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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/10145-0.txt b/10145-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4e55c18 --- /dev/null +++ b/10145-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2320 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10145 *** + +TURKEY: A PAST AND A FUTURE + +BY A.J. TOYNBEE + +MCMXVII + + + + + + + +CONTENTS + + + I THE PAST + + II THE PRESENT + +III THE FUTURE + + + + + +I + + +What is Turkey? It is a name which explains nothing, for no formula can +embrace the variety of the countries marked "Ottoman" on the map: the +High Yemen, with its monsoons and tropical cultivation; the tilted rim +of the Hedjaz, one desert in a desert zone that stretches from the +Sahara to Mongolia; the Mesopotamian rivers, breaking the desert with a +strip of green; the pine-covered mountain terraces of Kurdistan, which +gird in Mesopotamia as the hills of the North-West Frontier of India +gird the Plains; the Armenian highlands, bleak as the Pamirs, which feed +Mesopotamia with their snows and send it the soil they cannot keep +themselves; the Anatolian peninsula--an offshoot of Central Europe with +its rocks and fine timber and mountain streams, but nursing a steppe in +its heart more intractable than the Puszta of Hungary; the +coast-lands--Trebizond and Ismid and Smyrna clinging to the Anatolian +mainland and Syria interposing itself between the desert and the sea, +but all, with their vines and olives and sharp contours, keeping true to +the Mediterranean; and then the waterway of narrows and land-locked sea +and narrows again which links the Mediterranean with the Black Sea and +the Russian hinterland, and which has not its like in the world. + +The cities of Turkey are as various as the climes, with the added +impress of many generations of men: Adrianople, set at a junction of +rivers within the circle of the Thracian downs, a fortress since its +foundation, well chosen for the tombs of the Ottoman conquerors; +Constantinople, capital of empires where races meet but never mix, +mistress of trade routes vital to the existence of vast regions beyond +her horizon--Central Europe trafficking south-eastward overland and +Russia south-westward by sea; Smyrna, the port by which men go up and +down between Anatolia and the Aegean, the foothold on the Asiatic +mainland which the Greeks have never lost; Konia, between the mountain +girdle and the central steppe, where native Anatolia has always stood at +bay, guarding her race and religion against the influences of the +coasts; Aleppo, where, if Turkey were a unity, the centre of Turkey +would be found, the city where, if anywhere, the races of the Near East +have mingled--building their courses into her fortress walls from the +polygonal work of the Hittite founders to the battlements that kept out +the Crusaders--and now the half-way point of a railway surveyed along an +immemorially ancient route, but unfinished like the history of Aleppo +herself; Van by its upland lake, overhanging the Mesopotamian lowlands +and with the writing of their culture graven on its cliffs, yet living a +life apart like some Swiss canton and half belonging to the infinite +north; Bagdad, the incarnation for the last millennium of an eternal +city that shifts its site as its rivers shift their beds--from Seleucia +to Bagdad, from Babylon to Seleucia, from Kish to Babylon--but which +always springs up again, like Delhi, within a few parasangs of its last +ruins, in an area that is an irresistible focus of population; Basra +amid its palm-groves, so far down stream that it belongs to the Indian +Ocean--the port from which Sinbad set sail for fairyland, and from which +less mythical Arab seamen spread their religion and civilisation far +over African coasts and Malayan Indies; these, and besides them almost +all the holy cities of mankind: Kerbela, between the Euphrates and the +desert, where, under Sunni rule, the Shias of Persia and India have +still visited the tombs of their saints and buried their dead; +Jerusalem, where Jew and Christian, Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant, +Armenian and Abyssinian, have their common shrines and separate +quarters; Mekka and Medina in the heart of the desert, beyond which +their fame would never have passed but for a well and a mart and a +precinct of idols and the Prophet who overthrew them; and there are the +cities on the Pilgrim Road (linked now by railway with Medina, the +nearer of the _Haramein_): Beirût the port, with its electric trams and +newspapers, the Smyrna of the Arab lands; and Damascus the oasis, +looking out over the desert instead of the sea, and harbour not of ships +but of camel-caravans. + +The names of these cities call up, like an incantation, the memory of +the civilisations which grew in them to greatness and sank in them to +decay: Mesopotamia, a great heart of civilisation which is cold to-day, +but which beat so strongly for five thousand years that its pulses were +felt from Siberia to the Pillars of Hercules and influenced the taste +and technique of the Scandinavian bronze age; the Assyrians, who +extended the political marches of Mesopotamia towards the north, and +turned them into a military monarchy that devastated the motherland and +all other lands and peoples from the Tigris to the sea; the Hebrews, +discovering a world-religion in their hill-country overlooking the +coast; the Sabaeans, whose queen made the first pilgrimage to Jerusalem, +coming from Yemen across the Hedjaz when Mekka and Medina were still of +no account; the Philistines and Phoenicians of the Syrian sea-board, who +were discovering the Atlantic and were too busy to listen to the Hebrew +prophets in their hinterland; the Ionians, who opened up the Black Sea +and created a poetry, philosophy, science, and architecture which are +still the life-blood of ours, before they were overwhelmed, like the +Phoenicians before them, by a continental military power; the Hittites, +who first transmitted the fruitful influences of Mesopotamia to the +Ionian coasts--a people as mysterious to their contemporaries as to +ourselves, maturing unknown in the fastnesses of Anatolia, raising up a +sudden empire that raided Mesopotamia and colonised the Syrian valleys, +and then succumbing to waves of northern invasion. All these people rose +and fell within the boundaries of Turkey, held the stage of the world +for a time, and left their mark on its history. There is a romance about +their names, a wonderful variety and intensity in their vanished life; +yet they are not more diverse than their modern successors, in whose +veins flows their blood and whose possibilities are only dwarfed by +their achievements. + +There were less than twenty million people in Turkey before the War, and +during it the Government has caused a million or so to perish by +massacre, starvation, or disease. Yet, in spite of this daemoniac effort +after uniformity, they are still the strangest congeries of racial and +social types that has ever been placed at a single Government's mercy. +The Ottoman Empire is named after the Osmanli, but you might search long +before you found one among its inhabitants. These Osmanlis are a +governing class, indigenous only in Constantinople and a few +neighbouring towns, but planted here and there, as officers and +officials, over the Ottoman territories. They come of a clan of Turkish +nomads, recruited since the thirteenth century by converts, forced or +voluntary, from most of Christendom, and crossed with the blood of +slave-women from all the world. They are hardly a race. Tradition +fortified by inertia makes them what they are, and also their Turkish +language, which serves them for business of state and for a literature, +though not without an infusion of Persian and Arabic idioms said to +amount to 95 per cent. of the vocabulary[1]. + +This artificial language is hardly a link between Osmanli officialdom +and the Turkish peasantry of Anatolia, which speaks Turkish dialects +derived from tribes that drifted in, some as late as the Osmanlis, some +two centuries before. Nor has this Turkish-speaking peasantry much in +common with the Turkish nomads who still wander over the central +Anatolian steppe and have kept their blood pure; for the peasantry has +reverted physically to the native stock, which held Anatolia from time +immemorial and absorbs all newcomers that mingle with it on its soil. +Thus there are three distinct "Turkish" elements in Turkey, divided by +blood and vocation and social type; and even if we reckon all who speak +some form of Turkish as one group, they only amount to 30 or 40 per +cent. of the whole population of the Empire. + +The rest are alien to the Turks and to one another. Those who speak +Arabic are as strong numerically as the Turks, or stronger, but they too +are divided, and their unity is a problem of the future. There are +pure-bred Arab nomads of the desert; there are Arabs who have settled in +towns or on the land, some within the last generation, like the Muntefik +in Mesopotamia, some a millennium or two ago, like the Meccan Koreish, +but who still retain their tribal consciousness of race; there are Arabs +in name who have nothing Arabic about them but their language--most of +the peasantry of Syria are such, and the inhabitants of ancient centres +of population like Damascus or Bagdad; in Syria many of these "Arabs" +are Christians, and some Christians, though they speak Arabic, have +retained their separate sense of nationality--notably the Roman Catholic +Maronites of the Lebanon--and would hardly be considered as Arabs either +by themselves or by their neighbours. The same is true of the Druses, +another remnant of an earlier stock, which has preserved its identity +under the guise of Islam so heretically conceived as to rank as an +independent religion. As for the Yemenis--they will resent the +imputation, for no Arabs count up their genealogies so zealously as +they, but there is more East African than Semitic blood in their veins. +They are men of the moist, fertile tropics, brown of skin, and working +half naked in their fields, like the peoples of Southern India and +Bengal. And on the opposite fringes of the Arabic-speaking area there +are fragments of population whose language is Semitic but +pre-Arabic[2]--the Jacobite Christians of the Tor-Abdin, and the +Nestorians of the Upper Zab, who once, under the Caliphs, were the +industrious Christian peasantry of Mesopotamia, but now are shepherds +and hillmen among the Kurds. The Kurds themselves are more scattered +than any other stock in Turkey, and divided tribe against tribe, but +taken together they rank third in numerical strength, after the Arabs +and Turks. There are mountain Kurds and Kurds of the plain, husbandmen +and herdsmen, Kurds who have kept to their original homes along the +eastern frontier, and Kurds who, under Ottoman auspices, have spread +themselves over the Armenian plateau, the North Mesopotamian steppes, +the Taurus valleys, and the hinterland of the Black Sea. + +The chief thing the Kurds have in common is the Persian dialect they +speak, but it is usual to class as Kurds any and every community in the +Kurdish area which is not Turkish or Arab and can by courtesy be called +Moslem (the Kurds, for that matter, are only Moslems skin-deep). Such +communities abound: the Dersim highlands, in particular, are an +ethnographical museum; "Kizil-Bashi" is a general name for their kind; +only the Yezidis, though they speak good Kurdish, are distinguished from +the rest for their idiosyncrasy of worshipping Satan under the form of a +peacock (Allah, they argue, is good-natured and does not need to be +propitiated) and they are repudiated with one accord by Moslem and +Christian. + +But not all the scattered elements in Turkey are isolated or primitive. +The Greeks and Armenians, for instance, are, or were, the most +energetic, intellectual, liberal elements in Turkey, the natural +intermediaries between the other races and western civilisation--"were" +rather than "are," because the Ottoman Government has taken ruthless +steps to eliminate just these two most valuable elements among its +subjects. The urban Greeks survive in centres like Smyrna and +Constantinople, but the Greek peasantry of Thrace and Anatolia has +mostly been driven over the frontier since the Second Balkan War. As for +the Armenians, the Government has been destroying them by massacre and +deportation since April, 1915--business and professional men, peasants +and shepherds, women and children--without discrimination or pity. A +third of the Ottoman Armenians may still survive; a tenth of them are +safe within the Russian and British lines. Fortunately half this nation, +and the majority of the Greeks, live outside the Ottoman frontiers, and +are beyond the Osmanli's power. + +To compensate for its depopulation of the countries under its dominion, +the Ottoman Government, during the last fifty years, has been settling +them with Moslem immigrants from its own lost provinces or from other +Moslem lands that have changed their rulers. These "Mouhadjirs" are +reckoned, from first to last, at three-quarters of a million, drawn from +the most diverse stocks--Bosniaks and Pomaks and Albanians, Algerines +and Tripolitans, Tchetchens and Circassians. Numbers have been planted +recently on the lands of dispossessed Armenians and Greeks. They add +many more elements to the confusion of tongues, but they are probably +destined to be absorbed or to die out. The Circassians, in particular, +who are the most industrious (though most unruly) and preserve their +nationality best, also succumb most easily to transplantation, through +refusal to adapt their Caucasian clothes and habits to Anatolian or +Mesopotamian conditions of life. + +All this is Turkey, and we come back to our original question: What +common factor accounts for the name? What has stained this coat of many +colours to one political hue? The answer is simple: Blood. Turkey, the +Ottoman state, is not a unity, climatic, geographical, racial, or +economic; it is a pretension, enforced by bloodshed and violence +whenever and wherever the Osmanli Government has power. + +It is a complex pretension. The first impulse, and the traditional +method by which it has been given effect, came from a little tribe of +pagan, nomadic Turks who wandered into Anatolia from Central Asia in the +thirteenth century A.D. and were granted camping grounds by the reigning +Turkish Sultan of the country--for Anatolia was already Turkish two +centuries before the Osmanlis appeared on the scene. But to call them +Osmanlis is to anticipate the next stage in their history. They are +named after Osman, their first leader's son, and he after the third +successor of the Prophet--it was a good Moslem name, and he took it when +he was converted to Islam and organised his pagan tent-dwellers into a +settled Mohammedan State in the north-western hills of Anatolia, on the +borders of Christendom. A tribe had become a march, and the final stage +was from march to empire. + +From this point onwards Ottoman history singularly resembles the history +of the Osmanlis' present allies. The March of Brandenburg, the March of +Austria, and the March of Osman--they were each founded as the outer +bulwarks of a civilisation, and all erected themselves into centres of +military ascendancy over their fellow-countrymen and co-religionists to +the rear as well as the strangers opposite their front. The Osmanlis may +have been more savage in their methods than the marchmen of +Germany--though hardly, perhaps, than the Teutonic Knights who prepared +the soil of Prussia for the Hohenzollerns. The Teutonic Knights +exterminated their victims; the Osmanlis drained theirs of their blood +by taking a tribute of their male children, educating them as Moslems, +and training them as recruits for an Ottoman standing army. Their first +expansion was forwards into Christian Europe; their capital shifted from +a village in the hills to the city of Brusa on the Asiatic shore of +Marmora, from Brusa across the Dardanelles to Adrianople, from +Adrianople to the imperial city on the Bosphorus; and, with the capture +of Constantinople, the Osmanli Sultans usurped the pretensions of East +Rome, as the Hapsburgs and Hohenzollerns the emblems of Charlemagne and +Caesar Augustus. + +Byzantium has become a very potent element in the Osmanlis' character, +more potent than the habits of the march or the instinct of the steppes. +It has dictated their system of administration, dominated their outlook +on life, penetrated their blood. But the heritage of "Rûm" is not the +final factor in the Ottoman Empire as it exists to-day; for after the +successors of Osman had founded their military monarchy with blood and +iron on the ruins of one-third of Europe, they turned eastwards, with a +genuinely Oriental gesture, and overran kingdoms and lands with the +apparently mechanical impetus of all Asiatic conquerors, from Sargon of +Akkad and Cyrus the Persian to Jenghis Khan and Timur. The stoutest +opponent of the Osmanlis in Asia was the Anatolian Sultanate of +Karaman--Moslem, Turkish, and the legitimate heir of those Seljuk +Turkish Sultans who had given Osman's father his first footing in the +land. Osmanli and Karamanli fought on equal terms, but when Karaman was +overthrown there was no power left in Asia that could stop the Osmanlis' +advance. The Egyptians and Persians had no more chance against Ottoman +discipline and artillery than the last Darius had against the +Macedonians. A campaign or two brought Sultan Selim the First from the +Taurus to Cairo; a few more campaigns at intervals during the sixteenth +and seventeenth centuries, when Ottoman armies could be spared from +Europe, drove the Persians successively out of Armenia and Mosul and +Bagdad. And thus, by accident, as it were, in the pursuit of more +coveted things, the Osmanlis acquired "Turkey-in-Asia," which is all +that remains to them now and all that concerns us here. + +"Turkey-in-Asia" is a transitory phenomenon, a sort of chrysalis which +enshrouded the countries of Western Asia because they were exhausted and +needed torpor as a preliminary to recuperation. Many calamities had +fallen upon them during the five centuries before the chrysalis formed. +The break-up of the Arab Caliphate of Bagdad had led to an +interminable, meaningless conflict among a host of petty Moslem States; +the wearing struggle between Islam and Christendom had been intensified +by the Crusades; and waves of nomadic invaders, each more destructive +and more irresistible than the last, had swept over Moslem Asia out of +the steppes and deserts of the north-east. The most terrible were the +Mongols, who sacked Bagdad in 1258, and gave the _coup de grâce_ to the +civilisation of Mesopotamia. And then, when the native productiveness of +the Near East was ruined, the transit trade between Europe and the +Indies, which had belonged to it from the earliest times and had been +the second source of its prosperity, was taken from it by the western +seafarers who discovered the ocean routes. The pall of Ottoman dominion +only descended when life was extinct. + +The Osmanlis, whose nomadic forefathers had fled before the face of the +Mongols out of Central Asia, took the heritage which had slipped from +the Mongols' grasp, and gathered all threads of authority in Western +Asia into their hands. The most valuable spoil of their Asiatic +conquests was the Caliphate. Hulaku, the sacker of Bagdad, had put the +Caliph Mustasim to death, and the remnant of the Abbasids had kept up a +shadowy succession at Cairo, under the protection of the Sultan of +Egypt. Selim the Osmanli, when he entered Cairo as a conqueror in 1517, +caused the contemporary Abbasid to cede his title, for what it was +worth, to him and his successors. It was a doubtful title, scorned by +all Shias and regarded coldly by many Sunni rulers who were unwilling to +recognise a spiritual superior in their most formidable temporal rival. +But such as it was, it strengthened the Osmanli's hold on his dominions. +Caliph of Islam, victorious guardian of the Moslem marches, and heir by +conquest of imperial Rûm, the Osmanli Sultan held his Asiatic provinces +with ease; but the best security for his tenure was the misery to which +they were reduced. Commerce and cultivation ebbed, population dwindled, +and nomads still drifted in upon what once had been settled lands. The +Ottoman Government, desiring a barrier against Persia, encouraged the +Kurds to spread themselves over Armenia; it welcomed less the Shammar +and Anazeh Arabs, who broke over the Euphrates about the year 1700 and +turned the last fields of Northern Mesopotamia to desolation; but it was +too impotent or indifferent to turn them out. Western Asia lay fallow +under the Ottoman cannon-wheels. There have been fallow periods before +in the slow rhythm of its life--under the Persians, for instance, who +overran all lands and peoples of the East in the sixth century B.C., +overshadowed the Greeks for a moment, as the Osmanlis overshadowed +Europe, halted, too massive for offence but seemingly unassailable, and +then collapsed pitifully before the probing spears of Alexander. + +The Osmanlis are passing at this moment as the Achaemenids passed then. +They lost the last of Europe in the Balkan War, and with it their +prestige as increasers of Islam; the growth of national consciousness +among their subjects, not least among the Turks themselves, has loosened +the foundations of their military empire, as of the other military +empires with which they are allied. They forfeited the Caliphate when +they proclaimed the Holy War against the Allied Powers--inciting Moslems +to join one Christian coalition against another, not in defence of their +religion, but for Ottoman political aggrandisement. They lost it morally +when this incitement was left unheeded by the Moslem world; they lost it +in deed when the Sherif of Mekka asserted his rights as the legitimate +guardian of the Holy Cities, drove out the Ottoman garrison from Mekka, +and allied himself with the other independent princes of Arabia. All the +props of Ottoman dominion in Asia have fallen away, but nothing dooms it +so surely as the breath of life that is stirring over the dormant lands +and peoples once more. The cutting of the Suez Canal has led the +highways of commerce back to the Nearer East; the democracy and +nationalism of Europe have been extending their influence over Asiatic +races. On whatever terms the War is concluded, one far-reaching result +is certain already: there will be a political and economic revival in +Western Asia, and the direction of this will not be in Ottoman hands. + +We are thus witnessing the foundation of a new era as momentous, if not +as dramatic, as Alexander's passage of the Dardanelles. The Ottoman +vesture has waxed old, and something can be discerned of the new forms +that are emerging from beneath it; their outstanding features are worth +our attention. + + + + +II + + +The new Turkish Nationalism is the immediate factor to be reckoned +with. It is very new--newer than the Young Turks, and sharply opposed to +the original Young Turkish programme--but it has established its +ascendancy. It decided Turkey's entry into the War, and is the key to +the current policy of the Ottoman Government. + +The Young Turks were not Nationalists from the beginning; the "Committee +of Union and Progress" was founded in good faith to liberate and +reconcile all the inhabitants of the Empire on the principles of the +French Revolution. At the Committee's congress in 1909 the Nationalists +were shouted down with the cry: "Our goal is organisation and nothing +else[3]." But Young Turkish ideals rapidly narrowed. Liberalism gave way +to Panislamism, Panislamism to Panturanianism, and the "Ottoman State +Idea" changed from "Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity" to the +Turkification of non-Turkish nationalities by force. + +"The French Ideal," writes the Nationalist Tekin Alp in _Thoughts on the +Nature and Plan of a Greater Turkey_, "is in contradiction to the needs +and conditions of the age." By contrast, "the Turkish national movement +does not exhibit the failings of the earlier movements. It is in every +way adapted to the intellectual standard and feelings of the nation. It +also keeps pace with the ideas of the age, which have for some decades +centred round the principle of Nationality. In adopting Turkish +Nationalism as the basis of their national policy, the Turks have only +abandoned an abnormal state of affairs and thereby placed themselves on +a level with modern nations[4]." + +The development of Nationalism among the Turks was a natural phenomenon. +Starting in the West, the movement has been spreading for a century +through Central Europe, Hungary, and the Balkans, till from the Turks' +former subjects it has passed to the Turks themselves. Chance played its +part. Dr. Nazim Bey, for instance, the General Secretary of the "Union +and Progress" Committee, is said to have been fired by a work of M. Léon +Cahun's on the early history of the Turks and Mongols, lent him by the +French Consul-General at Salonika, and the movement was, and still is, +confined to a small _intelligentsia_. But that is the case with other +national movements too, and does not hinder them from being powerful +forces. Turkish Nationalism was kept alive after 1909 by a small group +of enthusiasts at Salonika--their leader was Ziya Bey, who had come up +to the Young Turk Congress from Diarbekir, and was one of the first +converts to the new idea. It gained ground suddenly during, the Balkan +War. The shock of defeat produced a craving for regeneration; the final +loss of Europe turned the minds of the Osmanlis to the possibilities of +Asia, and they were struck by the action of several prominent Russian +subjects of Turco-Tatar nationality, who, out of racial sympathy, had +given their services to the Ottoman Government in this time of +adversity. As Tekin Alp expresses it: + +"The Turks realised that, in order to live, they must become essentially +Turkish, become a nation, be themselves.... The Turkish nation turned +aside its gaze from the lost territory and looked instead upon Turania, +the ideal country of the future." + +Two years later this "New Orientation" had so mastered the Ottoman +Government that it drew them into the European War. + +There are many aims within the new Turkish horizon. Some of them are +negative and non-political, some practical and extremely aggressive. +Ziya Bey's adherents first took in hand the purification of the Turkish +language. A Turkish poet had endeavoured before to dispense with the 95 +per cent. (?) of the vocabulary that was borrowed from Persian and +Arabic, and "his poetry had to be published in small provincial papers +because the important newspapers of the towns would not accept it." The +established writers in the traditional style made a hard fight, but +Tekin Alp claims that the _Yeni Lisan_ (New Language) "is to-day in +possession of an absolute and unlimited authority." Borrowed rhythms +have been banned as well as borrowed words, and there is even an +agitation to replace the Arabic script by a new Turkish alphabet--an +imitation of the Albanian movement which was opposed so fiercely by the +Turks themselves before the Balkan War. In 1913 the Government stepped +in with the foundation of a "Turkish Academy" (_Turk Bilgi Derneyi_), +and the Ministry of Education started an "Institute of Terminology," +"Conservatoire," and "Writing and Translation Committee." The +translation of foreign masterpieces as an incentive to a new national +literature was in the programme of Ziya Bey's society, the _Yeni Hayat_ +(New Life). Their most cherished plan was to translate the Koran and the +Friday Sermon, to have the Khutba (Prayer for the Caliph) recited in +Turkish, and to remove the Arabic texts from the walls of the mosques[5]; +the eyes and ears of Turkish Moslems were to be saved from the +contamination of an anti-national language; but the campaign against +Arabic passed over into an attack upon Islam. + +"The Turkish Nationalists," Tekin Alp explains, "have made great efforts +to nationalise religion itself, and to give it the impress of the +Turkish national spirit. This idea was zealously supported by a +fortnightly periodical, and one of the noblest tasks undertaken by it +has been the translation of the Koran into Turkish. This is a reform of +the greatest importance. It is well known that the translation of the +Koran has hitherto been considered a sin. The Nationalists have cut +themselves off from this superstitious prejudice and have had three +translations made, the above-mentioned and two others." + +On this issue the Nationalists broke a lance with the _Islamjis_, or +"clericals," as Tekin Alp prefers to call them. + +"Because it is written in the Koran that Islam knows no nationalities, +but only Believers, the _Islamjis_ thought that to occupy oneself with +national questions was to act against the interests and principles of +Islam itself.... According to the Nationalists, the pronouncement in the +Koran was directed exclusively against the very frequent dissensions of +clans and parties in the various Arab races." (A sneer which is meant to +have a modern application.) "Although the Nationalists proclaim +themselves the most zealous followers of Mohammed, nevertheless they do +not conceal the fact that their interpretation of Islam is not the same +as that of the Arabs. They maintain that the Turks cannot interpret the +Koran in the same manner as the Arabs.... Their idea of God is also +different." + +This amazing _Kulturkampf_ is quite possibly a reminiscence of +Bismarckian Germany, for Turkish Nationalism is saturated with forgotten +European moods, and its vein of Romanticism is as antiquated as the +Kaiser's. It has taken Attila to its heart, and rehabilitated Jenghis +Khan, Timur, Oghuz, and the rest with the erudition of a Turanian Walter +Scott. + +"My Attila, my Jenghis," sings Ziya Gök Alp, "these heroic figures, +which stand for the proud fame of my race, appear on the dry pages of +the history books as covered with shame and disgrace, while in reality +they are no less than Alexander and Caesar. Still better known to my +heart is Oghuz Khan[6]. In me he still lives in all his fame and +greatness. Oghuz Khan delights and inspires my heart and causes me to +sing psalms of gladness. The fatherland of the Turks is not Turkey or +Turkestan, but the broad eternal land of Turania." + +The Ministry of _Evkaf_ (Religious Endowments) recently made a grant of +£50,000 (Turkish) towards the publication of works on these worthies; +the students at the Military College in Constantinople are alleged to +have been diverted from their studies by their devotion to such +literature, and on the eve of the War the Professor of Military +Education there is reported to have delivered the following address to +an instruction class of reserve officers: + +"We are, gentlemen, before all, Turks. I wonder why we are called +Ottomans, for who is Osman after whom we are named? He is a Turk from +Altai, who overran this country with his Turkish Army. Therefore it is +more of an honour to us to be named after his origin than after himself. +We have so far been deceived by the ignorance of our forebears, and fie +on these forebears who made us forget our nationality.... Be sure that +Turkish nationality is better for us than Islam, and racial pride is one +of the greatest social virtues[7]." + +These extravagances must not be taken too literally. The Young Turk +politicians, though they have embarked on a Nationalist policy, are not +so reckless as to break openly with Islam or to denounce the founder of +their State. They see clearly enough that Turkish Nationalism carried to +a logical extreme is incompatible with the Ottoman pretension, and they +favour the view, so severely criticised by Tekin Alp, "that all three +groups of ideas--Ottomanism, Islamism, and the Turkish Movement--should +work side by side and together." But, with this reservation, they follow +the doctrinaires, who on their part are quite ready to press Islam into +their service. Tekin Alp candidly admits that + +"They sought after a judicious mingling of the religious and national +impulses. They realised only too clearly that the still abstract ideals +of Nationalism could not be expected to attract the masses, the lower +classes, composed of uneducated and illiterate people. It was found more +expedient to reach these classes under the flag of religion." + +This sentence reveals in a flash one motive of the Armenian +"Deportations," which followed Turkey's intervention in the War; and a +celebrated German authority, in a memorial[8] written in 1916, gives +this very explanation of their origin. + +"Turkey's entry into the War," he writes, "was unwelcome to Turkish +society in Constantinople, whose sympathies were with France, as well as +to the mass of the people, but the Panislamic propaganda and the +military dictatorship were able to stifle all opposition. The +proclamation of the 'Holy War' produced a general agitation of the +Mohammedan against the Christian elements in the Empire, and the +Christian nationalities had soon good reason to fear that Turkish +chauvinism would make use of Mohammedan fanaticism to make the War +popular with the mass of the Mohammedan population." + +The evidence presented in the British Blue Book on the _Treatment of +Armenians in the Ottoman Empire_[9] shows that this explanation is +correct. The Armenians were not massacred spontaneously by the local +Moslems; the initiative came entirely from the Central Government at +Constantinople, which planned the systematic extermination of the +Armenian race in the Ottoman Empire, worked out a uniform method of +procedure, despatched simultaneous orders to the provincial officials +and gendarmerie to carry it into effect, and cashiered the few who +declined to obey. The Armenians were rounded up and deported by regular +troops and gendarmes; they were massacred on the road by bands of +_chettis_, consisting chiefly of criminals released from prison by the +Government for this work; when the Armenians were gone the Turkish +populace was encouraged to plunder their goods and houses, and as the +convoys of exiles passed through the villages the best-looking women and +children were sold cheap or even given away for nothing to the Turkish +peasantry. Naturally the Turkish people accepted the good things the +Government offered them, and naturally this reconciled them momentarily +to the War. + +Thus in the Armenian atrocities the Young Turks made Panislamism and +Turkish Nationalism work together for their ends, but the development of +their policy shows the Islamic element receding and the Nationalist +gaining ground. + +"After the deposition of Abd-ul-Hamid," writes the German authority +quoted above, "the Committee of Union and Progress reverted more and +more to the ex-Sultan's policy. To begin with, a rigorous party tyranny +was set up. A power behind the Government got the official executive +apparatus into its hand, and the elections to Parliament ceased to be +free. The appointment of the highest officials in the Empire and of all +the most important servants of the administration was settled by decrees +of the Committee. All bills had to be debated first by the Committee and +to receive its approval before they came before the Chamber. Public +policy was determined by two main considerations: (1) The centralistic +idea, which claimed for the Turkish race not merely preponderant but +exclusive power in the Empire, was to be carried to its logical +consequences; (2) The Empire was to be established on a purely Islamic +foundation. Turkish Nationalism and the Panislamic Idea precluded _a +priori_ any equality of treatment for the various races and religions of +the Empire, and any movement which looked for the salvation of the +Empire in the decentralisation or autonomy of its various parts was +branded as high treason. The nationalistic and centralistic tendency was +directed not merely against the various non-Mohammedan nationalities +--Greeks, Armenians, Syrians, and Jews--but also against the +non-Turkish Mohammedan nations--Arabs, Mohammedan Syrians, Kurds, +and the Shia element in the population. An idol of 'Pan-Turkism' was +erected, and all non-Turkish elements in the population were subjected +to the harshest measures. The rigorous action which this policy +prescribed against the Albanians, who were mostly Mohammedans and had +been thorough loyalists till then, led to the loss of almost the whole +of European Turkey. The same policy has provoked insurrections in the +Arab half of the Empire, which a series of campaigns has failed to +suppress. The conflict with the Arab element continues"--this was +written in 1916--"though the 'Holy War' has forced it to a certain +extent into the background." + +"The conflict with the Arabs"--that has been the worst folly of the +Young Turkish politicians, and it will perhaps be the most powerful +solvent of the Empire which the Osmanlis have misgoverned so long. It is +the inevitable consequence of the camarilla government and the +Pan-Turkish chauvinism for which the Committee of Union and Progress has +come to stand. + +The Committee consists by its statutes of Turks alone, and the election +even of one Arab was vetoed[10]. Tekin Alp informs us that + +"The portfolio of the Minister of Trade and Agriculture, which has been +in the hands of Greeks and Armenians since the time of the Constitution, +and was lately given to a Christian Arab, has at last been handed over +to the Constantinople deputy Ahmed Nasimi Bey, who joined with Ziya Gök +Alp in laying the foundations of the Turkish Movement immediately after +the proclamation of the Constitution. With one exception the members of +the Cabinet are all imbued with the same ideas and principles." + +The Armenian deportations gave the Committee an opportunity of +tightening its hold over the provincial officials as well. Valis who +refused to carry out the orders were superseded if they were +strong-minded enough to persist; but more often they were browbeaten by +the leaders of the local Young Turk organisations, or even by their own +subordinates, and let things go their way. Ways and means of packing the +administration with their own henchmen had been discussed by the +Committee already in their congress of October, 1911, and they had +defined their policy then in the following remarkable resolutions[11]: + +"The formation of new parties in the Chamber or in the country must be +suppressed and the emergence of new 'liberal ideas' prevented. Turkey +must become a really Mohammedan country, and Moslem ideas and Moslem +influence must be preponderant. Every other religious propaganda must be +suppressed. The existence of the Empire depends on the strength of the +Young Turkish Party and the suppression of all antagonistic ideas.... + +"Sooner or later the complete Ottomanisation of all Turkish subjects +must be effected; it is clear, however, that this can never be attained +by persuasion, but that we must resort to armed force. The character of +the Empire must be Mohammedan, and respect must be secured for +Mohammedan institutions and traditions. Other nationalities must be +denied the right of organisation, for decentralisation and autonomy are +treason to the Turkish Empire. _The nationalities are a_ quantité +négligeable. _They can keep their religion but not their language. The +propagation of the Turkish language is one of the sovereign means of +confirming the Mohammedan supremacy and assimilating the other +elements_." + +The confusion of aims in these two paragraphs reveals the direction in +which Young Turkish policy has been travelling. Religion is now +secondary to language, and the precedence still given to the Islamic +formula is only in apparent contradiction to this, for Mohammedan +supremacy is equated with the Turkish National Idea. Such a version of +Panislamism leaves no room for an Arab race under Ottoman rule, and the +"Panturanian" address given by the Turkish Professor at the Military +College in Constantinople had a sequel which showed the Arabs what they, +too, had to expect from Turkey's entrance into the War. + +There were Arabs among the officers whom the Professor was addressing, +and one of them ventured to protest. + +"All Ottomans are not Turks," he said, "and if the Empire were to be +considered purely Turkish, then all the non-Turkish elements would be +foreign to it, instead of being living members of the political body +known as the Ottoman Empire, fighting the common fight for it and for +Islam." + +To this the Professor is reported to have replied: + +"Although you are an Arab, yet you and your race are subject to Turkey. +Have not the Turks colonised your country, and have they not conquered +it by the sword? The Ottoman State, which you plead, is nothing but a +social trick, to which you resort in order to attain your ends. As to +religion, it has no connexion with politics. We shall soon march forward +in the name of Turkey and the Turkish flag, casting aside religion, as +it is only a personal and secondary question. You and your nation must +realise that you are Turks, and that there is no such thing as Arab +nationality and an Arab fatherland." + +It is said that the Arab officers present handed in a joint protest to +the Minister of War, asking for the Professor's dismissal, and that +Enver Bey's answer was to have them all sent to the front-line trenches. + +Certainly the Turkish Nationalists have not concealed their attitude +towards the Arabs since the War began. + +"The Arab lands," writes Djelal Noury Bey in a recently-published work, +"and above all Irak[12] and Yemen, must become Turkish colonies in which +we shall spread our own language, so that at the right moment we may +make it the language of religion. It is a peculiarly imperious necessity +of our existence for us to Turkise the Arab lands, for the +particularistic idea of nationality is awaking among the younger +generation of Arabs, and already threatens us with a great catastrophe. +Against this we must be forearmed." + +And Ahmed Sherif Bey, again, has written as follows in the _Tanin_: + +"The Arabs speak their own language and are as ignorant of Turkish as if +their country were not a dependency of Turkey. It is the business of the +_Porte_ to make them forget their own language and to impose upon them +instead that of the nation which rules them. If the Porte loses sight of +this duty it will be digging its grave with its own hands, for if the +Arabs do not forget their language, their history, and their customs, +they will seek to restore their ancient empire on the ruins of +Ottomanism and of Turkish rule in Asia." + +A Turkish pamphleteer wrote that "the Arabs have been a misfortune to +Turkey," and that "a Turkish conqueror's war-horse is better than the +Prophet of any other nation." This pamphlet was distributed in the +Caucasus at the Ottoman Government's expense as Turkish propaganda. + +But the best proof of the Young Turks' intentions towards the Arabs is +their actual conduct in the Arab provinces of their Empire. In the +spring of 1916 an Arab who had escaped from Syria published some facts +in the Egyptian Press which the Turkish censorship had previously +managed to conceal[13]. Business was ruined, because the Turks had +confiscated all gold and forced the people to accept depreciated paper; +the population was starving, and the Turks had prohibited the American +colony at Beirût from organising relief; the national susceptibilities +of the inhabitants were outraged in petty ways--the railway tickets, for +instance, were no longer printed in Arabic, but only in Turkish and +German; and spies were active in denouncing the least manifestations of +disaffection. A Turkish court-martial was sitting in the Lebanon, and at +the time our informant left Syria it had 240 persons under arrest, 180 +of them on political charges. These prisoners were the leading men of +Syria--Christians and Moslems without distinction; for in Syria, as in +Armenia, the Turks put the leaders out of the way before they attacked +the nation as a whole; most of the Syrian bishops had been deported or +driven into hiding; by the beginning of March, 1916, it was reckoned +that 816 Arabs in Syria and 117 in Mesopotamia had already been +condemned to death with the confiscation of their property. A Turkish +officer, taking our informant for a Turk too, remarked to him: "Those +Arabs wish to get rid of us and are secretly in sympathy with our +enemies, but we mean to get rid of them ourselves before they have any +chance of translating their sympathy into action." This caps what a +Turkish gendarme in Armenia said to a Danish sister serving with the +German Red Cross: "First we kill the Armenians, then the Greeks, then +the Kurds[14]." Every non-Turkish nationality in the Ottoman Empire is +threatened with extermination. + +But the aims of Turkish Nationalists are not limited by the Ottoman +frontiers. If they are resolved to clear their Empire of every +non-Turkish element, that is only a step towards extending it over +everything Turkish that lies outside. The Turks have not only aliens to +get rid of, but an irredenta to win. + +"The Ottoman Turks," Tekin Alp reminds his readers, "now only represent +a tenth of the whole Turkish nation. There are now sixty to seventy +million Turkish subjects of various states in the world, who should +succeed in giving the nation an important place among the other Powers. +Unfortunately, there is no connexion between the separate groups, which +are distributed over great tracts of land. Their aspirations and +national institutions still divide them.... Now that the Ottoman Turks +have awakened from their sleep of centuries they do not only think of +themselves, but hasten to save the other parts of their race who are +living in slavery or ignorance.... + +"Turkish irredentism may be directed towards material or moral reforms +according to circumstances. If the geographical position favours the +venture, the Turks can free their brothers from foreign rule. In the +other case, they can carry it on on moral or intellectual lines. + +"Irredentism, which other nations may regard as a luxury--though often a +very terrible and costly one--is a political and social necessity for +the Turks.... If all the Turks in the world were welded into one huge +community, a strong nation would be formed, worthy to take an important +place among the other nations of the world[15]." + +This may be a dream, but the Young Turks have used the political and +military resources of the Ottoman Empire to make it a reality. At the +congress of 1911 it was resolved that "immigration from the Caucasus and +Turkestan must be promoted, land found for the immigrants, and the +Christians hindered from acquiring real estate." Turkey was first to be +reinforced by the Turks abroad; in the European War she was to strike +out as their liberator. The day after their declaration of war the Young +Turkish Government issued a proclamation in which the following +sentences occur: + +"Our participation in the world war represents the vindication of our +national ideal. The ideal of our nation and people leads us towards the +destruction of our Muscovite enemy, in order to obtain thereby a natural +frontier to our empire, which should include and unite all branches of +our race." + +When war broke out the "Dashnaktzagan"--the Armenian parliamentary party +in the Ottoman Empire--were in congress at Erzerum. A deputation of +Young Turk propagandists[16] presented themselves, and urged the +Armenians to join them in raising a general insurrection in Caucasia. +They sketched their proposed partition of Russian territory; the Tatars +[17] were to have this, the Georgians that, the Armenians this other; +autonomy for the new provinces under Ottoman suzerainty was to be the +reward for co-operation. The Dasknaktzagan had always worked with the +Young Turks in internal politics, but they refused to join them in this +aggressive venture. The Ottoman Armenians, they said, would do their +duty as Ottoman subjects during the war, but they advised the Government +to preserve peace if that were still possible[18]. But the Turks were +past reason, and their Army was already on the move. The main body +crossed the Russian frontier; a second force invaded Northern Persia, +and penetrated as far as Tabriz. Tabriz is the capital of Azerbaijan, a +province where the majority of the population is Turkish by language; +and beyond, across the River Aras, lies the Russian province of Baku, +also containing a large Turkish-speaking population and the vital +oilfields. The Turkish plan of campaign was frustrated by the brilliant +Russian victory of Sarikamysh. By the end of January, 1915, the Turkish +Army was back within its own frontiers, and in this quarter it has not +again advanced beyond them. But the Young Turks' irredentist ambitions +have remained in being. During their brief occupation of Northern Persia +they did their best to wipe out the Syriac element in the +population--the Nestorian Christians of Urmia. Their plan was to get rid +of all the non-Turkish peoples which separate the Turks of Anatolia from +the Turks of Baku and Azerbaijan, and this was the second motive of the +Armenian deportations, which they put in hand a month or two after their +military projects had failed. + +The Turkish Irredentists propose, in fact, to gain their ends by +bloodshed and terrorism. Tekin Alp (like most Turkish publicists and +politicians since 1908) is a Macedonian[19], and is profoundly impressed +by the methods which the other nationalities there employed to the +discomfiture of the Turks themselves. + +"Observers," he writes, "who, like myself, are Macedonians, and, like +myself, had ample opportunity of gaining an intimate knowledge of the +irredentist propaganda of the Bulgars, Greeks, Serbs, and Vlachs, are +able to judge the significance of this striving after a national ideal, +and how sweet and inspiring it is to go through the greatest dangers for +such a cause. This is best illustrated by a few living examples" (which +he proceeds to give).... + +Macedonia is soaked in blood. Atrocities were committed here the mere +thought of which makes one's hair stand on end. Nevertheless, the +leaders of robber bands and members of the terrible irredentist +organisations were not regarded by the public as wild robbers, but as +heroes fighting for the unity of the nation. + +"Will the Young Turks emulate the self-sacrifice of these men?" + +Russia and Persia are the fields marked out for such activity: + +"In some places ordinary propaganda is sufficient, but in +hotly-contested territory recourse is to be had to the more violent +measures used in Macedonia. The neighbouring land of Persia is without +doubt the best of all countries with Turkish population for spreading +the new ideas, and it has been found that simple propaganda is amply +sufficient to produce a satisfactory effect on this fruitful soil." + +In Persia, Tekin Alp reckons, one-third of the population is of Turkish +blood. He passes these Turkish elements in review, and concludes that +"the spirit of the administration is Turkish, and also the leading +spirit of Persian civilisation, even though these be clothed in Persian +guise"--for at present the tables are turned. "All those Turkish +warriors and heroes, Shahs and Grand Viziers, thinkers and scholars, +have lost their Turkish consciousness and have become assimilated to the +Persians in writing, speech, and literature." Even the compact two +millions and a half of Turkish-speaking Azerbaijanis will write letters +only in Persian, and will not read a Turkish newspaper. He omits the +most important fact--that these Turks of Persia are Shias like their +Persian fellow-countrymen, while the "Mohammedan institutions and +traditions" for which the Ottoman Turks are pledged by the Young Turk +Party to "secure respect" are those of the Sunni persuasion. But then +Turkish Nationalism depends upon ignoring religion. Tekin Alp sets out +confidently to give the Turks in Persia "a Turkish soul." His model is +the Rumanian propaganda among the Vlachs in Macedonia, and his +expectations are great: + +"There is no power in Persia to put down such a movement, because it +could do no harm to anyone. The nationalisation of the Persian Turks +would even be a great and unexpected help to the Persian Government.... +Persia would be situated with regard to the Turkish Government as +Bavaria towards Prussia." + +And this is only a stage towards a higher goal: + +"The united Turks should form the centre of gravity of the world of +Islam. The Arabs of Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia, the Persians, Afghans, +etc., must enjoy complete independence in their own affairs, but +outwardly the world of Islam must present a perfectly united front." + +The Arabs of North Africa and the Shias of Iran can appraise the +"independence" held out to them by the "unity" which Turkish Nationalism +has been presenting already to Syria and Irak, the Yemen and the Hedjaz. + +But Tekin Alp deals even less tenderly with Russia. In explaining the +bond of interest between Turkish Nationalism and Germany he remarks that + +"The Pan-Turkish aspirations cannot come to their full development and +realisation until the Muscovite monster is crushed, because the very +districts which are the object of Turkish Irredentism--Siberia, the +Caucasus, the Crimea, Afghanistan, etc.--are still directly or +indirectly under Russian rule." + +The "et cetera" proves to be nothing less than the province of Kazan: + +"The alluvial plains of the Volga and the Kama, in European Russia, are +inhabited by four or five million Turks.... The Northern Turks are not +indeed superior to the Ottoman Turks, but must not therefore be +underrated. Their progressive economic and social organisation is in +every way a great help to the national movement. + +"If," he concludes, "the Russian despotism is, as we hope, to be +destroyed by the brave German, Austrian, and Turkish Armies, thirty to +forty million Turks will receive their independence. With the ten +million Ottoman Turks this will form a nation of fifty million, +advancing towards a great civilisation which may perhaps be compared to +that of Germany, in that it will have the strength and energy to rise +ever higher. In some ways it will be even superior to the degenerate +French and English civilisations." + +This Nationalism, which dominates Turkey's present, has also decided the +question of her future. If such a movement has taken possession of the +Osmanlis, the Osmanlis must lose possession of their Empire. Turkish +Nationalism now directs the Ottoman Government, wields its pretensions, +is master within its frontiers; and how does it use its mastery? To make +a hell of Armenia and Syria, and to plot out new Macedonias in Persia +and the heart of Russia. Thus Turkish Nationalism shows where the Turk +is intolerable and must go, but it also shows where he has some right to +stay. + +There are innocent and constructive elements in it, as in all movements +of the kind. As in Europe, it has forced open the Dead Hand of the +Church. Under its influence the Ministry of _Evkaf_, which holds the +enormous religious endowments of Turkey in trust, has turned its funds +to the founding of a national bank and library, and the subsidising of a +national architecture. It has also started elementary schools, like the +voluntary schools supported by the Christian nationalities, in aid of +the Ministry of Education; and it has taken up the reform of the Moslem +seminaries (_Medressés_), which have been one of the strongholds of +Turkish reaction. The welfare of Turkish students is a concern of the +Nationalist society called _Turk Ujaghi_ (the Turkish Family), founded +in 1912, and now possessing sixteen branches in various provincial towns +of Anatolia--only Turks may be members--with affiliated societies in the +Caucasus and Turkestan. The _Turk Ujaghi_ organises lantern lectures, +lectures on mediaeval Anatolian art, and even lectures by a Turkish lady +on Panturanianism and woman's rights--she is said to have had +Khodjas[20] in her audience, and, if so, this certainly shows an +unheard-of openness to new ideas on the part of the "Islamji." Another +society, the _Turk Güji_ (Turkish Strength), encourages physical culture +like the Slavonic _Sokols_, and there are _Izdjis_, or Turkish +Boy-Scouts, under Enver Bey's patronage, who take "Turanian" +scout-names, blazon the White Wolf of Turkish paganism on their flags, +and cheer, it is said, not for the "Caliph" or the "Padishah," but for +the "Khakan." + +This jumble of efforts, half-admirable and half-absurd, will justify +Turkish Nationalism if it brings about the regeneration of the Anatolian +peasantry. The Anatolians have suffered as much from the Ottoman +dominion as any of the races which have come under its yoke. They have +paid for Ottoman Imperialism with their blood and physique; their +villages have been ravaged by the syphilis of the garrison towns, and +the wider the frontiers of the Empire the further from their homes the +Anatolian soldiers have died--in the Yemen, in Albania, in Irak, on the +snow-covered Armenian plateau. Two things are necessary for Anatolia's +salvation--the limitation of the Turkish State to the lands inhabited by +its Turkish-speaking population, and the replacement of the mongrel +Osmanli bureaucracy by a cleaner and more democratic political order. If +the Allies can compass this, they may claim without hypocrisy to have +liberated another nationality; for Anatolia will be reborn on the day of +its escape from the Ottoman chrysalis as truly as were Serbia and Greece +and Rumania and Bulgaria. + +The beginnings will be difficult, as they have been in the Balkans. +Whatever frontiers a Turkish National State may receive, they cannot be +drawn without including non-Turkish elements--racial geography is +nowhere very simple between Bagdad and Vienna--and in view of what the +Turk's racial minorities have suffered during the War and before it, +those left to him hereafter must be safeguarded by stringent +guarantees--far more stringent than the Capitulations, which, for that +matter, protected none but the nationals of foreign Powers. The +Capitulations are a problem in themselves. They were repudiated by the +Young Turkish Government at the beginning of the War, as well as the +conventions regulating the customs tariff. It is difficult to see how +the Peace Conference can pass over flagrant violations of international +treaties, and the Nationalists' contention that Turkish justice has been +brought up to a European standard will not bear examination; on the +contrary, the Young Turkish congress of 1911 passed a resolution that +"the reorganisation of the administration of justice was less important +than the abolition of the Capitulations." These difficulties, however, +might be settled with a new and better Anatolian government; and as for +the racial question, with time and guaranteed tolerance for religion it +might solve itself, for there is a rude vitality in the Turkish +language, and the Greek and Armenian minorities in Central Anatolia have +been gradually adopting it in place of their native speech, though this +tendency is now being counteracted by the spread of national schools +among the scattered outposts of the two nationalities in the interior. + + + + +III + + +With these suggestions, Anatolia and Turkish Nationalism may be +dismissed from our survey. Shorn of their pretensions in Armenia and the +countries south of Taurus, the Turks may experiment in the art of +government without the tragedies which their present domination has +brought upon mankind. The other lands and peoples of Western Asia, when +they have ceased to be "Turkey," will be restored once more to the +civilised world. What forces will shape their growth? Not, even +indirectly, the discrowned Turk, for if he were not banned by his crimes +he would still be doomed by his incapacity. + +The relative qualities of the different Near Eastern races are not in +doubt. A German teacher in the German Technical School at Aleppo, who +resigned his appointment as a protest against the Armenian atrocities in +1915, thus records his personal judgment in an open letter to the +_Reichstag_[21]: + +"The Young Turk is afraid of the Christian nationalities--Armenians, +Syrians and Greeks--on account of their cultural and economic +superiority, and he sees in their religion a hindrance to Turkifying +them by peaceful means. They must therefore be exterminated or +converted to Islam by force. The Turks do not suspect that in so doing +they are sawing off the branch on which they are sitting themselves. Yet +who is to help Turkey forward if not the Greeks, Armenians, and Syrians, +who constitute more than a quarter of the population of the Empire? The +Turks, _the least gifted of the races living in Turkey_, are themselves +only a minority of the population, and are still far behind the Arabs in +culture. Where is there any Turkish trade, Turkish handicraft, Turkish +industry, Turkish art, Turkish science? They have even borrowed their +law and religion from the conquered Arabs, and their language, so far as +it has been given literary form. + +"We teachers, who have been teaching Greeks, Armenians, Arabs, Turks, +and Jews in German schools in Turkey for years, can only pass judgment +that of all our pupils the pure Turks are the most unwilling and the +least talented. When for once in a way a Turk does achieve something, +one can be sure in nine cases out of ten that one is dealing with a +Circassian, an Albanian, or a Turk with Bulgarian blood in his veins. +From my personal experience I can only prophesy that the Turks proper +will never achieve anything in trade, industry, or science. + +"We are told now in the German Press about the Turks' hunger for +education, and of how they are thronging eagerly to learn German. There +is even a report of language courses for adults which have been started +in Turkey. They have certainly been started, but with what result? One +reads of the language course at a technical school which began with +twelve Turkish teachers as pupils. Our informant forgets to add, +however, that after four lessons only six pupils presented themselves; +after five, five; after six, four; and after seven only three, so that +after eight lessons the course broke down, through the indolence of the +pupils, before it had properly commenced. If the pupils had been +Armenians they would have persevered till the end of the school year, +learnt industriously, and finished with a respectable mastery of the +German language." + +From a German teacher who has worked in Turkey for three years this +verdict is crushing, and Tekin Alp himself virtually admits the charge. +"It is true," he writes, "that the Turkish character is usually lacking +in the qualities most essential to trade or economic undertakings, but +these may be acquired by a reasonable and methodical training and +organisation." The only "organisation" that seems to occur to him is the +Boycott, which has been popular with the Turks since the Revolution of +1908. + +"The unaccommodating attitude of the Greek Government was sufficient +excuse," he remarks, in reference to the Boycott of 1912. "The real +motive, however, was the longing of the Turkish nation for independence +in their own country. The Boycott, which was at first directed solely +against the Greeks, was then extended to the Armenians and other +non-Mohammedan circles, and was carried out with undiminished energy. +This movement, which lasted in all its rigour for several months, caused +the ruin of hundreds of small Greek and Armenian tradesmen.... The +systematic and rigorous Boycott is now at an end, but the spirit it +created in the people still persists.... It can now be asserted that the +movement for restoring the economic life of Turkey is on the right +road." + +The real effects of the Boycott of 1912 are described by the German +authority whose memorial has several times been cited in this article. +He tells us how, under the patronage of the Young Turkish Government, +associations were formed which intimidated the Moslem peasants into +buying from them, when they came to market, instead of from the +Christians with whom they had formerly dealt. + +"The peasants came to their old dealers," the memorial continues, +"lamented their fate, and asked their advice as to how they could save +themselves from the hands of their fellow-countrymen. They were +delighted when at last the Boycott came to an end and they could once +more buy from Greeks and Armenians, where they were well served and got +good value for their money." + +If the Turkish Nationalists had confined themselves to economic weapons, +the Turks' economic ineptitude would have prevented them from doing +serious harm; but by abusing the political and military powers of the +Ottoman State to perpetrate the recent atrocities they have struck a +mortal blow at the prosperity of Western Asia. + +"In the whole of Asia Minor, with perhaps one or two exceptions," the +same German authority states, "there is not a single pure Turkish firm +engaged in foreign trade.... The extermination of the Armenian +population means not only the loss of from 10 to 25 per cent. of the +total population of Anatolia[22], but, what is most serious, the +elimination of those elements in the population which are the most +highly developed economically and have the greatest capacity for +civilisation...." + +And this is the universal judgment of those in a position to know. + +"The result of the deportations," the American Consul at Aleppo declares +in an official report[23], "is that, as 90 per cent. of the commerce of +the interior is in the hands of the Armenians, the country is facing +ruin. The great bulk of business being done on credit, hundreds of +prominent business men other than Armenians are facing bankruptcy. There +will not be left in the places evacuated a single tanner, moulder, +blacksmith, tailor, carpenter, clay-worker, weaver, shoemaker, jeweller, +pharmacist, doctor, lawyer, or any of the professional people or +tradesmen, with very few exceptions, and the country will be left in a +practically helpless state." + +The German memorialist presses the indictment: + +"You cannot become a merchant by murdering one. You cannot master a +handicraft if you smash its tools. A sparsely-populated country does not +become more productive if it destroys its most industrious population. +You do not advance the progress of civilisation if you drive into the +desert, as the scapegoat for decades and centuries of wasted +opportunities, the element in your population which shows the greatest +economic ability, the greatest progressiveness in education, and the +greatest energy in every respect, and which was fitted by nature to +build the bridge between East and West. You only corrupt your own sense +of right if you tread the rights of others under foot. The popularity of +an unpopular war may temporarily be promoted among the Turkish masses by +the destruction and spoliation of the non-Mohammedan elements--the +Armenians most of all, but also, in part, the Syrians, Greeks, +Maronites, and Jews--but thoughtful Mohammedans, when they realise the +whole damage which the Empire has sustained, will lament the economic +ruin of Turkey most bitterly, and will come to the conclusion that the +Turkish Government has lost infinitely more than it can ever win"--it is +a German writing--"by victories at the front." + +"We may call it political necessity or what not," declared an American +travelling in Anatolia during the deportations of 1915, "but in essence +it is a nominally ruling class, jealous of a more progressive race, +striving by methods of primitive savagery to maintain the leading +place[24]." + +What forces will be released in Western Asia when the Turk has met his +fate? Who will repair the ruin he leaves behind? + +The Germans? They have been penetrating Turkey economically for the +last thirty years. They have organised regular steamship services +between German and Turkish ports, multiplied the volume of Turco-German +trade, and extended their capital investments, particularly in the +Ottoman Debt and the construction of railways. In 1881, when the Debt +was first placed under international administration, Germany held only +4.7 per cent., of it, and was the sixth in importance of Turkey's +creditors; by 1912 she held 20 per cent., and was second only to +France[25]. Her railway enterprises, more ambitious than those of any +other foreign Power, have brought valuable concessions in their +train--harbour works at Haidar Pasha and Alexandretta, irrigation works +in the Konia oasis and the Adana plain, and the prospect, when the +Bagdad Railway reaches the Tigris, of tapping the naphtha deposits of +Kerkuk[26]. Dr. Rohrbach, the German specialist on the Near East, +forecasts the profits of the Bagdad Railway from the results of Russian +railway-building in Central Asia. He prophesies the cultivation of +cotton, in the regions opened up by the line, on a scale which will +cover an appreciable part of the demands of German industry, and will +open a corresponding market for German wares among the new +cotton-growing population[27]. "Yet the decisive factor in the Bagdad +Railway," he counsels his German readers, "is not to be found in these +economic considerations but in another sphere." + +Dr. Wiedenfeld drives this home. + +"Germany's relation to Turkey," his monograph begins, "belies the +doctrine that all modern understandings and differences between nations +have an economic origin. We are certainly interested in the economic +advancement of Turkey ... but in setting ourselves to make Turkey strong +we have been influenced far more by our political interests as a State +among States (_das politische, das staatlich-machtliche Interesse_). +Even our economic activity has primarily served this aim, and has in +fact originated to a large extent in the purely politico-military +problems (_aus den unmittelbaren Machtaufgaben_) which confronted the +Turkish Government. Exclusively economic considerations play a very +subordinate part in Turco-German relations.... Our common political +aims, and Germany's interest in keeping open the land-route to the +Indian Ocean, will make it more than ever imperative for us to +strengthen Turkey economically with all our might, and to put her in a +position to build up, on independent economic foundations, a body +politic strong enough to withstand all external assaults. The means will +still be economic; the goal will be of a political order[28]." + +And Dr. Rohrbach formulates the political goal with startling precision. +After twelve pages of disquisition on recent international diplomacy he +brings his thesis to this point: the Bagdad Railway links up with the +railways of Syria, and + +"The importance of the Syrian railway system lies in this, that, if the +need arose, it would be the direct instrument for the exercise of +pressure upon England ... supposing that German-Austro-Turkish +co-operation became necessary in the direction of Egypt." + +Written as it was in 1911, this is a remarkable anticipation of Turkish +strategic railway-building since the outbreak of war; but it is +infinitely remote in purpose from the economic regeneration of Western +Asia, and even when the German publicists reckon in economic values they +generally betray their political design. + +"The special point for Germany," Dr. Wiedenfeld lays down, in discussing +the agricultural possibilities of the Ottoman territories, "is that to a +large extent crops can be grown here which supplement our own economic +resources in important respects.... In peace time, of course, no one +would think of transporting goods of such bulk as agricultural products +any way but by sea; but the War has impressed on us with brutal +clearness the value for us of being able on occasions of extreme +necessity to import cotton from Turkey by land." + +Thus Germany's economic activity in Turkey has been not for prosperity +but for power, not for peace but for war. In developing Turkey, Germany +is simply developing the "Central Europe" scheme of a military combine +self-contained economically and challenging the world in arms[29]. +Germany is concerned with Turkey, not for her splendid past and future, +but for her miserable present; for Turkey--as she is, and only as she +is--is a vital chequer on the chess-board where Germany has been playing +her game of world power, or "des staatlich-machtlichen Interessens," as +Dr. Wiedenfeld would say. Therefore Germany does not eye the lands and +peoples under Ottoman dominion with a view to their common advantage and +her own. She selects a "piece" among them which she can keep under her +thumb and so control the square. Abd-ul-Hamid was her first pawn, and +when the Young Turk Party swept him off the board she adopted them and +their colour[30]; for by hook or by crook, through this agency or that, +Turkey had to be commanded or Germany's play was spoilt. + +Germany's control over Turkey depends upon the maintenance of a corrupt +minority in power--too weak and corrupt to remain in it without +Germany's guarantee, and corrupt enough, when secured in it, to put it +at Germany's disposal. A free hand at home in return for servitude in +diplomacy and war--the deal is called "Hegemony," and is as old as +Ancient Greece. By her hegemony over the Ottoman Government Germany +threatens the British and Russian Empires from all the Ottoman +frontiers; and with the free hand that is their price the Young Turks +inflict on all lands and peoples within those frontiers whatever evils +conduce to the maintenance of their pretensions. + +As Rohrbach and Wiedenfeld point out, this political understanding +underlies all Germany's economic efforts in Western Asia, and we can see +how it has warped them from their proper ends. The track of the Bagdad +Railway, for example, has not been selected in the economic interests of +the lands and peoples which it ostensibly serves. Dr. Rohrbach himself +admits that + +"The Anatolian section of the Bagdad Railway cannot be described as +properly paying its way. It is otherwise with the" (French) "line from +Smyrna to Afiun Kara Hissar, which links the Anatolian Railway with the +older railway system in the West.... The parts of Asia Minor which were +thickly populated and prosperous in antiquity lie mostly westward of +this first section of the Bagdad Railway, round the river-valleys and" +(French and English) "railways leading down to the Aegean." + +"There are other once-flourishing parts of the peninsula," he continues, +"which the Bagdad Railway does not touch at all"--the Vilayet of Sivas +and the other Armenian provinces. The original German plan was to carry +the Railway through Armenia from Angora to Kharput, but Russia not +unnaturally vetoed the construction, so near her Caucasian frontiers, of +a line which, by the nature of the Turco-German understanding, must +primarily serve strategic ends[31], and the track was therefore +deflected to the south-east. This took it through the most barren parts +of Central Anatolia, and in the next section involved the slow and +costly work of tunnelling the Taurus and Amanus mountains. + +"If merely economic and not political advantages were taken into +account," Dr. Rohrbach concedes, "the question might perhaps be raised +whether it would not be better to leave the Anatolian section alone +altogether and begin the Bagdad Railway from Seleucia" (on the Syrian +coast). "The future export trade in grain, wool, and cotton will in any +case do all it can to lengthen the cheap sea-passage and shorten +correspondingly the section on which it must pay railway freights. The +fact that the route connecting Bagdad with the Mediterranean coast in +the neighbourhood of Antioch is the oldest, greatest, and still most +promising trade-route of Western Asia is independent of all railway +projects." + +It is worth remembering that a railway, following this route from the +Syrian coast to the Persian Gulf, has more than once been projected by +the British Government. As early as the thirties of last century Colonel +Chesney was sent out to examine the ground, and in 1867 the proposal was +considered by a Committee of the House of Commons. For the economic +development of Western Asia it is clearly a better plan, but then Dr. +Rohrbach bases the "necessity for the East Anatolian section of the +Bagdad Railway" on wholly different grounds. + +"The necessity," he declares, "consists in Turkey's military interests, +which obviously would be very poorly served" (by German railway +enterprise) "if troops could not be transported by train without a break +from Bagdad and Mosul to the extremity of Anatolia, and _vice versâ_." + +The Bagdad Railway is thus acknowledged to be an instrument of strategy +for the Germans and for the Turks of domination--for "_vice versâ_" +means that Turkish troops can be transported at a moment's notice +through the tunnels from Anatolia to enforce the Ottoman pretension over +the Arab lands. Militarily, these tunnels are the most valuable section +of the line; economically, they are the most costly and unremunerative. +And the second (and longer) tunnel could still have been dispensed with, +if, south of Taurus, the track had been led along the Syrian coast. +"Economic interests and considerations of expense," Wiedenfeld +concedes[32], "argued strongly for the latter course, but--fortunately, +as we must admit to-day--the military point of view prevailed." Thus the +Turco-German understanding prevented the Bagdad Railway first from +beginning at a port on the Mediterranean coast, and then from touching +the coast at all[33]. "The spine of Turkey," as German writers are fond +of calling it, distorts the natural articulation of Western Asia. + +Nemesis has overtaken the Germans in the Armenian deportations--a +"political end" of Turkish Nationalism which swept away the "economic +means" towards Germany's subtler policy. A month or two before the +outbreak of war Dr. Rohrbach stated, in a public lecture, that + +"Germany has an important interest in effecting and maintaining contact +with the Armenian nation. We have set before ourselves the necessary and +legitimate aim of spreading and enrooting German influence in Turkey, +not only by military missions and the construction of railways, but also +by the establishment of intellectual relations, by the work of German +_Kultur_--in a word, by moral conquests; and we are determined, by +pacific means, to reach an amicable understanding with the Turks and the +other nations in the Turkish Empire. Our ulterior object in this is to +strengthen the Turkish Empire internally with the aid of German science, +education, and training, and for this work the Armenians are +indispensable." + +A few months later Germany, as part price of Turkey's intervention in +the War, had to leave the Young Turks a "free hand" to exterminate the +nation which was the indispensable instrument of her Turkish policy. On +the 9th August, 1915, the German Ambassador at Constantinople handed in +a formal protest against the deportations, in which his Government +"declined all responsibility for the consequences which might result." +On the 11th January, 1916, in the German Reichstag, the Chief of the +Political Department of the Foreign Office replied to a question from +Dr. Liebknecht that "an exchange of views about the reaction of these +measures upon the population was taking place," and that "further +information could not be given." And while Germany was maintaining this +"correct attitude" before the world, she was assisting in Turkey at the +destruction of her own work. + +Even the atrocities of 1909 had damaged the economic prospects of the +Adapa district from which Dr. Rohrbach[34] hoped so much, for + +"The first thing the Turkish peasants did was to destroy all the +steam-ploughs and nearly all the threshing machines (there were over a +hundred of them) which the Armenian villagers had imported for the +cultivation of the Civilian plain[35]." + +By the atrocities of 1915 the economic life of Western Asia was +completely ruined, and the fruits of German enterprise were swept away +in the flood. + +"I have before me," writes our German memorialised, "a list of the +customers of a single Constantinople firm of importers which places its +orders principally in Germany and Austria. The accounts which this firm +has outstanding amount to date to £13,922 (Turkish), owing from 378 +customers in 42 towns of the interior. In consequence of the Armenian +deportations these debts are no longer recoverable. The 378 customers, +with all their employees, goods, and assets, have vanished from the face +of the earth. Any of the owners that are still alive are now beggars on +the borders of the Arabian desert." + +At Urfa, after the atrocities of 1896, philanthropists of all nations +had founded orphanages and started native industries. Attached to the +German orphanage there was a carpet factory, with dyeing vats and a +spinnery, which Dr. Rohrbach[36], after personal investigation, +describes as "an institution to be welcomed as unreservedly from the +national as from the humanitarian point of view." + +"The factory," he remarks, "not only provides work and bread for 400 +persons, but has transplanted one of the most profitable and promising +industries of the East into the sphere traversed by the German Railway, +where German interests are predominant." + +He prophesies that the whole carpet industry of Western Asia, "from +which English and other foreign firms in Smyrna now draw such enormous +profits," will soon be concentrated round Urfa in German hands. From +Armenia's evil, apparently, springs Germany's good--but in 1911 Dr. +Rohrbach did not foresee the catastrophe of 1915. + +"For the rise of the carpet industry," our German memorialised writes, +"Turkey has to thank capitalists and exporters who are almost all +Armenians, Greeks, Jews, or Europeans. Like the cotton cultivation +introduced by Germany into Cilicia, this carpet industry, in the eastern +provinces, has been deprived of the hands essential to it by the +Armenian deportations." + +Eye-witnesses at Urfa describe how the Armenian community there was +massacred in 1915--the third time in twenty years, and this time to +extinction--and it points the irony of the situation that the Turkish +guns were served by German artillerymen[37]. + +"I have nothing to say," writes Dr. Niepage, the German teacher from +Aleppo, "about the opinion of the German officers in Turkey. I often +noticed among them an ominous silence or a convulsive effort to change +the subject, when any German of warm feelings and independent judgment +talked in their presence of the fearful sufferings of the Armenians." + +This moral bankruptcy is more fatal to the future of Germany in Western +Asia than all the material havoc which the Armenian deportations have +caused. For Dr. Niepage is convinced that the blood of the Armenians +will be on Germany's head: + +"'The teaching of the Germans,' is the simple Turk's explanation, ... +and more sensitive Mohammedans, Turks and Arabs alike, cannot believe +that their own Government has ordered these horrors. They lay all +excesses at the Germans' door, for the Germans, during the War, are +regarded as Turkey's schoolmasters in everything. The mollahs declare in +the mosques that the German officers, and not the Sublime Porte, have +ordered the maltreatment and extermination of the Armenians.... Others +say: 'Perhaps the German Government has its hands tied by certain +agreements defining its powers, or perhaps it is not an opportune moment +for intervention.' + +"Our presence had no ameliorating effect, and what we could do ourselves +was negligible.... The abusive epithet 'Giaur' is heard once more by +German ears.... + +"We think it our duty to draw attention to the fact that our educational +work in Turkey forfeits its moral basis and the natives' esteem, if the +German Government is not in a position to prevent the brutalities +inflicted here upon the wives and children of murdered Armenians. + +"The writer considers it out of the question that the German Government, +if it seriously desired to stem the tide of destruction in this eleventh +hour, would find it impossible to bring the Turkish Government to +reason.... + +"If we persist in treating the massacres of Christians as an internal +affair of Turkey, which is only important to us because it ensures us +the Turks' friendship, then we must change the orientation of our German +_Kulturpolitik_. We must stop sending German teachers to Turkey, and we +teachers must give up telling our pupils in Turkey about German poets +and philosophers, German culture and German ideals, to say nothing of +German Christianity. + +"Three years ago I was sent by the Foreign Office as higher-grade +teacher to the German Technical School at Aleppo. The Prussian +Provincial School Board at Magdeburg specially enjoined upon me, when I +went out, to show myself worthy of the confidence reposed in me in the +grant of furlough to take up this post. I should not be fulfilling my +duty as a German official and an accredited representative of German +culture, if I consented to keep silence in face of the atrocities of +which I was a witness, or to look on passively while the pupils +entrusted to my charge were driven out into the desert to die of +starvation. + +"The things of which everybody here has been a witness for months past +remain as a stain on Germany's shield in the minds of Oriental nations." + +What will be left to Germany in Western Asia after the war? She may keep +her trade, though Wiedenfeld confesses that "the exchange of commodities +between Germany and Turkey has never attained any really considerable +dimensions," and that "the German export trade commands no really staple +article whatever of the kind exported by England, Austria, and +Russia"--unless we count as such munitions and other materials of +war[38]. Except for the last item, this German trade will probably +remain and grow; but the German hegemony, based on railway enterprise +and reinsured by "moral conquests," will scarcely survive the Ottoman +dominion. + +Happily there are other representatives of culture, other indigenous +nationalities, other possibilities of economic development, which will +remain in Western Asia when the Turk and German have gone, and which +may be equal to repairing the ruin they will leave behind. + +For nearly a century now the American Evangelical Missions have been +doing work there which is the greatest conceivable contrast to the +German _Kulturpolitik_ of the last thirty years. A missionary, sent out +to relieve the first pioneers, was given the following instructions by +the American Board: + +"The object of our missions to the Oriental Churches is, first, to +revive the knowledge and spirit of the Gospel among them, and, secondly, +by this means to operate upon the Mohammedans. + +"The Oriental Churches need assistance from their brethren abroad. Our +object is not to subvert them: you are not sent among those Churches to +proselytise. Let the Armenian remain an Armenian if he will, the Greek a +Greek, the Nestorian a Nestorian, the Oriental an Oriental. + +"Your great business is with the fundamental doctrines and duties of the +Gospel[39]." + +In this spirit the American missionaries have worked. They have had no +warships behind them, no diplomatic support, no political ambitions, no +economic concessions. As Evangelicals their first step was to translate +the Bible into all the living languages and current scripts of the +Nearer East. For the Bulgars and Armenians this was the beginning of +their modern literature, but the jealousy of the Orthodox and Gregorian +clergy was naturally aroused. Native Protestant Churches formed +themselves--not by the missionaries' initiative but on their own. They +were trained by the missionaries to self-government, and as they spread +from centre to centre they grouped themselves in unions, with annual +meetings to settle their common affairs. The missionaries also +encouraged them to be self-supporting, and in 1908 the contributions of +the Native Churches to the general expenses of the missions were twice +as large as those of the American Board[40]. The Ottoman Government +recognised its Protestant subjects as a religious corporation _(Millet)_ +in 1853, and in spite of this the jealousy of the national Churches was +overcome. For the work of the Americans was not confined to the new +Protestant community. The translation of the Bible led them also into +educational work; they laid the foundations of secondary education in +Western Asia, and their schools and colleges--still the only +institutions of their kind--are attended by Gregorians as well as +Protestants, Moslems as well as Christians, Moslem girls as well as +boys. As they opened up remoter districts they added medicine to their +activities, and their hospitals, like their schools, have been the first +in the field. And all this has been built up so unassumingly that its +magnitude is hardly realised by the Americans themselves. In the three +Turkey Missions, which cover Anatolia and Armenia--the whole of Turkey +except the Arab lands--there were, on the eve of the War, 209 American +missionaries with 1,299 native helpers, 163 Protestant churches with +15,348 members, 450 schools with 25,922 pupils; Constantinople College +and 6 other colleges or high schools for girls; Robert College on the +Bosphorus and 9 other colleges for men or boys; and 11 hospitals. + +The War, when it came, seemed to sweep away everything. The Protestant +Armenians, in spite of a nominal exemption, were deported and massacred +like their Gregorian fellow-countrymen; the boys and girls were carried +away from the American colleges, the nurses and patients from the +hospitals; the empty buildings were "requisitioned" by the Ottoman +authorities; the missionaries themselves, in their devoted efforts to +save a remnant from destruction, suffered as many casualties from typhus +and physical exhaustion as any proportionate body of workers on the +European battlefields. The Turkish Nationalists congratulated themselves +that the American work in Western Asia was destroyed. In praising a +lecture by a member of the German _Reichstag_, who had declared himself +"opposed to all missionary activities in the Turkish Empire," a +Constantinople newspaper[41] wrote: + +"The suppression of the schools founded and directed by ecclesiastical +missions or by individuals belonging to enemy nations is as important a +measure as the abolition of the Capitulations. Thanks to their schools, +foreigners were able to exercise great moral influence over the young +men of the country, and they were virtually in charge of its spiritual +and intellectual guidance. By closing them the Government has put an end +to a situation as humiliating as it was dangerous." + +But the missionaries' spirit was something they could not destroy. + +"When they deported the Armenians," wrote a missionary, "and left us +without work and without friends, we decided to come home and get our +vacation and be ready to go wherever we could after the War[42]." + +After the War the Turks in Anatolia may still be infatuated enough to +banish their best friends, but in Armenia, when the Turk has gone, the +Americans will find more than their former field; for, in one form or +another, Armenia is certain to rise again. The Turks have not succeeded +in exterminating the Armenian nation. Half of it lives in Russia, and +its colonies are scattered over the world from California to Singapore. +Even within the Ottoman frontiers the extermination is not complete, and +the Arabian deserts will yield up their living as well as the memory of +their dead. The relations of Armenia with the Russian democracy should +not be more difficult to settle than those of Finland and Poland; her +frontiers cannot be forecast, but they must include the Six Vilayets--so +often promised reforms by the Concert of Europe and so often abandoned +to the revenges of the Ottoman Government--as well as the Civilian +highlands and some outlet to the sea. One thing is certain, that, +whatever land is restored to them, the Armenians will turn its resources +to good account, for, while their town-dwellers are the merchants and +artisans of Western Asia, 80 per cent., of them are tillers of the soil. + +What the Americans have done for Armenia has been done for Syria by the +French[43]. There are half a million Maronite Catholics in Syria, and +since the seventeenth century France has been the protectress of +Catholicism in the Near East. In 1864, when there was trouble in Syria +and the Maronites were being molested by the Ottoman Government, France +landed an army corps and secured autonomy for the Lebanon under a +Christian governor. But French influence is not limited to the Lebanon +province. All over Syria there are French clerical, secular, and Judaic +schools. Beirût and Damascus, Christian and Moslem--for there is more +religious tolerance in Syria than in most Near Eastern countries--are +equally under the spell of French civilisation; and France is the chief +economic power in the land, for French enterprise has built the Syrian +railways. The sufferings of Syria during the War have been described; +the Young Turks have confiscated the railways and deprived the Lebanon +of its autonomy; even Rohrbach deprecates the fact that "only a few of +the higher officials in Syria are chosen from among the natives of the +country, while almost all, from the Kaimakam upwards, are sent out from +Constantinople," and he attributes to this policy "the feeling against +the Turks, which is most acute in Damascus." This is Rohrbach's +periphrasis for Arab Nationalism, which will be master in its own house +when the Turk has been removed. The future status and boundaries of +Syria can no more be forecast than those of Armenia at the present stage +of the War; yet here, too, certain tendencies are clear. In some form or +other Arab Syria will retain her connection with France, and her growing +population will no longer be driven by misgovernment to emigration. + +Syrians and Armenians have been emigrating for the last quarter of a +century, and during the same period the Jews, whose birthright in +Western Asia is as ancient as theirs, have been returning to their +native land--not because Ottoman dominion bore less hardly upon them +than upon other gifted races, but because nothing could well be worse +than the conditions they left behind. For these Jewish immigrants came +almost entirely from the Russian Pale, the hearth and hell of modern +Jewry. The movement really began after the assassination of Alexander +II. in 1881, which threw back reform in Russia for thirty-six years. The +Jews were the scapegoats of the reaction. New laws deprived them of +their last civil rights, _pogroms_ of life itself; they came to +Palestine as refugees, and between 1881 and 1914 their numbers there +increased from 25,000 to 120,000 souls. + +The most remarkable result of this movement has been the foundation of +flourishing agricultural colonies. Their struggle for existence has been +hard; the pioneers were students or trades-folk of the Ghetto, unused to +outdoor life and ignorant of Near Eastern conditions; Baron Edmund de +Rothschild financed them from 1884 to 1899 at a loss; then they were +taken over by the "Palestine Colonisation Association," which discovered +the secrets of success in self-government and scientific methods. + +Each colony is now governed by an elective council of inhabitants, with +committees for education, police, and the arbitration of disputes, and +they have organised co-operative unions which make them independent of +middlemen in the disposal of their produce. Their production has rapidly +risen in quantity and value, through the industry and intelligence of +the average Jewish settler, assisted latterly by an Agricultural +Experiment Station at Atlit, near Haifa, which improves the varieties of +indigenous crops and acclimatises others[44]. There is a "Palestine Land +Development Company" which buys land in big estates and resells it in +small lots to individual settlers, and an "Anglo-Palestine Bank" which +makes advances to the new settlers when they take up their holdings. As +a result of this enlightened policy the number of colonies has risen to +about forty, with 15,000 inhabitants in all and 110,000 acres of land, +and these figures do not do full justice to the importance of the +colonising movement. The 15,000 Jewish agriculturists are only 12-1/2 +per cent. of the Jewish population in Palestine, and 2 per cent., of the +total population of the country; but they are the most active, +intelligent element, and the only element which is rapidly increasing. +Again, the land they own is only 2 per cent. of the total area of +Palestine; but it is between 8 and 14 per cent. of the area under +cultivation, and there are vast uncultivated tracts which the Jews can +and will reclaim, as their numbers grow--both by further colonisation +and by natural increase, for the first generation of colonists have +already proved their ability to multiply in the Promised Land. Under +this new Jewish husbandry Palestine has begun to recover its ancient +prosperity. The Jews have sunk artesian wells, built dams for water +storage, fought down malaria by drainage and eucalyptus planting, and +laid out many miles of roads. In 1890 an acre of irrigable land at +Petach-Tikweh, the earliest colony, was worth £3 12s., in 1914, £36, and +the annual trade of Jaffa rose from £760,000 to £2,080,000 between 1904 +and 1912. "The impetus to agriculture is benefiting the whole economic +life of the country," wrote the German Vice-Counsul at Jaffa in his +report for 1912, and there is no fear that, as immigration increases, +the Arab element will be crowded to the wall. There are still only two +Jewish colonies beyond Jordan, where the Hauran--under the Roman Empire +a corn-land with a dozen cities--has been opened up by the railway and +is waiting again for the plough. + +But will immigration continue now that the Jew of the Pale has been +turned at a stroke into the free citizen of a democratic country? +Probably it will actually increase, for the Pale has been ravaged as +well as liberated during the war, and the Jews of Germany have based an +ingenious policy on this prospect, which is expounded thus by Dr. +Davis-Trietsch of Berlin[45]: + +"According to the most recent statistics about 12,900,000 out of the +14,300,000 Jews in the world speak German or Yiddish (_jüdisch-deutsch_) +as their mother-tongue.... But its language, cultural orientation, and +business relations the Jewish element from Eastern Europe" (the Pale) +"is an asset to German influence.... In a certain sense the Jews are a +Near Eastern element in Germany and a German element in Turkey." + +Germany may not relish her kinship with these lost Teutonic tribes, but +Dr. Davis-Trietsch makes a satirical exposure of such scruples: + +"It used to be a stock argument against the Jews that 'all nations' +regarded them with equal hostility, but the War has brought upon the +Germans such a superabundance of almost universal execration that the +question which is the most despised of all nations--if one goes, not by +justice and equity, but by the violence and extensiveness of the +prejudice--might well now be altered to the Germans' disadvantage. + +"In this unenviable competition for the prize of hate, Turkey, too, has +a word to say, for the unspeakable Turk' is a rhetorical commonplace of +English politics." + +Having thus isolated the Jews from humanity and pilloried them with the +German and the Turk, the writer expounds their function in the +Turco-German system: + +"Hitherto Germany has bothered herself very little about the Jewish +emigration from Eastern Europe. People in Germany hardly realised that, +through the annual exodus of about 100,000 German-speaking Jews to the +United States and England, the empire of the English language and the +economic system that goes with it is being enlarged, while a German +asset is being proportionately depreciated.... + +"The War found the Jewry of Eastern Europe in process of being uprooted, +and has enormously accelerated the catastrophe. Galicia and the western +provinces of Russia, which between them contain many more than half the +Jews in the world, have suffered more from the War than any other +region. Jewish homes have been broken up by hundreds of thousands, and +there is no doubt whatever that, as a result of the War, there will be +an emigration of East European Jews on an unprecedented scale.... + +"The disposal of the East European Jews will be a problem for +Germany.... It will no longer do simply to close the German frontiers to +them, and in view of the difficulties which would result from a +wholesale migration of Eastern Jews into Germany itself, Germans will +only be too glad to find a way out in the emigration of these Jews to +Turkey--a solution extraordinarily favourable to the interests of all +three parties concerned...." + +And from this he passes to a wider vision: + +"The German-speaking Jews abroad are a kind of German-speaking province +which is well worth cultivation. Nine-tenths of the Jewish world speak +German, and a good part of the remainder live in the Islamic world, +which is Germany's friend, so that there are grounds for talking of a +German protectorate over the whole of Jewry." + +By this exploitation of aversions, Dr. Trietsch expects to deposit the +Jews of the Pale over Western Asia as "culture-manure" for a German +harvest; and if the Jewish migration to Palestine had remained nothing +more than a stream of refugees, he might possibly have succeeded in his +purpose. But in the last twenty years this Jewish movement has become a +positive thing--no longer a flight from the Pale but a remembrance of +Zion--and Zionism has already challenged and defeated the policy which +Dr. Trietsch represents. "The object of Zionism," it was announced in +the _Basle Programme_, drawn up by the first Zionist Congress in 1897, +"is to establish for the Jewish people a publicly and legally assured +home in Palestine." For the Zionists Jewry is a nation, and to become +like other nations it needs its Motherland. In the Jewish colonies in +Palestine they see not merely a successful social enterprise but the +visible symbol of a body politic. The foundation of a national +university in Jerusalem is as ultimate a goal for them as the economic +development of the land, and their greatest achievement has been the +revival of Hebrew as the living language of the Palestinian Jews. It was +this that brought them into conflict with the Germanising tendency. In +1907 a secondary school was successfully started at Jaffa, by the +initiative of Jewish teachers in Palestine, with Hebrew as the language +of instruction; but in 1914, when a Jewish Polytechnic was founded at +Haifa, the German-Jewish _Hilfsverein_, which had taken a leading part, +refused to follow this precedent, and insisted on certain subjects being +taught in German, not only in the Polytechnic, but in the +_Hilfsverein's_ other schools. The result was a secession of pupils and +teachers. Purely Hebrew schools were opened; the Zionist organisation +gave official support; and the Germanising party was compelled to accept +a compromise which was in effect a victory for the Hebrew language. + +Dr. Trietsch himself accepts this settlement, but does not abandon his +idea: + +"It was certainly impossible to expect the Spanish and Arabic-speaking +Jews[46] to submit in their own Jewish country to the hegemony of the +German language.... Only Hebrew could become the common vernacular +language of the scattered fragments of Jewry drifting back to Palestine +from all the countries of the world. But ... in addition to Hebrew, to +which they are more and more inclined, the Jews must have a +world-language _(Weltsprache),_ and this can only be German." + +Anyone acquainted with the language-ordinances of Central Europe will +feel that this suggestion veils a threat. What has been happening in +Palestine during the War? Dr. Trietsch informs us that the Ottoman +Government has been proceeding with the "naturalisation" of the +Palestinian Jews, and that the "local execution of this measure has not +been effected without disturbances which are beyond the province of this +pamphlet." One significant consequence was the appearance in Egypt of +Palestinian refugees, who raised a Zion mule corps there and fought +through the Gallipoli campaign. What is the outlook for Palestine after +the War? If the Ottoman pretension survives, the menace from Turkish +Nationalism[47] and German resentment[48] is grave. But if Turk and +German go, there are Zionists who would like to see Palestine a British +Protectorate, with the prospect of growing into a British Dominion. +Certainly, if the Jewish colonies are to make progress, they must be +relieved of keeping their own police, building their own roads, and the +other burdens that fall on them under Ottoman government, and this can +only be secured by a better public administration. As for the British +side of the question, we may consult Dr. Trietsch. + +"There are possibilities," he urges, "in a German protectorate over the +Jews as well as over Islam. Smaller national units than the 14 1-3 +million Jews have been able to do Germany vital injury or service, and, +while the Jews have no national state, their dispersion over the whole +world, their high standard of culture, and their peculiar abilities +lend them a weight that is worth more in the balance than many larger +national masses which occupy a compact area of their own." + +Other Powers than Germany may take these possibilities to heart. + +Here, then, are peoples risen from the past to do what the Turks cannot +and the Germans will not in Western Asia. There is much to be +done--reform of justice, to obtain legal release from the Capitulations; +reform in the assessment and collection of the agricultural tithes, +which have been denounced for a century by every student of Ottoman +administration; agrarian reform, to save peasant proprietorship, which +in Syria, at any rate, is seriously in danger; genuine development of +economic resources; unsectarian and non-nationalistic advancement of +education. But the Jews, Syrians, and Armenians are equal to their task, +and, with the aid of the foreign nations on whom they can count, they +will certainly accomplish it. The future of Palestine, Syria, and +Armenia is thus assured; but there are other countries--once as fertile, +prosperous, and populous as they--which have lost not only their wealth +but their inhabitants under the Ottoman domination. These countries have +not the life left in them to reclaim themselves, and must look abroad +for reconstruction. + +If you cross the Euphrates by the bridge that carries the Bagdad +Railway, you enter a vast landscape of steppes as virgin to the eye as +any prairie across the Mississippi. Only the _tells_ (mounds) with which +it is studded witness to the density of its ancient population--for +Northern Mesopotamia was once so populous and full of riches that Rome +and the rulers of Iran fought seven centuries for its possession, till +the Arabs conquered it from both. + +The railway has now reached Nisibin, the Roman frontier fortress +heroically defended and ceded in bitterness of heart, and runs past +Dara, which the Persians never took. Westward lies Urfa--named Edessa by +Alexander's men after their Macedonian city of running waters[49]; later +the seat of a Christian Syriac culture whose missionaries were heard in +China and Travancore; still famous, under Arab dominion, for its +Veronica and 300 churches; and restored for a moment to Christendom as +the capital of a Crusader principality, till the Mongols trampled it +into oblivion and the Osmanlis made it a name for butchery. + +From Urfa to Nisibin there can be fields again. The climate has not +changed, and wherever the Bedawi pitches his tents and scratches the +ground there is proof of the old fertility. Only anarchy has banished +cultivation; for, since the Ottoman pretension was established over the +land, it has been the battleground of brigand tribes--Kurds from the +hills and Arabs from the desert, skirmishing or herding their flocks, +making or breaking alliance, but always robbing any tiller of the land +of the fruits of his labour. + +"If once," Dr. Rohrbach prophesies, "the peasant population were sure of +its life and property, it would joyfully expand, push out into the +desert, and bring new land under the plough; in a few years the villages +would spring up, not by dozens, but by hundreds." + +At present cultivation is confined to the Armenian foot-hills--an +uncertain arc of green from Aleppo to Mosul. But the railway strikes +boldly into the deserted middle of the land, giving the arc a chord, and +when Turco-German strategic interests no longer debar it from being +linked up, through Aleppo, with a Syrian port, it will be the really +valuable section of the Bagdad system. The railway is the only capital +enterprise that Northern Mesopotamia requires, for there is rain +sufficient for the crops without artificial irrigation. Reservoirs of +population are the need. The Kurds who come for winter pasture may be +induced to stay--already they have been settling down in the western +districts, and have gained a reputation for industry; the Bedawin, more +fickle husbandmen, may settle southward along the Euphrates, and in time +there will be a surplus of peasantry from Armenia and Syria. These will +add field to field, but unless some stronger stream of immigration is +led into the land, it will take many generations to recover its ancient +prosperity; for in the ninth century A.D. Northern Mesopotamia paid +Harun-al-Rashid as great a revenue as Egypt, and its cotton commanded +the market of the world[50]. + +Southern Mesopotamia--the Irak of the Arabs and Babylonia of the +Greeks--lies desolate like the North, but is a contrast to it in every +other respect. Its aspect is towards the Persian Gulf, and Rohrbach +grudgingly admits[51] that down the Tigris to Basra, and not upstream to +Alexandretta, is the natural channel for its trade. It gets nothing from +the Mediterranean, neither trade nor rain, and every drop of water for +cultivation must be led out of the rivers; but the rivers in their +natural state are worse than the drought. Their discharge is extremely +variable--about eight times as great in April as in October; they are +always silting up their beds and scooping out others; and when there are +no men to interfere they leave half the country a desert and make the +other half a swamp. Yet the soil, when justly watered, is one of the +richest in the world; for Irak is an immense alluvial delta, more than +five hundred miles from end to end, which the Tigris and Euphrates have +deposited in what was originally the head of the Persian Gulf. The Arabs +call it the _Sawâd_ or Black Land, and it is a striking change from the +bare ledges of Arabia and Iran which enclose its flanks, and from the +Northern steppe-land which it suddenly replaces--at Samarra, if you are +descending the Tigris, and on the Euphrates at Hit. The steppe cannot +compare with the _Sawâd_ in fertility, but the _Sawâd_ does not so +readily yield up its wealth. To become something better than a +wilderness of dust and slime it needs engineering on the grand scale and +a mighty population--immense forces working for immense returns. In a +strangely different environment it anticipated our modern rhythm of life +by four thousand years, and then went back to desolation five centuries +before Industrialism (which may repeople it) began. + +The _Sawâd_ was first reclaimed by men who had already a mastery of +metals, a system of writing, and a mature religion--less civilised men +would never have attempted the task. These Sumerians, in the fourth +millennium B.C., lived on _tells_ heaped up above flood-level, each +_tell_ a city-state with its separate government and gods, for +centralisation was the one thing needful to the country which the +Sumerians did not achieve. The centralisers were Semites from the +Arabian plateau. Sargon of Akkad and Naram Sin ruled the whole _Sawâd_ +as early as 2500 B.C.; Hammurabi, in 1900, already ruled it from +Babylon; and the capital has never shifted more than sixty miles since +then. Babylon on the Euphrates and Bagdad on the Tigris are the +alternative points from which the _Sawâd_ can be controlled. Just above +them the first irrigation canals branch off from the rivers, and between +them the rivers approach within thirty-five miles of each other. It is +the point of vantage for government and engineering. + +Here far-sighted engineers and stronghanded rulers turned the waters of +Babylon into waters of life, and the _Sawâd_ became a great heart of +civilisation, breathing in man-power--Sumerians and Amorites and +Kassites and Aramaeans and Chaldeans and Persians and Greeks and +Arabs--and breathing out the works of man--grain and wool and Babylonish +garments, inventions still used in our machine-shops, and emotions still +felt in our religion. + +"The land," writes Herodotus[52], who saw it in its prime, "has a little +rain, and this nourishes the corn at the root; but the crops are matured +and brought to harvest by water from the river--not, as in Egypt, by the +river flooding over the fields, but by human labour and _shadufs_[53] +For Babylonia, like Egypt, is one network of canals, the largest of +which is navigable. It is far the best corn-land of all the countries I +know. There is no attempt at arboriculture--figs or vines or olives--but +it is such superb corn-land that the average yield is two-hundredfold, +and three-hundredfold in the best years. The wheat and barley there are +a good four inches broad in the blade, and millet and sesame grow as big +as trees--but I will not state the dimensions I have ascertained, +because I know that, for anyone who has not visited Babylonia and +witnessed these facts about the crops for himself, they would be +altogether beyond belief." + +Harnessed in the irrigation channels, the Tigris and Euphrates had +become as mighty forces of production as the Nile and the Ganges, the +Yangtse and the Hoang-Ho. + +"This," Herodotus adds[54], "is the best demonstration I can give of the +wealth of the Babylonians: All the lands ruled by the King of Persia are +assessed, in addition to their taxes in money, for the maintenance of +the King's household and army in kind. Under this assessment the King is +maintained for four months out of the twelve by Babylonia, and for the +remaining eight by the rest of Asia together, so that in wealth the +Assyrian province is equivalent to a third of all Asia." + +The "Asia" over which the Achaemenids ruled included Russian Central +Asia and Egypt as well as modern Turkey and Persia, and Egypt, under the +same assessment, merely maintained the local Persian garrison[55]. Its +money contribution was inferior too--700 talents as compared with +Assyria's 1,000; and though these figures may not be conclusive, because +the Persian "province of Assyria" probably extended over the northern +steppes as well as the _Sawâd_, it is certain that under the Arab +Caliphate, when Irak and Egypt were provinces of one empire for the +second time in history, Irak by itself paid 135 million _dirhems_ +(francs) annually into Harun-al-Rashid's treasury and Egypt no more than +65 million, so that a thousand years ago the productiveness of the +_Sawâd_ was more than double that of the Nile. + +Another measure of the land's capacity is the greatness of its cities. +Herodotus gives statistics[56] of Babylon in the fifth century +B.C.--walls 300 feet high, 75 feet broad, and 58 miles in circuit; +three- and four-storied houses laid out in blocks; broad straight streets +intersecting one another at regular intervals, at right angles or +parallel to the Euphrates. Any one who reads Herodotus' description of +Babylon or Ibn Serapion's of Bagdad, and considers that these vast urban +masses were merely centres of collection and distribution for the open +country, can infer the density of population and intensity of +cultivation over the face of the _Sawâd_. When the Caliph Omar conquered +Irak from the Persians in the middle of the seventh century A.D., and +took an inventory of what he had acquired, he found that there were +5,000,000 hectares[57] of land under cultivation, and that the poll-tax +was paid by 550,000 householders, which implies a total population, in +town and country, of more than 5,000,000 souls, where a bare million and +a half maintains itself to-day in city alleys and nomads' tents. + +And in Omar's time the _Sawâd_ was no longer at its best, for, a few +years before the Arab conquest, abnormally high floods had burst the +dykes; from below Hilla to above Basra the Euphrates broadened into a +swamp, and the Tigris deserted its former (and present) bed for the +Shatt-el-Hai, leaving the Amara district a desert. The Persian +Government, locked in a suicidal struggle with Rome, was powerless to +make good the damage, and the shock of the Arab invasion made it +irreparable[58]. Under the Abbasid Caliphs of Bagdad the rest of the +country preserved its prosperity, but in the thirteenth century Hulaku +the Mongol finished the work of the floods, and under Ottoman dominion +the _Sawâd_ has not recovered. + +Can it still be reclaimed? Surveys have been taken by Sir William +Willcocks, as Adviser to the Ottoman Ministry of Public Works, and his +final conclusions and proposals are embodied in a report drawn up at +Bagdad in 1911[59]. + +"The Tigris-Euphrates delta," he writes, "may be classed as an arid +region of some 5,000,000 hectares.... All this land is capable of easy +levelling and reclamation. The presence of 15 per cent. lime in the soil +renders reclamation very easy compared with similar work in the dense +clays of Egypt. One is never far away from the giant banks of old canals +and the ruins of ancient towns." + +But he does not expect to make all these 5,000,000 hectares productive +simultaneously, as they are said to have been when Omar took his +inventory. "It is water, not land, which measures production," and he +reckons that the average combined discharge of the rivers would irrigate +3,000,000 hectares in winter, and in summer 400,000 of rice or 1,250,000 +of other crops. This is the eventual maximum; for immediate reclamation +he takes 1,410,000 hectares in hand. His project is practically to +restore, with technical improvements, the ancient system of canals and +drains, using the Euphrates water to irrigate everything west of the +Tigris (down to Kut) and the Shatt-el-Hai, and the water of the Tigris +and its tributaries for districts east of that line. Adding 33 per cent. +for contingencies to his estimate for cost of materials and rates of +labour, and doubling the total to cover interest on loans and subsequent +development, he arrives at £29,105,020 (Turkish)[60] as the cost, from +first to last, of irrigation and agricultural works together; and he +estimates that the 1,410,000 hectares reclaimed by this outlay will +produce crops to the value of £9,070,000 (Turkish) a year. In other +words, the annual return on the gross expenditure will be more than 31 +per cent., and under the present tithe system £7,256,000 (Turkish) of +this will remain with the owners of the soil, while £1,814,000 will pass +to the Government. This will give the country itself a net return of +24.9 per cent. on the combined gross cost of irrigation and agricultural +works, while the Government, after paying away £443,000 (Turkish) out of +its tithes for maintenance charges, will still receive a clear 9 per +cent. per annum on the gross cost of irrigation, to which its share in +the outlay will be confined. + +Unquestionably, therefore, the enterprise is exceedingly profitable to +all parties concerned. Looking further ahead, Sir William proposes to +supersede the navigation of the Tigris[61] by railways, and so set free +the whole discharge of the two rivers for irrigation. He contemplates +handling annually 375,000 tons of cereals and 1,250,000 cwt. of cotton, +and estimates the future by the effects of the Chenab Canal in Northern +India-- + +"a canal traversing lands similar to those of Mesopotamia in their +climate and in the condition in which they found themselves before the +canal works were carried out.... In such a land, so like a great part of +Mesopotamia, canals have introduced in a few years nearly a million of +inhabitants, and the resurrection of the country has been so rapid that +its very success was jeopardised by a railway not being able to be made +quickly enough to transport the enormous produce." + +"A million of inhabitants"--that is the crux of the problem. Labour is +as necessary as water for the raising of crops; Sir William's barrages +and canals without hands to turn them to account would be a dead loss +instead of a profitable investment; but from what reservoir of +population is this man-power to be introduced? The German economists are +baffled by the difficulty. + +"It is useless," as Rohrbach puts it, "to sink from 150 to 600 million +marks in restoring the canal system, and then let the land lie idle, +with all its new dams and channels, for lack of cultivators. Yet Turkey +can never raise enough settlers for Irak by internal colonisation[62]." + +She cannot raise them even for the minor enterprises at Konia and +Adapa[63], and evidently the _Sawâd_ must draw its future cultivators +from somewhere beyond the bounds of Western Asia. From Germany, many +Germans have suggested; but German experts curtly dismiss the idea. The +first point Rohrbach makes in his book on the Bagdad Railway is that +German colonisation in Anatolia is impossible for political reasons. "No +worse service," he declares, "can be done to the German cause in the +East than the propagation of this idea," and the rise of Turkish +Nationalism has proved him right[64]. There remain the Arab lands; + +"But even," he continues, "if the Turks thought of foreign colonisation +in Syria and Mesopotamia, to hold the Arabs in check" (the political +factor again), "that would be little help to us Germans, for only very +limited portions of those countries have a climate in which Germans can +work on the land or perform any kind of heavy manual labour." + +And Germany herself is hard up for men. + +"For all prospective developments in Turkey," writes Dr. Trietsch, "not +merely scientific knowledge, capital, and organisation are wanted, but +men, and Germany has no resources in men worth speaking of for opening +up the Islamic world." + +It is one of his arguments for bringing in the Jews, but the +colonisation of Palestine will leave no Jews over for Irak. Rohrbach[65] +disposes of the Mouhadjirs--they are a drop in the bucket, and are no +more adapted to the climate than the Germans themselves. "There is +really nothing for it," he bursts out in despair, "but the introduction +of Mohammedans from other countries where the climatic conditions of +Irak prevail." + +That narrows the field to India and Egypt, and drives Turco-German +policy upon the horns of a dilemma: + +"The colonists must either remain subjects of a foreign Power, a +solution which could not be considered for an instant by any Turkish +Government, or else they must become Turkish subjects--" + +a condition which, to Indians and Egyptians, as well as Germans, would +be prohibitive. No one who has known good government would exchange it +for Ottoman government without the Capitulations as a guarantee. + +The Ottoman Government has its own characteristic view. In a memorandum +on railways and reclamation, published by the Ministry of Public Works +in 1909, a _résumé_ is given of the Willcocks scheme. + +"In due time," the memorandum proceeds, "a comprehensive scheme for the +whole of Mesopotamia must be carried out, but, apart from the question +of expense, it is clear that the public works involved will not be +justified until Turkey is in a position to colonise these extensive +districts, and this question cannot be considered till we have succeeded +in getting rid of the Capitulations." + +This is the Ottoman pretension. Egypt, rid of the Osmanli, and India, +where he never ruled, have kept their ancient wealth of harvests and +population, and have man-power to spare for the reclamation of the +_Sawâd_. All the means are at hand for bringing the land to life--the +water, the engineer, the capital, the labour; only the Ottoman +pretension stands in the way, and condemns the _Sawâd_ to lie dead and +unharvested so long as it endures. + +"The last voyage I made before coming to this country," wrote Sir +William Willcocks at Bagdad in 1911, "was up the Nile, from Khartûm to +the great equatorial lakes. In this most desperate and forbidden region +I was filled with pride to think that I belonged to a race whose sons, +even in this inhospitable waste of waters, were struggling in the face +of a thousand discouragements to introduce new forest trees and new +agricultural products and ameliorate in some degree the conditions of +life of the naked and miserable inhabitants. How should I have felt if, +in traversing the deserts and swamps which to-day represent what was the +richest and most famous tract of the world, I had thought that I was a +scion of a race in whose hands God had placed, for hundreds of years, +the destinies of this great country, and that my countrymen could give +no better account of their stewardship than the exhibition of two mighty +rivers flowing between deserts to waste themselves in the sea for nine +months in the year, and desolating everything in their way for the +remaining three? No effort that Turkey can make"--she was then still +mistress of the _Sawâd_--"can be too great to roll away the reproach of +these parched and weary lands, whose cry ascends to heaven." + +Turkey, which claims the present in Western Asia, is nothing but an +overthrow of the past and an obstruction of the future. + + + + +[Footnote 1: Tekin Alp: "The Turkish and Pan-Turkish Ideal" (Weimar: +Gustav Kiepenheuer, 1915). The percentage is of course an exaggeration.] + +[Footnote 2: In the sense of having preceded Arabic in this region, for +in itself, and in its original area, Arabic is as old a language an any +other variety of Semitic.] + +[Footnote 3: "The Turkish and Pan-Turkish Ideal," by Tekin Alp.] + +[Footnote 4: "The Turkish and Pan-Turkish Ideal," by Tekin Alp.] + +[Footnote 5: _The Near East_, 30th March, 1917, p. 507; see also Tekin +Alp.] + +[Footnote 6: The legendary ancestor of the Turkish race.] + +[Footnote 7: _The Near East_, loc. cit.] + +[Footnote 8: Which (for obvious reasons) was printed for private +circulation only.] + +[Footnote 9: Miscellaneous No. 31 (1916).] + +[Footnote 10: Memorial of the German authority cited above.] + +[Footnote 11: Quoted by the German authority cited above.] + +[Footnote 12: The Vilayets of Basra and Bagdad.] + +[Footnote 13: See the journal _Al-Mokattam_ of Cairo, 30th March, 31st +March, 1st April, 1916 (English translation in the form of a pamphlet: +"Syria during March, 1916," printed by Sir Joseph Causton and Sons Ltd., +1916).] + +[Footnote 14: Miscellaneous No. 31 (1916), p. 253.] + +[Footnote 15: _Thoughts on the Nature and Plan of a Greater Turkey._] + +[Footnote 16: Emir Hechmat, their chief, subsequently went to Hamadan in +Persia and organised guerilla bands there.] + +[Footnote 17: _i.e._, the Turkish-speaking population in the Russian +Caucasus.] + +[Footnote 18: Miscellaneous No. 31 (1916), p. 80.] + +[Footnote 19: And, like other Young Turks, a Jew ("Tekin Alp" being a +_nom de plume_).] + +[Footnote 20: Moslem _religieux_.] + +[Footnote 21: Ein Wort an die Berufenen Vertreter des Deutschen Volkes: +Eindrucke eines deutschen Oberlehrers aus der Türkei, von Dr. Martin +Niepage, Oberlehrer an der deutschen Realschule zu Aleppo, z.Zt. +Wernigerode. (Printed in the second pamphlet issued by the Swiss +Committee for Armenian Relief at Basel; English translation, "The +Horrors of Aleppo." London, 1917: Hodder and Stoughton.)] + +[Footnote 22: The writer includes Armenia under this term.] + +[Footnote 23: Dated 3rd Aug., 1915: See Miscellaneous No. 31 (1916), p. +548.] + +[Footnote 24: Miscellaneous No. 31 (1916), p. 413.] + +[Footnote 25: "Die deutsch-türkeschen Wirtschaftsbeziehungen," by Dr. +Kurt Wiedenfeld, Professor of the Political Sciences at the University +of Halle. (Duncker and Humblot, 1915).] + +[Footnote 26: "Die Bagdadbahn," by Dr. Paul Rohrbach (Berlin, 1911), pp. +43, 44.] + +[Footnote 27: "Die Bagdadbahn," pp. 49, 50.] + +[Footnote 28: The author rubs in his point in his concluding section: +"All economic measures we may take in Turkey are only a means to an end, +not an end in themselves" (p. 77).] + +[Footnote 29: Wiedenfeld's monograph is a _sonderabdruck_ from the two +volumes of studies on the "Wirtschaftliche Annaherung zwischen dem +deutschen Reich u. seinen Verbundeten," edited by Heinrich Herkner and +published by the _Verein fur Sozialpolitik_, which preaches Naumann's +creed.] + +[Footnote 30: Just as, by a more gradual process, the Magyar Oligarchy, +rather than the Hapsburg Dynasty, has become the instrument of German +control over Austria-Hungary.] + +[Footnote 31: "Die Bagdadbahn," pp. 29, 33.] + +[Footnote 32: Page 23.] + +[Footnote 33: Except by a branch line from Adana to Alexandretta, +Rohrbach (pp. 27, 36, 37) laments the economic drawbacks of this +strategic necessity.] + +[Footnote 34: "Bagdadbahn," p.60.] + +[Footnote 35: The German memorialised.] + +[Footnote 36: "Bagdadbahn," pp. 39, 40.] + +[Footnote 37: Miscellaneous No. 31 (1916), p. 530. Major Count Wolf von +Wolfskahl, who served as adjutant to Fakhri Pasha in the Turkish +"punitive expedition" against Urfa, is mentioned as particularly guilty +by a trustworthy neutral resident in Syria.] + +[Footnote 38: On which Wiedenfeld lays stress, pp. 19, 22.] + +[Footnote 39: "Leavening the Levant," by Rev. J. Greene, D.D. (Beston, +1916: The Pilgrim Press), p. 99.] + +[Footnote 40: Excluding, of course, the hospital and educational +endowments, and the salaries of the missionaries themselves.] + +[Footnote 41: _Hilal_, 4th April, 1916, quoted in Miscellaneous No. 31 +(1916), pp. 654-6.] + +[Footnote 42: Miscellaneous No. 31 (1916), p. 309.] + +[Footnote 43: Though the work of the American Presbyterian Mission at +Beirût must not be forgotten.] + +[Footnote 44: See "Zionism and the Jewish Future" (London, 1916: John +Murray), pp. 138-170; for the agricultural machinery on the Jewish +National Fund's Model Farm at Ben-Shamen, see the Report of the German +Vice-Consul at Jaffa for the year 1912.] + +[Footnote 45: "Die Jüden der Türkei" (Leipzig, 1915: Veit u. Comp.). +Pamphlet No. 8 of the _Deutsches Vorderasienscomitee's_ series: "Länder +u. Völker der Türkei."] + +[Footnote 46: The Spanish-speaking Jews in Turkey are descended from +refugees to whom the Ottoman Government gave shelter in the sixteenth +century; the Arabic-speaking Jews have been introduced into Palestine +from the Yemen, by the Zionists, since 1908.] + +[Footnote 47: Dr. Trietsch admits that Jewish colonisation in Palestine +was retarded because "the leading French and British Jews remained under +the impression of the Armenian massacres" (of 1895-7) "as presented by +the anti-Turkish, French and British Press.... In reality, the +butcheries of Armenians in Constantinople were a convincing proof that +the Jews in the Ottoman Empire were safe, for ... not a hair on a Jewish +head was touched." One wonders how he will exorcise the "impression" of +1915.] + +[Footnote 48: As early as 1912 the German Vice-Consul at Jaffa betrayed +his annoyance at the progress which Zionism was making. He admits indeed +that "the falling off in trade last year would have been greater still +than it was, if the economic penetration of Palestine were not +reinforced by an idealistic factor in the shape of Zionism;" but he is +piqued at the "Jewish national vanity" which makes it advisable for +German firms to display their advertisements in Palestine in the Hebrew +language and character.] + +[Footnote 49: Edessa from Thracian [Greek: _bedu_] = Slavonic _voda._] + +[Footnote 50: _Muslin_ is named after Mosul, and cotton itself (in +Greek, Latin, Arabic, and Turkish) _bombyx_ or _bambuk_, after Bambyke +(Mumbij).] + +[Footnote 51: "Bagdadbahn," p. 38.] + +[Footnote 52: Book I., ch. 193.] + +[Footnote 53: Cp. Sir William Willcocks. "The Irrigation of +Mesopotamia," p. 5 (London, 1911: Spon).] + +[Footnote 54: Book I., ch. 192.] + +[Footnote 55: Herodotus Book III., ch. 91.] + +[Footnote 56: Book I., chs. 178-183.] + +[Footnote 57: A hectare is approximately equal to two and a half acres.] + +[Footnote 58: "The Lands of the Eastern Caliphate," by Guy le Strange +(Cambridge, 1905: at the University Press), pp. 25-9.] + +[Footnote 59: "The Irrigation of Mesopotamia," by Sir William Willcocks, +K.C.M.G., F.R.G.S. (London, 1911: Spon). The report is dated Bagdad, +March 26th, 1911.] + +[Footnote 60: £1.00 Turkish = approximately £0.90 sterling.] + +[Footnote 61: In his immediate project he intends to keep the Tigris +navigable, and allots £48,350 (Turkish) for its improvement.] + +[Footnote 62: Cp. Wiedenfeld, pp. 62-4.] + +[Footnote 63: "Die Bagdadbahn," pp. 57, 61.] + +[Footnote 64: Cp. Wiedenfeld, p. 64.] + +[Footnote 65: "Bagdadbahn," p. 83; cp. Trietsch, p. 11.] + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10145 *** diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..554e8f7 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #10145 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10145) diff --git a/old/10145-8.txt b/old/10145-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f3986a2 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10145-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2746 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Turkey: A Past and a Future, by Arnold Joseph +Toynbee + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Turkey: A Past and a Future + +Author: Arnold Joseph Toynbee + +Release Date: November 20, 2003 [eBook #10145] + +Language: English + +Chatacter set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TURKEY: A PAST AND A FUTURE*** + + +E-text prepared by Jonathan Ingram, L. Barber, and Project Gutenberg +Distributed Proofreaders + + + +TURKEY: A PAST AND A FUTURE + +BY A.J. TOYNBEE + +MCMXVII + + + + + + + +CONTENTS + + + I THE PAST + + II THE PRESENT + +III THE FUTURE + + + + + +I + + +What is Turkey? It is a name which explains nothing, for no formula can +embrace the variety of the countries marked "Ottoman" on the map: the +High Yemen, with its monsoons and tropical cultivation; the tilted rim +of the Hedjaz, one desert in a desert zone that stretches from the +Sahara to Mongolia; the Mesopotamian rivers, breaking the desert with a +strip of green; the pine-covered mountain terraces of Kurdistan, which +gird in Mesopotamia as the hills of the North-West Frontier of India +gird the Plains; the Armenian highlands, bleak as the Pamirs, which feed +Mesopotamia with their snows and send it the soil they cannot keep +themselves; the Anatolian peninsula--an offshoot of Central Europe with +its rocks and fine timber and mountain streams, but nursing a steppe in +its heart more intractable than the Puszta of Hungary; the +coast-lands--Trebizond and Ismid and Smyrna clinging to the Anatolian +mainland and Syria interposing itself between the desert and the sea, +but all, with their vines and olives and sharp contours, keeping true to +the Mediterranean; and then the waterway of narrows and land-locked sea +and narrows again which links the Mediterranean with the Black Sea and +the Russian hinterland, and which has not its like in the world. + +The cities of Turkey are as various as the climes, with the added +impress of many generations of men: Adrianople, set at a junction of +rivers within the circle of the Thracian downs, a fortress since its +foundation, well chosen for the tombs of the Ottoman conquerors; +Constantinople, capital of empires where races meet but never mix, +mistress of trade routes vital to the existence of vast regions beyond +her horizon--Central Europe trafficking south-eastward overland and +Russia south-westward by sea; Smyrna, the port by which men go up and +down between Anatolia and the Aegean, the foothold on the Asiatic +mainland which the Greeks have never lost; Konia, between the mountain +girdle and the central steppe, where native Anatolia has always stood at +bay, guarding her race and religion against the influences of the +coasts; Aleppo, where, if Turkey were a unity, the centre of Turkey +would be found, the city where, if anywhere, the races of the Near East +have mingled--building their courses into her fortress walls from the +polygonal work of the Hittite founders to the battlements that kept out +the Crusaders--and now the half-way point of a railway surveyed along an +immemorially ancient route, but unfinished like the history of Aleppo +herself; Van by its upland lake, overhanging the Mesopotamian lowlands +and with the writing of their culture graven on its cliffs, yet living a +life apart like some Swiss canton and half belonging to the infinite +north; Bagdad, the incarnation for the last millennium of an eternal +city that shifts its site as its rivers shift their beds--from Seleucia +to Bagdad, from Babylon to Seleucia, from Kish to Babylon--but which +always springs up again, like Delhi, within a few parasangs of its last +ruins, in an area that is an irresistible focus of population; Basra +amid its palm-groves, so far down stream that it belongs to the Indian +Ocean--the port from which Sinbad set sail for fairyland, and from which +less mythical Arab seamen spread their religion and civilisation far +over African coasts and Malayan Indies; these, and besides them almost +all the holy cities of mankind: Kerbela, between the Euphrates and the +desert, where, under Sunni rule, the Shias of Persia and India have +still visited the tombs of their saints and buried their dead; +Jerusalem, where Jew and Christian, Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant, +Armenian and Abyssinian, have their common shrines and separate +quarters; Mekka and Medina in the heart of the desert, beyond which +their fame would never have passed but for a well and a mart and a +precinct of idols and the Prophet who overthrew them; and there are the +cities on the Pilgrim Road (linked now by railway with Medina, the +nearer of the _Haramein_): Beirût the port, with its electric trams and +newspapers, the Smyrna of the Arab lands; and Damascus the oasis, +looking out over the desert instead of the sea, and harbour not of ships +but of camel-caravans. + +The names of these cities call up, like an incantation, the memory of +the civilisations which grew in them to greatness and sank in them to +decay: Mesopotamia, a great heart of civilisation which is cold to-day, +but which beat so strongly for five thousand years that its pulses were +felt from Siberia to the Pillars of Hercules and influenced the taste +and technique of the Scandinavian bronze age; the Assyrians, who +extended the political marches of Mesopotamia towards the north, and +turned them into a military monarchy that devastated the motherland and +all other lands and peoples from the Tigris to the sea; the Hebrews, +discovering a world-religion in their hill-country overlooking the +coast; the Sabaeans, whose queen made the first pilgrimage to Jerusalem, +coming from Yemen across the Hedjaz when Mekka and Medina were still of +no account; the Philistines and Phoenicians of the Syrian sea-board, who +were discovering the Atlantic and were too busy to listen to the Hebrew +prophets in their hinterland; the Ionians, who opened up the Black Sea +and created a poetry, philosophy, science, and architecture which are +still the life-blood of ours, before they were overwhelmed, like the +Phoenicians before them, by a continental military power; the Hittites, +who first transmitted the fruitful influences of Mesopotamia to the +Ionian coasts--a people as mysterious to their contemporaries as to +ourselves, maturing unknown in the fastnesses of Anatolia, raising up a +sudden empire that raided Mesopotamia and colonised the Syrian valleys, +and then succumbing to waves of northern invasion. All these people rose +and fell within the boundaries of Turkey, held the stage of the world +for a time, and left their mark on its history. There is a romance about +their names, a wonderful variety and intensity in their vanished life; +yet they are not more diverse than their modern successors, in whose +veins flows their blood and whose possibilities are only dwarfed by +their achievements. + +There were less than twenty million people in Turkey before the War, and +during it the Government has caused a million or so to perish by +massacre, starvation, or disease. Yet, in spite of this daemoniac effort +after uniformity, they are still the strangest congeries of racial and +social types that has ever been placed at a single Government's mercy. +The Ottoman Empire is named after the Osmanli, but you might search long +before you found one among its inhabitants. These Osmanlis are a +governing class, indigenous only in Constantinople and a few +neighbouring towns, but planted here and there, as officers and +officials, over the Ottoman territories. They come of a clan of Turkish +nomads, recruited since the thirteenth century by converts, forced or +voluntary, from most of Christendom, and crossed with the blood of +slave-women from all the world. They are hardly a race. Tradition +fortified by inertia makes them what they are, and also their Turkish +language, which serves them for business of state and for a literature, +though not without an infusion of Persian and Arabic idioms said to +amount to 95 per cent. of the vocabulary[1]. + +This artificial language is hardly a link between Osmanli officialdom +and the Turkish peasantry of Anatolia, which speaks Turkish dialects +derived from tribes that drifted in, some as late as the Osmanlis, some +two centuries before. Nor has this Turkish-speaking peasantry much in +common with the Turkish nomads who still wander over the central +Anatolian steppe and have kept their blood pure; for the peasantry has +reverted physically to the native stock, which held Anatolia from time +immemorial and absorbs all newcomers that mingle with it on its soil. +Thus there are three distinct "Turkish" elements in Turkey, divided by +blood and vocation and social type; and even if we reckon all who speak +some form of Turkish as one group, they only amount to 30 or 40 per +cent. of the whole population of the Empire. + +The rest are alien to the Turks and to one another. Those who speak +Arabic are as strong numerically as the Turks, or stronger, but they too +are divided, and their unity is a problem of the future. There are +pure-bred Arab nomads of the desert; there are Arabs who have settled in +towns or on the land, some within the last generation, like the Muntefik +in Mesopotamia, some a millennium or two ago, like the Meccan Koreish, +but who still retain their tribal consciousness of race; there are Arabs +in name who have nothing Arabic about them but their language--most of +the peasantry of Syria are such, and the inhabitants of ancient centres +of population like Damascus or Bagdad; in Syria many of these "Arabs" +are Christians, and some Christians, though they speak Arabic, have +retained their separate sense of nationality--notably the Roman Catholic +Maronites of the Lebanon--and would hardly be considered as Arabs either +by themselves or by their neighbours. The same is true of the Druses, +another remnant of an earlier stock, which has preserved its identity +under the guise of Islam so heretically conceived as to rank as an +independent religion. As for the Yemenis--they will resent the +imputation, for no Arabs count up their genealogies so zealously as +they, but there is more East African than Semitic blood in their veins. +They are men of the moist, fertile tropics, brown of skin, and working +half naked in their fields, like the peoples of Southern India and +Bengal. And on the opposite fringes of the Arabic-speaking area there +are fragments of population whose language is Semitic but +pre-Arabic[2]--the Jacobite Christians of the Tor-Abdin, and the +Nestorians of the Upper Zab, who once, under the Caliphs, were the +industrious Christian peasantry of Mesopotamia, but now are shepherds +and hillmen among the Kurds. The Kurds themselves are more scattered +than any other stock in Turkey, and divided tribe against tribe, but +taken together they rank third in numerical strength, after the Arabs +and Turks. There are mountain Kurds and Kurds of the plain, husbandmen +and herdsmen, Kurds who have kept to their original homes along the +eastern frontier, and Kurds who, under Ottoman auspices, have spread +themselves over the Armenian plateau, the North Mesopotamian steppes, +the Taurus valleys, and the hinterland of the Black Sea. + +The chief thing the Kurds have in common is the Persian dialect they +speak, but it is usual to class as Kurds any and every community in the +Kurdish area which is not Turkish or Arab and can by courtesy be called +Moslem (the Kurds, for that matter, are only Moslems skin-deep). Such +communities abound: the Dersim highlands, in particular, are an +ethnographical museum; "Kizil-Bashi" is a general name for their kind; +only the Yezidis, though they speak good Kurdish, are distinguished from +the rest for their idiosyncrasy of worshipping Satan under the form of a +peacock (Allah, they argue, is good-natured and does not need to be +propitiated) and they are repudiated with one accord by Moslem and +Christian. + +But not all the scattered elements in Turkey are isolated or primitive. +The Greeks and Armenians, for instance, are, or were, the most +energetic, intellectual, liberal elements in Turkey, the natural +intermediaries between the other races and western civilisation--"were" +rather than "are," because the Ottoman Government has taken ruthless +steps to eliminate just these two most valuable elements among its +subjects. The urban Greeks survive in centres like Smyrna and +Constantinople, but the Greek peasantry of Thrace and Anatolia has +mostly been driven over the frontier since the Second Balkan War. As for +the Armenians, the Government has been destroying them by massacre and +deportation since April, 1915--business and professional men, peasants +and shepherds, women and children--without discrimination or pity. A +third of the Ottoman Armenians may still survive; a tenth of them are +safe within the Russian and British lines. Fortunately half this nation, +and the majority of the Greeks, live outside the Ottoman frontiers, and +are beyond the Osmanli's power. + +To compensate for its depopulation of the countries under its dominion, +the Ottoman Government, during the last fifty years, has been settling +them with Moslem immigrants from its own lost provinces or from other +Moslem lands that have changed their rulers. These "Mouhadjirs" are +reckoned, from first to last, at three-quarters of a million, drawn from +the most diverse stocks--Bosniaks and Pomaks and Albanians, Algerines +and Tripolitans, Tchetchens and Circassians. Numbers have been planted +recently on the lands of dispossessed Armenians and Greeks. They add +many more elements to the confusion of tongues, but they are probably +destined to be absorbed or to die out. The Circassians, in particular, +who are the most industrious (though most unruly) and preserve their +nationality best, also succumb most easily to transplantation, through +refusal to adapt their Caucasian clothes and habits to Anatolian or +Mesopotamian conditions of life. + +All this is Turkey, and we come back to our original question: What +common factor accounts for the name? What has stained this coat of many +colours to one political hue? The answer is simple: Blood. Turkey, the +Ottoman state, is not a unity, climatic, geographical, racial, or +economic; it is a pretension, enforced by bloodshed and violence +whenever and wherever the Osmanli Government has power. + +It is a complex pretension. The first impulse, and the traditional +method by which it has been given effect, came from a little tribe of +pagan, nomadic Turks who wandered into Anatolia from Central Asia in the +thirteenth century A.D. and were granted camping grounds by the reigning +Turkish Sultan of the country--for Anatolia was already Turkish two +centuries before the Osmanlis appeared on the scene. But to call them +Osmanlis is to anticipate the next stage in their history. They are +named after Osman, their first leader's son, and he after the third +successor of the Prophet--it was a good Moslem name, and he took it when +he was converted to Islam and organised his pagan tent-dwellers into a +settled Mohammedan State in the north-western hills of Anatolia, on the +borders of Christendom. A tribe had become a march, and the final stage +was from march to empire. + +From this point onwards Ottoman history singularly resembles the history +of the Osmanlis' present allies. The March of Brandenburg, the March of +Austria, and the March of Osman--they were each founded as the outer +bulwarks of a civilisation, and all erected themselves into centres of +military ascendancy over their fellow-countrymen and co-religionists to +the rear as well as the strangers opposite their front. The Osmanlis may +have been more savage in their methods than the marchmen of +Germany--though hardly, perhaps, than the Teutonic Knights who prepared +the soil of Prussia for the Hohenzollerns. The Teutonic Knights +exterminated their victims; the Osmanlis drained theirs of their blood +by taking a tribute of their male children, educating them as Moslems, +and training them as recruits for an Ottoman standing army. Their first +expansion was forwards into Christian Europe; their capital shifted from +a village in the hills to the city of Brusa on the Asiatic shore of +Marmora, from Brusa across the Dardanelles to Adrianople, from +Adrianople to the imperial city on the Bosphorus; and, with the capture +of Constantinople, the Osmanli Sultans usurped the pretensions of East +Rome, as the Hapsburgs and Hohenzollerns the emblems of Charlemagne and +Caesar Augustus. + +Byzantium has become a very potent element in the Osmanlis' character, +more potent than the habits of the march or the instinct of the steppes. +It has dictated their system of administration, dominated their outlook +on life, penetrated their blood. But the heritage of "Rûm" is not the +final factor in the Ottoman Empire as it exists to-day; for after the +successors of Osman had founded their military monarchy with blood and +iron on the ruins of one-third of Europe, they turned eastwards, with a +genuinely Oriental gesture, and overran kingdoms and lands with the +apparently mechanical impetus of all Asiatic conquerors, from Sargon of +Akkad and Cyrus the Persian to Jenghis Khan and Timur. The stoutest +opponent of the Osmanlis in Asia was the Anatolian Sultanate of +Karaman--Moslem, Turkish, and the legitimate heir of those Seljuk +Turkish Sultans who had given Osman's father his first footing in the +land. Osmanli and Karamanli fought on equal terms, but when Karaman was +overthrown there was no power left in Asia that could stop the Osmanlis' +advance. The Egyptians and Persians had no more chance against Ottoman +discipline and artillery than the last Darius had against the +Macedonians. A campaign or two brought Sultan Selim the First from the +Taurus to Cairo; a few more campaigns at intervals during the sixteenth +and seventeenth centuries, when Ottoman armies could be spared from +Europe, drove the Persians successively out of Armenia and Mosul and +Bagdad. And thus, by accident, as it were, in the pursuit of more +coveted things, the Osmanlis acquired "Turkey-in-Asia," which is all +that remains to them now and all that concerns us here. + +"Turkey-in-Asia" is a transitory phenomenon, a sort of chrysalis which +enshrouded the countries of Western Asia because they were exhausted and +needed torpor as a preliminary to recuperation. Many calamities had +fallen upon them during the five centuries before the chrysalis formed. +The break-up of the Arab Caliphate of Bagdad had led to an +interminable, meaningless conflict among a host of petty Moslem States; +the wearing struggle between Islam and Christendom had been intensified +by the Crusades; and waves of nomadic invaders, each more destructive +and more irresistible than the last, had swept over Moslem Asia out of +the steppes and deserts of the north-east. The most terrible were the +Mongols, who sacked Bagdad in 1258, and gave the _coup de grâce_ to the +civilisation of Mesopotamia. And then, when the native productiveness of +the Near East was ruined, the transit trade between Europe and the +Indies, which had belonged to it from the earliest times and had been +the second source of its prosperity, was taken from it by the western +seafarers who discovered the ocean routes. The pall of Ottoman dominion +only descended when life was extinct. + +The Osmanlis, whose nomadic forefathers had fled before the face of the +Mongols out of Central Asia, took the heritage which had slipped from +the Mongols' grasp, and gathered all threads of authority in Western +Asia into their hands. The most valuable spoil of their Asiatic +conquests was the Caliphate. Hulaku, the sacker of Bagdad, had put the +Caliph Mustasim to death, and the remnant of the Abbasids had kept up a +shadowy succession at Cairo, under the protection of the Sultan of +Egypt. Selim the Osmanli, when he entered Cairo as a conqueror in 1517, +caused the contemporary Abbasid to cede his title, for what it was +worth, to him and his successors. It was a doubtful title, scorned by +all Shias and regarded coldly by many Sunni rulers who were unwilling to +recognise a spiritual superior in their most formidable temporal rival. +But such as it was, it strengthened the Osmanli's hold on his dominions. +Caliph of Islam, victorious guardian of the Moslem marches, and heir by +conquest of imperial Rûm, the Osmanli Sultan held his Asiatic provinces +with ease; but the best security for his tenure was the misery to which +they were reduced. Commerce and cultivation ebbed, population dwindled, +and nomads still drifted in upon what once had been settled lands. The +Ottoman Government, desiring a barrier against Persia, encouraged the +Kurds to spread themselves over Armenia; it welcomed less the Shammar +and Anazeh Arabs, who broke over the Euphrates about the year 1700 and +turned the last fields of Northern Mesopotamia to desolation; but it was +too impotent or indifferent to turn them out. Western Asia lay fallow +under the Ottoman cannon-wheels. There have been fallow periods before +in the slow rhythm of its life--under the Persians, for instance, who +overran all lands and peoples of the East in the sixth century B.C., +overshadowed the Greeks for a moment, as the Osmanlis overshadowed +Europe, halted, too massive for offence but seemingly unassailable, and +then collapsed pitifully before the probing spears of Alexander. + +The Osmanlis are passing at this moment as the Achaemenids passed then. +They lost the last of Europe in the Balkan War, and with it their +prestige as increasers of Islam; the growth of national consciousness +among their subjects, not least among the Turks themselves, has loosened +the foundations of their military empire, as of the other military +empires with which they are allied. They forfeited the Caliphate when +they proclaimed the Holy War against the Allied Powers--inciting Moslems +to join one Christian coalition against another, not in defence of their +religion, but for Ottoman political aggrandisement. They lost it morally +when this incitement was left unheeded by the Moslem world; they lost it +in deed when the Sherif of Mekka asserted his rights as the legitimate +guardian of the Holy Cities, drove out the Ottoman garrison from Mekka, +and allied himself with the other independent princes of Arabia. All the +props of Ottoman dominion in Asia have fallen away, but nothing dooms it +so surely as the breath of life that is stirring over the dormant lands +and peoples once more. The cutting of the Suez Canal has led the +highways of commerce back to the Nearer East; the democracy and +nationalism of Europe have been extending their influence over Asiatic +races. On whatever terms the War is concluded, one far-reaching result +is certain already: there will be a political and economic revival in +Western Asia, and the direction of this will not be in Ottoman hands. + +We are thus witnessing the foundation of a new era as momentous, if not +as dramatic, as Alexander's passage of the Dardanelles. The Ottoman +vesture has waxed old, and something can be discerned of the new forms +that are emerging from beneath it; their outstanding features are worth +our attention. + + + + +II + + +The new Turkish Nationalism is the immediate factor to be reckoned +with. It is very new--newer than the Young Turks, and sharply opposed to +the original Young Turkish programme--but it has established its +ascendancy. It decided Turkey's entry into the War, and is the key to +the current policy of the Ottoman Government. + +The Young Turks were not Nationalists from the beginning; the "Committee +of Union and Progress" was founded in good faith to liberate and +reconcile all the inhabitants of the Empire on the principles of the +French Revolution. At the Committee's congress in 1909 the Nationalists +were shouted down with the cry: "Our goal is organisation and nothing +else[3]." But Young Turkish ideals rapidly narrowed. Liberalism gave way +to Panislamism, Panislamism to Panturanianism, and the "Ottoman State +Idea" changed from "Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity" to the +Turkification of non-Turkish nationalities by force. + +"The French Ideal," writes the Nationalist Tekin Alp in _Thoughts on the +Nature and Plan of a Greater Turkey_, "is in contradiction to the needs +and conditions of the age." By contrast, "the Turkish national movement +does not exhibit the failings of the earlier movements. It is in every +way adapted to the intellectual standard and feelings of the nation. It +also keeps pace with the ideas of the age, which have for some decades +centred round the principle of Nationality. In adopting Turkish +Nationalism as the basis of their national policy, the Turks have only +abandoned an abnormal state of affairs and thereby placed themselves on +a level with modern nations[4]." + +The development of Nationalism among the Turks was a natural phenomenon. +Starting in the West, the movement has been spreading for a century +through Central Europe, Hungary, and the Balkans, till from the Turks' +former subjects it has passed to the Turks themselves. Chance played its +part. Dr. Nazim Bey, for instance, the General Secretary of the "Union +and Progress" Committee, is said to have been fired by a work of M. Léon +Cahun's on the early history of the Turks and Mongols, lent him by the +French Consul-General at Salonika, and the movement was, and still is, +confined to a small _intelligentsia_. But that is the case with other +national movements too, and does not hinder them from being powerful +forces. Turkish Nationalism was kept alive after 1909 by a small group +of enthusiasts at Salonika--their leader was Ziya Bey, who had come up +to the Young Turk Congress from Diarbekir, and was one of the first +converts to the new idea. It gained ground suddenly during, the Balkan +War. The shock of defeat produced a craving for regeneration; the final +loss of Europe turned the minds of the Osmanlis to the possibilities of +Asia, and they were struck by the action of several prominent Russian +subjects of Turco-Tatar nationality, who, out of racial sympathy, had +given their services to the Ottoman Government in this time of +adversity. As Tekin Alp expresses it: + +"The Turks realised that, in order to live, they must become essentially +Turkish, become a nation, be themselves.... The Turkish nation turned +aside its gaze from the lost territory and looked instead upon Turania, +the ideal country of the future." + +Two years later this "New Orientation" had so mastered the Ottoman +Government that it drew them into the European War. + +There are many aims within the new Turkish horizon. Some of them are +negative and non-political, some practical and extremely aggressive. +Ziya Bey's adherents first took in hand the purification of the Turkish +language. A Turkish poet had endeavoured before to dispense with the 95 +per cent. (?) of the vocabulary that was borrowed from Persian and +Arabic, and "his poetry had to be published in small provincial papers +because the important newspapers of the towns would not accept it." The +established writers in the traditional style made a hard fight, but +Tekin Alp claims that the _Yeni Lisan_ (New Language) "is to-day in +possession of an absolute and unlimited authority." Borrowed rhythms +have been banned as well as borrowed words, and there is even an +agitation to replace the Arabic script by a new Turkish alphabet--an +imitation of the Albanian movement which was opposed so fiercely by the +Turks themselves before the Balkan War. In 1913 the Government stepped +in with the foundation of a "Turkish Academy" (_Turk Bilgi Derneyi_), +and the Ministry of Education started an "Institute of Terminology," +"Conservatoire," and "Writing and Translation Committee." The +translation of foreign masterpieces as an incentive to a new national +literature was in the programme of Ziya Bey's society, the _Yeni Hayat_ +(New Life). Their most cherished plan was to translate the Koran and the +Friday Sermon, to have the Khutba (Prayer for the Caliph) recited in +Turkish, and to remove the Arabic texts from the walls of the mosques[5]; +the eyes and ears of Turkish Moslems were to be saved from the +contamination of an anti-national language; but the campaign against +Arabic passed over into an attack upon Islam. + +"The Turkish Nationalists," Tekin Alp explains, "have made great efforts +to nationalise religion itself, and to give it the impress of the +Turkish national spirit. This idea was zealously supported by a +fortnightly periodical, and one of the noblest tasks undertaken by it +has been the translation of the Koran into Turkish. This is a reform of +the greatest importance. It is well known that the translation of the +Koran has hitherto been considered a sin. The Nationalists have cut +themselves off from this superstitious prejudice and have had three +translations made, the above-mentioned and two others." + +On this issue the Nationalists broke a lance with the _Islamjis_, or +"clericals," as Tekin Alp prefers to call them. + +"Because it is written in the Koran that Islam knows no nationalities, +but only Believers, the _Islamjis_ thought that to occupy oneself with +national questions was to act against the interests and principles of +Islam itself.... According to the Nationalists, the pronouncement in the +Koran was directed exclusively against the very frequent dissensions of +clans and parties in the various Arab races." (A sneer which is meant to +have a modern application.) "Although the Nationalists proclaim +themselves the most zealous followers of Mohammed, nevertheless they do +not conceal the fact that their interpretation of Islam is not the same +as that of the Arabs. They maintain that the Turks cannot interpret the +Koran in the same manner as the Arabs.... Their idea of God is also +different." + +This amazing _Kulturkampf_ is quite possibly a reminiscence of +Bismarckian Germany, for Turkish Nationalism is saturated with forgotten +European moods, and its vein of Romanticism is as antiquated as the +Kaiser's. It has taken Attila to its heart, and rehabilitated Jenghis +Khan, Timur, Oghuz, and the rest with the erudition of a Turanian Walter +Scott. + +"My Attila, my Jenghis," sings Ziya Gök Alp, "these heroic figures, +which stand for the proud fame of my race, appear on the dry pages of +the history books as covered with shame and disgrace, while in reality +they are no less than Alexander and Caesar. Still better known to my +heart is Oghuz Khan[6]. In me he still lives in all his fame and +greatness. Oghuz Khan delights and inspires my heart and causes me to +sing psalms of gladness. The fatherland of the Turks is not Turkey or +Turkestan, but the broad eternal land of Turania." + +The Ministry of _Evkaf_ (Religious Endowments) recently made a grant of +£50,000 (Turkish) towards the publication of works on these worthies; +the students at the Military College in Constantinople are alleged to +have been diverted from their studies by their devotion to such +literature, and on the eve of the War the Professor of Military +Education there is reported to have delivered the following address to +an instruction class of reserve officers: + +"We are, gentlemen, before all, Turks. I wonder why we are called +Ottomans, for who is Osman after whom we are named? He is a Turk from +Altai, who overran this country with his Turkish Army. Therefore it is +more of an honour to us to be named after his origin than after himself. +We have so far been deceived by the ignorance of our forebears, and fie +on these forebears who made us forget our nationality.... Be sure that +Turkish nationality is better for us than Islam, and racial pride is one +of the greatest social virtues[7]." + +These extravagances must not be taken too literally. The Young Turk +politicians, though they have embarked on a Nationalist policy, are not +so reckless as to break openly with Islam or to denounce the founder of +their State. They see clearly enough that Turkish Nationalism carried to +a logical extreme is incompatible with the Ottoman pretension, and they +favour the view, so severely criticised by Tekin Alp, "that all three +groups of ideas--Ottomanism, Islamism, and the Turkish Movement--should +work side by side and together." But, with this reservation, they follow +the doctrinaires, who on their part are quite ready to press Islam into +their service. Tekin Alp candidly admits that + +"They sought after a judicious mingling of the religious and national +impulses. They realised only too clearly that the still abstract ideals +of Nationalism could not be expected to attract the masses, the lower +classes, composed of uneducated and illiterate people. It was found more +expedient to reach these classes under the flag of religion." + +This sentence reveals in a flash one motive of the Armenian +"Deportations," which followed Turkey's intervention in the War; and a +celebrated German authority, in a memorial[8] written in 1916, gives +this very explanation of their origin. + +"Turkey's entry into the War," he writes, "was unwelcome to Turkish +society in Constantinople, whose sympathies were with France, as well as +to the mass of the people, but the Panislamic propaganda and the +military dictatorship were able to stifle all opposition. The +proclamation of the 'Holy War' produced a general agitation of the +Mohammedan against the Christian elements in the Empire, and the +Christian nationalities had soon good reason to fear that Turkish +chauvinism would make use of Mohammedan fanaticism to make the War +popular with the mass of the Mohammedan population." + +The evidence presented in the British Blue Book on the _Treatment of +Armenians in the Ottoman Empire_[9] shows that this explanation is +correct. The Armenians were not massacred spontaneously by the local +Moslems; the initiative came entirely from the Central Government at +Constantinople, which planned the systematic extermination of the +Armenian race in the Ottoman Empire, worked out a uniform method of +procedure, despatched simultaneous orders to the provincial officials +and gendarmerie to carry it into effect, and cashiered the few who +declined to obey. The Armenians were rounded up and deported by regular +troops and gendarmes; they were massacred on the road by bands of +_chettis_, consisting chiefly of criminals released from prison by the +Government for this work; when the Armenians were gone the Turkish +populace was encouraged to plunder their goods and houses, and as the +convoys of exiles passed through the villages the best-looking women and +children were sold cheap or even given away for nothing to the Turkish +peasantry. Naturally the Turkish people accepted the good things the +Government offered them, and naturally this reconciled them momentarily +to the War. + +Thus in the Armenian atrocities the Young Turks made Panislamism and +Turkish Nationalism work together for their ends, but the development of +their policy shows the Islamic element receding and the Nationalist +gaining ground. + +"After the deposition of Abd-ul-Hamid," writes the German authority +quoted above, "the Committee of Union and Progress reverted more and +more to the ex-Sultan's policy. To begin with, a rigorous party tyranny +was set up. A power behind the Government got the official executive +apparatus into its hand, and the elections to Parliament ceased to be +free. The appointment of the highest officials in the Empire and of all +the most important servants of the administration was settled by decrees +of the Committee. All bills had to be debated first by the Committee and +to receive its approval before they came before the Chamber. Public +policy was determined by two main considerations: (1) The centralistic +idea, which claimed for the Turkish race not merely preponderant but +exclusive power in the Empire, was to be carried to its logical +consequences; (2) The Empire was to be established on a purely Islamic +foundation. Turkish Nationalism and the Panislamic Idea precluded _a +priori_ any equality of treatment for the various races and religions of +the Empire, and any movement which looked for the salvation of the +Empire in the decentralisation or autonomy of its various parts was +branded as high treason. The nationalistic and centralistic tendency was +directed not merely against the various non-Mohammedan nationalities +--Greeks, Armenians, Syrians, and Jews--but also against the +non-Turkish Mohammedan nations--Arabs, Mohammedan Syrians, Kurds, +and the Shia element in the population. An idol of 'Pan-Turkism' was +erected, and all non-Turkish elements in the population were subjected +to the harshest measures. The rigorous action which this policy +prescribed against the Albanians, who were mostly Mohammedans and had +been thorough loyalists till then, led to the loss of almost the whole +of European Turkey. The same policy has provoked insurrections in the +Arab half of the Empire, which a series of campaigns has failed to +suppress. The conflict with the Arab element continues"--this was +written in 1916--"though the 'Holy War' has forced it to a certain +extent into the background." + +"The conflict with the Arabs"--that has been the worst folly of the +Young Turkish politicians, and it will perhaps be the most powerful +solvent of the Empire which the Osmanlis have misgoverned so long. It is +the inevitable consequence of the camarilla government and the +Pan-Turkish chauvinism for which the Committee of Union and Progress has +come to stand. + +The Committee consists by its statutes of Turks alone, and the election +even of one Arab was vetoed[10]. Tekin Alp informs us that + +"The portfolio of the Minister of Trade and Agriculture, which has been +in the hands of Greeks and Armenians since the time of the Constitution, +and was lately given to a Christian Arab, has at last been handed over +to the Constantinople deputy Ahmed Nasimi Bey, who joined with Ziya Gök +Alp in laying the foundations of the Turkish Movement immediately after +the proclamation of the Constitution. With one exception the members of +the Cabinet are all imbued with the same ideas and principles." + +The Armenian deportations gave the Committee an opportunity of +tightening its hold over the provincial officials as well. Valis who +refused to carry out the orders were superseded if they were +strong-minded enough to persist; but more often they were browbeaten by +the leaders of the local Young Turk organisations, or even by their own +subordinates, and let things go their way. Ways and means of packing the +administration with their own henchmen had been discussed by the +Committee already in their congress of October, 1911, and they had +defined their policy then in the following remarkable resolutions[11]: + +"The formation of new parties in the Chamber or in the country must be +suppressed and the emergence of new 'liberal ideas' prevented. Turkey +must become a really Mohammedan country, and Moslem ideas and Moslem +influence must be preponderant. Every other religious propaganda must be +suppressed. The existence of the Empire depends on the strength of the +Young Turkish Party and the suppression of all antagonistic ideas.... + +"Sooner or later the complete Ottomanisation of all Turkish subjects +must be effected; it is clear, however, that this can never be attained +by persuasion, but that we must resort to armed force. The character of +the Empire must be Mohammedan, and respect must be secured for +Mohammedan institutions and traditions. Other nationalities must be +denied the right of organisation, for decentralisation and autonomy are +treason to the Turkish Empire. _The nationalities are a_ quantité +négligeable. _They can keep their religion but not their language. The +propagation of the Turkish language is one of the sovereign means of +confirming the Mohammedan supremacy and assimilating the other +elements_." + +The confusion of aims in these two paragraphs reveals the direction in +which Young Turkish policy has been travelling. Religion is now +secondary to language, and the precedence still given to the Islamic +formula is only in apparent contradiction to this, for Mohammedan +supremacy is equated with the Turkish National Idea. Such a version of +Panislamism leaves no room for an Arab race under Ottoman rule, and the +"Panturanian" address given by the Turkish Professor at the Military +College in Constantinople had a sequel which showed the Arabs what they, +too, had to expect from Turkey's entrance into the War. + +There were Arabs among the officers whom the Professor was addressing, +and one of them ventured to protest. + +"All Ottomans are not Turks," he said, "and if the Empire were to be +considered purely Turkish, then all the non-Turkish elements would be +foreign to it, instead of being living members of the political body +known as the Ottoman Empire, fighting the common fight for it and for +Islam." + +To this the Professor is reported to have replied: + +"Although you are an Arab, yet you and your race are subject to Turkey. +Have not the Turks colonised your country, and have they not conquered +it by the sword? The Ottoman State, which you plead, is nothing but a +social trick, to which you resort in order to attain your ends. As to +religion, it has no connexion with politics. We shall soon march forward +in the name of Turkey and the Turkish flag, casting aside religion, as +it is only a personal and secondary question. You and your nation must +realise that you are Turks, and that there is no such thing as Arab +nationality and an Arab fatherland." + +It is said that the Arab officers present handed in a joint protest to +the Minister of War, asking for the Professor's dismissal, and that +Enver Bey's answer was to have them all sent to the front-line trenches. + +Certainly the Turkish Nationalists have not concealed their attitude +towards the Arabs since the War began. + +"The Arab lands," writes Djelal Noury Bey in a recently-published work, +"and above all Irak[12] and Yemen, must become Turkish colonies in which +we shall spread our own language, so that at the right moment we may +make it the language of religion. It is a peculiarly imperious necessity +of our existence for us to Turkise the Arab lands, for the +particularistic idea of nationality is awaking among the younger +generation of Arabs, and already threatens us with a great catastrophe. +Against this we must be forearmed." + +And Ahmed Sherif Bey, again, has written as follows in the _Tanin_: + +"The Arabs speak their own language and are as ignorant of Turkish as if +their country were not a dependency of Turkey. It is the business of the +_Porte_ to make them forget their own language and to impose upon them +instead that of the nation which rules them. If the Porte loses sight of +this duty it will be digging its grave with its own hands, for if the +Arabs do not forget their language, their history, and their customs, +they will seek to restore their ancient empire on the ruins of +Ottomanism and of Turkish rule in Asia." + +A Turkish pamphleteer wrote that "the Arabs have been a misfortune to +Turkey," and that "a Turkish conqueror's war-horse is better than the +Prophet of any other nation." This pamphlet was distributed in the +Caucasus at the Ottoman Government's expense as Turkish propaganda. + +But the best proof of the Young Turks' intentions towards the Arabs is +their actual conduct in the Arab provinces of their Empire. In the +spring of 1916 an Arab who had escaped from Syria published some facts +in the Egyptian Press which the Turkish censorship had previously +managed to conceal[13]. Business was ruined, because the Turks had +confiscated all gold and forced the people to accept depreciated paper; +the population was starving, and the Turks had prohibited the American +colony at Beirût from organising relief; the national susceptibilities +of the inhabitants were outraged in petty ways--the railway tickets, for +instance, were no longer printed in Arabic, but only in Turkish and +German; and spies were active in denouncing the least manifestations of +disaffection. A Turkish court-martial was sitting in the Lebanon, and at +the time our informant left Syria it had 240 persons under arrest, 180 +of them on political charges. These prisoners were the leading men of +Syria--Christians and Moslems without distinction; for in Syria, as in +Armenia, the Turks put the leaders out of the way before they attacked +the nation as a whole; most of the Syrian bishops had been deported or +driven into hiding; by the beginning of March, 1916, it was reckoned +that 816 Arabs in Syria and 117 in Mesopotamia had already been +condemned to death with the confiscation of their property. A Turkish +officer, taking our informant for a Turk too, remarked to him: "Those +Arabs wish to get rid of us and are secretly in sympathy with our +enemies, but we mean to get rid of them ourselves before they have any +chance of translating their sympathy into action." This caps what a +Turkish gendarme in Armenia said to a Danish sister serving with the +German Red Cross: "First we kill the Armenians, then the Greeks, then +the Kurds[14]." Every non-Turkish nationality in the Ottoman Empire is +threatened with extermination. + +But the aims of Turkish Nationalists are not limited by the Ottoman +frontiers. If they are resolved to clear their Empire of every +non-Turkish element, that is only a step towards extending it over +everything Turkish that lies outside. The Turks have not only aliens to +get rid of, but an irredenta to win. + +"The Ottoman Turks," Tekin Alp reminds his readers, "now only represent +a tenth of the whole Turkish nation. There are now sixty to seventy +million Turkish subjects of various states in the world, who should +succeed in giving the nation an important place among the other Powers. +Unfortunately, there is no connexion between the separate groups, which +are distributed over great tracts of land. Their aspirations and +national institutions still divide them.... Now that the Ottoman Turks +have awakened from their sleep of centuries they do not only think of +themselves, but hasten to save the other parts of their race who are +living in slavery or ignorance.... + +"Turkish irredentism may be directed towards material or moral reforms +according to circumstances. If the geographical position favours the +venture, the Turks can free their brothers from foreign rule. In the +other case, they can carry it on on moral or intellectual lines. + +"Irredentism, which other nations may regard as a luxury--though often a +very terrible and costly one--is a political and social necessity for +the Turks.... If all the Turks in the world were welded into one huge +community, a strong nation would be formed, worthy to take an important +place among the other nations of the world[15]." + +This may be a dream, but the Young Turks have used the political and +military resources of the Ottoman Empire to make it a reality. At the +congress of 1911 it was resolved that "immigration from the Caucasus and +Turkestan must be promoted, land found for the immigrants, and the +Christians hindered from acquiring real estate." Turkey was first to be +reinforced by the Turks abroad; in the European War she was to strike +out as their liberator. The day after their declaration of war the Young +Turkish Government issued a proclamation in which the following +sentences occur: + +"Our participation in the world war represents the vindication of our +national ideal. The ideal of our nation and people leads us towards the +destruction of our Muscovite enemy, in order to obtain thereby a natural +frontier to our empire, which should include and unite all branches of +our race." + +When war broke out the "Dashnaktzagan"--the Armenian parliamentary party +in the Ottoman Empire--were in congress at Erzerum. A deputation of +Young Turk propagandists[16] presented themselves, and urged the +Armenians to join them in raising a general insurrection in Caucasia. +They sketched their proposed partition of Russian territory; the Tatars +[17] were to have this, the Georgians that, the Armenians this other; +autonomy for the new provinces under Ottoman suzerainty was to be the +reward for co-operation. The Dasknaktzagan had always worked with the +Young Turks in internal politics, but they refused to join them in this +aggressive venture. The Ottoman Armenians, they said, would do their +duty as Ottoman subjects during the war, but they advised the Government +to preserve peace if that were still possible[18]. But the Turks were +past reason, and their Army was already on the move. The main body +crossed the Russian frontier; a second force invaded Northern Persia, +and penetrated as far as Tabriz. Tabriz is the capital of Azerbaijan, a +province where the majority of the population is Turkish by language; +and beyond, across the River Aras, lies the Russian province of Baku, +also containing a large Turkish-speaking population and the vital +oilfields. The Turkish plan of campaign was frustrated by the brilliant +Russian victory of Sarikamysh. By the end of January, 1915, the Turkish +Army was back within its own frontiers, and in this quarter it has not +again advanced beyond them. But the Young Turks' irredentist ambitions +have remained in being. During their brief occupation of Northern Persia +they did their best to wipe out the Syriac element in the +population--the Nestorian Christians of Urmia. Their plan was to get rid +of all the non-Turkish peoples which separate the Turks of Anatolia from +the Turks of Baku and Azerbaijan, and this was the second motive of the +Armenian deportations, which they put in hand a month or two after their +military projects had failed. + +The Turkish Irredentists propose, in fact, to gain their ends by +bloodshed and terrorism. Tekin Alp (like most Turkish publicists and +politicians since 1908) is a Macedonian[19], and is profoundly impressed +by the methods which the other nationalities there employed to the +discomfiture of the Turks themselves. + +"Observers," he writes, "who, like myself, are Macedonians, and, like +myself, had ample opportunity of gaining an intimate knowledge of the +irredentist propaganda of the Bulgars, Greeks, Serbs, and Vlachs, are +able to judge the significance of this striving after a national ideal, +and how sweet and inspiring it is to go through the greatest dangers for +such a cause. This is best illustrated by a few living examples" (which +he proceeds to give).... + +Macedonia is soaked in blood. Atrocities were committed here the mere +thought of which makes one's hair stand on end. Nevertheless, the +leaders of robber bands and members of the terrible irredentist +organisations were not regarded by the public as wild robbers, but as +heroes fighting for the unity of the nation. + +"Will the Young Turks emulate the self-sacrifice of these men?" + +Russia and Persia are the fields marked out for such activity: + +"In some places ordinary propaganda is sufficient, but in +hotly-contested territory recourse is to be had to the more violent +measures used in Macedonia. The neighbouring land of Persia is without +doubt the best of all countries with Turkish population for spreading +the new ideas, and it has been found that simple propaganda is amply +sufficient to produce a satisfactory effect on this fruitful soil." + +In Persia, Tekin Alp reckons, one-third of the population is of Turkish +blood. He passes these Turkish elements in review, and concludes that +"the spirit of the administration is Turkish, and also the leading +spirit of Persian civilisation, even though these be clothed in Persian +guise"--for at present the tables are turned. "All those Turkish +warriors and heroes, Shahs and Grand Viziers, thinkers and scholars, +have lost their Turkish consciousness and have become assimilated to the +Persians in writing, speech, and literature." Even the compact two +millions and a half of Turkish-speaking Azerbaijanis will write letters +only in Persian, and will not read a Turkish newspaper. He omits the +most important fact--that these Turks of Persia are Shias like their +Persian fellow-countrymen, while the "Mohammedan institutions and +traditions" for which the Ottoman Turks are pledged by the Young Turk +Party to "secure respect" are those of the Sunni persuasion. But then +Turkish Nationalism depends upon ignoring religion. Tekin Alp sets out +confidently to give the Turks in Persia "a Turkish soul." His model is +the Rumanian propaganda among the Vlachs in Macedonia, and his +expectations are great: + +"There is no power in Persia to put down such a movement, because it +could do no harm to anyone. The nationalisation of the Persian Turks +would even be a great and unexpected help to the Persian Government.... +Persia would be situated with regard to the Turkish Government as +Bavaria towards Prussia." + +And this is only a stage towards a higher goal: + +"The united Turks should form the centre of gravity of the world of +Islam. The Arabs of Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia, the Persians, Afghans, +etc., must enjoy complete independence in their own affairs, but +outwardly the world of Islam must present a perfectly united front." + +The Arabs of North Africa and the Shias of Iran can appraise the +"independence" held out to them by the "unity" which Turkish Nationalism +has been presenting already to Syria and Irak, the Yemen and the Hedjaz. + +But Tekin Alp deals even less tenderly with Russia. In explaining the +bond of interest between Turkish Nationalism and Germany he remarks that + +"The Pan-Turkish aspirations cannot come to their full development and +realisation until the Muscovite monster is crushed, because the very +districts which are the object of Turkish Irredentism--Siberia, the +Caucasus, the Crimea, Afghanistan, etc.--are still directly or +indirectly under Russian rule." + +The "et cetera" proves to be nothing less than the province of Kazan: + +"The alluvial plains of the Volga and the Kama, in European Russia, are +inhabited by four or five million Turks.... The Northern Turks are not +indeed superior to the Ottoman Turks, but must not therefore be +underrated. Their progressive economic and social organisation is in +every way a great help to the national movement. + +"If," he concludes, "the Russian despotism is, as we hope, to be +destroyed by the brave German, Austrian, and Turkish Armies, thirty to +forty million Turks will receive their independence. With the ten +million Ottoman Turks this will form a nation of fifty million, +advancing towards a great civilisation which may perhaps be compared to +that of Germany, in that it will have the strength and energy to rise +ever higher. In some ways it will be even superior to the degenerate +French and English civilisations." + +This Nationalism, which dominates Turkey's present, has also decided the +question of her future. If such a movement has taken possession of the +Osmanlis, the Osmanlis must lose possession of their Empire. Turkish +Nationalism now directs the Ottoman Government, wields its pretensions, +is master within its frontiers; and how does it use its mastery? To make +a hell of Armenia and Syria, and to plot out new Macedonias in Persia +and the heart of Russia. Thus Turkish Nationalism shows where the Turk +is intolerable and must go, but it also shows where he has some right to +stay. + +There are innocent and constructive elements in it, as in all movements +of the kind. As in Europe, it has forced open the Dead Hand of the +Church. Under its influence the Ministry of _Evkaf_, which holds the +enormous religious endowments of Turkey in trust, has turned its funds +to the founding of a national bank and library, and the subsidising of a +national architecture. It has also started elementary schools, like the +voluntary schools supported by the Christian nationalities, in aid of +the Ministry of Education; and it has taken up the reform of the Moslem +seminaries (_Medressés_), which have been one of the strongholds of +Turkish reaction. The welfare of Turkish students is a concern of the +Nationalist society called _Turk Ujaghi_ (the Turkish Family), founded +in 1912, and now possessing sixteen branches in various provincial towns +of Anatolia--only Turks may be members--with affiliated societies in the +Caucasus and Turkestan. The _Turk Ujaghi_ organises lantern lectures, +lectures on mediaeval Anatolian art, and even lectures by a Turkish lady +on Panturanianism and woman's rights--she is said to have had +Khodjas[20] in her audience, and, if so, this certainly shows an +unheard-of openness to new ideas on the part of the "Islamji." Another +society, the _Turk Güji_ (Turkish Strength), encourages physical culture +like the Slavonic _Sokols_, and there are _Izdjis_, or Turkish +Boy-Scouts, under Enver Bey's patronage, who take "Turanian" +scout-names, blazon the White Wolf of Turkish paganism on their flags, +and cheer, it is said, not for the "Caliph" or the "Padishah," but for +the "Khakan." + +This jumble of efforts, half-admirable and half-absurd, will justify +Turkish Nationalism if it brings about the regeneration of the Anatolian +peasantry. The Anatolians have suffered as much from the Ottoman +dominion as any of the races which have come under its yoke. They have +paid for Ottoman Imperialism with their blood and physique; their +villages have been ravaged by the syphilis of the garrison towns, and +the wider the frontiers of the Empire the further from their homes the +Anatolian soldiers have died--in the Yemen, in Albania, in Irak, on the +snow-covered Armenian plateau. Two things are necessary for Anatolia's +salvation--the limitation of the Turkish State to the lands inhabited by +its Turkish-speaking population, and the replacement of the mongrel +Osmanli bureaucracy by a cleaner and more democratic political order. If +the Allies can compass this, they may claim without hypocrisy to have +liberated another nationality; for Anatolia will be reborn on the day of +its escape from the Ottoman chrysalis as truly as were Serbia and Greece +and Rumania and Bulgaria. + +The beginnings will be difficult, as they have been in the Balkans. +Whatever frontiers a Turkish National State may receive, they cannot be +drawn without including non-Turkish elements--racial geography is +nowhere very simple between Bagdad and Vienna--and in view of what the +Turk's racial minorities have suffered during the War and before it, +those left to him hereafter must be safeguarded by stringent +guarantees--far more stringent than the Capitulations, which, for that +matter, protected none but the nationals of foreign Powers. The +Capitulations are a problem in themselves. They were repudiated by the +Young Turkish Government at the beginning of the War, as well as the +conventions regulating the customs tariff. It is difficult to see how +the Peace Conference can pass over flagrant violations of international +treaties, and the Nationalists' contention that Turkish justice has been +brought up to a European standard will not bear examination; on the +contrary, the Young Turkish congress of 1911 passed a resolution that +"the reorganisation of the administration of justice was less important +than the abolition of the Capitulations." These difficulties, however, +might be settled with a new and better Anatolian government; and as for +the racial question, with time and guaranteed tolerance for religion it +might solve itself, for there is a rude vitality in the Turkish +language, and the Greek and Armenian minorities in Central Anatolia have +been gradually adopting it in place of their native speech, though this +tendency is now being counteracted by the spread of national schools +among the scattered outposts of the two nationalities in the interior. + + + + +III + + +With these suggestions, Anatolia and Turkish Nationalism may be +dismissed from our survey. Shorn of their pretensions in Armenia and the +countries south of Taurus, the Turks may experiment in the art of +government without the tragedies which their present domination has +brought upon mankind. The other lands and peoples of Western Asia, when +they have ceased to be "Turkey," will be restored once more to the +civilised world. What forces will shape their growth? Not, even +indirectly, the discrowned Turk, for if he were not banned by his crimes +he would still be doomed by his incapacity. + +The relative qualities of the different Near Eastern races are not in +doubt. A German teacher in the German Technical School at Aleppo, who +resigned his appointment as a protest against the Armenian atrocities in +1915, thus records his personal judgment in an open letter to the +_Reichstag_[21]: + +"The Young Turk is afraid of the Christian nationalities--Armenians, +Syrians and Greeks--on account of their cultural and economic +superiority, and he sees in their religion a hindrance to Turkifying +them by peaceful means. They must therefore be exterminated or +converted to Islam by force. The Turks do not suspect that in so doing +they are sawing off the branch on which they are sitting themselves. Yet +who is to help Turkey forward if not the Greeks, Armenians, and Syrians, +who constitute more than a quarter of the population of the Empire? The +Turks, _the least gifted of the races living in Turkey_, are themselves +only a minority of the population, and are still far behind the Arabs in +culture. Where is there any Turkish trade, Turkish handicraft, Turkish +industry, Turkish art, Turkish science? They have even borrowed their +law and religion from the conquered Arabs, and their language, so far as +it has been given literary form. + +"We teachers, who have been teaching Greeks, Armenians, Arabs, Turks, +and Jews in German schools in Turkey for years, can only pass judgment +that of all our pupils the pure Turks are the most unwilling and the +least talented. When for once in a way a Turk does achieve something, +one can be sure in nine cases out of ten that one is dealing with a +Circassian, an Albanian, or a Turk with Bulgarian blood in his veins. +From my personal experience I can only prophesy that the Turks proper +will never achieve anything in trade, industry, or science. + +"We are told now in the German Press about the Turks' hunger for +education, and of how they are thronging eagerly to learn German. There +is even a report of language courses for adults which have been started +in Turkey. They have certainly been started, but with what result? One +reads of the language course at a technical school which began with +twelve Turkish teachers as pupils. Our informant forgets to add, +however, that after four lessons only six pupils presented themselves; +after five, five; after six, four; and after seven only three, so that +after eight lessons the course broke down, through the indolence of the +pupils, before it had properly commenced. If the pupils had been +Armenians they would have persevered till the end of the school year, +learnt industriously, and finished with a respectable mastery of the +German language." + +From a German teacher who has worked in Turkey for three years this +verdict is crushing, and Tekin Alp himself virtually admits the charge. +"It is true," he writes, "that the Turkish character is usually lacking +in the qualities most essential to trade or economic undertakings, but +these may be acquired by a reasonable and methodical training and +organisation." The only "organisation" that seems to occur to him is the +Boycott, which has been popular with the Turks since the Revolution of +1908. + +"The unaccommodating attitude of the Greek Government was sufficient +excuse," he remarks, in reference to the Boycott of 1912. "The real +motive, however, was the longing of the Turkish nation for independence +in their own country. The Boycott, which was at first directed solely +against the Greeks, was then extended to the Armenians and other +non-Mohammedan circles, and was carried out with undiminished energy. +This movement, which lasted in all its rigour for several months, caused +the ruin of hundreds of small Greek and Armenian tradesmen.... The +systematic and rigorous Boycott is now at an end, but the spirit it +created in the people still persists.... It can now be asserted that the +movement for restoring the economic life of Turkey is on the right +road." + +The real effects of the Boycott of 1912 are described by the German +authority whose memorial has several times been cited in this article. +He tells us how, under the patronage of the Young Turkish Government, +associations were formed which intimidated the Moslem peasants into +buying from them, when they came to market, instead of from the +Christians with whom they had formerly dealt. + +"The peasants came to their old dealers," the memorial continues, +"lamented their fate, and asked their advice as to how they could save +themselves from the hands of their fellow-countrymen. They were +delighted when at last the Boycott came to an end and they could once +more buy from Greeks and Armenians, where they were well served and got +good value for their money." + +If the Turkish Nationalists had confined themselves to economic weapons, +the Turks' economic ineptitude would have prevented them from doing +serious harm; but by abusing the political and military powers of the +Ottoman State to perpetrate the recent atrocities they have struck a +mortal blow at the prosperity of Western Asia. + +"In the whole of Asia Minor, with perhaps one or two exceptions," the +same German authority states, "there is not a single pure Turkish firm +engaged in foreign trade.... The extermination of the Armenian +population means not only the loss of from 10 to 25 per cent. of the +total population of Anatolia[22], but, what is most serious, the +elimination of those elements in the population which are the most +highly developed economically and have the greatest capacity for +civilisation...." + +And this is the universal judgment of those in a position to know. + +"The result of the deportations," the American Consul at Aleppo declares +in an official report[23], "is that, as 90 per cent. of the commerce of +the interior is in the hands of the Armenians, the country is facing +ruin. The great bulk of business being done on credit, hundreds of +prominent business men other than Armenians are facing bankruptcy. There +will not be left in the places evacuated a single tanner, moulder, +blacksmith, tailor, carpenter, clay-worker, weaver, shoemaker, jeweller, +pharmacist, doctor, lawyer, or any of the professional people or +tradesmen, with very few exceptions, and the country will be left in a +practically helpless state." + +The German memorialist presses the indictment: + +"You cannot become a merchant by murdering one. You cannot master a +handicraft if you smash its tools. A sparsely-populated country does not +become more productive if it destroys its most industrious population. +You do not advance the progress of civilisation if you drive into the +desert, as the scapegoat for decades and centuries of wasted +opportunities, the element in your population which shows the greatest +economic ability, the greatest progressiveness in education, and the +greatest energy in every respect, and which was fitted by nature to +build the bridge between East and West. You only corrupt your own sense +of right if you tread the rights of others under foot. The popularity of +an unpopular war may temporarily be promoted among the Turkish masses by +the destruction and spoliation of the non-Mohammedan elements--the +Armenians most of all, but also, in part, the Syrians, Greeks, +Maronites, and Jews--but thoughtful Mohammedans, when they realise the +whole damage which the Empire has sustained, will lament the economic +ruin of Turkey most bitterly, and will come to the conclusion that the +Turkish Government has lost infinitely more than it can ever win"--it is +a German writing--"by victories at the front." + +"We may call it political necessity or what not," declared an American +travelling in Anatolia during the deportations of 1915, "but in essence +it is a nominally ruling class, jealous of a more progressive race, +striving by methods of primitive savagery to maintain the leading +place[24]." + +What forces will be released in Western Asia when the Turk has met his +fate? Who will repair the ruin he leaves behind? + +The Germans? They have been penetrating Turkey economically for the +last thirty years. They have organised regular steamship services +between German and Turkish ports, multiplied the volume of Turco-German +trade, and extended their capital investments, particularly in the +Ottoman Debt and the construction of railways. In 1881, when the Debt +was first placed under international administration, Germany held only +4.7 per cent., of it, and was the sixth in importance of Turkey's +creditors; by 1912 she held 20 per cent., and was second only to +France[25]. Her railway enterprises, more ambitious than those of any +other foreign Power, have brought valuable concessions in their +train--harbour works at Haidar Pasha and Alexandretta, irrigation works +in the Konia oasis and the Adana plain, and the prospect, when the +Bagdad Railway reaches the Tigris, of tapping the naphtha deposits of +Kerkuk[26]. Dr. Rohrbach, the German specialist on the Near East, +forecasts the profits of the Bagdad Railway from the results of Russian +railway-building in Central Asia. He prophesies the cultivation of +cotton, in the regions opened up by the line, on a scale which will +cover an appreciable part of the demands of German industry, and will +open a corresponding market for German wares among the new +cotton-growing population[27]. "Yet the decisive factor in the Bagdad +Railway," he counsels his German readers, "is not to be found in these +economic considerations but in another sphere." + +Dr. Wiedenfeld drives this home. + +"Germany's relation to Turkey," his monograph begins, "belies the +doctrine that all modern understandings and differences between nations +have an economic origin. We are certainly interested in the economic +advancement of Turkey ... but in setting ourselves to make Turkey strong +we have been influenced far more by our political interests as a State +among States (_das politische, das staatlich-machtliche Interesse_). +Even our economic activity has primarily served this aim, and has in +fact originated to a large extent in the purely politico-military +problems (_aus den unmittelbaren Machtaufgaben_) which confronted the +Turkish Government. Exclusively economic considerations play a very +subordinate part in Turco-German relations.... Our common political +aims, and Germany's interest in keeping open the land-route to the +Indian Ocean, will make it more than ever imperative for us to +strengthen Turkey economically with all our might, and to put her in a +position to build up, on independent economic foundations, a body +politic strong enough to withstand all external assaults. The means will +still be economic; the goal will be of a political order[28]." + +And Dr. Rohrbach formulates the political goal with startling precision. +After twelve pages of disquisition on recent international diplomacy he +brings his thesis to this point: the Bagdad Railway links up with the +railways of Syria, and + +"The importance of the Syrian railway system lies in this, that, if the +need arose, it would be the direct instrument for the exercise of +pressure upon England ... supposing that German-Austro-Turkish +co-operation became necessary in the direction of Egypt." + +Written as it was in 1911, this is a remarkable anticipation of Turkish +strategic railway-building since the outbreak of war; but it is +infinitely remote in purpose from the economic regeneration of Western +Asia, and even when the German publicists reckon in economic values they +generally betray their political design. + +"The special point for Germany," Dr. Wiedenfeld lays down, in discussing +the agricultural possibilities of the Ottoman territories, "is that to a +large extent crops can be grown here which supplement our own economic +resources in important respects.... In peace time, of course, no one +would think of transporting goods of such bulk as agricultural products +any way but by sea; but the War has impressed on us with brutal +clearness the value for us of being able on occasions of extreme +necessity to import cotton from Turkey by land." + +Thus Germany's economic activity in Turkey has been not for prosperity +but for power, not for peace but for war. In developing Turkey, Germany +is simply developing the "Central Europe" scheme of a military combine +self-contained economically and challenging the world in arms[29]. +Germany is concerned with Turkey, not for her splendid past and future, +but for her miserable present; for Turkey--as she is, and only as she +is--is a vital chequer on the chess-board where Germany has been playing +her game of world power, or "des staatlich-machtlichen Interessens," as +Dr. Wiedenfeld would say. Therefore Germany does not eye the lands and +peoples under Ottoman dominion with a view to their common advantage and +her own. She selects a "piece" among them which she can keep under her +thumb and so control the square. Abd-ul-Hamid was her first pawn, and +when the Young Turk Party swept him off the board she adopted them and +their colour[30]; for by hook or by crook, through this agency or that, +Turkey had to be commanded or Germany's play was spoilt. + +Germany's control over Turkey depends upon the maintenance of a corrupt +minority in power--too weak and corrupt to remain in it without +Germany's guarantee, and corrupt enough, when secured in it, to put it +at Germany's disposal. A free hand at home in return for servitude in +diplomacy and war--the deal is called "Hegemony," and is as old as +Ancient Greece. By her hegemony over the Ottoman Government Germany +threatens the British and Russian Empires from all the Ottoman +frontiers; and with the free hand that is their price the Young Turks +inflict on all lands and peoples within those frontiers whatever evils +conduce to the maintenance of their pretensions. + +As Rohrbach and Wiedenfeld point out, this political understanding +underlies all Germany's economic efforts in Western Asia, and we can see +how it has warped them from their proper ends. The track of the Bagdad +Railway, for example, has not been selected in the economic interests of +the lands and peoples which it ostensibly serves. Dr. Rohrbach himself +admits that + +"The Anatolian section of the Bagdad Railway cannot be described as +properly paying its way. It is otherwise with the" (French) "line from +Smyrna to Afiun Kara Hissar, which links the Anatolian Railway with the +older railway system in the West.... The parts of Asia Minor which were +thickly populated and prosperous in antiquity lie mostly westward of +this first section of the Bagdad Railway, round the river-valleys and" +(French and English) "railways leading down to the Aegean." + +"There are other once-flourishing parts of the peninsula," he continues, +"which the Bagdad Railway does not touch at all"--the Vilayet of Sivas +and the other Armenian provinces. The original German plan was to carry +the Railway through Armenia from Angora to Kharput, but Russia not +unnaturally vetoed the construction, so near her Caucasian frontiers, of +a line which, by the nature of the Turco-German understanding, must +primarily serve strategic ends[31], and the track was therefore +deflected to the south-east. This took it through the most barren parts +of Central Anatolia, and in the next section involved the slow and +costly work of tunnelling the Taurus and Amanus mountains. + +"If merely economic and not political advantages were taken into +account," Dr. Rohrbach concedes, "the question might perhaps be raised +whether it would not be better to leave the Anatolian section alone +altogether and begin the Bagdad Railway from Seleucia" (on the Syrian +coast). "The future export trade in grain, wool, and cotton will in any +case do all it can to lengthen the cheap sea-passage and shorten +correspondingly the section on which it must pay railway freights. The +fact that the route connecting Bagdad with the Mediterranean coast in +the neighbourhood of Antioch is the oldest, greatest, and still most +promising trade-route of Western Asia is independent of all railway +projects." + +It is worth remembering that a railway, following this route from the +Syrian coast to the Persian Gulf, has more than once been projected by +the British Government. As early as the thirties of last century Colonel +Chesney was sent out to examine the ground, and in 1867 the proposal was +considered by a Committee of the House of Commons. For the economic +development of Western Asia it is clearly a better plan, but then Dr. +Rohrbach bases the "necessity for the East Anatolian section of the +Bagdad Railway" on wholly different grounds. + +"The necessity," he declares, "consists in Turkey's military interests, +which obviously would be very poorly served" (by German railway +enterprise) "if troops could not be transported by train without a break +from Bagdad and Mosul to the extremity of Anatolia, and _vice versâ_." + +The Bagdad Railway is thus acknowledged to be an instrument of strategy +for the Germans and for the Turks of domination--for "_vice versâ_" +means that Turkish troops can be transported at a moment's notice +through the tunnels from Anatolia to enforce the Ottoman pretension over +the Arab lands. Militarily, these tunnels are the most valuable section +of the line; economically, they are the most costly and unremunerative. +And the second (and longer) tunnel could still have been dispensed with, +if, south of Taurus, the track had been led along the Syrian coast. +"Economic interests and considerations of expense," Wiedenfeld +concedes[32], "argued strongly for the latter course, but--fortunately, +as we must admit to-day--the military point of view prevailed." Thus the +Turco-German understanding prevented the Bagdad Railway first from +beginning at a port on the Mediterranean coast, and then from touching +the coast at all[33]. "The spine of Turkey," as German writers are fond +of calling it, distorts the natural articulation of Western Asia. + +Nemesis has overtaken the Germans in the Armenian deportations--a +"political end" of Turkish Nationalism which swept away the "economic +means" towards Germany's subtler policy. A month or two before the +outbreak of war Dr. Rohrbach stated, in a public lecture, that + +"Germany has an important interest in effecting and maintaining contact +with the Armenian nation. We have set before ourselves the necessary and +legitimate aim of spreading and enrooting German influence in Turkey, +not only by military missions and the construction of railways, but also +by the establishment of intellectual relations, by the work of German +_Kultur_--in a word, by moral conquests; and we are determined, by +pacific means, to reach an amicable understanding with the Turks and the +other nations in the Turkish Empire. Our ulterior object in this is to +strengthen the Turkish Empire internally with the aid of German science, +education, and training, and for this work the Armenians are +indispensable." + +A few months later Germany, as part price of Turkey's intervention in +the War, had to leave the Young Turks a "free hand" to exterminate the +nation which was the indispensable instrument of her Turkish policy. On +the 9th August, 1915, the German Ambassador at Constantinople handed in +a formal protest against the deportations, in which his Government +"declined all responsibility for the consequences which might result." +On the 11th January, 1916, in the German Reichstag, the Chief of the +Political Department of the Foreign Office replied to a question from +Dr. Liebknecht that "an exchange of views about the reaction of these +measures upon the population was taking place," and that "further +information could not be given." And while Germany was maintaining this +"correct attitude" before the world, she was assisting in Turkey at the +destruction of her own work. + +Even the atrocities of 1909 had damaged the economic prospects of the +Adapa district from which Dr. Rohrbach[34] hoped so much, for + +"The first thing the Turkish peasants did was to destroy all the +steam-ploughs and nearly all the threshing machines (there were over a +hundred of them) which the Armenian villagers had imported for the +cultivation of the Civilian plain[35]." + +By the atrocities of 1915 the economic life of Western Asia was +completely ruined, and the fruits of German enterprise were swept away +in the flood. + +"I have before me," writes our German memorialised, "a list of the +customers of a single Constantinople firm of importers which places its +orders principally in Germany and Austria. The accounts which this firm +has outstanding amount to date to £13,922 (Turkish), owing from 378 +customers in 42 towns of the interior. In consequence of the Armenian +deportations these debts are no longer recoverable. The 378 customers, +with all their employees, goods, and assets, have vanished from the face +of the earth. Any of the owners that are still alive are now beggars on +the borders of the Arabian desert." + +At Urfa, after the atrocities of 1896, philanthropists of all nations +had founded orphanages and started native industries. Attached to the +German orphanage there was a carpet factory, with dyeing vats and a +spinnery, which Dr. Rohrbach[36], after personal investigation, +describes as "an institution to be welcomed as unreservedly from the +national as from the humanitarian point of view." + +"The factory," he remarks, "not only provides work and bread for 400 +persons, but has transplanted one of the most profitable and promising +industries of the East into the sphere traversed by the German Railway, +where German interests are predominant." + +He prophesies that the whole carpet industry of Western Asia, "from +which English and other foreign firms in Smyrna now draw such enormous +profits," will soon be concentrated round Urfa in German hands. From +Armenia's evil, apparently, springs Germany's good--but in 1911 Dr. +Rohrbach did not foresee the catastrophe of 1915. + +"For the rise of the carpet industry," our German memorialised writes, +"Turkey has to thank capitalists and exporters who are almost all +Armenians, Greeks, Jews, or Europeans. Like the cotton cultivation +introduced by Germany into Cilicia, this carpet industry, in the eastern +provinces, has been deprived of the hands essential to it by the +Armenian deportations." + +Eye-witnesses at Urfa describe how the Armenian community there was +massacred in 1915--the third time in twenty years, and this time to +extinction--and it points the irony of the situation that the Turkish +guns were served by German artillerymen[37]. + +"I have nothing to say," writes Dr. Niepage, the German teacher from +Aleppo, "about the opinion of the German officers in Turkey. I often +noticed among them an ominous silence or a convulsive effort to change +the subject, when any German of warm feelings and independent judgment +talked in their presence of the fearful sufferings of the Armenians." + +This moral bankruptcy is more fatal to the future of Germany in Western +Asia than all the material havoc which the Armenian deportations have +caused. For Dr. Niepage is convinced that the blood of the Armenians +will be on Germany's head: + +"'The teaching of the Germans,' is the simple Turk's explanation, ... +and more sensitive Mohammedans, Turks and Arabs alike, cannot believe +that their own Government has ordered these horrors. They lay all +excesses at the Germans' door, for the Germans, during the War, are +regarded as Turkey's schoolmasters in everything. The mollahs declare in +the mosques that the German officers, and not the Sublime Porte, have +ordered the maltreatment and extermination of the Armenians.... Others +say: 'Perhaps the German Government has its hands tied by certain +agreements defining its powers, or perhaps it is not an opportune moment +for intervention.' + +"Our presence had no ameliorating effect, and what we could do ourselves +was negligible.... The abusive epithet 'Giaur' is heard once more by +German ears.... + +"We think it our duty to draw attention to the fact that our educational +work in Turkey forfeits its moral basis and the natives' esteem, if the +German Government is not in a position to prevent the brutalities +inflicted here upon the wives and children of murdered Armenians. + +"The writer considers it out of the question that the German Government, +if it seriously desired to stem the tide of destruction in this eleventh +hour, would find it impossible to bring the Turkish Government to +reason.... + +"If we persist in treating the massacres of Christians as an internal +affair of Turkey, which is only important to us because it ensures us +the Turks' friendship, then we must change the orientation of our German +_Kulturpolitik_. We must stop sending German teachers to Turkey, and we +teachers must give up telling our pupils in Turkey about German poets +and philosophers, German culture and German ideals, to say nothing of +German Christianity. + +"Three years ago I was sent by the Foreign Office as higher-grade +teacher to the German Technical School at Aleppo. The Prussian +Provincial School Board at Magdeburg specially enjoined upon me, when I +went out, to show myself worthy of the confidence reposed in me in the +grant of furlough to take up this post. I should not be fulfilling my +duty as a German official and an accredited representative of German +culture, if I consented to keep silence in face of the atrocities of +which I was a witness, or to look on passively while the pupils +entrusted to my charge were driven out into the desert to die of +starvation. + +"The things of which everybody here has been a witness for months past +remain as a stain on Germany's shield in the minds of Oriental nations." + +What will be left to Germany in Western Asia after the war? She may keep +her trade, though Wiedenfeld confesses that "the exchange of commodities +between Germany and Turkey has never attained any really considerable +dimensions," and that "the German export trade commands no really staple +article whatever of the kind exported by England, Austria, and +Russia"--unless we count as such munitions and other materials of +war[38]. Except for the last item, this German trade will probably +remain and grow; but the German hegemony, based on railway enterprise +and reinsured by "moral conquests," will scarcely survive the Ottoman +dominion. + +Happily there are other representatives of culture, other indigenous +nationalities, other possibilities of economic development, which will +remain in Western Asia when the Turk and German have gone, and which +may be equal to repairing the ruin they will leave behind. + +For nearly a century now the American Evangelical Missions have been +doing work there which is the greatest conceivable contrast to the +German _Kulturpolitik_ of the last thirty years. A missionary, sent out +to relieve the first pioneers, was given the following instructions by +the American Board: + +"The object of our missions to the Oriental Churches is, first, to +revive the knowledge and spirit of the Gospel among them, and, secondly, +by this means to operate upon the Mohammedans. + +"The Oriental Churches need assistance from their brethren abroad. Our +object is not to subvert them: you are not sent among those Churches to +proselytise. Let the Armenian remain an Armenian if he will, the Greek a +Greek, the Nestorian a Nestorian, the Oriental an Oriental. + +"Your great business is with the fundamental doctrines and duties of the +Gospel[39]." + +In this spirit the American missionaries have worked. They have had no +warships behind them, no diplomatic support, no political ambitions, no +economic concessions. As Evangelicals their first step was to translate +the Bible into all the living languages and current scripts of the +Nearer East. For the Bulgars and Armenians this was the beginning of +their modern literature, but the jealousy of the Orthodox and Gregorian +clergy was naturally aroused. Native Protestant Churches formed +themselves--not by the missionaries' initiative but on their own. They +were trained by the missionaries to self-government, and as they spread +from centre to centre they grouped themselves in unions, with annual +meetings to settle their common affairs. The missionaries also +encouraged them to be self-supporting, and in 1908 the contributions of +the Native Churches to the general expenses of the missions were twice +as large as those of the American Board[40]. The Ottoman Government +recognised its Protestant subjects as a religious corporation _(Millet)_ +in 1853, and in spite of this the jealousy of the national Churches was +overcome. For the work of the Americans was not confined to the new +Protestant community. The translation of the Bible led them also into +educational work; they laid the foundations of secondary education in +Western Asia, and their schools and colleges--still the only +institutions of their kind--are attended by Gregorians as well as +Protestants, Moslems as well as Christians, Moslem girls as well as +boys. As they opened up remoter districts they added medicine to their +activities, and their hospitals, like their schools, have been the first +in the field. And all this has been built up so unassumingly that its +magnitude is hardly realised by the Americans themselves. In the three +Turkey Missions, which cover Anatolia and Armenia--the whole of Turkey +except the Arab lands--there were, on the eve of the War, 209 American +missionaries with 1,299 native helpers, 163 Protestant churches with +15,348 members, 450 schools with 25,922 pupils; Constantinople College +and 6 other colleges or high schools for girls; Robert College on the +Bosphorus and 9 other colleges for men or boys; and 11 hospitals. + +The War, when it came, seemed to sweep away everything. The Protestant +Armenians, in spite of a nominal exemption, were deported and massacred +like their Gregorian fellow-countrymen; the boys and girls were carried +away from the American colleges, the nurses and patients from the +hospitals; the empty buildings were "requisitioned" by the Ottoman +authorities; the missionaries themselves, in their devoted efforts to +save a remnant from destruction, suffered as many casualties from typhus +and physical exhaustion as any proportionate body of workers on the +European battlefields. The Turkish Nationalists congratulated themselves +that the American work in Western Asia was destroyed. In praising a +lecture by a member of the German _Reichstag_, who had declared himself +"opposed to all missionary activities in the Turkish Empire," a +Constantinople newspaper[41] wrote: + +"The suppression of the schools founded and directed by ecclesiastical +missions or by individuals belonging to enemy nations is as important a +measure as the abolition of the Capitulations. Thanks to their schools, +foreigners were able to exercise great moral influence over the young +men of the country, and they were virtually in charge of its spiritual +and intellectual guidance. By closing them the Government has put an end +to a situation as humiliating as it was dangerous." + +But the missionaries' spirit was something they could not destroy. + +"When they deported the Armenians," wrote a missionary, "and left us +without work and without friends, we decided to come home and get our +vacation and be ready to go wherever we could after the War[42]." + +After the War the Turks in Anatolia may still be infatuated enough to +banish their best friends, but in Armenia, when the Turk has gone, the +Americans will find more than their former field; for, in one form or +another, Armenia is certain to rise again. The Turks have not succeeded +in exterminating the Armenian nation. Half of it lives in Russia, and +its colonies are scattered over the world from California to Singapore. +Even within the Ottoman frontiers the extermination is not complete, and +the Arabian deserts will yield up their living as well as the memory of +their dead. The relations of Armenia with the Russian democracy should +not be more difficult to settle than those of Finland and Poland; her +frontiers cannot be forecast, but they must include the Six Vilayets--so +often promised reforms by the Concert of Europe and so often abandoned +to the revenges of the Ottoman Government--as well as the Civilian +highlands and some outlet to the sea. One thing is certain, that, +whatever land is restored to them, the Armenians will turn its resources +to good account, for, while their town-dwellers are the merchants and +artisans of Western Asia, 80 per cent., of them are tillers of the soil. + +What the Americans have done for Armenia has been done for Syria by the +French[43]. There are half a million Maronite Catholics in Syria, and +since the seventeenth century France has been the protectress of +Catholicism in the Near East. In 1864, when there was trouble in Syria +and the Maronites were being molested by the Ottoman Government, France +landed an army corps and secured autonomy for the Lebanon under a +Christian governor. But French influence is not limited to the Lebanon +province. All over Syria there are French clerical, secular, and Judaic +schools. Beirût and Damascus, Christian and Moslem--for there is more +religious tolerance in Syria than in most Near Eastern countries--are +equally under the spell of French civilisation; and France is the chief +economic power in the land, for French enterprise has built the Syrian +railways. The sufferings of Syria during the War have been described; +the Young Turks have confiscated the railways and deprived the Lebanon +of its autonomy; even Rohrbach deprecates the fact that "only a few of +the higher officials in Syria are chosen from among the natives of the +country, while almost all, from the Kaimakam upwards, are sent out from +Constantinople," and he attributes to this policy "the feeling against +the Turks, which is most acute in Damascus." This is Rohrbach's +periphrasis for Arab Nationalism, which will be master in its own house +when the Turk has been removed. The future status and boundaries of +Syria can no more be forecast than those of Armenia at the present stage +of the War; yet here, too, certain tendencies are clear. In some form or +other Arab Syria will retain her connection with France, and her growing +population will no longer be driven by misgovernment to emigration. + +Syrians and Armenians have been emigrating for the last quarter of a +century, and during the same period the Jews, whose birthright in +Western Asia is as ancient as theirs, have been returning to their +native land--not because Ottoman dominion bore less hardly upon them +than upon other gifted races, but because nothing could well be worse +than the conditions they left behind. For these Jewish immigrants came +almost entirely from the Russian Pale, the hearth and hell of modern +Jewry. The movement really began after the assassination of Alexander +II. in 1881, which threw back reform in Russia for thirty-six years. The +Jews were the scapegoats of the reaction. New laws deprived them of +their last civil rights, _pogroms_ of life itself; they came to +Palestine as refugees, and between 1881 and 1914 their numbers there +increased from 25,000 to 120,000 souls. + +The most remarkable result of this movement has been the foundation of +flourishing agricultural colonies. Their struggle for existence has been +hard; the pioneers were students or trades-folk of the Ghetto, unused to +outdoor life and ignorant of Near Eastern conditions; Baron Edmund de +Rothschild financed them from 1884 to 1899 at a loss; then they were +taken over by the "Palestine Colonisation Association," which discovered +the secrets of success in self-government and scientific methods. + +Each colony is now governed by an elective council of inhabitants, with +committees for education, police, and the arbitration of disputes, and +they have organised co-operative unions which make them independent of +middlemen in the disposal of their produce. Their production has rapidly +risen in quantity and value, through the industry and intelligence of +the average Jewish settler, assisted latterly by an Agricultural +Experiment Station at Atlit, near Haifa, which improves the varieties of +indigenous crops and acclimatises others[44]. There is a "Palestine Land +Development Company" which buys land in big estates and resells it in +small lots to individual settlers, and an "Anglo-Palestine Bank" which +makes advances to the new settlers when they take up their holdings. As +a result of this enlightened policy the number of colonies has risen to +about forty, with 15,000 inhabitants in all and 110,000 acres of land, +and these figures do not do full justice to the importance of the +colonising movement. The 15,000 Jewish agriculturists are only 12-1/2 +per cent. of the Jewish population in Palestine, and 2 per cent., of the +total population of the country; but they are the most active, +intelligent element, and the only element which is rapidly increasing. +Again, the land they own is only 2 per cent. of the total area of +Palestine; but it is between 8 and 14 per cent. of the area under +cultivation, and there are vast uncultivated tracts which the Jews can +and will reclaim, as their numbers grow--both by further colonisation +and by natural increase, for the first generation of colonists have +already proved their ability to multiply in the Promised Land. Under +this new Jewish husbandry Palestine has begun to recover its ancient +prosperity. The Jews have sunk artesian wells, built dams for water +storage, fought down malaria by drainage and eucalyptus planting, and +laid out many miles of roads. In 1890 an acre of irrigable land at +Petach-Tikweh, the earliest colony, was worth £3 12s., in 1914, £36, and +the annual trade of Jaffa rose from £760,000 to £2,080,000 between 1904 +and 1912. "The impetus to agriculture is benefiting the whole economic +life of the country," wrote the German Vice-Counsul at Jaffa in his +report for 1912, and there is no fear that, as immigration increases, +the Arab element will be crowded to the wall. There are still only two +Jewish colonies beyond Jordan, where the Hauran--under the Roman Empire +a corn-land with a dozen cities--has been opened up by the railway and +is waiting again for the plough. + +But will immigration continue now that the Jew of the Pale has been +turned at a stroke into the free citizen of a democratic country? +Probably it will actually increase, for the Pale has been ravaged as +well as liberated during the war, and the Jews of Germany have based an +ingenious policy on this prospect, which is expounded thus by Dr. +Davis-Trietsch of Berlin[45]: + +"According to the most recent statistics about 12,900,000 out of the +14,300,000 Jews in the world speak German or Yiddish (_jüdisch-deutsch_) +as their mother-tongue.... But its language, cultural orientation, and +business relations the Jewish element from Eastern Europe" (the Pale) +"is an asset to German influence.... In a certain sense the Jews are a +Near Eastern element in Germany and a German element in Turkey." + +Germany may not relish her kinship with these lost Teutonic tribes, but +Dr. Davis-Trietsch makes a satirical exposure of such scruples: + +"It used to be a stock argument against the Jews that 'all nations' +regarded them with equal hostility, but the War has brought upon the +Germans such a superabundance of almost universal execration that the +question which is the most despised of all nations--if one goes, not by +justice and equity, but by the violence and extensiveness of the +prejudice--might well now be altered to the Germans' disadvantage. + +"In this unenviable competition for the prize of hate, Turkey, too, has +a word to say, for the unspeakable Turk' is a rhetorical commonplace of +English politics." + +Having thus isolated the Jews from humanity and pilloried them with the +German and the Turk, the writer expounds their function in the +Turco-German system: + +"Hitherto Germany has bothered herself very little about the Jewish +emigration from Eastern Europe. People in Germany hardly realised that, +through the annual exodus of about 100,000 German-speaking Jews to the +United States and England, the empire of the English language and the +economic system that goes with it is being enlarged, while a German +asset is being proportionately depreciated.... + +"The War found the Jewry of Eastern Europe in process of being uprooted, +and has enormously accelerated the catastrophe. Galicia and the western +provinces of Russia, which between them contain many more than half the +Jews in the world, have suffered more from the War than any other +region. Jewish homes have been broken up by hundreds of thousands, and +there is no doubt whatever that, as a result of the War, there will be +an emigration of East European Jews on an unprecedented scale.... + +"The disposal of the East European Jews will be a problem for +Germany.... It will no longer do simply to close the German frontiers to +them, and in view of the difficulties which would result from a +wholesale migration of Eastern Jews into Germany itself, Germans will +only be too glad to find a way out in the emigration of these Jews to +Turkey--a solution extraordinarily favourable to the interests of all +three parties concerned...." + +And from this he passes to a wider vision: + +"The German-speaking Jews abroad are a kind of German-speaking province +which is well worth cultivation. Nine-tenths of the Jewish world speak +German, and a good part of the remainder live in the Islamic world, +which is Germany's friend, so that there are grounds for talking of a +German protectorate over the whole of Jewry." + +By this exploitation of aversions, Dr. Trietsch expects to deposit the +Jews of the Pale over Western Asia as "culture-manure" for a German +harvest; and if the Jewish migration to Palestine had remained nothing +more than a stream of refugees, he might possibly have succeeded in his +purpose. But in the last twenty years this Jewish movement has become a +positive thing--no longer a flight from the Pale but a remembrance of +Zion--and Zionism has already challenged and defeated the policy which +Dr. Trietsch represents. "The object of Zionism," it was announced in +the _Basle Programme_, drawn up by the first Zionist Congress in 1897, +"is to establish for the Jewish people a publicly and legally assured +home in Palestine." For the Zionists Jewry is a nation, and to become +like other nations it needs its Motherland. In the Jewish colonies in +Palestine they see not merely a successful social enterprise but the +visible symbol of a body politic. The foundation of a national +university in Jerusalem is as ultimate a goal for them as the economic +development of the land, and their greatest achievement has been the +revival of Hebrew as the living language of the Palestinian Jews. It was +this that brought them into conflict with the Germanising tendency. In +1907 a secondary school was successfully started at Jaffa, by the +initiative of Jewish teachers in Palestine, with Hebrew as the language +of instruction; but in 1914, when a Jewish Polytechnic was founded at +Haifa, the German-Jewish _Hilfsverein_, which had taken a leading part, +refused to follow this precedent, and insisted on certain subjects being +taught in German, not only in the Polytechnic, but in the +_Hilfsverein's_ other schools. The result was a secession of pupils and +teachers. Purely Hebrew schools were opened; the Zionist organisation +gave official support; and the Germanising party was compelled to accept +a compromise which was in effect a victory for the Hebrew language. + +Dr. Trietsch himself accepts this settlement, but does not abandon his +idea: + +"It was certainly impossible to expect the Spanish and Arabic-speaking +Jews[46] to submit in their own Jewish country to the hegemony of the +German language.... Only Hebrew could become the common vernacular +language of the scattered fragments of Jewry drifting back to Palestine +from all the countries of the world. But ... in addition to Hebrew, to +which they are more and more inclined, the Jews must have a +world-language _(Weltsprache),_ and this can only be German." + +Anyone acquainted with the language-ordinances of Central Europe will +feel that this suggestion veils a threat. What has been happening in +Palestine during the War? Dr. Trietsch informs us that the Ottoman +Government has been proceeding with the "naturalisation" of the +Palestinian Jews, and that the "local execution of this measure has not +been effected without disturbances which are beyond the province of this +pamphlet." One significant consequence was the appearance in Egypt of +Palestinian refugees, who raised a Zion mule corps there and fought +through the Gallipoli campaign. What is the outlook for Palestine after +the War? If the Ottoman pretension survives, the menace from Turkish +Nationalism[47] and German resentment[48] is grave. But if Turk and +German go, there are Zionists who would like to see Palestine a British +Protectorate, with the prospect of growing into a British Dominion. +Certainly, if the Jewish colonies are to make progress, they must be +relieved of keeping their own police, building their own roads, and the +other burdens that fall on them under Ottoman government, and this can +only be secured by a better public administration. As for the British +side of the question, we may consult Dr. Trietsch. + +"There are possibilities," he urges, "in a German protectorate over the +Jews as well as over Islam. Smaller national units than the 14 1-3 +million Jews have been able to do Germany vital injury or service, and, +while the Jews have no national state, their dispersion over the whole +world, their high standard of culture, and their peculiar abilities +lend them a weight that is worth more in the balance than many larger +national masses which occupy a compact area of their own." + +Other Powers than Germany may take these possibilities to heart. + +Here, then, are peoples risen from the past to do what the Turks cannot +and the Germans will not in Western Asia. There is much to be +done--reform of justice, to obtain legal release from the Capitulations; +reform in the assessment and collection of the agricultural tithes, +which have been denounced for a century by every student of Ottoman +administration; agrarian reform, to save peasant proprietorship, which +in Syria, at any rate, is seriously in danger; genuine development of +economic resources; unsectarian and non-nationalistic advancement of +education. But the Jews, Syrians, and Armenians are equal to their task, +and, with the aid of the foreign nations on whom they can count, they +will certainly accomplish it. The future of Palestine, Syria, and +Armenia is thus assured; but there are other countries--once as fertile, +prosperous, and populous as they--which have lost not only their wealth +but their inhabitants under the Ottoman domination. These countries have +not the life left in them to reclaim themselves, and must look abroad +for reconstruction. + +If you cross the Euphrates by the bridge that carries the Bagdad +Railway, you enter a vast landscape of steppes as virgin to the eye as +any prairie across the Mississippi. Only the _tells_ (mounds) with which +it is studded witness to the density of its ancient population--for +Northern Mesopotamia was once so populous and full of riches that Rome +and the rulers of Iran fought seven centuries for its possession, till +the Arabs conquered it from both. + +The railway has now reached Nisibin, the Roman frontier fortress +heroically defended and ceded in bitterness of heart, and runs past +Dara, which the Persians never took. Westward lies Urfa--named Edessa by +Alexander's men after their Macedonian city of running waters[49]; later +the seat of a Christian Syriac culture whose missionaries were heard in +China and Travancore; still famous, under Arab dominion, for its +Veronica and 300 churches; and restored for a moment to Christendom as +the capital of a Crusader principality, till the Mongols trampled it +into oblivion and the Osmanlis made it a name for butchery. + +From Urfa to Nisibin there can be fields again. The climate has not +changed, and wherever the Bedawi pitches his tents and scratches the +ground there is proof of the old fertility. Only anarchy has banished +cultivation; for, since the Ottoman pretension was established over the +land, it has been the battleground of brigand tribes--Kurds from the +hills and Arabs from the desert, skirmishing or herding their flocks, +making or breaking alliance, but always robbing any tiller of the land +of the fruits of his labour. + +"If once," Dr. Rohrbach prophesies, "the peasant population were sure of +its life and property, it would joyfully expand, push out into the +desert, and bring new land under the plough; in a few years the villages +would spring up, not by dozens, but by hundreds." + +At present cultivation is confined to the Armenian foot-hills--an +uncertain arc of green from Aleppo to Mosul. But the railway strikes +boldly into the deserted middle of the land, giving the arc a chord, and +when Turco-German strategic interests no longer debar it from being +linked up, through Aleppo, with a Syrian port, it will be the really +valuable section of the Bagdad system. The railway is the only capital +enterprise that Northern Mesopotamia requires, for there is rain +sufficient for the crops without artificial irrigation. Reservoirs of +population are the need. The Kurds who come for winter pasture may be +induced to stay--already they have been settling down in the western +districts, and have gained a reputation for industry; the Bedawin, more +fickle husbandmen, may settle southward along the Euphrates, and in time +there will be a surplus of peasantry from Armenia and Syria. These will +add field to field, but unless some stronger stream of immigration is +led into the land, it will take many generations to recover its ancient +prosperity; for in the ninth century A.D. Northern Mesopotamia paid +Harun-al-Rashid as great a revenue as Egypt, and its cotton commanded +the market of the world[50]. + +Southern Mesopotamia--the Irak of the Arabs and Babylonia of the +Greeks--lies desolate like the North, but is a contrast to it in every +other respect. Its aspect is towards the Persian Gulf, and Rohrbach +grudgingly admits[51] that down the Tigris to Basra, and not upstream to +Alexandretta, is the natural channel for its trade. It gets nothing from +the Mediterranean, neither trade nor rain, and every drop of water for +cultivation must be led out of the rivers; but the rivers in their +natural state are worse than the drought. Their discharge is extremely +variable--about eight times as great in April as in October; they are +always silting up their beds and scooping out others; and when there are +no men to interfere they leave half the country a desert and make the +other half a swamp. Yet the soil, when justly watered, is one of the +richest in the world; for Irak is an immense alluvial delta, more than +five hundred miles from end to end, which the Tigris and Euphrates have +deposited in what was originally the head of the Persian Gulf. The Arabs +call it the _Sawâd_ or Black Land, and it is a striking change from the +bare ledges of Arabia and Iran which enclose its flanks, and from the +Northern steppe-land which it suddenly replaces--at Samarra, if you are +descending the Tigris, and on the Euphrates at Hit. The steppe cannot +compare with the _Sawâd_ in fertility, but the _Sawâd_ does not so +readily yield up its wealth. To become something better than a +wilderness of dust and slime it needs engineering on the grand scale and +a mighty population--immense forces working for immense returns. In a +strangely different environment it anticipated our modern rhythm of life +by four thousand years, and then went back to desolation five centuries +before Industrialism (which may repeople it) began. + +The _Sawâd_ was first reclaimed by men who had already a mastery of +metals, a system of writing, and a mature religion--less civilised men +would never have attempted the task. These Sumerians, in the fourth +millennium B.C., lived on _tells_ heaped up above flood-level, each +_tell_ a city-state with its separate government and gods, for +centralisation was the one thing needful to the country which the +Sumerians did not achieve. The centralisers were Semites from the +Arabian plateau. Sargon of Akkad and Naram Sin ruled the whole _Sawâd_ +as early as 2500 B.C.; Hammurabi, in 1900, already ruled it from +Babylon; and the capital has never shifted more than sixty miles since +then. Babylon on the Euphrates and Bagdad on the Tigris are the +alternative points from which the _Sawâd_ can be controlled. Just above +them the first irrigation canals branch off from the rivers, and between +them the rivers approach within thirty-five miles of each other. It is +the point of vantage for government and engineering. + +Here far-sighted engineers and stronghanded rulers turned the waters of +Babylon into waters of life, and the _Sawâd_ became a great heart of +civilisation, breathing in man-power--Sumerians and Amorites and +Kassites and Aramaeans and Chaldeans and Persians and Greeks and +Arabs--and breathing out the works of man--grain and wool and Babylonish +garments, inventions still used in our machine-shops, and emotions still +felt in our religion. + +"The land," writes Herodotus[52], who saw it in its prime, "has a little +rain, and this nourishes the corn at the root; but the crops are matured +and brought to harvest by water from the river--not, as in Egypt, by the +river flooding over the fields, but by human labour and _shadufs_[53] +For Babylonia, like Egypt, is one network of canals, the largest of +which is navigable. It is far the best corn-land of all the countries I +know. There is no attempt at arboriculture--figs or vines or olives--but +it is such superb corn-land that the average yield is two-hundredfold, +and three-hundredfold in the best years. The wheat and barley there are +a good four inches broad in the blade, and millet and sesame grow as big +as trees--but I will not state the dimensions I have ascertained, +because I know that, for anyone who has not visited Babylonia and +witnessed these facts about the crops for himself, they would be +altogether beyond belief." + +Harnessed in the irrigation channels, the Tigris and Euphrates had +become as mighty forces of production as the Nile and the Ganges, the +Yangtse and the Hoang-Ho. + +"This," Herodotus adds[54], "is the best demonstration I can give of the +wealth of the Babylonians: All the lands ruled by the King of Persia are +assessed, in addition to their taxes in money, for the maintenance of +the King's household and army in kind. Under this assessment the King is +maintained for four months out of the twelve by Babylonia, and for the +remaining eight by the rest of Asia together, so that in wealth the +Assyrian province is equivalent to a third of all Asia." + +The "Asia" over which the Achaemenids ruled included Russian Central +Asia and Egypt as well as modern Turkey and Persia, and Egypt, under the +same assessment, merely maintained the local Persian garrison[55]. Its +money contribution was inferior too--700 talents as compared with +Assyria's 1,000; and though these figures may not be conclusive, because +the Persian "province of Assyria" probably extended over the northern +steppes as well as the _Sawâd_, it is certain that under the Arab +Caliphate, when Irak and Egypt were provinces of one empire for the +second time in history, Irak by itself paid 135 million _dirhems_ +(francs) annually into Harun-al-Rashid's treasury and Egypt no more than +65 million, so that a thousand years ago the productiveness of the +_Sawâd_ was more than double that of the Nile. + +Another measure of the land's capacity is the greatness of its cities. +Herodotus gives statistics[56] of Babylon in the fifth century +B.C.--walls 300 feet high, 75 feet broad, and 58 miles in circuit; +three- and four-storied houses laid out in blocks; broad straight streets +intersecting one another at regular intervals, at right angles or +parallel to the Euphrates. Any one who reads Herodotus' description of +Babylon or Ibn Serapion's of Bagdad, and considers that these vast urban +masses were merely centres of collection and distribution for the open +country, can infer the density of population and intensity of +cultivation over the face of the _Sawâd_. When the Caliph Omar conquered +Irak from the Persians in the middle of the seventh century A.D., and +took an inventory of what he had acquired, he found that there were +5,000,000 hectares[57] of land under cultivation, and that the poll-tax +was paid by 550,000 householders, which implies a total population, in +town and country, of more than 5,000,000 souls, where a bare million and +a half maintains itself to-day in city alleys and nomads' tents. + +And in Omar's time the _Sawâd_ was no longer at its best, for, a few +years before the Arab conquest, abnormally high floods had burst the +dykes; from below Hilla to above Basra the Euphrates broadened into a +swamp, and the Tigris deserted its former (and present) bed for the +Shatt-el-Hai, leaving the Amara district a desert. The Persian +Government, locked in a suicidal struggle with Rome, was powerless to +make good the damage, and the shock of the Arab invasion made it +irreparable[58]. Under the Abbasid Caliphs of Bagdad the rest of the +country preserved its prosperity, but in the thirteenth century Hulaku +the Mongol finished the work of the floods, and under Ottoman dominion +the _Sawâd_ has not recovered. + +Can it still be reclaimed? Surveys have been taken by Sir William +Willcocks, as Adviser to the Ottoman Ministry of Public Works, and his +final conclusions and proposals are embodied in a report drawn up at +Bagdad in 1911[59]. + +"The Tigris-Euphrates delta," he writes, "may be classed as an arid +region of some 5,000,000 hectares.... All this land is capable of easy +levelling and reclamation. The presence of 15 per cent. lime in the soil +renders reclamation very easy compared with similar work in the dense +clays of Egypt. One is never far away from the giant banks of old canals +and the ruins of ancient towns." + +But he does not expect to make all these 5,000,000 hectares productive +simultaneously, as they are said to have been when Omar took his +inventory. "It is water, not land, which measures production," and he +reckons that the average combined discharge of the rivers would irrigate +3,000,000 hectares in winter, and in summer 400,000 of rice or 1,250,000 +of other crops. This is the eventual maximum; for immediate reclamation +he takes 1,410,000 hectares in hand. His project is practically to +restore, with technical improvements, the ancient system of canals and +drains, using the Euphrates water to irrigate everything west of the +Tigris (down to Kut) and the Shatt-el-Hai, and the water of the Tigris +and its tributaries for districts east of that line. Adding 33 per cent. +for contingencies to his estimate for cost of materials and rates of +labour, and doubling the total to cover interest on loans and subsequent +development, he arrives at £29,105,020 (Turkish)[60] as the cost, from +first to last, of irrigation and agricultural works together; and he +estimates that the 1,410,000 hectares reclaimed by this outlay will +produce crops to the value of £9,070,000 (Turkish) a year. In other +words, the annual return on the gross expenditure will be more than 31 +per cent., and under the present tithe system £7,256,000 (Turkish) of +this will remain with the owners of the soil, while £1,814,000 will pass +to the Government. This will give the country itself a net return of +24.9 per cent. on the combined gross cost of irrigation and agricultural +works, while the Government, after paying away £443,000 (Turkish) out of +its tithes for maintenance charges, will still receive a clear 9 per +cent. per annum on the gross cost of irrigation, to which its share in +the outlay will be confined. + +Unquestionably, therefore, the enterprise is exceedingly profitable to +all parties concerned. Looking further ahead, Sir William proposes to +supersede the navigation of the Tigris[61] by railways, and so set free +the whole discharge of the two rivers for irrigation. He contemplates +handling annually 375,000 tons of cereals and 1,250,000 cwt. of cotton, +and estimates the future by the effects of the Chenab Canal in Northern +India-- + +"a canal traversing lands similar to those of Mesopotamia in their +climate and in the condition in which they found themselves before the +canal works were carried out.... In such a land, so like a great part of +Mesopotamia, canals have introduced in a few years nearly a million of +inhabitants, and the resurrection of the country has been so rapid that +its very success was jeopardised by a railway not being able to be made +quickly enough to transport the enormous produce." + +"A million of inhabitants"--that is the crux of the problem. Labour is +as necessary as water for the raising of crops; Sir William's barrages +and canals without hands to turn them to account would be a dead loss +instead of a profitable investment; but from what reservoir of +population is this man-power to be introduced? The German economists are +baffled by the difficulty. + +"It is useless," as Rohrbach puts it, "to sink from 150 to 600 million +marks in restoring the canal system, and then let the land lie idle, +with all its new dams and channels, for lack of cultivators. Yet Turkey +can never raise enough settlers for Irak by internal colonisation[62]." + +She cannot raise them even for the minor enterprises at Konia and +Adapa[63], and evidently the _Sawâd_ must draw its future cultivators +from somewhere beyond the bounds of Western Asia. From Germany, many +Germans have suggested; but German experts curtly dismiss the idea. The +first point Rohrbach makes in his book on the Bagdad Railway is that +German colonisation in Anatolia is impossible for political reasons. "No +worse service," he declares, "can be done to the German cause in the +East than the propagation of this idea," and the rise of Turkish +Nationalism has proved him right[64]. There remain the Arab lands; + +"But even," he continues, "if the Turks thought of foreign colonisation +in Syria and Mesopotamia, to hold the Arabs in check" (the political +factor again), "that would be little help to us Germans, for only very +limited portions of those countries have a climate in which Germans can +work on the land or perform any kind of heavy manual labour." + +And Germany herself is hard up for men. + +"For all prospective developments in Turkey," writes Dr. Trietsch, "not +merely scientific knowledge, capital, and organisation are wanted, but +men, and Germany has no resources in men worth speaking of for opening +up the Islamic world." + +It is one of his arguments for bringing in the Jews, but the +colonisation of Palestine will leave no Jews over for Irak. Rohrbach[65] +disposes of the Mouhadjirs--they are a drop in the bucket, and are no +more adapted to the climate than the Germans themselves. "There is +really nothing for it," he bursts out in despair, "but the introduction +of Mohammedans from other countries where the climatic conditions of +Irak prevail." + +That narrows the field to India and Egypt, and drives Turco-German +policy upon the horns of a dilemma: + +"The colonists must either remain subjects of a foreign Power, a +solution which could not be considered for an instant by any Turkish +Government, or else they must become Turkish subjects--" + +a condition which, to Indians and Egyptians, as well as Germans, would +be prohibitive. No one who has known good government would exchange it +for Ottoman government without the Capitulations as a guarantee. + +The Ottoman Government has its own characteristic view. In a memorandum +on railways and reclamation, published by the Ministry of Public Works +in 1909, a _résumé_ is given of the Willcocks scheme. + +"In due time," the memorandum proceeds, "a comprehensive scheme for the +whole of Mesopotamia must be carried out, but, apart from the question +of expense, it is clear that the public works involved will not be +justified until Turkey is in a position to colonise these extensive +districts, and this question cannot be considered till we have succeeded +in getting rid of the Capitulations." + +This is the Ottoman pretension. Egypt, rid of the Osmanli, and India, +where he never ruled, have kept their ancient wealth of harvests and +population, and have man-power to spare for the reclamation of the +_Sawâd_. All the means are at hand for bringing the land to life--the +water, the engineer, the capital, the labour; only the Ottoman +pretension stands in the way, and condemns the _Sawâd_ to lie dead and +unharvested so long as it endures. + +"The last voyage I made before coming to this country," wrote Sir +William Willcocks at Bagdad in 1911, "was up the Nile, from Khartûm to +the great equatorial lakes. In this most desperate and forbidden region +I was filled with pride to think that I belonged to a race whose sons, +even in this inhospitable waste of waters, were struggling in the face +of a thousand discouragements to introduce new forest trees and new +agricultural products and ameliorate in some degree the conditions of +life of the naked and miserable inhabitants. How should I have felt if, +in traversing the deserts and swamps which to-day represent what was the +richest and most famous tract of the world, I had thought that I was a +scion of a race in whose hands God had placed, for hundreds of years, +the destinies of this great country, and that my countrymen could give +no better account of their stewardship than the exhibition of two mighty +rivers flowing between deserts to waste themselves in the sea for nine +months in the year, and desolating everything in their way for the +remaining three? No effort that Turkey can make"--she was then still +mistress of the _Sawâd_--"can be too great to roll away the reproach of +these parched and weary lands, whose cry ascends to heaven." + +Turkey, which claims the present in Western Asia, is nothing but an +overthrow of the past and an obstruction of the future. + + + + +[Footnote 1: Tekin Alp: "The Turkish and Pan-Turkish Ideal" (Weimar: +Gustav Kiepenheuer, 1915). The percentage is of course an exaggeration.] + +[Footnote 2: In the sense of having preceded Arabic in this region, for +in itself, and in its original area, Arabic is as old a language an any +other variety of Semitic.] + +[Footnote 3: "The Turkish and Pan-Turkish Ideal," by Tekin Alp.] + +[Footnote 4: "The Turkish and Pan-Turkish Ideal," by Tekin Alp.] + +[Footnote 5: _The Near East_, 30th March, 1917, p. 507; see also Tekin +Alp.] + +[Footnote 6: The legendary ancestor of the Turkish race.] + +[Footnote 7: _The Near East_, loc. cit.] + +[Footnote 8: Which (for obvious reasons) was printed for private +circulation only.] + +[Footnote 9: Miscellaneous No. 31 (1916).] + +[Footnote 10: Memorial of the German authority cited above.] + +[Footnote 11: Quoted by the German authority cited above.] + +[Footnote 12: The Vilayets of Basra and Bagdad.] + +[Footnote 13: See the journal _Al-Mokattam_ of Cairo, 30th March, 31st +March, 1st April, 1916 (English translation in the form of a pamphlet: +"Syria during March, 1916," printed by Sir Joseph Causton and Sons Ltd., +1916).] + +[Footnote 14: Miscellaneous No. 31 (1916), p. 253.] + +[Footnote 15: _Thoughts on the Nature and Plan of a Greater Turkey._] + +[Footnote 16: Emir Hechmat, their chief, subsequently went to Hamadan in +Persia and organised guerilla bands there.] + +[Footnote 17: _i.e._, the Turkish-speaking population in the Russian +Caucasus.] + +[Footnote 18: Miscellaneous No. 31 (1916), p. 80.] + +[Footnote 19: And, like other Young Turks, a Jew ("Tekin Alp" being a +_nom de plume_).] + +[Footnote 20: Moslem _religieux_.] + +[Footnote 21: Ein Wort an die Berufenen Vertreter des Deutschen Volkes: +Eindrucke eines deutschen Oberlehrers aus der Türkei, von Dr. Martin +Niepage, Oberlehrer an der deutschen Realschule zu Aleppo, z.Zt. +Wernigerode. (Printed in the second pamphlet issued by the Swiss +Committee for Armenian Relief at Basel; English translation, "The +Horrors of Aleppo." London, 1917: Hodder and Stoughton.)] + +[Footnote 22: The writer includes Armenia under this term.] + +[Footnote 23: Dated 3rd Aug., 1915: See Miscellaneous No. 31 (1916), p. +548.] + +[Footnote 24: Miscellaneous No. 31 (1916), p. 413.] + +[Footnote 25: "Die deutsch-türkeschen Wirtschaftsbeziehungen," by Dr. +Kurt Wiedenfeld, Professor of the Political Sciences at the University +of Halle. (Duncker and Humblot, 1915).] + +[Footnote 26: "Die Bagdadbahn," by Dr. Paul Rohrbach (Berlin, 1911), pp. +43, 44.] + +[Footnote 27: "Die Bagdadbahn," pp. 49, 50.] + +[Footnote 28: The author rubs in his point in his concluding section: +"All economic measures we may take in Turkey are only a means to an end, +not an end in themselves" (p. 77).] + +[Footnote 29: Wiedenfeld's monograph is a _sonderabdruck_ from the two +volumes of studies on the "Wirtschaftliche Annaherung zwischen dem +deutschen Reich u. seinen Verbundeten," edited by Heinrich Herkner and +published by the _Verein fur Sozialpolitik_, which preaches Naumann's +creed.] + +[Footnote 30: Just as, by a more gradual process, the Magyar Oligarchy, +rather than the Hapsburg Dynasty, has become the instrument of German +control over Austria-Hungary.] + +[Footnote 31: "Die Bagdadbahn," pp. 29, 33.] + +[Footnote 32: Page 23.] + +[Footnote 33: Except by a branch line from Adana to Alexandretta, +Rohrbach (pp. 27, 36, 37) laments the economic drawbacks of this +strategic necessity.] + +[Footnote 34: "Bagdadbahn," p.60.] + +[Footnote 35: The German memorialised.] + +[Footnote 36: "Bagdadbahn," pp. 39, 40.] + +[Footnote 37: Miscellaneous No. 31 (1916), p. 530. Major Count Wolf von +Wolfskahl, who served as adjutant to Fakhri Pasha in the Turkish +"punitive expedition" against Urfa, is mentioned as particularly guilty +by a trustworthy neutral resident in Syria.] + +[Footnote 38: On which Wiedenfeld lays stress, pp. 19, 22.] + +[Footnote 39: "Leavening the Levant," by Rev. J. Greene, D.D. (Beston, +1916: The Pilgrim Press), p. 99.] + +[Footnote 40: Excluding, of course, the hospital and educational +endowments, and the salaries of the missionaries themselves.] + +[Footnote 41: _Hilal_, 4th April, 1916, quoted in Miscellaneous No. 31 +(1916), pp. 654-6.] + +[Footnote 42: Miscellaneous No. 31 (1916), p. 309.] + +[Footnote 43: Though the work of the American Presbyterian Mission at +Beirût must not be forgotten.] + +[Footnote 44: See "Zionism and the Jewish Future" (London, 1916: John +Murray), pp. 138-170; for the agricultural machinery on the Jewish +National Fund's Model Farm at Ben-Shamen, see the Report of the German +Vice-Consul at Jaffa for the year 1912.] + +[Footnote 45: "Die Jüden der Türkei" (Leipzig, 1915: Veit u. Comp.). +Pamphlet No. 8 of the _Deutsches Vorderasienscomitee's_ series: "Länder +u. Völker der Türkei."] + +[Footnote 46: The Spanish-speaking Jews in Turkey are descended from +refugees to whom the Ottoman Government gave shelter in the sixteenth +century; the Arabic-speaking Jews have been introduced into Palestine +from the Yemen, by the Zionists, since 1908.] + +[Footnote 47: Dr. Trietsch admits that Jewish colonisation in Palestine +was retarded because "the leading French and British Jews remained under +the impression of the Armenian massacres" (of 1895-7) "as presented by +the anti-Turkish, French and British Press.... In reality, the +butcheries of Armenians in Constantinople were a convincing proof that +the Jews in the Ottoman Empire were safe, for ... not a hair on a Jewish +head was touched." One wonders how he will exorcise the "impression" of +1915.] + +[Footnote 48: As early as 1912 the German Vice-Consul at Jaffa betrayed +his annoyance at the progress which Zionism was making. He admits indeed +that "the falling off in trade last year would have been greater still +than it was, if the economic penetration of Palestine were not +reinforced by an idealistic factor in the shape of Zionism;" but he is +piqued at the "Jewish national vanity" which makes it advisable for +German firms to display their advertisements in Palestine in the Hebrew +language and character.] + +[Footnote 49: Edessa from Thracian [Greek: _bedu_] = Slavonic _voda._] + +[Footnote 50: _Muslin_ is named after Mosul, and cotton itself (in +Greek, Latin, Arabic, and Turkish) _bombyx_ or _bambuk_, after Bambyke +(Mumbij).] + +[Footnote 51: "Bagdadbahn," p. 38.] + +[Footnote 52: Book I., ch. 193.] + +[Footnote 53: Cp. Sir William Willcocks. "The Irrigation of +Mesopotamia," p. 5 (London, 1911: Spon).] + +[Footnote 54: Book I., ch. 192.] + +[Footnote 55: Herodotus Book III., ch. 91.] + +[Footnote 56: Book I., chs. 178-183.] + +[Footnote 57: A hectare is approximately equal to two and a half acres.] + +[Footnote 58: "The Lands of the Eastern Caliphate," by Guy le Strange +(Cambridge, 1905: at the University Press), pp. 25-9.] + +[Footnote 59: "The Irrigation of Mesopotamia," by Sir William Willcocks, +K.C.M.G., F.R.G.S. (London, 1911: Spon). The report is dated Bagdad, +March 26th, 1911.] + +[Footnote 60: £1.00 Turkish = approximately £0.90 sterling.] + +[Footnote 61: In his immediate project he intends to keep the Tigris +navigable, and allots £48,350 (Turkish) for its improvement.] + +[Footnote 62: Cp. Wiedenfeld, pp. 62-4.] + +[Footnote 63: "Die Bagdadbahn," pp. 57, 61.] + +[Footnote 64: Cp. Wiedenfeld, p. 64.] + +[Footnote 65: "Bagdadbahn," p. 83; cp. Trietsch, p. 11.] + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TURKEY: A PAST AND A FUTURE*** + + +******* This file should be named 10145-8.txt or 10145-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/1/4/10145 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Turkey: A Past and a Future + +Author: Arnold Joseph Toynbee + +Release Date: November 20, 2003 [eBook #10145] + +Language: English + +Chatacter set encoding: US-ASCII + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TURKEY: A PAST AND A FUTURE*** + + +E-text prepared by Jonathan Ingram, L. Barber, and Project Gutenberg +Distributed Proofreaders + + + +TURKEY: A PAST AND A FUTURE + +BY A.J. TOYNBEE + +MCMXVII + + + + + + + +CONTENTS + + + I THE PAST + + II THE PRESENT + +III THE FUTURE + + + + + +I + + +What is Turkey? It is a name which explains nothing, for no formula can +embrace the variety of the countries marked "Ottoman" on the map: the +High Yemen, with its monsoons and tropical cultivation; the tilted rim +of the Hedjaz, one desert in a desert zone that stretches from the +Sahara to Mongolia; the Mesopotamian rivers, breaking the desert with a +strip of green; the pine-covered mountain terraces of Kurdistan, which +gird in Mesopotamia as the hills of the North-West Frontier of India +gird the Plains; the Armenian highlands, bleak as the Pamirs, which feed +Mesopotamia with their snows and send it the soil they cannot keep +themselves; the Anatolian peninsula--an offshoot of Central Europe with +its rocks and fine timber and mountain streams, but nursing a steppe in +its heart more intractable than the Puszta of Hungary; the +coast-lands--Trebizond and Ismid and Smyrna clinging to the Anatolian +mainland and Syria interposing itself between the desert and the sea, +but all, with their vines and olives and sharp contours, keeping true to +the Mediterranean; and then the waterway of narrows and land-locked sea +and narrows again which links the Mediterranean with the Black Sea and +the Russian hinterland, and which has not its like in the world. + +The cities of Turkey are as various as the climes, with the added +impress of many generations of men: Adrianople, set at a junction of +rivers within the circle of the Thracian downs, a fortress since its +foundation, well chosen for the tombs of the Ottoman conquerors; +Constantinople, capital of empires where races meet but never mix, +mistress of trade routes vital to the existence of vast regions beyond +her horizon--Central Europe trafficking south-eastward overland and +Russia south-westward by sea; Smyrna, the port by which men go up and +down between Anatolia and the Aegean, the foothold on the Asiatic +mainland which the Greeks have never lost; Konia, between the mountain +girdle and the central steppe, where native Anatolia has always stood at +bay, guarding her race and religion against the influences of the +coasts; Aleppo, where, if Turkey were a unity, the centre of Turkey +would be found, the city where, if anywhere, the races of the Near East +have mingled--building their courses into her fortress walls from the +polygonal work of the Hittite founders to the battlements that kept out +the Crusaders--and now the half-way point of a railway surveyed along an +immemorially ancient route, but unfinished like the history of Aleppo +herself; Van by its upland lake, overhanging the Mesopotamian lowlands +and with the writing of their culture graven on its cliffs, yet living a +life apart like some Swiss canton and half belonging to the infinite +north; Bagdad, the incarnation for the last millennium of an eternal +city that shifts its site as its rivers shift their beds--from Seleucia +to Bagdad, from Babylon to Seleucia, from Kish to Babylon--but which +always springs up again, like Delhi, within a few parasangs of its last +ruins, in an area that is an irresistible focus of population; Basra +amid its palm-groves, so far down stream that it belongs to the Indian +Ocean--the port from which Sinbad set sail for fairyland, and from which +less mythical Arab seamen spread their religion and civilisation far +over African coasts and Malayan Indies; these, and besides them almost +all the holy cities of mankind: Kerbela, between the Euphrates and the +desert, where, under Sunni rule, the Shias of Persia and India have +still visited the tombs of their saints and buried their dead; +Jerusalem, where Jew and Christian, Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant, +Armenian and Abyssinian, have their common shrines and separate +quarters; Mekka and Medina in the heart of the desert, beyond which +their fame would never have passed but for a well and a mart and a +precinct of idols and the Prophet who overthrew them; and there are the +cities on the Pilgrim Road (linked now by railway with Medina, the +nearer of the _Haramein_): Beirut the port, with its electric trams and +newspapers, the Smyrna of the Arab lands; and Damascus the oasis, +looking out over the desert instead of the sea, and harbour not of ships +but of camel-caravans. + +The names of these cities call up, like an incantation, the memory of +the civilisations which grew in them to greatness and sank in them to +decay: Mesopotamia, a great heart of civilisation which is cold to-day, +but which beat so strongly for five thousand years that its pulses were +felt from Siberia to the Pillars of Hercules and influenced the taste +and technique of the Scandinavian bronze age; the Assyrians, who +extended the political marches of Mesopotamia towards the north, and +turned them into a military monarchy that devastated the motherland and +all other lands and peoples from the Tigris to the sea; the Hebrews, +discovering a world-religion in their hill-country overlooking the +coast; the Sabaeans, whose queen made the first pilgrimage to Jerusalem, +coming from Yemen across the Hedjaz when Mekka and Medina were still of +no account; the Philistines and Phoenicians of the Syrian sea-board, who +were discovering the Atlantic and were too busy to listen to the Hebrew +prophets in their hinterland; the Ionians, who opened up the Black Sea +and created a poetry, philosophy, science, and architecture which are +still the life-blood of ours, before they were overwhelmed, like the +Phoenicians before them, by a continental military power; the Hittites, +who first transmitted the fruitful influences of Mesopotamia to the +Ionian coasts--a people as mysterious to their contemporaries as to +ourselves, maturing unknown in the fastnesses of Anatolia, raising up a +sudden empire that raided Mesopotamia and colonised the Syrian valleys, +and then succumbing to waves of northern invasion. All these people rose +and fell within the boundaries of Turkey, held the stage of the world +for a time, and left their mark on its history. There is a romance about +their names, a wonderful variety and intensity in their vanished life; +yet they are not more diverse than their modern successors, in whose +veins flows their blood and whose possibilities are only dwarfed by +their achievements. + +There were less than twenty million people in Turkey before the War, and +during it the Government has caused a million or so to perish by +massacre, starvation, or disease. Yet, in spite of this daemoniac effort +after uniformity, they are still the strangest congeries of racial and +social types that has ever been placed at a single Government's mercy. +The Ottoman Empire is named after the Osmanli, but you might search long +before you found one among its inhabitants. These Osmanlis are a +governing class, indigenous only in Constantinople and a few +neighbouring towns, but planted here and there, as officers and +officials, over the Ottoman territories. They come of a clan of Turkish +nomads, recruited since the thirteenth century by converts, forced or +voluntary, from most of Christendom, and crossed with the blood of +slave-women from all the world. They are hardly a race. Tradition +fortified by inertia makes them what they are, and also their Turkish +language, which serves them for business of state and for a literature, +though not without an infusion of Persian and Arabic idioms said to +amount to 95 per cent. of the vocabulary[1]. + +This artificial language is hardly a link between Osmanli officialdom +and the Turkish peasantry of Anatolia, which speaks Turkish dialects +derived from tribes that drifted in, some as late as the Osmanlis, some +two centuries before. Nor has this Turkish-speaking peasantry much in +common with the Turkish nomads who still wander over the central +Anatolian steppe and have kept their blood pure; for the peasantry has +reverted physically to the native stock, which held Anatolia from time +immemorial and absorbs all newcomers that mingle with it on its soil. +Thus there are three distinct "Turkish" elements in Turkey, divided by +blood and vocation and social type; and even if we reckon all who speak +some form of Turkish as one group, they only amount to 30 or 40 per +cent. of the whole population of the Empire. + +The rest are alien to the Turks and to one another. Those who speak +Arabic are as strong numerically as the Turks, or stronger, but they too +are divided, and their unity is a problem of the future. There are +pure-bred Arab nomads of the desert; there are Arabs who have settled in +towns or on the land, some within the last generation, like the Muntefik +in Mesopotamia, some a millennium or two ago, like the Meccan Koreish, +but who still retain their tribal consciousness of race; there are Arabs +in name who have nothing Arabic about them but their language--most of +the peasantry of Syria are such, and the inhabitants of ancient centres +of population like Damascus or Bagdad; in Syria many of these "Arabs" +are Christians, and some Christians, though they speak Arabic, have +retained their separate sense of nationality--notably the Roman Catholic +Maronites of the Lebanon--and would hardly be considered as Arabs either +by themselves or by their neighbours. The same is true of the Druses, +another remnant of an earlier stock, which has preserved its identity +under the guise of Islam so heretically conceived as to rank as an +independent religion. As for the Yemenis--they will resent the +imputation, for no Arabs count up their genealogies so zealously as +they, but there is more East African than Semitic blood in their veins. +They are men of the moist, fertile tropics, brown of skin, and working +half naked in their fields, like the peoples of Southern India and +Bengal. And on the opposite fringes of the Arabic-speaking area there +are fragments of population whose language is Semitic but +pre-Arabic[2]--the Jacobite Christians of the Tor-Abdin, and the +Nestorians of the Upper Zab, who once, under the Caliphs, were the +industrious Christian peasantry of Mesopotamia, but now are shepherds +and hillmen among the Kurds. The Kurds themselves are more scattered +than any other stock in Turkey, and divided tribe against tribe, but +taken together they rank third in numerical strength, after the Arabs +and Turks. There are mountain Kurds and Kurds of the plain, husbandmen +and herdsmen, Kurds who have kept to their original homes along the +eastern frontier, and Kurds who, under Ottoman auspices, have spread +themselves over the Armenian plateau, the North Mesopotamian steppes, +the Taurus valleys, and the hinterland of the Black Sea. + +The chief thing the Kurds have in common is the Persian dialect they +speak, but it is usual to class as Kurds any and every community in the +Kurdish area which is not Turkish or Arab and can by courtesy be called +Moslem (the Kurds, for that matter, are only Moslems skin-deep). Such +communities abound: the Dersim highlands, in particular, are an +ethnographical museum; "Kizil-Bashi" is a general name for their kind; +only the Yezidis, though they speak good Kurdish, are distinguished from +the rest for their idiosyncrasy of worshipping Satan under the form of a +peacock (Allah, they argue, is good-natured and does not need to be +propitiated) and they are repudiated with one accord by Moslem and +Christian. + +But not all the scattered elements in Turkey are isolated or primitive. +The Greeks and Armenians, for instance, are, or were, the most +energetic, intellectual, liberal elements in Turkey, the natural +intermediaries between the other races and western civilisation--"were" +rather than "are," because the Ottoman Government has taken ruthless +steps to eliminate just these two most valuable elements among its +subjects. The urban Greeks survive in centres like Smyrna and +Constantinople, but the Greek peasantry of Thrace and Anatolia has +mostly been driven over the frontier since the Second Balkan War. As for +the Armenians, the Government has been destroying them by massacre and +deportation since April, 1915--business and professional men, peasants +and shepherds, women and children--without discrimination or pity. A +third of the Ottoman Armenians may still survive; a tenth of them are +safe within the Russian and British lines. Fortunately half this nation, +and the majority of the Greeks, live outside the Ottoman frontiers, and +are beyond the Osmanli's power. + +To compensate for its depopulation of the countries under its dominion, +the Ottoman Government, during the last fifty years, has been settling +them with Moslem immigrants from its own lost provinces or from other +Moslem lands that have changed their rulers. These "Mouhadjirs" are +reckoned, from first to last, at three-quarters of a million, drawn from +the most diverse stocks--Bosniaks and Pomaks and Albanians, Algerines +and Tripolitans, Tchetchens and Circassians. Numbers have been planted +recently on the lands of dispossessed Armenians and Greeks. They add +many more elements to the confusion of tongues, but they are probably +destined to be absorbed or to die out. The Circassians, in particular, +who are the most industrious (though most unruly) and preserve their +nationality best, also succumb most easily to transplantation, through +refusal to adapt their Caucasian clothes and habits to Anatolian or +Mesopotamian conditions of life. + +All this is Turkey, and we come back to our original question: What +common factor accounts for the name? What has stained this coat of many +colours to one political hue? The answer is simple: Blood. Turkey, the +Ottoman state, is not a unity, climatic, geographical, racial, or +economic; it is a pretension, enforced by bloodshed and violence +whenever and wherever the Osmanli Government has power. + +It is a complex pretension. The first impulse, and the traditional +method by which it has been given effect, came from a little tribe of +pagan, nomadic Turks who wandered into Anatolia from Central Asia in the +thirteenth century A.D. and were granted camping grounds by the reigning +Turkish Sultan of the country--for Anatolia was already Turkish two +centuries before the Osmanlis appeared on the scene. But to call them +Osmanlis is to anticipate the next stage in their history. They are +named after Osman, their first leader's son, and he after the third +successor of the Prophet--it was a good Moslem name, and he took it when +he was converted to Islam and organised his pagan tent-dwellers into a +settled Mohammedan State in the north-western hills of Anatolia, on the +borders of Christendom. A tribe had become a march, and the final stage +was from march to empire. + +From this point onwards Ottoman history singularly resembles the history +of the Osmanlis' present allies. The March of Brandenburg, the March of +Austria, and the March of Osman--they were each founded as the outer +bulwarks of a civilisation, and all erected themselves into centres of +military ascendancy over their fellow-countrymen and co-religionists to +the rear as well as the strangers opposite their front. The Osmanlis may +have been more savage in their methods than the marchmen of +Germany--though hardly, perhaps, than the Teutonic Knights who prepared +the soil of Prussia for the Hohenzollerns. The Teutonic Knights +exterminated their victims; the Osmanlis drained theirs of their blood +by taking a tribute of their male children, educating them as Moslems, +and training them as recruits for an Ottoman standing army. Their first +expansion was forwards into Christian Europe; their capital shifted from +a village in the hills to the city of Brusa on the Asiatic shore of +Marmora, from Brusa across the Dardanelles to Adrianople, from +Adrianople to the imperial city on the Bosphorus; and, with the capture +of Constantinople, the Osmanli Sultans usurped the pretensions of East +Rome, as the Hapsburgs and Hohenzollerns the emblems of Charlemagne and +Caesar Augustus. + +Byzantium has become a very potent element in the Osmanlis' character, +more potent than the habits of the march or the instinct of the steppes. +It has dictated their system of administration, dominated their outlook +on life, penetrated their blood. But the heritage of "Rum" is not the +final factor in the Ottoman Empire as it exists to-day; for after the +successors of Osman had founded their military monarchy with blood and +iron on the ruins of one-third of Europe, they turned eastwards, with a +genuinely Oriental gesture, and overran kingdoms and lands with the +apparently mechanical impetus of all Asiatic conquerors, from Sargon of +Akkad and Cyrus the Persian to Jenghis Khan and Timur. The stoutest +opponent of the Osmanlis in Asia was the Anatolian Sultanate of +Karaman--Moslem, Turkish, and the legitimate heir of those Seljuk +Turkish Sultans who had given Osman's father his first footing in the +land. Osmanli and Karamanli fought on equal terms, but when Karaman was +overthrown there was no power left in Asia that could stop the Osmanlis' +advance. The Egyptians and Persians had no more chance against Ottoman +discipline and artillery than the last Darius had against the +Macedonians. A campaign or two brought Sultan Selim the First from the +Taurus to Cairo; a few more campaigns at intervals during the sixteenth +and seventeenth centuries, when Ottoman armies could be spared from +Europe, drove the Persians successively out of Armenia and Mosul and +Bagdad. And thus, by accident, as it were, in the pursuit of more +coveted things, the Osmanlis acquired "Turkey-in-Asia," which is all +that remains to them now and all that concerns us here. + +"Turkey-in-Asia" is a transitory phenomenon, a sort of chrysalis which +enshrouded the countries of Western Asia because they were exhausted and +needed torpor as a preliminary to recuperation. Many calamities had +fallen upon them during the five centuries before the chrysalis formed. +The break-up of the Arab Caliphate of Bagdad had led to an +interminable, meaningless conflict among a host of petty Moslem States; +the wearing struggle between Islam and Christendom had been intensified +by the Crusades; and waves of nomadic invaders, each more destructive +and more irresistible than the last, had swept over Moslem Asia out of +the steppes and deserts of the north-east. The most terrible were the +Mongols, who sacked Bagdad in 1258, and gave the _coup de grace_ to the +civilisation of Mesopotamia. And then, when the native productiveness of +the Near East was ruined, the transit trade between Europe and the +Indies, which had belonged to it from the earliest times and had been +the second source of its prosperity, was taken from it by the western +seafarers who discovered the ocean routes. The pall of Ottoman dominion +only descended when life was extinct. + +The Osmanlis, whose nomadic forefathers had fled before the face of the +Mongols out of Central Asia, took the heritage which had slipped from +the Mongols' grasp, and gathered all threads of authority in Western +Asia into their hands. The most valuable spoil of their Asiatic +conquests was the Caliphate. Hulaku, the sacker of Bagdad, had put the +Caliph Mustasim to death, and the remnant of the Abbasids had kept up a +shadowy succession at Cairo, under the protection of the Sultan of +Egypt. Selim the Osmanli, when he entered Cairo as a conqueror in 1517, +caused the contemporary Abbasid to cede his title, for what it was +worth, to him and his successors. It was a doubtful title, scorned by +all Shias and regarded coldly by many Sunni rulers who were unwilling to +recognise a spiritual superior in their most formidable temporal rival. +But such as it was, it strengthened the Osmanli's hold on his dominions. +Caliph of Islam, victorious guardian of the Moslem marches, and heir by +conquest of imperial Rum, the Osmanli Sultan held his Asiatic provinces +with ease; but the best security for his tenure was the misery to which +they were reduced. Commerce and cultivation ebbed, population dwindled, +and nomads still drifted in upon what once had been settled lands. The +Ottoman Government, desiring a barrier against Persia, encouraged the +Kurds to spread themselves over Armenia; it welcomed less the Shammar +and Anazeh Arabs, who broke over the Euphrates about the year 1700 and +turned the last fields of Northern Mesopotamia to desolation; but it was +too impotent or indifferent to turn them out. Western Asia lay fallow +under the Ottoman cannon-wheels. There have been fallow periods before +in the slow rhythm of its life--under the Persians, for instance, who +overran all lands and peoples of the East in the sixth century B.C., +overshadowed the Greeks for a moment, as the Osmanlis overshadowed +Europe, halted, too massive for offence but seemingly unassailable, and +then collapsed pitifully before the probing spears of Alexander. + +The Osmanlis are passing at this moment as the Achaemenids passed then. +They lost the last of Europe in the Balkan War, and with it their +prestige as increasers of Islam; the growth of national consciousness +among their subjects, not least among the Turks themselves, has loosened +the foundations of their military empire, as of the other military +empires with which they are allied. They forfeited the Caliphate when +they proclaimed the Holy War against the Allied Powers--inciting Moslems +to join one Christian coalition against another, not in defence of their +religion, but for Ottoman political aggrandisement. They lost it morally +when this incitement was left unheeded by the Moslem world; they lost it +in deed when the Sherif of Mekka asserted his rights as the legitimate +guardian of the Holy Cities, drove out the Ottoman garrison from Mekka, +and allied himself with the other independent princes of Arabia. All the +props of Ottoman dominion in Asia have fallen away, but nothing dooms it +so surely as the breath of life that is stirring over the dormant lands +and peoples once more. The cutting of the Suez Canal has led the +highways of commerce back to the Nearer East; the democracy and +nationalism of Europe have been extending their influence over Asiatic +races. On whatever terms the War is concluded, one far-reaching result +is certain already: there will be a political and economic revival in +Western Asia, and the direction of this will not be in Ottoman hands. + +We are thus witnessing the foundation of a new era as momentous, if not +as dramatic, as Alexander's passage of the Dardanelles. The Ottoman +vesture has waxed old, and something can be discerned of the new forms +that are emerging from beneath it; their outstanding features are worth +our attention. + + + + +II + + +The new Turkish Nationalism is the immediate factor to be reckoned +with. It is very new--newer than the Young Turks, and sharply opposed to +the original Young Turkish programme--but it has established its +ascendancy. It decided Turkey's entry into the War, and is the key to +the current policy of the Ottoman Government. + +The Young Turks were not Nationalists from the beginning; the "Committee +of Union and Progress" was founded in good faith to liberate and +reconcile all the inhabitants of the Empire on the principles of the +French Revolution. At the Committee's congress in 1909 the Nationalists +were shouted down with the cry: "Our goal is organisation and nothing +else[3]." But Young Turkish ideals rapidly narrowed. Liberalism gave way +to Panislamism, Panislamism to Panturanianism, and the "Ottoman State +Idea" changed from "Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity" to the +Turkification of non-Turkish nationalities by force. + +"The French Ideal," writes the Nationalist Tekin Alp in _Thoughts on the +Nature and Plan of a Greater Turkey_, "is in contradiction to the needs +and conditions of the age." By contrast, "the Turkish national movement +does not exhibit the failings of the earlier movements. It is in every +way adapted to the intellectual standard and feelings of the nation. It +also keeps pace with the ideas of the age, which have for some decades +centred round the principle of Nationality. In adopting Turkish +Nationalism as the basis of their national policy, the Turks have only +abandoned an abnormal state of affairs and thereby placed themselves on +a level with modern nations[4]." + +The development of Nationalism among the Turks was a natural phenomenon. +Starting in the West, the movement has been spreading for a century +through Central Europe, Hungary, and the Balkans, till from the Turks' +former subjects it has passed to the Turks themselves. Chance played its +part. Dr. Nazim Bey, for instance, the General Secretary of the "Union +and Progress" Committee, is said to have been fired by a work of M. Leon +Cahun's on the early history of the Turks and Mongols, lent him by the +French Consul-General at Salonika, and the movement was, and still is, +confined to a small _intelligentsia_. But that is the case with other +national movements too, and does not hinder them from being powerful +forces. Turkish Nationalism was kept alive after 1909 by a small group +of enthusiasts at Salonika--their leader was Ziya Bey, who had come up +to the Young Turk Congress from Diarbekir, and was one of the first +converts to the new idea. It gained ground suddenly during, the Balkan +War. The shock of defeat produced a craving for regeneration; the final +loss of Europe turned the minds of the Osmanlis to the possibilities of +Asia, and they were struck by the action of several prominent Russian +subjects of Turco-Tatar nationality, who, out of racial sympathy, had +given their services to the Ottoman Government in this time of +adversity. As Tekin Alp expresses it: + +"The Turks realised that, in order to live, they must become essentially +Turkish, become a nation, be themselves.... The Turkish nation turned +aside its gaze from the lost territory and looked instead upon Turania, +the ideal country of the future." + +Two years later this "New Orientation" had so mastered the Ottoman +Government that it drew them into the European War. + +There are many aims within the new Turkish horizon. Some of them are +negative and non-political, some practical and extremely aggressive. +Ziya Bey's adherents first took in hand the purification of the Turkish +language. A Turkish poet had endeavoured before to dispense with the 95 +per cent. (?) of the vocabulary that was borrowed from Persian and +Arabic, and "his poetry had to be published in small provincial papers +because the important newspapers of the towns would not accept it." The +established writers in the traditional style made a hard fight, but +Tekin Alp claims that the _Yeni Lisan_ (New Language) "is to-day in +possession of an absolute and unlimited authority." Borrowed rhythms +have been banned as well as borrowed words, and there is even an +agitation to replace the Arabic script by a new Turkish alphabet--an +imitation of the Albanian movement which was opposed so fiercely by the +Turks themselves before the Balkan War. In 1913 the Government stepped +in with the foundation of a "Turkish Academy" (_Turk Bilgi Derneyi_), +and the Ministry of Education started an "Institute of Terminology," +"Conservatoire," and "Writing and Translation Committee." The +translation of foreign masterpieces as an incentive to a new national +literature was in the programme of Ziya Bey's society, the _Yeni Hayat_ +(New Life). Their most cherished plan was to translate the Koran and the +Friday Sermon, to have the Khutba (Prayer for the Caliph) recited in +Turkish, and to remove the Arabic texts from the walls of the mosques[5]; +the eyes and ears of Turkish Moslems were to be saved from the +contamination of an anti-national language; but the campaign against +Arabic passed over into an attack upon Islam. + +"The Turkish Nationalists," Tekin Alp explains, "have made great efforts +to nationalise religion itself, and to give it the impress of the +Turkish national spirit. This idea was zealously supported by a +fortnightly periodical, and one of the noblest tasks undertaken by it +has been the translation of the Koran into Turkish. This is a reform of +the greatest importance. It is well known that the translation of the +Koran has hitherto been considered a sin. The Nationalists have cut +themselves off from this superstitious prejudice and have had three +translations made, the above-mentioned and two others." + +On this issue the Nationalists broke a lance with the _Islamjis_, or +"clericals," as Tekin Alp prefers to call them. + +"Because it is written in the Koran that Islam knows no nationalities, +but only Believers, the _Islamjis_ thought that to occupy oneself with +national questions was to act against the interests and principles of +Islam itself.... According to the Nationalists, the pronouncement in the +Koran was directed exclusively against the very frequent dissensions of +clans and parties in the various Arab races." (A sneer which is meant to +have a modern application.) "Although the Nationalists proclaim +themselves the most zealous followers of Mohammed, nevertheless they do +not conceal the fact that their interpretation of Islam is not the same +as that of the Arabs. They maintain that the Turks cannot interpret the +Koran in the same manner as the Arabs.... Their idea of God is also +different." + +This amazing _Kulturkampf_ is quite possibly a reminiscence of +Bismarckian Germany, for Turkish Nationalism is saturated with forgotten +European moods, and its vein of Romanticism is as antiquated as the +Kaiser's. It has taken Attila to its heart, and rehabilitated Jenghis +Khan, Timur, Oghuz, and the rest with the erudition of a Turanian Walter +Scott. + +"My Attila, my Jenghis," sings Ziya Goek Alp, "these heroic figures, +which stand for the proud fame of my race, appear on the dry pages of +the history books as covered with shame and disgrace, while in reality +they are no less than Alexander and Caesar. Still better known to my +heart is Oghuz Khan[6]. In me he still lives in all his fame and +greatness. Oghuz Khan delights and inspires my heart and causes me to +sing psalms of gladness. The fatherland of the Turks is not Turkey or +Turkestan, but the broad eternal land of Turania." + +The Ministry of _Evkaf_ (Religious Endowments) recently made a grant of +L50,000 (Turkish) towards the publication of works on these worthies; +the students at the Military College in Constantinople are alleged to +have been diverted from their studies by their devotion to such +literature, and on the eve of the War the Professor of Military +Education there is reported to have delivered the following address to +an instruction class of reserve officers: + +"We are, gentlemen, before all, Turks. I wonder why we are called +Ottomans, for who is Osman after whom we are named? He is a Turk from +Altai, who overran this country with his Turkish Army. Therefore it is +more of an honour to us to be named after his origin than after himself. +We have so far been deceived by the ignorance of our forebears, and fie +on these forebears who made us forget our nationality.... Be sure that +Turkish nationality is better for us than Islam, and racial pride is one +of the greatest social virtues[7]." + +These extravagances must not be taken too literally. The Young Turk +politicians, though they have embarked on a Nationalist policy, are not +so reckless as to break openly with Islam or to denounce the founder of +their State. They see clearly enough that Turkish Nationalism carried to +a logical extreme is incompatible with the Ottoman pretension, and they +favour the view, so severely criticised by Tekin Alp, "that all three +groups of ideas--Ottomanism, Islamism, and the Turkish Movement--should +work side by side and together." But, with this reservation, they follow +the doctrinaires, who on their part are quite ready to press Islam into +their service. Tekin Alp candidly admits that + +"They sought after a judicious mingling of the religious and national +impulses. They realised only too clearly that the still abstract ideals +of Nationalism could not be expected to attract the masses, the lower +classes, composed of uneducated and illiterate people. It was found more +expedient to reach these classes under the flag of religion." + +This sentence reveals in a flash one motive of the Armenian +"Deportations," which followed Turkey's intervention in the War; and a +celebrated German authority, in a memorial[8] written in 1916, gives +this very explanation of their origin. + +"Turkey's entry into the War," he writes, "was unwelcome to Turkish +society in Constantinople, whose sympathies were with France, as well as +to the mass of the people, but the Panislamic propaganda and the +military dictatorship were able to stifle all opposition. The +proclamation of the 'Holy War' produced a general agitation of the +Mohammedan against the Christian elements in the Empire, and the +Christian nationalities had soon good reason to fear that Turkish +chauvinism would make use of Mohammedan fanaticism to make the War +popular with the mass of the Mohammedan population." + +The evidence presented in the British Blue Book on the _Treatment of +Armenians in the Ottoman Empire_[9] shows that this explanation is +correct. The Armenians were not massacred spontaneously by the local +Moslems; the initiative came entirely from the Central Government at +Constantinople, which planned the systematic extermination of the +Armenian race in the Ottoman Empire, worked out a uniform method of +procedure, despatched simultaneous orders to the provincial officials +and gendarmerie to carry it into effect, and cashiered the few who +declined to obey. The Armenians were rounded up and deported by regular +troops and gendarmes; they were massacred on the road by bands of +_chettis_, consisting chiefly of criminals released from prison by the +Government for this work; when the Armenians were gone the Turkish +populace was encouraged to plunder their goods and houses, and as the +convoys of exiles passed through the villages the best-looking women and +children were sold cheap or even given away for nothing to the Turkish +peasantry. Naturally the Turkish people accepted the good things the +Government offered them, and naturally this reconciled them momentarily +to the War. + +Thus in the Armenian atrocities the Young Turks made Panislamism and +Turkish Nationalism work together for their ends, but the development of +their policy shows the Islamic element receding and the Nationalist +gaining ground. + +"After the deposition of Abd-ul-Hamid," writes the German authority +quoted above, "the Committee of Union and Progress reverted more and +more to the ex-Sultan's policy. To begin with, a rigorous party tyranny +was set up. A power behind the Government got the official executive +apparatus into its hand, and the elections to Parliament ceased to be +free. The appointment of the highest officials in the Empire and of all +the most important servants of the administration was settled by decrees +of the Committee. All bills had to be debated first by the Committee and +to receive its approval before they came before the Chamber. Public +policy was determined by two main considerations: (1) The centralistic +idea, which claimed for the Turkish race not merely preponderant but +exclusive power in the Empire, was to be carried to its logical +consequences; (2) The Empire was to be established on a purely Islamic +foundation. Turkish Nationalism and the Panislamic Idea precluded _a +priori_ any equality of treatment for the various races and religions of +the Empire, and any movement which looked for the salvation of the +Empire in the decentralisation or autonomy of its various parts was +branded as high treason. The nationalistic and centralistic tendency was +directed not merely against the various non-Mohammedan nationalities +--Greeks, Armenians, Syrians, and Jews--but also against the +non-Turkish Mohammedan nations--Arabs, Mohammedan Syrians, Kurds, +and the Shia element in the population. An idol of 'Pan-Turkism' was +erected, and all non-Turkish elements in the population were subjected +to the harshest measures. The rigorous action which this policy +prescribed against the Albanians, who were mostly Mohammedans and had +been thorough loyalists till then, led to the loss of almost the whole +of European Turkey. The same policy has provoked insurrections in the +Arab half of the Empire, which a series of campaigns has failed to +suppress. The conflict with the Arab element continues"--this was +written in 1916--"though the 'Holy War' has forced it to a certain +extent into the background." + +"The conflict with the Arabs"--that has been the worst folly of the +Young Turkish politicians, and it will perhaps be the most powerful +solvent of the Empire which the Osmanlis have misgoverned so long. It is +the inevitable consequence of the camarilla government and the +Pan-Turkish chauvinism for which the Committee of Union and Progress has +come to stand. + +The Committee consists by its statutes of Turks alone, and the election +even of one Arab was vetoed[10]. Tekin Alp informs us that + +"The portfolio of the Minister of Trade and Agriculture, which has been +in the hands of Greeks and Armenians since the time of the Constitution, +and was lately given to a Christian Arab, has at last been handed over +to the Constantinople deputy Ahmed Nasimi Bey, who joined with Ziya Goek +Alp in laying the foundations of the Turkish Movement immediately after +the proclamation of the Constitution. With one exception the members of +the Cabinet are all imbued with the same ideas and principles." + +The Armenian deportations gave the Committee an opportunity of +tightening its hold over the provincial officials as well. Valis who +refused to carry out the orders were superseded if they were +strong-minded enough to persist; but more often they were browbeaten by +the leaders of the local Young Turk organisations, or even by their own +subordinates, and let things go their way. Ways and means of packing the +administration with their own henchmen had been discussed by the +Committee already in their congress of October, 1911, and they had +defined their policy then in the following remarkable resolutions[11]: + +"The formation of new parties in the Chamber or in the country must be +suppressed and the emergence of new 'liberal ideas' prevented. Turkey +must become a really Mohammedan country, and Moslem ideas and Moslem +influence must be preponderant. Every other religious propaganda must be +suppressed. The existence of the Empire depends on the strength of the +Young Turkish Party and the suppression of all antagonistic ideas.... + +"Sooner or later the complete Ottomanisation of all Turkish subjects +must be effected; it is clear, however, that this can never be attained +by persuasion, but that we must resort to armed force. The character of +the Empire must be Mohammedan, and respect must be secured for +Mohammedan institutions and traditions. Other nationalities must be +denied the right of organisation, for decentralisation and autonomy are +treason to the Turkish Empire. _The nationalities are a_ quantite +negligeable. _They can keep their religion but not their language. The +propagation of the Turkish language is one of the sovereign means of +confirming the Mohammedan supremacy and assimilating the other +elements_." + +The confusion of aims in these two paragraphs reveals the direction in +which Young Turkish policy has been travelling. Religion is now +secondary to language, and the precedence still given to the Islamic +formula is only in apparent contradiction to this, for Mohammedan +supremacy is equated with the Turkish National Idea. Such a version of +Panislamism leaves no room for an Arab race under Ottoman rule, and the +"Panturanian" address given by the Turkish Professor at the Military +College in Constantinople had a sequel which showed the Arabs what they, +too, had to expect from Turkey's entrance into the War. + +There were Arabs among the officers whom the Professor was addressing, +and one of them ventured to protest. + +"All Ottomans are not Turks," he said, "and if the Empire were to be +considered purely Turkish, then all the non-Turkish elements would be +foreign to it, instead of being living members of the political body +known as the Ottoman Empire, fighting the common fight for it and for +Islam." + +To this the Professor is reported to have replied: + +"Although you are an Arab, yet you and your race are subject to Turkey. +Have not the Turks colonised your country, and have they not conquered +it by the sword? The Ottoman State, which you plead, is nothing but a +social trick, to which you resort in order to attain your ends. As to +religion, it has no connexion with politics. We shall soon march forward +in the name of Turkey and the Turkish flag, casting aside religion, as +it is only a personal and secondary question. You and your nation must +realise that you are Turks, and that there is no such thing as Arab +nationality and an Arab fatherland." + +It is said that the Arab officers present handed in a joint protest to +the Minister of War, asking for the Professor's dismissal, and that +Enver Bey's answer was to have them all sent to the front-line trenches. + +Certainly the Turkish Nationalists have not concealed their attitude +towards the Arabs since the War began. + +"The Arab lands," writes Djelal Noury Bey in a recently-published work, +"and above all Irak[12] and Yemen, must become Turkish colonies in which +we shall spread our own language, so that at the right moment we may +make it the language of religion. It is a peculiarly imperious necessity +of our existence for us to Turkise the Arab lands, for the +particularistic idea of nationality is awaking among the younger +generation of Arabs, and already threatens us with a great catastrophe. +Against this we must be forearmed." + +And Ahmed Sherif Bey, again, has written as follows in the _Tanin_: + +"The Arabs speak their own language and are as ignorant of Turkish as if +their country were not a dependency of Turkey. It is the business of the +_Porte_ to make them forget their own language and to impose upon them +instead that of the nation which rules them. If the Porte loses sight of +this duty it will be digging its grave with its own hands, for if the +Arabs do not forget their language, their history, and their customs, +they will seek to restore their ancient empire on the ruins of +Ottomanism and of Turkish rule in Asia." + +A Turkish pamphleteer wrote that "the Arabs have been a misfortune to +Turkey," and that "a Turkish conqueror's war-horse is better than the +Prophet of any other nation." This pamphlet was distributed in the +Caucasus at the Ottoman Government's expense as Turkish propaganda. + +But the best proof of the Young Turks' intentions towards the Arabs is +their actual conduct in the Arab provinces of their Empire. In the +spring of 1916 an Arab who had escaped from Syria published some facts +in the Egyptian Press which the Turkish censorship had previously +managed to conceal[13]. Business was ruined, because the Turks had +confiscated all gold and forced the people to accept depreciated paper; +the population was starving, and the Turks had prohibited the American +colony at Beirut from organising relief; the national susceptibilities +of the inhabitants were outraged in petty ways--the railway tickets, for +instance, were no longer printed in Arabic, but only in Turkish and +German; and spies were active in denouncing the least manifestations of +disaffection. A Turkish court-martial was sitting in the Lebanon, and at +the time our informant left Syria it had 240 persons under arrest, 180 +of them on political charges. These prisoners were the leading men of +Syria--Christians and Moslems without distinction; for in Syria, as in +Armenia, the Turks put the leaders out of the way before they attacked +the nation as a whole; most of the Syrian bishops had been deported or +driven into hiding; by the beginning of March, 1916, it was reckoned +that 816 Arabs in Syria and 117 in Mesopotamia had already been +condemned to death with the confiscation of their property. A Turkish +officer, taking our informant for a Turk too, remarked to him: "Those +Arabs wish to get rid of us and are secretly in sympathy with our +enemies, but we mean to get rid of them ourselves before they have any +chance of translating their sympathy into action." This caps what a +Turkish gendarme in Armenia said to a Danish sister serving with the +German Red Cross: "First we kill the Armenians, then the Greeks, then +the Kurds[14]." Every non-Turkish nationality in the Ottoman Empire is +threatened with extermination. + +But the aims of Turkish Nationalists are not limited by the Ottoman +frontiers. If they are resolved to clear their Empire of every +non-Turkish element, that is only a step towards extending it over +everything Turkish that lies outside. The Turks have not only aliens to +get rid of, but an irredenta to win. + +"The Ottoman Turks," Tekin Alp reminds his readers, "now only represent +a tenth of the whole Turkish nation. There are now sixty to seventy +million Turkish subjects of various states in the world, who should +succeed in giving the nation an important place among the other Powers. +Unfortunately, there is no connexion between the separate groups, which +are distributed over great tracts of land. Their aspirations and +national institutions still divide them.... Now that the Ottoman Turks +have awakened from their sleep of centuries they do not only think of +themselves, but hasten to save the other parts of their race who are +living in slavery or ignorance.... + +"Turkish irredentism may be directed towards material or moral reforms +according to circumstances. If the geographical position favours the +venture, the Turks can free their brothers from foreign rule. In the +other case, they can carry it on on moral or intellectual lines. + +"Irredentism, which other nations may regard as a luxury--though often a +very terrible and costly one--is a political and social necessity for +the Turks.... If all the Turks in the world were welded into one huge +community, a strong nation would be formed, worthy to take an important +place among the other nations of the world[15]." + +This may be a dream, but the Young Turks have used the political and +military resources of the Ottoman Empire to make it a reality. At the +congress of 1911 it was resolved that "immigration from the Caucasus and +Turkestan must be promoted, land found for the immigrants, and the +Christians hindered from acquiring real estate." Turkey was first to be +reinforced by the Turks abroad; in the European War she was to strike +out as their liberator. The day after their declaration of war the Young +Turkish Government issued a proclamation in which the following +sentences occur: + +"Our participation in the world war represents the vindication of our +national ideal. The ideal of our nation and people leads us towards the +destruction of our Muscovite enemy, in order to obtain thereby a natural +frontier to our empire, which should include and unite all branches of +our race." + +When war broke out the "Dashnaktzagan"--the Armenian parliamentary party +in the Ottoman Empire--were in congress at Erzerum. A deputation of +Young Turk propagandists[16] presented themselves, and urged the +Armenians to join them in raising a general insurrection in Caucasia. +They sketched their proposed partition of Russian territory; the Tatars +[17] were to have this, the Georgians that, the Armenians this other; +autonomy for the new provinces under Ottoman suzerainty was to be the +reward for co-operation. The Dasknaktzagan had always worked with the +Young Turks in internal politics, but they refused to join them in this +aggressive venture. The Ottoman Armenians, they said, would do their +duty as Ottoman subjects during the war, but they advised the Government +to preserve peace if that were still possible[18]. But the Turks were +past reason, and their Army was already on the move. The main body +crossed the Russian frontier; a second force invaded Northern Persia, +and penetrated as far as Tabriz. Tabriz is the capital of Azerbaijan, a +province where the majority of the population is Turkish by language; +and beyond, across the River Aras, lies the Russian province of Baku, +also containing a large Turkish-speaking population and the vital +oilfields. The Turkish plan of campaign was frustrated by the brilliant +Russian victory of Sarikamysh. By the end of January, 1915, the Turkish +Army was back within its own frontiers, and in this quarter it has not +again advanced beyond them. But the Young Turks' irredentist ambitions +have remained in being. During their brief occupation of Northern Persia +they did their best to wipe out the Syriac element in the +population--the Nestorian Christians of Urmia. Their plan was to get rid +of all the non-Turkish peoples which separate the Turks of Anatolia from +the Turks of Baku and Azerbaijan, and this was the second motive of the +Armenian deportations, which they put in hand a month or two after their +military projects had failed. + +The Turkish Irredentists propose, in fact, to gain their ends by +bloodshed and terrorism. Tekin Alp (like most Turkish publicists and +politicians since 1908) is a Macedonian[19], and is profoundly impressed +by the methods which the other nationalities there employed to the +discomfiture of the Turks themselves. + +"Observers," he writes, "who, like myself, are Macedonians, and, like +myself, had ample opportunity of gaining an intimate knowledge of the +irredentist propaganda of the Bulgars, Greeks, Serbs, and Vlachs, are +able to judge the significance of this striving after a national ideal, +and how sweet and inspiring it is to go through the greatest dangers for +such a cause. This is best illustrated by a few living examples" (which +he proceeds to give).... + +Macedonia is soaked in blood. Atrocities were committed here the mere +thought of which makes one's hair stand on end. Nevertheless, the +leaders of robber bands and members of the terrible irredentist +organisations were not regarded by the public as wild robbers, but as +heroes fighting for the unity of the nation. + +"Will the Young Turks emulate the self-sacrifice of these men?" + +Russia and Persia are the fields marked out for such activity: + +"In some places ordinary propaganda is sufficient, but in +hotly-contested territory recourse is to be had to the more violent +measures used in Macedonia. The neighbouring land of Persia is without +doubt the best of all countries with Turkish population for spreading +the new ideas, and it has been found that simple propaganda is amply +sufficient to produce a satisfactory effect on this fruitful soil." + +In Persia, Tekin Alp reckons, one-third of the population is of Turkish +blood. He passes these Turkish elements in review, and concludes that +"the spirit of the administration is Turkish, and also the leading +spirit of Persian civilisation, even though these be clothed in Persian +guise"--for at present the tables are turned. "All those Turkish +warriors and heroes, Shahs and Grand Viziers, thinkers and scholars, +have lost their Turkish consciousness and have become assimilated to the +Persians in writing, speech, and literature." Even the compact two +millions and a half of Turkish-speaking Azerbaijanis will write letters +only in Persian, and will not read a Turkish newspaper. He omits the +most important fact--that these Turks of Persia are Shias like their +Persian fellow-countrymen, while the "Mohammedan institutions and +traditions" for which the Ottoman Turks are pledged by the Young Turk +Party to "secure respect" are those of the Sunni persuasion. But then +Turkish Nationalism depends upon ignoring religion. Tekin Alp sets out +confidently to give the Turks in Persia "a Turkish soul." His model is +the Rumanian propaganda among the Vlachs in Macedonia, and his +expectations are great: + +"There is no power in Persia to put down such a movement, because it +could do no harm to anyone. The nationalisation of the Persian Turks +would even be a great and unexpected help to the Persian Government.... +Persia would be situated with regard to the Turkish Government as +Bavaria towards Prussia." + +And this is only a stage towards a higher goal: + +"The united Turks should form the centre of gravity of the world of +Islam. The Arabs of Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia, the Persians, Afghans, +etc., must enjoy complete independence in their own affairs, but +outwardly the world of Islam must present a perfectly united front." + +The Arabs of North Africa and the Shias of Iran can appraise the +"independence" held out to them by the "unity" which Turkish Nationalism +has been presenting already to Syria and Irak, the Yemen and the Hedjaz. + +But Tekin Alp deals even less tenderly with Russia. In explaining the +bond of interest between Turkish Nationalism and Germany he remarks that + +"The Pan-Turkish aspirations cannot come to their full development and +realisation until the Muscovite monster is crushed, because the very +districts which are the object of Turkish Irredentism--Siberia, the +Caucasus, the Crimea, Afghanistan, etc.--are still directly or +indirectly under Russian rule." + +The "et cetera" proves to be nothing less than the province of Kazan: + +"The alluvial plains of the Volga and the Kama, in European Russia, are +inhabited by four or five million Turks.... The Northern Turks are not +indeed superior to the Ottoman Turks, but must not therefore be +underrated. Their progressive economic and social organisation is in +every way a great help to the national movement. + +"If," he concludes, "the Russian despotism is, as we hope, to be +destroyed by the brave German, Austrian, and Turkish Armies, thirty to +forty million Turks will receive their independence. With the ten +million Ottoman Turks this will form a nation of fifty million, +advancing towards a great civilisation which may perhaps be compared to +that of Germany, in that it will have the strength and energy to rise +ever higher. In some ways it will be even superior to the degenerate +French and English civilisations." + +This Nationalism, which dominates Turkey's present, has also decided the +question of her future. If such a movement has taken possession of the +Osmanlis, the Osmanlis must lose possession of their Empire. Turkish +Nationalism now directs the Ottoman Government, wields its pretensions, +is master within its frontiers; and how does it use its mastery? To make +a hell of Armenia and Syria, and to plot out new Macedonias in Persia +and the heart of Russia. Thus Turkish Nationalism shows where the Turk +is intolerable and must go, but it also shows where he has some right to +stay. + +There are innocent and constructive elements in it, as in all movements +of the kind. As in Europe, it has forced open the Dead Hand of the +Church. Under its influence the Ministry of _Evkaf_, which holds the +enormous religious endowments of Turkey in trust, has turned its funds +to the founding of a national bank and library, and the subsidising of a +national architecture. It has also started elementary schools, like the +voluntary schools supported by the Christian nationalities, in aid of +the Ministry of Education; and it has taken up the reform of the Moslem +seminaries (_Medresses_), which have been one of the strongholds of +Turkish reaction. The welfare of Turkish students is a concern of the +Nationalist society called _Turk Ujaghi_ (the Turkish Family), founded +in 1912, and now possessing sixteen branches in various provincial towns +of Anatolia--only Turks may be members--with affiliated societies in the +Caucasus and Turkestan. The _Turk Ujaghi_ organises lantern lectures, +lectures on mediaeval Anatolian art, and even lectures by a Turkish lady +on Panturanianism and woman's rights--she is said to have had +Khodjas[20] in her audience, and, if so, this certainly shows an +unheard-of openness to new ideas on the part of the "Islamji." Another +society, the _Turk Gueji_ (Turkish Strength), encourages physical culture +like the Slavonic _Sokols_, and there are _Izdjis_, or Turkish +Boy-Scouts, under Enver Bey's patronage, who take "Turanian" +scout-names, blazon the White Wolf of Turkish paganism on their flags, +and cheer, it is said, not for the "Caliph" or the "Padishah," but for +the "Khakan." + +This jumble of efforts, half-admirable and half-absurd, will justify +Turkish Nationalism if it brings about the regeneration of the Anatolian +peasantry. The Anatolians have suffered as much from the Ottoman +dominion as any of the races which have come under its yoke. They have +paid for Ottoman Imperialism with their blood and physique; their +villages have been ravaged by the syphilis of the garrison towns, and +the wider the frontiers of the Empire the further from their homes the +Anatolian soldiers have died--in the Yemen, in Albania, in Irak, on the +snow-covered Armenian plateau. Two things are necessary for Anatolia's +salvation--the limitation of the Turkish State to the lands inhabited by +its Turkish-speaking population, and the replacement of the mongrel +Osmanli bureaucracy by a cleaner and more democratic political order. If +the Allies can compass this, they may claim without hypocrisy to have +liberated another nationality; for Anatolia will be reborn on the day of +its escape from the Ottoman chrysalis as truly as were Serbia and Greece +and Rumania and Bulgaria. + +The beginnings will be difficult, as they have been in the Balkans. +Whatever frontiers a Turkish National State may receive, they cannot be +drawn without including non-Turkish elements--racial geography is +nowhere very simple between Bagdad and Vienna--and in view of what the +Turk's racial minorities have suffered during the War and before it, +those left to him hereafter must be safeguarded by stringent +guarantees--far more stringent than the Capitulations, which, for that +matter, protected none but the nationals of foreign Powers. The +Capitulations are a problem in themselves. They were repudiated by the +Young Turkish Government at the beginning of the War, as well as the +conventions regulating the customs tariff. It is difficult to see how +the Peace Conference can pass over flagrant violations of international +treaties, and the Nationalists' contention that Turkish justice has been +brought up to a European standard will not bear examination; on the +contrary, the Young Turkish congress of 1911 passed a resolution that +"the reorganisation of the administration of justice was less important +than the abolition of the Capitulations." These difficulties, however, +might be settled with a new and better Anatolian government; and as for +the racial question, with time and guaranteed tolerance for religion it +might solve itself, for there is a rude vitality in the Turkish +language, and the Greek and Armenian minorities in Central Anatolia have +been gradually adopting it in place of their native speech, though this +tendency is now being counteracted by the spread of national schools +among the scattered outposts of the two nationalities in the interior. + + + + +III + + +With these suggestions, Anatolia and Turkish Nationalism may be +dismissed from our survey. Shorn of their pretensions in Armenia and the +countries south of Taurus, the Turks may experiment in the art of +government without the tragedies which their present domination has +brought upon mankind. The other lands and peoples of Western Asia, when +they have ceased to be "Turkey," will be restored once more to the +civilised world. What forces will shape their growth? Not, even +indirectly, the discrowned Turk, for if he were not banned by his crimes +he would still be doomed by his incapacity. + +The relative qualities of the different Near Eastern races are not in +doubt. A German teacher in the German Technical School at Aleppo, who +resigned his appointment as a protest against the Armenian atrocities in +1915, thus records his personal judgment in an open letter to the +_Reichstag_[21]: + +"The Young Turk is afraid of the Christian nationalities--Armenians, +Syrians and Greeks--on account of their cultural and economic +superiority, and he sees in their religion a hindrance to Turkifying +them by peaceful means. They must therefore be exterminated or +converted to Islam by force. The Turks do not suspect that in so doing +they are sawing off the branch on which they are sitting themselves. Yet +who is to help Turkey forward if not the Greeks, Armenians, and Syrians, +who constitute more than a quarter of the population of the Empire? The +Turks, _the least gifted of the races living in Turkey_, are themselves +only a minority of the population, and are still far behind the Arabs in +culture. Where is there any Turkish trade, Turkish handicraft, Turkish +industry, Turkish art, Turkish science? They have even borrowed their +law and religion from the conquered Arabs, and their language, so far as +it has been given literary form. + +"We teachers, who have been teaching Greeks, Armenians, Arabs, Turks, +and Jews in German schools in Turkey for years, can only pass judgment +that of all our pupils the pure Turks are the most unwilling and the +least talented. When for once in a way a Turk does achieve something, +one can be sure in nine cases out of ten that one is dealing with a +Circassian, an Albanian, or a Turk with Bulgarian blood in his veins. +From my personal experience I can only prophesy that the Turks proper +will never achieve anything in trade, industry, or science. + +"We are told now in the German Press about the Turks' hunger for +education, and of how they are thronging eagerly to learn German. There +is even a report of language courses for adults which have been started +in Turkey. They have certainly been started, but with what result? One +reads of the language course at a technical school which began with +twelve Turkish teachers as pupils. Our informant forgets to add, +however, that after four lessons only six pupils presented themselves; +after five, five; after six, four; and after seven only three, so that +after eight lessons the course broke down, through the indolence of the +pupils, before it had properly commenced. If the pupils had been +Armenians they would have persevered till the end of the school year, +learnt industriously, and finished with a respectable mastery of the +German language." + +From a German teacher who has worked in Turkey for three years this +verdict is crushing, and Tekin Alp himself virtually admits the charge. +"It is true," he writes, "that the Turkish character is usually lacking +in the qualities most essential to trade or economic undertakings, but +these may be acquired by a reasonable and methodical training and +organisation." The only "organisation" that seems to occur to him is the +Boycott, which has been popular with the Turks since the Revolution of +1908. + +"The unaccommodating attitude of the Greek Government was sufficient +excuse," he remarks, in reference to the Boycott of 1912. "The real +motive, however, was the longing of the Turkish nation for independence +in their own country. The Boycott, which was at first directed solely +against the Greeks, was then extended to the Armenians and other +non-Mohammedan circles, and was carried out with undiminished energy. +This movement, which lasted in all its rigour for several months, caused +the ruin of hundreds of small Greek and Armenian tradesmen.... The +systematic and rigorous Boycott is now at an end, but the spirit it +created in the people still persists.... It can now be asserted that the +movement for restoring the economic life of Turkey is on the right +road." + +The real effects of the Boycott of 1912 are described by the German +authority whose memorial has several times been cited in this article. +He tells us how, under the patronage of the Young Turkish Government, +associations were formed which intimidated the Moslem peasants into +buying from them, when they came to market, instead of from the +Christians with whom they had formerly dealt. + +"The peasants came to their old dealers," the memorial continues, +"lamented their fate, and asked their advice as to how they could save +themselves from the hands of their fellow-countrymen. They were +delighted when at last the Boycott came to an end and they could once +more buy from Greeks and Armenians, where they were well served and got +good value for their money." + +If the Turkish Nationalists had confined themselves to economic weapons, +the Turks' economic ineptitude would have prevented them from doing +serious harm; but by abusing the political and military powers of the +Ottoman State to perpetrate the recent atrocities they have struck a +mortal blow at the prosperity of Western Asia. + +"In the whole of Asia Minor, with perhaps one or two exceptions," the +same German authority states, "there is not a single pure Turkish firm +engaged in foreign trade.... The extermination of the Armenian +population means not only the loss of from 10 to 25 per cent. of the +total population of Anatolia[22], but, what is most serious, the +elimination of those elements in the population which are the most +highly developed economically and have the greatest capacity for +civilisation...." + +And this is the universal judgment of those in a position to know. + +"The result of the deportations," the American Consul at Aleppo declares +in an official report[23], "is that, as 90 per cent. of the commerce of +the interior is in the hands of the Armenians, the country is facing +ruin. The great bulk of business being done on credit, hundreds of +prominent business men other than Armenians are facing bankruptcy. There +will not be left in the places evacuated a single tanner, moulder, +blacksmith, tailor, carpenter, clay-worker, weaver, shoemaker, jeweller, +pharmacist, doctor, lawyer, or any of the professional people or +tradesmen, with very few exceptions, and the country will be left in a +practically helpless state." + +The German memorialist presses the indictment: + +"You cannot become a merchant by murdering one. You cannot master a +handicraft if you smash its tools. A sparsely-populated country does not +become more productive if it destroys its most industrious population. +You do not advance the progress of civilisation if you drive into the +desert, as the scapegoat for decades and centuries of wasted +opportunities, the element in your population which shows the greatest +economic ability, the greatest progressiveness in education, and the +greatest energy in every respect, and which was fitted by nature to +build the bridge between East and West. You only corrupt your own sense +of right if you tread the rights of others under foot. The popularity of +an unpopular war may temporarily be promoted among the Turkish masses by +the destruction and spoliation of the non-Mohammedan elements--the +Armenians most of all, but also, in part, the Syrians, Greeks, +Maronites, and Jews--but thoughtful Mohammedans, when they realise the +whole damage which the Empire has sustained, will lament the economic +ruin of Turkey most bitterly, and will come to the conclusion that the +Turkish Government has lost infinitely more than it can ever win"--it is +a German writing--"by victories at the front." + +"We may call it political necessity or what not," declared an American +travelling in Anatolia during the deportations of 1915, "but in essence +it is a nominally ruling class, jealous of a more progressive race, +striving by methods of primitive savagery to maintain the leading +place[24]." + +What forces will be released in Western Asia when the Turk has met his +fate? Who will repair the ruin he leaves behind? + +The Germans? They have been penetrating Turkey economically for the +last thirty years. They have organised regular steamship services +between German and Turkish ports, multiplied the volume of Turco-German +trade, and extended their capital investments, particularly in the +Ottoman Debt and the construction of railways. In 1881, when the Debt +was first placed under international administration, Germany held only +4.7 per cent., of it, and was the sixth in importance of Turkey's +creditors; by 1912 she held 20 per cent., and was second only to +France[25]. Her railway enterprises, more ambitious than those of any +other foreign Power, have brought valuable concessions in their +train--harbour works at Haidar Pasha and Alexandretta, irrigation works +in the Konia oasis and the Adana plain, and the prospect, when the +Bagdad Railway reaches the Tigris, of tapping the naphtha deposits of +Kerkuk[26]. Dr. Rohrbach, the German specialist on the Near East, +forecasts the profits of the Bagdad Railway from the results of Russian +railway-building in Central Asia. He prophesies the cultivation of +cotton, in the regions opened up by the line, on a scale which will +cover an appreciable part of the demands of German industry, and will +open a corresponding market for German wares among the new +cotton-growing population[27]. "Yet the decisive factor in the Bagdad +Railway," he counsels his German readers, "is not to be found in these +economic considerations but in another sphere." + +Dr. Wiedenfeld drives this home. + +"Germany's relation to Turkey," his monograph begins, "belies the +doctrine that all modern understandings and differences between nations +have an economic origin. We are certainly interested in the economic +advancement of Turkey ... but in setting ourselves to make Turkey strong +we have been influenced far more by our political interests as a State +among States (_das politische, das staatlich-machtliche Interesse_). +Even our economic activity has primarily served this aim, and has in +fact originated to a large extent in the purely politico-military +problems (_aus den unmittelbaren Machtaufgaben_) which confronted the +Turkish Government. Exclusively economic considerations play a very +subordinate part in Turco-German relations.... Our common political +aims, and Germany's interest in keeping open the land-route to the +Indian Ocean, will make it more than ever imperative for us to +strengthen Turkey economically with all our might, and to put her in a +position to build up, on independent economic foundations, a body +politic strong enough to withstand all external assaults. The means will +still be economic; the goal will be of a political order[28]." + +And Dr. Rohrbach formulates the political goal with startling precision. +After twelve pages of disquisition on recent international diplomacy he +brings his thesis to this point: the Bagdad Railway links up with the +railways of Syria, and + +"The importance of the Syrian railway system lies in this, that, if the +need arose, it would be the direct instrument for the exercise of +pressure upon England ... supposing that German-Austro-Turkish +co-operation became necessary in the direction of Egypt." + +Written as it was in 1911, this is a remarkable anticipation of Turkish +strategic railway-building since the outbreak of war; but it is +infinitely remote in purpose from the economic regeneration of Western +Asia, and even when the German publicists reckon in economic values they +generally betray their political design. + +"The special point for Germany," Dr. Wiedenfeld lays down, in discussing +the agricultural possibilities of the Ottoman territories, "is that to a +large extent crops can be grown here which supplement our own economic +resources in important respects.... In peace time, of course, no one +would think of transporting goods of such bulk as agricultural products +any way but by sea; but the War has impressed on us with brutal +clearness the value for us of being able on occasions of extreme +necessity to import cotton from Turkey by land." + +Thus Germany's economic activity in Turkey has been not for prosperity +but for power, not for peace but for war. In developing Turkey, Germany +is simply developing the "Central Europe" scheme of a military combine +self-contained economically and challenging the world in arms[29]. +Germany is concerned with Turkey, not for her splendid past and future, +but for her miserable present; for Turkey--as she is, and only as she +is--is a vital chequer on the chess-board where Germany has been playing +her game of world power, or "des staatlich-machtlichen Interessens," as +Dr. Wiedenfeld would say. Therefore Germany does not eye the lands and +peoples under Ottoman dominion with a view to their common advantage and +her own. She selects a "piece" among them which she can keep under her +thumb and so control the square. Abd-ul-Hamid was her first pawn, and +when the Young Turk Party swept him off the board she adopted them and +their colour[30]; for by hook or by crook, through this agency or that, +Turkey had to be commanded or Germany's play was spoilt. + +Germany's control over Turkey depends upon the maintenance of a corrupt +minority in power--too weak and corrupt to remain in it without +Germany's guarantee, and corrupt enough, when secured in it, to put it +at Germany's disposal. A free hand at home in return for servitude in +diplomacy and war--the deal is called "Hegemony," and is as old as +Ancient Greece. By her hegemony over the Ottoman Government Germany +threatens the British and Russian Empires from all the Ottoman +frontiers; and with the free hand that is their price the Young Turks +inflict on all lands and peoples within those frontiers whatever evils +conduce to the maintenance of their pretensions. + +As Rohrbach and Wiedenfeld point out, this political understanding +underlies all Germany's economic efforts in Western Asia, and we can see +how it has warped them from their proper ends. The track of the Bagdad +Railway, for example, has not been selected in the economic interests of +the lands and peoples which it ostensibly serves. Dr. Rohrbach himself +admits that + +"The Anatolian section of the Bagdad Railway cannot be described as +properly paying its way. It is otherwise with the" (French) "line from +Smyrna to Afiun Kara Hissar, which links the Anatolian Railway with the +older railway system in the West.... The parts of Asia Minor which were +thickly populated and prosperous in antiquity lie mostly westward of +this first section of the Bagdad Railway, round the river-valleys and" +(French and English) "railways leading down to the Aegean." + +"There are other once-flourishing parts of the peninsula," he continues, +"which the Bagdad Railway does not touch at all"--the Vilayet of Sivas +and the other Armenian provinces. The original German plan was to carry +the Railway through Armenia from Angora to Kharput, but Russia not +unnaturally vetoed the construction, so near her Caucasian frontiers, of +a line which, by the nature of the Turco-German understanding, must +primarily serve strategic ends[31], and the track was therefore +deflected to the south-east. This took it through the most barren parts +of Central Anatolia, and in the next section involved the slow and +costly work of tunnelling the Taurus and Amanus mountains. + +"If merely economic and not political advantages were taken into +account," Dr. Rohrbach concedes, "the question might perhaps be raised +whether it would not be better to leave the Anatolian section alone +altogether and begin the Bagdad Railway from Seleucia" (on the Syrian +coast). "The future export trade in grain, wool, and cotton will in any +case do all it can to lengthen the cheap sea-passage and shorten +correspondingly the section on which it must pay railway freights. The +fact that the route connecting Bagdad with the Mediterranean coast in +the neighbourhood of Antioch is the oldest, greatest, and still most +promising trade-route of Western Asia is independent of all railway +projects." + +It is worth remembering that a railway, following this route from the +Syrian coast to the Persian Gulf, has more than once been projected by +the British Government. As early as the thirties of last century Colonel +Chesney was sent out to examine the ground, and in 1867 the proposal was +considered by a Committee of the House of Commons. For the economic +development of Western Asia it is clearly a better plan, but then Dr. +Rohrbach bases the "necessity for the East Anatolian section of the +Bagdad Railway" on wholly different grounds. + +"The necessity," he declares, "consists in Turkey's military interests, +which obviously would be very poorly served" (by German railway +enterprise) "if troops could not be transported by train without a break +from Bagdad and Mosul to the extremity of Anatolia, and _vice versa_." + +The Bagdad Railway is thus acknowledged to be an instrument of strategy +for the Germans and for the Turks of domination--for "_vice versa_" +means that Turkish troops can be transported at a moment's notice +through the tunnels from Anatolia to enforce the Ottoman pretension over +the Arab lands. Militarily, these tunnels are the most valuable section +of the line; economically, they are the most costly and unremunerative. +And the second (and longer) tunnel could still have been dispensed with, +if, south of Taurus, the track had been led along the Syrian coast. +"Economic interests and considerations of expense," Wiedenfeld +concedes[32], "argued strongly for the latter course, but--fortunately, +as we must admit to-day--the military point of view prevailed." Thus the +Turco-German understanding prevented the Bagdad Railway first from +beginning at a port on the Mediterranean coast, and then from touching +the coast at all[33]. "The spine of Turkey," as German writers are fond +of calling it, distorts the natural articulation of Western Asia. + +Nemesis has overtaken the Germans in the Armenian deportations--a +"political end" of Turkish Nationalism which swept away the "economic +means" towards Germany's subtler policy. A month or two before the +outbreak of war Dr. Rohrbach stated, in a public lecture, that + +"Germany has an important interest in effecting and maintaining contact +with the Armenian nation. We have set before ourselves the necessary and +legitimate aim of spreading and enrooting German influence in Turkey, +not only by military missions and the construction of railways, but also +by the establishment of intellectual relations, by the work of German +_Kultur_--in a word, by moral conquests; and we are determined, by +pacific means, to reach an amicable understanding with the Turks and the +other nations in the Turkish Empire. Our ulterior object in this is to +strengthen the Turkish Empire internally with the aid of German science, +education, and training, and for this work the Armenians are +indispensable." + +A few months later Germany, as part price of Turkey's intervention in +the War, had to leave the Young Turks a "free hand" to exterminate the +nation which was the indispensable instrument of her Turkish policy. On +the 9th August, 1915, the German Ambassador at Constantinople handed in +a formal protest against the deportations, in which his Government +"declined all responsibility for the consequences which might result." +On the 11th January, 1916, in the German Reichstag, the Chief of the +Political Department of the Foreign Office replied to a question from +Dr. Liebknecht that "an exchange of views about the reaction of these +measures upon the population was taking place," and that "further +information could not be given." And while Germany was maintaining this +"correct attitude" before the world, she was assisting in Turkey at the +destruction of her own work. + +Even the atrocities of 1909 had damaged the economic prospects of the +Adapa district from which Dr. Rohrbach[34] hoped so much, for + +"The first thing the Turkish peasants did was to destroy all the +steam-ploughs and nearly all the threshing machines (there were over a +hundred of them) which the Armenian villagers had imported for the +cultivation of the Civilian plain[35]." + +By the atrocities of 1915 the economic life of Western Asia was +completely ruined, and the fruits of German enterprise were swept away +in the flood. + +"I have before me," writes our German memorialised, "a list of the +customers of a single Constantinople firm of importers which places its +orders principally in Germany and Austria. The accounts which this firm +has outstanding amount to date to L13,922 (Turkish), owing from 378 +customers in 42 towns of the interior. In consequence of the Armenian +deportations these debts are no longer recoverable. The 378 customers, +with all their employees, goods, and assets, have vanished from the face +of the earth. Any of the owners that are still alive are now beggars on +the borders of the Arabian desert." + +At Urfa, after the atrocities of 1896, philanthropists of all nations +had founded orphanages and started native industries. Attached to the +German orphanage there was a carpet factory, with dyeing vats and a +spinnery, which Dr. Rohrbach[36], after personal investigation, +describes as "an institution to be welcomed as unreservedly from the +national as from the humanitarian point of view." + +"The factory," he remarks, "not only provides work and bread for 400 +persons, but has transplanted one of the most profitable and promising +industries of the East into the sphere traversed by the German Railway, +where German interests are predominant." + +He prophesies that the whole carpet industry of Western Asia, "from +which English and other foreign firms in Smyrna now draw such enormous +profits," will soon be concentrated round Urfa in German hands. From +Armenia's evil, apparently, springs Germany's good--but in 1911 Dr. +Rohrbach did not foresee the catastrophe of 1915. + +"For the rise of the carpet industry," our German memorialised writes, +"Turkey has to thank capitalists and exporters who are almost all +Armenians, Greeks, Jews, or Europeans. Like the cotton cultivation +introduced by Germany into Cilicia, this carpet industry, in the eastern +provinces, has been deprived of the hands essential to it by the +Armenian deportations." + +Eye-witnesses at Urfa describe how the Armenian community there was +massacred in 1915--the third time in twenty years, and this time to +extinction--and it points the irony of the situation that the Turkish +guns were served by German artillerymen[37]. + +"I have nothing to say," writes Dr. Niepage, the German teacher from +Aleppo, "about the opinion of the German officers in Turkey. I often +noticed among them an ominous silence or a convulsive effort to change +the subject, when any German of warm feelings and independent judgment +talked in their presence of the fearful sufferings of the Armenians." + +This moral bankruptcy is more fatal to the future of Germany in Western +Asia than all the material havoc which the Armenian deportations have +caused. For Dr. Niepage is convinced that the blood of the Armenians +will be on Germany's head: + +"'The teaching of the Germans,' is the simple Turk's explanation, ... +and more sensitive Mohammedans, Turks and Arabs alike, cannot believe +that their own Government has ordered these horrors. They lay all +excesses at the Germans' door, for the Germans, during the War, are +regarded as Turkey's schoolmasters in everything. The mollahs declare in +the mosques that the German officers, and not the Sublime Porte, have +ordered the maltreatment and extermination of the Armenians.... Others +say: 'Perhaps the German Government has its hands tied by certain +agreements defining its powers, or perhaps it is not an opportune moment +for intervention.' + +"Our presence had no ameliorating effect, and what we could do ourselves +was negligible.... The abusive epithet 'Giaur' is heard once more by +German ears.... + +"We think it our duty to draw attention to the fact that our educational +work in Turkey forfeits its moral basis and the natives' esteem, if the +German Government is not in a position to prevent the brutalities +inflicted here upon the wives and children of murdered Armenians. + +"The writer considers it out of the question that the German Government, +if it seriously desired to stem the tide of destruction in this eleventh +hour, would find it impossible to bring the Turkish Government to +reason.... + +"If we persist in treating the massacres of Christians as an internal +affair of Turkey, which is only important to us because it ensures us +the Turks' friendship, then we must change the orientation of our German +_Kulturpolitik_. We must stop sending German teachers to Turkey, and we +teachers must give up telling our pupils in Turkey about German poets +and philosophers, German culture and German ideals, to say nothing of +German Christianity. + +"Three years ago I was sent by the Foreign Office as higher-grade +teacher to the German Technical School at Aleppo. The Prussian +Provincial School Board at Magdeburg specially enjoined upon me, when I +went out, to show myself worthy of the confidence reposed in me in the +grant of furlough to take up this post. I should not be fulfilling my +duty as a German official and an accredited representative of German +culture, if I consented to keep silence in face of the atrocities of +which I was a witness, or to look on passively while the pupils +entrusted to my charge were driven out into the desert to die of +starvation. + +"The things of which everybody here has been a witness for months past +remain as a stain on Germany's shield in the minds of Oriental nations." + +What will be left to Germany in Western Asia after the war? She may keep +her trade, though Wiedenfeld confesses that "the exchange of commodities +between Germany and Turkey has never attained any really considerable +dimensions," and that "the German export trade commands no really staple +article whatever of the kind exported by England, Austria, and +Russia"--unless we count as such munitions and other materials of +war[38]. Except for the last item, this German trade will probably +remain and grow; but the German hegemony, based on railway enterprise +and reinsured by "moral conquests," will scarcely survive the Ottoman +dominion. + +Happily there are other representatives of culture, other indigenous +nationalities, other possibilities of economic development, which will +remain in Western Asia when the Turk and German have gone, and which +may be equal to repairing the ruin they will leave behind. + +For nearly a century now the American Evangelical Missions have been +doing work there which is the greatest conceivable contrast to the +German _Kulturpolitik_ of the last thirty years. A missionary, sent out +to relieve the first pioneers, was given the following instructions by +the American Board: + +"The object of our missions to the Oriental Churches is, first, to +revive the knowledge and spirit of the Gospel among them, and, secondly, +by this means to operate upon the Mohammedans. + +"The Oriental Churches need assistance from their brethren abroad. Our +object is not to subvert them: you are not sent among those Churches to +proselytise. Let the Armenian remain an Armenian if he will, the Greek a +Greek, the Nestorian a Nestorian, the Oriental an Oriental. + +"Your great business is with the fundamental doctrines and duties of the +Gospel[39]." + +In this spirit the American missionaries have worked. They have had no +warships behind them, no diplomatic support, no political ambitions, no +economic concessions. As Evangelicals their first step was to translate +the Bible into all the living languages and current scripts of the +Nearer East. For the Bulgars and Armenians this was the beginning of +their modern literature, but the jealousy of the Orthodox and Gregorian +clergy was naturally aroused. Native Protestant Churches formed +themselves--not by the missionaries' initiative but on their own. They +were trained by the missionaries to self-government, and as they spread +from centre to centre they grouped themselves in unions, with annual +meetings to settle their common affairs. The missionaries also +encouraged them to be self-supporting, and in 1908 the contributions of +the Native Churches to the general expenses of the missions were twice +as large as those of the American Board[40]. The Ottoman Government +recognised its Protestant subjects as a religious corporation _(Millet)_ +in 1853, and in spite of this the jealousy of the national Churches was +overcome. For the work of the Americans was not confined to the new +Protestant community. The translation of the Bible led them also into +educational work; they laid the foundations of secondary education in +Western Asia, and their schools and colleges--still the only +institutions of their kind--are attended by Gregorians as well as +Protestants, Moslems as well as Christians, Moslem girls as well as +boys. As they opened up remoter districts they added medicine to their +activities, and their hospitals, like their schools, have been the first +in the field. And all this has been built up so unassumingly that its +magnitude is hardly realised by the Americans themselves. In the three +Turkey Missions, which cover Anatolia and Armenia--the whole of Turkey +except the Arab lands--there were, on the eve of the War, 209 American +missionaries with 1,299 native helpers, 163 Protestant churches with +15,348 members, 450 schools with 25,922 pupils; Constantinople College +and 6 other colleges or high schools for girls; Robert College on the +Bosphorus and 9 other colleges for men or boys; and 11 hospitals. + +The War, when it came, seemed to sweep away everything. The Protestant +Armenians, in spite of a nominal exemption, were deported and massacred +like their Gregorian fellow-countrymen; the boys and girls were carried +away from the American colleges, the nurses and patients from the +hospitals; the empty buildings were "requisitioned" by the Ottoman +authorities; the missionaries themselves, in their devoted efforts to +save a remnant from destruction, suffered as many casualties from typhus +and physical exhaustion as any proportionate body of workers on the +European battlefields. The Turkish Nationalists congratulated themselves +that the American work in Western Asia was destroyed. In praising a +lecture by a member of the German _Reichstag_, who had declared himself +"opposed to all missionary activities in the Turkish Empire," a +Constantinople newspaper[41] wrote: + +"The suppression of the schools founded and directed by ecclesiastical +missions or by individuals belonging to enemy nations is as important a +measure as the abolition of the Capitulations. Thanks to their schools, +foreigners were able to exercise great moral influence over the young +men of the country, and they were virtually in charge of its spiritual +and intellectual guidance. By closing them the Government has put an end +to a situation as humiliating as it was dangerous." + +But the missionaries' spirit was something they could not destroy. + +"When they deported the Armenians," wrote a missionary, "and left us +without work and without friends, we decided to come home and get our +vacation and be ready to go wherever we could after the War[42]." + +After the War the Turks in Anatolia may still be infatuated enough to +banish their best friends, but in Armenia, when the Turk has gone, the +Americans will find more than their former field; for, in one form or +another, Armenia is certain to rise again. The Turks have not succeeded +in exterminating the Armenian nation. Half of it lives in Russia, and +its colonies are scattered over the world from California to Singapore. +Even within the Ottoman frontiers the extermination is not complete, and +the Arabian deserts will yield up their living as well as the memory of +their dead. The relations of Armenia with the Russian democracy should +not be more difficult to settle than those of Finland and Poland; her +frontiers cannot be forecast, but they must include the Six Vilayets--so +often promised reforms by the Concert of Europe and so often abandoned +to the revenges of the Ottoman Government--as well as the Civilian +highlands and some outlet to the sea. One thing is certain, that, +whatever land is restored to them, the Armenians will turn its resources +to good account, for, while their town-dwellers are the merchants and +artisans of Western Asia, 80 per cent., of them are tillers of the soil. + +What the Americans have done for Armenia has been done for Syria by the +French[43]. There are half a million Maronite Catholics in Syria, and +since the seventeenth century France has been the protectress of +Catholicism in the Near East. In 1864, when there was trouble in Syria +and the Maronites were being molested by the Ottoman Government, France +landed an army corps and secured autonomy for the Lebanon under a +Christian governor. But French influence is not limited to the Lebanon +province. All over Syria there are French clerical, secular, and Judaic +schools. Beirut and Damascus, Christian and Moslem--for there is more +religious tolerance in Syria than in most Near Eastern countries--are +equally under the spell of French civilisation; and France is the chief +economic power in the land, for French enterprise has built the Syrian +railways. The sufferings of Syria during the War have been described; +the Young Turks have confiscated the railways and deprived the Lebanon +of its autonomy; even Rohrbach deprecates the fact that "only a few of +the higher officials in Syria are chosen from among the natives of the +country, while almost all, from the Kaimakam upwards, are sent out from +Constantinople," and he attributes to this policy "the feeling against +the Turks, which is most acute in Damascus." This is Rohrbach's +periphrasis for Arab Nationalism, which will be master in its own house +when the Turk has been removed. The future status and boundaries of +Syria can no more be forecast than those of Armenia at the present stage +of the War; yet here, too, certain tendencies are clear. In some form or +other Arab Syria will retain her connection with France, and her growing +population will no longer be driven by misgovernment to emigration. + +Syrians and Armenians have been emigrating for the last quarter of a +century, and during the same period the Jews, whose birthright in +Western Asia is as ancient as theirs, have been returning to their +native land--not because Ottoman dominion bore less hardly upon them +than upon other gifted races, but because nothing could well be worse +than the conditions they left behind. For these Jewish immigrants came +almost entirely from the Russian Pale, the hearth and hell of modern +Jewry. The movement really began after the assassination of Alexander +II. in 1881, which threw back reform in Russia for thirty-six years. The +Jews were the scapegoats of the reaction. New laws deprived them of +their last civil rights, _pogroms_ of life itself; they came to +Palestine as refugees, and between 1881 and 1914 their numbers there +increased from 25,000 to 120,000 souls. + +The most remarkable result of this movement has been the foundation of +flourishing agricultural colonies. Their struggle for existence has been +hard; the pioneers were students or trades-folk of the Ghetto, unused to +outdoor life and ignorant of Near Eastern conditions; Baron Edmund de +Rothschild financed them from 1884 to 1899 at a loss; then they were +taken over by the "Palestine Colonisation Association," which discovered +the secrets of success in self-government and scientific methods. + +Each colony is now governed by an elective council of inhabitants, with +committees for education, police, and the arbitration of disputes, and +they have organised co-operative unions which make them independent of +middlemen in the disposal of their produce. Their production has rapidly +risen in quantity and value, through the industry and intelligence of +the average Jewish settler, assisted latterly by an Agricultural +Experiment Station at Atlit, near Haifa, which improves the varieties of +indigenous crops and acclimatises others[44]. There is a "Palestine Land +Development Company" which buys land in big estates and resells it in +small lots to individual settlers, and an "Anglo-Palestine Bank" which +makes advances to the new settlers when they take up their holdings. As +a result of this enlightened policy the number of colonies has risen to +about forty, with 15,000 inhabitants in all and 110,000 acres of land, +and these figures do not do full justice to the importance of the +colonising movement. The 15,000 Jewish agriculturists are only 12-1/2 +per cent. of the Jewish population in Palestine, and 2 per cent., of the +total population of the country; but they are the most active, +intelligent element, and the only element which is rapidly increasing. +Again, the land they own is only 2 per cent. of the total area of +Palestine; but it is between 8 and 14 per cent. of the area under +cultivation, and there are vast uncultivated tracts which the Jews can +and will reclaim, as their numbers grow--both by further colonisation +and by natural increase, for the first generation of colonists have +already proved their ability to multiply in the Promised Land. Under +this new Jewish husbandry Palestine has begun to recover its ancient +prosperity. The Jews have sunk artesian wells, built dams for water +storage, fought down malaria by drainage and eucalyptus planting, and +laid out many miles of roads. In 1890 an acre of irrigable land at +Petach-Tikweh, the earliest colony, was worth L3 12s., in 1914, L36, and +the annual trade of Jaffa rose from L760,000 to L2,080,000 between 1904 +and 1912. "The impetus to agriculture is benefiting the whole economic +life of the country," wrote the German Vice-Counsul at Jaffa in his +report for 1912, and there is no fear that, as immigration increases, +the Arab element will be crowded to the wall. There are still only two +Jewish colonies beyond Jordan, where the Hauran--under the Roman Empire +a corn-land with a dozen cities--has been opened up by the railway and +is waiting again for the plough. + +But will immigration continue now that the Jew of the Pale has been +turned at a stroke into the free citizen of a democratic country? +Probably it will actually increase, for the Pale has been ravaged as +well as liberated during the war, and the Jews of Germany have based an +ingenious policy on this prospect, which is expounded thus by Dr. +Davis-Trietsch of Berlin[45]: + +"According to the most recent statistics about 12,900,000 out of the +14,300,000 Jews in the world speak German or Yiddish (_juedisch-deutsch_) +as their mother-tongue.... But its language, cultural orientation, and +business relations the Jewish element from Eastern Europe" (the Pale) +"is an asset to German influence.... In a certain sense the Jews are a +Near Eastern element in Germany and a German element in Turkey." + +Germany may not relish her kinship with these lost Teutonic tribes, but +Dr. Davis-Trietsch makes a satirical exposure of such scruples: + +"It used to be a stock argument against the Jews that 'all nations' +regarded them with equal hostility, but the War has brought upon the +Germans such a superabundance of almost universal execration that the +question which is the most despised of all nations--if one goes, not by +justice and equity, but by the violence and extensiveness of the +prejudice--might well now be altered to the Germans' disadvantage. + +"In this unenviable competition for the prize of hate, Turkey, too, has +a word to say, for the unspeakable Turk' is a rhetorical commonplace of +English politics." + +Having thus isolated the Jews from humanity and pilloried them with the +German and the Turk, the writer expounds their function in the +Turco-German system: + +"Hitherto Germany has bothered herself very little about the Jewish +emigration from Eastern Europe. People in Germany hardly realised that, +through the annual exodus of about 100,000 German-speaking Jews to the +United States and England, the empire of the English language and the +economic system that goes with it is being enlarged, while a German +asset is being proportionately depreciated.... + +"The War found the Jewry of Eastern Europe in process of being uprooted, +and has enormously accelerated the catastrophe. Galicia and the western +provinces of Russia, which between them contain many more than half the +Jews in the world, have suffered more from the War than any other +region. Jewish homes have been broken up by hundreds of thousands, and +there is no doubt whatever that, as a result of the War, there will be +an emigration of East European Jews on an unprecedented scale.... + +"The disposal of the East European Jews will be a problem for +Germany.... It will no longer do simply to close the German frontiers to +them, and in view of the difficulties which would result from a +wholesale migration of Eastern Jews into Germany itself, Germans will +only be too glad to find a way out in the emigration of these Jews to +Turkey--a solution extraordinarily favourable to the interests of all +three parties concerned...." + +And from this he passes to a wider vision: + +"The German-speaking Jews abroad are a kind of German-speaking province +which is well worth cultivation. Nine-tenths of the Jewish world speak +German, and a good part of the remainder live in the Islamic world, +which is Germany's friend, so that there are grounds for talking of a +German protectorate over the whole of Jewry." + +By this exploitation of aversions, Dr. Trietsch expects to deposit the +Jews of the Pale over Western Asia as "culture-manure" for a German +harvest; and if the Jewish migration to Palestine had remained nothing +more than a stream of refugees, he might possibly have succeeded in his +purpose. But in the last twenty years this Jewish movement has become a +positive thing--no longer a flight from the Pale but a remembrance of +Zion--and Zionism has already challenged and defeated the policy which +Dr. Trietsch represents. "The object of Zionism," it was announced in +the _Basle Programme_, drawn up by the first Zionist Congress in 1897, +"is to establish for the Jewish people a publicly and legally assured +home in Palestine." For the Zionists Jewry is a nation, and to become +like other nations it needs its Motherland. In the Jewish colonies in +Palestine they see not merely a successful social enterprise but the +visible symbol of a body politic. The foundation of a national +university in Jerusalem is as ultimate a goal for them as the economic +development of the land, and their greatest achievement has been the +revival of Hebrew as the living language of the Palestinian Jews. It was +this that brought them into conflict with the Germanising tendency. In +1907 a secondary school was successfully started at Jaffa, by the +initiative of Jewish teachers in Palestine, with Hebrew as the language +of instruction; but in 1914, when a Jewish Polytechnic was founded at +Haifa, the German-Jewish _Hilfsverein_, which had taken a leading part, +refused to follow this precedent, and insisted on certain subjects being +taught in German, not only in the Polytechnic, but in the +_Hilfsverein's_ other schools. The result was a secession of pupils and +teachers. Purely Hebrew schools were opened; the Zionist organisation +gave official support; and the Germanising party was compelled to accept +a compromise which was in effect a victory for the Hebrew language. + +Dr. Trietsch himself accepts this settlement, but does not abandon his +idea: + +"It was certainly impossible to expect the Spanish and Arabic-speaking +Jews[46] to submit in their own Jewish country to the hegemony of the +German language.... Only Hebrew could become the common vernacular +language of the scattered fragments of Jewry drifting back to Palestine +from all the countries of the world. But ... in addition to Hebrew, to +which they are more and more inclined, the Jews must have a +world-language _(Weltsprache),_ and this can only be German." + +Anyone acquainted with the language-ordinances of Central Europe will +feel that this suggestion veils a threat. What has been happening in +Palestine during the War? Dr. Trietsch informs us that the Ottoman +Government has been proceeding with the "naturalisation" of the +Palestinian Jews, and that the "local execution of this measure has not +been effected without disturbances which are beyond the province of this +pamphlet." One significant consequence was the appearance in Egypt of +Palestinian refugees, who raised a Zion mule corps there and fought +through the Gallipoli campaign. What is the outlook for Palestine after +the War? If the Ottoman pretension survives, the menace from Turkish +Nationalism[47] and German resentment[48] is grave. But if Turk and +German go, there are Zionists who would like to see Palestine a British +Protectorate, with the prospect of growing into a British Dominion. +Certainly, if the Jewish colonies are to make progress, they must be +relieved of keeping their own police, building their own roads, and the +other burdens that fall on them under Ottoman government, and this can +only be secured by a better public administration. As for the British +side of the question, we may consult Dr. Trietsch. + +"There are possibilities," he urges, "in a German protectorate over the +Jews as well as over Islam. Smaller national units than the 14 1-3 +million Jews have been able to do Germany vital injury or service, and, +while the Jews have no national state, their dispersion over the whole +world, their high standard of culture, and their peculiar abilities +lend them a weight that is worth more in the balance than many larger +national masses which occupy a compact area of their own." + +Other Powers than Germany may take these possibilities to heart. + +Here, then, are peoples risen from the past to do what the Turks cannot +and the Germans will not in Western Asia. There is much to be +done--reform of justice, to obtain legal release from the Capitulations; +reform in the assessment and collection of the agricultural tithes, +which have been denounced for a century by every student of Ottoman +administration; agrarian reform, to save peasant proprietorship, which +in Syria, at any rate, is seriously in danger; genuine development of +economic resources; unsectarian and non-nationalistic advancement of +education. But the Jews, Syrians, and Armenians are equal to their task, +and, with the aid of the foreign nations on whom they can count, they +will certainly accomplish it. The future of Palestine, Syria, and +Armenia is thus assured; but there are other countries--once as fertile, +prosperous, and populous as they--which have lost not only their wealth +but their inhabitants under the Ottoman domination. These countries have +not the life left in them to reclaim themselves, and must look abroad +for reconstruction. + +If you cross the Euphrates by the bridge that carries the Bagdad +Railway, you enter a vast landscape of steppes as virgin to the eye as +any prairie across the Mississippi. Only the _tells_ (mounds) with which +it is studded witness to the density of its ancient population--for +Northern Mesopotamia was once so populous and full of riches that Rome +and the rulers of Iran fought seven centuries for its possession, till +the Arabs conquered it from both. + +The railway has now reached Nisibin, the Roman frontier fortress +heroically defended and ceded in bitterness of heart, and runs past +Dara, which the Persians never took. Westward lies Urfa--named Edessa by +Alexander's men after their Macedonian city of running waters[49]; later +the seat of a Christian Syriac culture whose missionaries were heard in +China and Travancore; still famous, under Arab dominion, for its +Veronica and 300 churches; and restored for a moment to Christendom as +the capital of a Crusader principality, till the Mongols trampled it +into oblivion and the Osmanlis made it a name for butchery. + +From Urfa to Nisibin there can be fields again. The climate has not +changed, and wherever the Bedawi pitches his tents and scratches the +ground there is proof of the old fertility. Only anarchy has banished +cultivation; for, since the Ottoman pretension was established over the +land, it has been the battleground of brigand tribes--Kurds from the +hills and Arabs from the desert, skirmishing or herding their flocks, +making or breaking alliance, but always robbing any tiller of the land +of the fruits of his labour. + +"If once," Dr. Rohrbach prophesies, "the peasant population were sure of +its life and property, it would joyfully expand, push out into the +desert, and bring new land under the plough; in a few years the villages +would spring up, not by dozens, but by hundreds." + +At present cultivation is confined to the Armenian foot-hills--an +uncertain arc of green from Aleppo to Mosul. But the railway strikes +boldly into the deserted middle of the land, giving the arc a chord, and +when Turco-German strategic interests no longer debar it from being +linked up, through Aleppo, with a Syrian port, it will be the really +valuable section of the Bagdad system. The railway is the only capital +enterprise that Northern Mesopotamia requires, for there is rain +sufficient for the crops without artificial irrigation. Reservoirs of +population are the need. The Kurds who come for winter pasture may be +induced to stay--already they have been settling down in the western +districts, and have gained a reputation for industry; the Bedawin, more +fickle husbandmen, may settle southward along the Euphrates, and in time +there will be a surplus of peasantry from Armenia and Syria. These will +add field to field, but unless some stronger stream of immigration is +led into the land, it will take many generations to recover its ancient +prosperity; for in the ninth century A.D. Northern Mesopotamia paid +Harun-al-Rashid as great a revenue as Egypt, and its cotton commanded +the market of the world[50]. + +Southern Mesopotamia--the Irak of the Arabs and Babylonia of the +Greeks--lies desolate like the North, but is a contrast to it in every +other respect. Its aspect is towards the Persian Gulf, and Rohrbach +grudgingly admits[51] that down the Tigris to Basra, and not upstream to +Alexandretta, is the natural channel for its trade. It gets nothing from +the Mediterranean, neither trade nor rain, and every drop of water for +cultivation must be led out of the rivers; but the rivers in their +natural state are worse than the drought. Their discharge is extremely +variable--about eight times as great in April as in October; they are +always silting up their beds and scooping out others; and when there are +no men to interfere they leave half the country a desert and make the +other half a swamp. Yet the soil, when justly watered, is one of the +richest in the world; for Irak is an immense alluvial delta, more than +five hundred miles from end to end, which the Tigris and Euphrates have +deposited in what was originally the head of the Persian Gulf. The Arabs +call it the _Sawad_ or Black Land, and it is a striking change from the +bare ledges of Arabia and Iran which enclose its flanks, and from the +Northern steppe-land which it suddenly replaces--at Samarra, if you are +descending the Tigris, and on the Euphrates at Hit. The steppe cannot +compare with the _Sawad_ in fertility, but the _Sawad_ does not so +readily yield up its wealth. To become something better than a +wilderness of dust and slime it needs engineering on the grand scale and +a mighty population--immense forces working for immense returns. In a +strangely different environment it anticipated our modern rhythm of life +by four thousand years, and then went back to desolation five centuries +before Industrialism (which may repeople it) began. + +The _Sawad_ was first reclaimed by men who had already a mastery of +metals, a system of writing, and a mature religion--less civilised men +would never have attempted the task. These Sumerians, in the fourth +millennium B.C., lived on _tells_ heaped up above flood-level, each +_tell_ a city-state with its separate government and gods, for +centralisation was the one thing needful to the country which the +Sumerians did not achieve. The centralisers were Semites from the +Arabian plateau. Sargon of Akkad and Naram Sin ruled the whole _Sawad_ +as early as 2500 B.C.; Hammurabi, in 1900, already ruled it from +Babylon; and the capital has never shifted more than sixty miles since +then. Babylon on the Euphrates and Bagdad on the Tigris are the +alternative points from which the _Sawad_ can be controlled. Just above +them the first irrigation canals branch off from the rivers, and between +them the rivers approach within thirty-five miles of each other. It is +the point of vantage for government and engineering. + +Here far-sighted engineers and stronghanded rulers turned the waters of +Babylon into waters of life, and the _Sawad_ became a great heart of +civilisation, breathing in man-power--Sumerians and Amorites and +Kassites and Aramaeans and Chaldeans and Persians and Greeks and +Arabs--and breathing out the works of man--grain and wool and Babylonish +garments, inventions still used in our machine-shops, and emotions still +felt in our religion. + +"The land," writes Herodotus[52], who saw it in its prime, "has a little +rain, and this nourishes the corn at the root; but the crops are matured +and brought to harvest by water from the river--not, as in Egypt, by the +river flooding over the fields, but by human labour and _shadufs_[53] +For Babylonia, like Egypt, is one network of canals, the largest of +which is navigable. It is far the best corn-land of all the countries I +know. There is no attempt at arboriculture--figs or vines or olives--but +it is such superb corn-land that the average yield is two-hundredfold, +and three-hundredfold in the best years. The wheat and barley there are +a good four inches broad in the blade, and millet and sesame grow as big +as trees--but I will not state the dimensions I have ascertained, +because I know that, for anyone who has not visited Babylonia and +witnessed these facts about the crops for himself, they would be +altogether beyond belief." + +Harnessed in the irrigation channels, the Tigris and Euphrates had +become as mighty forces of production as the Nile and the Ganges, the +Yangtse and the Hoang-Ho. + +"This," Herodotus adds[54], "is the best demonstration I can give of the +wealth of the Babylonians: All the lands ruled by the King of Persia are +assessed, in addition to their taxes in money, for the maintenance of +the King's household and army in kind. Under this assessment the King is +maintained for four months out of the twelve by Babylonia, and for the +remaining eight by the rest of Asia together, so that in wealth the +Assyrian province is equivalent to a third of all Asia." + +The "Asia" over which the Achaemenids ruled included Russian Central +Asia and Egypt as well as modern Turkey and Persia, and Egypt, under the +same assessment, merely maintained the local Persian garrison[55]. Its +money contribution was inferior too--700 talents as compared with +Assyria's 1,000; and though these figures may not be conclusive, because +the Persian "province of Assyria" probably extended over the northern +steppes as well as the _Sawad_, it is certain that under the Arab +Caliphate, when Irak and Egypt were provinces of one empire for the +second time in history, Irak by itself paid 135 million _dirhems_ +(francs) annually into Harun-al-Rashid's treasury and Egypt no more than +65 million, so that a thousand years ago the productiveness of the +_Sawad_ was more than double that of the Nile. + +Another measure of the land's capacity is the greatness of its cities. +Herodotus gives statistics[56] of Babylon in the fifth century +B.C.--walls 300 feet high, 75 feet broad, and 58 miles in circuit; +three- and four-storied houses laid out in blocks; broad straight streets +intersecting one another at regular intervals, at right angles or +parallel to the Euphrates. Any one who reads Herodotus' description of +Babylon or Ibn Serapion's of Bagdad, and considers that these vast urban +masses were merely centres of collection and distribution for the open +country, can infer the density of population and intensity of +cultivation over the face of the _Sawad_. When the Caliph Omar conquered +Irak from the Persians in the middle of the seventh century A.D., and +took an inventory of what he had acquired, he found that there were +5,000,000 hectares[57] of land under cultivation, and that the poll-tax +was paid by 550,000 householders, which implies a total population, in +town and country, of more than 5,000,000 souls, where a bare million and +a half maintains itself to-day in city alleys and nomads' tents. + +And in Omar's time the _Sawad_ was no longer at its best, for, a few +years before the Arab conquest, abnormally high floods had burst the +dykes; from below Hilla to above Basra the Euphrates broadened into a +swamp, and the Tigris deserted its former (and present) bed for the +Shatt-el-Hai, leaving the Amara district a desert. The Persian +Government, locked in a suicidal struggle with Rome, was powerless to +make good the damage, and the shock of the Arab invasion made it +irreparable[58]. Under the Abbasid Caliphs of Bagdad the rest of the +country preserved its prosperity, but in the thirteenth century Hulaku +the Mongol finished the work of the floods, and under Ottoman dominion +the _Sawad_ has not recovered. + +Can it still be reclaimed? Surveys have been taken by Sir William +Willcocks, as Adviser to the Ottoman Ministry of Public Works, and his +final conclusions and proposals are embodied in a report drawn up at +Bagdad in 1911[59]. + +"The Tigris-Euphrates delta," he writes, "may be classed as an arid +region of some 5,000,000 hectares.... All this land is capable of easy +levelling and reclamation. The presence of 15 per cent. lime in the soil +renders reclamation very easy compared with similar work in the dense +clays of Egypt. One is never far away from the giant banks of old canals +and the ruins of ancient towns." + +But he does not expect to make all these 5,000,000 hectares productive +simultaneously, as they are said to have been when Omar took his +inventory. "It is water, not land, which measures production," and he +reckons that the average combined discharge of the rivers would irrigate +3,000,000 hectares in winter, and in summer 400,000 of rice or 1,250,000 +of other crops. This is the eventual maximum; for immediate reclamation +he takes 1,410,000 hectares in hand. His project is practically to +restore, with technical improvements, the ancient system of canals and +drains, using the Euphrates water to irrigate everything west of the +Tigris (down to Kut) and the Shatt-el-Hai, and the water of the Tigris +and its tributaries for districts east of that line. Adding 33 per cent. +for contingencies to his estimate for cost of materials and rates of +labour, and doubling the total to cover interest on loans and subsequent +development, he arrives at L29,105,020 (Turkish)[60] as the cost, from +first to last, of irrigation and agricultural works together; and he +estimates that the 1,410,000 hectares reclaimed by this outlay will +produce crops to the value of L9,070,000 (Turkish) a year. In other +words, the annual return on the gross expenditure will be more than 31 +per cent., and under the present tithe system L7,256,000 (Turkish) of +this will remain with the owners of the soil, while L1,814,000 will pass +to the Government. This will give the country itself a net return of +24.9 per cent. on the combined gross cost of irrigation and agricultural +works, while the Government, after paying away L443,000 (Turkish) out of +its tithes for maintenance charges, will still receive a clear 9 per +cent. per annum on the gross cost of irrigation, to which its share in +the outlay will be confined. + +Unquestionably, therefore, the enterprise is exceedingly profitable to +all parties concerned. Looking further ahead, Sir William proposes to +supersede the navigation of the Tigris[61] by railways, and so set free +the whole discharge of the two rivers for irrigation. He contemplates +handling annually 375,000 tons of cereals and 1,250,000 cwt. of cotton, +and estimates the future by the effects of the Chenab Canal in Northern +India-- + +"a canal traversing lands similar to those of Mesopotamia in their +climate and in the condition in which they found themselves before the +canal works were carried out.... In such a land, so like a great part of +Mesopotamia, canals have introduced in a few years nearly a million of +inhabitants, and the resurrection of the country has been so rapid that +its very success was jeopardised by a railway not being able to be made +quickly enough to transport the enormous produce." + +"A million of inhabitants"--that is the crux of the problem. Labour is +as necessary as water for the raising of crops; Sir William's barrages +and canals without hands to turn them to account would be a dead loss +instead of a profitable investment; but from what reservoir of +population is this man-power to be introduced? The German economists are +baffled by the difficulty. + +"It is useless," as Rohrbach puts it, "to sink from 150 to 600 million +marks in restoring the canal system, and then let the land lie idle, +with all its new dams and channels, for lack of cultivators. Yet Turkey +can never raise enough settlers for Irak by internal colonisation[62]." + +She cannot raise them even for the minor enterprises at Konia and +Adapa[63], and evidently the _Sawad_ must draw its future cultivators +from somewhere beyond the bounds of Western Asia. From Germany, many +Germans have suggested; but German experts curtly dismiss the idea. The +first point Rohrbach makes in his book on the Bagdad Railway is that +German colonisation in Anatolia is impossible for political reasons. "No +worse service," he declares, "can be done to the German cause in the +East than the propagation of this idea," and the rise of Turkish +Nationalism has proved him right[64]. There remain the Arab lands; + +"But even," he continues, "if the Turks thought of foreign colonisation +in Syria and Mesopotamia, to hold the Arabs in check" (the political +factor again), "that would be little help to us Germans, for only very +limited portions of those countries have a climate in which Germans can +work on the land or perform any kind of heavy manual labour." + +And Germany herself is hard up for men. + +"For all prospective developments in Turkey," writes Dr. Trietsch, "not +merely scientific knowledge, capital, and organisation are wanted, but +men, and Germany has no resources in men worth speaking of for opening +up the Islamic world." + +It is one of his arguments for bringing in the Jews, but the +colonisation of Palestine will leave no Jews over for Irak. Rohrbach[65] +disposes of the Mouhadjirs--they are a drop in the bucket, and are no +more adapted to the climate than the Germans themselves. "There is +really nothing for it," he bursts out in despair, "but the introduction +of Mohammedans from other countries where the climatic conditions of +Irak prevail." + +That narrows the field to India and Egypt, and drives Turco-German +policy upon the horns of a dilemma: + +"The colonists must either remain subjects of a foreign Power, a +solution which could not be considered for an instant by any Turkish +Government, or else they must become Turkish subjects--" + +a condition which, to Indians and Egyptians, as well as Germans, would +be prohibitive. No one who has known good government would exchange it +for Ottoman government without the Capitulations as a guarantee. + +The Ottoman Government has its own characteristic view. In a memorandum +on railways and reclamation, published by the Ministry of Public Works +in 1909, a _resume_ is given of the Willcocks scheme. + +"In due time," the memorandum proceeds, "a comprehensive scheme for the +whole of Mesopotamia must be carried out, but, apart from the question +of expense, it is clear that the public works involved will not be +justified until Turkey is in a position to colonise these extensive +districts, and this question cannot be considered till we have succeeded +in getting rid of the Capitulations." + +This is the Ottoman pretension. Egypt, rid of the Osmanli, and India, +where he never ruled, have kept their ancient wealth of harvests and +population, and have man-power to spare for the reclamation of the +_Sawad_. All the means are at hand for bringing the land to life--the +water, the engineer, the capital, the labour; only the Ottoman +pretension stands in the way, and condemns the _Sawad_ to lie dead and +unharvested so long as it endures. + +"The last voyage I made before coming to this country," wrote Sir +William Willcocks at Bagdad in 1911, "was up the Nile, from Khartum to +the great equatorial lakes. In this most desperate and forbidden region +I was filled with pride to think that I belonged to a race whose sons, +even in this inhospitable waste of waters, were struggling in the face +of a thousand discouragements to introduce new forest trees and new +agricultural products and ameliorate in some degree the conditions of +life of the naked and miserable inhabitants. How should I have felt if, +in traversing the deserts and swamps which to-day represent what was the +richest and most famous tract of the world, I had thought that I was a +scion of a race in whose hands God had placed, for hundreds of years, +the destinies of this great country, and that my countrymen could give +no better account of their stewardship than the exhibition of two mighty +rivers flowing between deserts to waste themselves in the sea for nine +months in the year, and desolating everything in their way for the +remaining three? No effort that Turkey can make"--she was then still +mistress of the _Sawad_--"can be too great to roll away the reproach of +these parched and weary lands, whose cry ascends to heaven." + +Turkey, which claims the present in Western Asia, is nothing but an +overthrow of the past and an obstruction of the future. + + + + +[Footnote 1: Tekin Alp: "The Turkish and Pan-Turkish Ideal" (Weimar: +Gustav Kiepenheuer, 1915). The percentage is of course an exaggeration.] + +[Footnote 2: In the sense of having preceded Arabic in this region, for +in itself, and in its original area, Arabic is as old a language an any +other variety of Semitic.] + +[Footnote 3: "The Turkish and Pan-Turkish Ideal," by Tekin Alp.] + +[Footnote 4: "The Turkish and Pan-Turkish Ideal," by Tekin Alp.] + +[Footnote 5: _The Near East_, 30th March, 1917, p. 507; see also Tekin +Alp.] + +[Footnote 6: The legendary ancestor of the Turkish race.] + +[Footnote 7: _The Near East_, loc. cit.] + +[Footnote 8: Which (for obvious reasons) was printed for private +circulation only.] + +[Footnote 9: Miscellaneous No. 31 (1916).] + +[Footnote 10: Memorial of the German authority cited above.] + +[Footnote 11: Quoted by the German authority cited above.] + +[Footnote 12: The Vilayets of Basra and Bagdad.] + +[Footnote 13: See the journal _Al-Mokattam_ of Cairo, 30th March, 31st +March, 1st April, 1916 (English translation in the form of a pamphlet: +"Syria during March, 1916," printed by Sir Joseph Causton and Sons Ltd., +1916).] + +[Footnote 14: Miscellaneous No. 31 (1916), p. 253.] + +[Footnote 15: _Thoughts on the Nature and Plan of a Greater Turkey._] + +[Footnote 16: Emir Hechmat, their chief, subsequently went to Hamadan in +Persia and organised guerilla bands there.] + +[Footnote 17: _i.e._, the Turkish-speaking population in the Russian +Caucasus.] + +[Footnote 18: Miscellaneous No. 31 (1916), p. 80.] + +[Footnote 19: And, like other Young Turks, a Jew ("Tekin Alp" being a +_nom de plume_).] + +[Footnote 20: Moslem _religieux_.] + +[Footnote 21: Ein Wort an die Berufenen Vertreter des Deutschen Volkes: +Eindrucke eines deutschen Oberlehrers aus der Tuerkei, von Dr. Martin +Niepage, Oberlehrer an der deutschen Realschule zu Aleppo, z.Zt. +Wernigerode. (Printed in the second pamphlet issued by the Swiss +Committee for Armenian Relief at Basel; English translation, "The +Horrors of Aleppo." London, 1917: Hodder and Stoughton.)] + +[Footnote 22: The writer includes Armenia under this term.] + +[Footnote 23: Dated 3rd Aug., 1915: See Miscellaneous No. 31 (1916), p. +548.] + +[Footnote 24: Miscellaneous No. 31 (1916), p. 413.] + +[Footnote 25: "Die deutsch-tuerkeschen Wirtschaftsbeziehungen," by Dr. +Kurt Wiedenfeld, Professor of the Political Sciences at the University +of Halle. (Duncker and Humblot, 1915).] + +[Footnote 26: "Die Bagdadbahn," by Dr. Paul Rohrbach (Berlin, 1911), pp. +43, 44.] + +[Footnote 27: "Die Bagdadbahn," pp. 49, 50.] + +[Footnote 28: The author rubs in his point in his concluding section: +"All economic measures we may take in Turkey are only a means to an end, +not an end in themselves" (p. 77).] + +[Footnote 29: Wiedenfeld's monograph is a _sonderabdruck_ from the two +volumes of studies on the "Wirtschaftliche Annaherung zwischen dem +deutschen Reich u. seinen Verbundeten," edited by Heinrich Herkner and +published by the _Verein fur Sozialpolitik_, which preaches Naumann's +creed.] + +[Footnote 30: Just as, by a more gradual process, the Magyar Oligarchy, +rather than the Hapsburg Dynasty, has become the instrument of German +control over Austria-Hungary.] + +[Footnote 31: "Die Bagdadbahn," pp. 29, 33.] + +[Footnote 32: Page 23.] + +[Footnote 33: Except by a branch line from Adana to Alexandretta, +Rohrbach (pp. 27, 36, 37) laments the economic drawbacks of this +strategic necessity.] + +[Footnote 34: "Bagdadbahn," p.60.] + +[Footnote 35: The German memorialised.] + +[Footnote 36: "Bagdadbahn," pp. 39, 40.] + +[Footnote 37: Miscellaneous No. 31 (1916), p. 530. Major Count Wolf von +Wolfskahl, who served as adjutant to Fakhri Pasha in the Turkish +"punitive expedition" against Urfa, is mentioned as particularly guilty +by a trustworthy neutral resident in Syria.] + +[Footnote 38: On which Wiedenfeld lays stress, pp. 19, 22.] + +[Footnote 39: "Leavening the Levant," by Rev. J. Greene, D.D. (Beston, +1916: The Pilgrim Press), p. 99.] + +[Footnote 40: Excluding, of course, the hospital and educational +endowments, and the salaries of the missionaries themselves.] + +[Footnote 41: _Hilal_, 4th April, 1916, quoted in Miscellaneous No. 31 +(1916), pp. 654-6.] + +[Footnote 42: Miscellaneous No. 31 (1916), p. 309.] + +[Footnote 43: Though the work of the American Presbyterian Mission at +Beirut must not be forgotten.] + +[Footnote 44: See "Zionism and the Jewish Future" (London, 1916: John +Murray), pp. 138-170; for the agricultural machinery on the Jewish +National Fund's Model Farm at Ben-Shamen, see the Report of the German +Vice-Consul at Jaffa for the year 1912.] + +[Footnote 45: "Die Jueden der Tuerkei" (Leipzig, 1915: Veit u. Comp.). +Pamphlet No. 8 of the _Deutsches Vorderasienscomitee's_ series: "Laender +u. Voelker der Tuerkei."] + +[Footnote 46: The Spanish-speaking Jews in Turkey are descended from +refugees to whom the Ottoman Government gave shelter in the sixteenth +century; the Arabic-speaking Jews have been introduced into Palestine +from the Yemen, by the Zionists, since 1908.] + +[Footnote 47: Dr. Trietsch admits that Jewish colonisation in Palestine +was retarded because "the leading French and British Jews remained under +the impression of the Armenian massacres" (of 1895-7) "as presented by +the anti-Turkish, French and British Press.... In reality, the +butcheries of Armenians in Constantinople were a convincing proof that +the Jews in the Ottoman Empire were safe, for ... not a hair on a Jewish +head was touched." One wonders how he will exorcise the "impression" of +1915.] + +[Footnote 48: As early as 1912 the German Vice-Consul at Jaffa betrayed +his annoyance at the progress which Zionism was making. He admits indeed +that "the falling off in trade last year would have been greater still +than it was, if the economic penetration of Palestine were not +reinforced by an idealistic factor in the shape of Zionism;" but he is +piqued at the "Jewish national vanity" which makes it advisable for +German firms to display their advertisements in Palestine in the Hebrew +language and character.] + +[Footnote 49: Edessa from Thracian [Greek: _bedu_] = Slavonic _voda._] + +[Footnote 50: _Muslin_ is named after Mosul, and cotton itself (in +Greek, Latin, Arabic, and Turkish) _bombyx_ or _bambuk_, after Bambyke +(Mumbij).] + +[Footnote 51: "Bagdadbahn," p. 38.] + +[Footnote 52: Book I., ch. 193.] + +[Footnote 53: Cp. Sir William Willcocks. "The Irrigation of +Mesopotamia," p. 5 (London, 1911: Spon).] + +[Footnote 54: Book I., ch. 192.] + +[Footnote 55: Herodotus Book III., ch. 91.] + +[Footnote 56: Book I., chs. 178-183.] + +[Footnote 57: A hectare is approximately equal to two and a half acres.] + +[Footnote 58: "The Lands of the Eastern Caliphate," by Guy le Strange +(Cambridge, 1905: at the University Press), pp. 25-9.] + +[Footnote 59: "The Irrigation of Mesopotamia," by Sir William Willcocks, +K.C.M.G., F.R.G.S. (London, 1911: Spon). The report is dated Bagdad, +March 26th, 1911.] + +[Footnote 60: L1.00 Turkish = approximately L0.90 sterling.] + +[Footnote 61: In his immediate project he intends to keep the Tigris +navigable, and allots L48,350 (Turkish) for its improvement.] + +[Footnote 62: Cp. Wiedenfeld, pp. 62-4.] + +[Footnote 63: "Die Bagdadbahn," pp. 57, 61.] + +[Footnote 64: Cp. Wiedenfeld, p. 64.] + +[Footnote 65: "Bagdadbahn," p. 83; cp. Trietsch, p. 11.] + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TURKEY: A PAST AND A FUTURE*** + + +******* This file should be named 10145.txt or 10145.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/1/4/10145 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. 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