THE PROPOSED DEVOLUTION OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE
If a new Rip Van Winkle had gone to sleep at any time in the nineteenth
century and awoke to-day, one column in the morning newspaper would
afford him no sensation and surprise. Were his eye to fall first upon a
despatch from Constantinople, he would read it without discovering his
long sleep. Metternich and Castlereagh and Talleyrand, Palmerston and
Napoleon III, Bismarck and Disraeli and Waddington would find history
repeating itself with a vengeance on the Bosphorus.
Throughout the World War and during the period of equal duration that
followed the collapse of Turkey, European diplomacy ran true to form
in the Near East. None can study the history of the great powers in
relation to the Balkans and Turkey and maintain that the crisis of
1914–23 shows a difference of spirit and methods from the crises of
1801–15, 1821–30, 1833–40, 1851–56, 1875–78, 1885–86, 1893–1903, and
1908–13. This is a peculiarly distressing and hopeless statement to
make more than four years after the creation of the League of Nations.
But the truth does not set us free unless we know the truth.
Some who believe that the world was regenerated by reason of our
victory over the Germans, and that the high principles of President
Wilson are triumphing in international affairs because “after all we
have the League of Nations,” declare that the Near Eastern situation
is simply one failure which should not discredit the peace settlement
as a whole. One hears them argue on the platform and one sees their
articles--especially “letters to the editor”--flooding the press. We
cannot expect perfection, they say, and the United States should be
ashamed to have failed joining our comrades-in-arms to inaugurate a new
era in world affairs. Differences of opinion among the Entente Powers?
Friction in the Near East? Inability to agree upon a common policy to
adopt toward Turkey? These are minor matters. The great fact is that
the League of Nations is functioning!
The Near Eastern situation, however, is not a minor matter, and
insisting upon having a hand in it would have been the first move of
the League of Nations, had that organization been capable of tackling
the problems to meet and provide a solution for which it was ostensibly
created. The bloody wars of the nineteenth century had their origin
in international rivalry in the Near East. The inability of Turkey to
retain her European provinces made inevitable the recent World War.
The war began in the Balkans, and there was no hope of its ending
until a decisive victory had been won in the Balkans. Nor is there any
hope of world peace until peace is made in the Balkans. The future of
Constantinople has been the dominating factor in setting the great
powers against one another since the World War precisely as before the
World War. The elimination of Germany from the group of contestants
does not seem to make any difference. When there is a bone, one dog
less does not mean the end of the fight.
The armistice of Mudros, signed on October 30, 1918, gave the Entente
Powers control of Constantinople and the Straits and stipulated the
evacuation of the Russian Transcaucasian provinces by the Turks.
Mesopotamia, Palestine, and Syria were already in Allied hands
by conquest. Immediately after the armistice the British pressed
forward into Cilicia. Three days before the armistice with Germany,
Great Britain and France issued a joint declaration in the Near
East, announcing that they had no designs upon these countries but
were there simply as liberators, with the intention of helping the
oppressed non-Turkish elements of the Ottoman Empire to attain complete
independence.
But the Entente Powers, separately and together, were already bound
by secret agreements which contained their real intentions concerning
the devolution of the Ottoman Empire. In March, 1915, the British and
French Governments agreed that Russia was to have Constantinople and
the European hinterland up to a line drawn from Enos on the Ægean to
Midia on the Black Sea; the islands in the Sea of Marmora; Imbros and
Tenedos outside the Dardanelles; and the coast of Asia Minor from
the Bosphorus to the mouth of the Sakaria River across to the Gulf
of Ismid. In exchange, Russia assented to the giving of the middle
neutral zone of Persia to Great Britain and to the proclamation of
the independence of Arabia. This agreement was enlarged, after Italy
entered the war, to give Russia all of Armenia as a sphere of influence.
On April 26, 1915, Great Britain, France, and Russia, among the bribes
offered in the secret Treaty of London, promised Italy full sovereignty
over the Dodecanese Islands and the port of Adalia, in the southwestern
corner of Asia Minor, with the strategic hinterland. This was afterward
enlarged to include a generous quarter or more of Asia Minor, going
north to include Smyrna and east to include Konia in the Italian sphere
of influence.
In May, 1916, France and Great Britain, to whom had been left by Russia
and Italy the non-Turkish-speaking portions of the empire as spoils,
concluded the Sykes-Picot agreement, by which France was to have Syria
and Cilicia with the hinterland to Mosul, while Great Britain was to
take Mesopotamia and Palestine.
Beginning in the summer of 1915, British emissaries began to treat
with Sherif Hussein of Mecca to induce him to revolt against the
Turks. Negotiations were carried on for a year. The revolution broke
out at the beginning of June, 1916, when Hussein proclaimed himself
independent of Ottoman rule. In December, 1916, Great Britain, France,
and Italy recognized the Hedjaz as an independent kingdom, with Hussein
for sovereign. The support of the Arabs being vital to the British both
in the Mesopotamian and Palestinian expeditions, the British Government
made secret promises to King Hussein of territorial arrangements which
conflicted with their earlier promises to the French. This was revealed
at the Peace Conference when Emir Feisal, the king’s son, presented
the claims of his country to the Council of Ten. The Hedjaz signed the
peace treaty and became a member of the League of Nations. The English
were involved also in promises given to the Arab tribes of Mesopotamia
and the Yemen, made when the situation was desperate, and to the
Egyptians. Adding to the embarrassing conflicts in these promises,
on December 2, 1917, the British Government, by what is known as the
Balfour Declaration, promised to make Palestine a “home-land” for the
Jews!
The defection of Russia reopened the most thorny problem of all,
the control of Constantinople and the Straits. When the war was
over, British, French and Italians occupied Constantinople, not very
harmoniously, while their statesmen, still less harmoniously, wrangled
and bargained over the disposition of the city.
When the Peace Conference opened, the French aim was to become the
dominant power in the eastern Mediterranean. Frenchmen of the old
school and young illuminati alike had never forgiven Great Britain for
grabbing Cyprus and doing France out of the Suez Canal and Egypt. Even
the Frenchmen most in sympathy with the British were nervous, realizing
that the forte of Great Britain after every war was to reap where she
had sown not. When a peace treaty was signed after a war--any war--the
choicest bits of spoils were found to have entered into the joy of the
_pax britannica_. After this war, the first one with extra-European
spoils in which the French had been on the winning side--that is,
Britain’s side--they determined to have a different deal. Canada and
India, Egypt and many islands, were past history. The Near East had
been culturally French since the crusades. From Saloniki to Beirut,
France was determined to reign supreme. Palestine represented the very
last concession it was possible for the French to make. Of course,
they did not hope to possess Constantinople, but they were not going
to let the British settle themselves on the Bosphorus as they had done
at Gibraltar and Port Said. This would mean British domination of the
Mediterranean and Black Seas, and for British capital and goods the
priority in markets that had been traditionally French.
Up to the time of the armistice, and afterward until the collapse of
Baron Wrangel, France hoped for the miracle of the regeneration of
Russia. This would have solved the Constantinople question. And as
long as Venizelos was in power in Greece the French did not despair
of preventing Greece from becoming infeudated to Great Britain. But
aspirations in the eastern Mediterranean had to be subordinated to the
more important aspiration of controlling the Rhine.
The British Foreign Office saw this from the very beginning of the
Peace Conference and indicated to Mr. Lloyd George the successive moves
in a skilful game. The British premier balked every time his French
colleagues wanted to speak firmly to Germany--balked on the Rhine
occupation, the Saar Valley, the entry into Frankfort, the taking over
of the Ruhr basin, the Upper Silesian settlement, the amount and method
of payment of the German indemnity, the trial of war prisoners, and the
enforcement of German disarmament. Much of the opposition was sincere
and based on common sense. But every time Mr. Lloyd George gave in to
the French it was a case of _do ut des_; one after the other the French
aims in the Near East suffered dimunition at the expense of British
aims. It was not through intrigues and superior skill in working out
policies in the Near East that the British gradually gained control of
Constantinople, and extended the frontiers of Mesopotamia and Palestine
beyond the Sykes-Picot line, but by agreeing to back the French in some
new demand upon Germany!
French and British diplomacy, in considering the devolution of the
Ottoman Empire, agreed on two points only: the necessity of using the
Greeks to prevent Italy’s scheme of monopolizing the commerce of Asia
Minor through control of Smyrna; and the passing of the buck to the
United States to take over the vast bleak mountains of Armenia, so that
we could become benefactors of the helpless and policemen to guard
against the infiltration of Bolshevism, while the rich and fertile
parts of the empire were being exploited by themselves.[7]
With all these conflicting aims, motives, and treaty entanglements, is
it any wonder that the Peace Conference year brought no agreement as
to the terms of the treaty to be imposed upon Turkey? When the Treaty
of Versailles and the other treaties were imposed, Germany, Austria,
Hungary, and Bulgaria were compelled to sign a blank check, agreeing
beforehand to whatever disposition of the Ottoman Empire the Principal
Allied and Associated Powers might make. So they were out of it! But
these treaties did contain a very definite provision for the peoples
of Turkey. Article XXII of the League of Nations Covenant provides a
mandatory government “to those colonies and territories which as a
consequence of the late war have ceased to be under the sovereignty of
states which formerly governed them and which are inhabited by peoples
not yet able to stand by themselves under the strenuous conditions of
the modern world.” The “well-being and development of such people form
a sacred trust of civilization,” so the Covenant declared, and they
were divided into three classes. The first dealt with the liberated
regions of the Ottoman Empire. The text is explicit:
Certain communities formerly belonging to the Turkish Empire have
reached a stage of development where their existence as independent
nations can be provisionally recognized subject to the rendering of
administrative advice and assistance by a Mandatory until such time
as they are able to stand alone. The wishes of these communities
must be a principal consideration in the selection of the Mandatory.
The mandatory idea was seized upon by General Smuts as a way of
overcoming Mr. Wilson’s strenuous objection to the _fait accompli_
of the distribution of Germany’s colonies. The American President
accepted this in good faith, and agreed to present to the American
people the proposal that the United States assume the Armenian mandate.
Taking for granted the sincerity of his colleagues, he proposed that
an international commission be sent to the Ottoman Empire to ascertain
“the wishes of these communities” in regard to the selection of
mandatory powers. His colleagues agreed; but they did not send their
delegates. The Americans went alone, and brought back a report quite at
variance with the mandate distribution as arranged among the Entente
Powers.
What Mr. Wilson did not appreciate was the fact that the moot questions
had been settled long before the war ended by secret compacts, and that
the object of the Paris Conference was not to draw up terms of peace,
in the interest of the peoples and regions concerned, but to arrive at
a satisfactory adjustment of interests among the victors. The Turkish
treaty was not drafted in 1919 simply because the Entente premiers
could not agree upon a satisfactory compromise. They paid no attention
to the Covenant, with its mandatory provision. It was too much to
ask of them the fulfilment of this promise when they were unable to
reconcile their previous commitments.
For instance, Article XII could not be carried out either in Palestine
or Syria. Ninety per cent of the Palestinians, including thousands
of its Jewish population, were bitterly opposed to the Balfour
Declaration. Mr. Wilson’s mandate commission discovered that the
great bulk of the Syrians were hostile to the French mandate. When
Emir Feisal took over Damascus, in conformity with the Anglo-Hedjaz
agreement and the undoubted wishes of its inhabitants, the French sent
an army against him, drove him out, and hanged “for treason” many of
his followers. In vain the Hedjaz invoked Articles XIII, XV, XVI, and
XVII of the Covenant, which were supposed to make impossible such an
event as the French expedition against Damascus. The inhabitants of
Palestine, also, have tried for more than four years to get a hearing
from the League of Nations, which has consistently ignored Article
XXII. The Arabs of Mesopotamia were unable to secure the recognition
of their rights until they had succeeded in driving the British almost
entirely out of their country. The French formed the Armenians of
Cilicia into regiments, told them that they were fighting for their
independence, and then deserted them when French interests seemed to
make it advantageous to betray the Armenians and hand Cilicia back to
the Turks.
The Conference of Paris adjourned without having come to an agreement
upon three vital questions: the terms of the treaty with Turkey, the
adoption of a common policy toward Russia, and an understanding as to
the means to be employed to compel Germany to fulfil the terms of the
Treaty of Versailles. These problems led to a series of continuation
conferences from 1920 to 1923, without reaching understandings of even
a quasi-permanent nature. The continuation conferences as a whole are
discussed in another chapter. Here we shall limit ourselves to the
Conference of San Remo, in April, 1920, which endeavored to settle the
devolution of the Ottoman Empire by drafting a treaty with Turkey. The
results of its deliberations were the ill fated Treaty of Sèvres and
the demonstration of two facts: that the three great problems cited
above could not be dissociated; and that the Entente premiers believed
that the League of Nations could not help in the solution of any one of
them.
Had Czarist Russia survived the war, she would have installed herself
at Constantinople. There would have been no question of international
control of the Straits, an independent Armenia, or the satisfaction of
Greek national aspirations. When the three premiers met at San Remo,
almost a year after Premier Venizelos had been invited at Paris by
Great Britain, France, and the United States to occupy Smyrna, they
had to reckon with electorates weary of war and taxes and unwilling
to engage in further military ventures in the Near East. Outside
of Constantinople, held under the guns of battle-ships, the only
forces available for compelling respect of their decisions were the
Greek armies in Western Thrace and Smyrna. It was a case either of
surrendering the fruits of the victory over Turkey or of recognizing,
in a measure at least, Greek claims.
The first alternative was dismissed. Russia seemed to be behind Turkish
nationalism, and the Entente Powers feared that a capitulation of
Turkey would not bring peace, but rather the spread of Bolshevism in
western Asia, the stirring up again of Bulgaria, the weakening of
Rumania and Poland, and the encouragement of nationalist movements
throughout the Mohammedan world. It seemed the lesser of two evils to
allow the Greeks to defend Thrace and the Smyrna region against the
Turks by granting the titles Venizelos claimed. Lloyd George faced the
breakdown of the attempt to make the Caucasus a barrier to Bolshevism,
and Millerand knew that the French army in the Orient was not strong
enough to hold the positions it had occupied confidently the year
before. In fact, the Nationalists under Mustafa Kemal Pasha had already
defeated the French and driven them out of several cities, and it was
only a question of time when General Gouraud would be compelled to ask
the Turks for an armistice in Syria. Premier Nitti had withdrawn the
Italian forces from Konia, and had adopted the policy of encouraging
the Nationalists against the Greeks. The Greek army might be able to
create such a diversion in Thrace and the hinterland of Smyrna as to
save French prestige and prevent the whole-hearted coöperation of Turks
with Russians.
In regard to Turkey, three decisions were necessary: what territories
to detach, how to force the Turks to give them up, and what to do with
them. The premiers were no more ready to make these decisions in April,
1920, than they had been the year before, but there always must be
an end to a transitory period. The delay was affecting the prestige
of the Entente Powers, was giving encouragement to Germany, and was
threatening the harmonious relations among the visitors in the World
War.
The compromise of San Remo, embodied in the treaty to be presented to
the Turks at Sèvres, followed the lines of the other treaties. Its
principal conditions were: (1) open Straits in peace and war to all
ships; (2) control of the Straits by an international commission;
(3) demolition of fortifications, and demilitarization within a zone
twelve miles inland from the coast on both sides of the Bosphorus and
Dardanelles, thus excluding the Turks from Gallipoli peninsula; (4)
cession of Thrace up to the defenses of Constantinople to Greece; (5)
limitations in the Turkish sovereignty over Constantinople; (6) Greek
protectorate over Smyrna, with a generous hinterland; (7) Italian
protectorate over Adalia; (8) acceptance of a boundary in the east to
be communicated later, beyond which Armenia would be independent; (9)
and cession to Great Britain and France of all the Arabic-speaking
portions of the empire.
Certain details were left to direct negotiations between Italy and
Greece; and these led to the signing of three agreements by Premiers
Nitti and Venizelos, the first of which antedated by several months
the San Remo Conference. Italy promised to (1) concede Greek claims in
Thrace in return for withdrawal of Greek claims to the plain of the
Mæander River in Asia Minor; (2) hand over Northern Epirus to Greece;
and (3) surrender all the islands of the Dodecanese to Greece, except
Rhodes, for which a plebiscite was to be held after a stipulated number
of years.
The Turks gained only two points: the retention of sovereignty over
Constantinople, because of the intervention of Indian Mohammedans; and
the return of Cilicia, the claim to which was waived by France because
she was not strong enough militarily to hold it.
In the disposition of the Arabic-speaking portions of the Ottoman
Empire the Treaty of Sèvres clearly and specifically violated Article
XXII of the League of Nations Covenant. Palestine was made a “Jewish
national home” under the protection of Great Britain, and the rest of
the loot was divided in utmost secrecy. The premiers had consulted
neither their own parliaments nor the representatives of the races
whose land they were cutting up.
The Treaty of Sèvres was not signed until August 10, 1920, and was
already discredited long before the ceremony of the signature. Both
Premiers Millerand and Nitti had spoken openly against the treaty. The
latter said that Italy would contribute no troops to enforce it, and
doubted the possibility of getting it signed by men who represented the
Turkish nation.
The Treaty of Sèvres was declared null and void by Syrians and
Palestinians, who appealed to the League of Nations. The Arabic press
sustained the thesis that the three premiers were without competency
to decide the destinies of the Arabic-speaking world. They were
cosignatories of the Treaty of Versailles with the delegates of the
free and independent Hedjaz, and were bound by the Covenant to let the
League appoint the mandatory powers after the liberated races had been
consulted. Unless the creation of the Hedjaz was an expedient later to
be disavowed and the League of Nations a cloak for imperialism, the San
Remo Conference was as high-handed and illegal as it was impolitic. The
Hedjaz was the logical state to consult about the future of Palestine,
Syria, and Mesopotamia because of geographical proximity, ethnological
and religious affinity, and economic interest. Why was not the Hedjaz
as vitally interested in these Arabic-speaking neighboring regions as
was Great Britain in Ireland?
The Entente premiers at San Remo concluded a secret agreement
concerning spheres of influence and oil interests in the territories
affected by the Treaty of Sèvres, which, when news of it leaked out,
raised an outcry, especially in the United States. The State Department
made a strong protest against the assumption on the part of the three
Entente Powers of the right to regard the Ottoman mandates as exclusive
monopolies. This was according to neither the text nor the spirit of
the Peace Conference agreements, embodied in the Covenant.
Premier Nitti had been right in his prophecy at San Remo that
representative Turks could not be found to sign the treaty. The Turkish
delegation at Sèvres represented only a Constantinople Government
in captivity to the Entente Powers. There was a day of mourning
at Constantinople in protest against the treaty. But the Turkish
Nationalists issued a defiance from Angora, declaring that the Turks
would not be bound by the signature. Behind them stood not only Soviet
Russia, which had refused to recognize the four preceding treaties,
but also France and Italy, who had begun to fear that the Greeks were
agents of the British, and that the scheme of demilitarizing the
Straits would mean their control by the dominant sea-power.
The Treaty of Sèvres was not ratified. Its sole hope of success
depended upon the Greek army. In the end it was going to be seen that
force would save Turkey from partition, as it saved Albania, and that,
in the chaos and anarchy and slaughter ahead, the League of Nations was
going to make no effort to settle the Near Eastern question.