The stories that have been so assiduously circulated about wholesale
“massacres” of Armenians have a distinct object in view, viz: to
influence the future policy of the British Government and to prepare the
public mind for the desired settlement—the incorporation of Armenia in
the Russian Empire.
The advocates of this arrangement naturally uphold the correlative
policy of Great Britain annexing Mesopotamia. Superficially considered
the idea looks attractive, however opposed it may be to the proclaimed
objects with which we embarked on this war. It would appear, however,
that the supporters of the scheme have not properly considered the
profound underlying dangers of their project. The very fact of the great
importance attached to the Anglo-Russian Alliance should inspire one
with the gravest doubts as to the wisdom of the suggestion. Two great
Powers with frontiers meeting along such a tract of country may at any
moment not see eye to eye on every question. There is no continuity in
international politics; they change from day to day according to the
needs of a situation which can never be permanently fixed. It is the duty
of statesmen to look further than the immediate present, and England will
never forgive it, if in the settlement at the conclusion of the war they
permit mistakes, which would almost inevitably lead to friction between
two prospective neighbours and present friends.
In this connection it may be useful to recall the prophetic words of Sir
Henry Layard, one of our ablest and most far-sighted diplomatists:
It would probably signify little to the rest of Europe whether
Russia retained Armenia or not. But England has to consider
the effect of the annexation to Russia of this important
Province upon the British Possessions in India. Russia would
then command the whole of Asia Minor and the great valley of
the Euphrates and Tigris which would inevitably fall into her
hands in course of time.... The moral effect of the conquest of
Armenia and the annexation of Ghilan and Mazanderan by Russia
upon our Mohammedan subjects, and upon the populations of
Central Asia cannot be overlooked by a statesman who attaches
any value to the retention of India as part of the British
Empire.
Mr. Grattan Geary, than whom no writer has studied more closely the
question at issue, speaks thus of the enormous advantage which the Power
in possession of highland Kurdistan would have over the one that ruled
lowland Mesopotamia:
Diarbekir is the key to the valleys of both the Tigris and
the Euphrates—once there, they can decide whether they will
move down the former to Bagdad, or down the latter to a point
where they can command both rivers and reach the gulf ...
the forests at the head of both rivers supply the means of
constructing with small cost light boats or rafts, for floating
reinforcements and military stores to any point where a General
might choose to establish an entrenched camp, so that it would
be almost impossible to shake his hold of the country, once he
had entered and taken possession.... For it must be borne in
mind that the swift currents of those rivers will enable an
army to move without fatigue or difficulty from North to South,
while a force moving northwards must toil along a roadless
country where rapid marching is out of the question....
Once an army gets into the Mesopotamia plains, there is no
fortified place there that could withstand it for an hour,
and the current of the rivers would save even the trouble of
locomotion. There would be nothing absolutely novel in this
line of invasion. The Emperor Trajan and a couple of centuries
later the Emperor Julian, descended the Euphrates with large
fleets put together in the Armenian mountains.
It is interesting to note that in Mr. Grattan Geary’s opinion a powerful
nation holding Kurdistan could equally from Diarbekir overrun Syria and
seriously menace Egypt.
It may therefore not be out of place to consider how the Armenian
question stood immediately before the outbreak of the European war.
The policy of the British Government, bound by the Cyprus Convention to
maintain the integrity of the Sultan’s dominions in Asia, had been to
strengthen the position of Turkey by loyally endeavouring to ameliorate
the unrest which the revolutionary societies had stirred up amongst the
Armenians. It is well known that all schemes of reform proposed by Great
Britain or by Turkey herself, had been without exception cold-shouldered
or openly opposed by Russia, firstly because they would, if successful,
destroy any excuse for intervention and subsequent annexation; secondly
because they contained some form or other of self-government, which
Russia feared would not only encourage the national feeling of the
Ottoman Armenians (who would look to England as their protector rather
than to Russia), but would also encourage a similar national sentiment
amongst the Armenians in the Caucasus.
With the advent of the Anglo-Russian Entente, our policy was revised.
There are many Englishmen who believed, and still firmly believe, that
wise and prescient statesmanship should have succeeded in reconciling,
or at least allaying, the hereditary animosity which existed between our
new friend and our old, traditional ally, and that in any case it would
have been more worthy and more dignified, besides being to the advantage
of this country, had we openly declared that under no circumstances
would we sacrifice sacred obligations and old friendships to a policy of
expediency. Public opinion, awakened by recent occurrences in the Near
East, at last realizes how mistaken was the attitude of our Government
towards Turkey. Official Russia, we believe, would have appreciated and
accepted our point of view. Progressive Russia most certainly would have
done so.
Unfortunately the British Government apparently thought otherwise. In
1912, the Porte without any outside pressure and being genuinely anxious
to improve the condition of her Asiatic provinces, demanded (under the
terms of the Cyprus Convention) that they should be supplied with British
administrators, but these were refused.
The Russian Government then took up the question of reforms, and Turkey
appealed to Germany to protect her from the very unpalatable scheme put
forward by Russia. Germany gained a nominal victory, but success really
rested with Russia. As a compromise a thoroughly unpracticable scheme was
adopted, by which two Inspector Generals were appointed, one of whom was
a Dutchman and the other a Norwegian. Neither had any knowledge of the
Near East: one spoke no language other than his own, and the other in
addition spoke only a few words of French. Then came the European War,
and neither of these gentlemen ever reached Kurdistan. The scheme was
foredoomed to failure, as was, indeed, expected. In this connection the
Russian “Orange Book” is full of interest. We find there that during the
negotiations, on July 8th, 1913, M. Sazanoff sent the Porte a vigorous
despatch, in which he laid stress on the fact that the integrity of the
Ottoman Empire largely depended upon the degree of pacification of the
Armenian provinces. He further declared that:
The Imperial Government cannot admit a chronic state of
anarchy, which by reason of the proximity of the Turkish
frontier, cannot fail to have a most pernicious effect on the
neighbouring provinces of the Caucasus.
Further light is thrown on the situation as it was then, by an article
published at that time in the “Nineteenth Century” by Mr. Noel Buxton,
who had been travelling in Kurdistan. Mr. Buxton is all the more
convincing because the object of the article apparently was to prove,
that the only salvation of the district was annexation by Russia. Mr.
Noel Buxton wrote:
The present aim of Russia’s policy is also, perhaps, to prevent
the Kurdish chiefs in the Turkish territory _from making terms
with the Turks or on the other hand with the Christians_, and
so to keep up the _excuse for possible intervention_.
Mr. Buxton then proceeds to justify this policy of creating disorder. It
was the policy his friends the Bulgars had pursued with such success in
Macedonia with the Komitadjis[11] (as was to be expected, we now find
Mr. Buxton taking a prominent role in damning the Turks for the recent
alleged massacres). Mr. Walter Guinness, M.P., in his description of a
tour made in Kurdistan about the same time as Mr. Buxton, corroborates
the evidence of that gentleman. He mentions numerous indications of an
active Russian propaganda not only amongst the Armenians, but among the
Kurds as well. He adds:
_Many of these (the Kurds) are armed with Russian rifles, and
in the mountains I found, in an out of the way village, a
Russian dressed as a Kurd, and living the life of the Kurds._
Russia was arming both the Kurds and the Orthodox Armenians. The object
was two-fold: the Kurds would resist the measures taken by the local
officials to enforce the decree against the carrying of rifles, which
had been promulgated by the Turkish Government in order to enforce
law and order, and the Armenians, excited by agents-provocateur and
revolutionaries, would be encouraged to revolt. In either event there
would be disturbances, which would enable Russia to point to the failure
of European control as justification for her armed intervention followed
by annexation, on the ground that this was the only possible solution.
The observant student of current history will no doubt perceive in this
desired end an interesting and instructive parallel to the handing over
to Austria of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and her final cynical annexation of
those provinces; whether the parallel would stop here, if the object is
gained, may be told by some future historian.