WILL THE SICK MAN OF EUROPE RECOVER?
Each time that I have approached Constantinople from the Marmora Sea and
have watched that glorious and fascinating panorama--Seraglio Point, St.
Sophia, Stamboul, the Golden Horn, the Galata Bridge, the heights of
Pera, Dolmabagtche, Yildiz--slowly unfold, revealing new beauties, new
mysteries, with each revolution of the steamer's screw, I have declared
that in all the world there is no city so lovely as this capital of the
Caliphs. Yet, beautiful though Constantinople is, it combines the moral
squalor of Southern Europe with the physical squalor of the Orient to a
greater degree than any city in the Levant. Though it has assumed the
outward appearance of a well-organized and fairly well administered
municipality since its occupation by the Allies, one has but to scratch
this thin veneer to discover that the filth and vice and corruption and
misgovernment which characterized it under Ottoman rule still remain.
Barring a few municipal improvements which were made in the European
quarter of Pera and in the fashionable residential districts between
Dolmabagtche and Yildiz, the Turkish capital has scarcely a bowing
acquaintance with modern sanitation, the windows of some of the finest
residences in Stamboul looking out on open sewers down which refuse of
every description floats slowly to the sea or takes lodgment on the
banks, these masses of decaying matter attracting great swarms of
pestilence-breeding flies. The streets are thronged with women whose
virtue is as easy as an old shoe, attracted by the presence of the
armies as vultures are attracted by the smell of carrion. Saloons,
brothels, dives and gambling hells run wide open and virtually
unrestricted, and as a consequence venereal diseases abound, though the
British military authorities, in order to protect their own men, have
put the more notorious resorts "out of bounds" and, in order to provide
more wholesome recreations for the troops, have opened amusement parks
called "military gardens." In spite of the British, French, Italian and
Turkish military police who are on duty in the streets, stabbing
affrays, shootings and robberies are so common that they provoke but
little comment. Petty thievery is universal. Hats, coats, canes,
umbrellas disappear from beside one's chair in hotels and restaurants.
The Pera Palace Hotel has notices posted in its corridors warning the
guests that it is no longer safe to place their shoes outside their
doors to be polished. The streets, always wretchedly paved, have been
ground to pieces by the unending procession of motor-lorries, and, as
they are never by any chance repaired, the first rain transforms them
into a series of hog-wallows. The most populous districts of Pera, of
Galata, and of Stamboul are now disfigured by great areas of
fire-blackened ruins--reminders of the several terrible conflagrations
from which the Turkish capital has suffered in recent years. "Should the
United States decide to accept the mandate for Constantinople," a
resident remarked to me, "these burned districts would give her an
opportunity to start rebuilding the city on modern sanitary lines" and,
he might have added, at American expense.
The prices of necessities are fantastic and of luxuries fabulous. The
cost of everything has advanced from 200 to 1,200 per cent. The price of
a meal is no longer reckoned in piastres but in Turkish pounds, though
this is not as startling as it sounds, for the Turkish _lira_ has
dropped to about a quarter of its normal value. Quite a modest dinner
for two at such places as Tokatlian's, the Pera Palace Hotel, or the
Pera Gardens, costs the equivalent of from fifteen to twenty dollars.
Everything else is in proportion. From the "Little Club" in Pera to the
Galata Bridge is about a seven minutes' drive by carriage. In the old
days the standard tariff for the trip was twenty-five cents. Now the
cabmen refuse to turn a wheel for less than two dollars.
Speaking of money, the chief occupation of the traveler in the Balkans
is exchanging the currency of one country for that of another: lira into
dinars, dinars into drachmæ, drachmæ into piastres, piastres into leva,
leva into lei, lei into roubles (though no one ever exchanges his money
for roubles if he can possibly help it), roubles into kronen, and kronen
into lire again. The idea is to leave each country with as little as
possible of that country's currency in your possession. It is like
playing that card game in which you are penalized for every heart you
have left in your hand.
"But how is the Sick Man?" I hear you ask.
He is doing very nicely, thank you. In fact, he appears to be steadily
improving. There was a time, shortly after the Armistice, when it seemed
certain that he would have to submit to an operation, which he probably
would not have survived, but the surgeons disagreed as to the method of
operating and now it looks as though he would get well in spite of them.
He has a chill every time they hold a consultation, of course, but he
will probably escape the operation altogether, though he may have to
take some extremely unpleasant medicine and be kept on a diet for
several years to come. He has remarkable recuperative powers, you know,
and his friends expect to see him up and about before long.
That may sound flippant, as it is, but it sums up in a single paragraph
the extraordinary political situation which exists in Turkey to-day.
Little more than a year ago Turkey surrendered in defeat, her resources
exhausted, her armies destroyed or scattered. If anything in the world
seemed certain at that time it was that the redhanded nation, whose very
name has for centuries been a synonym for cruelty and oppression, would
disappear from the map of Europe, if not from the map of the world, at
the behest of an outraged civilization. The Turkish Government committed
the most outrageous crime of the entire war when it organized the
systematic extermination of the Armenians. Its former Minister of War,
Enver Pasha, has been quoted as cynically remarking, "If there are no
more Armenians there can be no Armenian question." A people capable of
such barbarity ought no longer be permitted to sully Europe with their
presence: they ought to be driven back into those savage Anatolian
regions whence they came and kept there, just as those suffering from a
less objectionable form of leprosy are confined on Molokai. But the
fervor of a year ago for expelling the Turks from Europe is rapidly
dying down. In the spring of 1919 Turkey could have been partitioned by
the Allies with comparatively little friction. No one expected it more
than Turkey herself. Whenever she heard a step on the floor, a knock at
the door, she keyed herself for the ordeal of the anesthetic and the
operating table. But the ancient jealousies and rivalries of the Entente
nations, which had been forgotten during the war, returned with peace
and now it looks as though, as a result of these nations' distrust and
suspicion of each other, the Turks would win back by diplomacy what they
lost in battle. How History repeats itself! The Turks have often been
unlucky in war and then had a return of luck at the peace table. It was
so after the Russo-Turkish War, when the Congress of Berlin tore up the
Treaty of San Stefano. It was so to a lesser extent after the Balkan
wars, when the interference of the European Concert enabled Turkey to
recover Adrianople and a portion of the Thracian territory which she had
lost to Bulgaria. And now it looks as though she were once again to
escape the punishment she so richly merits. If she does, then History
will chronicle few more shameful miscarriages of justice.
If the people of the United States could know for a surety of the
avarice, the selfishness, the cynicism which have marked every step of
the negotiations relative to the settlement of the Near Eastern
Question, if they were aware of the chicanery and the deceit and the low
cunning practised by the European diplomatists, I am convinced that
there would be an irresistible demand that we withdraw instantly from
participation in the affairs of Southeastern Europe and of Western Asia.
Why not look the facts in the face? Why not admit that these affairs
are, after all, none of our concern, and that, by every one save the
Turks and the Armenians, our attempted dictation is resented. In the
language of the frontier, we have butted into a game in which we are not
wanted. It is no game for up-lifters or amateurs. England, France, Italy
and Greece are not in this game to bring order out of chaos but to
establish "spheres of influence." They are not thinking about
self-determination and the rights of little peoples and making the world
safe for Democracy; they are thinking in terms of future commercial and
territorial advantage. They are playing for the richest stakes in the
history of the world: for the control of the Bosphorus and the Bagdad
Railway--for whoever controls them controls the trade routes to India,
Persia, and the vast, untouched regions of Transcaspia; the commercial
domination of Western Asia, and the overlordship of that city which
stands at the crossroads of the Eastern World and its political capital
of Islam.
In order better to appreciate the subtleties of the game which they are
playing, let us glance over the shoulders of the players, and get a
glimpse of their hands. Take England to begin with. Unless I am greatly
mistaken, England is not in favor of a complete dismemberment of Turkey
or the expulsion of the Sultan from Constantinople. This is a complete
_volte face_ from the sentiment in England immediately after the war,
but during the interim she has heard in no uncertain terms from her
100,000,000 Mohammedan subjects in India, who look on the Turkish Sultan
as the head of their religion and who would resent his humiliation as
deeply, and probably much more violently, than the Roman Catholics would
resent the humiliation of the Pope. British rule in India, as those who
are in touch with Oriental affairs know, is none too stable, and the
last thing in the world England wants to do is to arouse the hostility
of her Moslem subjects by affronting the head of their faith. England
will unquestionably retain control of Mesopotamia for the sake of the
oil wells at the head of the Persian Gulf, the control which it gives
her of the eastern section of the Bagdad Railway, and because of her
belief that scientific irrigation will once more transform the plains of
Babylonia into one of the greatest wheat-producing regions in the world.
She may, and probably will, keep her oft-repeated promises to the Jews
by erecting Palestine into a Hebrew kingdom under British protection, if
for no other reason than its value as a buffer state to protect Egypt.
She will also, I assume, continue to foster and support the policy of
Pan-Arabism, as expressed In the new Kingdom of the Hedjaz, not alone
for the reason that control of the Arabian peninsula gives her complete
command of the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf as well as a highroad from
Egypt to her new protectorate of Persia, but because she hopes, I
imagine, that her protege, the King of Hedjaz, as Sheriff of Mecca, will
eventually supplant the Sultan as the religious head of Islam. (It is
interesting to note, in passing, that, as a result of the protectorates
which she has proclaimed over Mesopotamia, Palestine, Arabia and Persia,
England has, as a direct result of the war, obtained control of new
territories in Asia alone having an area greater than that of all the
states east of the Mississippi put together, with a population of some
20,000,000.) Though England would unquestionably welcome the United
States accepting a mandate for Constantinople, which would ensure the
neutrality of the Bosphorus, and for Armenia, which, under American
protection, would form a stabilized buffer state on Mesopotamia's
northern border, I am convinced that, even if the United States refuses
such mandates, the British Government will oppose the serious
humiliation of the Sultan-Khalif, or the complete dismemberment of his
dominions.
The latest French plan is to establish an independent Turkey from
Adrianople to the Taurus Mountains, lopping off Syria, which will become
a French protectorate, and Mesopotamia and Palestine, which will remain
under British control.
Constantinople, according to the French view, must remain independent,
though doubtless the freedom of the Straits would be assured by some
form of international control. France is not particularly enthusiastic
about the establishment of an independent Armenia, for many French
politicians believe that the interests of the Armenians can be
safeguarded while permitting them to remain under the nominal suzerainty
of Turkey, but she will oppose no active objections to Armenian
independence. But there must be no crusade against the Turkish
Nationalists who are operating in Asia Minor and no pretext given for
Nationalist massacres of Greeks and Armenians. And the Sultan must
retain the Khalifate and his capital in Constantinople, for, according
to the French view, it is far better for the interests of France, who
has nearly 30,000,000 Moslem subjects of her own, to have an independent
head of Islam at Constantinople, where he would be to a certain extent
under French influence, than to have a British-controlled one at Mecca.
The truth of the matter is that France is desperately anxious to protect
her financial interests in Turkey, which are already enormous, and she
knows perfectly well that her commercial and financial ascendency on
the Bosphorus will suddenly wane if the Empire should be dismembered.
That is the real reason why she is cuddling up to the Sick Man. Being
perfectly aware that neither England nor Italy would consent to her
becoming the mandatary for Constantinople, she proposes to do the next
best thing and rule Turkey in the future, as in the past, through the
medium of her financial interests. Sophisticated men who have read the
remarkable tributes to Turkey which have been appearing in the French
press, and its palliation of her long list of crimes, have been aware
that something was afoot, but only those who have been on the inside of
recent events realize how enormous are the stakes, and how shrewd and
subtle a game France is playing.
Strictly speaking, Italy is not one of the claimants to Constantinople.
Not that she does not want it, mind you, but because she knows that
there is about as much chance of her being awarded such a mandate as
there is of her obtaining French Savoy, which she likewise covets. Under
no conceivable conditions would France consent to the Bosphorus passing
under Italian control; according to French views, indeed, Italy is
already far too powerful in the Balkans. Recognizing the hopelessness of
attempting to overcome French opposition, Italy has confined her claims
to the great rich region of Cilicia, which roughly corresponds to the
Turkish vilayet of Adana, a rich and fertile region in southern Asia
Minor, with a coast line stretching from Adana to Alexandretta. Cilicia,
I might mention parenthetically, is usually included in the proposed
Armenian state, and Armenians have anticipated that Alexandretta would
be their port on the Mediterranean, but, while the peacemakers at Paris
have been discussing the question, Italy has been pouring her troops
into this region, having already occupied the hinterland as far back as
Konia. Italy's sole claim to this region is that she wants it and that
she is going to take it while the taking is good. There are, it is true,
a few Italians along the coast, there are some Italian banks, and
considerable Italian money has been invested in various local projects,
but the population is overwhelmingly Turkish. But, as the Italians point
out in defending this piece of land-grabbing, Article 22 of the Covenant
of the League of Nations expressly states that the wishes of people not
yet civilized need not be considered.
Let us now consider the claims of Greece as a reversionary of the Sick
Man's estate. Considering their attitude during the early part of the
war (for it is no secret that General Sarrail's operations in Macedonia
were seriously hampered by his fear that Greece might attack him in the
rear) and the paucity of their losses in battle, the Greeks have done
reasonably well in the game of territory grabbing. Do you realize, I
wonder, the full extent of the Hellenic claims? Greece asks for (1) the
southern portion of Albania, known as North Epirus; (2) for the whole of
Bulgarian Thrace, thus completely barring Bulgaria from the Ægean; (3)
for the whole of European Turkey, including the Dardanelles and
Constantinople; (4) for the province of Trebizond, on the southern shore
of the Black Sea, the Greek inhabitants of which attempted to establish
the so-called Pontus Republic; (5) the great seaport of Smyrna, with its
400,000 inhabitants, and a considerable portion of the hinterland, which
she has already occupied; (6) the Dodecannessus Islands, of which the
largest is Rhodes, off the western coast of Asia Minor, which the
Italians occupied during the Turco-Italian War and which they have not
evacuated; (7) the cession of Cyprus by England, which has administered
it since 1878. Greece's modest demands might be summed up in the words
of a song which was popular in the United States a dozen years ago and
which might appropriately be adopted by the Greeks as their national
anthem:
"All I want is fifty million dollars,
A champagne fountain flowing at my feet;
J. Pierpont Morgan waiting at the table,
And Sousa's band a-playing while I eat."
I will be quite candid in saying that I have small sympathy for Greece's
claims to these territories, not because she is not entitled to them on
the ground of nationality--for there is no denying that, in all of the
regions in question, save only Albania and Thrace, Greeks form a
majority of the Christian inhabitants--but because she is not herself
sufficiently advanced to be entrusted with authority over other races,
particularly over Mohammedans. The atrocities committed by Greek troops
on the Moslems of Albania and of Smyrna, to say nothing of the behavior
of the Greek bands in Macedonia during the Balkan wars, should be
sufficient proof of her unfitness to govern an alien race. I have
already spoken in some detail of the reported Greek outrages in Albania.
But this was not an isolated instance of the methods employed in
"Hellenizing" Moslem populations. In the spring of 1919 the Peace
Conference, hypnotized, apparently, by M. Venizelos, who is one of the
ablest diplomats of the day, made the mistake of permitting Greek
forces, unaccompanied by other troops, to land at Smyrna. Almost
immediately there began an indiscriminate slaughter of Turkish officials
and civilians, in retaliation, so the Greeks assert, for the massacre of
Greeks by Turks in the outlying districts. The obvious answer to this is
that, while the Greeks claim that they are a civilized race, they assert
that the Turks are not. The outcry against the Greeks on this occasion
was so great that an inter-allied commission, including American
representatives, was appointed to make a thorough investigation. This
commission unanimously found the Greeks guilty of the unprovoked
massacre of 800 Turkish men, women and children, who were shot down in
cold blood while being marched along the Smyrna waterfront, those who
were not killed instantly being thrown by Greek soldiers into the sea.
High handed and outrageous conduct by Greek troops in the towns and
villages back of Smyrna was also proved. I do not require any further
testimony as to the unwisdom of placing Mohammedans under Greek control,
but, if I did, I have the evidence of Mr. Hamlin, the son of the founder
of Roberts College, who was born in the Levant, who speaks both Turkish
and Greek, and who was sent to Smyrna by the Greek government as an
investigator and adviser. He told me that the Greek attitude toward the
Moslems was highly provocative and overbearing and that the Allies were
guilty of criminal negligence when they permitted the Greeks to land at
Smyrna alone.
Though they know that their dream of restoring Hellenic rule over
Byzantium cannot be realized, the Greeks are bitterly opposed to the
United States receiving a mandate for Constantinople. The extent of
Greek hostility toward the United States is not appreciated in America,
yet I found traces of it everywhere in the Levant. A widespread Greek
propaganda has laid the responsibility for Greece's failure to get the
whole of Thrace at the door of the United States. To this accusation has
been added the charge that Americans were foremost in creating sentiment
against the Greek massacres in Smyrna, which, the Greeks contend, was
merely an unfortunate incident and should be overlooked. All sorts of
extraordinary reasons are advanced for America's alleged hostility to
Greek claims, ranging from the charge that our attitude is inspired by
the missionaries (for the Orthodox Church has always opposed the
presence of American missionaries in Greek lands) to commercial
ambition. As one leading Greek paper put it, "Alongside of America's
greed and schemes for commercial expansion since the war, Germany's
imperialism was pure idealism."
[Illustration: YILDIZ KIOSK, THE FAVORITE PALACE OF ABDUL-HAMID AND HIS
SUCCESSORS ON THE THRONE OF OSMAN
The building in the foreground, known as the Ambassador's Pavilion, is
only a small portion of the great Palace which in Abdul-Hamid's time
housed upward of 10,000 persons]
And now a few words as to the attitude of Turkey herself, for she has,
after all, a certain interest in the matter. The Turks are perfectly
resigned to accepting either America, England or France as mandatary,
though they would much prefer America, provided that European Turkey,
Anatolia and Armenia are kept together, for they realize that Syria,
Mesopotamia and Arabia, whose populations are overwhelmingly Arab, are
lost to them forever. What they would most eagerly welcome would be an
American mandate for European Turkey and the whole of Asia Minor,
including Armenia. This would keep out the Greeks, whom they hate, and
the Italians, whom they distrust, and it would keep intact the most
valuable portion of the Empire and the part for which they have the
deepest sentimental attachment. Most Turks believe that, with America as
the mandatary power, the country would not only benefit enormously
through the railways, roads, harbor works, agricultural projects,
sanitary improvements and financial reforms which would be carried out
at American expense, as in the Philippines, but that, should the Turks
behave themselves and demonstrate an ability for self-government,
America would eventually restore their complete independence, as she has
promised to restore that of the Filipinos. But if they find that
Constantinople and Armenia are to be taken away from them, then I
imagine that they would vigorously oppose any mandatary whatsoever. And
they could make a far more effective opposition than is generally
believed, for, though Constantinople is admittedly at the mercy of the
Allied fleet in the Bosphorus, the Nationalist are said to have
recruited a force numbering nearly 300,000 men, composed of well-trained
and moderately well equipped veterans of the Gallipoli campaign, which
is concentrated in the almost inaccessible regions of Central Anatolia.
Moreover, Enver Pasha, the former Minister of War and leader of the
Young Turk party, who, it is reported, has made himself King of
Kurdistan, is said to be in command of a considerable force of Turks,
Kurds and Georgians which he has raised for the avowed purpose of ending
the troublesome Armenian question by exterminating what is left of the
Armenians, and by effecting a union of the Turks, the Kurds, the
Mohammedans of the Caucasus, the Persians, the Tartars and the Turkomans
into a vast Turanian Empire, which would stretch from the shores of the
Mediterranean to the borders of China. Though the realization of such a
scheme is exceedingly improbable, it is by no means as far-fetched or
chimerical as it sounds, for Enver is bold, shrewd, highly intelligent
and utterly unscrupulous and to weld the various races of his proposed
empire he is utilizing an enormously effective agency--the fanatical
faith of all Moslems in the future of Islam. Neither England nor France
have any desire to stir up this hornet's nest, which would probably
result in grave disorders among their own Moslem subjects and which
would almost certainly precipitate widespread massacres of the
Christians in Asia Minor, for the sake of dismembering Turkey and
ousting the Sultan.
I have tried to make it clear that there is nothing which the Turks so
urgently desire as for the United States to take a mandate for the whole
of Turkey. Those who are in touch with public opinion in this country
realize, of course, that the people of the United States would never
approve of, and that Congress would never give its assent to such an
adventure, yet there are a considerable number of well-informed, able
and conscientious men--former Ambassador Henry Morgenthau and President
Henry King of Oberlin, for example--who give it their enthusiastic
support. And they are backed up by a host of missionaries, commercial
representatives, concessionaires and special commissioners of one sort
and another. When I was in Constantinople the European colony in that
city was watching with interest and amusement the maneuvers of the Turks
to bring the American officials around to accepting this view of the
matter. They "rushed" the rear admiral who was acting as American High
Commissioner and his wife as the members of a college fraternity "rush"
a desirable freshman. And, come to think of it, most of the American
officials who were sent out to investigate and report on conditions in
Turkey are freshmen when it comes to the complexities of Near Eastern
affairs. This does not apply, of course, to such men as Consul-General
Ravndal at Constantinople, Consul-General Horton at Smyrna, Dr. Howard
Bliss, President of the Syrian Protestant College at Beirut, and certain
others, who have lived in the Levant for many years and are intimately
familiar with the intricacies of its politics and the characters of its
peoples. But it does apply to those officials who, after hasty and
personally conducted tours through Asiatic Turkey, or a few months'
residence in the Turkish capital, are accepted as "experts" by the Peace
Conference and by the Government at Washington. When I listen to their
dogmatic opinions on subjects of which most of them were in abysmal
ignorance prior to the Armistice, I am always reminded of a remark once
made to me by Sir Edwin Pears, the celebrated historian and authority on
Turkish affairs. "I don't pretend to understand the Turkish character,"
Sir Edwin remarked dryly, "but, you see, I have lived here only forty
years."
It is an interesting and altruistic scheme, this proposed regeneration
at American expense of a corrupt and decadent empire, but in their
enthusiasm its supporters seem to have overlooked several obvious
objections. In the first place, though both England and France are
perfectly willing to have the United States accept a mandate for
European Turkey, Armenia and even Anatolia, I doubt if England would
welcome with enthusiasm a proposal that she should evacuate Palestine
and Mesopotamia, the conquest of which has cost her so much in blood and
gold, or whether France would consent to renounce her claims to Syria,
of which she has always considered herself the legatee. As for Italy and
Greece, I imagine that it would prove as difficult to oust the one from
Adalia and the other from Smyrna as it has been to oust the Poet from
Fiume. Secondly, such a mandate would mean the end of Armenia's dream of
independence, for, though she might be given a certain measure of
autonomy, and though she would, of course, no longer be exposed to
Turkish massacres, she would enjoy about as much real independence under
such an arrangement as the native states of India enjoy under the
British Raj. Lastly, nothing is further from our intention, if I know
the temper of my countrymen, than to assume any responsibility in order
to resurrect the Turk, nor are we interested in preserving the integrity
of Turkey in any guise, shape or form. Instead of perpetuating the
unspeakable rule of the Osmanli, we should assist in ending it forever.
And now we come to the question of accepting a mandate for Armenia. In
order to get a mental picture of this foundling which we are asked to
rear you must imagine a country about the size of North Dakota, with
Dakota's cold winters and scorching summers, consisting of a dreary,
monotonous, mile-high plateau with grass-covered, treeless mountains
and watered by many rivers, whose valleys form wide strips of arable
land. Rising above the general level of this Armenian tableland are
barren and forbidding ranges, broken by many gloomy gorges, which
culminate, on the extreme northeast, in the mighty peak of Ararat, the
traditional resting-place of the Ark. Armenia is completely hemmed in by
alien and potentially hostile races. On the northeast are the wild
tribes of the Caucasus; on the east are the Persians, who, though not
hostile to Armenian aspirations, are of the faith of Islam; along
Armenia's southern border are the Kurds, a race as savage, as cruel and
as relentless as were the Apaches of our own West; on the east is
Anatolia, with its overwhelmingly Ottoman population. Before the war the
Armenians in the six Turkish vilayets--Trebizond, Erzeroum, Van, Bitlis,
Mamuret-el-Aziz and Diarbekir--numbered perhaps 2,000,000, as compared
with about 700,000 Turks. But there is no saying how many Armenians
remain, for during the past five years the Turks have perpetrated a
series of wholesale massacres in order to be able to tell the Christian
Powers, as a Turkish official cynically remarked, that "one cannot make
a state without inhabitants."
As just and accurate an estimate of the Armenian character as any I have
read is that written by Sir Charles William Wilson, perhaps the foremost
authority on the subject, for the Encyclopædia Britannica: "The
Armenians are essentially an Oriental people, possessing, like the Jews,
whom they resemble in their exclusiveness and widespread dispersion, a
remarkable tenacity of race and faculty of adaptation to circumstances.
They are frugal, sober, industrious and intelligent and their sturdiness
of character has enabled them to preserve their nationality and religion
under the sorest trials. They are strongly attached to old manners and
customs but have also a real desire for progress which is full of
promise. On the other hand they are greedy of gain, quarrelsome in small
matters, self-seeking and wanting in stability; and they are gifted with
a tendency to exaggeration and a love of intrigue which has had an
unfortunate effect on their history. They are deeply separated by
religious differences and their mutual jealousies, their inordinate
vanity, their versatility and their cosmopolitan character must always
be an obstacle to a realization of the dreams of the nationalists. The
want of courage and selfreliance, the deficiency in truth and honesty
sometimes noticed in connection with them, are doubtless due to long
servitude under an unsympathetic government."
It seems to me that it is time to subordinate sentiment to common sense
in discussing the question of Armenia. I have known many Armenians and I
have the deepest sympathy for the woes of that tragic race, but if the
Armenians are in danger of extermination their fate is a matter for the
Allies as a whole, or for the League of Nations, if there ever is one,
but not for the United States alone. To administer and police Armenia
would probably require an army corps, or upwards of 50,000 men, and I
doubt if a force of such size could be raised for service in so remote
and inhospitable a region without great difficulty. My personal opinion
is that the Armenians, if given the necessary encouragement and
assistance, are capable of governing themselves. Certainly they could
not govern themselves more wretchedly than the Mexicans, yet there has
been no serious proposal that the United States should take a mandate
for Mexico. Everything considered, I am convinced that the highest
interests of Armenia, of America, and of civilization would be best
served by making Armenia an independent state, having much the same
relation to the United States as Cuba. Let us finance the Armenian
Republic by all means, let us lend it officers to organize its
gendarmerie and teachers for its schools, let us send it agricultural
and sanitary and building and financial experts, and let us give the
rest of the world, particularly the Turks, to understand that we will
tolerate no infringement of its sovereignly. Do that, set the Armenians
on their feet, safeguard them politically and financially, and then
leave them to work out their own salvation.
Though prophesying is a dangerous business, and likely to lead to
embarrassment and chagrin for the prophet, I am willing to hazard a
guess that the future maps of what was once the Ottoman Dominions will
be laid out something after this fashion: Mesopotamia will be tinted
red, because it will be British. Palestine will also be under Britain's
ægis--a little independent Hebrew state, not much larger than Panama.
Under the word "Syria" will appear the inscription "French
Protectorate." The Adalia region will be designated "Italian Sphere of
Influence," while Smyrna and its immediate hinterland will probably be
labeled "Greek Sphere." Across the northeastern corner of Asia Minor
will be spread the words "Republic of Armenia" and beneath, in
parentheses, "Independence guaranteed by the United States." The whole
of Anatolia, save the Greek and Italian fringes just mentioned, will be
occupied and ruled by the Turks, for it is their ancestral home. The
fortifications along the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus will be leveled
and they, with Constantinople, will be under some form of international
control, with equal rights for all nations. But, unless I am very much
mistaken, the Turks will _not_ be driven out of Europe, as has so long
been predicted; the Ottoman Government will not retire to Brusa, in Asia
Minor, but will continue to function in Stamboul, and the Sultan, as the
religious head of Islam, will still dwell in the great white palace atop
of Yildiz hill.