once the most fertile and populous in the world, have been reduced by
Turkish misrule and neglect to a condition which is indistinguishable
from the wilderness, alone proves that the Turk is a blight and a
curse wherever he pitches his tent, and that he ought in the interests
of humanity to be treated as such. When a race, which has no title to
its lands other than conquest, so mismanages the territories it holds
by violence as to deprive the world of an essential contribution to
its well-being, the nations have a right--nay, a duty--to intervene
in order to restore these devastated areas to civilisation. This same
duty constitutes the reason and justification for the white settlers of
America overriding the prior claims of the Indian to the prairies and
forests of the great West.
On the shores of the Mediterranean are two races with a surplus
population of hard-working, intelligent cultivators, both of them
belonging to countries which had themselves in the past been
responsible for the government of the doomed lands covered by the
Turkish Empire. Greece and Italy could claim that under their rule
this vast territory throve and prospered mightily. They now pour
their overflow of population into lands far away from the motherland.
Yet they are essentially Mediterranean peoples. The history of the
Mediterranean will for ever be associated with their achievements on
its shores and its waters. The derelict wastes of Asia Minor need them.
Valleys formerly crowded with tillers are now practically abandoned
to the desert weeds. Irrigation has been destroyed or neglected. The
Italian engineers are amongst the best in the world, and once they
were introduced into Asia Minor would make cultivation again possible.
There is plenty of scope in the deserts of Anatolia for both Italian
and Greek. I was hoping for a peace that would set them both working.
Had such a settlement been attained, a generation hence would have
witnessed gardens thronging with happy men, women, and children, where
now you have a wilderness across which men, women, and children are
periodically hunted down into nameless horror.
Yet another reason for the Allied decision was the bitter resentment
that existed at the ingratitude displayed by the Turk towards Britain
and France. They were naturally indignant that he should have joined
their foes and slammed the gate of the Dardanelles in their face,
and by that means complicated and prolonged their campaign and added
enormously to their burdens, their losses, and their dangers. But he
had not the thankfulness even of the beast of prey in the legend
towards the man who had cured his wounded limb. France and Britain
had many a time extracted the thorn from the Turkish paw when he was
limping along in impotent misery. They had done more. They had often
saved the life of that Empire when the Russian bear was on the point of
crushing it out of existence; and yet without provocation, without even
a quarrel, he had betrayed them to their enemies.
I have set out shortly what the war policy of the Allies was in
reference to Turkey. The Treaty of Sèvres considerably modified that
policy in many vital aspects. By that Treaty, Constantinople, Cilicia,
and Southern Anatolia were left to the Turk; Armenia was created into
an independent State. There were many objections which could be raised
to the original proposals of 1915, as it might be argued that they
contemplated handing over in Cilicia and Southern Anatolia populations
which in the main were Turkish and Moslem to Christian rulers. But in
substance the modified plan of Sèvres was sound, and if carried out
would have conduced to the well-being of the millions to be liberated
by its terms for ever from Turkish rule. The world at large also
would have benefited by the opportunity afforded to the industrious
and intelligent Armenian and Greek populations of Turkey to renew the
fertility of this land, once so bountiful in its gifts, thus enriching
man's store of good things. The barbarian invasion which withered that
fertility was pushed back into the interior by the Treaty of Sèvres.
The Treaty of Lausanne has extended and perpetuated its sway from the
Black Sea to the Mediterranean. I have explained the why and wherefore
of Sèvres. But why Lausanne? It is a long and painful story--a compound
of shortsightedness, disloyalty, selfishness, and pusillanimity amongst
nations and their statesmen. And more than all, Fate happened to be
in its grimmest mood when dealing with this problem. The Russian
Revolution eliminated that great country from the solution of the
problem on the lines of protection for the oppressed races of Turkey,
and instead cast its might on the side of the oppressor. President
Wilson was inclined to recommend that the United States of America
should undertake the mandate for the Armenians. Had he succeeded, what
a different story would now have been told! What a different story the
generations to come would also tell! But his health broke down at the
vital moment and America would have none of his humanitarian schemes.
Then came the departure of Sonnino from the Quirinal. With him went
for a momentous while the old dreams of Italian colonisation, which in
the past had done so much to spread civilisation in three continents.
His successors were homelier men. I have still my doubts as to whether
they served Italy best by the less adventurous and more domesticated
policy they pursued. The future may decide that issue. But whatever the
decision, the time for action passed away, and unless and until there
is another break up in Turkey, the chance Italy has lost since 1919
will not be recovered. Will it ever come back?
There followed the French check in Cilicia, and the negotiations
at Angora with Mustapha Kemal, which were both single-handed and
under-handed; for the Allies were not even informed of what was going
on. This was a fatal step, for it broke up the unity which alone would
enable the Western Powers to deal effectively with the Turk. This
unity was never fully re-created. There can be no reunion without
confidence. There can be no trust in the West that is broken in
the East. Much of the recent mischief in the Entente came from the
clandestine negotiations at Angora.
The last fatal change was the Greek revolt against Venizelos. It is
often said that he is the greatest statesman thrown up by that race
since Pericles. In all he has undertaken he has never failed his
people. Disaster has always come to them when they refused to follow
his guidance. When King Alexander was killed by a monkey, the Greeks
were called upon to decide between Constantine and Venizelos. Their
choice was ruinous to their country. No greater evil can befall a
nation than to choose for its ruler a stubborn man with no common
sense. Before the advent of Constantine, Greece, with no aid and
little countenance from the Powers, was able to hold the forces of
Mustapha Kemal easily at bay and even to drive him back into the
fastnesses of Anatolia. In encounter after encounter the Greek army,
led by men chosen for their military gifts and sufficiently well
equipped, inflicted defeat after defeat on the armies of Angora. But
with Constantine came a change. In the Greek army, courtiers were
substituted for soldiers in the high command. French, British and
Italian public opinion, with the memory of Constantine's treachery
during the war still fresh in their minds, altered their attitude
towards the Greeks who had elevated him to the throne in defiance of
Allied sentiment. Indifferent Powers became hostile; hostile Powers
became active. The final catastrophe began with the heroic but foolish
march of the Greek army into the defiles of Asia Minor, followed
by the inevitable retreat. It was consummated when Constantine for
dynastic reasons appointed to the command of the troops in Asia Minor
a crazy general whose mental condition had been under medical review.
The Greeks fight valiantly when well led, but like the French, once
they know they are not well led, confidence goes, and with confidence
courage. Before the Kemalist attack reached their lines the Greek
army was beaten and in full retreat. With attack came panic, with
panic the complete destruction of what was once a fine army. With the
disappearance of that army vanished the last hope for the salvation of
Anatolia. That the history of the East, and probably the West, should
have been changed by the bite of a monkey is just another grimace of
the comic spirit which bursts now and again into the pages of every
great tragedy.
All that could be done afterwards was to save the remnants of a great
policy. Western civilisation put up its last fight against the return
of savagery into Europe, when in September and October of last year
British soldiers and sailors, deserted by allies and associates alike,
saved Constantinople from hideous carnage. The Pact of Mudania was
not Sèvres, but it certainly was better than Lausanne. From Sèvres to
Mudania was a retreat. From Mudania to Lausanne is a rout.
What next? Lausanne is not a terminus, it is only a milestone. Where
is the next? No one claims that this Treaty is peace with honour. It
is not even peace. If one were dealing with a regenerated Turk, there
might be hope. But the burning of Smyrna, and the cold-blooded murders
of tens of thousands of young Greeks in the interior, prove that the
Turk is still unchanged. To quote again from the correspondent of _The
Times_ at Lausanne:--
"All such evidence as can be obtained here confirms the belief
that the new Turk is but the old, and that the coming era of
enlightenment and brotherly love in Turkey, for which it is the
correct thing officially to hope, will be from the foreigners'
point of view at best a humiliating, and at worst a bloody, chaos."
The amazing legend that the Turk is a gentleman is dying hard.
That legend has saved him many a time when he was on the brink of
destruction. It came to his aid in October last when the policy of
this country was changed by the revolt of the Turcophile against the
Coalition. The Turk has massacred hundreds of thousands of Armenians,
and dishonoured myriads of Christian women who trusted to his
protection. Nevertheless the Turk is a gentleman! By his indolence,
his shiftiness, his stupidity, and his wantonness, he has reduced a
garden to a desert. What better proof can there be that he is a real
gentleman? For a German bribe he sold the friends who had repeatedly
saved his wretched life. All the same, what a gentleman he is! He
treated British prisoners with a barbarous neglect that killed them off
in hundreds. Still, he is such a gentleman! He plunders, he slays, and
outrages those who are unable to defend themselves. He misgoverns,
cheats, lies, and betrays. For all that, the Turk is a gentleman! So an
agitation was engineered with perverse tenacity to save this fine old
Oriental gentleman from the plebeian hands that sought his destruction.
Hence the black Treaty of Lausanne.
_London, July 25th, 1923_
FOOTNOTE:
[12] London, July 25th, 1923. The Treaty of Lausanne, between the
Allies and the Turks, was signed on July 24th, 1923.
XXIX
THE SIGNING OF THE IRISH TREATY
When a few days ago I was half-way through the speech I delivered in
the House of Commons on the land system the faithful Commons were
summoned in the manner consecrated by centuries of tradition to the bar
of the House of Lords to hear the royal assent being given to the bill
for the constitution of the Irish Free State. Notwithstanding a natural
preoccupation with my interrupted speech two scenes came to my mind
during my short journey to and from the upper chamber.
The first was the spectacle of a crowded House of Commons nearly
thirty years ago. When the doors were opened for prayers there was the
unwonted sight of a throng of hustling M.P.'s pressing through the
swing doors to secure seats. I need hardly say this was not the symptom
or the outcome of any religious revival amongst our legislators. It
was entirely due to the ancient custom that confers upon a member
occupying a seat at prayers the unchallengeable right to that seat
for the rest of the sitting. Rows of chairs were arrayed on the floor
of the House. That was an innovation never since followed. What was it
all about? There sat in the middle of the Treasury bench huddled up and
almost hidden by more stalwart and upright figures an old man of 83
years, to all appearances in the last stage of physical decrepitude and
mental lassitude. His name was William Ewart Gladstone, the greatest
parliamentary gladiator of all time. The lifelong champion of oppressed
nationalities was to-day to inaugurate his final effort to give freedom
to the Irish race trodden for centuries by ruthless force. The last
remnant of his strength was to be consecrated to the achievement of
Irish liberty, and hundreds of eager legislators to whom Peel and
Russell, Palmerston and Disraeli were but historical names, were avid
competitors for seats from which they could better listen to a man who
had sat in governments with the first three and crossed swords with the
fourth. It was a memorable sight.
The preliminary questions which precede all parliamentary business were
by common consent postponed, and a deep and solemn silence thrilling
with expectancy fell upon the humming assembly as Mr. Speaker Peel
in his sonorous voice called out "the Prime Minister." The inert heap
which was the centre of all gaze sprang to the table an erect and
alert figure. The decrepitude was cast off like a cloak--the lassitude
vanished as by a magician's wand, the shoulders were thrown back, the
chest was thrown forward, and in deep, ringing tones full of music and
force the proposed new Irish charter was expounded for three unwearying
hours by the transfigured octogenarian rejuvenated by the magic of an
inspired soul. I had a seat just opposite the great orator. I was one
of the multitude who on that occasion listened with marvel to that
feat of intellectual command and physical endurance. It was more than
that. It was an unrivalled display of moral courage, rare in political
conflict. Mr. Gladstone had only just emerged out of a general election
where, in spite of six years of his eloquent advocacy, the voice of
Great Britain had declared emphatically against his Irish policy, and
the poor parliamentary majority at his back was made up out of the
preponderating Irish vote in favour of Home Rule. He was confronted
with the most formidable parliamentary opposition ever ranged against
a minister, redoubtable in debating quality, still more redoubtable in
its hold on British pride. He was eighty-three years of age, but he
never quailed, and through the sultry summer months of 1893 he fought
night by night with mighty strokes the battle of Irish emancipation. He
did not live to carry the cause through to victory, but he planted the
banner so firmly in the soil that no assault could succeed in tearing
it down, and on the day when I stood with Mr. Bonar Law at the bar of
the House of Lords I saw this banner flourished in triumph from the
steps of the throne by a Unionist Lord Chancellor. That was the first
memory that flashed through my brain.
The next was of a dreary December night just one year ago when on one
side of the Cabinet table in 10 Downing Street sat four representatives
of Great Britain and on the other five Irish leaders. It was the famous
room wherein British cabinets have for generations forged their Irish
policies. Coercion and concession alike issued from that chamber.
Pitt's Act of Union was discussed there, and so were Gladstone's
Home Rule bills, the decision to use British soldiers to throw Irish
tenants out of their houses with battering ram and torch and equally
the bill which made every Irish tenant lord and master of his home at
the expense of the British treasury--all issued forth from this simple
and unadorned council chamber. And now came the final treaty of peace.
Would it be signed? It was an anxious moment charged with destiny for
the two great races who confronted each other at that green table.
The British representatives who were associated with me on the occasion
were Mr. Austen Chamberlain; [I recall now how he sat by the side of
his doughty father, Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, in 1893, during the famous
nightly duel between him and Mr. Gladstone. How strangely little thirty
arduous years have changed his personal appearance!] Lord Birkenhead,
who, in 1893 was carving for himself a brilliant career as a student
at Oxford and as a debater in the Union; Mr. Winston Churchill who was
then a cadet at Sandhurst whilst his father was engaged in the last
great parliamentary struggle of his dazzling but tragic career; Sir
Gordon Hewart, now Lord Hewart, the man who has risen on the pinions of
a powerful intelligence to the height of Lord Chief Justice of England.
My recollection is that the other two British delegates--Sir Laming
Worthington-Evans and Sir Hamar Greenwood--were stricken with illness
and were unable to be present. After weeks of close investigation the
climax of decision had been reached. Britain had gone to the limit of
concession. No British statesman could have faced any assembly of his
countrymen had he appended his signature to a convention that placed
Ireland outside that fraternity of free nations known as the British
Empire or freed her from that bond of union which is represented by a
common fealty to the sovereign. It is not easy to interpret the potency
of this invisible bond to those who are brought up to venerate other
systems. It is nevertheless invincible. Would the Irish leaders have
the courage to make peace on the only conditions under which peace was
attainable--liberty within the Empire?
Opposite me sat a dark, short, but sturdy figure with the face of a
thinker. That was Mr. Arthur Griffith, the most un-Irish leader that
ever led Ireland, quiet to the point of gentleness, reserved almost
to the point of appearing saturnine. A man of laconic utterance, he
answered in monosyllables where most men would have considered an
oratorical deliverance to be demanded by the dignity of the occasion.
But we found in our few weeks' acquaintance that his yea was yea and
his nay meant nay. He led the Irish deputation. He was asked whether he
would sign. In his abrupt, staccato manner he replied, "Speaking on my
own behalf I mean to sign."
By his side sat a handsome young Irishman. No one could mistake his
nationality. He was Irish through and through, in every respect a
contrast to his taciturn neighbour. Vivacious, buoyant, highly strung,
gay, impulsive, but passing readily from gaiety to grimness and back
again to gaiety, full of fascination and charm--but also of dangerous
fire. That was Michael Collins, one of the most courageous leaders ever
produced by a valiant race. Nevertheless he hesitated painfully when
the quiet and gentle little figure on his left had taken his resolve.
Both saw the shadow of doom clouding over that fateful paper--their own
doom. They knew that the pen which affixed their signature at the same
moment signed their death-warrant. The little man saw beyond his own
fall Ireland rising out of her troubles a free nation and that sufficed
for him. Michael Collins was not appalled by the spectre of death, but
he had the Irishman's fear of encountering that charge which comes
so readily to the lips of the oppressed--that of having succumbed to
alien wile and betrayed their country. Patriots who cheerfully face
the tyrant's steel lose their nerve before that dread accusation. It
was the first time Michael Collins ever showed fear. It was also the
last. I knew the reason why he halted, although he never uttered a
word which revealed his mind, and I addressed my appeal to an effort
to demonstrate how the treaty gave Ireland more than Daniel O'Connell
and Parnell had ever hoped for, and how his countrymen would be ever
grateful to him not only for the courage which won such an offer, but
for the wisdom that accepted it.
He asked for a few hours to consider, promising a reply by nine
o'clock. Nine passed, but the Irish leaders did not return. Ten.
Eleven, and they were not yet back. We had doubts as to whether we
should see them again. Then came a message from the secretary of the
Irish delegation that they were on their way to Downing Street. When
they marched in it was clear from their faces that they had come to
a great decision after a prolonged struggle. But there were still
difficulties to overcome--they were, however, difficulties not of
principle but of detail. These were discussed in a businesslike way,
and soon after one o'clock in the morning the treaty was complete. A
friendly chat full of cheerful goodwill occupied the time whilst the
stenographers were engaged in copying the draft so disfigured with the
corrections, interpolations and additions, each of which represented so
many hours of hammering discussion.
Outside in the lobby sat a man who had used all the resources of an
ingenious and well-trained mind backed by a tenacious will to wreck
every endeavour to reach agreement--Mr. Erskine Childers, a man whose
slight figure, whose kindly, refined and intellectual countenance,
whose calm and courteous demeanour offered no clue to the fierce
passions which raged inside his breast. At every crucial point in the
negotiations he played a sinister part. He was clearly Mr. de Valera's
emissary, and faithfully did he fulfil the trust reposed in him by that
visionary. Every draft that emanated from his pen--and all the first
drafts were written by him--challenged every fundamental position to
which the British delegates were irrevocably committed. He was one of
those men who by temperament are incapable of compromise. Brave and
resolute he undoubtedly was, but unhappily for himself he was also
rigid and fanatical. When we walked out of the room where we had sat
for hours together, worn with tense and anxious labour, but all happy
that our great task of reconciliation had been achieved, we met Mr.
Erskine Childers outside sullen with disappointment and compressed
wrath at what he conceived to be the surrender of principles he had
fought for.
I never saw him after that morning. Michael Collins and Arthur Griffith
I met repeatedly after the signature of the treaty, to discuss the
many obstacles that surged up in the way of its execution, and I
acquired for both a great affection. Poor Collins was shot by one of
his own countrymen on a bleak Irish roadside, whilst he was engaged
in restoring to the country he had loved so well the order and good
government which alone enables nations to enjoy the blessings of
freedom. Arthur Griffith died worn out by anxiety and toil in the cause
he had done so much to carry to the summit of victory. Erskine Childers
was shot at dawn for rebellion against the liberties he had helped to
win.
Truly the path of Irish freedom right up to the goal is paved with
tragedy. But the bloodstained wilderness is almost through, the
verdant plains of freedom are stretched before the eyes of this
tortured nation. Ireland will soon honour the name of the Green Isle,
and I am proud to have had a hand in erecting the pillar which will for
ever mark the boundary between the squalor of the past and the hope of
the future.
_London, December 16th, 1922._
XXX
PROHIBITION
Four years ago the United States of America, by a two-thirds majority,
voted prohibition of the sale of alcoholic liquors. The British
House of Commons have just voted down a bill for the same purpose by
a majority of 236 to 14. America treats prohibition as one of its
greatest moral triumphs. Britain treats it as a joke.
What accounts for this remarkable disparity in the attitude of the two
great English-speaking communities towards one of the most baffling
and elusive problems civilisation has to deal with? It cannot be a
fundamental difference in temperament or in moral outlook. The men who
engineered prohibition in America are of our own race and kind, bred in
the Puritan traditions that came originally from our shores.
If the evils of excessive drinking had been more apparent in America
than in Britain I could understand the States of the Union deciding
to take more drastic action than has been thought necessary in our
country. But the facts are exactly the reverse. The consumption of
alcohol in the United Kingdom some years before the war per head of
the population was higher than that of the United States. The poverty,
disease, and squalor caused by alcohol was much greater in Britain than
in America.
What, then, accounts for the readiness of America to forbid the sale
and the reluctance of Britain even seriously to restrict it?