V THE OCCUPATION OF CONSTANTINOPLE

The Allied intervention in Turkey continued to be the subject of frequent diplomatic conversations between the Powers.

Though Italy and France seemed to favour a strictly limited action, England held quite a different opinion, and energetic measures seemed likely to be resorted to. Lord Derby at the meeting of the Ambassadors’ Council on March 10 read a telegram from his Government stating it intended to demand of Germany the extradition of Enver Pasha and Talaat Pasha, who were on the list of war criminals drawn up a few weeks before by the British Government, and who at that time were in Berlin.

As the Allies had not requested that these men should be handed over to them at the time of the armistice, and as the war criminals whose extradition had been previously demanded of the Central Powers did not seem likely to be delivered up to them, this seemed rather an idle request at a time when it was openly said the Allies wanted to expel the Turks from Constantinople, when a deep agitation convulsed the Moslem world and discontent was rife in it. What was the use of this new threat to Germany if, like the previous one, it was not to be carried into effect? What would Great Britain do if the two “undesirables” thought of going to Holland, and why did she prepare to punish Turkey when some of her statesmen seemed inclined to make all sorts of concessions, instead of compelling Germany, the promoter of the conflict, who had not yet delivered up any German subject, to execute the treaty without any restriction whatever?

At the beginning of the armistice England had deported the members and chief supporters of the Committee of Union and Progress, and later on the high functionaries who had been arrested by Damad Ferid Pasha, and were about to be court-martialled. One night fifty-four of the latter out of about 130 were suddenly deported to Malta for fear they should be set free by the population of Constantinople. Among them were: Hairi Effendi, ex-Sheik-ul-Islam; the Egyptian prince, Said Halim Pasha, ex-Grand Vizier; Ahmed Nessiny, ex-Minister of Foreign Affairs; Halil Bey, ex-Minister of Justice; Prince Abbas Halim Pasha, ex-Minister of Public Works; Fethy Bey, ex-Minister at Sofia; Rahmi Bey, Governor-General of vilayet of Smyrna; Jambalat Bey, ex-Minister of Interior; Ibrahim Bey, a former Minister; and four members of the Committee: Midhat Shukri; Zia Geuk Alp; Kemal (Kutchuk Effendi); and Bedreddin Bey, temporary vali of Diarbekir, who was deported as responsible for the massacres that had taken place in that town, though at that time he was out of office and had been discharged by a court-martial. The British even evinced a desperate, undignified animosity and an utter lack of generosity in regard to the Turkish generals who had defeated them. They had, as it were, carried away the spirit of Turkey.

Italy, who had followed a most clever, shrewd, and far-sighted policy, and who had kept some independence within the Supreme Council, had been very reserved in regard to the Turkish question.

In regard to Article 9 of the pact of London, which ascribed to Italy, in case Turkey should be dismembered, a “fair part” of the province of Adana in Asia Minor, the newspaper Il Secolo, in the middle of January, 1920, expressed the opinion that Italy should give up that acquisition.

“Notwithstanding all that has been written for the last seven or eight years about the Adalia area, we do not think that its possession would improve our present economic condition. It would only estrange from us a nation from which we might perhaps derive great advantages through an open policy of friendship and liberty.

“The most profitable scheme would have been to maintain the national integrity of Turkey and to give Italy, not a mandate over a reduced State, but a mere administrative control, and to assign her a few zones of exploitation with mere economic privileges, for instance, near Heraclea and Adalia.

“But at the present stage of the Asiatic problem, such a scheme could hardly be carried out. We must then lay aside all selfish purposes, and openly and tenaciously defend the integrity and independence of the Turkish State.

“Let the Turks be driven away from the districts which are predominantly Arabian, Greek, or Armenian. But let the Sultan remain in Constantinople, till the League of Nations has become stronger and able to assume control of the Straits. Let us not forget that the Turks chiefly put their confidence in us now, and that Germany, whose policy had never threatened Turkish territorial integrity, had succeeded in gaining Turkish friendship and blind devotion.

“Italy has not many friends to-day, and so she should not despise a hand which is willingly held out to her.”

Italy therefore did not warmly approve an expedition against Turkey. Her semi-official newspapers stated it was owing to Italy that the Allies’ policy still showed some moderation, and they hinted that the presence of Italian troops in the contingent landed at Constantinople was to be looked upon as the best means to prevent extreme measures.

On Tuesday, March 16, the Allied troops, consisting mostly of British soldiers, under the command of General Milne, occupied the Ottoman Government offices.

It might seem strange that the Allied troops in Constantinople were commanded by a British general, when the town was the residence of General Franchet d’Espérey, commander-in-chief of the inter-Allied troops on the Macedonian front, who, in the decisive battle in which he broke through the Bulgarian front, had had General Milne under him. But, after all, it was better for France that an English general should stand responsible for carrying out the occupation.

To the student of Eastern events this was but the logical outcome of a patient manœuvre of England. The documents that have now been made public plainly show how far-sighted her policy had been.

General Franchet d’Espérey’s dispositions were suddenly reversed, for he had not advocated an important military action against Russia or Turkey when he had taken command of the Eastern army—i.e., before his expedition from Salonika towards the Danube—and at the beginning of October, 1918, he had arranged the French and English divisions so as to march against Budapest and Vienna, foreseeing the ultimate advance of the Italian left wing against Munich.

On October 8, 1918, he was formally enjoined from Paris to send the British divisions which made up his right wing against Constantinople under the command of an English general.

Thus, after the defeat of Bulgaria in October, 1918, the British Government required that the troops sent to the Constantinople area should be led by a British general. In this way General Milne assumed command of the British troops stationed round and in Constantinople when Admiral Calthorpe had concluded the armistice with Turkey, and as a consequence General Franchet d’Espérey, though still commander-in-chief of the Allied forces in European Turkey, was now under the orders of General Milne, commander of the Constantinople garrison and the forces in Asia Minor.

Some time after receiving the aforesaid order, General Franchet d’Espérey, on October 27, 1918, received a letter from the War Minister, M. Clémenceau, No. 13644, B.S. 3,21 forwarding him “copy of a letter giving the outline of a scheme of action that was recommended not only to carry on the war against the Central Powers in Russia, but also to effect the economic blockade of Bolshevism, and thus bring about its downfall.” This scheme, after being assented to by the Allied Powers concerned in it, was to be “the natural outcome of the operations entrusted to the Allied armies in the East.”

Finally, in a telegram, No. 14041, B.S. 3, dated November 6, containing some very curious recommendations, it was said:

“The operations in Southern Russia should be carried on by means of Greek elements, for instance, which it might be inexpedient to employ in an offensive against Germany, or by means of the French army in Palestine.”22

Thus all the plans of the French headquarters were altered by England, and to her advantage; at the same time part of our endeavours was broken up and annihilated under the pressure of the Pan-Russian circles that urged France to intervene in Russia, and the French policy in the East was wholly at the mercy of England. By saying this, we do not mean at all to belittle M. Clémenceau’s work during the war, but we only mention one of the mistakes to which he was driven, in spite of his energy and determination, by the English and American policy, which had dazzled some of his collaborators.

On March 16, at 9 a.m., some British estafettes handed to the Sultan, in his palace at Yildiz-Kiosk, and to the Sublime Porte a note of General Milne, commanding the Allied troops in Asia Minor and the town of Constantinople. It stated that at 10 a.m., with the agreement of the Italian, French, and British High Commissioners, and according to the orders of the British Imperial Headquarters, the Allied contingents would occupy the offices of the Minister of War and the Minister of Marine, the prefecture, the post and telegraph offices, the town gates, and the new bridge of Galata. In fact, the town had been occupied at daybreak by the Allied troops.

The note added that for a short time the political administration would be left to the Turks, but under the control of Allied officers. Martial law was proclaimed, and, in case of resistance, force would be resorted to.

The Ottoman Government gave no answer, and an hour later all the measures mentioned by General Milne were carried out. As these operations took a whole day, all the means of transport and communication were temporarily stopped.

At the War Office the soldiers on duty attempted to resist the British forces. A skirmish ensued, in which two British soldiers were killed, and an officer and three soldiers wounded; nine Turks, including an officer, were killed, and a few more wounded.

At the same hour a Greek destroyer steamed into the Golden Horn, and cast anchor opposite the Patriarch’s palace.

Before this, General Milne had had a few deputies and senators arrested, together with a few men considered as having a share in the Nationalist movement, such as Kutchuk Jemal Pasha, ex-War Minister in the Ali Riza Cabinet; Jevad Pasha, formerly head of the staff; Tchourouk Soulou Mahmoud Pasha, a senator; Dr. Essad Pasha; Galatali Shefket Pasha, commanding the Straits forces; Reouf Bey, Kara Vassif Bey, Shevket Bey, Hassan Tahsin Bey, Nouman Ousta Effendi, Sheref Bey, deputies.

Reouf Bey and Kara Vassif Bey were considered as representing in the Turkish Parliament Mustafa Kemal Pasha and the people who ensured the transmission of his orders.

All these men were arrested illegally and brutally, with the consent of the French Governor, though they had always evinced much sympathy for France, under the pretext that they corresponded with the national army; and yet their intervention might have had favourable consequences.

Among the men arrested that night, Jemal, Jevad, and Mahmoud Pasha, all three former Ministers, were insulted and sent to prison in their nightclothes, with their arms bound. Their doors and windows were broken open, and their Moslem wives were threatened in the harem. Some children of thirteen or fourteen were also arrested and thrashed. Eight Turkish soldiers on duty at Shahzade-Bashi were killed in the morning while they lay asleep on their camp-beds, and the censorship probably suppressed other deeds of the same kind.

The Ottoman Government could not understand how members of Parliament could be imprisoned, especially by the English, the founders of the parliamentary system. The deputy Jelal Noury Bey, who is neither a Nationalist nor a Unionist, was apprehended, merely because he opposed Ferid Pasha’s policy.

England, to enhance her influence over public opinion, got control over the chief newspapers which were not friendly to her. Jelal Noury Bey, the director of the Ileri, a radical newspaper, and Ahmed Emin Bey, the director of the Vakit, were deported. The Alemdar, the Peyam Sabah, the Stambul, edited by Refi Jevad, Ali Kemal, and Said Mollah, which, since the first days of the armistice, had praised the English policy, fell into English hands; which accounts for the varying attitudes successively assumed by those journals in their comments on current events. Their editors were mostly members of the “Club of the Friends of England,” and sought in every possible way to increase the number of the adherents of that committee, which was subsidised by the British High Commissioner, and whose chief aim was that the Turkish mandate should be given to England.

On March 21, 1920, the British at Skutari requisitioned the police courts, the law courts, the police station, the town hall, and the prison, thus almost completely disorganising the administration of the town.

In the note signed by the High Commissioners, this occupation was described as a measure of guarantee, with a view to the execution of the treaty that was going to be forced on Turkey. Yet it seemed rather strange that such measures should be taken before the treaty was concluded—or was it because the English, being aware the treaty was unacceptable, thought it necessary to gag the Turks beforehand, or even sought to exasperate them?—for if the Turks offered resistance, then the English would have a right to intervene very sternly, and thus could justify the most unjustifiable measures of repression. What would England and the United States have answered if France had proposed such coercive measures against Germany in addition to those of the armistice? It was stated in this note that the occupation would not last long, and was no infringement upon the Sultan’s sovereignty, that it aimed at rallying the Turks in a common endeavour to restore prosperity to Turkey in accordance with the Sultan’s orders; but it also threatened that, should disorder last longer in Asia Minor, the occupation might be extended and the provisions of the treaty might be made harder, in which case Constantinople would be severed from Turkey.

The Daily Telegraph said about that time:

“The political situation, which has evolved so rapidly, plainly shows it is not enough for the Americans to keep aloof from the present events. Their national honour is at stake.

“Public opinion in Great Britain would unanimously side with France in her operations in Asia Minor, provided France declares herself willing to accept our co-operation.

“We easily understand that the occupation of Constantinople came rather as a surprise to France and Italy, especially if we take into account that this action closely followed another measure of a similar kind taken by England within the last fortnight.

“It seems that this time our Allies have assumed a slightly different attitude: official France is still hesitating; public opinion has changed completely, and the pro-Turkish feeling is on the wane. If France wants to maintain her prestige in the East unimpaired, she must associate with any political, naval, or military measure taken by England.

“The Italian standpoint and interests do not differ much from ours, or from those of France, but Italian circles plainly advocate a policy of non-intervention, or an intervention restricted to a diplomatic action.”

If such proceedings emanating from some American or English circles were hardly a matter of surprise, the attitude of some Frenchmen of note was not so easily accounted for.

M. Hanotaux23 was led by a strange political aberration and a curious oblivion of all the traditional policy of France—unless he deliberately meant to break off with it, or was blinded by prejudice—when he assigned Constantinople to Greece, because, according to him, to give Constantinople to Greece was “to give it to Europe, and to her worthiest, noblest offspring.”

Now Hellenism owes nothing to Byzantium, and Byzantinism, imbued with Christianity, is but remotely and indirectly connected with the magnificent pagan bloom of Hellenism. Byzantium, as has been shown, was not only the continuation of Rome in its decay: it had also a character of its own. Neither was Byzantinism a mere continuation of Hellenism. It was rather the propagator of Orthodoxy, so that when the Greeks claimed Byzantium, they could not do so on behalf of Hellenism, but merely on behalf of Christianity. There is a confusion here that many people have sought to perpetuate because it serves numerous interests, those of the Greeks, and also those of the Slavs, who owe their culture to Byzantium. But whereas Byzantium chiefly taught barbarous Russia a religion together with the rudiments of knowledge, and opened for her a door to the Old World, she imparted to Arabian civilisation knowledge of the works and traditions of antiquity. Russia, who only borrowed the rites of the Byzantine Church and exaggerated them, did not derive much profit from that initiation; the Turks and Arabs, on the contrary, thanks to their own culture, were able to imbibe the old knowledge bequeathed and handed down to them by Byzantium—leaving aside the religious bequest. Thus they were enabled to exercise a wholesome influence, driving out of Constantinople both Orthodoxy and the Slavs who aimed at the possession of that town.

As to the so-called Hellenism of Asia Minor, it is true that the civilisation of ancient Greece spread over several districts on the coast; but it should be borne in mind that, long before the Greeks, the Egyptians and various Semitic peoples had settled on the coast of Lydia—which up to the seventh century B.C. bore the name of Meonia—and fought there for a long time; and that the Lydians, a hybrid race akin to the Thracians and Pelasgi commingled with ethnic elements coming from Syria and Cappadocia, kept up an intercourse between the Greeks of the coast and Asia24 till the Cimmerian invasion convulsed Asia Minor in the eighth century. Lastly, the Medes, against whom the Greeks waged three wars, are considered by Oppert,25 owing to the etymology of the name, to be of Turanian descent.

In fact, the relations between the Turks and the Greeks and the Byzantians are really most involved. We know to-day that some Turkish elements, who were converted to the Greek Church long before the Ottoman Turks embraced Islam, and whose origin is anterior by far to the establishment of the Seljukian Empire and the Ottoman Empire, faithfully served the Byzantine Empire from the fifth century onwards, and were utilised by Justinian for the defence of the Asiatic boundaries of the Empire—which were also the boundaries of Christianity—against the attacks of Eastern nations.

It is difficult to account for the sudden fervid enthusiasm of the Allies for Greece. For two years she adhered to Constantine’s policy, perpetrating many an act of treachery against both the Hellenic people and the Allies, repeatedly violating the Constitution guaranteed by the Powers that had protected her, and slaughtering many French sailors; and then, after her unfriendly conduct towards the Allies under cover of a pro-German neutrality, she had very tardily sided with them. It was surprising, therefore, that Greece, who had displayed her pro-German feelings during a great part of the war, would probably receive some of the most thoroughly Turkish territories of the Ottoman Empire, though she never fought against that Empire even after she had deposed King Alexander’s father, in spite of the deplorable complaisance of some of the Allies.

Finally, the very day after the occupation of Constantinople, General Milne, who commanded the British troops of occupation, enjoined the Salih Pasha Cabinet to resign under pretence that it no longer enjoyed the Sovereign’s confidence. The Grand Vizier refused to comply with the English general’s request, as the Government had the confidence of the Chamber and the Sovereign need not apply to the commander of the forces of occupation for permission to communicate with his Ministers. After incarcerating a good many deputies, senators, and political men, as has just been seen, the general gave the Grand Vizier to understand that orders had been given for the arrest of the Ministers in case they should attempt to go to their departments. In order to spare his country another humiliation, Salih Pasha handed in his resignation to the Sultan, who, following the advice of England, charged Damad Ferid to form another Cabinet.

It requires all the reasons that have been previously given to enable us to understand why England threatened and humbled Turkey to such an extent—the only Power left in the East that could be a factor for moderation and peace.

Mustafa Kemal never recognised the Damad Ferid Cabinet, and only after the latter had resigned and Ali Riza Pasha had been appointed Grand Vizier did he consent, in order to avoid another conflict with the Sultan, to enter into negotiations with the Constantinople Government. Salih Pasha was charged by the Minister to carry on the negotiations with the Nationalists, and repaired to Amasia. There it was agreed—first, that the National Organisation should be officially recognised as a lawful power which was necessary to the defence of the rights of the country, and should have full liberty of action side by side with the Government; secondly, that the Cabinet should avoid taking any decision sealing the fate of the country before Parliament met; thirdly, that some appointments should be made in agreement with the National Organisation, after which the latter should not interfere in the administration of the country.

Besides, as Mustafa Kemal said later on in a speech made before the Angora Assembly, though the Sultan had been represented by some as lacking energy, not maintaining the dignity of the Imperial throne, and not being a patriot, yet the reason why he had fallen under English tutelage was that he had seen no other means to save both the existence of Turkey and his throne.

The question whether Parliament should meet at Constantinople or in a province brought on a first disagreement between the Government and Mustafa Kemal, who finally yielded. But, owing to the occupation of Constantinople, Parliament soon found itself in a precarious condition, and the National Organisation decided to hold its sittings at Angora.

After all these events a deputy, Riza Nour, at the sitting of March 18, 1920, raised a protest against the occupation of Constantinople and the incarceration of some members of Parliament by the Allies, which measures were an insult to the dignity of the Turkish Parliament, and a contravention of the constitutional laws and the law of nations. This motion, carried unanimously by the Ottoman Chamber and signed by the Vice-President, M. Hussein Kiazim—the President, for fear of being prosecuted by the British authorities, having left his official residence—was forwarded to the Allied and neutral Parliaments, and the Ottoman Chamber adjourned sine die till it was possible for the deputies to carry out their mandate safely.

Ahmed Riza, former President of the Chamber and Senate of the Ottoman Empire—who, after the failure of Damad Ferid’s mission to Paris, had addressed an open letter to M. Clémenceau on July 17, 1919, almost the anniversary day of the Constitution—joined in that protest and commented upon the treatment some members of Parliament had undergone, as follows:

“It is contrary to all parliamentary rights and principles throughout the world and to the legal dispositions that guarantee the inviolability and immunity of all members of the Turkish Parliament to arrest representatives of the nation while they are carrying out their mandate. So the armed Interference of the foreigner with our Chamber cannot be in any way excused or accounted for.

“Such an arbitrary intrusion, especially on the part of England, that is looked upon as the founder of the parliamentary system, will bring everlasting shame to British civilisation.

“After the illegal arrest of several of its members, the Turkish Parliament adjourned sine die, as a token of protest, till the deputies are able to carry out their mandate freely and safely.

“A note communicated to the Press makes out that some deputies had been returned under the pressure of the Nationalists and that, as the Christian elements had had no share in the elections, the session was illegal.

“Now, it should be noticed that these elements abstained from voting at the last elections of their own free will, and that since the armistice no representative of the Christian communities has taken an official part in the public functions in the Imperial Palace. The Nationalist forces cannot be held responsible for this.

“Neither is it the Nationalists’ fault if the French authorities in Cilicia arbitrarily prevented the inhabitants of that district from holding the parliamentary election, thus depriving the people of their most sacred rights, and violating the terms of the armistice.

“The acknowledgment of the validity of the mandates of the new members by the unanimity of their colleagues, the official opening of Parliament by the speech from the throne, the good wishes and greetings of the Sultan to the deputies, bear witness that the assembly legally represented the wishes of the nation and had the Sovereign’s approbation.

“Besides, these are strictly internal questions in which the Allies’ interests are not at all concerned, and with which foreigners have no right to interfere.

“At such a solemn hour it would be an utter denial of justice if the Ottoman deputies were not able to discuss the fundamental stipulations of the intended Peace Treaty which is to seal the future fate of their country.

“Who is to examine the Peace Treaty to-day, and who is to give its assent to it now the nation has been deprived of its representatives?

“Of what value will be a treaty thus worked out secretly, behind closed doors, and concluded in such conditions? How can the signature of the members of the Government be considered as binding the nation? For the new Ministry does not yet represent the Ottoman nation, since no motion of confidence has hitherto been carried by a chamber which does not sit; and so it cannot be looked upon as being legally constituted.

“Whatever may happen, the nation alone can decide its own fate. If, at such a serious juncture, when its very existence is at stake, it were not able to defend its own cause and its own rights freely through the peaceful vote of its own mandatories, it would be looked upon by the whole of mankind as the victim of most unfair treatment, the responsibility of which will one day be determined by history.”

During Abdul Hamid’s reign Ahmed Riza had of his own will gone into exile, and from Paris he had wielded great influence over the movement that led to the revolution of 1908. But when the Young Turk Government had practically become dictatorial and had yielded to the pressure that drove it towards Germany, he realised that policy was a failure and was leading the Empire to ruin; then, though he had been one of the promoters of the movement, he protested repeatedly in the Senate, of which he was a member, against the illegal doings of the Government and its foolhardy policy. As President of the “National Block”—which, though not a political party properly speaking, aimed at grouping all the conservative constitutional elements friendly to the Entente—he seemed likely to play an important part in public life again when, about the middle of August, 1919, it was rumoured that the Damad Ferid Government was about to take action against him and his political friends; and soon after it was made known that he intended to go to Italy or France till the reopening of the Ottoman Parliament. After staying in Rome, where he had conversations with some political men of note in order to establish an intellectual entente between Italians and Turks, he settled in Paris.

The English censorship, which gagged the Turkish newspapers, went so far as to prevent them from reprinting extracts from French newspapers that were favourable to the Ottoman cause. It brought ridicule upon itself by censuring the Bible; in an article in the Univers Israélite, reprinted by the Aurore, which quoted and commented on three verses of chapter xix. of Isaiah, the censor cut off the first of these verses, which may be interpreted as foreshadowing a League of Nations, but in which he was afraid the reader might find a hint at a connection between Egypt and Asia and at the claims of the Turkish and Egyptian Nationalists. This is the verse, which any reader could easily restore: “In that day shall there be a highway out of Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian shall come into Egypt and the Egyptian into Assyria, and the Egyptians shall serve with the Assyrians.”

21 Cf. the Matin, June 17, 1920, an interview of M. Paul Benazet, ex-chairman of the Committee of War Estimates; and the Œuvre, July 8, 1920.

22 Cf. the Matin, June 21, 1920, and M. Fribourg’s speech in the second sitting of June 25, 1920.

23 Figaro, March 18, 1920.

24 Radet, La Lydie et le monde grec au temps des Mermnades (Paris, 1893).

25 Oppert, Le Peuple des Mèdes.