The condition of affairs in the East now seemed all the more alarming
and critical as the Allies, after dismembering Turkey, did not seem
to have given up their plan of evicting the Turks. This policy, which
had taken Armenia from Turkey, but had not succeeded in ensuring her a
definite status, could only hurry on the Pan-Turkish and Pan-Arabian
movements, drive them to assert their opposition more plainly, and thus
bring them closer together by reinforcing Pan-Islamism.
Of course it had been said at the beginning of January, 1920, that
the Turks were downhearted, that Mustafa Kemal was short of money,
that he had to encounter the opposition of the other parties, and
that his movement seemed doomed to failure. It was also asserted
that his army was only made up of bands which began to plunder the
country, and that anarchy now prevailed throughout Turkey-in-Asia. Yet
the Nationalist generals soon managed to intercept the food-supply
of Constantinople, and when the conditions of the Peace Treaty were
made known the situation, as has just been seen, underwent a complete
change. They held in check the English till the latter had called the
Greeks to their help, and though at a certain stage it would have been
possible to negotiate and come to terms with Mustafa Kemal, now, on
the contrary, it was impossible to do so, owing to the amplitude and
strength gained by the Nationalist movement.
It was soon known that many a parley had been entered into between
Turkish and Arabian elements, that some Turkish officers had gone over
to the Arabian Nationalists of Syria and had taken command of their
troops, and though a political agreement or a closer connection between
the two elements did not ensue, yet the Turks and the Arabs, dreading
foreign occupation, organised themselves and were ready to help each
other to defend their independence.
We should bear in mind what Enver Pasha, who was playing a questionable
part in the East, and Fethy Bey had once done in Tripoli. Turkish
officers might very well, if an opportunity occurred, impart to these
bands the discipline and cohesion they lacked and instil into them a
warlike spirit; or these bands might side with the Bolshevists who had
invaded the Transcaspian isthmus; they would have been able to hinder
the operations that the Allies had once seemed inclined to launch into,
but had wisely given up, and they could always raise new difficulties
for the Allies.
Lastly, the idea, once contemplated and perhaps not definitely given
up, to send back to Asia the Sultans and viziers who, after their
centuries-old intercourse with the West, had become “Europeanised”
and to whom the ways and manners of our diplomacy had grown familiar,
could only modify their foreign policy to our disadvantage, and give it
an Asiatic turn; whereas now, having long associated Ottoman affairs
with European affairs, they have thus been brought to consider their
own interests from a European point of view. The influence of this
intercourse with Europe on the Constantinople Government naturally
induced it to exercise a soothing influence over the Mussulmans, which
was to the advantage of both Europe and Turkey. It is obvious that, on
the contrary, the eviction of the Sultan, at a time when the Arabian
world and the Turkish world were being roused, would have left the
Allied Powers face to face with anarchist elements which, being spurred
on by similar religious and nationalist passions, would have grouped
together; and one day the Powers would have found themselves confronted
with the organised resistance of established governments. Even as
things are now, who can foresee what will be all the consequences in
the East of the clauses enforced on Turkey by the Sèvres Treaty?