Some people, perhaps, will say that whether these stories of massacres
be true or false, it is inopportune to defend the reputation of a nation
with whom we are at war. If this argument were true, it would apply with
equal force as a criticism of the officers and men who have written home
from Gallipoli, giving spontaneously such wholehearted and generous
testimony to the bravery and chivalry of the Turks. Truth can never be
inopportune so long as our conscience is clear, which it would not be
if we allowed false stories to remain uncontradicted simply because the
untrue assertions might be detrimental to an enemy. But at this advanced
stage of the war such stories are scarcely likely to have any effect on
the neutral nations, who are, indeed, more likely to be influenced in
our favour if we show ourselves fair-minded and willing to investigate
the truth. Their object is simply to bias public opinion in this country
still further against an already misjudged and badly maligned enemy.
Some good-natured people have indeed gone so far as to say, that “the
fact of the Armenians rising in rebellion and butchering the Moslems
of Van and only waiting an opportunity to do so in other places, was
no justification for the severity of the Turkish Government, or for
the reprisals of the local Turks and the cruelties of the Kurds.” But
even admitting, all exaggeration apart, the severity of the Turkish
Government’s action in ordering the removal of the Armenian population
and the methods adopted by local officials to stamp out disaffection, it
must not be forgotten how critical the situation was for Turkey: that
for her it was a matter of life and death. There is not the slightest
doubt that, unless the incipient revolution had been immediately crushed
and further danger removed, the Turkish army on the Caucasus would have
been hopelessly cut off and the Moslem population exterminated at the
hands of the revolutionaries. The British Government has never hesitated
under much less critical conditions to suppress rebellion within its
borders with an iron hand and by measures which, surveyed after the time
of stress and danger was past, have appeared both harsh and cruel in the
extreme.
It is possible that a certain number of innocent Armenians may have been
killed by the mob who, infuriated and panic-stricken by the reports they
had received of the butchery of their co-religionists at Van, and the
slaughter of the soldiers at Zeitun, believed that should the Armenians
get the upper hand they would suffer in the same manner; but for the
fate of these poor victims, or for the excesses committed by the Kurds,
it would hardly be just to hold either the Turkish Government or the
local Turkish officials responsible. These had done everything possible
to disarm the tribes so as to make them amenable to law and order, but
despite their endeavours the Kurds were being continually armed by
outside agencies. One of the principal causes of the Albanian revolution
was the attempt to disarm the mountaineers, and after that experience
it is greatly to the credit of the Turkish Government that they still
persisted in trying to deprive the Kurds of their rifles.
We have no hesitation in repeating that these stories of wholesale
massacre have been circulated with the distinct object of influencing,
detrimentally to Turkey, the future policy of the British Government when
the time of settlement shall arrive. No apology, therefore, is needed
for honestly endeavouring to show how a nation with whom we were closely
allied for many years and which possesses the same faith as millions
of our fellow-subjects, has been condemned for perpetrating horrible
excesses against humanity on “evidence” which, when not absolutely false,
is grossly and shamefully exaggerated.
During the Boer war the most horrible charges were made on the Continent
against the conduct of our troops. One picture, for example, in the then
famous and widely circulated French _Assiette de Beurre_, showed a number
of British soldiers lining a trench and firing on the advancing Boers,
who were unable to reply because a number of their own women-folk were
tied to stakes along the front of the British trenches. By pictures such
as these the fury of the European nations was roused against us, and
there was hardly a single one we could call a friend. Turkey, however,
stood true: thousands of her Moslem subjects volunteered to fight for us,
and prayers were offered up in her mosques for the success of the British
arms. And over a score of influential Moslems, headed by Obeid-Ullah
Effendi, formerly Minister of Education for Syria and to-day a member
of the Ottoman Legislative Assembly, attended at the British Embassy at
Pera, and there openly made prayers for the success of the British Arms
in South Africa.
The Turks are one of the few races who have always found themselves
in full sympathy with the British character, and to whom we appeared
neither “cold” nor “perfidious.” This is not surprising, because the
characteristics of the two peoples are very similar, with the exception
that the Turk is not a sportsman for the reason that he objects to taking
life unnecessarily; which fact does not however prevent the British
soldier from referring to him as a “good sport.”
Although the Turks may at times have expressed regret and disappointment
at some action of the British Government, they always ended by saying:
“ah, if only Beaconsfield or Palmerston were alive; they were men!” This
liking is reciprocated by most Englishmen, and especially by those who
have lived for any length of time in close contact and community with
the Turks (such as the Whittalls, one of the great families of English
merchants who have made Constantinople their home). On the occasion of
King Edward’s telegram of congratulation to Sultan Abdul Hamid after the
grant of the Turkish Constitution, Sir William Whittall wrote in the
_Near East_ October 1908:
It is to be hoped that, as now practically the whole of Turkey
is enthusiastic for England, we shall know how to meet the
circumstances and preserve their affection, for they are
worth loving, and some future day their love for us will be an
important factor in our history.
Unfortunately these high expectations remain unfulfilled.
British officers and soldiers fighting in Gallipoli have under strange
conditions developed this sentimental liking for their opponents. The
Rev. Dr. Ewing, a Scottish chaplain serving with the forces in Gallipoli,
relates the appreciation shown by a captured Turkish officer when, being
led behind our lines, he saw the care with which the clergyman had
fenced round the little Moslem cemetery to protect “God’s acre” from
destruction, and writes:—“Such little amenities may do something to
soften the asperities of war, and make easier the resumption of friendly
relations when the war is over.” “On the whole, however,” he adds, “I
can hardly imagine a war waged with less animosity on both sides, than
this between ourselves and the Turks.” If such are the impressions and
experience gathered on the battlefield itself, it would behove us here
at home in England to treat with the greatest circumspection, at least,
the accusations against an honourable foe and—mindful of the many “God’s
acres” that have been consecrated on the fire-swept slopes of Gallipoli
by the blood of Christian and Moslem heroes alike—to be careful lest any
wanton or unqualified word of ours make more difficult “the resumption of
friendly relations when the war is over.”