THE TURKISH NATIONALIST MOVEMENT
No armies were so decisively defeated in the closing months of the
World War as those of Turkey. The British retrieved their reverses
in Mesopotamia, while General Allenby, in the Palestinian campaign,
succeeded in striking a death-blow to Turkish military domination
over the Arabic-speaking portions of the Ottoman Empire. When it was
realized at Constantinople that Germany had come to the end of her
resources, Talaat and Enver, who had been in the saddle throughout the
war, resigned and got away. A new cabinet immediately entered into
negotiations for an armistice, but tried to delay capitulating in order
that Turkey might have the advantage of the conditional surrender
Germany was manœuvering to make. This proved to be impossible. On
October 30, 1918, the Sultan’s delegates agreed at Mudros to Allied
occupation of the Straits and Constantinople, as well as of the
Taurus tunnel system on the Bagdad Railway, and to the immediate
demobilization of the Turkish army, the surrender of the fleet, the
withdrawal of Turkish armies from the Caucasus, Persia, and Cilicia,
and the capitulation of Turkish garrisons and officers with indigenous
troops in Arabia, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Tripolitania.
After the armistice British armies entered the Caucasus, penetrated
Mesopotamia to Mosul, and passed through Syria into Cilicia. Entente
fleets appeared in the Bosphorus; garrisons were disembarked for
Constantinople; and Allied contingents took possession of the
Dardanelles forts. The British extended their control from the Asiatic
side of the Bosphorus along the Anatolian Railway to Eski Sheïr.
A prompt peace settlement, such as was imposed upon Germany, would have
compelled the Turks to yield to every demand of the Entente Powers.
But, as we have seen elsewhere, suspicions and rivalries of the Entente
Powers delayed the presentation of a treaty to Turkey. Nearly two years
passed before the Turks were forced to sign the Treaty of Sèvres. In
the meantime, the Entente Powers had invited Greece to occupy Smyrna
and to drive the Turks out of Thrace. The Greek expedition to Asia
Minor met with opposition from the beginning, and to break it down the
Greeks were gradually drawn into the interior of the country. Syria and
Cilicia were handed over to the French, and the British were compelled
to abandon the Caucasus and northern Persia to Soviet Russia.
Before the summer of 1920 there was already a wide divergence of
opinion on the Near Eastern question among the Entente Powers, and the
Turks, under Mustafa Kemal Pasha, had reorganized an army and were
defying the Sultan’s authority in the interior of Asia Minor. These
significant changes did not deter the Entente Powers, however, from
rejecting the pleas of the Turks for mitigation of the peace terms in
much the same language they had used to Germany a year before.
In view of what has happened since, it is interesting to observe that
the Supreme Council, in June, 1920, told Turkey that the Allies were
quite unable to agree that Turkey had any less responsibility for the
war than the countries to which she had been allied. In fact, they
declared that she was “guilty of peculiar treachery to Powers which for
more than half a century had been her steadfast friends,” and that she
had entered the war “without the shadow of excuse of provocation.” The
Allied note went on to say:
Not only has the Turkish Government failed to protect its subjects
of other races from pillage, outrage, and murder, but there is
abundant evidence that it has been responsible for directing and
organizing savagery against people to whom it owed protection.
For these reasons the Allied powers are resolved to emancipate
all areas inhabited by non-Turkish majority from Turkish rule. It
would neither be just nor would it conduce to lasting peace in the
Near and Middle East that large masses of non-Turkish nationality
should be forced to remain under Turkish rule. The Allies can make
no modification in the clauses of the treaty which detach Thrace
and Smyrna from Turkish rule, for in both areas the Turks are in
a minority. The same considerations apply to the frontiers fixed
between Syria and Turkey. For the same reason they can make no
change in the provisions which provide for the creation of a free
Armenia within boundaries which the President of the United States
will determine as fair and just.
The Entente Powers pointed out that they had been generous in leaving
the Turks in Constantinople and that, “in view of the misuse made by
the Turks of their power in the past, the Allies have had grave doubts
as to the wisdom of this step.” A threat and ultimatum ended the
discussion:
If the Turkish Government refuses to sign the peace, still more, if
it finds itself unable to reëstablish its authority in Asia Minor,
or to give effect to the treaty, the Allies, in accordance with the
terms of the treaty, may be driven to reconsider this arrangement,
by ejecting the Turks from Europe once and for all.
The sudden change in the attitude of the Entente Powers toward
Turkey, beginning only a few months after these words were uttered,
demonstrates their insincerity. They were not inspired by moral
indignation, by a desire to liberate subject peoples, or by a knowledge
of or belief in the ability or willingness of the three Powers, acting
together, to coerce the Turks. The British hoped that the Greeks by
their own efforts would be able to crush the rising Turkish Nationalist
movement. The French thought that if they yielded to the British, and
agreed to give the Greeks a chance, they would have British approval
and probably British aid in the policies they wanted to adopt in regard
to Turkey.
Beyond the reach of the guns of the Entente fleets, a group of virile
Turkish military men, which included most of the officers of the
partly disbanded army, was issuing manifestos, appealing to the people
against the Government and warning the Sultan and his ministers not
to sign the Treaty of Sèvres. When the Turkish delegation at Paris
put their names to the treaty, the Turkish Nationalists pronounced it
null and void, just as the German junkers have pronounced the Treaty
of Versailles null and void. The difference between the Turkish and
German Nationalists is that the latter have not yet come to the point
of repudiating their Government and starting a revolution. The Turkish
Nationalists severed their allegiance to the Constantinople Government
and held elections for a National Assembly. This body met at Angora,
formally denounced the Treaty of Versailles, and set forth their
program in a National Pact, for the realization of which they swore
solemnly to fight, and, if necessary, to die.
Because this document has been the “irreducible minimum” in the
negotiations with the powers at Lausanne, it is important to have a
clear knowledge of its terms. The Pact contains six articles:
1. The fate of the portion of the Ottoman territory which was under
enemy occupation at the time of the conclusion of the armistice
in October, 1919, will inevitably be regulated by plebiscite, the
territory in question being inhabited by an Arab majority. Those
portions of the Ottoman territory within as well as outside the
armistice line which are inhabited by Ottoman Mussulman majorities,
united among themselves by religion and racial ties and by a common
ideal as well as by sentiments of mutual respect, constitute an
indivisible whole, division whereof is impossible, either in theory
or in practice.
2. We accept a new plebiscite, if necessary, for the three
districts, Kars, Ardahan and Batum, which joined themselves to the
mother-country by vote of their inhabitants just as soon as they
recovered their liberty.
3. The adjustment of the question of Western Thrace, which has been
disputed with Turkey up until the conclusion of peace, will be made
the subject of a plebiscite executed with the fullest liberty to
its inhabitants.
4. The safety of Constantinople, headquarters of the Mussulman
caliphate and capital of the Ottoman Empire, as well as that of
the Sea of Marmora, must be assured. This condition once complied
with, Turkey must then treat with the Allied authorities the
subject of opening the Straits to world commerce.
5. The rights of minorities will be guaranteed by us in the hope
that the same rights will be granted to the Mussulman populations
in contiguous territories. The question of guarantees will be
subject to the same laws and principles which have been established
between the Entente and its enemies and between the Entente and
some of its allies.
6. Our highest and most vital principle is to have entire
independence, with which, as in the case of all other countries, we
shall be able to develop ourselves both socially and economically.
We are opposed to all restrictions which are but obstacles to our
political, judicial, and economic development. The terms of the
payment of our debts, which will certainly be settled, must not be
contrary to the spirit of this principle.
The terms of the Pact are in essence a declaration of independence
from foreign control. They ignore the fact that Turkey lost the war,
and should therefore expect to share the humiliations of her allies
by being subjected to penalties and indemnities. As the Entente
Powers have discovered at Lausanne, the Angora Government repudiates
responsibility for the World War, and the logical consequences of
defeat. The Turks who gathered for the adoption of a program of
resistance to the Entente Powers and Greece in the autumn of 1920
assumed that their revolutionary government was the rightful heir to
all the titles and privileges of the old Ottoman Empire, but to none
of its treaty obligations and its responsibilities in connection with
the lost war or the horrible massacres and deportations of Greeks and
Armenians during the war.
The four territorial articles of the Pact in no sense constitute a
confession of the altered position of Turkey because of her defeat.
The Arabic-speaking portions of the Empire are not given up. They are
to decide their future by a plebiscite, regardless of the mandates
of the Versailles Treaty and the League of Nations. The result of
the plebiscite might well be a decision to remain within the Ottoman
Empire. Aside from the Arabs, there is no question of a plebiscite,
except for the three provinces of the Caucasus which Turkey held in the
last year of the war. “Portions of the Ottoman territory within as well
as outside the armistice line ... constitute an indivisible whole.”
This means the flat denial of Kurdish, Armenian, and Greek aspirations.
Article 3 calls into question the line agreed upon in the Treaty of
London with the Balkan states in May, 1913. Article 4 admits in regard
to the Straits only what had always been an international privilege,
the “opening of the Straits to world commerce.”
Article 5, dealing with minorities, establishes the principle of
reciprocity. The Turks hope for reciprocal guarantees with neighboring
states, and they refuse to assent to any more specific guarantees than
those the Entente Powers cause to be inserted in the treaty with enemy
states and the smaller countries that were to profit by the dissolution
of the Hapsburg Empire.
The Nationalists rightly call “our highest and most vital principle”
the abolition of the capitulatory régime that had been in force, in
the relations of Turkey with Occidentals, since the beginning of the
Empire. Article 6 asserts the intention of the Turks to insist upon
full economic and social independence in their own country, which means
the abolition of the capitulations, tariff control, and the mortgage of
the Imperial Ottoman Debt upon certain monopolies and revenues.
How was a defeated country, whose capital and regularly constituted
government were at the mercy of the enemy, whose principal port and
the railways leading to it were in the hands of the Greeks, and which
had no fleet to challenge the Greek and Allied mastery of the sea,
to realize this ambitious program? The declarations of Mustafa Kemal
Pasha and his followers seemed to be absurd, in view of the military
situation. The Nationalists were well officered, and the Turks are
natural fighters. But they had no artillery and no airplanes, and
lacked both transportation facilities and factories to manufacture war
materials. Certainly the Angora Government could hope for no miracles
of valor to offset the handicap of a lack of the tools of modern
warfare. The era had passed when the willingness and ability to fight
and the possession of fighting men could influence, without other
contributing factors, the course of history. Had the Turks been treated
by the Entente Powers as the other enemies were treated, the Angora
movement would have had no significance, and the National Pact would
never have been important enough to be quoted in full in an English
book. The star of Turkish Nationalism arose and attracted attention,
and was able finally to twinkle impudently at every one at Lausanne,
because Russia, France, and Italy were quick to see the opportunity the
Mustafa Kemal Pasha group afforded for advancing their own interests in
the Near East and in world politics generally.
Russian emissaries appeared at Angora soon after the movement
started, and the Nationalist leaders found how much they really had
in common with the Bolshevists: bitter hatred of the capitalist
countries whose exploitation of Turkey had led to her enslavement and
virtual dismemberment. The Turks joined the Bolshevists in invading
Armenia. Russian Armenia had to accept a Soviet form of government,
and renounce the hope of annexing any part of the Ottoman Armenian
provinces. The Turks recognized Soviet Armenia and the Soviet Republic
of Adjaristan. The latter were nothing more than the port of Batum and
its immediate hinterland. The Turkish frontier was twelve miles from
Batum, which became the principal port for Moscow aid to Angora.
With Russian help the Nationalists were able to attack the French in
Cilicia. The French were driven out of Marash, and, after a pitched
battle on the Bagdad Railway, north of Alexandretta, the French
retired from Cilicia altogether, leaving to the mercy of the Turks
the Armenians, whom they had formed in battalions to help them fight,
and abandoning enormous war supplies of every kind. Charges have been
made that the French left these supplies purposely, and also that they
abandoned the Armenians when the military situation did not necessitate
their doing so. Color was given to the accusation by the fact that the
French were already in secret negotiations with the Nationalists and by
the statements later made at Angora by M. Franklin Bouillon that the
Nationalists had reason to appreciate the good will France had shown in
Cilicia.
The Nationalist successes in the Caucasus and Cilicia occurred in
March, 1921. One month earlier the Angora Government had sent a
delegation to the London conference, authority of which was recognized
by the Constantinople Turks, who joined their delegation with that
of Angora, and acknowledged the Nationalist leader, Bekir Sami Bey,
as head of the joint delegation. Little progress was made at the
London Conference, as we have seen elsewhere, in the solution of the
Near Eastern question. But Bekir Sami Bey concluded at London secret
treaties with France and Italy. The Italian treaty gave Italy important
economic concessions, and promised the withdrawal of Italian troops
from Turkish territory, in return for Italian support to secure the
restitution of Smyrna and Thrace to Turkey. The Angora assembly was not
satisfied with the French treaty and refused to ratify it, pending the
outcome of the military operations in Cilicia.
On March 16, 1921, the Nationalists concluded a treaty with Soviet
Russia, according to which each contracting party pledged itself not
to recognize any treaty or other agreement imposed upon the other
party by force, and the Russians promised to ignore the Constantinople
Government. On July 30 the Angora National Assembly ratified by 202
votes against 1 the treaty with the Bolshevists.
Angora’s relations with Moscow, and the humiliation inflicted upon her
in Cilicia and by the refusal of Angora to ratify the treaty concluded
in London, did not deter France from continuing to seek favors at
Angora. M. Franklin Bouillon, who was president of the Foreign
Relations Committee of the French Senate, made two visits to Angora in
June and September. The second proved more fruitful than the first, for
in the meantime the Greeks had won notable victories and had extended
their occupation in Western Asia Minor. It is a sad commentary upon the
fundamental heartlessness and cynicism of international politics that
France, who profited greatly in Syria by the Greek victories of the
summer of 1921, should have used the advantage they gave her to help
her enemies against her ally.
On October 20, 1921, Mustafa Kemal Pasha and M. Franklin Bouillon
signed a treaty, which was ratified by the French Government ten days
later. The convention was elaborate. France not only gave back to
the Nationalists Cilicia (which she had received from Great Britain)
without any stipulation for the protection of the unfortunate Armenians
to whom the French authorities in Cilicia had appealed three years
earlier to help France against the Turks, but returned to Turkish
rule a strip of northern Syria that had been included in the mandate
entrusted to France by the League of Nations. The section of the
Bagdad Railway up to the Tigris was restored to Turkey. In return
for extensive and exclusive economic concessions and preferential
commercial treatment, France agreed to make the same promise that Italy
had made, i. e., to support the Angora Government in ousting Greece
from Smyrna and Thrace. The news of the treaty, leaking out almost
immediately, caused a great outcry against France in Great Britain.
Parliament and press united in denouncing the French act as a blow to
the Entente alliance, a disloyal and underhand proceeding, and the
betrayal of France’s glorious and traditional rôle as protector of the
Christians in the Levant.
The success of the Kemalists in 1921 had as great an effect at
Constantinople as at Athens. At the beginning of the year Mustafa Kemal
Pasha had officially notified the Constantinople Grand Vizir that the
Angora Nationalist Government was the only government in Turkey, and
that no measures passed or decrees issued in Constantinople would
thereafter be considered as valid. This was a warning to all the world.
Gradually during the year Angora increased in prestige among the Turks,
and the Sultan’s authority diminished. Despite the unfavorable military
situation of the Kemalists in Western Asia Minor, the great mass of
the Turks in Constantinople believed that salvation would come to
Angora. On November 1, 1921, the Angora Government declared itself
constitutional, with the cabinet fully responsible to parliament. A
commission was appointed to suggest modifications to the Constitution
of 1908. Mustafa Kemal Pasha announced that when his Government
returned to Constantinople the power of the Sultan would be strictly
limited.
In 1922 Angora became the Mecca of concession-hunters, Bolshevist and
anti-Bolshevist agitators, and European agents for the sale of war
materials. Because of the refusal of France and Italy to tolerate a
Greek blockade, the Kemalists were able to import all the supplies they
could buy for cash or on credit. In the spring they began to use the
same means they had employed against the Armenians to exterminate the
several hundred thousand Greeks living in the Black Sea regions, mostly
in the old kingdom of Pontus, whose medieval capital was Trebizond.
News of the massacres and deportations was carefully concealed; for the
Turks knew that the principal misgiving Entente diplomacy had in the
matter of the restoration of Western Asia Minor to Turkish rule was the
fear of massacres of Christians, which would perturb public opinion.
The Nationalists seemed to have become friends with all the world
except the British. Lloyd George and Curzon were rightly suspected
of secretly encouraging the Greeks and of hostility to the Kemalist
movement. Nationalism always being akin to fanaticism, it was not
surprising that anti-British feeling should become one of the cardinal
points of Kemalism. The British seemed to stand between the Turks and
their escape from the consequences of the World War, while the French
and Italians were willing to let them off scot-free. The British also
were the opponents of Nationalism throughout the Mohammedan world,
in Egypt, Mesopotamia, Palestine, Persia, and India. The attitude of
the Nationalists toward Great Britain is illustrated by extracts from
an article published in the spring of 1922 in the “Peyam Sabah,” an
Angora newspaper, over the signature of one of Kemal Pasha’s leading
satellites, Aka Goundouz:
One thing stands out definite, unshakable, eruptive like a volcano,
stable and firm like the faith in God, infinite like time and
darkness: hatred against the British.
The Mohammedan who really feels the need of purity of spirit in
support of his religious convictions needs something else: hatred
against the British.
It is the British who sow trouble and discord amongst you,
O servants of Christ. You should therefore know that if the
commandments of the Holy Spirit are ten in number, the eleventh
should be hatred against the British.
There is a certain force which blows up civilization, kicks at
virtue, and opposes humanity: it is England.
There is a typhoon which soaks with blood the cradles of the
innocent, devastates the hearths, and causes foams of blood to
cover lips that wish to smile: it is England.
And you, army of the Creator and Just One! Every time you massacre
a Greek you are pulling down one of the corner-stones of the
British Empire. So, for God’s sake, massacre. For the love of your
country, massacre. O army of righteousness, on the day of your
victory everybody will spit on the shameless face of the British.
In May and June the British press made much of reports of massacres,
and the question of the responsibility of the Entente Powers was
brought up in Parliament. Because the Kemalists had answered by
blanket denials and by counter-charges against the Greeks, which were
supported by the French and also by American concession-hunters, the
British Government proposed a commission of investigation in which
the United States was invited to participate. The commission was to
visit the regions occupied by the Greeks as well as those over which
the Kemalists held sway, and report to the Supreme Council. Secretary
Hughes accepted the proposal. So did the Greek Government. But the
Angora Government refused, on the ground that the commission would be
made up of those who were technically still the enemies of Turkey. At
the closing session of Parliament, on August 5, 1922, Lloyd George made
a stirring speech against the claims of the Turkish Nationalists.
Then followed the attack against the Greek front at the end of August,
the panic in the Greek army, and the sensational collapse of the
Greeks. The victory was as easy for the Turks, virtually unopposed, as
it was sudden and unexpected. Within a few weeks the Nationalists had
overrun all the territories the Greeks had taken two years to conquer,
and were marching on Constantinople. The Italians had already got out
of Asia Minor. Paris wired orders to the commander of the French troops
in Constantinople to withdraw to the European side of the Bosphorus.
The British Government, however, decided that the armistice of Mudros
must be respected until a new treaty was made to replace the Treaty
of Sèvres. Reinforcements, naval and military, were hurried to the
Dardanelles. General Harington was given full powers to prevent the
violation of the armistice terms. Chanak, on the Asiatic side of the
Bosphorus, was hastily fortified. Lloyd George appealed to the British
dominions for support and warned Mustapha Kemal Pasha that an overt act
on the part of the Nationalists would mean war.
The French Government, alarmed at the turn events had taken, and
urged by French holders of Turkish bonds not to allow the Kemalists
to provoke the British, tried to persuade Lloyd George and Curzon to
meet the Turks half-way. London answered that His Majesty’s Government
was willing to recognize the new conditions created by the Turkish
victories in Asia Minor and to agree to let the Turks have back Eastern
Thrace after the new treaty was signed, but no concession could be
made in regard to the Straits. Poincaré then sent Franklin Bouillon
to convince Kemal Pasha of the folly of attacking the British; for
by this action he would certainly lose all he had gained. After days
of suspense during which the British held firm, the Turks agreed to
meet the Entente Powers and the Greeks in an armistice conference at
Mudania, on the Sea of Marmora.
The Turks wanted to reoccupy Constantinople and Thrace immediately.
The British refused. After long discussion a compromise was made.
The Greeks should evacuate Eastern Thrace; and Turkish gendarmes,
with civilian functionaries, should be allowed to take over the
administration of Thrace, pending the decision of the Peace Conference.
The Nationalists might also send functionaries to Constantinople. But
the Entente Powers should remain in control of the Straits, and the
garrisons at Constantinople should not be withdrawn until after peace
was signed. This was the situation when the delegates of the Entente
Powers, the Little Entente, Greece, and Turkey--all of whom had signed
the defunct Treaty of Sèvres--met at Lausanne on November 20, 1922, to
try again to establish peace in the Near East.
The Turkish Nationalists had numerous friends in Europe and America
ever since the beginning of the movement. It is not open to question
that the Treaty of Sèvres was as bad a treaty as the other four
treaties of the Paris peace settlement. It transferred Turks and other
Moslems to the rule of their former subjects. It contained economic
fetters and intolerable limitations of sovereignty. But there is no
objection to the Treaty of Sèvres that would not hold with equal force
in regard to the other treaties. In fact, its injustices were less,
and the provocation for its punishments and guarantees for the future
were as great as that which explained the Treaty of Versailles, if not
greater. Morally or logically speaking, protagonists for the Turks have
no more ground to stand upon than protagonists for the Germans.
The movement for the revision of the Treaty of Sèvres, which was begun
before the treaty was signed, had its origin in the economic rivalry
and the mutual suspicions of the victors. Had not this conflict of
interests, which we attempt to explain in discussing the question of
the Straits, became acute enough for Italy and France to decide to give
encouragement and aid to the Turkish Nationalist movement, there need
not have been a Lausanne Conference.
The sentimentalists, who see in Mustapha Kemal Pasha “the George
Washington of his country,” had not studied the Young Turk movement
of a decade ago and experienced its bitter disillusionment. The
influences that are contributing to the success of Mustapha Kemal Pasha
are as numerous and seemingly contradictory as those that brought
to the fore Lenin and Mussolini. Because of the ignorance of the
Anatolian Turks, their lack of knowledge and appreciation of Occidental
political institutions, and their indifference or actual hostility to
the economic and social impulses guiding and directing European and
American life, the attempt to find an analogy between the Turks and
ourselves in similar circumstances is futile.[24]
All we can safely do is to point out that the Kemalists are
inexperienced in the art of governing and are military masters of the
situation only in a defensive sense. They live in a country without
roads and railways, into which, as the Greeks learned, penetration is
costly and dangerous. The Nationalists seem to realize this advantage,
and talk of making Angora the capital of New Turkey. Constantinople
and Brusa, as recent events have proved, are so situated that any
Turkish Government would be at the mercy of the Greeks, not to mention
the great powers. Despite the threats at Mudania and Lausanne, the
Kemalists were not in a position to break off the negotiations. Such a
course would have again lost them Eastern Thrace. Lacking sea-power,
they would not have been able to take the offensive against the Greeks
in Europe. Even if they had succeeded in doing so, they would have had
the Little Entente to reckon with. As potential foes, however, they
worried the Entente Powers because of the uncertainty of the attitude
of Russia and the apprehension of Mohammedan unrest in British, French,
and Italian colonies.
The strength of the Turkish Nationalist movement has not been, as some
people have imagined, in the invincible patriotism of the Turkish
people, the leadership of the Mohammedan world, or the threat of
Mustafa Kemal Pasha to band together the Turanian peoples of Western
and Central Asia against European overlordship. Volumes have been
written on each of these supposed sources of strength. None of them is
convincing.
There are hardly more than 6,000,000 Turks, scattered over a vast
territory and living under primitive conditions. That they know
what patriotism is in our Occidental connotation of that term is
impossible. The educated younger generation of Turks are patriots, and
sincerely love and believe in their country. But they are a handful.
Caught between the older generation of the upper class, which is
still Hamidian in spirit and methods, and the apathetic and ignorant
Anatolian peasantry, there is something pathetic about the enthusiasm
and incredible credulity of earnest and highminded young people of both
sexes.
The Turkish Nationalist movement, like most nationalist movements, is
anti-clerical. The Angora Turks have gone as far as they dared, in view
of the advantages of religious fanaticism in their internal policy and
of Mohammedan solidarity in their foreign policy, to put the worship
of race and country in the place of the worship of God through the
intermediary of the Mohammedan faith and practice. The decree of the
National Assembly on November 1, 1922, terminating the temporal power
of the House of Osman, and assuming the right of the Angora Assembly
to elect a new Khalif for the Mohammedan world, illustrates how the
Nationalists regard their internal interests and the triumph of their
party as transcending religious considerations and the sentiments of
the Mohammedan world. The assumption that “the Turkish Government will
be the principal rampart of the Khalifate” (to quote the decree) is a
revelation of the state of mind of the Nationalist leaders, obsessed
by the idea that a few million Turks, having destroyed the historic
Sultanate, could expect to dominate Islam and to capitalize it for
their particular interests. The Sultan fled from Constantinople to
Malta on a British warship, and later proceeded to Mecca, where he was
received as Khalif by the Arabs. He has not abdicated and refuses to
recognize the validity of the Angora Assembly’s decree abolishing the
temporal power of the House of Osman and removing him from his position
as spiritual head of those who profess the orthodox Mohammedan faith.
There have been surface indications, however, of a seeming Mohammedan
solidarity, which have deceived the casual newspaper reader and have
undoubtedly powerfully helped the Turkish Nationalist cause. A sacred
flag of Islam was sent by the Turks to the Mohammedans of India in
February, 1923, when the first Lausanne Conference broke up. It was
used as a symbol in processions in Bombay and other cities, which
ended in mass meetings of Mohammedans in which sympathy and support
for Turkey were voted. Along with these demonstrations there has been
a recruiting movement in Northern India, which has been supplying
the Turks with Indian and Afghan volunteers. Assurances have been
given that Angora can rely on 200,000 trained volunteers and an
insurrectionary movement in India as well, should war come as a result
of the failure of the Lausanne Conference.
These indications must be interpreted as moves in the Nationalist
trouble against the British in India, and not as a recognition of the
importance of the Turks in the Mohammedan world. The whole Turkish race
in Asia Minor numbers less than one-tenth of the Moslems of India!
While the Indian Moslems are backing the Turks they are also interested
in gauging the strength of Arabic opposition to Great Britain, and
have accepted the Arabic determination to remain from now on free
from Turkish domination. Angora was ignored at the April Lucknow
Conference, on the question of the administration of Mohammedan Holy
Lands and regulations for the Mecca pilgrimage. There was no reference
to Constantinople or Angora, and it was decided to send a deputation
to the rulers of Hedjaz and Irak, for the purpose of anti-British
agitation.
If it is difficult to see how the Turkish Nationalist movement is
going to control the Mohammedan world, it is still more difficult to
accept the idea that there is such a movement as pan-Turanianism, of
which the Nationalists make so much. In the days of its glory, the
Ottoman Empire included the Caucasus and the entire coast of the Black
Sea. The Ottoman Turks were masters of a part of the Turanian race and
neighbors of the Turanians of Central Asia. During the latter part of
the World War, and for a brief moment in the early part of 1921, the
Ottoman Turks partly restored the old contacts. But these were broken
again by the Bolshevists, who have proved themselves in Asia tenacious
inheritors of traditional Russian foreign policy. Half a century ago
the Ottoman Turks lost to Russia the last of the Turanian regions in
the Caucasus. In 1921 they were compelled again to relinquish the dream
of leading the Turanians. The Ottoman Turks are incapable of coping
with the Russians, whatever form of government Russia may have. A
pan-Turanian movement, deriving its inspiration from Turkey and giving
power to Turkey, does not need to be reckoned with as a probability in
world politics.
The strength of the Turkish Nationalists is in the geographical
position of their country, from the outlet of the Black Sea to the
sources of the Mesopotamian rivers, where Russia and Great Britain
fear they will some day meet in a struggle for the control of India,
and from which France, Italy, and Germany are determined not to be
excluded. If we realize this, we shall see that governmental backing
of oil, mining, railway, and port concessions have a political as well
as a commercial motive. Fear is the incentive to greed. The success
that has attended the Turkish Nationalist movement is due to the
recognition of this fact by Mustafa Kemal Pasha and his associates;
their own political future--and the importance of the New Turkey--will
depend upon their ability to make good use of it.