object to proselytise. 'Let the Armenian remain an Armenian ifhe will, ' so ran the instructions from which I have already quoted, 'theGreek a Greek, the Nestorian a Nestorian, the Oriental an Oriental, ' andin the same wise and open-minded spirit they encouraged nativeProtestant Churches which were independent of them and largelyself-supporting. Naturally in a country governed by monsters like AbdulHamid and Enver Pasha in later days, they earned the enmity which is thetribute of barbarians to those who stand for civilisation, and when, owing to the extermination or flight of their Armenian flocks, they wereleft without a charge, and their schools were closed, we find a paean ofself-congratulation going up from the Turkish press inspired by thebutchers of Armenia. But till the massacres and the flight werecomplete, they gave themselves to the 'duties of the Gospel, ' and theirdeeds shine like a star into the blackness of that night of murder. 

I will take as an example of the superb heroism of those men and womenthe diary of an American lady attached to the mission at Urmia, adocument that, anonymously, is one of the noblest, least self-consciousrecords I have ever read. The period of it extends over five months. 

Early in January 1915 the Russian troops were withdrawn from Urmia, which lies on the frontier between Turkey and Persia, and simultaneouslythe Moslem population began to plunder the Christian villages, theinhabitants of which fled for refuge to the missions in the city. Talaat's official murder-scheme was not completed yet, but the Kurds, together with the Turks, had planned a local massacre at Geogtapa, whichwas stopped by the American doctor of this mission, Dr. Packard, who, atgreat personal risk, obtained an interview with the Kurdish chief, andsucceeded in inducing him to spare the lives of the Christians, if theygave up arms and ammunition and property. The American flag was hoistedover the Mission buildings, and before a week was out there were overten thousand refugees housed in the yards and rooms, where they remainedfor five months, the places of the dead being taken by fresh influxes. The dining-room, the sitting-room, the church, the school, were allgiven over to these destitute people, and from the beginning fear ofmassacre, as well as prevalence of disease, haunted the camp. It wasimpossible to move dead bodies outside; they had to be buried in thethronged yards, and every day children were born. But here is the spiritthat animated their protectors. 'We have just had a Praise meeting, 'records the diarist at the close of the first fortnight, 'with fifty orsixty we could gather from the halls and rooms near, and we feel morecheerful. We thought if Paul and Silas, with their stripes, could singpraises in prison, so could we. '

The weeks, of which each day was a procession of hours too full of workto leave time for anxiety, began to enrol themselves into months, andthe hope of rescue by a Russian advance made their hearts sick, so longwas it deferred. Refugees from neighbouring villages kept arriving, andthere was the constant problem before these devoted friends of theirflock, as to how to feed them. All such were welcome, and eager was thewelcome they received, though every foot of space in the buildings andin the yards was occupied. But somehow they managed to make room for allwho came, and for those villagers who, under threat of torture andmassacre, had apostatised, there was but yearning and sorrow, but nevera word of blame or bitterness. Sometimes there was a visit of Turkishtroops to search for concealed Russians, and, as our diarist remarks, 'We can't complain of the monotony of life, for we never know what isgoing to happen next. On Tuesday morning we had a wedding in my roomhere. The boy and girl were simple villagers. .. . The wedding was fixedfor the Syrian New Year, but the Kurds came and carried off weddingclothes and everything else in the house. They all fled here, and weremarried in the old dirty garments they were wearing when they ran fortheir lives. .. . Their only present was a little tea and sugar that Itied up in a handkerchief and gave to the bride. '

The eternal feminine and the eternal human speak there; and there, forthis gallantest of women, were two keys that locked up the endlesstroubles and anxieties that ceased not day or night. But sometimes theflesh was weak, and in the privacy of her diary she says, 'How long, OLord?' But for that there was the master-key that unlocks all wards, anda little further on we read, 'One of the verses that helps to keep myfaith steady is, "He that spared not His own Son. " For weeks we have hadno word from the outside world, but we "rest in Jehovah and waitpatiently for Him. "'

The conditions inside the crowded yards grew steadily worse. Dysenterywas rife, and the deaths from it in that narrow space averaged thirty aday. The state of the sufferers grew so terrible that it was difficultto get any one to look after them at all, and many were lying in theopen yards, and the weather, which hitherto had been warm, got cold, andsnow fell. It was with the greatest difficulty that food could beobtained for those in health, and that of a kind utterly unsuitable tothe sick, while in the minds of their nurses was the bitter knowledgethat with proper diet hundreds of lives could have been saved, andhundreds of cases of illness avoided. 

For the dead there was but a small percentage of coffins available, and'the great mass are just dropped into the great trench of rottinghumanity (in the yard). As I stand at my window I see one after anotherof the little bodies carried by . .. And the condition of the living ismore pitiful than that of the dead--hungry, ragged, dirty, sick, cold, wet, swarming with vermin. Not for all the wealth of all the rulers ofEurope would I bear for one hour their responsibility for the sufferingand misery of this one little corner of the world alone. A helplessunarmed Christian community turned over to the sword and the passion ofIslam!'

On the top of this came an epidemic of typhoid, twenty-seven cases onthe first day. Outside in the town the Turkish Consul began hangingChristians, and the missioners were allowed to take the bodies and burythem. There were threats that the mission would be entered, and allyoung men (possible combatants) killed, but this fear was not realised. The typhoid increased, and the doctor of the mission and others of thestaff fell ill with it; but the patience and service of the remaindernever faltered, while the same spirit of uncomplaining sufferinganimated the refugees. 'Mr. McDowell, ' so the diarist relates, 'saw atired and weary woman with a baby in her arms, sitting in one of theseats, and said to her, "Where do you stay?" She said "Just here. " "Howlong have you been here?" "Since the beginning. " (two months) shereplied. "How do you sleep at night?" "I lay the baby on the desk infront of me, and I have this post at the back to lean against. This is avery good place. Thank you very much. "'

In April there comes a break in the diary after the day on which thefollowing entry is made:--

'I felt on Sunday as if I ought to get my own burial clothes ready, soas to make as little trouble as possible when my time comes, for inthese days we all go about our work knowing that any one of us may bethe next to go down. And yet I think our friends would be surprised tosee how cheerful we have kept, and how many occasions we find forlaughing: for ludicrous things do happen. Then, too, after dwelling sointimately with Death for three months, he doesn't seem to have sounfriendly an aspect, and the "Other Side" seems near, and our Pilotclose beside us. .. . I find the Rock on which I can anchor in peace arethe words of Christ Himself: "Where I am, there ye may be also. " . .. That is enough, to be where He is. .. . '

Then comes a break of two months, during which the writer was down withtyphoid. She resumes again in June, finding that death has made manychanges, and gets back to work again at once. By that time the Russianshad entered Urmia, a thanksgiving service was held, the refugeesdispersed, and the American Mission went quietly on with its normalwork. 

Now I have taken this one instance of the work of Americans at Urmia toshow in some detail the character of the work that they were doing, andthe Christian and humanising influence of it. But all over Armenia andAnatolia were similar settlements, and, as already mentioned, at thetime of the massacres there were established there over a hundred oftheir churches and over four hundred schools, and from these extractswhich concern only one not very large centre, it may be gathered whatleaven of civilising influence the sum of their energies must haveimplied. That lamp shone steady and clear, a 'kindly light' in thedarkness of Turkish misrule, and in the havoc of the massacres a beaconof hope, not always reached by those hapless refugees. Indeed it seemsto have been only on the frontier that the missions were able to savethose foredoomed hordes of fleeing Christians; in Armenia and inAnatolia generally the massacres and 'deportations' were complete, andby the end of 1915 all American missions were closed, for there werenone to tend and care for. Even if the massacres had not occurred, theentry of America into the war would have resulted in a similar cessationof their work, and most probably in a massacre of the Americanmissioners themselves. Their withdrawal, of course, was hailed with apeacock scream of pride by that enlightened body under Talaat and Enver, called the New Turkish party of Progress, for their presence was a barto the Turkish notions of civilisation, in that their influence made forhumanity, and health and education. Now 'the humiliating and dangeroussituation' (to quote from the columns of _Hilal_) was put an end to, andTurkish progress could make headway again. 

Similarly in Syria the outbreak of war put an end to 'the humiliatingand dangerous situation' of the presence of French schools and missions. There, for many years, French missioners had done the same work asAmericans in Armenia, work in every sense liberal and civilising, butundenominational in religious matters and unproselytising. That came toan end earlier than the organisations in Armenia, and in Syria now, asover the rest of the Turkish people, Arabs and Jews and Greeks havenothing except German influence and Kultur to stand between them and thespirit of Turkish progress of which the Armenian massacres were thelatest epiphany. Germany, as we have seen, stood by and let the Armenianmassacres go on, professing herself unable to interfere in the internalaffairs of Turkey, though at the time there was not a single branch ofTurkish industries, railways, telegraphs, armies, navies over which shehad not complete control, exercising it precisely as she thought fit. 

It is useless, then, to base any confidence in the safety of Jews, Greeks, and Arabs from suffering the same fate as the Armenians, on aveto from Germany. If it suits Germany to let those unfortunate peoplesbe murdered or deported to agricultural colonies, Germany will assuredlynot stir a finger on their behalf nor prevent a repetition of thehorrors I have dealt with in the previous chapter. Sooner than risk herhold over Turkey by enforcing unacceptable demands, she will, unlessother considerations of self-interest determine her, let furthermassacres occur, if Talaat Bey insists on them. That spokesman of herpolicy, Ernst Marré, makes this perfectly explicit in his book, _DieTürken und Wir nach dem Kriege_, upholding from the German standpointthe right of Turkey and the wisdom of Turkey in dealing with her subjectpeoples as she had dealt with the Armenians. 'The Turkish State, ' hetells us, 'is no united whole: Turks, Arabs, Greeks, Armenians, Kurds, cannot be welded together. ' (This, by a somewhat grim and ominouscoincidence, is in exact accordance with a remark made to a Danish RedCross Sister by a Turkish gendarme then engaged in massacring Armenians:'First we get rid of the Armenians, ' he said, 'then the Greeks, then theKurds. ') Or again, in defence of the Armenian massacres, 'Only byenergetic interference and by expelling of the obstinate Armenianelement, could the Ottoman Empire get rid of a Russian dominion. ' Oragain, 'The non-Turkish population of the Ottoman Empire must beOttomanised. ' Here, then, is the German point of view: the OttomanGovernment will be right to 'dispose of' its subject peoples as itthinks fit. So far from interfering, Germany endorses, and Germaninfluence to-day is all that stands between 'the murderous tyranny' andits subject peoples. French, English, and finally American pressure canno longer, since the entry of these nations into the war, be exercisedwithin the frontiers of the Ottoman Empire, and the only protection ofdefenceless aliens is the German Government. It did not stir a finger tosave the Armenians, until it saw that depopulation threatened theprosperity of its industries, and it is idle to expect that it will domore if the consolidation of Turkish supremacy demands a furthercampaign of murder. Greeks, Arabs, and Jews are all completely at themercy of Talaat's murder-schedules. The only chance that can save themis that further extermination may not suit Germany's political aims, and that she may find it worth her while to be peremptory, and forbidinstead of endorsing. 

There are unhappily many signs that the butchers of Constantinople areplanning further massacres. In February of this year preliminarymeasures were begun against the Greeks settled in Anatolia. Many wereforcibly proselytised, their property was confiscated, and they wereforbidden to carry on their businesses. Deportations also occurred, andall Greeks were removed from many villages in Anatolia, into theinterior, presumably to 'agricultural colonies' such as those providedfor Armenians. They suffered terribly from hunger and exposure, and itis estimated that ten per cent. Of them died on their marches. Sincethen, however, there has been no more heard of any extension of thosemeasures, and there seems to have been as yet no massacre of Greeks. Itis reasonable to infer that Germany has in this case intervened. Shestill hoped to win Greece over to the Central European Powers, andclearly any massacre of Greeks by her own Allies was not desirable. King Constantine, among his endless vacillations and pusillanimoustreacheries, probably made a firm protest on the subject. But in thekaleidoscope of war, should Greece come to the side of the Allies, itseems most probable that there will occur a wholesale massacre ofGreeks. From what we know of the principles on which German Kultur isbased, the most optimistic can scarcely hope that the very faintestremonstrance will emanate from Berlin. 

The case of the Arabs in Syria is even more precarious. From the momentthat the policy of the Young Turks was evolved, namely, to consolidateOsmanli supremacy by the weakening of its subject peoples, the OttomanGovernment has been waiting for its opportunity to get rid of the 'Arabmenace. ' As we have seen, they began by substituting Turkish for Arabicas a written language in all official usages from the printing of theKoran and the prayers for the Sultan down to the legends on railwaytickets. The Arab spirit, according to one of the spokesmen of the NewTurk party, had to be suppressed, the Arab lands had to become Turkishcolonies. 'It is a peculiarly imperious necessity of our existence, ' weread in Jelal Noury Bey's propaganda, 'to Turkise the Arab lands, forthe particularistic idea of nationality is awaking among the youngergenerations of Arabs, and already threatens us with a greatcatastrophe. ' Against the Arabs the Young Turks formed and fostered aspecial animosity; they were powerful and warlike, and Enver, Talaat, and others saw that the idea of an Osmanli supremacy could never berealised unless very drastic measures were taken against them. Thetenets of Islamism, it is true, forbade Moslems to fight Moslems, butIslamism, as a binding force, was already obsolete in the counsels ofthe new regime, having given place to Kultur. Of all their subjectpeoples, the Young Turks hated the Arabs the most, and, had not theEuropean War intervened, there is no doubt that the Armenian massacres, already being planned, would have been followed by Arab massacres. Butthe armed and warlike Arabian tribes were not so easy to deal with asthe defenceless Armenians, and Turkish troops could not be spared insufficient numbers to render an Arab massacre the safe, pleasant, andlucrative pursuit that massacres should be. But Jemal the Great, blackwith his triumph over the Armenians at Zeitun, was Military Governor ofSyria, and, the Armenian question being solved, he began to get to workon the Arab question. Owing to the expulsion of the French Missions fromSyria in 1914, we have no such full or detailed information as we havefrom Americans in Armenia, and the following account is mainly derivedfrom the Arabic journal _Mokattam, _ published in Cairo, the informationin which is based on the account given by a Syrian refugee. It agreeswith pieces of evidence that have come to hand from other sources. 

Ever since the beginning of the war Syria has been an area of direstpoverty, starvation, and sickness, which have been the naturalco-operators in Jemal's policy there. All supplies have beencommandeered for the troops (including by special clause from Potsdam, the German troops); even fish caught by the fishermen of Lebanon haveto be handed over to the military authorities, and the shortage ofsupplies in Smyrna, for instance, is such that at the end of 1916 therewere two hundred deaths daily from sheer starvation, while Germany wasimporting from Turkey hundreds of tons of corn and of meat. Thus thiswas no natural shortage, for though supplies were low all over theTurkish Empire, there was not dearth of that kind. It was an artificialshortage made possible by German demands, and made intentional byJemal's policy. Beirut was in no better case than Smyrna; Lebanonperhaps was in sorer straits than either. Money was equally scarce, andit fitted Jemal's policy that this should be so, for when Americans inBeirut had raised funds in America for the relief of the destitute, theTurkish Government forbade their distribution. Arabs and Greeks weredying by the hundred all over the provinces, and the beneficent decreesof nature must not be interfered with. In the streets of towns the poorhave been fighting over scraps of sugarcane and orange peel; in thecountry, to quote from _Molcattam_, 'no sooner do wild plants and beansstart to grow than the fields are filled with women and children whopick them and use them as food. ' Except for military purposes (includingthe victualling of German troops) transportation has ceased to exist, and this, too, was part of the policy of Jemal the Great. 

On the heels of famine, like a hound behind a huntsman, came typhus. Inthe province of Aleppo before the summer of 1916, over 8000 persons haddied of it. Doctors and medicines were unobtainable, for all wererequisitioned for the needs of the army, and in Damascus and Tripoli, inHama and Homs, the epidemic spread like a forest fire. No help was sentfrom Constantinople, none was permitted to be brought by the charitablefrom abroad, for famine and pestilence among the Arabs were working forthe policy of Jemal the Great. There were no troops to spare who shouldhasten on the work, but the work was progressing by swift and 'natural'means. Hunger and pestilence--behold the finger of Allah the God ofLove! How superior He showed Himself to the discarded Allah of theArabs. 'Ring down the curtain, ' said Jemal the Great, 'and let no newsof the ways of Allah get abroad!' So a strict surveillance wasestablished on the coast, all boats were chained to the shore, and ifany attempted to swim out to ships of the Allied nations which passed, the coast guards had orders to shoot him down. Too much news aboutArmenian massacres filtered through; there should not now be suchleakage. And when starvation and pestilence had firmly establishedthemselves, Jemal the Great went down to see what his personal exertionscould effect. All was working in accordance with his plan; the poorerclasses of Arabs were dying like flies, but mortality was not sosuccessful among the wealthier, who could, to some extent, purchasefood. So Jemal the Great set to work among them. He began by hanging theheads of Syrian-Arabs in Damascus, Beirut, and other cities. Nosemblance of trial, no prosecution or arraignment, were necessary: heestablished courts-martial under military control, made lists of theaccused, and ordered the courts-martial to condemn them to death. Sometimes he made mistakes, appointing as the members of hiscourt-martial men who were not such sturdy patriots as he, and refusedto sentence for no crime the accused whom he nominated. He remedied suchmistakes by appointing new boards of more seasoned stuff. Moslem andChristian alike were brought before them, and a general accusation ofpro-French tendencies seems to have been sufficient to secure a sentenceof death or lifelong imprisonment. He aimed not at the poor and theobscure, for whom hunger and pestilence were providing, but at the richand the influential. The higher clergy in Christian circles, Bishops andMonsignors, were a favourite target, and among Moslems influentialSheikhs. Sometimes there was a parody of a trial; sometimes the parodywas dispensed with, and when the black curtain was last raised overSyria, Jemal the Great had disposed of over eight hundred of the headsof the most influential of Syrian Arabs. He had got rid, in fact, ofthe whole House of Lords, and something more. Those who are acquaintedwith 'feudal values' among the Arabs will understand what that means. Hedecapitated, not individuals only, but groups. For devilish ingenuity inthis combination of starvation and pestilence for the poor, and death orlifelong imprisonment for the chiefs, Jemal the Great must take rankwith Abdul Hamid and the contrivers of the Armenian massacres. Hecannot, it is true, owing to lack of troops, obtain the swift results ofEnver in Armenia, but between typhus, starvation, and courts-martial, his solution of the Arab question in Syria is making steady progress. And those measures, hideously efficient in themselves, are, beyond anydoubt whatever, only the precursors of more sweeping exterminations ofthe Arab race, which will be effected after the war, if the AlliedPowers do not step in to save it. The Faithful of the Holy City, Mecca, have revolted and thrown off the Turkish yoke, and while the war lasts, and Turkish troops are otherwise occupied under Teutonic supervision, they will be able to maintain their independence, for there is noconsiderable body of Turks which can seriously threaten them. But theSyrian Arabs, so long as the war lasts, are being, and will be, thevictims of a quiet scheme of extermination, which, if long continued, will be as complete as that devised and carried out by the butchers ofConstantinople for the peoples of Armenia. It is not in the interest ofthe Germans to save them, and no check is being put on Jemal the Greatto hinder him from assisting starvation and typhus to ravage thecountry, and supplementing their deadly work by court-martial withouttrial. 

Equally significant of the rage for the destruction of Arabs was thetreatment of the Bagdad Arab army corps. In spite of the need for troopsone half of it was sent from Bagdad to Erzerum in the depth of winter, without any provision of warm clothing. There, in those cold uplands, the men died at the rate of fifty to sixty a day. Their commandingofficer was a Turk, and a creature of Enver's, called Abdul Kader. Though these troops had fought admirably, he openly called them Arabtraitors, and his orders seem to have been merely to get rid of them. There were no courts-martial; they were just taken into a climate whichkilled them. 

While for the last thirty years the Armenians and Syrians have emigratedin large numbers from the Ottoman Empire, there has been a largeimmigration of Jews into it. This movement was originally due to thepersecution they suffered in Russia. Germany and Austria were closed tothem, and, flying from the hideous pogroms that threatened them withextermination, they begun to settle in Palestine. Wealthy compatriotssuch as Baron Edmond de Rothschild assisted them, and, with the amazingversatility of their race, they, trades-people and town-folk, adaptedthemselves to new conditions, turned their wits towards husbandry andagriculture, and during the last thirty years have flourished andmultiplied in a manner quite unrealised by the western world. In 1881there were not more than 25, 000 of them in the home of their race, butby the beginning of the European War, when their immigration ceased forthe present, they numbered 120, 000 souls. Till then the OttomanGovernment adopted the ancient Turkish policy of neglect towards them, for they were not powerful enough numerically to earn the honour of amassacre, and, in addition, they were useful settlers. Backed bypowerful Western influence, French, English, and German alike, theyimproved out of knowledge the values of the lands where they establishedthemselves, and by intelligent management, by conserving and increasingthe water supply with irrigation and well-digging, they have broughtmany thousand acres into cultivation. Originally refugees, fleeing fromoutrageous persecutions, their immigration by degrees took on adifferent spirit. Not only were they coming out of captivity, but theywere entering into the ancient Land of Promise again. Zionism, thespirit of the returning exiles, animated them, and, according to theirprophets, they realised that 'The Lord shall comfort Zion, He shallcomfort all her waste places. ' They had sowed in tears; now, on theirreturn, they were reaping in joy, and, though their land was stillunder the infidel yoke, they were allowed to dwell in peace, busy, industrious, with the halo of home-coming in their hearts. They paid, ofcourse, their Turkish taxes, but these were not levied in any oppressivemanner, and their colonies were thrifty, self-governing, and prosperous. Already before the war, one-tenth of the cultivated land in Palestinewas in their hands, they had their own schools, their own methods oforganisation, and, more significant than all, Hebrew became a livinglanguage again. Germany, intent on her penetration of Turkey, made anattempt to Germanise them also (for Germany, as we shall see, has a veryspecial interest in these Jewish colonies), shook her head over Zionism, for which she tried to substitute Prussianism, and wanted to make theGerman language compulsory in Jewish schools at Haifa and Jaffa, but hereffort completely failed. Nothing could show the inherent vitality ofthis Jewish colonisation more strikingly. 

These Jewish settlers then were left in peace; from minuteness theyescaped the notice of the Young Turk party in its schemes for thecomplete Ottomanisation of the Empire, and, until the present year 1917, no mention of 'the Jewish question' was propounded. But it will heremembered that in 1915, certain Jewish refugees, taking warning fromthe Armenian massacres, fled to Egypt, and there founded a Zionistmule-corps, which served under the English in the Gallipoli campaign. Itseems very probable that it was this that directed the attention ofJemal the Great to the Jewish colonies in Palestine: possibly it wasmerely that he was a more thorough Ottomaniser than his colleagues inConstantinople. In any case he ordered the 'deportation' of all Jewsfrom Jaffa, Gaza, and other agricultural districts. All Jews werecommanded to leave Jaffa within forty-eight hours, no means of transportwas given them, and they were forbidden to take with them eitherprovisions or any of their belongings. Eight thousand Jews were evictedfrom Jaffa alone, and their houses were pillaged, and they robbed, maltreated, and many were murdered. Thus, and in no other way had themassacres of the Armenians begun, and, that there should be no mistakeabout it, Jemal threatened them explicitly with the fate of theArmenians. Next day Ludd was evacuated also; the evacuation of Haifa andJerusalem was threatened, and artillery was sent to Jerusalem. There canbe no doubt in fact that Jemal planned and began to carry out a massacreof all Jews. 

At that point the Germans intervened, and for the present (but only forthe present, for so long in fact as Germany has complete control overall Turkish internal affairs, in which she protested she could notmeddle) the Jewish colonies in Palestine seem to be safe. [1] The Germanchief of the General Staff telegraphed to Berlin that the 'militaryconsiderations' on which Jemal based his deportations did not exist, andHerr Cohn in the Reichstag drew the Imperial Chancellor's attention tothis. How seriously the menace was regarded in Germany, and how far thedeportations had gone may be gathered from his words, 'Is the ImperialChancellor prepared to influence the Turkish Government in such a manneras to prevent with certainty--so far as this is still possible--arepetition in Palestine of the Armenian atrocities?' This wassufficient: Germany, who could not dream of interfering in Turkishinternal affairs when only the massacre of hundreds of thousands ofArmenians was concerned, sent her order, and, for the present, Jemal theGreat has been unable to proceed with the solution of the Jewishquestion in Turkey, which he had just discovered. We need not yet infact give Jemal his Jew. But some sort of explanation to soothe theexasperation of the Turks in not being allowed to murder when and howand where they pleased, was thought advisable, and the explanation (anextraordinarily significant one) was given in an inspired paragraph ofthe _Frankfurter Zeitung_ not long after. 'The valuable structure ofZionist cultural work, in which the German Empire must have well foundedinterest in view of future and very promising trade relations, will, itis very much to be hoped, be preserved from destruction so far as purelymilitary requirements do not make it necessary. Pan-Turkish ideals haveno sort of meaning in Palestine where practically no Turks dwell. '

[Footnote 1: This view seems to be borne out by subsequent events, forthe Jews evacuated from Jaffa have been permitted to return owing to theintervention of the Spanish Government. It is not hard to guess whoprompted that. ]

We may take it, then, that with regard to the projected Jewishmassacres, quite clearly foreshadowed by the schemes of deportation fromJaffa and Gaza, Germany has made strong representations to the OttomanGovernment. She did not do so (indeed she officially refused to do so)when the Armenian massacres began, for she could not interfere inTurkey's internal affairs. But now she has discovered that Pan-Turkishideals have no sort of meaning in Palestine, and thus, with amazingastuteness, has provided herself with a reason for interfering, whilestill not giving up the policy of non-interference in Turkish affairs, for Turkey, she has discovered, _has_ no affairs in Palestine. At thesame time she guards herself from diplomatic defeat by the hope thatZionist cultural work will be saved from destruction so _far as purelymilitary requirements do not make it necessary_. In other words, supposing Jemal the Great got completely out of hand, and proceeded toindiscriminate massacre of the Jews, Germany would doubtless accept hisplea that military requirements had made it necessary. .. . And we wereonce so ignorant as to assure ourselves that Germany had no notions ofdiplomacy!

The full significance of her intervention on behalf of the Jews, whenneither the extermination of the Armenians, the persecution of theArabs, nor the deportation of the Greeks moved Germany to any decidedaction or energetic protest, must be left, in so far as it concerns thefuture, to another chapter. But as regards the present and the past itwill be useful to consider here what has prompted her to make a protest(which we may regard, so long as her foot is on the neck of the Turks, as having been successful) against these projected massacres. Certainlyit was not humanity; it was not the faintest desire to save innocentpeople in general from being murdered wholesale, for in the similarcase of the Armenians, her bowels of compassion were not moved. Or, possibly, if we incline to lenience, we may say that she was sorry forthe Armenians, but could not then risk a disagreement with theirmurderers who were her allies, whereas now, feeling herself morecompletely dominant over the Turks than she then did, she could riskbeing peremptory, especially since there was that saving clause aboutmilitary requirements. For during the Armenian massacres, theDardanelles expedition was still on the shores of Gallipoli, and themenace to Constantinople acute. It was possible that if she opposed afirm front to the Armenian massacres, the Turks, already on the verge ofdespair with regard to saving the capital from capture, might have madeterms with the Allies. But now no such imminence of danger threatenedthem, and, with Germany's domination over them vastly more secure thanit had been in 1915, she could afford to treat them less as allies andmore as a conquered people. This alone might have accounted for herunprecedented impulse of humanity in the minds of those who stillattribute such instincts to her, but she had far stronger reasons thanthat for wanting to save the Jews of Palestine. 

Her policy with regard to them is set forth in a pamphlet by Dr. DavisTreitsch, called _Die Jüden der Türkei_, published in 1915, which is amost illuminating little document. These Jewish colonies, as we haveseen, came from Russia, and as Germany realised, long before the war, they might easily form a German nucleus in the Near East, for theylargely consisted of German-speaking Jews, akin in language and blood toa most important element in her own population. 'In a certain sense, 'says Dr. Treitsch, 'the Jews are a Near Eastern element in Germany and aGerman element in Turkey. ' He goes on with unerring acumen to lament theexodus of German-speaking Jews to the United States and to England. 'Annually some 100, 000 of these are lost to Germany, the empire of theEnglish language and the economic system that goes with it is beingenlarged, while a German asset is being proportionately depreciated. .. . It will no longer do simply to close the German frontiers to them, andin view of the difficulties which would result from a wholesalemigration of Jews into Germany itself, Germans will only be too glad tofind a way out in the emigration of those Jews to Turkey--a solutionextraordinarily favourable to the interests of all three partiesconcerned. '

Here, then, is the matter in a nutshell: Germany, wide-awake as ever, saw long ago the advantage to her of a growing Jewish population fromthe Pale in Turkey. She was perhaps a little overloaded with themherself, but in this immigration from Russia to Palestine she saw theformation of a colony that was well worth German protection, and theresult of the war, provided the Palestinian immigrants were left inpeace, would be to augment very largely the number of those settlingthere. 'Galicia, ' says Dr. Treitsch, 'and the western provinces ofRussia, which between them contain more than half the Jews in the world, have suffered more from the war than any other region. Jewish homeshave been broken up by hundreds of thousands, and there is no doubtwhatever that, as a result of the war, there will be an emigration ofEast European Jews on an unprecedented scale. ' This emigration, then, toPalestine was, in Germany's view, a counter-weight to the 100, 000annually lost to her through emigration to America and England. With herfoot on Turkey's neck she had control over these German-speaking Jews, and saw in them the elements of a German colony. Her calculations, it istrue, were somewhat upset by the development of the Zionist movement, bywhich those settlers declared themselves to have a nationality of theirown, and a language of their own, and Dr. Treitsch concedes that. 'But, 'he adds, 'in addition to Hebrew, to which they are more and moreinclined, the Jews must have a world-language, and this can only beGerman. '

This, then, in brief, and only up to the present, is the story of howthe Jewish massacres were stayed. The Jews were potential Germans, andGermany, who sat by with folded hands when Arabs and Armenians were ledto torture and death, put up a warning finger, and, for the present, saved them. In her whole conduct of the war, nothing has been morecharacteristic than her 'verboten' to one projected massacre and heracquiescence in others. But, as for her having saved the Jews out ofmotives of humanity, 'Credant Judaei!'

_Crescent and Iron Cross, Chapter V_

DEUTSCHLAND ÜBER ALLAH

It was commonly said at the beginning of this war that, whateverGermany's military resources might be, she was hopelessly and childishlylacking in diplomatic ability and in knowledge of psychology, from whichall success in diplomacy is distilled. As instances of this gravedefect, people adduced the fact that, apparently, she had notanticipated the entry of Great Britain into the war at all, while hertreatment of Belgium immediately afterwards was universally pronouncedto be not a crime merely, but a blunder of the stupidest sort. It isperfectly true that Germany did not understand, and, as seems likely inthe light of innumerable other atrocities, never will understand, thepsychology of civilised peoples; she has never shown any signs up tillnow, at any rate, of 'having got the hang of it' at all. But critics ofher diplomacy failed to see the root-fact that she did not understand itmerely because it did not interest her. It was not worth her while tomaster the psychology of other civilised nations, since she was out notto understand them, but to conquer them. She had all the information shewanted about their armies and navies and guns and ammunition neatly andcorrectly tabulated. Why, then, since this was all that concerned her, should she cram her head with irrelevant information about what theymight feel on the subject of gas-attacks or the torpedoing of neutralships without warning? As long as her fumes were deadly and hersubmarines subtle, nothing further concerned her. 

But Europe generally made a great mistake in supposing that Germanycould not learn psychology, and the process of its distillation intodiplomacy when it interested her. The psychology of the French andEnglish was a useless study, for she was merely going to fight them, butfor years she had been studying with an industry and a patience thatput our diplomacy to shame (as was most swiftly and ignominiously provenwhen it came into conflict with hers) the psychology of the Turks. Foryears she had watched the dealings of the Great Powers with Turkey, butshe had never really associated herself with that policy. She satquietly by and saw how it worked. Briefly it was this. For a hundredyears Turkey had been kept alive in Europe by the sedulous attentions ofthe Physician Powers, who dared not let him die for fear of thestupendous quarrels which would instantly arise over his corpse. Sothere they all sat round his bed, and kept him alive with injections ofstrychnine and oxygen, and, no less, by a policy of rousing andirritating the patient. All through the reign of Abdul Hamid theypersevered: Great Britain plucked his pillow from him, so to speak, byher protectorate of Egypt; Russia tweaked Eastern Rumelia from him;France deprived him of his hot-water bottle when she snatched at theConstantinople quays, and they all shook and slapped him when he went towar with Greece in 1896, and instantly deprived him of the territory hehad won in Thessaly. That was the principle of European diplomacytowards Turkey, and from it Germany always held aloof. 

But from about the beginning of the reign of the present German Emperor, German or rather Prussian diplomacy had been going quietly about itswork. It was worth while to study the psychology of the Turks, becausedimly then, but with ever-increasing distinctness, Germany foresaw thatTurkey might be a counter of immense importance in the great conflictwhich was assuredly drawing nearer, though as yet its existence was butforeshadowed by the most distant reflections of summer lightning on aserene horizon. But if Turkey was to be of any profit to her, she wanteda strong Turkey who could fight with her (or rather for her), and shehad no use for the Sick Man whom the other Powers were bent on keepingalive, but no more. Her own eventual domination of Turkey was always theend in view, but she wanted to dominate not a weak but a strong servant. And her diplomacy was not less than brilliant simply from the fact thaton the one hand it soothed Turkey instead of irritating, and, on theother, that it went absolutely unnoticed for a long time. Nobody knewthat it was going on. She sent officers to train the Turkish army, wellknowing what magnificent material Anatolia afforded, and she hadthoroughly grasped the salient fact that to make any way with Orientalpeoples your purse must be open and your backshish unlimited. 'There isno God but backshish, and the Deutsche Bank is his prophet. '

For years this went on very quietly, and all over the great field of theOttoman Empire the first tiny blades of the crop that Germany was sowingbegan to appear. To-day that crop waves high, and covers the whole fieldwith its ripe and fruitful ears. For to-day Turkey is neither more norless than a German colony, and more than makes up to her for thecolonies she has lost and hopes to regain. She knows that perfectlywell, and so do any who have at all studied the history and the resultsof her diplomacy there. Even Turkey itself must, as in an uneasy dream, be faintly conscious of it. For who to-day is the Sultan of Turkey? Noother than William II. Of Germany. It is in Berlin that his Cabinetmeets, and sometimes he asks Talaat Bey to attend in a strictly honorarycapacity. And Talaat Bey goes back to Constantinople with a strictlyhonorary sword of honour. Or else he gives one to William II. From his_soi-disant_ master, the Sultan, or takes one back to his _soi-disant_master from his real master. For no one knows better than William II. The use that swords of honour play in deeds of dishonour. 

The object of this chapter is to trace and mount the hewn and solidstaircase of steps by which Germany's present supremacy over Turkey wasachieved. 

Apart from the quiet spade-work that had been going on for some years, Germany made no important move till the moment when, in 1909, the YoungTurk party, after the forced abdication of Abdul Hamid, proclaimed theaims and ideals of the new regime. At once Germany saw her opportunity, for here, with her help, might arise the strong Turkey which shedesired to see, instead of the weak Turkey which all the other EuropeanPowers had been keeping on a lowering diet for so long (desirous onlythat it should not quite expire), and from that moment she began tolend, or rather let, to Turkey in ever-increasing quantities, theresources of her scientific and her military knowledge. It was in herinterests, if Turkey was to be of use to her, that she should educate, and irrigate, and develop the unexploited treasures of human material, of fertility and mineral wealth; and Germany's gold, her schools, herlaboratories were at Turkey's disposal. But in every case she, as induty bound to her people, saw that she got very good value for heroutlay. 

Here, then, was the great psychological moment when Germany instantlymoved. The Young Turks proclaimed that they were going to weld theOttoman Empire into one homogeneous and harmonious whole, and by a pieceof brilliant paradoxical reasoning Germany determined that it was shewho was going to do it for them. In flat contradiction of the spirit oftheir manifestoes, which proclaimed the Pan-Turkish ideal, she conceivedand began to carry out under their very noses the great new chapter ofthe Pan-Germanic ideal. And the Young Turks did not know the difference!They mistook that lusty Teutonic changeling for their own new-bornTurkish babe, and they nursed and nourished it. Amazingly it throve, andsoon it cut its teeth, and one day, when they thought it was asleep, itarose from its cradle a baby no more, but a great Prussian guardsman whoshouted, 'Deutschland über Allah!'

Only once was there a check in the growth of the Prussian infant, andthat was no more than a childish ailment. For when the Balkan wars brokeout the Turkish army was in the transitional stage. Its German tutorshad not yet had time to inspire the army with German discipline andtradition; they had only weeded out, so to speak, the old Turkishspirit, the blind obedience to the Ministers of the Shadow of God. TheShadow of God, in fact, in the person of the Sultan, had been draggedout into the light, and his Shadow had grown appreciably less. Inconsequence there was not at this juncture any cohesion in the army, andit suffered reverse after reverse. But a strong though a curtailedTurkey was more in accordance with Prussian ideas than a weak andsprawling one, and Germany bore the Turkish defeats very valiantly. Andthat was the only set-back that this Pan-Prussian youngster experienced, and it was no more than an attack of German measles which he veryquickly got over. For two or three years German influence wavered, thenrecovered, 'with blessings on the falling out, that all the moreendears. '

It is interesting to see how Germany adapted the Pan-Turkish ideal toher own ends, and, by a triumphant vindication of Germany's methods, thebest account of this Pan-Turkish ideal is to be found in a publicationof 1915 by Tekin Alp, which was written as German propaganda and byGermany disseminated broadcast over the Turkish Empire. An account ofthis movement has already been given in Chapter II. , as far as theTurkish side of it is concerned, and it remains only to enumerate theGerman contribution to the fledging of this new Turkish Phoenix. TheTurkish language and the Turkish Allah, God of Love, in whose name theArmenians were tortured and massacred, were the two wings on which itwas to soar. Auxiliary soaring societies were organised, among them aTurkish Ojagha with similar aims, and no fewer than sixteen branches ofit were founded throughout the Empire. There were also a Turkish Guijior gymnastic club, and an Izji or boy scouts' club. A union of merchantsworked for the same object in districts where hitherto trade had been inthe hands of Greeks and Armenians, and signs appeared on their shopsthat only Turkish labour was employed. Religious funds also were usedfor similar economic restoration. 

Germany saw, Germany tabulated, Germany licked her lips and took out herlong spoon, for her hour was come. She did not interfere: she onlyhelped to further the Pan-Turkish ideal. With her usual foresight sheperceived that the Izji, for instance, was a thing to encourage, forthe boys who were being trained now would in a few years be preciselythe young men of whom she could not have too many. By all means the boyscout movement was to be encouraged. She encouraged it so generously andmethodically that in 1916, according to an absolutely reliable source ofinformation, we find that the whole boy scout movement, with itsinnumerable branches, was under the control of a German officer, Colonelvon Hoff. In its classes (derneks) boys are trained in militarypractices, in 'a recreational manner, ' so that they enjoy--positivelyenjoy (a Prussian touch)--the exercises that will fit them to be of useto the Sultan William II. They learn trigger-drill, they learnskirmishing, they are taught to make reports on the movements of theircompanies, they are shown neat ways of judging distances. They aredivided into two classes, the junior class ranging from the ages oftwelve to seventeen, the senior class consisting of boys over seventeen, but not yet of military age. But since Colonel von Hoff organised this, the military age has been extended, and boys of seventeen have got toserve their country on German fronts. Prussian thoroughness, therefore, saw that their training must begin earlier; the old junior class hasbecome the senior class, and a new junior class has been set on footwhich begins its recreational exercises in the service of William II. , Got and Allah, at the age of eight. It is all great fun, but thosepigeon-livered little boys who are not diverted by it have to go on withtheir fun all the same, for, needless to say, the Izji is compulsory onall boys. Of course they wear a uniform which is made in Germany and isof a 'semi-military' character. 

The provision of soldiers and sailors, then, trained from the early ageof eight, was the first object of Germany's peaceful and benignpenetration. As from the Pisgah height of the Pan-Turkish ideal she sawthe promised land, but she had no idea of seeing it only, like Moses, and expiring without entering it, and her faith that she would enter itand possess it and organise it has been wonderfully justified. She hasnot only penetrated, but has dominated; a year ago towns like Aleppowere crammed with German officers, while at Islahie there were separatewooden barracks for the exclusive use of German troops. There is amilitary mission at Mamoura, where all the buildings are permanenterections solidly built of stone, for no merely temporary occupation isintended, and thousands of freight-cars with Belgian marks upon themthrong the railways, and on some is the significant German title of'Military Headquarters of the Imperial Staff. ' There are troops in theTurkish army, to which is given the title of 'Pasha formation, ' incompliment to Turkey, but the Pasha formations are under command ofBaron Kress von Kressenstein, and are salted with German officers, N. C. O. 's, and privates, who, although in the Turkish army, retain theirGerman uniforms. 

This German leaven forms an instructional class for the remainder of thetroops in these formations, who are Turkish. The Germans are urged torespect Moslem customs and to show particular consideration for theirreligious observances. Every German contingent arriving atConstantinople to join the Pasha formations finds quarters prepared on aship, and when the troops leave for their 'destination' they takesupplies from depots at the railway station which will last them two orthree months. They are enjoined to write war diaries, and are providedwith handbooks on the military and geographical conditions inMesopotamia, with maps, and with notes on the training and management ofcamels. This looks as if they were intended for use against the Englishtroops in Mesopotamia, but I cannot find that they have been identifiedthere. The greatest secrecy is observed with regard to those Pashaformations, and their constitution and movements are kept extremely wellveiled. 

Wireless stations have been set up in Asia Minor and Palestine, andthese are under the command of Major Schlee. A Turkish air-service wasinstituted, at the head of which was Major Serno, a Prussian officer, and Turkish aviators are now in training at Ostend, where they will veryusefully defend their native country. At Constantinople there is anaval school for Turkish engineers and mechanics in the arsenal, to helpon the Pan-Turkish ideal, and with a view to that all the instructorsare German: a floating dock is in construction at Ismid, and the orderhas been placed with German firms. It will be capable of accommodatingships of Dreadnought build, which is a new departure for the strictlyPan-Turkish ideal. The cost is £740, 000, to be repaid three years afterthe end of the war. Similarly, by the spring of this year, Germany hadarranged to start submarine training in Constantinople for the Turks, and a submarine school was open and at work in March. A few months laterit was established at the island of Prinkipo, where it is now hard atwork under German instructors. Other naval cadets were sent to Germanyfor their training, and Turkish officers were present at the battle ofJutland in June 1916, and of course were decorated by the Emperor inperson for their coolness and courage. [1]

[Footnote 1: In October 1917 a bill was passed for the entireremodelling of the Turkish fleet after the war, on the lines of theGerman fleet, 'which proved its perfect training in the battle of SkagerRak. ']

A complete revision of the Turkish system of exemptions from militaryservice was necessary as soon as Germany began to want men badly. Theage for military service was first raised, and we find a Turkish orderof October 1916, calling on all men of forty-three, forty-four, andforty-five years of age to pay their exemption tax if they did not wishto be called to the colours. That secured their money, and, with trulyPrussian irony, hardly had this been done when a fresh army order wasissued calling out all men, whether they had paid their exemption tax ornot. Germany thus secured both their money and their lives. 

Still more men were needed, and in November a fresh levy of boys wasraised regardless of whether they had reached the military age or not. This absorbed the senior class of the boy scouts, who hitherto hadlearned their drill in a 'recreationary manner. ' Neither Jews norChristians are exempt from service, and frequent press gangs go roundConstantinople rounding up those who are in hiding. 

Again the Prussian Moloch was hungry for more, and in December 1916 theTurkish _Gazette_ announced that all males in Asia Minor between theages of fourteen and sixty-five were to be enrolled for militaryservice, and in January of this year, 1917, fresh recruiting wasforeshadowed by the order that men of forty-six to fifty-two, who hadpaid their exemption money, should be medically examined to see if theywere fit for active service. This fresh recruiting was also put in forcein the case of boys, and during the summer of 1917 all boys above theage of twelve, provided they were sound and well-built, were taken forthe army. Wider and wider the net was spread, and in the same month afresh Turco-German convention was signed, whereby was enforced areciprocal surrender in both countries of persons liable to militaryservice, and of deserters, and simultaneously all Turks living inSwitzerland, and who had paid exemption money, were recalled to theirGermanised fatherland. By now the first crops of the year were ripeningin Smyrna, and in default of civilian labour (for every one was now asoldier) they were reaped by Turkish soldiers and the produce sentdirect to Germany. 

Already in August 1916, certificates of Ottoman nationality had beengranted to Serbians resident in the Empire who were willing to becomeOttoman subjects, and their 'willingness' was intensified by hints thatincidents akin to the Armenian massacres might possibly occur amongother alien peoples. They had to sign a declaration that they would notrevert to their former nationality, and thus, no doubt, many Serbspassed into the Turkish army. Further enrolments were desirable, and, inMarch 1917, all Greeks living in Anatolia were forcibly proselytised, their property was confiscated, and they were made liable to militaryservice. Unfortunately all were not available, for of those who wereremoved from the villages where they lived to military centres, ten percent. Died on the forced marches from hunger and exposure. That wasannoying for the German recruiting agents, but it suited well enough thePan-Turkish ideal of exterminating foreign nationalities. When troubleor discontent occurred among the troops, it was firmly dealt with, as, for instance, when, in November 1916, there were considerable desertionsfrom the 49th Division. On that occasion the order was given to fire onthem, and many were killed and wounded. The officer who gave the orderwas commended by the Prussian authorities for his firmness. Should suchan incident occur again, it will no doubt be dealt with no lessfirmness, for, in April 1917, Mackensen was put in supreme command ofall troops in Asia Minor. But in spite of this desertions have largelyincreased lately, and during the summer deserters out of all the Turkisharmies were believed to number about 200, 000. Many of those have formedthemselves into brigand bands, who make the roads dangerous fortravellers. The exchange of honours goes on, for not long ago, inBerlin, Prince Zia-ed-Din, the Turkish Sultan's heir, presented a swordof honour to the Sultan William II. Probably he gave him good news ofthe progress of the German harbour works begun in the winter atStamboul, and himself learned that the railway bridge which the Turksproposed to build over the Bosporus was not to be proceeded with, forthe German high command had superseded that scheme by their own idea ofmaking a tunnel under the Bosporus instead, which would be safer fromaircraft. 

Such up-to-date, though in brief outline, is the history of theestablishment of the Prussian octopus grip on military and naval mattersin Turkey. We have largely ourselves to blame for it. Upon that patheticand lamb-like record of our diplomacy during the months between theoutbreak of the European War, and the entry of Turkey into it in October1914, it would be morbid to dwell at any length, though a short summaryis necessary. As we all know now, Turkey had concluded a treaty withGermany early in August, and when our Ambassador in Constantinople, SirLouis Malet, who was on leave in England at that date, returned to hispost on August 16th, all that Turkey wanted was to gain time in which toeffect her mobilisation. This she did, with complete success, and ourAmbassador telegraphed to England stating his perfect confidence in thesincerity with which the Grand Vizier professed his friendship forEngland. All through those weeks of August and September this confidenceappeared to continue unabated. The Moderate party in Turkey--that is tosay, the hoodwinking party--were reported to be daily gaining strength, and it was most important that the Allies should give them everyassistance, and above all not precipitate matters. All was going well:all we had to do was to wait. So we waited, still blindly confident inthe sincerity of Turkey's friendship for England, while the mobilisationof the Turkish forces proceeded merrily. By the end of September thiswas nearly complete, and quite suddenly the Ambassador informed theForeign Office that Turkey appeared to be temporising. That wasperfectly true, but the period of temporisation was nearly over, and bymid-October Turkey had something like 800, 000 men under arms, and fornine weeks Enver Pasha had had his signed treaty with Germany in hispocket. Possibly this diplomatic procrastination was useful to us, forit enabled us to bring troops from India in security, and send others toEgypt. But without doubt it was useful to the Turks, for it enabled themto mobilise their armies, and to strengthen enormously the defences ofthe Dardanelles. Then came the day when Germany and Turkey were ready, the attack was made on Odessa, and out of Constantinople we went. Weclimbed into the railway carriages that took the last rays of Englishinfluence out of the Ottoman Empire, and steep were the stairs in thehouse of a stranger! Turks are not much given to laughter, but EnverPasha must at least have smiled on that day. 

Already, of course, German influence was strong in the army, which nowwas thoroughly trained in German methods, but that army might still becalled a Turkish army. Nowadays, by no stretch of language can it becalled Turkish except in so far that all Turkish efficient manhood ishelplessly enlisted in it, for there is no branch or department of itover which the Prussian octopus has not thrown its paralysing tentaclesand affixed its immovable suckers. Army and navy alike, the wirelessstations, the submarines, the aircraft, are all directly controlled fromBerlin, and, as we have seen, the generalissimo of the forces isMackensen, who is absolutely the Hindenburg of the East. But thorough asis the control of Berlin over Constantinople in military and navalmatters, it is not one whit more thorough than her control in all othermatters of national life. Never before has Germany been very successfulin her colonisation; but if complete domination--the sucking of acountry till it is a mere rind of itself, and yet at the same time fullto bursting of Prussian ichor--may be taken as Germany's equivalent ofcolonisation, then indeed we must be forced to recognise her success. And it was all done in the name and for the sake of the Pan-Turkishideal. Even now Prussian Pecksniffs like Herr Ernst Marré, whosepamphlet, _Die Türken und Wir nach dem Kriege_, was published in 1916, continue to insist that Germany is nobly devoting herself to thewell-being of Turkey. 'In doing this, ' he exclaims in that illuminatingdocument, 'we are benefiting Turkey. .. . This is a war of liberation forTurkey, ' though omitting to say from whom Turkey is being liberated. Perhaps the Armenians. Occasionally, it is true, he forgets that, andnaively remarks, 'Turkey is a very difficult country to govern. Butafter the war Turkey will be very important as a transit country. ' Butthen he remembers again and says, 'We wish to give besides taking, andwe should often like to give more than we can hope to give. ' Let us lookinto this, and see the manner in which Germany expresses her yearning toimpoverish herself for the sake of Turkey. 

All this reorganisation of the Turkish army was of course a veryexpensive affair, and required skilful financing, and it was necessaryto get the whole of Turkey's exchequer arrangements into German hands. Aseries of financial regulations was promulgated. The Finance Minister, during 1916, was still Turkish, but the official immediately under himwas a German. He was authorised to deposit with the Controllers of theOttoman National Debt German Imperial Bills of £T30, 000, 000, and toissue German paper money to the like amount. This arrangement insuresthe circulation of the German notes, which are redeemable by Turkey in_gold_ two years after the declaration of peace. Gold is declared to bethe standard currency, and no creditor is obliged to accept in paymentof a debt more than 300 piastres in silver or fifty in nickel. And sincethere is no gold in currency (for it has been all called in, andpenalties of death have been authorised for hoarders) it follows thatthis and other issues of German paper will filter right through theEmpire. At the same time a German expert, Dr. Kautz, was appointed tostart banks throughout Turkey in order to free the peasants from theTurkish village usurer, and in consequence enslave them to the Germanbanks. Similarly a German was put at the head of the OttomanAgricultural Bank. These new branches worked very well, but it ispleasant to think that one such was started by the Deutsche Bank atBagdad in October 1916, which now has its shutters up. Before this, aswe learn from the _Oesterreichischer Volkswirt_ (June 1916), Germany hadissued other gold notes, in payment for gold from Turkey, which isretainable in Berlin till six months after the end of the war. (It isreasonable to wonder whether it will not be retained rather longer thanthat. ) These gold notes were accepted willingly at first by the public, but the increase in their number (by the second issue) has caused themto be viewed with justifiable suspicion, and the depreciation in themcontinues. But the Turkish public has no redress except by hoardinggold, which is a penal offence. That these arrangements have notparticularly helped Turkish credit may be gathered from the fact thatthe Turkish gold £1, nominally 100 piastres, was very soon worth 280piastres in the German paper standard, and it now fetches a great dealmore. 

Again, the Deutsche Orientbank has made many extensions, and is alreadyfinancing cotton and wool trade for after the war. The establishment ofthis provoked much applause in German financial circles, who find it tobe an instance of the 'far-reaching and powerful Germano-Austrian unity, which replaces the disunion of Turkish finance. ' This is profoundlytrue, especially if we omit the word 'Austrian' inserted for diplomaticreasons. Again we find Germany advancing £3, 000, 000 of German paper tothe Turkish Government in January 1917, for the payment of supplies theyhave received from Krupp's works and (vaguely) for interest to theGerman Financial Minister. This, too, we may conjecture, is to beredeemed after the war in gold. 

In March of this year we find in the report of the Ottoman Bank a Germanloan of £1, 000, 000 for the purchase of agricultural implements byTurkey, and this is guaranteed by house-taxes. In all up to that month, as was announced in the Chamber of Deputies at Constantinople, Germanyhad advanced to Turkey the sum of £142, 000, 000, entirely, it would seem, in German paper, to be repaid at various dates in gold. The grip, infact, is a strangle-hold, all for Turkey's good, as no doubt will provethe 'New Conventions' announced by Zimmermann in May 1917, to take theplace of the abolished Capitulations, 'which left Turkey at the mercy ofpredatory Powers who looked for the disruption of the Ottoman Empire. 'Herr Zimmermann does not look for that: he looks for its absorption. Andsees it. 

The industrial development of Turkey by this benevolent anddisinterested Power has been equally thorough and far-reaching, thoughGermany here has had a certain amount of competition by Hungary tocontend against, for Hungary considered that Germany was trespassing onher sphere of interest. But she has been able to make no appreciableheadway against her more acute partner, and her application for amonopoly of sugar-production was not favourably received, for Germanyalready had taken the beet industry well in hand. In Asia Minor theacreage of cultivation early in 1917 had fallen more than 50 per cent. From that under crops before the war, but owing to the importation ofmachinery from the Central Powers, backed up by a compulsoryAgricultural Service Law, which has just been passed, it is hoped thatthe acreage will be increased this year by something like 30 per cent. The yield per acre also will be greatly increased this year, for Germanyhas, though needing artificial manures badly herself, sent largequantities into Turkey, where they will be more profitably employed. Shehas no fear about securing the produce. This augmented yield will, it istrue, not be adequate to supply the needs of Turkey, who for the lasttwo years has suffered from very acute food shortage, which in certaindistricts has amounted to famine and wholesale starvation of the poorerclasses. But it is unlikely that their needs will be considered at all, for Germany's needs (she, the fairy godmother of the Pan-Turk ideal)must obviously have the first call on such provisions as are obtainable. Thus, in the new preserved meat factory at Aidin, the whole of theproduce is sent to Germany. Thus, too, though in February 1917 there wasa daily shortage in Smyrna of 700 sacks of flour, and the Arab andGreek population was starving, no flour at all was allowed to beimported into Smyrna. But simultaneously Germany was making hugepurchases of fish, meat, and flour in Constantinople (paid for in Germanpaper), including 100, 000 sheep. Yet such was the villainous selfishnessof the famine-stricken folk at Adrianople that, when the trainscontaining these supplies were passing through, a mob held them up andsold the contents to the inhabitants. That, however, was an isolatedinstance, and in any case a law was passed in October 1916, appointing amilitary commission to control all supplies. It enacts that troops shallbe supplied first, and specially ordains that the requirements of Germantroops come under this head. (Private firms have been expresslyprohibited from purchasing these augmented wheat supplies, but specialpermission was given in 1915 to German and Austro-Hungarian societies tobuy. ) A few months later we find that there are a hundred deaths dailyin Constantinople from starvation, and two hundred in Smyrna, wherethere is a complete shortage of oil. But oil is still being sent toGermany, and during 1916 five hundred reservoirs of oil were sent there, each containing up to 15, 000 kilogrammes. Similarly during this summerthe price of fruit has gone up in Smyrna, for the Germans have reopenedcertain factories for preserving it and turning it into jam, which isbeing sent to Germany. The sugar is supplied from the new beet-fields ofKonia. But Kultur must be supplied first, else Kultur would grow lean, and the Turkish God of Love will look after the Smyrniotes. It is nowonder that the blockade of Germany does not produce the desired resulta little quicker, for food is already pouring in from Turkey, and whenthe artificial manures have produced their early harvest the stream willbecome a torrent. [1]

[Footnote 1: The harvest has now come in, and is most abundant. ]

But during all these busy and tremendous months of war Germany has notonly been denuding Turkey of her food supplies, for the sake of thePan-Turkish ideal; in the same altruistic spirit she has been vastlyincreasing the productiveness of her new and most important colony. Thegreat irrigation works at Konia, begun several years ago, are inoperation, and the revenues of the irrigated villages have been doubled. In fact, as the report lately issued says, 'a new and fertile provincehas been formed by the aid of German energy and knowledge. ' At Adana aresimilar irrigation works, financed by the Deutsche Bank. Ernst Marrégives us a most hopeful survey of them, for Adana was already linked upwith the Bagdad Railway in October 1916, which was to be the greatartery connecting Germany with the East. There is some considerableshortage of labour there (owing in part to the Armenian massacres, towhich we shall revert presently), but the financial arrangements are inexcellent shape. The whole of the irrigation works are in German hands, and have been paid for by German paper; and to get the reservoirs, etc. , back into her own control, it has been agreed that Turkey, alreadycompletely bankrupt, will have to pay not only what has been spent, buta handsome sum in compensation; while, as regards shortage of labour, prisoners have been released in large numbers to work without pay. Thisirrigation scheme at Adana will increase the cotton yield by four timesthe present crop, so we learn from the weekly Arab magazine, _El Alem elIsmali_, which tells us also of the electric-power stations erectedthere. 

The same paper (October 1916) announces to the Anatolian merchants thattransport is now easy, owing to the arrival of engines and trucks fromGermany, while _Die Zeit_ (February 1917) prophesies a prosperous futurefor this Germano-Turkish cotton combine. Hitherto Turkey has largelyimported cotton from England; now Turkey--thanks to German capital onterms above stated--will, in the process of internal development sounselfishly devised for her by Germany, grow cotton for herself, and bekind enough to give a preferential tariff to Germany. 

A similarly bright future may be predicted for the sugar-beet industryat Konia, where are the irrigation works already referred to. Artesianwells have been sunk, and there is the suggestion to introduceBulgarian labour in default of Turkish. As we have seen, Hungaryattempted to obtain a monopoly with regard to sugar, but Germany hasbeen victorious on this point (as on every other where she competes withHungary), and has obtained the concession for a period of thirty years. She reaped the first-fruits this last spring (1917), when, on a singleoccasion, 350 trucks laden with sugar were despatched to Berlin. Asimilar irrigation scheme is bringing into cultivation the MakischelinValley, near Aleppo, and Herr Wied has been appointed as expert forirrigation plant in Syria. There has been considerable shortage of coal, but now more is arriving from the Black Sea, and the new coal-fields atRodosto will soon be giving an output. 

Indeed, it would be easier to enumerate the industries and economicaldevelopments of Turkey over which Germany has not at the present momentgot the control than those over which she has. In particular she hasshown a parental interest in Turkish educational questions. Sheestablished last year, under German management, a school for the studyof German in Constantinople; she has put under the protection of theGerman Government the Jewish institution at Haifa for technicaleducation in Palestine; from Sivas a mission of schoolmasters has beensent to Germany for the study of German methods. Ernst Marré surmisesthat German will doubtless become compulsory even in the Turkishintermediate (secondary) schools. In April 1917, the first stone of the'House of Friendship' was laid at Constantinople, the object of whichinstitution is to create among Turkish students an interest ineverything German, while earlier in the year arrangements were made for10, 000 Turkish youths to go to Germany to be taught trades. These Iimagine were unfit for military service. With regard to such a schemeHalil Haled Bey praises the arrangement for the education of Turks inGermany. When they used to go to France, he tells us, 'they lost theirreligion' (certainly Prussian Got is nearer akin to Turkish Allah) 'andreturned home unpatriotic and useless. In Germany they will have accessto suitable religious literature' (Gott!) 'and must adopt all they seegood in German methods without losing their original characteristics. 'Comment on this script is needless. The hand is the hand of Halil HaledBey, but the voice is the voice of Potsdam. Occasionally, but rarely, Austrian competition is seen. Professor Schmoller, in an Austrianquarterly review, shows jealousy of German influence, and we find, inOctober 1916, an Ottoman-Austrian college started at Vienna for 250pupils of the Ottoman Empire. But Germany has 10, 000 in Berlin. At Adana(where are the German irrigation works) the German-Turkish Society hasopened a German school of 300, while, reciprocally, courses in Turkishhave been organised at Berlin for the sake of future German colonists. In Constantinople the _Tanin_ announces a course of lectures to be heldby the Turco-German Friendship Society. Professor von Marx discoursedlast April on foreign influence and the development of nations, withspecial reference to Turkey and the parallel case of Germany. A fewmonths later we find Hilmet Nazim Bey, official head of the Turkishpress, proceeding to Berlin to learn German press methods. A number ofeditors of Turkish papers will follow him, and soon, no doubt, theTurkish press will rival Cologne and Frankfort. 

So much for German education, but her penetrative power extends intoevery branch of industry and economics. In November 1916, a Munichexpert was put in charge of the College of Forestry, and an economicsociety was started in Constantinople on German lines with Germaninstructors. Inoculation against small-pox, typhoid, and cholera wasmade compulsory; and we find that the Turkish Ministers of Posts, ofJustice, and of Commerce, figureheads all of them, have Germans as theiracting Ministers. In the same year a German was appointed as expert forsilkworm breeding and for the cultivation of beet. Practically all therailways in Asia Minor are pure German concerns by right of purchase. Germany owns the Anatolian railway concession (originally British), with right to build to Angora and Konia; the Bagdad railway concession, with preferential rights over minerals; they have bought theMersina-Adana Railway, with right of linking up to the Bagdad Railway;they have bought the Smyrna-Cassaba Railway, built with French capital. They have secured also the Haidar Pasha Harbour concession, therebycontrolling and handling all merchandise arriving at railhead from theinterior of Asia Minor. [1] Already on the Bagdad Railway the big tunnelsof Taurus and Amanus are available for narrow-gauge petrol-drivenmotors, and the broad-gauge line will soon be complete. Meanwhilerailway construction is pushed on in all directions under Germancontrol, and the Turkish Minister of Finance (August 1916) allocated alarge sum of German paper money for the construction of ordinary roads, military roads, local government roads, all of which are new to Turkey, but which will be useful for the complete German occupation which isbeing swiftly consolidated. To stop the mouths of the people, allpolitical clubs have been suppressed by the Minister of the Interior, for Prussia does not care for criticism. To supply German ammunitionneeds, lead and zinc have been taken from the roofs of mosques anddoor-handles from mosque-gates, and the iron railings along the Champsde Mars at Pera have been carted away for the manufacture of bombs. Notlong after eight truck-loads of copper were sent to Germany: these, Iimagine, represent the first produce of copper roofs and utensils. ATurco-German convention signed in Berlin in January of this year, permits subjects of one country to settle in the other while retainingtheir nationality and enjoying trading and other privileges. In LebanonDr. König has opened an agricultural school for Syrians of allreligions. In the Homs district the threatening plague of locusts inFebruary 1917 was combatted by Germans; and a German expert, Dr. Bucher, had been already sent to superintend the whole question. For thisconcerns supplies to Germany, as does also the ordinance passed in thesame month that two-thirds of all fish caught in the Lebanon districtshould be given to the military authorities (these are German), and thatevery fish weighing over six ounces in the Beirut district should beKorban also. The copper mines at Arghana Maden, near Diarbekr, are busyexporting their produce into Germany; the coal-mines at Rodosto willvery soon be making a large output. [2]

[Footnote 1: The balance-sheets for 1916 of certain of those railways inwhich the Deutsche Bank has an interest have come to hand. They show avery disagreeable degree of prosperity. The Anatolia Railway Company haslarge profits with a gross revenue of 25, 737, 995 marks. The profit onthe Haidar-Pasha-Angora Line has risen from 42, 566 francs per kilometreto 45, 552. The Mersina-Tarsus-Adana Railway has paid 6 per cent. On itspreference shares, and 3 per cent. On its ordinary shares. The HaidarPasha Harbour Company has paid 8 per cent. ]

[Footnote 2: Later in this year we find three trains daily leavingConstantinople for Germany, laden with coal and military supplies. ]

There is no end to this penetration: German water-seekers, with diviningand boring apparatus, accompanied the Turkish expedition into Sinai;Russian prisoners were sent by Germany for agricultural work in AsiaMinor, to take the place of slaughtered Armenians; a German-Turkishtreaty, signed January 11, 1917, gives the whole reorganisations of theeconomic system to a special German mission. A Stuttgart journal chantsa characteristic _Lobgesang_ over this feat. 'That is how, ' it proudlyexclaims, 'we work for the liberation of peoples and nationalities. '

In the same noble spirit, we must suppose, German legal reforms wereintroduced in December 1916, to replace the Turkish Shuriat, and in thesame month all the Turks in telegraph offices in Constantinople werereplaced by Germans. Ernst Marré gives valuable advice to young Germanssettling in Turkey. He particularly recommends them, knowing howreligion is one of the strongest bonds in this murderous race, to 'tradein articles of devotion, in rosaries, in bags to hold the Koran, ' andpoints out what good business might be built up in gramophones. Earlierin this year we find a 'German Oriental Trading Company' founded for theimport of fibrous materials for needs of military authorities, and agreat carpet business established at Urfa with German machinery thatwill supplant the looms of Smyrna. A saltpetre factory is establishedat Konia by Herr Toepfer, whose enterprise is rewarded with an IronCross and a Turkish decoration. The afforestation near Constantinople, ordered by the Ministry of Agriculture, is put into German hands, and inthe vilayet of Aidin (April 1916) ninety concessions were granted toGerman capitalists to undertake the exploitation of metallic ores. Occasionally the German octopus finds it has gone too far for themoment, and releases some struggling limb of its victim, as, forinstance, when we see that, in September 1916, the German Director'sstamp for the 'Imperial German Great Radio Station' at Damascus has beendiscarded temporarily, as that station 'should be treated for thepresent as a Turkish concern. '

A 'Trading and Weaving Company' was established at Angora in 1916, an'Import and Export Company' at Smyrna, a 'Trading and IndustrialSociety' at Beirut, a 'Tobacco Trading Company' at Latakieh, an'Agricultural Company' at Tripoli, a 'Corn Exporting Company' inLebanon, a 'Rebuilding Commission' (perhaps for sacked Armenian houses)at Konia. More curious yet will be a Tourist's Guide Book--a Baedeker, in fact--for travellers in Anatolia, and the erection of a monument inhonour of Turkish _women_ who have replaced men called up for militaryduty. Truly these last two items--a guide-book for Anatolia, and amonument to women--are strange enterprises for Turks. A new Prussian dayis dawning, it seems, for Turkish women as well, for the _Tanin_ (April1917) tells us that diplomas are to be conferred on ladies who havecompleted their studies in the Technical School at Constantinople. 

It is needless to multiply instances of German penetration: I have butgiven the skeleton of this German monster that has fastened itself withtentacles and suckers on every branch of Turkish industry. There is noneround which it has not cast its feelers--no Semitic moneylender everobtained a surer hold on his victim. In matters naval, military, educational, legal, industrial, financial, Germany has a strangle-hold. Turkey's life is already crushed out of her, and, as we have seen, ithas been crushed out of her by the benevolent Kultur-mongers, who, amongall the Great Powers of Europe, invested their time and their money inthe achievement of the Pan-Turkish ideal. Silently and skilfully theyworked, bamboozling their chief tool, Enver Pasha, even as Enver Pashabamboozled us. As long as he was of service to them they retained him;for his peace of mind at one time they stopped up all letter-boxes inConstantinople because so many threatening letters were sent him. Butnow Enver Pasha seems to have had his day; he became a littleautocratic, and thought that he was the head of the Pan-Turkish ideal. So he was, but the Pan-Turkish ideal had become Pan-Prussian, and he hadnot noticed the transformation. Talaat Bey has taken his place; it washe who, in May 1917, was received by the Emperor William, by KingLudwig, and by the Austrian Emperor, and he who was the mouthpiece ofthe German efforts to make a separate peace with Russia. Under Czardom, he proclaimed, the existence of Turkey was threatened, but now therevolution has made friendship possible, for Russia no longer desiresterritorial annexation. And, oh, how Turkey would like to be Russia'sfriend! Enver Pasha has of late been somewhat out of favour in Berlin, and I cannot but think it curious that when, on April 2, 1917, hevisited the submarine base at Wilhelmshaven, he was very nearly killedin a motor accident. But it may have been an accident. Since then Icannot find that he has taken any more active part in Pan-Turkish idealsthan to open a soup-kitchen in some provincial town, and lecture theCentral Committee of the Young Turks on the subject of internal affairsin Great Britain. I do not like lectures, but I should have liked tohear that one. 

I have left to the end of this chapter the question of Germany'sknowledge of, and complicity in the Armenian massacres. From the tribuneof the Reichstag, on January 15, 1916, there was made a definite denialof the existence of such massacres at all; on another subsequentoccasion it was stated that Germany could not interfere in Turkishinternal affairs. 

In view of the fact that there is no internal affair appertaining toTurkey in which Germany has not interfered, the second of thesestatements may be called insincere. But the denial of the massacres is adeliberate lie. Germany--official Germany--knew all about them, and shepermitted them to go on. A few proofs of this are here shortly stated. 

(1) In September 1915, four months before the denial of the massacreswas made in the Reichstag, Dr. Martin Niepage, higher grade teacher inthe German Technical School at Aleppo, prepared and sent, as we haveseen, in his name, and that of several of his colleagues, a report ofthe massacres to the German Embassy at Constantinople. In that report hegives a terrible account of what he has seen with his own eyes, and alsostates that the country Turks' explanation with regard to the origin ofthese measures is that it was 'the teaching of the Germans. ' The GermanEmbassy at Constantinople therefore knew of the massacres, and knewalso that the Turks attributed them to orders from Germany. Dr. Niepagealso consulted, before sending his report, with the German Consul atAleppo, Herr Hoffman, who told him that the German Embassy had beenalready advised in detail about the massacres from the consulates atAlexandretta, Aleppo, and Mosul, but that he welcomed a further proteston the subject. 

(2) These reports, or others like them, had not gone astray, for inAugust 1915, the German Ambassador in Constantinople, Baron Wangenheim, made a formal protest to the Turkish Government about the massacres. 

There is, then, no doubt that the German Government, when it officiallydenied the massacres, was perfectly cognisant of them. It was alsoperfectly capable of stopping them, for they were not local violences, but wholesale murders organised at Constantinople. In support of thisview I find an independent witness stating that 'there is no Turk ofstanding who will not readily declare that it would have been perfectlypossible for Germany to have vetoed the massacres had she chosen. 'Germany had indeed already given assurances that such massacres shouldnot occur. She had assured the Armenian Katholikos at Adana that so longas Germany has any influence in Turkey he need not fear a repetition ofthe horrors that had taken place under Abdul Hamid. Had she, then, noinfluence in Constantinople, or how was it that she had obtainedcomplete control over all Turkish branches of government? The sameassurance was given by the German Ambassador in April 1915, to theArmenian Patriarch and the President of the Armenian National Council. 

So, in support of the Pan-Turkish ideal, and in the name of the TurkishAllah, the God of Love, Germany stood by and let the infamous tale oflust and rapine and murder be told to its end. The Turks had planned toexterminate the whole Armenian race except some half-million, who wouldbe deported penniless to work on agricultural developments under Germanrule, but this quality of Turkish mercy was too strained for MajorPohl, who proclaimed that it was a mistake to spare so many. But he wasa soldier, and did not duly weigh the claims of agriculture. 

The choice was open to Germany; Germany chose, and let the Armenianmassacres go on. But she was in a difficulty. What if the TurkishGovernment retorted (perhaps it did so retort), 'You are not consistent. Why do you mind about the slaughter of a few Armenians? What aboutBelgium and your atrocities there?'

And all the ingenuity of the Wilhelmstrasse would not be able to find ananswer to that. 

I do not say that Germany wanted the massacres, for she did not. Shewanted more agricultural labour, and I think that, if only for thatreason, she deprecated them. But she allowed them to go on when it wasin her power to stop them, and all the perfumes of Arabia will not washclean her hand from that stinking horror. 

Here, then, are some of the problems which those who, at the end of thewar, will have to deal with the problem of Turkey must tackle. It isjust as well to recognise that at the present moment Turkey is virtuallyand actually a German colony, and the most valuable colony that Germanyhas ever had. It will not be enough to limit, or rather abolish, thesupremacy of Turkey over aliens and martyrised peoples; it will benecessary first to abolish the supremacy of Germany over Turkey. To dothis the victory of our Allied Nations must be complete, and Germany'soctopus envelopment of Turkish industries severed. Otherwise we shallimmediately be confronted with a Germany that already reaches as far asMesopotamia. That is done now; and that, before there can come anypermanent peace for Europe, must be undone. Nothing less than thecomplete release of that sucker and tentacle embrace will suffice. 

NOTE

As throwing a sidelight on the German complicity in the Armenianmassacres, the following is of interest. It is known that whenMetternich succeeded Wangenheim as German Ambassador in Constantinople, he brought with him a speech, written in Berlin, which, by the Kaiser'sorders, he was to read when presenting his credentials to the Sultan. This contained a sentence which implied that Germany had been unable tostop the Armenian massacres. Talaat refused to allow the speech to beread, obviously because it threw the responsibility of the massacres onto the Turks, whereas the accepted opinion in Turkey was that they tookplace with the connivance and even at the instigation of the Germans. Eventually a compromise was arrived at, and the speech _in toto_ wasread privately, the part referring to the Armenian massacre not beingpublished. .. . It is a pity that Germany is always found out. .. . 

_Crescent and Iron Cross, Chapter VI_

'THY KINGDOM IS DIVIDED'

Let us commit the crime of _lèse-majesté_, and assume (though theEmperor Wilhelm II. Has repeatedly announced the contrary) that Germanyis not at the conclusion of the European War to find herself inpossession of the world. She has prepared her plans in anticipation ofthe auspicious event; in fact she has had a most interesting map ofEurope produced which, except by its general shape, is scarcelyrecognisable. The printing of it, it is true, was a little premature, for it shows what Europe was to have been like in 1916, and theapportionments are not borne out by facts. But assuming that there issome radical error about it all from her point of view, and assumingthat there will not be either a conclusive peace favourable to Prussianinterests, or even an inconclusive peace, but one in which the Allieswill be able to dictate and enforce their own terms, the magnitude ofthe problems that will await their decision may well appal the mostingenious of their statesmen. And of all those problems none, it is safeto prophesy, will be found more difficult of solution than that whichwill deal with the future of the corrupt and barbarous Government whichhas for centuries made hell of the Ottoman Empire. We know more or lesswhat will happen to Alsace and Lorraine, to Belgium, to the Trentino, because in those cases the claims of one or other of our Allies todemand a particular settlement are quite certain to be agreed to bythose not so immediately and vitally concerned. But in the Balkans theseproblems will be more complicated because of conflicting interests, andmost complicated of all will they be in Turkey. One thing, however, iscertain, that there can be no going back to the conditions that existedthere before the war. 

Ever since the Osmanlis came out of remoter Asia into the Nearer Eastand into Europe, the government of their Empire has gone from bad toworse. In the early days, as we have seen, their policy was to absorbthe strength of their subject peoples by incorporating the youth of theminto the Turkish army, by giving them Turkish wives, and by convertingthem to Mohammedanism. Such was the foundation of the Empire and suchits growth. But having absorbed their strength, the Sultan's Governmentneglected them until they milked them again. They were allowed toprosper if they could: all that was demanded of them was a toll of theirstrength. They were cattle, and for the right to graze on Turkish landsthey paid back a pail of their milk of manhood. But an empire founded onsuch principles contains within it active and prolific seeds of decay, and, as we have seen, more stringent measures had to be resorted to inorder to preserve the supremacy of the ruling people. Instead ofabsorbing their strength, Abdul Hamid hit upon the new method of killingthem, so that the Turks should still maintain their domination. And thepolicy set on foot by him was developed but a few years ago into ascheme of slaughter, which in atrocity has far surpassed the killings ofAttila, of whom the Nationalist poet sings, or even the designs of thedeposed Sultan. The Armenian nation, with the exception of such part ofit as has escaped into Russian territory, has been exterminated, andsimilar measures have been planned and indeed begun, against the Greeks, the Arabs, and the Jews. 

In consequence of this, in consequence also of the European War, thepolicy of the Balance of Power as regards Turkey has been at lengthabandoned. The Allies have definitely declared in their joint note toPresident Wilson their aims in the war, and for those they have pledgedthemselves to fight until final and complete victory wreathes theirarms. Among these aims are:--

(1) The liberation of the peoples who now lie beneath the murderoustyranny of the Turks. 

(2) The expulsion from Europe of the Ottoman Empire, which has proveditself so radically alien to Western civilisation. 

For a century that most inharmonious of orchestras called the Concertof Europe has, owing to the exigencies of the Balance of Power, keptTurkey together, and in particular has maintained the centre of itsgovernment at Constantinople simply because the Balance of Power wouldbe upset if anybody else held the key of the straits that separateRussia from the Mediterranean. England, above all others, wasinstrumental in preserving that precarious Balance, and England now mustconfess the utter failure of her policy there throughout a century. Itis humiliating to acknowledge the complete collapse of that which for somany decades has been the keystone of our ruling with regard to ourEastern Empire, but the arch has collapsed; Germany pulled the keystoneout, and all our efforts to exclude Russia from free access to theMediterranean have only resulted in letting Germany in. To-day she holdsConstantinople, and the bitter pill must be swallowed. The situation, asit stands at this moment, is infinitely worse than it could have beenfor a century back, if at any moment during those hundred years we haddone what we always ought to have done, and declared that theanachronism of Turkey being in Europe was more intolerable than anythingthat could happen in consequence of her expulsion. But we haveacknowledged that now. We have also acknowledged the even greateranachronism of Turkey being allowed to dispose of the destinies of anyof those peoples who inhabit the territories of the Ottoman Empire, forthe Allies, in their joint Note, have declared that the remedy of thesetwo monstrous abuses forms an essential part of their aim in the war, which in costliness of life and of treasure has already far exceeded anycataclysm that could have come to Europe through its doing its clear andChristian duty with regard to Turkey during the preceding hundred years. And among the benefits which eventually mankind will reap in the fieldsthat have been sown by the blood of the slain will be the fact that theConfusion of Europe will have accomplished a task which the Concert ofEurope was too craven of consequences to undertake; and Constantinopleand the subject peoples of the Turks will have passed from the yoke ofthat murderous tyranny for ever. 

We will take these two avowed aims of the Allies in order, and first tryto draw (though with diffident pencil) some sketch of what will be theconfines of the Ottoman Empire, when we pluck the fruits of the greatcrusade against the barbarism of Turkey and of Germany. It is quiteuseless to attempt to keep the map as it was, and peg out claims withinthe Empire where we shall proclaim that Arabs and Greeks and Armeniansshall live in peace, for it is exactly that plan which has formed acentury's failure. At the International Congress of Berlin, forinstance, a solemn pact was entered into by Turkey for the reform of theArmenian vilayets. She carried out her promise by slaughtering everyArmenian male, and outraging every Armenian woman who inhabited them. The _soi-disant_ protectorate of Crete was not a whit more successful insecuring for the Cretans a tolerable existence, and the Allies had tobring it to an end twenty years ago, and free them from the execrableyoke; while finally the repudiation by Turkey of the Capitulations, which provided some sort of guarantee for the safety of foreign peoplesin Turkey, has shown us, if further proof was needed, the value ofcovenants with the Osmanli. It must be rendered impossible for Turkey torepeat such outrages: the soil where her alien peoples dwell must behers no more, and any Turkish aggression on that soil must be, _ipsofacto_, an act of war against the European Power under the protection ofwhom such a province is placed. 

The difficulty of this part of the problem is not so great as might atfirst appear. We do not, when we come to look at it in detail, find sucha conflict of interests as would seem to face us on a general view. Eventhe precarious Balance of Power was not upset by a quantity of similaradjustments made by the Concert of Europe during the last hundred years. The Powers freed Serbia, giving Turkey first a suzerainty over her, andfinally abolishing that: they freed Bulgaria, they freed Greece, EasternRumelia, Macedonia, Albania. But, as by some strange lapse of humanity, they always regarded the subject peoples of Turkey in Asia as morepeculiarly Turkish, as if at the Bosporus a new moral geography began, and massacre in Asia was comparatively venial as compared with massacrein Europe. But now the Allies have said that there must be no moremassacres in Asia, nor any possibility of them. To secure this, it willbe necessary to sever from Turkey the lands where the alien peoplesdwell, and form autonymous provinces under the protectorate of one orother of the allied nations. In most cases we shall find that there is aprotecting Power more or less clearly indicated, whose sphere ofinterest is obviously concerned with one or other of these new andindependent provinces. 

The alien race which for the last thirty years has suffered the mostatrociously from Turkish inhumanity is that of the Armenians, and it isfitting to begin our belated campaign of liberation with it. If thereader will turn to the map at the end of this book, he will see thatthe district marked Armenia lies at the north-west corner of the oldOttoman Empire, and extends across its frontiers into RussianTrans-Caucasia. That indicates the district which once was peopled byArmenians. To-day, owing to the various Armenian massacres, the latestof which, described in another chapter, was by far the most appalling, such part of Armenia as lies in the Ottoman Empire is practically, andprobably absolutely, depopulated of its Armenian inhabitants. Such assurvive, apart from the women whose lives were spared on theirprofessing Islamism and entering Turkish harems, have escaped beyond theRussian frontier, and are believed to number about a quarter of amillion. In the meantime their homes have partly been destroyed andpartly occupied by mouhadjirs from Thrace, and by the Kurds who werelargely instrumental in butchering them. Their lands have beenappropriated haphazardly, by, any who laid hands on them. 

Here the problem is of no great difficulty. The robber-tenants must beevicted, and the remnant of the Armenians repatriated. Withoutexception they escaped into Trans-Caucasia from villages and districtsnear the frontier, else they could never have escaped from the pursuingTurks and Kurds. Naturally, this remnant of a people will not nearlysuffice to fill their entire province, but in order to satisfy theclaims of justice at all adequately, the whole district of Armenia, asArmenia was known before its people were exterminated, must be amputatedby a clean cut out of the Ottoman Empire and placed, in an autonomouscondition in a new protected province, which will include all thevilayets of Armenia. 

There is no doubt about a prosperous future for Armenia if this is done, and to do less than this would be to fail signally as regards the solemnpromise made by the Allies when they stated to President Wilson theiraims in the war. The Armenians have ever been a thrifty and industriouspeople, possessed of an inherent vitality which has withstood centuriesof fiendish oppression. With facilities given them for theirre-settlement, and with foreign protection to establish them, they will, beyond question, more than hold their own against the Kurds. As anation they are, as we have seen, partly agricultural in their pursuits;but a considerable proportion of them (and these the more intelligent)are men of business, merchants, doctors, educationalists, and gravitateto towns. Constantinople, as we shall see, will be open to them again, where lately they numbered nearly as many as the entire remnant of theirnation numbers now; so, too, will be the cities of Syria, of Palestine, and of Mesopotamia in the New Turkey which we are attempting to sketch. They will probably not care to settle in the towns and districts thatwill remain in the hands of their late oppressors and murderers. 

In the work of their repatriation none will be more eager to help thanthe American missionaries, who, at the time of the last massacre, as sooften before, showed themselves so nobly disregardant of all personaldanger and risk in doing their utmost for their murdered flock, and whohave explicitly declared their intention of resuming their work. Withregard to the eviction of Kurds that will be necessary, it must beremembered that the Kurd is a trespasser on the plains and towns ofArmenia, and properly belongs to the mountains from which he wasencouraged to descend by the Turks for purposes of massacre. Out ofthose towns and plains he must go, either into the mountains of Armeniafrom whence he came, or over the frontier of Armenia into the New Turkeypresently to be defined. He must, in fact, be deported, though not inthe manner of the deportations at which he himself so often assisted. 

The Armenians who will thus be reinstated within the boundaries of theirown territory, will be practically penniless and without any of themeans or paraphernalia of life, and the necessary outlay on supplies forthem, and the cost of their rehabilitation would naturally fall on theprotecting Power. They will, however, be free from the taxes they havehitherto paid to the Turks, and it should not be difficult for them bymeans of taxes far less oppressive, to pay an adequate interest on themoneys expended on them. These would thus take the form of a very smallloan, the whole of which could easily be repaid by the Armenians in thecourse of a generation or so. Once back on their own soil, and free fromTurkish tyranny and the possibility of it, they are bound to prosper, even as they have prospered hitherto in spite of oppressions andmassacres up till the year 1915, when, as we have seen, the liberal andprogressive Nationalists organised and executed the extermination fromwhich so few escaped. 

It is hardly necessary to point out who the protecting Power would be inthe case of the repatriated Armenians, for none but Russia is eitherdesirable or possible. With one side along the Russian frontier ofTrans-Caucasia, the New Armenia necessarily falls into the sphere ofRussian influence. 

It has been suggested that not only Armenia proper, but part of Ciliciashould also become a district of the repatriated Armenians, with anoutlet to the sea. But while it is true that complete compensation woulddemand this, since Zeitun and other districts in Cilicia were almostpure Armenian settlements, I cannot think that such a restoration isdesirable. For, in the first place, the extermination of the Zeitunlis(as carried out by Jemal the Great) was practically complete. All themen were slaughtered, and it does not seem likely that any of the womenand girls who were deported reached the 'agricultural colony' ofDeir-el-Zor in the Arabian desert. It is therefore difficult to see ofwhom the repatriation would consist. In the second place, the NewArmenia will be for several generations to come of an area more thanample for all the Armenians who have survived the flight into Russia, and it obviously will give them the best chance of corporate prosperity, if the whole of them are repatriated in a compact body rather than thata portion of them should be formed into a mere patch severed from theircountrymen by so large a distance. Another sphere of influence also willbe operating near the borders of Cilicia, and to place the Armeniansunder two protecting Powers would have serious disadvantages. Inaddition they never were a sea-going people, and I cannot see whatobject would be served by giving them a coast-board. In any case, if acoast-board was found necessary, the most convenient would be thecoast-board of the Black Sea, lying adjacent to their main territory. 

If it seems clear that for New Armenia the proper protecting Power isRussia, it is no less clear that for the freed inhabitants of New Syria, Arabs and Greeks alike, the proper protecting Power is France. Historically France's connection with Syria dates from the time of theCrusades in 1099; it has never been severed, and of late years the tiesbetween the two countries have been both strengthened and multiplied. The Treaties of Paris, of London, of San Stefano, and of Berlin have allrecognised the affiliation; so, too, from an ecclesiastical standpoint, have the encyclicals of Leo XIII. In 1888 and 1898. Similarly, it wasFrance who intervened in the Syrian massacres of 1845, who landed troopsfor the protection of the Maronites in 1860, and established aprotectorate of the Lebanon there a few years later, which lasted uptill the outbreak of the European War. France was the largest holder, asshe was also the constructor, of Syrian railways, and the harbour ofBeirut, without doubt destined to be one of the most flourishing portsof the Eastern Mediterranean, was also a French enterprise. And perhapsmore important than all these, as a link between Syria and France, hasbeen the educational penetration which France has effected there. Whatthe American missionaries did for Armenia, France has done for Syria, and according to a recent estimate, of the 65, 000 children who attendedEuropean schools throughout Syria, not less than 40, 000 attended Frenchschools. When we consider that that proportion has been maintained formany years in Syria, it can be estimated how strong the intellectualbond between the Syrian and the French now is. The French language, similarly, is talked everywhere: it is as current as is modern Greek inports of the Levant. 

In virtue of such claims few, if any, would dispute the title of Franceto be the protecting Power in the case of Syria. Here there will notbe, as was the case with the Armenians, any work of repatriation to bedone. Such devastation and depopulation as has been wrought by Jemal theGreat, with hunger and disease to help him, was wrought on the spot, and, though it will take many years to heal the wounds inflicted by thatbarbaric plagiarist of Potsdam, it is exactly the deft and practicalsympathy of the French with the race they have so long tended, whichwill most speedily bring back health to the Syrians. 

It will be with regard to the geographical limits of a Frenchprotectorate that most difficulty is likely to be experienced; therewill also be points claiming careful solution, as will be seen later, with regard to railway control. Northwards and eastwards the naturaldelimitations seem clear enough: northwards French Syria would terminatewith, and include, the province of Aleppo, eastwards the Syrian desertmarks its practical limits, the technical limit being supplied by thecourse of the Euphrates. But southwards there is no such natural line ofdemarcation; the Arab occupation stretches right down till it reachesthe Hedjaz, which already has thrown off the Turkish yoke and, under theShereef of Mecca, declared its independence. Inset into this long stripof territory lies Palestine. 

Now to make one single French protectorate over this very considerableterritory seems at first sight a large order, but the objections to anyother course are many and insuperable. Should the line of Frenchinfluence be drawn farther north than the Hedjaz, under what protectionis the intervening territory to be left? At present it is Turkish, butinhabited by Arabs, and, unless the Allies revoke the fulness of theirdeclaration not to leave alien peoples under the 'murderous tyranny' ofthe Turks, Turkish it cannot remain. But both by geographical situationand by racial interest, it belongs to French-protected Syria, and thereseems no answer to the question as to what sphere of influence it comesunder if not under the French. Just as properly, if we take this view ofthe question, the Sinaitic Peninsula, largely desert, would fall toEgypt, the French protectorate being defined westwards at Akabah. Thatthe Eastern side of the Gulf of Suez should not be under the samecontrol as the Western has always been an anomaly, admitted even by thesternest opponents of the status of Egypt; and in the absence of anycanal corresponding to that of Suez, and debouching into the Red Sea_via_ the Gulf of Akabah, the most advanced champion of French influencein the Near East would see no objection to this rectified frontier. There is no question of competition involved. The proposed change is buta rational rectification of the present status. 

This scheme of delimitation leaves Palestine inset into the Frenchprotectorate of Syria, and it is difficult to see to whom theprotectorate of Palestine should be properly assigned except to France. Italy has no expansive ambitions in that sector of the Mediterranean;England's national sphere of influence in this partition of thedistricts now occupied by alien peoples in the Ottoman Empire liesobviously elsewhere; and since the Jews, who settled in ever-increasingnumbers in Palestine before the war, and will assuredly continue tosettle there again, come and will come as refugees from the RussianPale, it would be clearly inadvisable to assign to Russia theprotectorate of her own refugees. The only other alternative would be tocreate an independent Palestine for the Jews, and the reasons againstthat are overwhelming. It would be merely playing into the hands ofGermany to make such an arrangement. For the last thirty years Germanyhas watched with personal and special interest this immigration of Jewsinto Palestine, seeing in it not so much a Jewish but a Germanexpansion. Indeed, when, in the spring of this year, as we have noticed, a massacre and deportation of Jews was planned and begun by Jemal, Germany so far reversed her usual attitude towards massacres in general, and her expressed determination never to interfere in Turkey's internalaffairs, as to lodge a peremptory protest, and of course got thepersecution instantly stopped. Her reason was that Pan-Turkish 'ideals'(the equivalent for the massacre of alien people) had no sort ofmeaning in Palestine. But the Pan-Germanic ideals had a great deal ofmeaning in Palestine, as Dr. Davis Treitsch _(Die Jüden der Türkei)_very clearly states. For 'as a result of the war, ' he tells us, 'therewill be an emigration of East-European Jews on an unprecedented scale . .. The disposal of the East European Jews will be a problem for Germany(and) Germans will be only too glad to find a way out in the emigrationof those Jews to Turkey, a solution extraordinarily favourable to theinterests of all _three [sic]_ parties concerned. There are grounds fortalking of a German protectorate over the whole of Jewry. '

Now this is explicit enough; Germany clearly contemplated a protectorateover Palestine, and if the Jews who are German-speaking Jews are leftindependent, there is nothing more certain than that, after the war, herpenetration of Palestine will instantly begin. These colonists are, andwill be, in want of funds for the development and increase of theircultivated territories, and when we consider the names of the prominentfinanciers in the Central Empires, Mendelssohn, Hirsch, Goldsmid, Bleichroeder, Speyer, to name only a few, we cannot be in much doubt asto the quarter from which that financial assistance will be forthcoming, on extremely favourable terms. It is safe to prophesy that, if Palestineis given independence without protectorate, in three years from the endof the war it will be under not only a protectorate, but a despotism ascomplete as ever ruled either Turkey or Prussia. True it is that theZionist movement will offer, even as it has offered in the past, astrenuous opposition to Germanisation, but it would be crediting it withan inconceivable vitality to imagine that it will be able to resist theblandishments that Germany is certainly prepared to shower on it. Forgreat as is the progress the Jewish settlers made in Palestine duringthe twenty or twenty-five years before the war, and strong as is thespirit of Zionism, the emigrants do not as yet number more than about120, 000, nor have they under crops more than ten per cent. Of thecultivated land of Palestine. They are as yet but settlers, and theirwork is before them. If left without a protectorate they will not bewithout a protectorate long, but not such an one as the Allies desire. Aprotectorate there must be, and no reason is really of weight againstthat protectorate being French. Let that, then, extend from theMediterranean to the Euphrates, and from Alexandretta to where theHedjaz already prospers in its self-proclaimed independence. It will becompletely severed from Turkey by tracts under protection of one orother of the Allied Powers, any expedition through which would be an actof war. 

The Euphrates, then, will form the eastern boundary of the Frenchprotectorate: it will also, it is hoped, form the western boundary ofthe English protectorate, which we know as Mesopotamia. Just as no otherPower has any real claim to Armenia, except Russia, just as Syria canfall to no other than France, it seems equally clear that the propersphere of English influence is in this plain that stretches southwardsfrom the semicircle of hills where the two great rivers approach eachother near Diarbekr to the head of the Persian Gulf. As Germany verywell knows, it is intimately concerned with our safe tenure of India, and the hold the Germans hoped to gain over it, and have for ever lost, by their possession of the Bagdad Railway was vital to their dreams ofworld-conquest. Equally vital to England was it that Germany shouldnever get it. But its importance to us as a land-route to India is by nomeans the only reason why an English sphere of influence is indicatedhere: it is the possibilities it harbours, which, as far as can be seen, England is the only Power capable of developing, that cause us to put ina claim for its protectorate which none of our Allies will dispute. 

To restore Mesopotamia to the rank it has held, and to the rank it stillmight hold among the productive districts of the East, there is needed ahuge capital for outlay, and a huge population of workers. Even Germany, in her nightmare of world-dominion, from which she shall be soon draggedscreaming-awake, never formulated a scheme for the restoration ofSouthern Mesopotamia to its productive pre-eminence, and never so muchas contemplated it, except as an object that would be possible ofrealisation after the Empire of India had fallen over-ripe into herpelican mouth. Therein she was perfectly right--she usually is right inthese dreams of empire in so far as they are empirical--for she seemsdimly to have conjectured in these methodical visions, that India wasthe key to unlock Southern Mesopotamia. But nowhere can I find that sheguessed it: I only guess that she guessed it. 

This problem of capital outlay and of the necessary man-power for workand restoration applies exclusively to Southern Mesopotamia, which wemay roughly define as the district stretching from Samara on the Tigrisand Hit on the Euphrates to the Persian Gulf. Northern Mesopotamia, asDr. Rohrbach points out in his _Bagdadbahn_, needs only the guarantee ofsecurity of life and property to induce the Kurds to descend from thehills and the Bedouin Arabs to settle down there; and by degrees, undera protectorate that insures them against massacre and confiscation ofproperty, there seems no doubt that the area of cultivation will spreadand something of the ancient prosperity return. The land is immenselyfertile: it is only Ottoman misrule, which here, as everywhere else, hasleft desolation in the place of prosperity and death in place of life. The rainfall is adequate, the climate suitable to those who willnaturally spread there: it needs only freedom from the murderous tyrannythat has bled it for centuries past, to guarantee its future prosperity. 

But Southern Mesopotamia is a totally different proposition. The landlies low between the rivers, and, though of unparalleled fertility, yields under present conditions but a precarious livelihood to itssparse population. For nine months of the year it is a desert, for threemonths when its rivers are in flood, a swamp. Once, as we all know, itwas the very heart of civilisation, and from its arteries flowed out thelife-blood of the world. Rainfall was scarcely existent, any more thanit is existent in Southern or Upper Egypt; but in the days of Babylonthe Great there were true rulers and men of wisdom over thesedesiccated regions, who saw that every drop of water in the river, thatnow pours senselessly through swamp and desert into the sea, was a grainof corn or a stalk of cotton. They dug canals, they made reservoirs, andharnessed like some noble horse of the gods the torrents that now gallopunbridled through dreary deserts. The black land, the Sawad, was thenthe green land of waving corn, where three crops were annually harvestedand the average yield was two hundredfold of the seed sown. The wheatand barley, so Herodotus tells us, were a palm-breadth long in theblade, and millet and sesame grew like trees. And in these details therevered Father of Lies seems to have spoken less than the truth, for thestatistics we get elsewhere more than bear out his accounts of itsamazing fertility. From its wealth before his day had arisen the mightof Babylon, and for centuries later, while the canals still regulatedthe water supply, it remained the granary of the world. More than athousand years after Herodotus there were over 12, 500, 000 acres incultivation, and the husbandmen thereof with the dwellers in its citiesnumbered 5, 000, 000 men. Then came the Arab invasion, which was badenough, but colossally worse was the invasion of the Osmanli. Truly 'afruitful land maketh He barren, for the wickedness of them that dwelltherein. '

But the potentiality for production of that great alluvial plain is notdiminished; the Turks could not dispose of that by massacre, as a meansof weakening the strength of their subject peoples. It is still there, ready to respond to the spell of the waters of Tigris and Euphrates, which once, when handled and controlled, caused it to be the Garden ofthe Lord. 

Not long before the present European War Sir William Willcocks, underwhose guidance the great modern irrigation works at Assouan wereconstructed, was appointed adviser to the Ottoman Ministry of PublicWorks, and his report on the Irrigation of Mesopotamia was issued in1911. He tells us that the whole of this delta of the Sawad is capableof easy levelling and reclamation. It would naturally be a giganticscheme, and he takes as a basis to start on the question of therefertilisation of 4, 000, 000 acres. Into the details of it we need notgo, but his conclusions, calculated on a thoroughly conservative basis, give the following results. He proposes to restore, of course withmodern technical improvements, the old system of canals, and, allowingfor interest on loans, estimates the total expense at £26, 000, 000 (orthe cost of the war for about three days). On this the annual value ofthe crops would pay 31 per cent. The figures need no enlargement indetail and no comment. 

But now comes the difficulty: the construction of the irrigation worksis easy, the profits are safe so long as the Tigris and 'the ancientriver, ' the river Euphrates, run their course. But all the irrigationworks in the world will not raise a penny for the investor or a grainfor the miller unless there are men to sow and gather the crops. Amillion are necessary: where are they to come from? And the answer is'Egypt and India. '

This is precisely why the protectorate of Mesopotamia and its futuremust be in English hands, why no other country can undertake it withhope of success. Even the ingenious Dr. Rohrbach, whose _Bagdadbahn_ Ihave quoted before, is forced to acknowledge that there is no solutionto the man-power problem except by the 'introduction of Mohammedans fromother countries where the climatic conditions of Irak prevail. ' It istrue that he starts upon the assumption that Mesopotamia will remainTurkish (under a German protectorate, as we read between his lines), with which we must be permitted to disagree, but his conclusion is quitecorrect. Even under German protection he realises that citizens ofwell-governed states will not flock by the million to put themselvesunder Turkish control, and he dismisses as inadequate the numbers ofSyrians, Arabs, Armenians and Jews who can be transported to Mesopotamiafrom inside the boundaries of the Ottoman Empire. Their numbers are evenmore inadequate since the Armenian massacres permitted by Dr. Rohrbach'sFatherland, and even he cannot picture a million of his own countrymenforsaking the beer-gardens for summers in the Sawad. He does notpositively state our answer, that it is from India and Egypt that theman-power will be supplied, but, as mentioned before, I think he guessesit. His prophetic gifts are not convincing enough to himself to let himstate the glorious future, when India and Egypt shall become German, butthat, I feel sure, is his vision: 'he sees it, but not now; he beholdsit, but not nigh. '

But we can give the answer which he does not quite like to state, sincefor the English it is clearly more easily realisable. The native labourwe can supply from Egypt and India, especially India, will furnish amillion labourers, and, if we wished, two millions without difficulty. But no Power except England can furnish it. And that, I submit, is thesolution of the problem of Mesopotamia; a solution well within the powerof English enterprise to attain in the hands of such men as have alreadybridled the Nile, the water-horsemen of the world. And I cannot dobetter, in trying to convey the spirit in which this work ofreclamation should be undertaken, than by quoting some very noble wordsfrom Sir William Willcocks's report, in which he speaks of thedesolation that has come to this garden of fruitfulness through wickedstewardship. 

'The last voyage I made before coming to this country was up the Nilefrom Khartoum to the Equatorial lakes. In this most desperate andforbidding region I was filled with pride to think I belonged to a racewhose sons, even in this inhospitable waste of waters, were strugglingin the face of a thousand discouragements to introduce new forest treesand new agricultural products and ameliorate in some degree theconditions of life of the naked and miserable inhabitants. How should Ihave felt, if in traversing the deserts and swamps which to-dayrepresent what was the richest and most famous tract in the world, I hadthought that I was the scion of a race in whose hands God has placed, for hundreds of years, the destinies of this great country, and that mycountrymen could give no better account of their stewardship than theexhibition of two mighty rivers flowing between deserts to wastethemselves in the sea for nine months of the year, and desolatingeverything in their way for the remaining three? No effort that Turkeycan make can be too great to roll away the reproach of those parched andweary lands, whose cry ascends to heaven. '

But the harvests of Mesopotamia, when gathered in, must needs betransported, and for that railways are necessary. Water transport would, of course, carry them easily down to the Persian Gulf, but the supplywill be mainly, if not wholly, wanted westwards, and it must be conveyedto the shores of the Mediterranean. Already, in preparation forworld-conquest, Germany has proceeded far with her construction of theBagdad Railway, which was intended, after her absorption of Turkey, tolink up Berlin with her next Oriental objective, namely, India; theTaurus has been tunnelled, the Euphrates bridged, and but for a hiatusof a few miles the line is practically complete from Constantinople intoNorthern Mesopotamia. But its route was chosen for German strategicreasons, for the linking up of Berlin with Constantinople and Bagdad. This, it may be permitted to say, does not form part of the schemes ofthe Allies: it is to snap rather than weld such links that they havetaken the field. What we want in the matter of railway transport for theharvests of Mesopotamia, and generally for our Eastern communications, is not a line that passes through Turkish and German soil, andterminates at Berlin, but one which, after the directest possibleland-route, reaches the Mediterranean and terminates in suitable ports. 

The reader therefore is requested to _unthink_ the present BagdadRailway altogether, to 'scrap' it in his mind, as it will be probablyscrapped on the map, since it is utterly useless for our purposes. Fortaking Aleppo as (roughly) the half-way house in the existent line, wefind that the western half of it lies in Asia Minor, in territory which, as we shall see, will remain Turkish, while the eastern half of it makesa long detour instead of striking directly for Bagdad. After ourexperience with Turkey there is nothing less conceivable than that weshould allow a single mile of our new Mesopotamia Railway to runthrough the territory of the Turks, for who knows that she might not(say when harvests are ripe and ready for delivery), on any arbitrarypretext, close or destroy the line, even as before now she has closedthe Dardanelles? Besides, for our purposes, a line that goes toConstantinople (in whosoever hands Constantinople may be after the war)is out of the way and altogether unsuitable. Eastwards, again, fromAleppo the present Bagdad line is circuitous and indirect, admirablyadapted to the German purposes for which it was constructed, but utterlyunadapted to ours. 

Let us then 'scrap' the existent Bagdad route altogether, and considernot what the Germans want, but what we want, which, as has been alreadystated, is a direct land communication with suitable Mediterraneanports. Of those there are three obvious ones, Alexandretta, Tripoli, andBeirut, of which Beirut is a long way the first in importance andpotentiality of increased importance. Two possible routes thereforewould seem to suggest themselves, one running from Alexandretta toAleppo, and thence following pretty closely the course of the Euphratestill it reaches Hit, and from there striking directly to Bagdad. Aleppois already connected with Tripoli and El Mina (the actual port ofTripoli), and also with Beirut by branch lines making a junction atHoms, and thus all those ports will be brought together on one system. But if the reader will glance at the map, he will see that by far themost direct communication with Bagdad would be to run the railway directfrom there to Homs, thus making Homs rather than Aleppo the centraljunction of the system. From Homs lines would run northward to Aleppo, due west to Tripoli, and south-west to Beirut. Either of those routes, in any case, would be infinitely preferable to the long loop which thepresent Bagdad Railway traverses, as planned on German lines and forGerman requirements. The new railway will thus lie exclusively interritory under French and English protectorate, and will probably betheir joint enterprise and property. 

Prospectively then, as regards the fulfilment of the solemn pledge ofthe Allies to liberate subject peoples from the murderous tyranny of theTurks, we have discussed the future of Armenia, of Syria, of Palestine, and of Mesopotamia. All those are well defined districts, and thedemarcation of their respective protectorates should not present greatdifficulties. But there remains, before we pass on to the problem ofConstantinople, a further district less easily defined, largelyinhabited by European peoples whose liberty in the future we are pledgedto secure. This is the Mediterranean coastline to the south and west ofAsia Minor, the towns of which have been so extensively peopled and madeprosperous by Greeks and Italians. Similarly among those of our EuropeanAllies who are desirous and capable of Eastern expansion, there remainsone, Italy, whose rights to partake in this Turkish partition we havenot yet considered. In the shifting kaleidoscope of nationalwar-politics, it seems at the moment of writing by no means impossiblethat Greece, having at length got rid of a treacherous and unstableReuben of a monarch, may redeem her pledge to Serbia, in which case, nodoubt, she too would state the terms of her desired and legitimateexpansion. But these would more reasonably be concerned with theredistribution of the Balkan Peninsula, which does not come within thescope of this book, and we may prophesy without fear of invoking theNemesis that so closely dogs the heels of seers, that Italy willlegitimately claim (or perhaps has already claimed) the protectorate ofthis valuable littoral. Certain it is that, when peace returns, thelarge population of Greeks and Italians once resident (and soon again tobe) on these coasts, must be given the liberty and security which theywill never enjoy so long as they remain in Turkish hands, and the handsthat have earned the right to be protecting Power are assuredly Italian. Along the south coast a line including the Taurus range would seem tosuggest a natural frontier inland from Adana on the east to thesouth-west corner of Asia Minor, and from there a similar strip wouldpass up the coast as far as, and inclusive of, Smyrna. That at leastItaly has every right to expect, and there seems no great fear thatamong the International Councils there will arise a dissentient voice. The inland boundary on the west coast is the difficult section of thisdelimitation, and into the details of that it would be both rash andinexpedient to enter. 

II

We pass, then, to the second avowed object of the Allies, namely, theexpulsion from Europe of the Ottoman rule, which has proved itself soradically alien to Western civilisation. This must be taken to includenot only the expulsion of the Turkish control from Thrace andConstantinople, but from the eastern side as well of the Bosporus, theSea of Marmora, and the Dardanelles. At no future time must Turkey be ina position to command even partially a single yard of that momentouschannel through which alone our Allies, Russia and Rumania, have accessto the Mediterranean. Though this was not formally stated in the Allies'reply to President Wilson, it is clearly part and parcel of the objectin view, for while the Ottoman Empire retains the smallest control oneither side of either of the Straits, she is so far able to interfere inEuropean concerns, in which she must never more have a hand. The eastshore, then, of the Straits and the Sea of Marmora, as well as the west, must be under the control of a Power, or a group of Powers, not alien toWestern civilisation. Germany and her allies therefore, no less thanTurkey, must be excluded from the guardianship of the Straits. 

As we have had previous occasion to note, this ejection of the Turkishpower from Constantinople is the absolute reversal of European and, inespecial, of English policy for the last hundred years. No crime thatthe Ottoman Government could commit, no act of barbarism, would everpersuade us to do away with the anachronism of Turkey's existence inEurope; but at last the seismic convulsion of the war has knocked thispolicy into a heap of disjected ruins, and it can never be rebuilt againon the old lines. For among our other avowed objects in prosecuting thewar to its victorious end, we have pledged ourselves to uphold theright which all peoples, whether small or great, have to the enjoymentof full security and free economic development. But while Turkey canclose the Straits at her own arbitrary will, or at the bidding of asuperior and malevolent Power, and block the passage of ships fromRussian and Rumanian ports into the Mediterranean, the economicdevelopment of both these countries is seriously menaced. Three timeswithin the last six years has she exercised that right, and while sheholds the shores of the Straits she can at any moment blockade allsouthern Russian ports. That such power should be in the hands of anynation is highly undesirable; that it should be in the hands of acorrupt despotism like Turkey, especially now that Germany, as thingsstand, can dictate to Turkey when and what she pleases, is a thingunthinkable by the most improvident of statesmen. Already we have paiddearly enough for the pusillanimity of a hundred years: it is impossiblethat we should ever allow a similar bill to be again presented. Whatever be the guardianship of the Straits, whoever the holder ofConstantinople, it will not be Turkey. 

At the beginning of the war, and indeed till after the revolution inRussia, it was announced and stated as an axiom that on the conclusionof peace, Russia should be the door-keeper of what after all is her ownlodge-gate. Subsequently, in the unhappy splits and disintegration ofher Government, it was announced that she favoured peace withoutannexation--in other words, that she neither claimed nor desired theguardianship of Constantinople. But I think we should be utterly wrongif we regarded that as an expression of the will of the Russian people:it is far more probable that it was the expression of the will ofGermany, directly inspired by German influence with a view to concludinga separate peace with Russia. As we have seen, it had its due effect inTurkey, and Talaat Bey gave vent to pious ejaculations of thanksgiving, that now all cause of quarrel with Russia was removed, and Turkey andshe could be friends. It is possible that when out of the confusedcries there again rises from Russia the clear call of the people'svoice, we shall find her wishing to set in order her own house beforeshe projects herself on new missions, but, as far as the manifesto of'peace without territorial annexation' goes, we shall be wise to regardit for the present with the profoundest suspicion. It sounds far morelike the tones of the Central European wolf than those of Little RedRiding Hood's proper grandmother. 

But be Russia's decision what it may, the Turk will hold sway no longerin Thrace or Constantinople, or on the shores of the Straits of the Seaof Marmora. There is, of course, no question of deporting the whole ofthe Turkish population that lives in those regions, nor would it bedesirable, even if it were possible, to realise Gladstone's robustvision of seeing every Turk, 'bag and baggage, ' clear out from theprovinces they have desolated and profaned. But if not under Russia, then under the joint control of certain of the Allied Powers there willbe a complete reconstruction of the administration of those districts. The headquarters of the protectorate will doubtless be atConstantinople, which will be reorganised somewhat on the lines of theTreaty Port of Shanghai, and will be open to the ships of all nations. The security of the town must be assured by a military garrison eitherof mixed troops of the controlling nations, or possibly by a rotation oftroops drawn from the armies of each in turn. More important even thanthis will be the adequate control of the Straits by sea. A naval basemust be formed, which by the gospel of the freedom of the seas (but notaccording to St. Goeben and the submarine disciples) will constitute apatrolling police force of the waters. Whether the system offortifications and defences that lately rendered the Dardanellesimpregnable shall be retained or not is a question demanding the mostcareful consideration. Some will hold that they should be maintained inorder to insure that none but the guarantors of the freedom of theStraits shall ever take possession of them: others that they shall beutterly dismantled and destroyed, so that the closing of the Straitsshall be an impossibility. The matter really turns on the question as tothe extent to which the Allies will have the prudence to cut Germany'sclaws when the war is over. It is eminently to be hoped that they willbe cut so short that never again will they be able to show thosechiselled talons beyond her velvet--that sense, in fact, will allowsentiment no word to say. Unfortunately, there are a great many peoplethe basis of whose character consists of a washy confidence in the goodintentions of everybody. Most mistakenly they call it Christianity. 

Here, then, has been outlined the effect of the Allies' declared aims. Such territories as Turkey holds in Europe, such control as shepossesses over the free passage of the Straits must pass from her, andthe alien peoples, who for centuries have fainted and bled underneathher infamous yoke, must be led out of the land of bondage. As we haveseen throughout preceding chapters, it was the fixed policy of theOttoman Government to rid itself of their presence, and already it hasgone far in its murderous mission. Indeed the avowed aims of theAllies, when accomplished, will do that work for her, for the Allies aredetermined to remove those peoples from Turkey. The difference ofexecution, however, consists in this, that they will not remove Arabsand Greeks and Italians and Jews, as Turkey has already done with theArmenians by the simple process of massacres, but by a process no lesssimple, namely, of taking out of the territories of the Ottoman Empirethe districts where such peoples dwell. The Allies will accomplish, infact, for the Turks that policy of Ottomanisation which was the aim ofAbdul Hamid, and has been the aim of his more murderous successors. Turkey shall henceforth be for the Turks: she shall no more be in'danger' from the defenceless nations, who at present exist within herborders. The Sultan of Turkey, in some year of grace now not fardistant, will find that his Ottomanisation has been done for him, and, though his realm is curtailed, he will have his rest broken no more bythe thought of Arab risings, nor will he have to devise measures thatwill solve the Arab question. Except for a strip along the west andsouth coast, all Asia Minor and Anatolia will be his from the Black Seato the Mediterranean, but Syria, Armenia, the coast of Asia Minor, Palestine, and Mesopotamia shall have passed from him. It is nodismemberment of an Empire that the Allies contemplate, for they cannotdismember limbs that never belonged to the real trunk. It was a despoticmilitary control that the Osmanlis had established, they always regardedtheir subject peoples as aliens, whom they did not scruple to destroy ifthey exhibited symptoms of progress and civilisation. Henceforth theTurkish Government shall govern Turks, and Turks alone. That for manyyears has been its aim, and, by the disastrous dispensation of fate, ithas been largely able to realise its purpose. Now, though by differentmethods, the Allies will see thorough accomplishment of it. There willbe no question, of course, of turning out or of deporting Turks who livein Syria, in Armenia, in Constantinople, for the ways of the Allies arenot those of Talaat and Enver and Jemal the Great. Where to-day Turksdwell, there shall they continue to dwell, but they must dwell there inpeace in equal liberties and rights with the once-subject peoples whomthe Allies shall have delivered. If they do not like that they canmigrate, not by forced marches and under the guardianship of murderousKurds, but in protection and security, to the lands where they can stillenjoy the beneficent sway of their own governors, and be Ottomanised tothe top of their bent. But Syrians and Armenians and Greeks and Jewswill be Ottomanised no longer. 

The Turk was always a fighter, disciplined and courageous, and he hasnever lost that virtue of valour. But he has been a fighter because hehas always lived under a military despotism which demanded his services, and it is much to be doubted whether his qualities in this regard willfor the future be exercised as they have been in the past. For theTurkish armies, in so far as they have consisted of Turks, have beenchiefly, if not wholly, recruited from the peasantry of Anatolia, who, when not summoned to their country's colours, or ordered to maltreat andmassacre, are quiet, rather indolent folk, content to plough their landsand reap an exiguous but sufficient harvest. And for their lords andgovernors, who, until Prussia assumed command of the Turkish armies, there will no longer be either the possibility of further conquests asin the old Osmanli days, or, in less progressive times, the necessityfor securing Ottoman supremacy over the huge ill-knit lands which itgoverned. But now, instead of having alien and defenceless tribes withintheir borders, tribes forbidden to bear arms and chafing at the Turkishyoke, they will see free peoples under the protectorates of Powers thatare capable of self-defence and, if necessary, of inflicting punishment. Russia, France, England, Italy, all allied nations, will be establishedin close proximity to the Turkish frontiers, and the New Turkey will beas powerless for aggression as she will be for defence, should sheprovoke attack. But within their borders there may the Osmanlis dwellsecure and undisturbed, so long as they conform to the habits ofcivilised people with regard to their neighbours, and it is a questionwhether, now that the military despotism which has always misguided thefortunes of this people, has no possible fields for conquest, and noneed of securing security, the nation will not settle down into thequiet existence of small neutral countries. Perhaps the last chapter ofits savage and blood-stained history is already almost finished, and inyears to come some little light of progress and of civilisation may bekindled in the abode where the household gods for centuries have beencruelty and hate. 

_Crescent and Iron Cross, Chapter VII_

THE GRIP OP THE OCTOPUS

It will not be sufficient for the fulfilment of the Allies' aims asregards Turkey to free from her barbarous control the subject peoplesdwelling within her borders, for Turkey herself has to be delivered froma domination not less barbaric than her own, which, if allowed tocontinue, would soon again be a menace to the peace of the world. Wehave seen in a previous chapter how deeply set in her are Germany'snippers, how closely the octopus-embrace envelops her, and we now haveto consider how those tentacles must be unloosed from their grip, andwhat will be the condition of the victim, already bled white, when thathas been done. In the beginning, as we have seen, Germany obtained herhold by professing a touchingly beautiful and philanthropic desire tohelp Turkey to realise her national ideals, and her Pecksniffs, TekinAlp and Herr Ernst Marré, were bidden to write parallel histories, theone describing the aims of the Nationalist party, the other thebenevolent interest which Germany took in them. Occasionally Herr ErnstMarré could not but remember that he was a German, and permitted us tosee the claws of the cat, without quite letting it out of the bag, butthen he pulled the strings tight again, and only loud comfortablepurrings could be heard, the Prussian musings over the 'liberation' ofTurkey which she was helping to accomplish. But nowadays, so it seems tome, the strings have been loosened, and the claws and teeth are clearlyvisible. It is not so long since Dr. Schnee, Governor of German EastAfrica, sent a very illuminating document to Berlin from which I extractthe following:--

'Do you consider it possible to make a regulation prohibiting Islamaltogether? The encouragement of pig-breeding among natives isrecommended by experts as an effective means of stopping the spread ofIslam. .. . '

That seems clear enough, and I can imagine Talaat Bey, with his swordof honour in his hand, exclaiming with the Oysters in _Alice inWonderland_:--

'After such kindness that would be A dismal thing to do. '

But I am afraid that Germany is contemplating (as indeed she has alwaysdone) a quantity of dismal things to do, and is now, like the Walrus andthe Carpenter, beginning to let them appear. She has taken the Turkishoysters out for a nice long walk, and when the war is over she proposesto sit down and eat them. And did she not also interfere in the affairof Jewish massacres and declare that 'Pan-Turkish ideals have no sort ofmeaning in Palestine'? That must have been almost an unfriendly act fromTurkey's point of view, for it cannot be stated too clearly that part ofthe price which Germany paid for Turkey's entry on her side into thewar, was the liberty, as far as Germany was concerned, of managing herinternal affairs, massacres and the rest, as best suited the damnabledoctrines of Ottomanisation. The other Powers could not interfere, forthey failed to force the Dardanelles, and Germany promised not to. Thatpromise, of course, was binding on Germany for just so long as it suitedher to keep it, and it suited her to keep it, on the whole, during theArmenian massacres. And in that matter her refusal to interfere is, among all her crimes, the very flower and felicity of her vileness. 

Signs are not wanting that Turkey is beginning to realise the positionin which she has placed herself, namely, that of a bankrupt dependant atthe mercy of a nation to whom that quality is a mere derision. Lately aquantity of small incidents have occurred, such as disputes over theownership of properties financed by Germany and the really melodramaticdepreciation in the German coinage, which unmistakably show the swiftebb of Turkey's misplaced confidence. More significant perhaps than anyis a transaction that took place in May 1917, when Talaat Bey and EnverPasha took the whole of their private fortunes out of the Deutsche Bankin Constantinople, and invested them in two Swiss banks, namely, theBanque Nationale de Suisse, and the Banque Fédérale: they drew out alsothe whole funds of the Committee of Union and Progress, and similarlytransferred them. This operation was not effected without loss, for inreturn for the Turkish £1 they received only thirteen francs. But it issignificant that they preferred to lose over fifty per cent. Of theircapital, and have the moiety secure in Switzerland to leaving it inConstantinople. [1] It is certain therefore that at both ends of thescale a distrust of German management has begun. A starving populationhas wrecked trains loaded with food-stuffs going to Germany, and at theother end the men with the swords of honour and dishonour deem it wiseto put their money out of reach of the great Prussian cat. That theGermans themselves are not quite at their ease concerning the securityof their hold may also be conjectured, for they are, as far as possible, removing Turkish troops from Constantinople, and replacing them withtheir own regiments. An instance of this occurred in June 1917, when, owing to the discontent in the capital, it was found necessary to guardbridges, residences of Ministers, and Government offices. But instead ofrecalling Turkish troops from Galicia to do this, they kept them therein the manner of hostages, mixed up in German regiments, and sent pickedbodies of German troops to Constantinople. Fresh corps of secret policehave also been formed to suppress popular manifestations. They areallowed to 'remove' suspects by any means they choose, quite in the oldstyle of bag and Bosporus, but the organisation of them is German. Andwell may the German Government distrust those signs of populardiscontent in a starving population: already the people have awoke tothe fact that the German paper money does not represent its face-value, and, despite assurances to the contrary, it is at a discount scarcelycredible. Three German £1 notes are held even in Constantinople to bethe equivalent of a gold £1, while in the provinces upwards of five areasked for, and given, in exchange for one gold pound. It is in vain thatGerman manifestoes are put forth declaring that all Government officeswill take the notes as an equivalent for gold, for what the people wantis not a traffic with Government offices, but the cash to buy food. Evenmore serious is the fact that Austrian and Hungarian directors of bankswill no longer accept these scraps of paper. In vain, too, is it thatthe hungry folk see the walls of the 'House of Friendship' rise higherand higher in Constantinople, for every day they see with starving eyesthe trains loaded with sugar from Konia, and the harvests raised inAnatolia with German artificial manures guarded by German troops androlling westwards to Berlin. According to present estimates the harvestthis year is so vastly more abundant than that of previous years, thatno comparison, as the Minister of Agriculture tells his gratifiedGovernment, is possible. But the poorer classes get no more than theleavings of it when the armies, which include the German army, have hadtheir wants supplied. The governing classes, whom it is necessary tofeed, are not yet suffering, for the Germans grant them enough, issuingrations to such families as are proved adherents of the German-Turkishcombination, and until the pinch of want attacks them we should befoolishly optimistic if we thought that a starving peasantry would causethe collapse or the defection of Germany's newest and most valuablecolony. There is enough discontent to make Germany uneasy, but that isall. [2] Long ago she proved the efficiency of her control, and thesuccessful pulling of her puppet-strings, and no instance of that ismore complete than the brief story of Yakub Jemil and the extinction ofhim and his party, which, though it happened a full year ago, has onlylately been completely transmitted. Yakub Jemil was an influentialcommander of a frontier guard near the Black Sea coast. In July 1916 hewent to Constantinople, accompanied by his staff (which included theinformant from whom this account is derived), and, being cordiallyreceived by Enver and Talaat, discussed the situation with them. Hepointed out the demoralising effect of the Armenian massacres, and thedanger of Jemal the Great's attitude towards the Arabs in Syria, realising, and seeking to make them realise, the stupendous folly ofmaking enemies of the subject peoples, and urging the re-establishmentof cordial relations between the Turks and them. That, considering thatEnver and Talaat were responsible (under the Germans) for the Armenianmassacres, was a brave outspeaking. He went on to say that Turkey was atwar not on behalf of herself, but on behalf of Germany, and that itwould be wise of the Government to consider the possibility of aseparate peace with the Powers of the Entente. He was heard withinterest, and took his leave. He remained in Constantinople, and hisviews obtained him many adherents, not only among Turkish officers whosesympathies were already alienated from Germany, but among members of theCommittee of Union and Progress. But before long his adherents began todisappear, and he asked for another interview with Talaat. He wasreceived, as the informant states, 'with open arms, ' for Talaat seizedand held him, called for the guard, and he was searched, and on him werefound certain documents which proved him to hold the views he hadalready expressed. That now, was enough. He was 'interrogated' for twodays (interrogation is otherwise called torture), and was then hanged. Subsequently 111 officers and men in the army also disappeared. Somewere marched into the Khiat Khana Valley, opposite Pera, and werestabbed: others were sent under escort to the provinces and murdered. Nocourts-martial of any kind were held. 

[Footnote 1: Similarly, in October of this year, a new Turkish law waspassed, prohibiting the acquisition of Turkish land by foreign settlers. This is aimed point-blank at Germany, and has naturally annoyed Berlinvery much. ]

[Footnote 2: The army rations have lately been reduced, each Turkishsoldier receiving daily an oke of bread and a dried mackerel. ]

And should anybody doubt the efficiency of German control in Turkey, andbe disposed to be optimistic about the imminence of Turkey's detachment, he might do well to ponder that story. 

Meantime the efficacy of our naval blockade is largely discounted byGermany's new source of supply. Possibly in the ensuing winter of1917-18 conditions may get unbearable, but if the Turkish Governmentonly two years ago massacred more than a million of its subjects, itwould be absurd to expect that the starving of a million more wouldproduce much effect on the Ministers of the Turkish God of Love. [1] Thepeople are, of course, told, with suitable statistics, how famine isdecimating England and France, and how the total starvation of thoseunfortunate countries is imminent. Indeed, of all the signs of want ofconfidence in their German overlords, by far the most promising are thefacts that Talaat and Enver have sent their money out of the country, and that Jemal the Great has a swelled head. On these facts there is acertain justifiable optimism to be based. It will do no good to considerthem academically in London; but are there not practical channels toreach the instincts of the Turkish triumvirate that might be navigated?

[Footnote 1: The following list of prices in Constantinople is ofinterest:--

 July 1914. July 1917. Rice, per lb. 2-1/4 d. 3s. 4d. Milk, per quart 5d. 2s. Flour, per lb. 3d. 2s. 6d. Petroleum, per lb. 1d. 4s. 6d. Pair of boots £1 £8. ]

We need not trouble ourselves with considering what the Allies willhave to do with the Turkish army when once the end of the war comes, forthe collapse of the military party in Turkey, which owes its wholevitality to Germany, will be perfect and complete. But the economicalfuture of Turkey is not so plain: at the present moment its bankruptcyis total. Early in the war Germany drained it of such bullion as it had, and has since then advanced it about £150, 000, 000, which, as far as Ican trace, is entirely in German paper, and must be redeemed in gold atsome period (chiefly two years) after the end of the war. That iswonderful finance, and one marvels that Turkey could have been so farblinded as to accept it. But I expect that the swallowing of the firstloan was sweetened by a spoonful of jam of this kind. Germany pointedout that, though England was quite certainly going to lose the war, shehad issued an immense paper coinage which had all the purchasing powerof gold. Germany, on the other hand, with her dear Ally to help her, wasjust as certainly going to win the war. How, then, could there be theslightest risk of the German paper money depreciating a single piastrein value? That sounded very good sense to Turkey, who was equallyconvinced that she would be on the victorious side (else she would nothave joined it), and down went the loan with a pleasant sensation ofsweetness. A second loan was easily induced by the failure of theDardanelles expedition, and about then the 'ignorant' Turkish peasantbegan to wonder whether the paper was quite as valuable as gold, and toprefer gold or even the ordinary silver piastre to its Germanequivalent. To counteract that, as we have seen, a law was passed makingit criminal to hoard gold, and, to complete the ruin, the silver piastrewas called in, and a nickel token was substituted. .. . We can but bow ourheads in reverence of the thoroughness of German swindling. 

Now Turkey is completely bankrupt, and we must ask ourselves why Germanyever bargained for the repayment in gold, after the war, of the millionsshe had lent the Turks in paper, if she knew that Turkey could neverrepay her. True, the loans had only cost her the paper the notes wereprinted on, so that in no case could she prove a loser, but how couldshe be a gainer? The answer to that question shouts at us from everyacre of Turkish soil. The immense undeveloped riches of Turkey supplythe answer. Some indeed are already being developed, and the labour andmost of the materials have been paid for by the German paper notes. There are the irrigation works at Adana, there is the beet-sugarindustry at Konia, the irrigation works in the Makischelin Valley, themineral concessions of the Bagdad Railway, the Haidar Pasha Harbourconcessions, the afforestation scheme near Constantinople, the cottonindustry in Anatolia--there is no end to them. Turkey may not be able topay in cash, but over all these concessions already working, and over ahundred more, of which the concessions have been granted, Germany has acomplete hold, and her victim will pay in minerals and cotton and sugarand corn. She will pay over and over and over again, as none who havethe smallest knowledge of Kultur-finance can possibly doubt. She isbled white already, and for the rest of time bloodless and white willshe remain. Only one event can possibly avert her fate, and that is thevictory of the Allies. 

We have been so bold as to assume that this is not an impossiblecontingency, and on that assumption there is a brighter future forTurkey than the Prussian domination could ever bring her. Bankrupt sheis, but, as Germany saw, she is rich in possibilities even with regardto the restricted territory to which she will surely find herselflimited, and it is a pleasant chance for her that Germany has alreadybeen so busy in developing the resources of Anatolia. For Germany maysafely bet her last piece of paper money that she will not lay a fingeron them. 

The Turkey of the future is to be for the Turks; not for the persecutedArmenians, nor for the Arabs, nor for the Greeks, and assuredly it isnot to be for the Prussians. While the war lasts, Germany may drawsupplies from the fields her artificial manures have enriched, and fromthe acres that her paper money has planted, but after that no more. HerOttomanising work will be over. Such development (and it is far fromnegligible) as she has done in Syria will be continued under Frenchprotection for the Arabs, such as she has done in Mesopotamia underEnglish protection, and such as she has done in Anatolia will becontinued by the Turks to drag them out of the utter insolvency that shehas brought them to. Never before has a country so justly and so richlydeserved the repudiation of a debt incurred by the confidence trick. Nota civilised Government in the world would dream of enforcing payment, any more than a magistrate would enforce a payment to somethimble-rigger returning from a race-meeting. 

The roar of battle still renders inaudible all voices save its own, butalready the dusk begins to gather over the halls where sit the War-lordand those who, for the realisation of their monstrous dreams, loosedhell upon the world, and in the growing dusk there begin to steal uponthe wall the letters of pale flame that to them portend the doom, and tous give promise of dawn. Faintly they can see the legend _Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin. .. . _

THE END