Let us take for example Egypt, French North-West Africa, and Russian Turkestan, not to speak of the masterly English colonialrule in India, which has now been tested and tried for centuries. Anyone who has ever seen Egypt with the area under culture practically doubled under modern English rule by the help of every kind of technical contrivance for the betterment of existing conditions, and the skilful utilisation of all available means at an expense of millions of pounds, with its needy population given an opportunity to earn a living wage and even wealth through a lucrative cultivation of the land under conditions that are a paradise compared with what they were under the Turkish rule of extortion and despotism—anyone who has seen that must have looked from the very beginning with a very doubtful eye on Germany's and Turkey's illusions of stirring up these well-doing people against their rulers.
The same thing occurs again in the extended territory of North-West Africa from the Atlas lands to the Guinea coast and Lake Chad, where France, as I know from personal experience, stands on a high level of colonial excellence, developing all the resources of the country with consummate skill, shaping her "empire colonial" more and more into a shininggem in the crown of colonial endeavour, and, as I can testify from my own observations in Morocco, Senegal, the Niger, and the Interior of the Guinea territories of the "A.O.F." (Afrique Occidentale Française), capturing the hearts of the whole population by her essential culture, and, last but not least, winning the Mohammedans by her clever Islam policy.
That, finally, Russia, at any rate from the psychological standpoint, is perhaps the best coloniser of Further Asia, even German textbooks on colonial policy admit unreservedly, and the glowing conditions that she has brought about especially in the basin of Ferghana in Turkestan by the introduction of the flourishing and lucrative business of cotton-growing are known to everyone. Only politicians of the most wildly fantastic type, who see everywhere what they want to see, could believe that in this war the Turkish "Turanistic" bait would ever have any effect in Russian Central Asia, or make its inhabitants now living in security, peace, and well-being wish back again the conditions which prevailed under the Emirs of Samarkand, Khiva, and Bokhara. But Germany, who should have beenwell informed if anyone was, believed all these fantastic impossibilities.
One could let it pass with a slight feeling of irritation against Germany if it were merely a case of the failure of the "Djihad." But unfortunately the propaganda, as stupid as it was unsuccessful, exercised in this connection, will be written down for all time as one of the blackest and most despicable marks against Germany's account in this war. In Turkey alone, the underhand manipulation for the unloosing of the "Holy War" and the German Press propaganda so closely allied with it, indeed the whole way in which the German cause in the East was represented journalistically throughout the war, are subjects full of the saddest, most biting irony, to sympathise with which must lower every German who has lived in the Turkish capital in the eyes of the whole civilised world.
In order to demonstrate the rôle played in this affair by the German Embassy at Constantinople I will not make an exhaustive survey but simply confine myself to a few episodes and outstanding features. An eminent German Red Cross doctor, clear-sighted andreliable, who had many tales to tell of what he had seen in the "Caucasus" campaign, said to me one evening, as we sat together at a promenade concert: "Do you see that man in Prussian major's uniform going past? I met him twice in Erzerum last winter. The man was nothing but an employee in a merchant's business in Baku, and had learnt Russian there. He has never done military service. When war broke out, he hurried to the Embassy in Pera and offered his services to stir up the Georgians and other peoples of the Caucasus against Russia. Of course he got full powers to do what he wanted, and guns and ammunition and piles of propaganda pamphlets were placed at his disposal so that he might carry on his work from the frontier of the then still neutral Turkey. Whole chests full of good gold coins were sent to him to be distributed confidentially for propaganda purposes; of course he was his own most confidential friend! He went back to Erzerum without having won a single soul for the cause of the 'Djihad.' That has not prevented his living as a 'grand seigneur,' for the Embassy are not yet daunted, and now the fellow struts about in a major'suniform, lent to him, although he has never been a soldier, so that the cause may gain still more prestige."
Numerous examples of similar measures might be cited, and instances without number given, of the German Embassy being made the dupe of greedy adventurers who treated them as an inexhaustible source of gold. First one would appear on the scene who announced himself as the one man to cope with Afghanistan, then another would come along on his way to Persia and play the great man "on a special mission" for a time in Pera while money belonging to the German Empire would find its way into all sorts of low haunts. And so things went on for two years until, with the Arabian catastrophe, even the eyes of the great diplomatic optimists of Ayas-Pasha might have been opened.
I will only mention here how even abona fideconnoisseur of the East like Baron von Oppenheim, who had already made tours of considerable value for research purposes right across the Arabian Peninsula, and so should have known better than to share these false illusions, doled out thousands of marks from hisown pocket—and millions from the Treasury!—to stir up the tribes to take part in the "Djihad," and how he returned to Pera from his propaganda tour with a real Bedouin beard, and, still unabashed, took over the control of the German Embassy's "News Bureau," which kept up these much-derided war telegraph and picture offices known in Pera and elsewhere by the non-German populace assacs de mensonges, and which flooded the whole of the East with waggon loads of pamphlets in every conceivable tongue—in fact these, with guns and ammunition, formed the chief load of the bi-weekly "culture-bringing" Balkan train!
I will only cite the one example of the far-famed Mario Passarge—a realApacheto look at. With his friend Frobenius, the ethnographer and German agent, well known to me personally from French West Africa for his liking for absinthe and negro women and his Teutonic brusqueness emphasised in comparison with the kindly, helpful French officials, as well as by hearsay from many scandalous tales, Passarge undertook that disastrous expedition to the Abyssinians which failed solamentably owing to the Italians, and then after its collapse came to Turkey as special correspondent of theVossische Zeitungand managed to swindle his way through Macedonia with a false Italian passport to Greece, where he wrote sensational reports for his wonderful newspaper about the atrocities and low morale of Sarrail's army—the same newspaper that had made itself the laughing-stock of the whole of Europe, and at the same time had managed to get the German Government to pursue for two years the shadow of a separate peace with Russia, by publishing a marvellous series of "Special Reports via Stockholm," on conditions in Russia that were nothing but a tissue of lies inspired by blind Jewish hate; if a tithe of them had been true, Russia would have gone under long ago.
I need not repeat my own opinion on all the machinations of the German Embassy, but I will simply give you word for word what a German Press agent in Constantinople (I will mention no names) once said to me: "It is unbelievable," he declared, "what a mob of low characters frequent the German Embassy now. The scum of the earth, people who wouldnever have dared before the war to have been seen on the pavements of Ayas-Pasha, have now free entry. Any day you can see some doubtful-looking character accosting the porter at the Embassy, whispering something in his ear, and then being ushered down the steps to where the propaganda department, the news bureau, has its quarters. There he gives wonderful assurances of what he can do, and promises to stir up some Mohammedan people for the "Djihad." Then he waits a while in the ante-room, and is finally received by the authorities; but the next time he comes to the Embassy he walks in through the well-carpeted main entrance, and requests an audience with the Ambassador or other high official, and we soon find him comfortably equipped and setting off on a 'special mission' as the confidential servant of the German Embassy." But even the recognition of these truths has not prevented this journalist from eating from the crib of the German Embassy!
I cannot leave this disagreeable subject without making some mention of a type that does more than anything to throw light on the morale of this German propaganda. Everyone in Constantinople knows—or rather knew, for he has now feathered his nest comfortably and departed to Germany with his money—Mehmed Zekki "Bey," the publisher and chief editor of the military paperDie Nationalverteidigungand its counterpartLa Défense, published daily in French but representative of Young Turkish-German interests. Hundreds of those who know Zekki also know that he used to be called "Capitaine Nelken y Waldberg." Fewer know that "Nelken" alone would have been more in accordance with fact.
I will relate the history of this individual, as I know it from the mouths of reliable informants—the members of the Embassy and the Consulate. Nelken, a Roumanian Jew, a shopkeeper by trade, had been several times in prison for bankruptcy and fraud, and at last fled from Roumania. He took refuge in the Turkish capital, where he continued his business and married a Greek wife. Here again he became bankrupt, as is only too clear from the public notice of restoration in the Constantinople newspapers, when his lucrative political activity as the champion of Krupp's, of the German cause and "the holyGerman war," as much a purely pan-Germanic as Islamic affair, provided him with the wherewithal to pay off his former disreputable debts.
To go back to his history—with money won by fraud in his pocket, he deserted his wife and went off, no doubt having made a thorough and most professional study of the subject in the low haunts of Pera, as a white-slave trader to the Argentine, and then—I rely for my information on an official of the German Consulate in Pera—set up as proprietor of a brothel in Buenos Ayres. Then, as often happens, the Argentine special police took him into their service, thinking, on the principle of "setting a thief to catch a thief," that he would have special experience for the post. Grounds enough there for him to add on the second name of his falsified passport "Nelken y Waldberg" and to call himself in Europe a "Capitaine de la Gendarmerie" from the Argentine.
From there he went to Cairo and edited a little private paper calledLes Petites Nouvelles Egyptiennes. For repeated extortion he was sentenced to one year's imprisonment, but unfortunately onlyin contumaciam, for hehad already fled the country, not, however, before he had been publicly smacked on the face in the "Flasch" beer garden without offering satisfaction as an "Argentine General" should—a performance that was later repeated in every detail in Toklian's Restaurant in Constantinople.
He told me once that he had been sentenced in this way because, on an understanding with the then German Diplomatic Agent in Cairo, von Miquel, he had attacked Lord Cromer's policy sharply, and that his patron von Miquel had given him the timely hint to leave Egypt. I will leave it to one's imagination to discover how much truth there was in this former brothel-keeper's connection with official German "world-politics" and high diplomacy. From what I have seen personally since, I believe that Zekki, alias Nelken, was probably speaking the truth in this case, although it is certainly a fact that in German circles in Cairo at that time ordinary extortion was recognised as being punishable by imprisonment for a considerable length of time.
Nelken then returned to Constantinople and devoted himself with unflagging energy tohis previous business of agent. He turned to the Islamic faith and became a citizen of the Ottoman Empire because he found it more profitable so to do, and could thus escape from his former liabilities. Then in spite of lack of means, he managed to found a military newspaper, which, however, soon petered out. Nelken became Mehmed Zekki and a journalist, and of course called himself "Bey."
Up to this point the history of this individual is nothing but a characteristic extract from life as it is lived by hundreds of rogues in the East. But now we come to something which is almost unbelievable and which leads me to give credence to his version of his relations with von Miquel, which after all only shows more clearly than ever that German "world-politics" are not above making use of the scum of the earth for their intrigues. In full knowledge of this man's whole black past—as Dr. Weber of the German Embassy himself told me—the German Embassy with the sanction of the Imperial Government (this I know from letters Zekki showed me in great glee from the Foreign Office and the War Office) appointed this fellow, whom all Pera said they would nottouch with gloves on or with the tongs, to be their confidential agent with a large monthly honorarium and to become a pillar of "the German cause" in the East. And it could not even be said in extenuation that the man had any great desire or any wonderful vocation to represent Germany, for—as the Embassy official said to me—"We knew that Zekki was a dangerous character and rather inclined to the Entente at the outbreak of war, so we decided to win him over by giving him a salary rather than drive him into the enemy's camp." So it simply comes to this, that Germany buys a bankrupt, a blackmailer, a procurer, a brothel-keeper with cash to fight her "Holy War" for her!
As publisher of theDéfenseZekki received a large salary from Germany, one from Austria, afterwards cut down not from any excess of moral sense, but simply from excess of economy, and a very considerable sum from Krupp's. As representative of German interests he did all he could to propitiate the Young Turks by the most fulsome flattery, and more recently he was pushing hard to get on the Committee of Union and Progress. But theTurks jibbed at what the German Embassy had brought on themselves—seeing Zekki "Bey" moving about their sacred halls with the most imposing nonchalance and condescension. Zekki himself once complained to me bitterly that in spite of his having presented Enver Pasha with a valuable clock worth eighty Turkish pounds which Enver had accepted with pleasure, he would not even answer a written request from Zekki craving an audience with him. (This, incidentally, is a most excellent example of the working of Enver's mind, a megalomaniac as greedy as he was proud.)
The military director of the Turkish Press said to me once: "We are only waiting for the first 'gaffe' in his paper to get this filthy creature hunted out of his lair," and one day when through carelessness a small uncensored and really quite harmless military notice appeared in print (everything is submitted to the censor), the Turkish Government gave it short shrift indeed, and bannedsine diethis "Ottoman" paper which lived by Krupp and the German trade advertisements, and had become an advocate of the German Embassy,because it was paid in good solid cash for it. The paper was replaced by a new one in Turkish hands, calledLe Soir.
I could go on talking for ages from most intimate personal knowledge about this man, superb in his own way. His doings were not without a certain comic side which amused while it aggravated one. I could mention, for example, his great lawsuit in Germany in 1916, in which he brought an accusation of libel against some German who had called him a blackmailer and a criminal who had been repeatedly punished. He managed to win the lawsuit—that is, the defenders had to pay a fine of twenty marks, because the evidence brought against Zekki could not be followed up to Egypt on account of England's supremacy on the sea, and also no doubt because the interests of Krupp and the German Embassy could not have this cherished blossom of German propaganda disturbed! So for him at any rate the lack of "freedom of the seas" he had so often raged about in his leading articles was a very appreciable advantage.
The last time I remember seeing the man he was engaged in an earnesttête-à-têteabout thepropagation of German political interests by means of arms with the Nationalist Reichstag deputy, Dr. Streesemann, a representative of the German heavy goods trade and of German jingoism who had hastened to Constantinople for the furtherance of German culture. Most significantly, no doubt in remembrance of his days in Buenos Ayres, Zekki had chosen for this interview the most private room of the Hôtel Moderne, a pension with a bar where sect could be had; and the worthy representative of the German people, probably nothing loth to have a change from his eternal "Pan-German" diet, accepted his invitation with alacrity. I followed the two gentlemen to make my own investigations, and I certainly got as much amusement, although in a different sense, as one usually does in such haunts. It was really most entertaining to watch Nelken the ex-Jew and Young Turk, with his fez on his head, nodding jovially to all the German officers at the neighbouring tables, and settling the affairs of the realm with this Pan-German representative of the people.
I trust my readers will forgive me if, in spite of the distaste I feel at having to writethis unsavoury chapter about German Press representatives and those in high diplomatic authority who commission them, I relate one more episode of a like character before I close. One of these writers employed in the service of the German Embassy had done one of his female employees an injury which cannot be repeated here. His colleague—out of professional jealousy, the other said—gave evidence against him under oath at the German Consulate, and the other brought a charge of perjury against him. The German Consulate, in order not to lose such a trusty champion of the German cause for a trifle like the wounded honour of a mere woman—an Armenian to boot!—simply suppressed the whole case, although all Pera was speaking about it.
Against this we have the case later on of a German journalist, most jealous of German interests, who had a highly important document stolen out of his desk with false keys by one of his clerks in the pay of the Young Turkish Committee. The document was the copy of a very confidential report addressed to high official quarters in Germany, in which there were some rather more uncomplimentary remarks about Enver and Talaat than appeared in the version for public consumption. An Embassy less notoriously cowardly than the German one would simply have shielded their man in consideration of the fact that the report was never meant for publication and of the reprehensible way it had been stolen and made public. But our chicken-hearted diplomats allowed him to be dismissed in disgrace by the Turks, and so practically gave their official sanction to the meanest Oriental methods of espionage.
I have, however, now come to the conclusion from information I have received that German cowardice in this case probably had a background of hypocrisy and malice, for this same journalist had spoken with remarkable freedom, not indeed as a pro-Englander, but in contrast to German and Turkish narrow-mindedness, of how well he had been treated by the English authorities, and particularly General Maxwell in the exercise of his profession in Cairo, where he had been allowed for fully five weeks, after the outbreak of war, to edit a German newspaper. (I have seen the numbers myself and wondered at the almost incredible liberality of the English censorship.) Instead of being sent to Malta he had been treated most fairly and kindly and given every opportunity to get away safely to Syria. Of course the narration of events like these were rather out of place in our "God Punish England" time, and it was no doubt on account of this, apart from all cowardice, that the German Embassy made their fine distinctions between personal and political morality in the case of their Press representative.
We have spoken of German propaganda for the "Holy War," as carried out by individuals as well as by pamphlets and the Press. The Turkish capital saw a very appreciable amount of this in the shape of wandering adventurers and printed paper. Several thousand Algerian, Tunisian, French West African, Russian Tartar, and Turkestan prisoners of war of Mohammedan religion from the German internment camps were kept for weeks in Pera and urged by the German Government in defiance of all the laws of the peoples to join the "Djihad" against their own rulers.
They were told that they would have thegreat honour of being presented to the Caliph in Stamboul; as devout Mohammedans they could of course not find much to object to in that. A wonderfully attractive picture was painted for them of the delights of settling in the flourishing lands of the East, and living free of expense instead of starving in prison under the rod of German non-commissioned officers till the far-distant conclusion of peace. One can well imagine how such marvellous conjuring tricks would appeal to these poor fellows.
They have repeatedly told me that they had been promised to be allowed to settle in Turkey without any mention being made of using them again as soldiers. But once on the way to Constantinople there was no further question of asking them what their opinion was of what was being done to them. They were simply treated as Turkish voluntary soldiers and sent off to the Front, to Armenia, and the Irak. How far they were used as real front-line soldiers or in service behind the lines I do not know; what I do know is that they left Constantinople in as great numbers as they came from Germany, armed with rifles andfully equipped for service in the field. One can therefore guess how many of them became "settlers" as they had been promised. Several days running in the early summer of 1916 I saw them being marched off in the direction of the Haidar-Pasha station on the Anatolian Railway. They were headed by a Turkish band, but on not one single face of all these serried ranks did I see the slightest spark of enthusiasm, and the German soldiers and officers escorting each separate section were not exactly calculated to leave the impression with the public that these were zealots fighting voluntarily for their faith who could not get fast enough out to the Front to be shot or hanged by their former masters!
In her system of recruiting in the newly founded kingdom of Poland, Germany demonstrated even more clearly of what she was capable in this direction.
CHAPTER VII
Young Turkish nationalism—One-sided abolition of capitulations—Anti-foreign efforts at emancipation—Abolition of foreign languages—German simplicity—The Turkification of commercial life—Unmistakable intellectual improvement as a result of the war—Trade policy and customs tariff—National production—The founding of new businesses in Turkey—Germany supplanted—German starvation—Capitulations or full European control?—The colonisation and forcible Turkification of Anatolia—"The properties of people who have been dispatched elsewhere"—The "Mohadjirs"—Greek persecutions just before the Great War—The "discovery" of Anatolia, the nucleus of the Ottoman Empire—Turkey finds herself at last—Anatolian dirt and decay—The "Greater Turkey" and the purely Turkish Turkey—Cleavage or concentration?
Young Turkish nationalism—One-sided abolition of capitulations—Anti-foreign efforts at emancipation—Abolition of foreign languages—German simplicity—The Turkification of commercial life—Unmistakable intellectual improvement as a result of the war—Trade policy and customs tariff—National production—The founding of new businesses in Turkey—Germany supplanted—German starvation—Capitulations or full European control?—The colonisation and forcible Turkification of Anatolia—"The properties of people who have been dispatched elsewhere"—The "Mohadjirs"—Greek persecutions just before the Great War—The "discovery" of Anatolia, the nucleus of the Ottoman Empire—Turkey finds herself at last—Anatolian dirt and decay—The "Greater Turkey" and the purely Turkish Turkey—Cleavage or concentration?
Fromthe Germans we now turn again to the Turks, to try to fathom the exact mentality of the Young Turks during the great war, and to discover what were the intellectual sources for their various activities.
To give a better idea of the whole position I will just preface my remarks by stating a few of the outstanding features of the present Young Turkish Government and their dependents. Their first and chief characteristic ishostility to foreigners, but this does not prevent them from making every possible use of their ally Germany, or from appropriating in every walk of life anything European, be it a matter of technical skill, government, civilisation, that they consider might be profitable. Secondly they are possessed of an unbounded store ofjingoism, which has its origin inPan-Turkismwith its ruling idea of "Turanism." Pan-Turkism, which seems to be the governing passion of all the leading men of the day, finds expression in two directions. Outwardly it is a constant striving for a "Greater Turkey," a movement that for a large part in its essence, and certainly in its territorial aims, runs parallel with the "Holy War"; inwardly it is a fanatical desire for a general Turkification which finds outlet in political nationalistic measures, some of criminal barbarity, others partaking of the nature of modern reforms, beginning with the language regulations and "internal colonisation" and ending in the Armenian persecutions.
It is worthy of note that of the two intellectual sources of the "Holy War," namely Turanism—which one might reverse and call an extended form of Old-Turkism—and Pan-Islamism, the men of the "Committee for Unity and Progress" have only made logical though unsuccessful use of the former, although theoretically speaking they recognise the value of the latter as well. While Turkish race-fanaticism, which finds practical outlet in Turanistic ideas, is still the intellectual backbone of official Turkey to-day and has to be broken by the present war, the Young Turkish Islam policy is already completely bankrupt and can therefore be studied here dispassionately in all its aspects. We propose to treat the matter in some detail.
All New-Turkish Nationalistic efforts at emancipation had as first principle the abolition of Capitulations. The whole Young Turkish period we have here under review is therefore to be dated from that day, shortly before Turkey's entry into the war, when that injunction was flung overboard which Europehad anxiously placed for the protection of the interests of Europeans on a State but too little civilised. It was Turkey herself that did this after having curtly refused the Entente offer to remove the Capitulations as a reward for Turkey's remaining neutral. Germany, who was equally interested in the existence or non-existence of Capitulations, never mentioned this painful subject to her ally for a very long time, and it was 1916 before she formally recognised the abolition of Capitulations, long after she had lost all hold on Turkey in that direction.
As early as summer 1915 there were clear outward indications in the streets of Constantinople of a smouldering Nationalism ready to break out at any moment. Turkey, under the leadership of Talaat Bey, pursued her course along the well-trodden paths, and the first sphere in which there was evidence of an attempt at forcible Turkification was the language. Somewhere toward the end of 1915 Talaat suddenly ordered the removal of all French and English inscriptions, shop signs, etc., even in the middle of European Pera. In tramcars and at stopping-places the Frenchtext was blocked out; boards with public police warnings in French were either removed altogether or replaced by unreadable Turkish scrawls; the street indications were simply abolished. The authorities apparently thought it preferable that the Levantine public should get into the wrong tramcar, should break their legs getting out, pick flowers in the parks and wander round helplessly in a maze of unnamed streets rather than that the spirit of forcible Turkification should make even the least sacrifice to comfort.
Of the thousand inhabitants of Pera, not ten can read Turkish; but under the pressure of the official order and for fear of brutal assault or some kind of underhand treatment in case of non-compliance, the inhabitants really surpassed themselves, and before one could turn, all the names over the shops had been painted over and replaced by wonderful Turkish characters that looked like decorative shields or something of the kind painted in the red and white of the national colours. If one had not noted the entrance to the shop and the look of the window very carefully, one might wander helplessly up and down the Grand Rue dePéra if one wanted to buy something in a particular shop.
But the German, as simple-minded as ever where political matters were concerned, was highly delighted in spite of the extraordinary difficulty of communal life. "Away with French and English," he would shout. "God punish England; hurrah, our Turkish brothers are helping us and favouring the extension of the German language!"
The answer to these pan-German expansion politicians and language fanatics, whose spiritual home was round the beer-tables of the "Teutonia," was provided by a second decree of Talaat's some weeks later when all German notices had to disappear. A few, who would not believe the order, held out obstinately, and the signs remained in German till they were either supplemented in 1916, on a very clear hint from Stamboul, by the obligatory Turkish language or later quite supplanted. It was not till some time after the German had disappeared—and this is worthy of note—that the Greek signs ceased to exist. Greek had been up to that time the most used tongue andwas the commercial language of the Armenians.
Then came the famous language regulations, which even went so far—with a year of grace granted owing to the extraordinary difficulties of the Turkish script—as to decree that in the offices of all trade undertakings of any public interest whatsoever, such as banks, newspapers, transport agencies, etc., the Turkish language should be used exclusively for book-keeping and any written communication with customers. One can imagine the "Osmanic Lloyd" and the "German Bank" with Turkish book-keeping and Turkish letters written to an exclusively European clientèle! Old and trusty employees suddenly found themselves faced with the choice of learning the difficult Turkish script or being turned out in a year's time. The possibility—indeed, the necessity—of employing Turkish hands in European businesses suddenly came within the range of practical politics—and that was exactly what the Turkish Government wanted.
The arrangement had not yet come into operation when I left Constantinople, but it was hanging like the sword of Damocles overcommercial undertakings that had hitherto been purely German. Optimists still hoped it never would come to this pass and would have welcomed any political-military blow that would put a damper on Turkey's arrogance. Others, believing firmly in a final Turkish victory, began to learn Turkish feverishly. Be that as it may, the new arrangements were hung up on the walls of all offices in the summer of 1916 and created confusion enough.
Many other measures for the systematic Turkification of commercial life and public intercourse followed hard on this first bold step, which I need scarcely mention here. And in spite of the ever-growing number of German officials in the different ministries, partly foisted on the Turkish Government by the German authorities, partly gladly accepted for the moment because the Turks had still much to learn from German organisation and could profit from employing Germans, in spite of the appointment of a number of German professors to the Turkish University of Stamboul (who, however, as a matter of fact, like the German Government officials, had to wear the fez and learn Turkish within a year, and besides roused most unfavourable and anti-German comment in the newspapers), it was soon perfectly evident to every unbiased witness that Germany would find no place in a victorious Turkey after the war if the "Committee for Union and Progress" did not need her. Some sort of light must surely have broken over the last blind optimism of the Germans in the course of the summer of 1916.
Hand in hand with the nationalistic attempt to coerce European businesses into using the Turkish language there went more practical attempts to turkify all the important branches of commerce by the founding of indigenous organisations and the introduction of reforms of more material content than those language decrees. These efforts, in spite of the enormous absorption of all intellectual capabilities and energies in war and the clash of arms, were expressed with a truly marvellous directness of aim, and, from the national standpoint, a truly commendable magnificence of conception.
This latter has indeed never been lacking as a progressive ethnic factor in Turkish politics. The Turks have a wonderful understanding,too, of the importance of social problems, or at least, as a sovereign people, they feel instinctively what in a social connection will further their sovereignty. The war with its enormous intellectual activity has certainly brought all the political and economic resources of the Turks—including the Young Turkish Government—to the highest possible stage of development, and we ought not to be surprised if we often find that measures, whether of a beneficent or injurious character, are not lacking in modern exactness, clever technicality, and thoroughness of conception. Without anticipating, I should just like to note here how this change appears to affect the war. No one can doubt that it will enormously intensify zeal in the fight for the existence of the Turkey of the future, freed from its jingoistic outgrowths, once more come to its senses and confined to its own proper sphere of activity, Anatolia, the core of the Empire. But, on the other hand, iron might and determined warfare against this misguided State are needed to root out false and harmful ideas.
If, after this slight digression, we glance for a moment at the practical measures for a complete Turkification of Turkey, the economic efforts at emancipation and the civic reforms carried through, we find first of all that the new Turkey, when she had thrown the Capitulations overboard, then proceeded to emancipate herself completely from European supervision in the realm of trade and commerce.
A very considerable step in advance in the way of Turkish sovereignty and Turkish economic patriotism was the organisation and—since September 1916—execution of the neo-Turkish autonomic customs tariff, which with one blow gives Turkish finances what the Government formerly managed to extract painfully from the Great Powers bit by bit, by fair means or foul, at intervals of many years, and which with its hard-and-fast scale of taxes—which there appears to be no inclination in political circles at the moment to modify by trade treaties!—means an exceedingly adequate protection of Turkey's national productions, without any reference whatever to the export interests of her allies, and is a very strong inducement to the renaissance of at any rate the most important national industries. The far-flung net of the "Djemiet" (whoseacquaintance we have already made in another connection), that purely Turkish commercial undertaking with Talaat Bey at its head, regulating everything as it did, taking everything into its own hands, from the realising of the products of the Anatolian farmers (and incidentally bringing it about that their ally Germany had to pay heavily and always in cash, even although the Government itself owed millions, to Germany and got everything on credit from flour out of Roumania to paper for their journals) to the most difficult rationing of towns, forms a foundation for the nationalising of economic life of the very greatest importance.
The establishment of purely Turkish trade and transport companies, often with pensioned Ministers as directors and principal shareholders, and the new language regulations and other privileges will soon cut the ground away from under the feet of European concerns. Able assistance is given in this direction by theTaninand theHilal(the "Crescent"), the newly founded "Committee" paper in the French language (when it is a question of the official influencing of public opinion in European and Levantine quarters, exceptions can be made even in language fanaticism!) in which a series of articles invariably appear at the founding of each new company praising the patriotic zeal of the founders.
Then again there are the increasingly thinly veiled efforts to establish a purely Turkish national banking system. Quite lately there has been a movement in favour of founding a Turkish National Bank with the object of supplanting the much-hated "Deutsche Bank" in spite of the credit it always gives, and that international and preponderatingly French institution, the "Banque Impériale Ottomane," which had already simply been sequestrated without more ado.
The Turks have decided, too, that the mines are to be nationalised, and Turkish companies have already been formed, without capital it is true, to work the mines after the war. The same applies to the railways—in spite of the fine German plans for the Baghdad Railway.
All these wonderful efforts at emancipation are perfectly justified from the patriotic point of view, and are so many blows dealt at Germany, who, quite apart from Rohrbach'sWelt-politik, had at least hoped to find a lucrative field of privileged commercial activity in the country of her close and devoted allies the Turks. It is of supreme significance that while the war is still at its height, while the Empire of the Sultan is defending its very existence at the gates of the capital with German arms and German money, there is manifested with the most startling clearness the failure of German policy, the endangering of all these German "vital interests" in Turkey which according to Pan-German and Imperialistic views were one of the most important stakes to be won by wantonly letting loose this criminal war on Europe.
No doubt many a German was only too well aware of the fact that in this Turkey suddenly roused by the war all the ground had been lost that he had built on with such profit before, and many an anxious face did one see in German circles in Constantinople. I need not tarry here over the drastic comments I heard from so many German merchants on this subject. They show a most curious state of mind on the part of those who had formerly, in their quest for gain and nothing but gain, profited intrue parasitical fashion from the financial benefits of the Capitulations and had seen nothing but the money side of this arrangement which was, after all, entered into for other purposes. It was no rare thing and no paradox to find a German company director say, as I heard one say: "If things went against Turkey to-day, I would willingly shoulder my gun, old man as I am."
No thinking man will expend too much grief over the ruthless abolition of the Capitulations, for they were unmoral and gave too much opportunity to parasites and rogues, while they were quite inadequate to protect the interests of civilisation. They may have sufficed in the time of Abdul-Hamid, who was easily frightened off and was always sensible and polite in his dealings with Europe. For the Turkey of Enver and Talaat quite other measures are needed. One must, according to one's political standpoint, either recognise and accept their nationalistic programme of emancipation or combat it forcibly by introducing full European control. And however willing one may be to let foreign nations develop in their own particular way and work out their own salvation, one's standpoint with regard to a State so behindhand, so fanatical, so misguided as Turkey can be but one: the introduction and continuation at all costs of whatever guarantees the best protection to European civilisation in this land of such importance culturally and historically.
Not only were Europeans, but the natives themselves, affected by the series of measures that one might class together under the heading of Turkish Internal Colonisation and the Nationalising of Anatolia. The programme of the Young Turks was not only a "Greater Turkey," but above all a purely Turkish Turkey; and if the former showed signs of failing because they had over-estimated their powers and their chances in the war or had employed wrong methods, there was nothing at all to hinder a sovereign Government from striving all the more ruthlessly to gain their second point.
The way this Turkification of Anatolia was carried on was certainly not lacking in thoroughness, like all their nationalistic efforts. The best means that lay to hand were the frightful Armenian persecutions which affected a wonderful clearance among the population. "The properties of persons who have been dispatched elsewhere" within the meaning of the Provisory Bill were either distributed free or sold for a mere song to anyone who applied to the Committee for them and proved themselves of the same political persuasion or of pure Turkish or preponderatingly Turkish nationality. The rent was often fixed as low as 30 piastres a month (about 5s.8d.) for officials and retired military men. In the case of the latter, Enver Pasha thought this an excellent opportunity for getting rid, through the medium of a kindly invitation to settle in the Interior, of those who worried him by their dissatisfaction with his system and who might have prepared difficulties for him. This "settling" was carried out with the greatest zeal in the exceptionally flourishing and fruitful districts of Brussa, Smyrna-Aidin, Eskishehir, Adabazar, Angora, and Adana, where Armenians and Greeks had played such a great, and, to the Turks, unpopular part as pioneers of civilisation.
The semi-official articles in theTaninwere perfectly right in praising the local authoritieswho in contrast with their former indifference and ignorance "had now fully recognised the great national importance of internal colonisation and the settling of Mohadjirs (emigrants from the lost Turkish territory in Bosnia, Macedonia, Thrace, etc.) in the country." There is nothing to be said in favour of the stupid, unprogressive character of the Anatolian as contrasted with the strength, physical endurance, intelligence, and mobility of these emigrants. The latter had also, generally speaking, lived in more highly developed districts.
The great drawback of the Mohadjirs, however, is their instability, their idleness and love of wandering, their frivolity, and their extraordinary fanaticism. As faithful Mohammedans following the standard of their Padishah and leaving the parts of the country that had fallen under Christian rule, they seemed to think they were justified in behaving like spoilt children towards the native population. They treated them with ruthless disregard, they were bumptious, and, if their new neighbours were Greek or Armenian, they inclined to use force, a proceeding which was always possible because the Government did not take awaytheirfirearms and were even known to have doled them out to stir up unrest. It has occurred more than once that Mohadjirs have crossed swords even with Turkish Anatolians living peacefully in their own villages. One can then easily imagine how much more the hereticgiaurs("Christian dogs," "unclean men") had to suffer at their hands.
I should like to say a word here about these Greek persecutions in Thrace and Western Anatolia that have become notorious throughout the whole of Europe. They took place just before the outbreak of war, and cost thousands of peaceful Greeks—men, women, and children-their lives, and reduced to ashes dozens of flourishing villages and towns. At the time of the murder of Sarajevo, I happened to be staying in the vilajet of Aidin, in Smyrna and theHinterland, and saw with my own eyes such shameful deeds as must infuriate anyone against the Turkish Government that aids and abets such barbarity—from old women being driven along by a dozen Mohadjirs and dissipated soldiers to the smoking ruins of Phocæa.
Everyone at that time, at any rate in Smyrna, expected the immediate outbreak of a new Græco-Turkish war, and perhaps the only thing that prevented it was the method of procrastination adopted by both sides, for both were waiting for the Dreadnoughts they had ordered, until finally these smaller clouds were swallowed up in the mighty thunder-cloud gathering on the European horizon. Only the extreme speed with which one dramatic event followed another, and my own mobilisation which precluded my writing anything of a political nature, prevented me on that occasion from giving my sinister impressions of Young Turkish jingoism and Mohadjir brutality. Even if I had been able to write what I thought it is extremely doubtful if it would ever have seen the light of day, for the German papers were but little inclined, as I had opportunity of discovering personally, to say anything unpleasant about the Young Turkish Government, whose help they were already reckoning on, and preferred rather to behave in a most un-neutral manner and keep absolutely silent about all the ill-treatment and abuse that had been meted out to Greece. But I remembered these scenes most opportunelylater, and that visit of mine to Western Anatolia was certainly most useful in increasing my knowledge of Young Turkish methods of "internal colonisation."
But all the methods used are by no means forcible. Attempts are now being made—and this again is most significant for the spirit of the newest Young Turkish era—to gain a footing in the world of science as opposed to force, and so to be able to carry out their measures more systematically and give them the appearance of beneficent modern social reforms. So it comes about that the Turkish idea of penetrating and "cleaning-up" Anatolia finds practical expression on the one hand in exterminating and robbing the Christian population, while on the other it inclines to efforts which in time may work out to be a real blessing. The common principle underlying both is Nationalism.
Anatolia was suddenly "discovered." At long length the Young Turkish Government, roused intellectually and patriotically by the war and brought to their senses by the terrible loss of human life entailed, suddenly realised the enormous national importance of Anatolia,that hitherto much-neglected nucleus of the Ottoman Empire. Under the spiritual inspiration of Mehmed Emin, the national poet of Anatolian birth whose poems with their sympathy of outlook and noble simplicity of form make such a warm-hearted and successful appeal to the best kind of patriotism, men have begun since 1916, even in the circles of the arrogant "Stambul Effendi," to take an interest in thekaba türk(uncouth Turk), the Anatolian peasant, his needs and his standard of civilisation. The real, needy, primitive Turk of the Interior has suddenly become the general favourite.
A whole series of most remarkable lectures was delivered publicly in theTürk Odjaghi, under the auspices of the Committee, by doctors, social politicians, and political economists, and these were reported and discussed at great length in all the Turkish newspapers. Their subject was the incredible destitution in Anatolia, the devastation wrought by syphilis, malaria, and other terrible dirt diseases, abortions as a result of hopeless poverty, the lack of men as a result of constant military servicein many wars, and they called for immediate and drastic reforms.
It is with the greatest pleasure that I acknowledge that this first late step on the way of improvement, this self-knowledge, which appeals to me more thoroughly than anything else I saw in Turkey, is probably really the beginning of a happier era for that beautiful land of Anatolia, so capable of development but so cruelly neglected. For one can no longer doubt that the Government has the real intention of carrying out actual reforms, for they must be only too well aware that the strengthening and healing of Anatolia, the nucleus of the Turkish race, is absolutely essential for any Turkish mastery, and is the very first necessity for the successful carrying out of more far-reaching national exertions. With truly modern realisation of the needs of the case, directly after Dr. Behaeddin Shakir Bey's first compelling lecture, different local government officials, especially the Vali of the Vilajet of Kastamuni, which was notorious for its syphilis epidemics, made unprecedented efforts to improve the terrible hygienic conditions then reigning. Let us hope that such efforts will bear fruit. But this will probably only be the case to any measurable extent later, after the war, when Turkey will find herself really confined to Anatolia, and will have time and strength for positive social work.
In the meantime I cannot get rid of the uneasy impression that this "discovery" of Anatolia and zealous Turkish social politics are no more than a cleverly worked excuse on the part of the Government for further measures of Turkification, and the cloven hoof is unfortunately only too apparent in all this seemingly noble effort on the part of the Committee. One hears and sees daily the methods that go hand in hand with this official pushing into the foreground of the great importance of the purely Turkish elements in Anatolia—Armenian persecutions, trickery, expropriations carried out against Greeks, the yielding up of flourishing districts to quarrelsome Mohadjirs. So long as the Turkish Government fancy themselves conquerors in the great war, so long as they pursue the shadow of a "Greater Turkey," so long as Turkey continues to dissipate her forces she will not accomplish much forAnatolia, in spite of her awakening and her real desire for reform.
Finally, in this discovery of Anatolia, in this desire to put an end to traditional destitution, this recognition of the real import of even the poorest, most primitive, dullest peasant peoples in the undeveloped Interior, so long as they are of Turkish race, in this sudden flood of learned eloquence over the needs and the true inner worth of these miserable neglected Turkish peasants, in this pressing demand for thorough reforms for the economic and social strengthening of this element—measures which with the present ruling spirit of jingoism in the Government threaten to be carried through only at the expense of the non-Turkish population of Anatolia—we see very clear proof that the neo-Turkish movement is a pure race movement, is nothing but Pan-Turkism both outwardly and inwardly, and has very little indeed to do with religious questions or with Islam. The idea of Islam, or rather Pan-Islamism, is a complete failure. This we shall try to show in the following chapter.
CHAPTER VIII
Religion and race—The Islam policy of Abdul-Hamid and of the Young Turks—Turanism and Pan-Islamism as political principles—Turanism and the Quadruple Alliance—Greed and race-fanaticism—Religious traditions and modern reforms—Reform in the law—A modern Sheikh-ul-Islam—Reform and nationalisation—The Armenian and Greek Patriarchates—The failure of Pan-Islamism—The alienation of the Arabs—Djemal Pasha's "hangman's policy" in Syria—Djemal as a "Pro-French"—Djemal and Enver—Djemal and Germany—His true character—The attempt against the Suez Canal—Djemal's murderous work nears completion—The great Arabian and Syrian Separatist movement—The defection of the Emir of Mecca and the great Arabian catastrophe.
Religion and race—The Islam policy of Abdul-Hamid and of the Young Turks—Turanism and Pan-Islamism as political principles—Turanism and the Quadruple Alliance—Greed and race-fanaticism—Religious traditions and modern reforms—Reform in the law—A modern Sheikh-ul-Islam—Reform and nationalisation—The Armenian and Greek Patriarchates—The failure of Pan-Islamism—The alienation of the Arabs—Djemal Pasha's "hangman's policy" in Syria—Djemal as a "Pro-French"—Djemal and Enver—Djemal and Germany—His true character—The attempt against the Suez Canal—Djemal's murderous work nears completion—The great Arabian and Syrian Separatist movement—The defection of the Emir of Mecca and the great Arabian catastrophe.
Inlittle-informed circles in Europe people are still under the false impression that the Young Turks of to-day, the intellectual and political leaders of Turkey in this war, are authentic, zealous, and even fanatical Mohammedans,and superficial observers explain all unpleasant occurrences and outbreaks of Young Turkish jingoism on Pan-Islamic grounds, especially as Turkey has not been slow in proclaiming her "Holy War." But this conception is entirely wrong. The artificial character of the "Djihad," which was only set in motion against a portion of the "unbelievers," while the others became more and more the ruling body in Turkey, is the best proof of the untenability of this theory. The truth is that the present political régime is the complete denial of the Pan-Islamic idea and the substitution of the Pan-Turkish idea of race.
Abdul-Hamid, that much-maligned and dethroned Sultan, who, however, towers head and shoulders above all the Young Turks put together in practical intelligence and statesmanly skill, and would never have committed the unpardonable error of throwing in his lot with Germany in the war and so bringing about the certain downfall of Turkey, was the last ruler of Turkey that knew how to make use of Pan-Islamism as a successful instrument of authority.
Enver and Talaat and all that breed ofjingoists on theIttahad(Committee for Union and Progress) were upstarts without any schooling in political history, and so all the more inclined to the doctrinal revolutionism and short-sighted fanaticism of the successful adventurer, and were much too limited to recognise the tremendous political import of Pan-Islamism. Naturally once they had conceived the idea of the "Djihad," they tried to make theoretical use of Pan-Islamism; but practically, far from extending Turkey's influence to distant Arabian lands, to the Soudan and India, they simply let Turkey go to ruin through their Pan-Turkish illusions and their race-fanaticism.
Abdul-Hamid with his clever diplomacy managed to maintain, if not the real sympathies, at any rate the formal loyalty of the Arabs and their solidarity with the rest of the Ottoman Empire. It was he who conceived the idea of that undertaking of eminent political importance, the Hedjaz Railway, which facilitates pilgrimages to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina and links up the Arabian territory with the Turkish, and he was always able to quell any disturbances in these outlying parts of the Empire with very few troops indeed. Nowadays the Young Turkish Government, even if they had the troops to spare, might send a whole army to the Hedjaz and they would be like an island of sand in the midst of that stormy Arab sea. The Arabs, intellectually far superior to the Turks, have at last made up their minds to defy their oppressors, and all the Arabic-speaking parts of the Ottoman Empire may be taken as already lost, no matter what the final result of the great war may be.
The Young Turks had scarcely come into power when they began with incredible lack of tact to treat the Arabs in a most supercilious manner, although as a matter of fact the Arabs far surpassed them in intellect and culture. They inaugurated a most un-modern campaign of shameless blood-sucking, cheated them of their rights, treated them in a bureaucratic manner, and generally acted in such an unskilful way that they finally alienated for ever the Arab element as they had already done in the case of the Armenians, the Greeks, and the Albanians.
The ever-recurring disturbances in Yemen,finally somewhat inadequately quelled by Izzet Pasha, are still in the memory of all. And later, directly after the reconquering of Adrianople during the Second Balkan war, there was another moment of real national rebirth when a reconciliation might have been effected. The visit of a great Syrian and Arabian deputation to the Sultan to congratulate him over this auspicious event should have provided an excellent opportunity. I was staying some months then in Constantinople on my way back from Africa, and I certainly thought that the half-broken threads might have been knotted together again then if the Young Turks had only approached the Arabs in the right way. Even the great Franco-British attack on Stamboul might have been calculated to rouse a feeling of solidarity among the Mohammedans living under the Ottoman flag, and in the autumn and winter of 1915-1916 Arab troops actually did defend the entrance to the Dardanelles with great courage and skill. But Arab loyalty could not withstand for ever the mighty flood of race-selfishness that possessed the Young Turks right from the moment of their entry into the war. The enthusiasm ofthe Arabs soon disappeared when Pan-Turkish ideas were proclaimed all too clearly even to the inhabitants of their own land, when an era of systematic enmity towards the non-Turkish parts of the population was introduced and the heavy fist of the Central Committee was laid on the southern parts of the Empire as well.
An attempt was made to bring the ethnic principle of "Turanism" within the region of practical politics, but it simply degenerated into complete race-partiality and was not calculated to further the ideas of Pan-Islamism and the Turko-Arabian alliance which were both of such importance in the present war. It is this idea of Turanism that lies at the back of the efforts being made towards a purely Turkish Turkey, and that of course makes it clear at once that it must to a very large extent oppose the idea of Pan-Islamism. It is true that both principles may be made use of side by side as sources of propaganda for the idea of expansion and the policy of a "Greater Turkey." Turanists peep over the crest of the Caucasus down into the Steppes of the Volga, where the Russian Tartars live, and to theborders of Western Siberia and Inner China where in Russian Turkestan a race of people of very close kinship live and where very probably the Ottoman people had their cradle. The Pan-Islamists want the alliance of these Russian parts as well, but from another point of view, and, above all, they aim at the expansion of Ottoman rule to the farthest corners of Africa and South-West Asia, to the borders of negro territory, and through Persia, Afghanistan, and Baluchistan to the foot of the Himalayas, while on grounds of practical politics they strive to abolish the old, seemingly insurmountable antithesis between Sonnites and Shiites within the sanctuary of Islam.
The programme of the so-called "Djihad" works on this principle, but goes much farther. As well as stirring up against their present rulers those parts of Egypt and Tripoli which once owned allegiance to the Sultan and the Atlas lands, which are at any rate spiritually dependent on the Caliph in Stamboul, the "Djihad" aims at introducing the spirit of independence into all English, French, Italian, and Russian Colonial territory by rousing the Mohammedans and so doing infinite harm tothe enemies of Turkey. It is most important, therefore, always to differentiate between this "Holy War" "stirring-up" propaganda from Senegal to Turkestan and British India, and the more territorial Pan-Islamism of the present war, which goes hand in hand with the efforts being made towards a "Greater Turkey."
Instead of uniting all these principles skilfully for the realisation of a great end, making sure of the Arab element by wisely restraining their selfish and exaggeratedly pro-Turkish instincts and their despotic lust for power, and so giving their programme of expansion southwards some prospect of succeeding, the Turks gave way right from the beginning of the war to such a flood of brutal, narrow-minded race-fanaticism and desire to enrich the Turkish element at the cost of the other inhabitants of the country, that no one can really be surprised at the pitiable result of the efforts to secure a Greater Turkey.
I should just like to give one small example of the fanatical hatred that exists even in high official circles against the non-Turkish element in this country of mixed race. The following anecdote will give a clear enough idea of theruling spirit of fanaticism and greed. I was house-hunting in Pera once and could not find anything suitable. I approached a member of the Committee and he said in solemn earnest: "Oh, just wait a few weeks. We are all hoping that Greece will declare war on us before long, and thenallthe Greeks will be treated as the Armenians have been. I can let you have the nicest villa on the Bosporus. But then," he added with gleaming eyes, "we won't be so stupid as merely to turn them out. These Greek dogs (köpek rum) will have the pleasure of seeing us take everything away from them—everything—and compelling them to give up their own property by formal contract."
I can guarantee that this is practically a word-for-word rendering of this extraordinary outburst of fanaticism and greed on the part of an otherwise harmless and decent man. I could not help shuddering at such opinions. Apparently it was not enough that Turkey was already at war with three Great Powers; she must needs seek armed conflict with Greece, so that, as was the outspoken, the open, and freely-admitted intention of official persons, she might then deal with four and a half millions of Ottoman Greeks, practically her own countrymen, as she had done with the unfortunate Armenians. In face of such opinions one cannot but realise how unsure the existence of the Young Turkish State has become by its entry into the war, and cannot but foresee that this race-fanaticism will lead the nation to political and social suicide. Can one imagine a purely Turkish Turkey, when even the notion of a Greater Turkey failed?
Pessimists have often said of the Turkish question that the Turks' principal aim in determining on a complete Turkification of Anatolia by any, even the most brutal, means, is that at the conclusion of war they can at least say with justification: "Anatolia is a purely Turkish country and must therefore be left to us." What they propose to bequeath to the victorious Russians is an Armenia without Armenians!
The idea of "Turanism" is a most interesting one, and as a widespread nationalistic principle has given much food for thought to Turkey's ally, Germany. Turanism is the realisation, reawakened by neo-Turkish efforts atpolitical and territorial expansion, of the original race-kinship existing between the Turks and the many peoples inhabiting the regions north of the Caucasus, between the Volga and the borders of Inner China, and particularly in Russian Central Asia. Ethnographically this idea was perfectly justified, but politically it entails a tremendous dissipation of strength which must in the end lead to grave disappointment and failure. All the Turkish attempts to rouse up the population of the Caucasus either fell on unfruitful ground or went to pieces against the strong Russian power reigning there. Enver's marvellous conception of an offensive against Russian Transcaucasia led right at the beginning of the war to terrible bloodshed and defeat.
People in neutral countries have had plenty of opportunity of judging of the value of those arguments advanced by Tatar professors and journalists of Russian citizenship for the "Greater-Turkish" solution of the race questions of the Russian Tatars and Turkestan, for these refugees from Baku and the Caucasus, paid by the Stamboul Committee, journeyed half over Europe on their propagandatour. The idea of Turanism has been taken up with such enthusiasm by the men of the Young Turkish Committee, and utilised with such effect for purposes of propaganda and to form a scientific basis for their neo-Turkish aims and aspirations, that a stream of feeling in favour of the Magyars has set in in Turkey, which has not failed to demolish to a still greater extent their already weakened enthusiasm for their German allies. And it is not confined to purely intellectual and cultural spheres, but takes practical form by the Turks declaring, as they have so often done in their papers in almost anti-German articles about Turanism, that what they really require in the way of European technique or European help they much prefer to accept from their kinsmen the Hungarians rather than from the Germans.
To the great annoyance of Germany, who would like to keep her heavy hand laid on the ally whom she has so far guided and for whom she pays, the practical results of the idea of Turanism are already noticeable in many branches of economic and commercial life. The Hungarians are closely allied to the Turks notonly by blood but in general outlook, and form a marked contrast to Germany's cold and methodical calculation in worming her way into Turkish commercial life. After the war when Turkey is seeking for stimulation, it will be easy enough to make use of Hungarian influence to the detriment of Germany. Turanistic ideas have even been brought into play to establish still more firmly the union between Turkey and her former enemy Bulgaria, and the people of Turkey are reminded that the Bulgars are not really Slavs but Slavic Fino-Tartars.
In proportion as the Young Turks have brought racial politics to a fine art, so they have neglected the other, the religious side. More and more, Islam, the rock of Empire, has been sacrificed to the needs of race-politics. Those who look upon Enver and Talaat and their consorts to-day as a freemasonry of time-serving opportunists rather than as good Mohammedans come far nearer the truth than those who believe the idea spread by ignorant globe-trotters that every Turk is a zealous follower of Islam. It was not for nothing that Enver Pasha, the adventurer and revolutionary, went so far even in externals as to arouse the stern disapproval of a wide circle of his people. With true time-serving adaptability to all modern progress-and who will blame him?—he even finally sacrificed the Turkish soldier's hallowed traditional headgear, the fez. While thekalpak, even in its laced variety, could still be called a kind of field-grey or variegated or fur edition of the fez, the ragged-lookingkabalak, called the "Enveriak" to distinguish it from other varieties, is certainly on the way towards being a real sun helmet. Still more recently (summer 1916) a black-and-white cap that looks absolutely European was introduced into the Ottoman Navy. The simple, devout Mohammedan folk were most unwilling to accept these changes which flew direct in the face of all tradition. They may be externals of but little importance, but in spite of their insignificance they show clearly the ruling spirit in official Young Turkish spheres.
This is in the harmless realm of fashion, or at any rate military fashion, exactly the same spirit as has caused the Turkish Government to undertake since 1916 radical changes in thevery much more important field of private and public law. Special commissions consisting of eminent Turkish lawyers have been formed to carry through this reform of law and justice, and they have been hard at work ever since their formation. What is characteristic and modern about the reform is that the preponderating rôle hitherto played by the Sheriat Law, founded on the Koran and at any rate semi-religious, is to be drastically curtailed in favour of a system of purely Civil law, which has been strung together from the most varied sources, even European law being brought under contribution, and the "Code Napoléon," which has hitherto only been used in Commercial law. This of course leads to a great curtailment of the activity and influence of thekadisandmuftis, the semi-religious judges, who have now to yield place to a more mundane system. The first inexorable consequence of the reform was that the Sheikh-ul-Islam, the highest authority of Islam in the whole Ottoman Empire, had to give up a large part of his powers, and incidentally of his income.
The changes made were so far-reaching, and the spirit of the reform so modern, that, in spiteof the unshakable power of Talaat's truly dictatorial Cabinet which got it passed, a concession had to be made to the public opinion roused against the measure. The form was kept as it was, but the Sheikh-ul-Islam, Haïri Effendi, refused ostensibly to sign the decree and gave in his resignation. Not only, however, was an immediate successor found for him (Mussa Kiazim Effendi), who gave his signature and even began to work hard for the reform, but—and this is most significant for the relationship of the Young Turks towards Islam—Haïri Effendi, the same ex-Sheikh-ul-Islam who had proclaimed theFetwafor the "Holy War," gave up his post without a murmur, and in the most peaceable way, and remained one of the principal pillars of the "Committee for Union and Progress."
His resignation was nothing but a farce to throw dust in the eyes of the all-too-trusting lower classes. After he had succeeded by this manœuvre in getting the reform of the law (which as a measure of Turkification was of more consequence to him now than his own sadly curtailed juristic functions) accepted at a pinch by the conservative population whostill clung firmly to Islam, he went on to play his great rôle in the programme of jingoism. A "measure of Turkification" we called it, for that is what it amounts to practically, like everything else the men of the "Ittihad" take in hand.
I tried to give some hint of this within the limits of the censorship as long ago as the summer of 1916 in a series of articles I wrote for theKölnische Zeitung. Here I should like just to confine myself to one point. Naturally the reform of the law aimed principally at substituting these newly formed pure Turkish conceptions for the Arabian legal ideas that had been the only thing available hitherto. (Everything that this victorious Turkey had absorbed and worked up in the way of civilised notions was either Arabian or Persian or of European origin.) It set to work now in the sphere of family law, which hitherto had been specially sacrosanct and only subordinate to the religiousSheria, and where tradition was strongest—not like commercial and maritime law which had been quite modern for a long time.