VI THE TREATY WITH TURKEY

In the course of the debate on the foreign policy of England which opened on Thursday, March 25, on the third reading of the Finance Bill, Mr. Asquith, speaking of the Turkish problem as leader of the Opposition, urged that the Ottoman Government should no longer hold in Europe the political power that belonged to it before the war. He urged, however, that the Sultan should not be relegated to Asia Minor, where he would quite escape European control. He proposed, therefore, that the Sultan should be, as it were, “vaticanised”—that is to say, he should remain in Constantinople, but should only retain his spiritual power as Caliph, as the Pope does in Rome.

The Great Powers or the League of Nations would then be entrusted with the political power in Constantinople, and if the Bosphorus or the Dardanelles were neutralised or internationalised, the presence of the Sultan in Constantinople would not be attended with any serious danger.

As to Mesopotamia, Mr. Asquith objected to the status quo ante bellum. As the frontiers of that region were not quite definite, sooner or later, he thought, if England remained there, she would be driven to advance to the shores of the Black Sea, or even the Caspian Sea, and she had not adequate means for the present to do so. So it was better for her to confine her action within the Basra zone.

The Prime Minister, rising in response, first remarked that the cause of the delays in the negotiations with Turkey and the settlement of peace was that the Allies had thought it proper to wait for the decision of America, as to the share she intended to take in the negotiations. He recalled that the Allies had hoped the United States would not only assume the protection of Armenia properly speaking, but of Cilicia too, and also accept a mandate for the Straits of Constantinople, and went on as follows:

“If we had not given time for America to make up her mind it might have suspected the Allies wanted to take advantage of some political difficulty to partition Turkey; and it is only when the United States definitely stated she did not intend to take part in the Conference that the Allies proceeded to take definite decisions with regard to the Turkish peace. I think that it is due to the Allies to make that explanation.”

Mr. Lloyd George went on to state that the Allies had contemplated maintaining only the spiritual power of the Sultan, but unfortunately this scheme did not seem likely to solve the difficulties of the situation. For Constantinople had to be administered at the same time, and it is easier to control the Sultan and his Ministers in Constantinople than if they were relegated to Asia Minor.

Then, resorting to the policy of compromise which bore such bad fruits in the course of the Peace Conference, Mr. Lloyd George, in order not to shut out the possibility of reverting to the opposite opinion, added that if it was proved that the Allies’ control weakened the power of the Sultan in Asia Minor, it would always be possible to consider the question afresh—but he hoped that would not be necessary.

As to the question of Asia Minor and the distribution of the mandates, he declared:

“If America had accepted the responsibility for controlling Armenia, the French, who, under what is called the Sykes scheme, had Cilicia assigned to their control, were quite willing to hand it over to American control. The British, French, and Italians are quite agreed on the subject, but we have not yet seen a sign. We have only received telegrams from America, asking us to protect the Armenians; we have had no offers up to the present to undertake the responsibility.... We are hoping that France will undertake that responsibility, but it is a good deal to ask of her. We have also got our responsibility, but we cannot take too much upon our own shoulders....

“With regard to the Republic of Erivan, which is Armenia, it depends entirely on the Armenians themselves whether they protect their independence.... I am told that they could easily organise an army of above 40,000 men. If they ask for equipment, we shall be very happy to assist in equipping their army. If they want the assistance of officers to train that army, I am perfectly certain there is no Allied country in Europe that would not be willing to assist in that respect.”26

Finally, with, respect to Mesopotamia, Mr. Lloyd George urged “it would be a mistake to give up Baghdad and Mosul.”

“I say that, after incurring the enormous expenditure which we have incurred in freeing this country from the withering despotism of the Turk, to hand it back to anarchy and confusion, and to take no responsibility for its development, would be an act of folly quite indefensible.... They have been consulted about their wishes in this respect, and I think, almost without exception, they are anxious that we should stay here, though they are divided about the kind of independent Government they would like....

“We have no right, however, to talk as if we were the mandatory of Mesopotamia when the treaty with Turkey has not yet been signed. It is only on the signing of that treaty that the question of mandatories will be decided, but when that time comes we shall certainly claim the right to be the mandatory power of Mesopotamia, including Mosul.”

In its leading article, The Times, criticising the attitude Mr. Lloyd George had taken in the debate on the Mesopotamian question, wrote on March 27:

“The Prime Minister made statements, about the future of Mesopotamia which require further elucidation. He said that when the Treaty of Peace with Turkey has been finally decided, the British Government would ‘claim the right’ to be the ‘mandatory Power’ for Mesopotamia, including the vilayet of Mosul....

“Judging from some passages in his speech, even Mr. Lloyd George himself has never grasped the full and dangerous significance of the adventure he now advocates....

“The Prime Minister’s reply conveyed the impression that he has only the very haziest idea about what he proposes to do in this region, which has been the grave of empires ever since written history began.”

After pointing out the dangers of a British mandate over Mesopotamia, including the vilayet of Mosul, The Times thought, as had been suggested by Mr. Asquith, that England should confine her direct obligations to the zone of Basra, and pointed out that it was only incidentally and almost in spite of himself that Mr. Asquith had been driven in 1915 to occupy the larger part of Mesopotamia.

“Mr. Asquith says—and he is entirely right—that if we hold a line in the mountains of Northern Kurdistan we shall sooner or later be driven to advance to the shores of the Black Sea, or even to the Caspian. His view is in complete accord with every lesson to be derived from our history as an Empire. We have never drawn one of these vague, unsatisfactory frontiers without being eventually compelled to move beyond it. We cannot incur such a risk in the Middle East, and the cost in money and the strain upon our troops are alike prohibitive factors.”27

The next day, in a similar debate in the French Chamber, M. Millerand, being asked to give information about the leading principles of the French Government in the negotiations that were being carried on in regard to the Turkish treaty, made the following statement, which did not throw much light on the question:

“First of all the Supreme Council deems it necessary to organise a Turkey that can live, and for this purpose—this is the only resolution that was made public and the only one that the British Government disclosed in the House of Commons—for this purpose it has seemed fit to maintain a Sultan in Constantinople.

“The same principle implies that Turkey will include, together with the countries inhabited mainly by Moslems, the economic outlets without which she could not thrive.

“In such a Turkey France, whose traditional prestige has been enhanced by victory, will be able to exercise the influence she is entitled to by the important moral and economic interests she owns in Turkey.

“This idea is quite consistent with an indispensable clause—the war has proved it—viz., the freedom of the Straits, which must necessarily be safeguarded by an international organisation. It is also consistent with the respect of nationalities, in conformity with which some compact ethnic groups who could not possibly develop under Turkish sovereignty will become independent, and other guarantees will be given for the protection of minorities.

“We have in Turkey commercial and financial interests of the first order. We do not intend that any of them should be belittled; we want them to develop safely and fully in the future. We shall see to it especially that the war expenditures of Turkey shall not curtail the previous rights of French creditors.

“In the districts where France owns special interests, these interests must be acknowledged and guaranteed. It goes without saying that the Government intends to base its claims on the agreements already concluded with the Allies.”

At the sitting of March 27, after a speech in which M. Bellet asked that the Eastern question should be definitely settled by putting an end to Turkish sovereignty in Europe and Asia Minor, M. P. Lenail revealed that the Emir Feisal received two million francs a month from the English Government and as much from the French Government; he wondered why he was considered such an important man, and demanded the execution of the 1916 agreements, which gave us a free hand in Cilicia, Syria, and the Lebanon. Then M. Briand, who had concluded these agreements, rose to say:

“It is time we should have a policy in Syria and Cilicia. If we are not there, who will be there? The 1916 agreements were inspired, not only by the wish of safeguarding the great interests of France and maintaining her influence in the Mediterranean, but also because the best qualified representatives of the peoples of those countries, who groaned under the Turkish yoke, entreated us not to forsake them. And it is under these circumstances that in the middle of the war, urging that a long-sighted policy always proves the best, we insisted on the settlement of these questions.

“Thus were Syria and Cilicia, with Mosul and Damascus, of course, included in the French zone.

“Shall we always pursue a merely sentimental policy in those countries?

“If we wanted Mosul, it is on account of its oil-bearing lands; and who shall deny that we need our share of the petroleum of the world?

“As for Cilicia, a wonderfully rich land, if we are not there to-morrow, who will take our place? Cilicia has cotton, and many other kinds of wealth; when we shall see other States in our place, then shall we realise what we have lost, but it will be too late!

“It has been said that it will be difficult for us to settle there. As a matter of fact, the difficulties which are foreseen look greater than they are really; and some of these difficulties may have been put forward to dissuade us from going there.

“It remains that the 1916 agreements are signed; they are based on our time-honoured rights, our efforts, our friendships, and the summons of the peoples that hold out their arms to us. The question is whether they shall be countersigned by facts.

“The name of the Emir Feisal has been put forward. It is in our zone he has set up his dominion; why were we not among the populations of that country at the time? If we had been there, the Emir Feisal would have received his investiture from us by our authority; instead of that, he was chosen by others. Who is to be blamed for it?

“Britain knows the power of parliaments of free peoples; if our Parliament makes it clear that it really wants written treaties to be respected, they will be respected.”

Mr. Wilson had been asked by a note addressed to him on March 12, 1920, to state his opinion about the draft of the Turkish settlement worked out in London, and at the same time to appoint a plenipotentiary to play a part in the final settlement. His answer was handed to M. Jusserand, French ambassador, on March 24; he came to the conclusion finally that Turkey should come to an end as a European Power.

In this note President Wilson declared that though he fully valued the arguments set forward for retaining the Turks in Constantinople, yet he thought that the arguments against the Turks, based on unimpeachable considerations, were far superior to the others. Moreover, he recalled that the Allies had many a time declared that Turkish sovereignty in Europe was an anomalous thing that should come to an end.

Concerning the southern frontiers to be assigned to Turkey, he thought they should follow the ethnographic boundaries of the Arabian populations, unless it were necessary to alter them slightly; in which case the American Government would be pleased—though that did not imply any criticism—to be told for what reasons new frontiers had been proposed.

Mr. Wilson was pleased to see that Russia would one day be allowed to be represented in the International Council that was going to be instituted for the government of Constantinople and the Straits, as he felt sure that any arrangement would be stillborn that did not recognise what he thought was a vital interest to Russia. For the same reason he was pleased that the condition of the Straits in wartime had not yet been settled, and was still under discussion; he thought no decision should be taken without Russia giving her consent.

Turning to the territorial question, he said:

“In regard to Thrace, it seems fair that the part of Eastern Thrace that is beyond the Constantinople area should belong to Greece, with the exception of the northern part of this province; for the latter region has undoubtedly a Bulgarian population, and so, for the sake of justice and equity, the towns of Adrianople and Kirk Kilisse, together with their surrounding areas, must be given to Bulgaria. Not only are the arguments set forth by Bulgaria quite sound from an ethnic and historical point of view, but her claims on this territory seem to deserve all the more consideration as she had to cede some wholly Bulgarian territories inhabited by thousands of Bulgarians on her western frontier merely that Serbia might have a good strategic frontier.”

He was chiefly anxious about the future of Armenia. He demanded for her an outlet to the sea, and the possession of Trebizond. He went on thus:

“With regard to the question whether Turkey should give up her rights over Mesopotamia, Arabia, Palestine, Syria, and the Islands, the American Government recommends the method resorted to in the case of Austria—namely, that Turkey should place these provinces in the hands of the Great Powers, who would decide on their fate.

“As to Smyrna, this Government does not feel qualified to express an opinion, for the question is too important to be solved with the limited information possessed by the Government.”

Finally, the President declared he did not think it necessary for his ambassador to be present at the sittings of the Supreme Council; yet he insisted on being informed of the resolutions that would be taken.

The Philadelphia Ledger, when this note was sent, commented on Mr. Wilson’s opinion as to the Turkish problem, and especially the fate of Constantinople, and did not disguise the fact that he favoured the handing over of Constantinople to Russia, in accordance with the inter-Allied agreements of 1915, 1916, and 1917.

“Mr. Wilson wants Turkey to be expelled from Europe, and the right for democratic Russia to have an outlet to the Mediterranean to be recognised. Thus, to a certain extent, Mr. Wilson will decide in favour of the fulfilment of the secret promises made by the Allies to Russia in the course of the war.

“Mr. Wilson’s opinion is that Bolshevism is about to fall, and next autumn the new Russia that he has constantly longed for and encouraged will come into being. It is calculated that if America gives her support to Russia at this fateful juncture, Russia will throw herself into the arms of America, and this understanding between the two countries will be of immense importance.”

After the Allies had occupied Constantinople and addressed to the Porte a new collective note requesting the Ministry officially to disown the Nationalist movement, affairs were very difficult for some time. As the Allies thought the Ottoman Cabinet’s answer to their note was unsatisfactory, the first dragomans of the English, French, and Italian commissioners on the afternoon of April 1 again called upon the Ottoman Premier.

Owing to the unconciliatory attitude of the English, who made it impossible for it to govern the country, the Ministry resigned. The English required that the new Cabinet should be constituted by Damad Ferid Pasha, on whom they knew they could rely.

Indeed, a secret agreement had already been concluded, on September 12, 1919, between Mr. Fraster, Mr. Nolan, and Mr. Churchill, on behalf of Great Britain, and Damad Ferid Pasha on behalf of the Imperial Ottoman Government. The existence of this agreement was questioned at the time, and was even officially denied in the Stambul Journal, April 8, 1920, but most likely there was an exchange of signatures between them. According to this agreement,28 the Sultan practically acquiesced in the control of Great Britain over Turkey within the limits fixed by Great Britain herself. Constantinople remained the seat of the Caliphate, but the Straits were to be under British control. The Sultan was to use his spiritual and moral power as Caliph on behalf of Great Britain, to support British rule in Syria, Mesopotamia, and the other zones of British influence, not to object to the creation of an independent Kurdistan, and to renounce his rights over Egypt and Cyprus.

Damad Ferid agreed to do so, with the co-operation of the party of the Liberal Entente. If the information given by the Press is reliable, it seems that the composition of the new Cabinet was endangered at the last moment through the opposition of one of the Allied Powers; yet it was constituted at last.

The members of the new Cabinet, headed by Damad Ferid Pasha, who was both Grand Vizier and Foreign Minister, were: Abdullah Effendi, Sheik-ul-Islam; Reshid Bey, an energetic man, an opponent of the Union and Progress Committee, who was Minister of the Interior; and Mehmed Said Pasha, who became Minister of Marine and provisionally Minister of War. The last-named Ministry had been offered to Mahmoud Mukhtar Pasha, son of the famous Ghazi Mukhtar, who broke off with the Committee of Union and Progress in 1912, was dismissed from the army in 1914 by Enver, and was ambassador at Berlin during the first three years of the war; but he refused this post, and also handed in his resignation as a member of the Paris delegation; so the Grand Vizier became War Minister too. The Minister for Public Education was Fakhr ed Din Bey, one of the plenipotentiaries sent to Ouchy to negotiate the peace with Italy. Dr. Jemil Pasha, who had once been prefect of Constantinople, became Minister of Public Works, and Remze Pasha Minister of Commerce.

The investiture of the new Cabinet took place on Monday, April 5, in the afternoon, with the usual ceremonies. The Imperial rescript ran as follows:

“After the resignation of your predecessor, Salih Pasha, considering your great abilities and worth, we hereby entrust to you the Grand Vizierate, and appoint Duri Zade Abdullah Bey Sheik-ul-Islam.

“The disturbances that have been lately fomented, under the name of nationalism, are endangering our political situation, which ever since the armistice had been gradually improving.

“The peaceful measures hitherto taken against this movement have proved useless. Considering the recent events and the persistence of this state of rebellion, which may give rise to the worst evils, it is now our deliberate wish that all those who have organised and still support these disturbances shall be dealt with according to the rigour of the law; but, on the other hand, we want a free pardon to be granted to all those who, having been led astray, have joined and shared in the rebellion. Let quick and energetic measures be taken in order to restore order and security throughout our Empire, and strengthen the feelings of loyalty undoubtedly prevailing among all our faithful subjects to the Khilafat and the throne.

“It is also our earnest desire that you should endeavour to establish trustful and sincere relations with the Great Allied Powers, and to defend the interests of the State and the nation, founding them on the principles of righteousness and justice. Do your utmost to obtain more lenient conditions of peace, to bring about a speedy conclusion of peace, and to alleviate the public distress by resorting to all adequate financial and economic measures.”

The Sheik-ul-Islam in a proclamation to the Turkish people denounced the promoters and instigators of the Nationalist movement, and called upon all Moslems to gather round the Sultan against the “rebels.”

The Grand Vizier issued an Imperial decree condemning the Nationalist movement, pointing out to Mustafa Kemal the great dangers the country ran on account of his conduct, wishing for the restoration of friendly relations between Turkey and the Allies, and warning the leaders of the movement that harsh measures would be taken against them. The Ottoman Government, in a proclamation to the population—which had no effect, for most of the Turks thought it was dictated by foreign Powers—denounced all the leaders and supporters of the Nationalist movement as guilty of high treason against the nation. The proclamation stated:

“The Government, though eager to avoid bloodshed, is still more eager to save the nation, which is running into great danger. So it will not hesitate to resort to strict measures against those who might refuse to go back to their duty according to the high prescriptions of the Sherif, as is ordered by the Imperial rescript.

“With this view, the Government proclaims:

“First, anyone who, without realising the gravity of his act, has allowed himself to be driven by the threats or misleading instigations of the ringleaders, and has joined the insurrectionist movement, gives tokens of repentance within a week and declares his loyalty to the Sovereign, shall enjoy the benefit of the Imperial pardon.

“Secondly, all the leaders and instigators of the movements, together with whosoever shall continue to support them, shall be punished according to the law and the Sherif’s orders.

“Lastly, the Government cannot in any way allow any act of cruelty or misdemeanour to be committed in any part of the Empire either by the Moslem population against other elements, or by non-Moslem subjects against the Moslem population. So it proclaims that whosoever shall commit such acts, or countenance them, or be party to them, shall be severely punished individually.”

A Parliamentary commission set off to Anatolia in order to call upon Mustafa Kemal to give up his hostility to the Entente and lay down arms with the least delay.

Moreover, the Government decided to send some delegates in order to make inquiries and point out to the leaders of the Nationalist movement the dangerous consequences of their stubbornness and open rebellion.

The first delegation was to include an aide-de-camp of the War Minister, and an Allied superior officer. Another delegation was to consist of members of Parliament, among whom were Youssouf Kemal Bey, member for Sivas; Vehbi Bey, member for Karassi; Abdulla Azmi Bey, member for Kutahia; and Riza Nuri, member for Sinope, the very man who had brought in a motion against the occupation of Constantinople and the arrest of some members of the Ottoman Parliament, and who was credited with having said: “Anatolia has a false conception of the occupation of Constantinople. We are going to give clear explanations of the seriousness of the situation in order to avoid disastrous consequences. We are going to tell Anatolia the ideas of the Government about the interests of the nation.”

An Imperial decree prescribed the dissolution of the Chamber, and the members before whom it was read left the Chamber quietly.

But it was obvious that the Damad Ferid Pasha Cabinet no longer represented the country, and that in the mind of most Turks it could no longer express or uphold the free will of the Turkish people, whose hidden or open sympathies, in view of the foreigner’s threat, were given to the Nationalist movement.

It must be owned that the Turkish Nationalist movement had at the outset co-operated with some questionable elements and had been mixed up with the intrigues of the former members of the Committee of Union and Progress. But it now became impossible, in order to belittle it, to look down upon it as a mere plot or insurrectionary movement. In consequence of the successive events that had taken place since the armistice and of the attitude of the Allies, especially England, after the occupation of Constantinople, carried out under British pressure with the approbation of the French Government notwithstanding the protest of the French Press, and in view of the provisions that were likely to be included in the Peace Treaty, Turkish patriotism, which could not allow Turkey to be destroyed and meant to maintain her traditional rights, had tacitly joined that movement. Besides, Mustafa Kemal, who, at the very outset, had been a member of the Committee of Union and Progress, had soon disagreed with Enver, and it should be borne in mind that he was his enemy during the greater part of the war, as he was an opponent of the German Marshal Falkenhayn. Some people have tried to make out there was only personal enmity between them, and have denied the possibility of political opposition; but the very fact that their enmity would have ruined any common political designs they might have had proves there were no such designs.

So Mustafa Kemal did not seem greatly moved by the measures mentioned in the manifesto issued by the Government under pressure of the foreign occupation and amidst the perturbation caused by recent events.

At the end of March Mustafa Kemal warned the Sultan that, in consequence of the occupation of Constantinople, he broke off all connection with the central Government, which henceforth was quite under foreign control. In a proclamation issued to the Mussulmans, he declared it was necessary to form a new independent Ottoman State in Anatolia and to appoint an assistant Sheik-ul-Islam. The reason he gave was that the Sultan could no longer be looked upon as Caliph, for it is a fundamental principle of Islam that the Caliph must be an independent Sovereign, and, since the Allied occupation of Constantinople, he no longer enjoyed his freedom of action. In that appeal, which was not intended for the Mussulmans of Algeria, Tunis, Morocco, and Tripoli, for it seemed to be aimed at Great Britain alone, he regarded the occupation of Constantinople as a new crusade against Islam.

According to news from Nationalist sources, Mustafa Kemal formed a Cabinet, in which he was War Minister of the new Anatolian Government.

It was said at the time he had proclaimed Viceroy of Anatolia and nahib—i.e., the Sultan’s representative in Anatolia—Prince Jemal ed Din, a member of the Imperial Family, son of the late Prince Shevket Effendi, and general inspector of the recruiting service; but the official circles of Constantinople never believed that the prince had allowed him to use his name.

At the same time he had a Constituent Assembly elected, which he intended to convene at Angora. This assembly consisted of the members of Parliament who had been able to escape from Constantinople and of deputies chosen by delegated electors and met on April 23 at Angora, where all sorts of people had come from quite different regions: Constantinople, Marash, Beyrut, Baghdad, etc. The National Assembly of Angora meant to be looked upon as a Constituent Assembly, and strove to introduce wide reforms into the administrative and financial organisation of the Empire. It elected a rather large committee, which styled itself the Government Council, and it included General Mustafa Kemal, Jemal ed Din Chelebi, from Konia, as first Vice-President, and Jelal ed Din Arif Bey as second Vice-President, etc.

The members of the Government which was instituted at Angora when the Great National Assembly met in this town were: General Mustafa Kemal Pasha, President; Bekir Samy Bey, Foreign Affairs; Jamy Bey, Interior; General Feizi Pasha, National Defence; General Ismail Fazil Pasha, Public Works; Youssouf Kemal Bey, National Economy; Hakki Behij Bey, Finance; Dr. Adnan Bey, Public Education; Colonel Ismet Bey, Chief of Staff.

The Sheik of the Senussi, who had joined the National movement, and owing to his prestige had influenced public opinion in favour of this movement, was not appointed, as has been wrongly said, Sheik-ul-Islam; religious affairs were entrusted to a member of a Muslim brotherhood belonging to the National Assembly.

According to the information it was possible to obtain, the political line of conduct adopted by the Nationalists was not only to organise armed resistance, but also to carry on a strong political and religious propaganda, both in Turkey and in foreign countries.

No official letter from Constantinople was to be opened by the functionaries, who, if they obeyed the Constantinople Government, were liable to capital punishment. The religious authorities in the provinces and the heads of the great Muslim brotherhoods were called upon to protest against the fetva by which the Sheik-ul-Islam of Constantinople had anathematised the Nationalists.

But the chief difficulty for the Nationalists was how to raise money.

On behalf of that National Assembly, Mustafa Kemal addressed to M. Millerand the following letter, in which he vehemently protested against the occupation of Constantinople and laid down the claims of the Ottoman people:

“I beg to bring to the knowledge of Your Excellency that, owing to the unjustifiable occupation of Constantinople by the Allied troops, the Ottoman people looks upon its Khalifa, together with his Government, as prisoners. So general elections have been held, and on April 23, 1920, the Grand National Assembly held its first sitting, and solemnly declared it would preside over the present and future destiny of Turkey, so long as her Khalifa Sultan and her Eternal City should remain under the dominion and occupation of foreigners.

“The Grand National Assembly has done me the honour to charge me to bring to the knowledge of Your Excellency the earnest protest of its members against that arbitrary deed, which violates the terms of the armistice, and has once more confirmed the Ottoman people in its pessimism as to the results of the Peace Conference. Not long ago our Parliament—though a Parliament has always been looked upon as a holy sanctuary by all civilised nations—was violated in the course of a sitting; the representatives of the nation were wrested from the bosom of the assembly by the English police like evildoers, notwithstanding the energetic protest of the Parliament; many a senator, deputy, general, or man of letters, was arrested at his home, taken away handcuffed, and deported; lastly, our public and private buildings were occupied by force of arms, for might had become right.

“Now the Ottoman people, considering all its rights have been violated and its sovereignty encroached upon, has, by order of its representatives, assembled at Angora, and appointed an Executive Council chosen among the members of the National Assembly, which Council has taken in hand the government of the country.

“I have also the honour to let Your Excellency know the desiderata of the nation, as expressed and adopted at the sitting of April 29, 1920.

“First, Constantinople, the seat of the Khilafat and Sultanry, together with the Constantinople Government, are henceforth looked upon by the Ottoman people as prisoners of the Allies; thus all orders and fetvas issued from Constantinople, so long as it is occupied, cannot have any legal or religious value, and all engagements entered upon by the would-be Constantinople Government are looked upon by the nation as null and void.

“Secondly, the Ottoman people, though maintaining its calm and composure, is bent upon defending its sacred, centuries-old rights as a free, independent State. It expresses its wish to conclude a fair, honourable peace, but declares only its own mandatories have the right to take engagements in its name and on its account.

“Thirdly, the Christian Ottoman element, together with the foreign elements settled in Turkey, remain under the safeguard of the nation; yet they are forbidden to undertake anything against the general security of the country.

“Hoping the righteous claims of the Ottoman nation will meet with a favourable reception, I beg Your Excellency to accept the assurance of the deep respect with which I have the honour to be Your Excellency’s most humble, most obedient servant.”

On the eve of the San Remo Conference, which met on April 18, 1920, Ahmed Riza Bey, ex-President of the Chamber and Senator of the Ottoman Empire, who kept a keen lookout on the events that were about to seal the fate of his country, though he had been exiled by the Damad Ferid Ministry, addressed another letter to the President of the Conference, in which he said;

“The Turks cannot in any way, in this age of liberty and democracy, acknowledge a peace that would lower them to the level of an inferior race and would treat them worse than the Hungarians or Bulgarians, who have lost comparatively small territories, whereas Turkey is to be utterly crippled. We want to be treated as a vanquished people, not as an inferior people or a people in tutelage. The victors may have a right to take from us the territories they conquered by force of arms; they have no right to intrude into our home affairs. The Turkish people will willingly grant concessions of mines and public works to the foreigners who offer it the most profitable conditions; but it will never allow the arbitrary partition of the wealth of the nation. To get riches at the expense of an unfortunate nation is immoral; it is all the more unfair as the responsibility of Turkey in the world war is comparatively slight as compared with that of Austria-Germany and Bulgaria. In respect of the crimes and atrocities against Armenia and Greece which the Turks are charged with, we deny them earnestly and indignantly. Let a mixed international commission be formed, and sent to hold an impartial inquiry on the spot, and we pledge ourselves to submit to its decisions. Till such an inquiry has proved anything to the contrary, we have a right to look upon all charges brought against us as slanders or mere lies.

“The Sublime Porte had already, on February 12, 1919, addressed to the High Commissioners an official note requesting that neutral States should appoint delegates charged to inquire into facts and establish responsibilities; but the request of the Ottoman Cabinet has hitherto been in vain, as well as that of the League for National Ottoman Unity made on March 17 of the same year.

“Yet the report of the international Commission of Inquiry assembled at Smyrna, which proved the charges of cruelty brought against the Turks were unfounded, should induce the Allies, in the name of justice, to hold an inquiry into the massacres supposed to have taken place in Cilicia and elsewhere.

“I hope Your Excellency will excuse me if this letter is not couched in the usual diplomatic style, and will consider that when the life and rights of his nation are so grievously endangered it is most difficult for a patriot to keep his thoughts and feelings under control.”

As early as April 19, the San Remo Conference, which seemed to have come to an agreement about the main lines of the treaty to be submitted to Turkey, but had not yet settled the terms of this treaty, decided to summon the Ottoman plenipotentiaries to Paris on May 10.

In a note sent on April 20, 1920, to M. Nitti, as president of the San Remo Conference, Ghalib Kemaly Bey, formerly Ottoman minister plenipotentiary to Russia, now living in Rome, wrote:

“In order to justify the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire it has been asserted that the Turks are not able to administer a large country inhabited by various races, and they have been especially charged with hating and oppressing the Christian element. But a history extending over ten centuries at least plainly shows, by innumerable facts and truths, the absurdity of such assertions.

“If the Ottoman Empire, in spite of its wonderful efforts for the last 130 years, has not been able to reform and renovate itself as the other States have done, that is because, in addition to a thousand other difficulties, it has never had, for the last two centuries, either the power or the peacefulness that would have been necessary to bring such a protracted task to a successful end; for every ten, fifteen, or twenty years, it has been attacked by its neighbours, and the events of the last twelve years testify still more forcibly than any others to the fact that any step taken by the Turks on the way to progress—in the European sense of the word—was not only resented, but even violently opposed by their merciless enemies.

“As to the would-be oppression which the Christians are supposed to have endured in the Empire, let us merely consider that, whereas in Europe the Christians mutually slaughtered each other mercilessly and unceasingly in the name of their sacred Faith, and the unfortunate Jews were cruelly driven away and tortured in the name of the same Faith, the Turks, on the contrary, after ruling for a thousand years over Turkish Asia with many vicissitudes, not only tolerated the presence of millions of Christians in their large, powerful Empire, but even granted them without any restriction, under the benefit of Turkish laws and customs, all possibilities to subsist, develop, and become rich, often at the expense of the ruling race; and they offered a wide paternal hospitality to many wretched people banished from Christian Europe.

“To-day Greece, trampling upon justice and right, lays an iniquitous claim to the noble, sacred land of Turkish Thrace and Asia. Yet can she show the same example of tolerance, and give a strict account of her home policy towards the non-Greek elements, especially concerning the condition and fate of the 300,000 Turks who, before 1883, peopled the wide, fertile plains of Thessaly, of the hundreds of thousands of Moslem Albanians, subjects of the Empire, of the 150,000 Moslems in Crete, and of the 800,000 Moslems in Macedonia, whose unfortunate fate it was to pass under her dominion?

“I need not dwell at length on this painful subject, which will be an eternal shame to modern civilisation, for the victorious Powers know a great deal more—after the inter-Allied inquiry held four months ago in Smyrna—about the ‘gentle and fatherly’ manner in which thousands of Mussulmans were slaughtered and exterminated by the descendants of the civilisation of ancient Greece, who invaded that essentially Turkish province during the armistice under pretence of restoring order.”

And after recalling the figures of the various elements of the population of the Turkish Empire after the 1914 statistics, he concluded:

“Such figures speak but too eloquently, and the painful events that drenched with blood the unfortunate Ottoman land since the armistice raise only too much horror. So the Turkish people most proudly and serenely awaits the righteous, humane, and equitable sanction of the victorious Powers that have assumed before history the heavy responsibility of placing the whole world on a lasting basis of justice, concord, and peace.

“God grant they may choose the best way, the only way, that will lead them to respect, as they solemnly pledged themselves to do, the ethnic, historical, and religious rights of the Ottoman nation and its Sultan, who is, at the same time, the supreme head of the 350 million Mussulmans throughout the world.”

On the same date (April 20, 1920) the Indian Caliphate delegation addressed a note to the president of the Allied Supreme Council at San Remo, to the English, French, Italian Prime Ministers, and to the Japanese ambassador. In this note they summed up their mandate with the Allied and Associated Powers, and insisted again on the claims they had previously laid before Mr. Lloyd George in the course of the interview mentioned previously.

“Firstly, the Mussulmans of India, in common with the vast majority of their co-religionists throughout the world, ask that, inasmuch as independent temporal sovereignty, with its concomitants of adequate military and economic resources, is of the essence of the institution of the Khilafat, the Empire of the Khalifa shall not be dismembered under any pretext. As the Sultan of Turkey is recognised by the vast majority of Mussulmans as Khalifa, what is desired is that the fabric of the Ottoman Empire shall be maintained intact territorially on the basis of the status quo ante bellum, but without prejudice to such political changes as give all necessary guarantees consistent with the dignity and independence of the sovereign State for the security of life and property, and opportunities of full autonomous development for all the non-Turkish communities, whether Muslim or non-Muslim, comprised within the Turkish Empire. But on no account is a Muslim majority to be placed under the rule of a non-Muslim minority contrary to the principle of self-determination. In behalf of this claim, the delegation draw the attention of the Supreme Council to the declaration of the British Prime Minister, equally binding on all the Allied and Associated Powers, when on January 5, 1918, he said: ‘Nor are we fighting to deprive Turkey of its capital, or of the rich and renowned lands of Asia Minor and Thrace, which are predominantly Turkish in race,’ and to President Wilson’s twelfth point in his message to Congress, dated January 8, 1918, on the basis of which the armistice with Turkey was concluded, and which required ‘that the Turkish portions of the present Ottoman Empire should be assured of secure sovereignty; that the other nationalities now under Turkish rule should be assured security of life and autonomous development.’ The delegation submit that any departure from the pledges and principles set forth above would be regarded by the people of India, and the Muslim world generally, as a breach of faith. It was on the strength of these and similar assurances that tens of thousands of India Mussulmans were induced to lay down their lives in the late war in defence of the Allied cause.

“Secondly, we have to submit that the most solemn religious obligations of the Muslim Faith require that the area known as the Jazirat-ul-Arab, or the ‘Island of Arabia,’ which includes, besides the Peninsula of Arabia, Syria, Palestine, and Mesopotamia, shall continue to be, as heretofore for the last 1,300 years, under exclusively Muslim control, and that the Khalifa shall similarly continue to be the Warden and Custodian of the Holy Places and Holy Shrines of Islam—namely, Mecca, Medina, Jerusalem, Nejef, Kerbela, Samarra, Kazimain, and Baghdad, all situated within the Jazirat-ul-Arab.

Any encroachment upon these sanctuaries of Islam by the inauguration of non-Muslim control in whatever guise or form, whether a protectorate or mandate, would be a direct violation of the most binding religious injunctions of Islam and the deepest sentiment of Muslims all the world over, and would, therefore, be utterly unacceptable to the Mussulmans of India and the rest of the Indian community. In this connection, apart from the religious obligations to which we refer, the delegation would draw the attention of the Supreme Council to the proclamation issued by the Government of India, on behalf of His Britannic Majesty’s Government, as also the Governments of France and Russia, on November 2, 1914, in which it was specifically declared that ‘no question of a religious character was involved’ in this war, and it was further categorically promised that ‘the Holy Places of Arabia, including the Holy Shrines of Mesopotamia and the port of Jedda, will be immune from attack or molestation.’”

After pointing out that these were the lowest possible claims the Mussulmans could set forth, the note went on as follows:

“But the Mussulmans of India have already submitted to the British Government that a Turkish settlement made in disregard of their religious obligations, on respect for which their loyalty has always been strictly conditional, would be regarded by Indian Mussulmans as incompatible with their allegiance to the British Crown. This is a contingency which the Mussulmans of India, in common with all their compatriots, constituting a population of over three hundred millions, naturally view with the keenest apprehension and anxiety, and are most earnestly desirous of preventing by every means in their power. We believe that the British Government, at any rate, is fully apprised of the range and intensity of public feeling that has been aroused in India on this question, and we content ourselves, therefore, by simply stating here that the Khilafat movement represents an unprecedented demonstration of national feeling and concern. Only on March 19 last, the day when the delegation was received by the British Prime Minister, all business was suspended throughout the continent of India by Mussulmans and Hindus alike, as a reminder and reaffirmation of the Muslim case in respect of the future of the Khilafat. This unprecedented yet peaceful demonstration involved a loss of millions to the public at large, and was undertaken solely with the object of impressing the authorities and others concerned with the universality of Indian and Muslim sentiment on the question. If, notwithstanding all constitutional and loyal representations which the Mussulmans of India have put forward on behalf of the obligation imposed upon them by their Faith, a settlement is imposed upon Turkey which would be destructive of the very essentials of the Khilafat, a situation would arise in which it would be futile to expect peace and harmony to prevail in India and the Muslim world.

“The delegation, therefore, feel it their duty most solemnly to urge upon the Supreme Council the desirability of endeavouring to achieve a peace settlement with the Ottoman Empire which would be in consonance with the most binding religious obligations and overwhelming sentiments of so large and important a section of the world community.”

As a consequence of what has just been said:

“The delegation would beg, even at this late hour, that the Supreme Council will defer taking any final decisions on this question in order to afford to them an opportunity, such as they have repeatedly applied for, of laying their case before the Council. In answer to our request to be allowed to appear before the Supreme Council, the British Secretary to the Council intimated to us that only the accredited Governments of the territories with whose future the Peace Conference is dealing are allowed to appear before it, and that at the request of the British Government the official delegation of India had already been heard. But we have already represented that the Turkish settlement, involving as it does the question on the Khilafat, in the preservation of which the Mussulmans of the world are so vitally interested, does not obviously seem to be a question on which the Peace Conference should hear only the Governments of territories with whose future they are dealing. In fact, the concern of the Muslim world for the future of the Khilafat, which is the most essential institution of Islam, transcends in importance the interests of the various Governments that are being set up in different parts of the Khilafat territories; and the delegation trusts that no technical objection will be allowed to stand in the way of doing justice and securing peace.”

And, finally, the note concluded:

“With reference to the official delegation of India, which the Supreme Council has already heard, the Indian Khilafat delegation would invite the attention of the Council to the fact that, so far at least, the State and the nation are not one in India, and the delegation submit that a nation numbering more than 315 millions of people is entitled to a hearing before a final decision is taken on a question that has incontestably acquired a national status. The delegation hope that they may, without may disrespect to the members comprising the official delegation of India, also refer to the fact that no Indian Mussulman was represented on the delegation in spite of Muslim protest.”

In a second telegram, dated April 24, 1920, the Indian Caliphate delegation, after the reply made to them by the British secretary of the Supreme Council at San Remo on April 20, expressed their deep regret that—

“the Council, while giving a hearing to a number of delegations representing at best microscopic populations inhabiting meagre areas and permitting the Premier of Greece, which was not at war with Turkey, to take part in the discussions relating to the Turkish settlement, should have ignored the claims of a nation numbering more than 315 millions of people inhabiting the vast sub-continent of India even to a hearing, and should have denied the right of several hundred millions more in the rest of the world professing the Muslim Faith to express their views on the question involving the disintegration of the Khilafat. In the name of our compatriots and co-religionists, we deem it to be our duty once more to point out to the Government of Great Britain and to her Allies, that it would be perfectly futile to expect peace and tranquillity if, to the humiliating disregard of the overwhelming national sentiment of India, which would in any case lessen the value of citizenship of the British Empire to the Indian people, is added, as a result of the secret diplomacy of a few persons, however exalted and eminent, who are now settling the fate of Islam behind closed doors, a contemptuous disregard of the most binding and solemn religious obligations imposed on the Muslims by their Faith.”

The delegation did not conceal their disappointment at the way they had been received by the Allied representatives and the little attention paid to the objections they had set forth. Yet they had viewed the Ottoman question from a lofty standpoint, and had brought forward powerful arguments in favour of Turkey. While the Indian delegation were setting forth the Turkish claims before the Peace Conference, the Press, public opinion, and political circles which had been influenced in some degree by the coming of the delegates evinced more sympathy for Turkey, and the deliberations of the Conference seemed likely to assume a more favourable attitude towards Turkey. Yet the Conference, in this case as in many others, and in spite of the warnings it had received, kept to its first resolutions, though everything seemed to invite it to modify them.

On May 6 the Ottoman delegation arrived in Paris. It comprised the former Grand Vizier Tewfik Pasha; Reshid Bey, Minister of the Interior; Fakhr ed Din Bey, Minister of Public Education; and Dr. Jemil Pasha, Minister of Public Works, accompanied by seventeen advisers and five secretaries.

On the previous Thursday, before they left Constantinople, the Sultan had received the delegates, and had a long conversation with each of them.

The draft of the treaty was handed to the delegates on the expected date, May 11.

We refer the reader to this document, which contains thirteen chapters; some of the most important provisions are so laboriously worded that they may give rise to various interpretations, and it is impossible to sum them up accurately.

Several clauses of that draft called forth many objections, and we shall only deal with the most important ones.

The treaty assigned to Greece all the Turkish vilayet of Adrianople or Eastern Thrace—that is to say, the territory which includes Adrianople, the second town and former capital of the Ottoman Empire, and the burial-place of Selim the Conqueror. It only left to European Turkey a mere strip of land near Constantinople up to the Chatalja lines. Besides, this region is entirely included in the “Zone of the Straits” to be controlled by a Commission of the Powers which includes Greece, Rumania, and Bulgaria, but excludes Turkey herself.

Now, according to the official census of March, 1914, the Adrianople vilayet which includes Kirk Kilisse, Rodosto, and Gallipoli, had a population of 360,400 Turks—i.e., 57 per cent. of the inhabitants—as against 224,680 Greeks, or 35·5 per cent., and 19,888 Armenians. In addition, though in Eastern Thrace the Moslem populations are mingled with numerous Greek elements, the majority of the people are Mussulmans. Out of the 673,000 inhabitants of Thrace, 455,000 are Mussulmans.

It is noteworthy that after 1914 a good number of the Greeks in that vilayet emigrated into Macedonia, where they were replaced by the Mussulmans expelled by the Greek administration, and that out of the 162,000 Orthodox Greeks amenable to the Greek Patriarch, 88,000 are Gagavous—that is to say, are of Turkish descent and speak Turkish.

Out of about 4,700,000 acres of land which make up the total area of the Adrianople vilayet, 4,000,000 acres, or 84 per cent., are in Moslem hands, and the Orthodox Greeks hardly possess 600,000 acres.

The Moslem population of Western Thrace, which is no longer under Turkish sovereignty, rises to 362,000 souls, or 69 per cent., against 86,000 Greeks, or 16·5 per cent., and if the figures representing the Moslem population in both parts of Thrace are counted, we get a total number of 700,000 Mussulmans—i.e., 62·6 per cent.—against 310,000 Greeks, or 26 per cent.

Mr. Lloyd George had already guaranteed to Turkey the possession of that region on January 5, 1918, when he had solemnly declared: “Nor are we fighting to deprive Turkey of its capital, or of the rich and renowned lands of Asia Minor and Thrace, which are predominantly Turkish in race,” and he had repeated this pledge in his speech of February 25, 1920.

Yet a month after he declared to the Indian Caliphate delegation, as has been seen above, that the Turkish population in Thrace was in a considerable minority, and so Thrace should be taken away from Turkish rule. If such was the case, it would have been logical to take from Turkey the whole of Thrace.

As the Indian delegation inquired at once on what figures the Prime Minister based his Statements he answered:

“It is, of course, impossible to obtain absolutely accurate figures at the present moment, partly because all censuses taken since about the beginning of the century are open to suspicion from racial prejudice, and partly because of the policy of expulsion and deportation pursued by the Turkish Government both during and before the war. For instance, apart from the Greeks who were evicted during the Balkan wars, over 100,000 Greeks were deported into Anatolia from Turkish Thrace in the course of these wars, while about 100,000 were driven across the frontiers of Turkish Thrace. These refugees are now returning in large numbers. But after the study of all the evidence judged impartially, the best estimate which the Foreign Office could make is that the population of Turkish Thrace, in 1919, was 313,000 Greeks and 225,000 Turks.... This is confirmed by the study of the Turkish official statistics in 1894, the last census taken before the Greco-Turkish war, after which ... all censuses as to races in these parts became open to suspicion. According to these statistics, the population of Turkish Thrace and of the part of Bulgarian Thrace ceded to the Allies by the treaty of Neuilly was: Greeks, 304,500: Mussulmans, 265,300; Bulgarians, 72,500.”

On receipt of this communication, the delegation naturally asked to what region the Greeks “who were evicted during the Balkan wars” had migrated, and to what extent, according to the Foreign Office estimates, “counter-migration of Turks had taken place into what is the present Turkish Thrace,” when Macedonia was made, on the authority of Englishmen themselves, “an empty egg-shell” and when the Greeks and Bulgarians had decided to leave no Turks in the occupied territories, to make a “Turkish question” within the newly extended boundaries of Greece and Bulgaria. It was natural that part of the Turkish population driven away from Macedonia should settle down in the Turkish territory conterminous to Eastern Thrace, as it actually did.

With regard to the “100,000” Greeks “deported into Anatolia from Turkish Thrace during the course of these wars,” and the “100,000 driven across the frontiers of Turkish Thrace,” the delegation asked to what part of Anatolia the deportees had been taken, and to what extent this deportation had affected the proportion of Turkish and Greek populations in that part of Anatolia. It would certainly be unfair to make Turkish Thrace preponderatingly Greek by including in its Greek population figures of Greek deportees who had already served to swell the figures of the Greek population in Anatolia. Under such circumstances, as the figures which the Prime Minister considered as reliable on January 5, 1918, had been discarded since and as the figures of a quarter of a century ago were evidently open to discussion, the delegation proposed that the Supreme Council should be given a complete set of figures for every vilayet, and if possible for every sanjak or kaza, of the Turkish Empire as it was in 1914. But the Prime Minister’s secretary merely answered that it was impossible to enter into a discussion “on the vexed question of the population statistics in these areas.”

As to Smyrna, the statistics plainly show that, though there is an important Greek colony at Smyrna, all the region nevertheless is essentially Turkish. The figures provided by the Turkish Government, those of the French Yellow Book, and those given by Vital Cuinet agree on this point.

According to the French Yellow Book, the total population of the vilayet included 78·05 per cent. Turks against 14·9 per cent. Greeks.

M. Vital Cuinet gives a total population of 1,254,417 inhabitants (971,850 Turks and 197,257 Greeks), and for the town of Smyrna 96,250 Turks against 57,000 Greeks.

According to the last Ottoman statistics in 1914 the town of Smyrna, where the Greek population had increased, had 111,486 Turks against 87,497 Greeks; but in the whole vilayet there were 299,097 Greeks—i.e., 18 per cent.—against 1,249,067 Turks, or 77 per cent., and 20,766 Armenians.

From the 299,097 Greeks mentioned in the statistics we should deduct the 60,000 or 80,000 Greeks who were expelled from the vilayet, by way of reprisal after the events of Macedonia in January to June, 1914. The latter, according to the agreement between Ghalib Kemaly Bey, Turkish minister at Athens, and M. Venizelos (July, 1914), come under the same head as the Greeks of Thrace and Smyrna who were to be exchanged for the Mussulmans of Macedonia.

Mr. Lloyd George’s secretary, whom the Indian delegation also asked, in reference to Smyrna, on what figures he based his statements, answered on behalf of the Prime Minister:

“The pre-war figures for the sanjak of Smyrna, according to the American estimates, which are the most up-to-date and impartial, give the following result: Greeks, 375,000; Mussulmans, 325,000; Jews, 40,000; and Armenians, 18,000. These figures only relate to the sanjak of Smyrna, and there are other kazas in the neighbourhood which also show a majority of Greeks.”

Now, according to the official Turkish figures, the sanjak of Smyrna had, before the war, 377,000 Mussulmans as against 218,000 Greeks, while during the war the Muslim figure rose to 407,000 and the Greek figure was considerably reduced. Only in the kazas of Urla, Shesmeh, Phocœa, and Kara-Burun in the sanjak of Smyrna, are there Greek majorities; but in no other kaza, whether of Magnesia, Aidin, or Denizli, is the Greek element in a majority. Moreover, the Greek minority is important only in the kaza of Seuki in the sanjak of Aidin; everywhere else it is, as a rule, less than 10 per cent., and only in two kazas is it 15 or 16 per cent.

The treaty recognises Armenia as a free and independent State, and the President of the United States is to arbitrate on the question of the frontier to be fixed between Turkey and Armenia in the vilayets of Erzerum, Trebizond, Van, and Bitlis. Now, though everybody—including the Turks—acknowledges that as a principle it is legitimate to form an Armenian State, yet when we consider the nature of the population of these vilayets, we cannot help feeling anxious at the condition of things brought about by this decision.

As a matter of fact, in Erzerum there are 673,000 Mussulmans, constituting 82·5 per cent. of the population, as against 136,000 Armenians, or 16·5 per cent. In Trebizond the Mussulmans number 921,000, or 82 per cent. of the population, as against 40,000 Armenians, or 23·5 per cent. In the vilayet of Van the Muslim population is 179,000, or 69 per cent., and the Armenian population 67,000, or 26 per cent. In Bitlis the Mussulmans number 310,000, or 70·5 per cent., as against 119,000 Armenians, constituting 27 per cent. Thus, in these four vilayets the Mussulmans number 2,083,000, and the Armenians 362,000, the average being 80 per cent. against 13 per cent.

On the other hand, it is difficult to prove that Turkey has persistently colonised these territories. The only fact that might countenance such an assertion is that at various times, especially after the Crimean war, many Tatars sought shelter in that part of the Empire, and that in 1864, and again in 1878, Circassians, escaping from the Russian yoke, took refuge there after defending their country. The number of the families that immigrated is estimated about 70,000. Turkey encouraged them to settle down there all the more willingly as they were a safeguard to her against the constant threat of Russia. But as early as 1514, at the time of the Turkish conquest, the Armenians were inferior in number, owing to the Arabian and Persian pressure that repeatedly brought about an exodus of the native population northwards and westwards, and because some Persian, Arabian, Seljukian, Turkish, and Byzantine elements slowly crept into the country. In 1643 Abas Schah, after his victorious campaign against Turkey, drove away nearly 100,000 Armenians, and later on a huge number of Armenians emigrated into Russia of their own free will after the treaty of Turkmen-Tchai in 1828.

It is noteworthy that an Armenian Power first came into existence in the second century before Christ. It consisted of two independent States, Armenia Major and Armenia Minor. After the downfall of Tigrane, King of Armenia Major, defeated by the Romans, Rome and Persia fought for the possession of those regions, and, finally, divided them. Later on there were various Armenian States, which were more or less independent, but none of them lasted long except the State of Armenia Minor, which lasted from the twelfth century to the fourteenth, till Selim II conquered that territory, where the Arabs, the Persians, the Seljukian Turks, and the Byzantines had already brought the Armenian dominion to an end.

Therefore the numerical majority of Mussulmans in Armenia has not been obtained or maintained, as has been alleged, by the “Turkish massacres”; it is the outcome of more complex causes—which, of course, is no excuse for the tragic events that took place there. As the Conference did not seem to pay any attention either to the figures of M. Vital Cuinet (Turquie d’Asie, Paris, 1892), or to the figures published by the French Government in the Yellow Book of 1897, based upon the data furnished by the Christian Patriarchates, or to the figures given by General Zeleny to the Caucasian Geographical Society (Zapiski, vol. xviii., Tiflis, 1896), the Indian delegation asked that a report should be drawn up by a mixed Moslem and non-Moslem Commission, consisting of men whose integrity and ability were recognised by their co-religionists; but this suggestion met with no better success than the international inquiry already suggested by the delegation in regard to the population of every vilayet in Thrace.

The chapter dealing with the protection of minorities plainly shows how much influence the aforesaid Protestant Anglo-American movement had on the wording of the treaty. In none of the four previous treaties are included such stipulations as those contained in the Turkish treaty, and there is a great difference in this respect between the Bulgarian treaty and the Turkish treaty. The latter, under the term “minority,” only considers the condition of the Christians, and ensures to them privileges and power in every respect over the Mussulmans.

As the Permanent Committee of the Turkish Congress at Lausanne remarked in its critical examination of the treaty:

“Whereas in the Bulgarian treaty freedom of conscience and religion is guaranteed so far as is consistent with morality and order, this clause does not occur in the Turkish treaty.

The Turkish treaty states that all interference with any religious creed shall be punished in the same way; in the Bulgarian treaty this clause is omitted, for here it would imply the protection of a non-Christian religion.”

In regard to Article 139, that “Turkey renounces formally all right of suzerainty or jurisdiction of any kind over Moslems who are subject to the sovereignty or protectorate of any other State,” the Indian Caliphate delegation raised an objection in a letter addressed to Mr. Lloyd George, dated July 10, 1920:

“It is obvious that Turkey has, and could have, no ‘rights of suzerainty or jurisdiction’ over Mussulmans who am not her subjects; but it is equally obvious that the Sultan of Turkey, as Khalifa, has, and must continue to have so long as he holds that office, his very considerable ‘jurisdiction’ over Muslims who are ’subject to the sovereignty or protectorate of any other State.’ The law of Islam clearly prescribes the character and extent of the ‘jurisdiction’ pertaining to the office of Khalifa, and we cannot but protest most emphatically against this indirect, but none the less palpable, attempt on the part of Great Britain and her allies to force on the Khalifa a surrender of such ‘jurisdiction,’ which must involve the abdication of the Khalifa.”

The delegation also considered that Article 131, which lays down that “Turkey definitely renounces all rights and privileges, which, under the treaty of Lausanne of October 12, 1912, were left to the Sultan in Libya,” infringes “rights pertaining to the Sultan as Caliph, which had been specially safeguarded and reserved under the said treaty of Lausanne.” It also expressed its surprise that “this categorical and inalienable requirement of the Muslim Faith, supported as it is by the unbroken practice of over thirteen hundred years, was totally disregarded by Articles 94 to 97 of the Peace Treaty, read in conjunction with Articles 22 and 132,” which cannot admit of any non-Muslim sovereignty over the Jazirat-ul-Arab, including Syria, Palestine, and Mesopotamia.

Referring again to the objection the British Prime Minister pretended to base on the proclamation of the Emir Feisal, King of Syria, and on the Arabs’ request to be freed from Turkish dominion, the Indian Caliphate delegation in the same letter answered Mr. Lloyd George, who had asked them in the course of his reception “whether they were to remain under Turkish domination merely because they were Mohammedans”:

“We would take the liberty to remind you that if the Arabs, who are an overwhelmingly large majority in these regions, have claimed independence, they have clearly claimed it free from the incubus of so-called mandates, and their claim to be freed from Turkish dominion is not in any way a claim to be subjected to the ‘advice and assistance’ of a mandatory of the principal Allied Powers. If the principle of self-determination is to be applied at all, it must be applied regardless of the wishes and interests of foreign Powers covetously seeking to exploit regions and peoples exposed to the danger of foreign domination on account of their unprotected character. The Arab Congresses have unequivocally declared that they want neither protectorates nor mandates nor any other form of political or economic control; and the delegation, while reiterating their view that an amicable adjustment of Arab and Turkish claims by the Muslims themselves in accordance with Islamic law is perfectly feasible, must support the Arab demand for complete freedom from the control of mandatories appointed by the Allies.

“With regard to the Hejaz, Article 98, which requires Turkey not only to recognise it as a free and independent State, but to renounce all rights and titles there, and Article 99, which makes no mention of the rights and prerogatives of the Khalifa as Servant of the Holy Places, are, and must ever be, equally unacceptable to the Muslim world.”

On the other hand, as the Jewish question and the Eastern question are closely connected and have assumed still more importance owing to the Zionist movement, the treaty forced on Turkey concerns the Jews in the highest degree.

It must be borne in mind that if Sephardic Judaism has been gradually smothered by Turkish sovereignty, the Ottoman Empire has proved most hospitable to the Jews driven away by Christian fanaticism, and that for five centuries the Jews have enjoyed both tolerance and security, and have even prospered in it. So the Jews naturally feel anxious, like the Moslems in the provinces wrested from the old Ottoman Empire, when, following the precedent of Salonika, they see Greece annex the region of Adrianople and Smyrna; and they have a right to ask whether Greece, carried away by a wild imperialism, will not yield to her nationalist feeling and revive the fanaticism of religious struggles. So the Allies, foreseeing this eventuality, have asked Greece to take no action to make the Jews regret the past; but as the Greek anti-Semitic feeling is rather economic than religious in character, it is to be feared that the competition of the two races in the commercial struggle will keep up that feeling. The annexation of Thrace would probably concern 20,000 Jews—13,000 at Adrianople, 2,000 at Rodosto, 2,800 at Gallipoli, 1,000 at Kirk Kilisse, 1,000 at Demotica, etc. Great Britain having received a mandate for Palestine—that is to say, virtually a protectorate—on the condition of establishing “a national home for the Jews”—whatever the various opinions of the Jews with regard to Zionism may be—a question is now opened and an experiment is to be tried which concerns them deeply, as it is closely connected with Judaism.

In the course of the reception by Mr. Lloyd George of the Indian Caliphate delegation, M. Mohammed Ali told the British Prime Minister in regard to the Jewish claims in Palestine:

“The delegation have no desire to cause an injustice to the Jewish community, and I think Islam can look back with justifiable pride on its treatment of this community in the past. No aspiration of the Jewish community which is reasonable can be incompatible with Muslim control of the Holy Land, and it is hoped that the Ottoman Government will easily accommodate the Jewish community in such aspirations of theirs as are reasonable.

“Some responsible propagandists of the Zionist movement, with whom I have had conversations, frankly admit: ‘We do not want political sovereignty there; we want a home; the details can be arranged and discussed.’ I asked them: ‘Do you mean that Great Britain herself should be the sovereign Power there, or should be the mandatory?’ and they said: ‘No, what we want is an ordinary, humanly speaking reasonable guarantee that opportunities of autonomous development would be allowed to us.’ We, ourselves, who have been living in India, are great believers in a sort of Federation of Faiths. I think the Indian nationality, which is being built up to-day, will probably be one of the first examples in the world of a Federation of Faiths, and we cannot rule out the possibility of development in Palestine on the lines of ‘cultural autonomy.’ The Jews are, after all, a very small minority there, and I do not believe for one moment that Jews could be attracted there in such large numbers as the Zionist enthusiasts sometimes think. I would say the same thing of an Armenian State, without desiring to say one word which would be considered offensive to any class of people. Because we, ourselves, have suffered so many humiliations, we do not like ourselves to say anything about other people that they would resent. If the Allied Powers brought all the Armenians together and placed them all in a contiguous position, excluding the present Kurdish community from them, no matter what large slice of land you gave them, I think they would very much like to go back to the old status....

“In the same way I would say of the Jewish community, that they are people who prosper very much in other lands, and although they have a great hankering after their home, and no community is so much bound up with a particular territory as the Jewish community is, still, I must say that we do not fear there will be any great migration of such a character that it will form a majority over the Muslim population. The Jewish community has said: ‘We have no objection to Turkish sovereignty remaining in that part of the world so long as we are allowed to remain and prosper there and develop on our own lines, and have cultural autonomy.’”

M. Mohammed Ali, in his letter to Mr. Lloyd George, dated July 10, 1920, also observed that—

“With regard to Palestine in particular, the delegation desire to state that Article 99, embodying the declaration of the British Government of November 2, 1917, is extremely vague, and it is not clear in what relation the so-called national home for the Jewish people, which is proposed to be established in Palestine, would stand to the State proposed to be established there. The Mussulmans of the world are not ashamed of their dealings with their Jewish neighbours, and can challenge a comparison with others in this respect; and the delegation, in the course of the interview with you, endeavoured to make it clear that there was every likelihood of all reasonable claims of Jews in search of a home being accepted by the Muslim Government of Palestine. But if the very small Jewish minority in Palestine is intended to exercise over the Muslim, who constitute four-fifths of the population, a dominance now, or in the future, when its numbers have swelled after immigration, then the delegation must categorically and emphatically oppose any such designs.”

The telegram in which Tewfik Pasha informed Damad Ferid of the conditions of the treaty, and which the latter communicated to the Press, was printed by the Peyam Sabah, surrounded with black mourning lines. Ali Kemal, though he was a supporter of the Government and could not be accused of anglophobia, concluded his article as follows:

“Better die than live blind, deaf, and lame. We have not given up all hope that the statesmen, who hold the fate of the world in their hands and who have officially proclaimed their determination to act equitably, will not allow this country, which has undergone the direst misfortunes for years and has lost its most sacred rights, to suffer a still more heinous injustice.”

All the Constantinople newspapers, dealing at full length with the conditions, unanimously declared that the treaty was unacceptable. The Alemdar, another pro-English newspaper, said:

“If the treaty is not altered it will be difficult to find a man willing to sign it.”

Another newspaper, the Ileri, wrote:

“The anguish which depressed our hearts while we were anxiously waiting seems a very light one compared to the pang we felt when we read the treaty.”

The aforesaid Peyam Sabah, after a survey of the conditions, came to this conclusion:

“Three lines of conduct are open to the Turkish people:

“To beg for mercy and make the Powers realise that the loss of Smyrna will be a great blow to Turkey and will bring no advantage to Greece, and that the Chatalja frontier will be a cause of endless hostility between the various races.

“To sign the treaty and expect that the future will improve the condition of Turkey; but who in Turkey could sign such a treaty?

“To oppose passive resistance to the execution of the conditions of peace, since all hope of armed resistance must be given up.”

Public opinion unanimously protested against the provisions of the treaty, but fluctuated and hesitated as to what concessions could be made.

Damad Ferid, receiving a number of deputies who had stayed at Constantinople and wanted to go back to the provinces, told them that he saw no objection to their going away, and that orders to that effect had been given to the police. Then he is said to have declared that they might tell their mandatories that he would never sign a treaty assigning Smyrna and Thrace to Greece and restricting Turkish sovereignty to Constantinople, and that on this point there was no difference of opinion between him and the Nationalists. He also informed them that in due time he would hold fresh elections, and the treaty would be submitted for approval to the new Chamber.

The Grand Vizier, who had asked Tewfik Pasha to let him see the note which was being prepared by the Turkish delegation at Versailles, was, on his side, elaborating the draft of another answer which was to be compared with that of the delegation, before the wording of the Turkish answer to the Peace Conference was definitely settled.

But the occupation of Lampsaki, opposite to Gallipoli, by the Turkish Nationalists, together with the Bolshevist advance in Northern Persia and Asia Minor, made things worse, and soon became a matter of anxiety to England.

After the text of the Peace Treaty had been presented to the Turks, and when the latter had the certainty that their fears were but too well grounded, it appeared clear that the decisions taken by the Allies would be certain to bring about a coalition of the various parties, and that all Turks, without any distinction of opinion, would combine to organise a resistance against any operation aiming at taking from them Eastern Thrace—where the Bulgarian population was also averse to the expulsion of the Turkish authorities—at assigning Smyrna and the Islands to Greece, and at dismembering the Turkish Empire.

Colonel Jafer Tayar, who commanded the Adrianople army corps and had openly declared against the Sultan’s Government since the latter was at war with the Nationalists, had come to Constantinople at the beginning of May, and it was easy to guess for what purpose. Of course, it had been rumoured, after he left Constantinople, that the Government was going to appoint a successor to him, but nothing of the kind had been done, and he still kept his command. When he came back to Adrianople, not only had no conflict broken out between him and the troops under his command, but he had been given an enthusiastic greeting. As soon as it was known that the San Remo Conference had decided to give Thrace to Greece, up to the Chatalja lines, resistance against Greek occupation was quickly organised. Jafer Tayar, an Albanian by birth—he was born at Prishtina—became the leader of the movement. He hurriedly gathered some contingents made up of regular soldiers and volunteers, and put in a state of defence, as best he could, the ports of the western coast of the Marmora. Jafer Tayar wondered why Thrace was not granted the right of self-determination like Upper Silesia or Schleswig, or autonomy under the protection of France, whose administration in Western Thrace had proved equitable and had given satisfaction to that province. In face of this denial of justice, he had resolved to fight for the independence of Thrace.

It was soon known that the Moslem population of Adrianople had held a meeting at the beginning of May, in which, after a speech by Jafer Tayar, all the people present had pledged themselves to fight for the liberty of Thrace. A similar demonstration took place at Gumuljina. A congress including above two hundred representatives of the whole of Western Thrace had been held about the same time at Adrianople.

In Bulgaria a movement of protest was also started, and on Sunday, May 9, numerous patriotic demonstrations were held in all the provincial towns.

On May 16 the inhabitants of Philippopolis and refugees from Thrace, Macedonia, and the Dobruja living at that time in the town, held a meeting of several thousand people, and without any distinction of religion, nationality, or political party carried the following motion against the decision taken by the San Remo Conference to cede Thrace to Greece:

“They enter an energetic protest against the resolution to cede Thrace to Greece, for that would be a flagrant injustice and an act of cruelty both to a people of the same blood as we, and to the Bulgarian State itself; they declare that the Bulgarian people cannot, of their own free will, accept such a decision of the San Remo Conference, which would be a cause of everlasting discord in the Balkans—whereas the victorious Powers of the Entente have always professed to fight in order to restore peace to those regions; and they entreat the Governments, which have come to this decision, to cancel it and to raise Thrace to the rank of an autonomous, independent State under the protection of all the Powers of the Entente, or one of them.”

On May 25—that is to say, two days before the Greek occupation—a few “Young Turk” and Bulgarian elements proclaimed the autonomy of Western Thrace, and formed a provisional Government to oppose the occupation. At the head of this Government were Tewfik Bey, a Young Turk, Vachel Georgieff, and Dochkoff, Bulgarian komitadjis. But the latter were expelled by General Charpy before the Greek troops and authorities arrived, and the Greek Press did its best to misrepresent that protest against Greek domination. They set off to Adrianople, taking with them the treasury and seals of the Moslem community, and were greeted by Jafer Tayar.

On the other hand, the resistance of the Turkish Nationalists was becoming organised, and as soon as the conditions of peace were known new recruits joined Mustafa Kemal’s forces.

The Nationalist elements, owing to the attitude of the Allies towards Turkey, were now almost thrown into the arms of the Russian Bolshevists, who carried on an energetic propaganda in Asia Minor and offered to help them to save their independence, though they did so to serve their own interests.

Damad Ferid, Mustafa Kemal’s personal enemy, who stood halfway between the Allied Powers and the Nationalists, believed that if he did not displease the Allies, he could pull his country out of its difficulties.

Before the draft of the treaty was handed to the Turks, the Ottoman Government had already begun to raise troops to fight the Nationalists. They were to be placed under command of Marshal Zeki, who had formerly served under Abdul Hamid. It was soon known that this military organisation had been entrusted by the Turkish War Minister to the care of British officers at whose instigation the first contingents had been sent to Ismid, which was to be the Turkish base.

It was soon announced that Damad Ferid Pasha’s troops, who had remained loyal and were commanded by Ahmed Anzavour Pasha and Suleyman Shefik Pasha, had had some hard fighting with the rebels in the Doghandkeui and Geredi area, east of Adabazar, which they had occupied, and that the Nationalists, whose casualties had been heavy, had evacuated Bolu. The information was soon contradicted, and at the beginning of the last week of April it became known that Anzavour and his troops had just been utterly defeated near Panderma, and that this port on the Marmora had fallen into the Nationalists’ hands. Ahmed Anzavour had had to leave Panderma for Constantinople on board a Turkish gunboat, and Mustafa Kemal now ruled over all the region round Brusa, Panderma, and Balikesri. Moreover, in the Constantinople area, a great many officers and soldiers were going over to the Nationalists in Anatolia.

It should be kept in mind that Ahmed Anzavour, though he was of Circassian descent, was unknown in his own country. He had been made pasha to command the Government forces against the Nationalists with the help of the Circassians, who are numerous in the Adabazar region, and to co-operate with the British against his fellow-countrymen, who merely wished to be independent.

Suleyman Shefik Pasha resigned, and some defections took place among the troops under his command.

About the same time, the emergency military court had sentenced to death by default Mustafa Kemal, Colonel Kara Yassif Bey, Ali Fuad Pasha, who commanded the 20th army corps, Ahmed Rustem Bey, ex-ambassador at Washington, Bekir Sami Bey, Dr. Adnan Bey, ex-head of the sanitary service, and his wife, Halidé Edib Hanoum, all impeached for high treason as leaders of the Nationalist movement.

Yet, despite all the measures taken by Damad Ferid and the moral and even material support given to him by the Allies, what could be the outcome of a military action against the Nationalists? How could the Ottoman Government compel the Turks to go and fight against their Anatolian brethren in order to force on them a treaty of peace that it seemed unwilling to accept itself, and that sanctioned the ruin of Turkey?

In some Turkish circles it was wondered whether a slightly Nationalist Cabinet co-operating with the Chamber would not have stood a better chance to come to an understanding with Anatolia and induce her to admit the acceptable parts of the treaty; for should Damad Ferid, who was not in a good position to negotiate with the Nationalists, fail, what would be the situation of the Government which remained in office merely because the Allies occupied Constantinople?

Of course, the Foreign Office proclaimed that foreign troops would be maintained in every zone, and that the treaty would be carried out at any cost. Yet the real Ottoman Government was no longer at Constantinople, where Damad Ferid, whose authority did not extend beyond the Ismid-Black Sea line, was cut off from the rest of the Empire; it was at Sivas. As no Government force or Allied army was strong enough to bring the Nationalist party to terms, it was only in Anatolia that the latter Government could be crushed by those who, with Great Britain, had conspired to suppress 12 million Turks and were ready to sacrifice enough soldiers to reach this end.

On the other hand, it soon became known that at Angora the question of the Caliph-Sultan had been set aside, and even the Sultan’s name was now being mentioned again in the namaz, or public prayer offered every Friday—that is to say, all the parties had practically arrived at an understanding.

Besides, as most likely Greece would have to face difficulties, if not at once, at least in a comparatively short time, inspired information, probably of Greek origin, already intimated that the Supreme Council would decide whether France, England, and Italy would have to support Greece—though one did not see why France and Italy should defray the expenses of that new adventure by which England first, and Greece afterwards, would benefit exclusively.

On Saturday, May 22, the very day on which a Crown Council met under the Sultan’s presidency to examine the terms of the treaty, over 3,000 people held a meeting of protest at Stambul, in Sultan Ahmed Square. Some journalists, who were well known for their pro-English feelings—such as Ali Kemal, an ex-Minister, editor of the Sabah; Refi Jevad, editor of the Alemdar; Mustafa Sabri, a former Sheik-ul-Islam—and some politicians delivered speeches. The platform was draped with black hangings; the Turkish flags and school banners were adorned with crêpe. After the various speakers had explained the clauses of the treaty and showed they were not acceptable, the following motions were passed:

“First, in contradiction to the principle of nationalities, the treaty cuts off from the Empire Thrace, Adrianople, Smyrna, and its area. In case the Allied Powers should maintain their decisions—which seems most unlikely—we want these regions to be given local autonomy.

“Secondly, now the Arabian territories have been cut off from the Ottoman Empire, the Turks, in accordance with the principle of nationalities, should be freed from all fetters and bonds hindering their economic development on the path to progress and peace. To maintain the Capitulations and extend them to other nations is tantamount to declaring the Turks are doomed to misery and slavery for ever.

“Thirdly, the Turks, relying on the fair and equitable feelings of the Allied Powers, require to be treated on the same footing as the other vanquished nations.

“Fourthly, the Turkish people, feeling sure that the peace conditions are tantamount to suppressing Turkey as a nation, ask that the treaty should be modified so as to be made more consistent with right and justice.

“Fifthly, the aforesaid resolutions shall be submitted to the Allied High Commissioners and forwarded to the Peace Conference.”

These resolutions were handed after the meeting to M. Defrance, the senior Allied High Commissioner, who was to forward them to the Peace Conference.

As the difficulties increased, and more important and quicker communications with the Ottoman delegation in Paris were becoming necessary, the Cabinet thought of sending the Grand Vizier to Paris. Upon the latter’s advice, and probably at the instigation of the English, several members of the dissolved Chamber set off to Anatolia in order to try and bring about an understanding between Damad Ferid and the Nationalists, for the conditions of the treaty, as was to be expected, had now nearly healed the rupture between the Central Government and the Turkish Nationalists, especially as the Anglo-Turkish Army was unable to carry out the treaty and Damad Ferid and his supporters were neither willing nor able to enforce it. Even the English had sent delegates to Mustafa Kemal, who had refused to receive them.

The Grand Vizier, after reviewing the troops at Ismid, found they were not strong enough, and requested the headquarters merely to stand on the defensive. Indeed, after a slight success in the Gulf of Ismid, the Government forces found themselves in a critical condition, for the Anatolian troops had occupied Kum Kale, close to the Dardanelles, and Mustafa Kemal had concentrated forces in that region.

The Chamber, which had been dissolved at Constantinople, resumed its sittings at Angora. It criticised the Allies’ policy with regard to Turkey, especially the policy of England, at whose instigation Constantinople had been occupied and military measures had been taken on the coasts of the Black Sea.

In the speech he delivered at the first sitting of the Chamber, Mustafa Kemal showed that the English occupation of Constantinople had been a severe blow at the prestige of the Caliph and Sultan. “We must do our best,” he said, “to free the Sultan and his capital. If we do not obey his orders just now, it is because we look upon them as null and void, as he is not really free.”

The same state of mind showed itself in a telegram of congratulation addressed to the Sultan on his birthday by the provisional vali of Angora, who, though he did not acknowledge the power of the Central Government, stated that the population of Angora were deeply concerned at the condition to which the seat of the Caliphate and Sultanry was reduced owing to the occupation of Constantinople. This telegram ran thus:

“The people have made up their minds not to shrink from any sacrifice to make the Empire free and independent. They feel certain that their beloved Sovereign is with them at heart and that their chief strength lies in a close union round the Khilafat.”

Similar dispatches were sent from the most active Nationalist centres such as Erzerum and Amasia, and by Kiazim Karabekir Pasha, commanding the 15th army corps at Erzerum.

It was plain that, through these demonstrations, Mustafa Kemal and the Anatolian Nationalists aimed at nullifying the religious pretexts Damad Ferid availed himself of to carry on the struggle against them. Mustafa Kemal had even ordered all the ulemas in Anatolia to preach a series of sermons with a view to strengthening the religious feeling among the masses. He had also the same political purpose in view when he sent a circular to the departments concerned to enjoin them to remind all Mussulmans of the duty of keeping the Ramadhan strictly and of the penalties they incurred if they publicly transgressed the Moslem fast.

Besides, the Nationalists strove to turn to account the movement that had taken place among all classes after the terms of the treaty had been made known, and their activity continued to increase. Sali Pasha, who was Grand Vizier before Damad Ferid, had escaped to Anatolia in order to put himself at the disposal of the Nationalists. So their opposition to the Central Government was asserting itself more and more strenuously, and the struggle that ensued assumed many forms.

An armistice, which came into force on May 30, and was to last twenty days, was concluded at Angora by M. Robert de Caix, secretary of the High Commissionership in Syria, between the French authorities and the Turkish Nationalists. Though the terms of this agreement were not made public, it was known that they dealt chiefly with Cilicia and allowed France to use the railway as far as Aleppo. Meanwhile, conversations were being held on the Cilician front, and finally at Angora, to extend the armistice.

Indeed, it was difficult to understand why, after the Italians had evacuated Konia, the French troops had not been withdrawn before the treaty had been handed to Turkey, for it gave France no right to remain in Cilicia; and now the situation of the French there was rather difficult, and their retreat had, of course, become dangerous. It seemed quite plain that the evacuation of Cilicia had become necessary, and that henceforth only the coastlands of Syria properly so called would be occupied.

So the French policy at this juncture had lacked coherency, for it seemed difficult to go on with the war and carry on peace negotiations at the same time.

This armistice was denounced on June 17 by Mustafa Kemal, who demanded the evacuation of Adana, the withdrawal of the French detachments from Heraclea and Zounguldak, and the surrender of the mines to the Nationalists who lacked coal and wanted Constantinople not to have any. Besides, some incidents had occurred in the course of the armistice: some French soldiers who were being drilled near Adana had been fired at, the railway track had been cut east of Toprak Kale, and telegraphic communications interrupted repeatedly between Adana and Mersina.

An encounter occurred on June 11 between the Nationalists and a company which had been detached at the beginning of the month from a battalion of a rifle corps that guarded the port and mining works of Zounguldak. On June 18, after an inquiry, the French commander withdrew from the spot which had been occupied near Heraclea and the company of riflemen was brought back to Zounguldak.

It was obvious that the staff of Cilicia did not seem to have approved of the armistice which had been concluded by the French authorities in order not to have anything to fear in this region, and to send all their forces against the Arabs; and so the head of the Turkish staff, Ismet Bey, naturally did not wish to renew it.

As we had entered into a parley with Mustafa Kemal openly and officially and signed an armistice with him, it seemed likely we meant to pursue a policy that might bring about a local and provisional agreement with the Nationalists, and perhaps a definite agreement later on. If such an armistice was not concluded, a rupture was to be feared on either side later on, in which case the condition of things would remain as intricate as before, or military operations would be resumed in worse conditions than before for both parties. In short, after treating with Mustafa Kemal it was difficult to ignore him in the general settlement that was to ensue.

But no broad view had ever dominated the Allies’ policy since they had signed the armistice with Turkey in October, 1918. Eastern affairs had never been carefully sifted or clearly understood; so the Allies’ action had been badly started. Conflicting ambitions had led them in a confused way. The policy of England especially, which had proved harsh and grasping, and also highly dangerous, was at the bottom of the difficulties the Allies had experienced in the East. So France, where public opinion and popular feeling were opposed to any Eastern adventure or any action against Turkey, could not be called upon to maintain troops in the East or to fight there alone for the benefit of others. The operations that were being contemplated in the East would have necessarily required an important army, and if adequate credits had been asked for them, a loud protest would have been raised—though later on the French Chamber granted large sums of money for Syria, after a superficial debate, not fully realising what would be the consequence of the vote.

M. d’Estournelles de Constant, a member of the Senate, wrote to the French Prime Minister on May 25 that, “after asking the Government most guardedly—for months in the Foreign Affairs Committee and the day before in the Senate—to give information about the mysterious military operations that had been carried on for a year and a half in Asia Minor and towards Mesopotamia,” he found it necessary to start a debate in the Senate upon the following question: “What are our armies doing in Cilicia?”29

Meanwhile the Supreme Council urged the Turkish delegation to sign the treaty that had been submitted for its approval, and the Allies were going to negotiate with the representatives of a Government which, on the whole, was no longer acknowledged by the country. Of what value might be the signature wrested by the Allies from these representatives, and how could the stipulations of that treaty be carried out by the Turks? Most of its clauses raised internal difficulties in Turkey, and such a confusion ensued that the members of the delegation did not seem to agree any longer with the members of the Ottoman Cabinet, and at a certain time even the latter seemed unable to accept the treaty, in spite of the pressure brought to bear on the Ottoman Government by the English troops of occupation.

Mustafa Kemal’s Nationalist forces conquered not only the whole of Asia Minor, but also all the Asiatic coast and the islands of the Marmora, except Ismid, which was still held by British posts. The Turkish Nationalists soon after captured Marmora Island, which commanded the sea route between Gallipoli and Constantinople.

On June 16 the British forces engaged the Kemalist troops in the Ismid area. About thirty Indian soldiers were wounded and an officer of the Intelligence Department was taken prisoner by the Turks. The civilians evacuated Ismid, and it was hinted that the garrison would do the same. Mustafa Kemal’s aeroplanes dropped bombs on the town, and the railway line between Ismid and Hereke was cut by the Nationalists. The British forces on the southern coast of the Dardanelles withdrew towards Shanak, whose fortifications were being hurriedly repaired.

Mustafa Kemal’s plan seemed to be to dispose his forces so as not to be outflanked, and be able to threaten Smyrna later on. To this end, the Nationalist forces advanced along the English sector toward the heights of Shamlija, on the Asiatic coast of the Bosphorus, from which point they could bombard Constantinople.

After a long interview with the Sultan, which lasted two hours, on June 11, the Grand Vizier Damad Ferid Pasha, owing to the difficulty of communicating between Paris and Constantinople, and the necessity of co-ordinating the draft of the answer worked out by the Ottoman Government and the reports drawn up by the various commissions with the answer recommended by the delegation, set off to Paris the next day. So it seemed likely that Turkey would ask for further time before giving her answer.

It could already be foreseen that in her answer Turkey would protest against the clauses of the treaty concerning Thrace and Smyrna, against the blow struck at the sovereignty of the Sultan by the internationalisation of the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles, as thus the Sultan could no longer leave his capital and go freely to Asia Minor, and, lastly, against the clauses restoring the privileges of the Capitulations to the States that enjoyed them before the war.

Turkey also intended to ask that the Sultan should keep his religious rights as Caliph over the Mussulmans detached from the Empire, and that a clause should be embodied in the treaty maintaining the guarantee in regard to the interior loan raised during the war, for otherwise a great many subscribers would be ruined and the organisation of the property of the orphans would be jeopardised.

At the beginning of the second week of June it was rumoured that the treaty might be substantially amended in favour of Turkey.30 Perhaps Great Britain, seeing how things stood in the East, and that her policy in Asia Minor raised serious difficulties, felt it necessary to alter her attitude with regard to Turkish Nationalism which, supported by the Bolshevists, was getting more and more dangerous in Persia. For Mr. Lloyd George, who has always allowed himself to be led by the trend of events, and whose policy had lately been strongly influenced by the Bolshevists, had now altered his mind, as he often does, and seemed now inclined, owing to the failure of his advances to the Soviet Government, to modify his attitude towards Constantinople—after having exasperated Turkish Nationalism. The debate that was to take place on June 15 in the House of Lords as to what charges and responsibilities England had assumed in Mesopotamia, was postponed—which meant much; and the difficulties just met with by the British in the Upper Valley of the Tigris and the Euphrates in their struggle with the Arabs convinced them of the advisability of a revision of the British policy towards both the Arabs and the Turks.

On the other hand, it did not seem unlikely that M. Venizelos, who was being expected in London, might have seen the mistake the Supreme Council had made when it had granted the Greek claims so fully, and that the apprehension he was entitled to feel about the reality of the huge advantages obtained by Greece might have a salutary influence on him. Yet nothing of the kind happened, and in a long letter to the Daily Telegraph (June 18) he asserted not only the rights of Greece to Smyrna, but his determination to have them respected and to prevent the revision of the treaty.

M. Venizelos, “the great victor of the war in the East,” as he was called in London, even supported his claims by drawing public attention to the intrigues carried on by Constantine’s supporters to restore him to the throne. He maintained that the revision of the treaty would second the efforts which were then being made in Athens by the old party of the Crown, which, he said, was bound to triumph if Greece was deprived of the fruits of her victory and if the Allies did not redeem their pledges towards her. But then it became obvious that the Greeks did not despise Constantine so much after all, and their present attitude could not in any way be looked upon as disinterested.

It might have been expected, on the other hand, that Count Sforza, who had been High Commissioner in Constantinople, where he had won warm sympathies, would maintain the friendly policy pursued by Italy since the armistice towards Turkey—that is to say, he would urge that the time had come to revise the treaty of peace with Turkey which, since it had been drawn up at San Remo, had constantly been opposed by the Italian Press. All the parties shared this view, even the clerical party, and one of its members in the Chamber, M. Vassalo, who had just come back from Turkey, energetically maintained it was impossible to suppress the Ottoman Empire without setting on fire the whole of Asia. The Congress of the Popular Party in Naples held the same opinion. Recent events also induced Italy to preserve the cautious attitude she had assumed in Eastern affairs since the armistice, and she naturally aimed at counterbalancing the supremacy that England, if she once ruled over Constantinople and controlled Greater Greece, would enjoy over not only the western part, but the whole, of the Mediterranean Sea.

Henceforth it was obvious that the chief stipulations of the treaty that was to be enforced on Turkey were doomed to failure, and it was asked with no little anxiety whether the Powers would be wise enough to take facts into account and reconsider their decisions accordingly, or maintain them and thus pave the way to numerous conflicts and fresh difficulties. Indeed, the outcome of the arrangements they had laboriously elaborated was that things in the East had become more intricate and critical than before. No State wished to assume the task of organising the Armenian State: the American Senate flatly refused; Mr. Bonar Law formally declared in the House of Commons that England had already too many responsibilities; France did not see why she should take charge of it; Italy accepted no mandate in Asia Minor. Syria, on the other hand, protested against its dismemberment. Mesopotamia was rising against the English at the very time when the Ottoman Nationalists entered an indignant protest against the cession of Smyrna and Thrace to Greece.

It was to be wished, therefore, from every point of view that not only some articles of the treaty presented to the Turks, but the whole document, should be remodelled, and more regard should be paid to the lawful rights of the Ottoman Empire, a change which could only serve French interests.

But though reason and her interest urged France to maintain the Ottoman Empire—which she attempted to do to some extent—she allowed herself to be driven in a contrary direction by England, who thought she could take advantage of the perturbation caused by the war within the Turkish Empire to dismember it—not realising that this undertaking went against her own Asiatic interests, which were already seriously endangered. Such a submission to the English policy was all the more to be regretted as Mr. Lloyd George had but grudgingly supported the French policy with regard to Germany, and after the San Remo conversations it seemed that France would have to consent to heavy sacrifices in the East in return for the semi-approbation he had finally granted her. This policy of England well might surprise the French—who have always reverenced the British parliamentary system; for the so-styled imperialist policy of Queen Victoria or King Edward, though it has been violently criticised, had really kept up the old traditions of British Liberalism, and had nothing in common with the greed and cool selfishness of such demagogues and would-be advanced minds as Mr. Lloyd George, who stands forth before the masses as the enemy of every imperialism and the champion of the freedom of peoples. But the former leaders of English foreign policy were not constantly influenced by their own political interests; they knew something of men and countries; and they had long been thoroughly acquainted with the ways of diplomacy. Both in England and France, everyone should now acknowledge their fair-mindedness, and pay homage alike to their wisdom and perspicacity.

Many people in France now wondered with some reason what the 80,000 French soldiers round Beyrut were doing—whether it was to carry out the expedition that had long been contemplated against Damascus, or to launch into an adventure in Cilicia.

M. d’Estournelles de Constant, who had first wished to start a debate in the French Chamber on the military operations in Syria and Cilicia, addressed the following letter, after the information given by M. Millerand before the Commission of Foreign Affairs, to M. de Selves, chairman of this Commission:

“I feel bound to let the Commission know for what reasons I have determined not to give up, but merely postpone the debate I wanted to start in the Chamber concerning our military operations in Syria and Cilicia.

“The Premier has given as much consideration as he could to the anxieties we had expressed before him. He has inherited a situation he is not responsible for, and seems to do his best to prevent France from falling into the dreadful chasm we had pointed out to him. We must help him in his most intricate endeavours, for France is not the only nation that has to grapple with the perilous Eastern problem. She must work hand in hand with her allies to avert this peril. The whole world is threatened by it. Our Allies should understand that the interest of France is closely connected with their interests. France guards the Rhine; she is practically responsible for the execution of the treaty with Germany.

“How can she perform such a task, together with the administration of Alsace and Lorraine and the restoration of her provinces laid waste by the Germans, if she is to scatter her effort and her reduced resources both in Europe and all her large colonial empire and in Asia Minor among peoples who have long welcomed her friendship, but abhor any domination?

“France would do the world an immense service by openly reverting to the war aims proclaimed by herself and her allies. Far from endangering, she would thus strengthen her traditional influence in the East; she would thus do more than by risky military operations to smother the ambitions and rebellions that might set on fire again the Balkan States, Anatolia, and even Mesopotamia.

“After five years of sacrifices that have brought us victory, to start on a would-be crusade against the Arabs and Turks in a remote country, in the middle of summer, would imply for France as well as for England, Italy, Greece, and Serbia, the beginning of a new war that might last for ever, to the benefit of anarchy.

“At any rate I ask that the intended treaty of peace with Turkey, which has not been signed yet, should not be presented to the French Parliament as an irremediable fact.”

After a long debate on Eastern affairs and on the questions raised by M. Millerand’s communications, the Commission for Foreign Affairs, seeing things were taking a bad turn, and the situation of France in Syria, Cilicia, and Constantinople was getting alarming, decided on June 15 to send a delegation to the East to make an inquiry on the spot.

At the first sitting of the French Chamber on June 25, 1920, M. Briand, who three months before had made a speech in favour of the 1916 agreements which were being threatened by English ambition, though he considered the Turkish bands “went too far,” and our policy “played too much into their hands,” felt it incumbent on him to say:

“When we leave a nation like Turkey, after a long war, for over a year, under what might be called a Scotch douche, telling her now ‘Thou shalt live,’ now ‘Thou shalt not live,’ we strain its nerves to the extreme, we create within it a patriotic excitement, a patriotic exasperation, which now becomes manifest in the shape of armed bands. We call them bands of robbers; in our own country we should call them ‘bands of patriots.’”

In the course of the general discussion of the Budget, during a debate which took place on July 28 in the Senate, an amendment was brought in by M. Victor Bérard and some of his colleagues calling for a reduction of 30 million francs on the sums asked for by the Government, which already amounted, as a beginning, to 185 million francs.

M. d’Estournelles de Constant then expressed his fear that this Eastern expedition might cause France to make sacrifices out of proportion to her resources in men and money, and asked how the Government expected to recuperate the expenditure incurred in Syria.

M. Victor Bérard, in his turn, sharply criticised our Eastern policy.

M. Bompard, too, expressed his fears concerning our Syrian policy, and M. Doumergue asked the Government to consent to a reduction of the credits “to show it intended to act cautiously in Syria.”

But after M. Millerand’s energetic answer, and after M. Doumer, chairman of the Commission, had called upon the Senate to accept the figures proposed by the Government and the Commission, these figures were adopted by 205 votes against 84.

M. Romanos, interviewed by the Matin,31 and soon after M. Venizelos, at the Lympne Conference, maintained that the treaty could be fully carried out, and the Greeks felt quite able to enforce it themselves.

As the Allied troops were not sufficient to take decisive action, and as a large part of the Ottoman Empire had been assigned to Greece, England herself soon asked why the latter should not be called upon to pay for the operation if she insisted upon carrying it out.

About June 20 the situation of the British troops became rather serious, as General Milne did not seem to have foreseen the events and was certainly unable to control them.

The Nationalist troops, which met with but little resistance, continued to gain ground, and after marching past Ismid occupied Guebze. The Government forces were retreating towards Alemdagh.

By this time the Nationalists occupied the whole of Anatolia, and the English held but a few square miles near the Dardanelles. The Nationalists, who had easy access to both coasts of the Gulf of Ismid, attempted to blow up the bridges on the Haïdar-Pasha-Ismid railway line. Though the English were on the lookout, four Turkish aeroplanes started from the park of Maltepe, bound for Anatolia. One of them was piloted by the famous Fazil Bey, who had attacked English aeroplanes during their last flight over Constantinople a few days before the armistice in October, 1918.

Indeed, the Government forces only consisted of 15,000 specialised soldiers, artillerymen or engineers, with 6 light batteries of 77 guns and 2 Skoda batteries; in addition to which 20,000 rifles had been given to local recruits. The Nationalists, on the contrary, opposed them with 35,000 well-equipped men commanded by trained officers. Besides, there was but little unity of command among the Government forces. Anzavour Pasha, who had been sent with some cavalry, had refused to submit to headquarters, and at the last moment, when ordered to outflank the enemy and thus protect the retreat of the Government forces, he had flatly refused to do so, declaring he was not going to be ordered about by anybody.

So, considering how critical the situation of the British troops was in the zone of the Straits, England immediately made preparations to remedy it and dispatched reinforcements. The 2nd battalion of the Essex Regiment was held in readiness at Malta, and the light cruiser Carlisle kept ready to set off at a few minutes’ notice. All available destroyers had already left Malta for the Eastern Mediterranean, where the first and fourth squadrons had already repaired. Besides, the cruiser Ceres, which had left Marseilles for Malta, received orders on the way to steam straight on to the Ægean Sea. All the Mediterranean fleet was concentrated in the East, while in the Gulf of Ismid the English warships, which were already there, carefully watched the movements of the Turkish Nationalist forces.

Such a state of things naturally brought about some anxiety in London, which somewhat influenced Mr. Lloyd George’s decisions.

During the Hythe Conference, after some conversations on the previous days with Mr. Lloyd George, Lord Curzon, and Mr. Philip Kerr, in which he had offered to put the Greek Army at the disposal of the Allies, M. Venizelos, accompanied by Sir John Stavridi, a rich Greek merchant of London, who had been his intimate adviser for several years, went on Saturday evening, June 18, to the Imperial Hotel at Hythe, where were met all the representatives and experts whom Sir Philip Sassoon had not been able to accommodate at his mansion at Belcair, to plead the cause of Greek intervention with them.

M. Venizelos, on the other hand, in order to win over the British Government to his views, had secured the most valuable help of Sir Basil Zaharoff, who owns most of the shares in the shipbuilding yards of Vickers and Co. and who, thanks to the huge fortune he made in business, subsidises several organs of the British Press. He, too, has been a confidential adviser of M. Venizelos, and has a great influence over Mr. Lloyd George, owing to services rendered to him in election time. So it has been said with reason that M. Venizelos’ eloquence and Sir Basil Zaharoff’s wealth have done Turkey the greatest harm, for they have influenced Mr. Lloyd George and English public opinion against her.

According to M. Venizelos’ scheme, which he meant to expound before the Conference, the Turkish Nationalist army, concentrated in the Smyrna area, could be routed by a quick advance of the Greek forces, numbering 90,000 fully equipped and well-trained men, who would capture the railway station of Afium-Karahissar. This station, being at the junction of the railway line from Smyrna and the Adana-Ismid line, via Konia, the only line of lateral communication Mustafa Kemal disposed of, would thus be cut off, and the Nationalist leader would have to withdraw towards the interior. His resistance would thus break down, and the British forces on the southern coast of the Sea of Marmora that M. Venizelos offered to reinforce by sending a Greek division would be at once freed from the pressure brought to bear on them, which, at the present moment, they could hardly resist.

The next day the Allies decided to accept M. Venizelos’ offer, as the Greek troops were on the spot and no other force could arrive soon enough to relieve the British forces, which were seriously threatened.

Mr. Lloyd George declared that the British Government was sending to the spot all the ships it had at its disposal, but that this naval intervention could not affect the situation much without the help of the Greek Army.

“Without the Greek help,” he said, “we may be driven to an ignominious evacuation of that region of Asia Minor before Kemal’s forces, which would certainly have a terrible repercussion throughout the East and would pave the way to endless possibilities.”

This was also the view held by Sir Henry Wilson, Chief of the Imperial General Staff.

Marshal Foch, too, was asked his advice about the Greek co-operation. He had already declared at San Remo, in agreement with Marshal Wilson, that an army of 300,000 or 400,000 well-equipped men would be needed to conquer Asia Minor. Now, after making full reserves in regard to the political side of the question, he merely remarked that from a strictly military point of view, Greek co-operation might be a decisive element of success; moreover, in a report he had drawn up a few months before, he had pointed out the advantage that an active co-operation of the Greek Army was sure to bring, from a military point of view.

M. Millerand, while admitting these advantages, is said to have raised some serious objections to the scheme.

Finally, as the question could not be solved definitely without Italy’s consent, it was adjourned till the Boulogne Conference met.

Mr. Lloyd George accepted this solution the more readily as he only seemed to look upon M. Venizelos’ scheme as an experiment; and he wanted to gain time, in order to know whether he was to pursue it, till facts had proved that M. Venizelos was right and the Turkish Nationalists’ resistance could be overcome in a short time. If after some time things did not turn out as he expected, he would merely resort to another policy, as is usual with him. But England, meanwhile, was in an awkward situation, since, while accepting the help of an ally, she hinted at the same time that she would not stand by the latter if things turned out wrong. On the other hand, it was surprising that the Supreme Council should take such decisions before receiving Turkey’s answer and knowing whether she would sign the treaty.

When the decisions taken at Hythe in regard to the part to be entrusted to Greece were made known on June 21 at the Boulogne Conference, they brought forth some remarks on the part of Count Sforza, who refused to engage Italy’s responsibility in the policy that was being recommended. He thought it his duty to make reservations in regard to the timeliness of these decisions and the consequences that might ensue, referring to the technical advice given at San Remo by Marshal Foch and Marshal Wilson as to the huge forces they thought would be needed to enforce the treaty against the Nationalists’ wish.

Soon after—on July 13—M. Scialoja, in the long speech he delivered before the Senate to defend the attitude of Italy in the Peace Congress, declared that Italy could not be held responsible for the serious condition of things now prevailing in Asia Minor and the East, for she had attempted, but in vain, to secure a more lenient treatment for Turkey. Finally, in spite of all the objections raised against the treaty, and the difficulties that would probably ensue, it was decided at the few sittings of the Boulogne Conference that the Ottoman delegation should be refused any further delay in giving their answer, which averted any possibility of revision of the treaty. The Powers represented in the Conference gave a free hand to Greece in Asia Minor, because they had not enough soldiers there themselves—let us add that none of them, not even England probably, cared to rush into a new Eastern adventure. The Greeks had none but themselves to blame; their landing at Smyrna had started the Nationalist movement, and now they bore the brunt of the fight.

This new decision implied the giving up of the policy of conciliation which might have been expected after the three weeks’ armistice concluded on May 30 between the French Staff and the Nationalists, which seemed to imply that the French military authorities intended to evacuate the whole of Cilicia, left by the treaty to Turkey. Owing to the serious consequences and infinite repercussions it might have through the Moslem world, the new decision heralded a period of endless difficulties.

Even the Catholic Press did not much appreciate the treaty, and had been badly impressed by recent events. The Vatican, which has always sought to prevent Constantinople from falling into the hands of an Orthodox Power, might well dread the treaty would give the Phanar a paramount influence in the East, if Greece became the ruling Power both at Stambul and Jerusalem. In the first days of the war, when at the time of the Gallipoli expedition Constantinople seemed doomed to fall, the Holy See saw with some anxiety that the Allies intended to assign Constantinople to Russia, and it then asked that at least Saint Sophia, turned into a mosque by the Turks, should be given back to the Catholic creed. This fear may even have been one of the reasons which then induced the Holy See to favour the Central States. M. René Johannet, who was carrying on a campaign in the newspaper La Croix32 for the revision of the treaty, wrote as follows:

“But then, if Asia Minor is deprived of Smyrna and thus loses at least half her resources, we ask with anxiety where France, the chief creditor of Turkey, will find adequate financial guarantees? To give Smyrna to Greece is to rob France. If the Turks are stripped of everything, they will give us nothing.

“Lastly, the fate of our innumerable religious missions, of which Smyrna is the nucleus, is to us a cause of great anxiety. After the precedents of Salonika and Uskub, we have everything to fear. The Orthodox Governments hate Catholicism. Our religious schools—that is to say, the best, the soundest part of our national influence—will soon come to nothing if they are constantly worried by the new lords of the land. How can we allow this?”

According to the account given by the Anatolian newspapers of the sittings of the Parliament summoned by Mustafa Kemal to discuss the conditions of peace, very bitter speeches had been delivered. The Assembly had passed motions denouncing the whole of the treaty, and declaring the Nationalists were determined to oppose its being carried out, supposing it were signed by Damad Ferid Pasha, or any venal slave of the foreigner, and to fight to the bitter end.

Mustafa Kemal was said to have declared, in a conversation, that he had not enough soldiers to make war, but he would manage to prevent any European Power establishing dominion in Asia Minor. And he is reported to have added: “I don’t care much if the Supreme Council ejects the Turks from Europe, but in this case the Asiatic territories must remain Turkish.”

The Greek Army, which, according to the decisions of the Conference, had started an offensive on the Smyrna front, after driving back the Nationalists concentrated at Akhissar, occupied the offices of the captainship of the port of Smyrna and the Ottoman post-office.

On June 20, at Chekmeje, west of Constantinople on the European coast of the Marmora, a steamer had landed a detachment of Kemalist troops, which the British warships had immediately bombarded at a range of eight miles.

On June 21 and 22 two battalions, one English and the other Indian, landed on the Asiatic coast and blew up the eighty guns scattered all along the Straits, on the Asiatic shore of the Dardanelles.

On June 23 the 13th Greek division attacked Salikili and occupied it. A column of cavalry advanced towards Kula.

On June 24 the Greek troops carried on their advance in four directions and the Nationalists withdrew, fighting stoutly all the time.

On June 25 the Greeks overcame their resistance and captured Alashehr, formerly called Philadelphia, an important town on the Smyrna-Konia line, about 100 miles from Smyrna, took some prisoners and captured material.

On July 1 the Greeks occupied Balikesri, an important station on the Smyrna-Panderma line, nearly fifty miles to the north of Soma, in spite of the Nationalists’ energetic resistance.

On July 3 a landing of Greek troops hastened the fall of Panderma. Some detachments which had landed under the protection of the fleet marched southwards, and met the enemy outposts at Omerkeui, fifteen miles to the north-west of Balikesri.

Then on July 7 M. Venizelos stated at the Spa Conference that the Greek offensive against Mustafa Kemal’s forces which had begun on June 22 and whose chief objective was the capture of the Magnesia-Akhissar-Soma-Balikesri-Panderma line, had ended victoriously on July 2, when the forces coming from the south and those landed at Panderma had effected a junction, and that the scheme of military operations drawn up at Boulogne, which was to be carried out in two weeks, according to General Paraskevopoulos’ forecast, had been brought to a successful end in eleven days.

On July 8 Brusa was occupied by the Greek army, and Mudania and Geumlek by British naval forces. Before the Greek advance began every wealthy Turk had fled to the interior with what remained of the 56th Turkish division, which had evacuated Brusa on July 2. Brusa had been occupied by the Greeks without any bloodshed. A good number of railway carriages and a few steam-engines belonging to a French company had been left undamaged by the Turks on the Mudania line. The British naval authorities, under the pretext that some shots had been fired from the railway station, had had it shelled, together with the French manager’s house, and all that was in these two buildings had been looted by British sailors and the Greek population of Mudania.

Some misleading articles in the Greek and English Press, which were clearly unreliable, extolled the correct attitude of the Greek troops towards the inhabitants during their advance in Asia Minor. According to the Greek communiqué of July 17, “the Nationalists, now deprived of any prestige, were being disarmed by the Moslem population which earnestly asked to be protected by the Greek posts,” and “the Turks, tired of the vexatious measures and the crushing taxes enforced by the Kemalists, everywhere expressed their confidence and gratitude towards the Greek soldiers, whom they welcomed as friends and protectors.”

At the same time political circles in Athens openly declared that the Greek operations in Asia Minor had now come to an end, and that Adrianople and Eastern Thrace would soon be occupied—this occupation being quite urgent as the Turks already evinced signs of resistance, and the Bulgarians were assuming a threatening attitude. Moreover, as might have been foreseen, the Greeks already began to speak of territorial compensations after their operations in Asia Minor and of setting up a new State.

General Milne, whose forces had been reinforced by Greek elements, also undertook to clear all the area lying between Constantinople and Ismid from the irregular Turkish troops that had made their way into it.

On July 7 it was officially notified by the British Headquarters that “military movements were going to take place in the direction of Ismid, and so the Asiatic shore of the Bosphorus was considered as a war zone.” Accordingly troops quartered in that district, and soldiers employed in the various services, were to be recalled to the European shore at once, and the next day any Turkish soldier found within that zone would be treated as an enemy.

The great Selimie barracks, at Skutari, were therefore evacuated by the Turks, who thus had no troops left on the Asiatic shore of the Straits.

At Pasha Bagtche Chiboukli, on the Asiatic shore of the Bosphorus, Greek soldiers helped to disarm the population, and searched everybody who landed at that village.

At Stambul, on the great bridge of Karakeui, British agents halted all officers and soldiers wearing the Turkish uniform, and directed them to the buildings of the English gendarmerie to be examined.

The Alemdagh district was occupied, and General Milne had all the Government troops disarmed, on the pretext of their questionable attitude and the weakness of the Turkish Government. Yet the latter had, of its own accord, broken up the Constantinople army corps, and replaced it by one division that was to be dissolved, in its turn, after the signature of the Peace Treaty, as according to the terms of peace only 700 Turkish soldiers had a right to reside in Constantinople as the Sultan’s guard.

In an article of Le Matin, July 7, 1920, under the title, “A New Phase of the Eclipse of French Influence in the East,” M. André Fribourg pointed out the encroachment of the British Commander in Constantinople.

The decision taken by the Allies at Boulogne not to grant any further delay had placed the Turks in a difficult situation. The Grand Vizier, who had come to Paris in the hope of negotiating, handed his answer on the 25th, in order to keep within the appointed time.

The Supreme Council examined this answer on Wednesday, July 7, at Spa. After hearing the English experts, who advised that any modification should be rejected, the Council refused to make any concessions on all the chief points mentioned in the Turkish answer, and only admitted a few subsidiary requests as open to discussion. It deputed a Commission of political experts to draw up an answer in collaboration with the military experts.

Meanwhile the Minister of the Interior, Reshid Bey, chairman of the Ottoman delegation, who had left Constantinople on the 25th, and had arrived in Paris with Jemil Pasha only at the beginning of July, sent a note to the Secretary of the Peace Conference to be forwarded to M. Millerand at Spa. This note, which came to hand on July 11, completed the first answer. It included the decisions taken in Constantinople during Damad Ferid’s stay at Versailles.

The remarks offered by the Ottoman delegation about the peace conditions presented by the Allies made up a little book of forty pages with some appendices, which was handed to the Conference on the 25th. The answer, which had been revised in Constantinople, and consisted of forty-seven pages, was delivered a few days after; it differed but little from the first.

This document began with the following protest against the conditions enforced on Turkey:

“It was only fair—and it was also a right recognised by all nations nowadays—that Turkey should be set on an equal footing with her former allies. The flagrant inequality proffered by the draft of the treaty will be bitterly resented not only by 12 million Turks, but throughout the Moslem world.

“Nothing, indeed, can equal the rigour of the draft of the Turkish treaty. As a matter of fact, it is a dismemberment.

“Not only do the Allies, in the name of the principle of nationalities, detach important provinces from the Ottoman Empire which they erect to the rank of free, independent States (Armenia and the Hejaz), or independent States under the protection of a mandatory Power (Mesopotamia, Palestine, and Syria); not only do they wrench from it Egypt, Suez, and Cyprus, which are to be ceded to Great Britain; not only do they require Turkey to give up all her rights and titles to Libya and the States of the Ægean Sea: they even mean to strip her, notwithstanding the said principle of nationalities, of Eastern Thrace and the zone of Smyrna, which countries, in a most iniquitous way, would be handed over to Greece, who wants to be set on an equal footing with the victors, though she has not even been at war with Turkey.

“Further, they are preparing to take Kurdistan and in an indirect way to slice the rest of the country into zones of influence.

“In this way more than two-thirds of the extent of the Ottoman Empire would already be taken from it. With regard to the number of inhabitants, it would be at least two-thirds. If we consider the economic wealth and natural resources of the country, the proportion would be greater still.

“But that is not all. To this spoliation, the draft of the treaty adds a notorious infringement on the sovereignty of the Ottoman State. Even at Constantinople Turkey would not be her own mistress. Side by side with His Imperial Majesty the Sultan and the Turkish Government—or even above them in some cases—a ‘Commission of the Straits’ would rule over the Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmora, and the Dardanelles. Turkey would not even be represented in this Commission, whereas Bulgaria would send a representative to it.

“In addition to these two powers, there would be a third one—the military power exercised by the troops of occupation of three States, whose headquarters would have the upper hand even of the Ottoman gendarmerie.

“Any possibility of mere defence against an attack would thus be taken away from Turkey, whose capital would henceforth be within the range of her enemies’ guns.

“The sovereignty of the State would also be deeply infringed upon in all matters relating to legislation, international treaties, finance, administration, jurisdiction, trade, etc., so that finally the crippled Ottoman Empire would be stripped of every attribute of sovereignty both at home and abroad, but would be held responsible all the same for the execution of the Peace Treaty and the international obligations pertaining to every State.

“Such a situation, which would be an utter denial of justice, would constitute both a logical impossibility and a judicial anomaly. For, on the one hand, it is impossible to maintain a State and at the same time divest it of all that is an essential judicial condition of its existence; and, on the other hand, there cannot be any responsibility where there is no liberty.

“Either the Allied Powers are of opinion that Turkey should continue to exist, in which case they should make it possible for her to live and fulfil her engagements by paying due regard to her rights as a free, responsible State.

“Or the Allied Powers want Turkey to die. They should then execute their own sentence themselves, without asking the culprit—to whom they did not even give a hearing—to append his signature to it and bring them his co-operation.”

After these general considerations and some remarks as to the responsibility of Turkey, the fundamental rights of the State, and the right of free disposal of peoples, the Ottoman Government made counter-proposals which were quite legitimate, and at the same time bore witness to its goodwill.

This document, to which we refer the reader for further particulars, may be summed up as follows: The Turkish Government recognises the new States of Poland, Serbia-Croatia-Slovenia, and Czecho-Slovakia. It confirms the recognition made by Turkey in 1918 of Armenia as a free, independent State. It also recognises the Hejaz as a free, independent State. It recognises the French protectorate over Tunis. It accepts all economic, commercial, and other consequences of the French protectorate over Morocco, which was not a Turkish province. It renounces all rights and privileges over Libya and the isles and islets of the Ægean Sea. It recognises Syria, Mesopotamia, Palestine, as independent States. It recognises the British protectorate over Egypt, the free passage of the Suez Canal, the Anglo-Egyptian administration of the Soudan, the annexation of Cyprus by Great Britain.

In regard to Constantinople and the régime of the zone of the Straits, the Ottoman delegation remarked that according to the terms of the treaty there would be together in that town—

“First, His Imperial Majesty the Sultan and the Turkish Government, whose rights and titles shall be maintained.

“Secondly, the Commission of the Straits.

“Thirdly, the military powers of occupation.

“Fourthly, the diplomatic representatives of France, Britain, and Italy, deliberating in a kind of council with the military and naval commanders of the Franco-Anglo-Italian forces.”

With them would be—

“Fifthly, the Inter-Allied Commissioners of Control and Military Organisation.

“Sixthly, the Commission of Finance.

“Seventhly, the Council of the Ottoman Public Debt.

“Eighthly, the consuls’ jurisdictions.”

After going over all the objections raised by the coexistence of these various bodies, whose powers would encroach upon each other or would be exactly similar, and the impossibility that foreign agents accredited to the Sultan should hold such functions, the memorandum opposed the following reasons to the decisions of the Conference:

“First, the draft of the treaty does not in any way institute an international judicial and political organisation of the Straits.

“Secondly, it institutes a political and military power on behalf of some States, attended with all the international risks pertaining to it.

“Thirdly, with regard to Turkey it would constitute a direct and deep infringement on her rights of sovereignty, preservation, and security, which infringements are not necessary to safeguard the freedom of passage of the Straits.

“Fourthly, from an international point of view the intended régime would create a kind of international moral person by the side of the States, which would not represent the League of Nations.

“Fifthly, the new international condition of Turkey would in some respects be inferior to that of the new States consisting of territories detached from Turkey, for these new States would be placed under the mandate of a Power appointed by the League of Nations mainly in accordance with the wishes of the populations concerned, and bound to give a periodical account to the League of Nations of the exercise of its mandate.

“Sixthly, far from ensuring the internationalisation of the Straits, which was aimed at by the Powers, the régime instituted by the draft of the treaty would favour their nationalisation by another State.

“The internationalisation of the Straits could only be realised by means of an international organisation—viz., a judicial organisation representing all the Powers.”

Therefore, the Government allows the free passage of the Straits, but asks that they should be controlled only by the League of Nations, and that the Straits zones mentioned in the scheme of internationalisation “should be reduced territorially to what is necessary to guarantee the free passage of the Straits.” Turkey declares herself ready to accept “this scheme, if restricted to the Straits zone, whose frontiers were fixed as follows”:

“(a) In Europe the Sharkeui-Karachali line, thus including all the Gallipoli Peninsula.

“(b) In Asia a line passing through Kara-Bigha (on the Sea of Marmora), Bigha, Ezine, and Behramkeui.”

She thus agrees to “all restrictions to her sovereignty over the Straits that are necessary to control the navigation and ensure their opening to all flags on a footing of complete equality between the States.”

Further,

“As regards all matters concerning the region of the Straits and the Sea of Marmora, the Ottoman Government is willing to discuss a convention instituting for these waters a régime of the same kind as the one established for the Suez Canal by the Constantinople treaty of October 29, 1888, the very régime advocated by Great Britain (Art. 109).”

The Ottoman Government—this article, together with the one concerning the Hejaz that will be mentioned later on, was the most important addition in the revised answer drawn up at Constantinople—wishes the islands of Lemnos, Imbros, Tenedos, lying before the entrance to the Dardanelles, to be included in the zone of the Straits—that is to say, to remain Ottoman territories under inter-Allied occupation. The Allies intended to give these islands to Greece, and it was feared in Constantinople the latter might hand them over to another Power—England, for instance—that would cede her Cyprus in exchange.

Among a great many measures intended for ensuring the security of Constantinople, the Ottoman Government chiefly asks for the limitation of the number of foreign warships allowed to stay in Turkish waters.

It wants to maintain, under Ottoman sovereignty, Eastern Thrace within its pre-war boundaries, and Smyrna with the surrounding area, which shall be evacuated by Hellenic troops, and may be occupied for three years at the utmost by troops of the chief Allied Powers.

The Ottoman Government asks for an international inquiry to fix the frontiers of Kurdistan according to the principle of nationalities, in case the Kurds—who, it firmly believes, are “indissolubly attached to His Majesty the Sultan,” and who “have never wished, and will never have the least desire, to be completely independent or even to relax the bonds that link them with the Turkish people”—should express the wish to enjoy local autonomy. The intended frontier between Syria and Mesopotamia should also be altered, for otherwise it would cut off from the Ottoman Empire a predominantly Turkish population; “an international commission should make a thorough inquiry with a view to ascertain facts from an ethnic point of view.”

It also wants the King of the Hejaz to pledge himself to respect the titles and prerogatives of the Sultan as Caliph over the holy cities and places of Mecca and Medina.

Lastly, it declares itself ready to accept, without asking for reciprocity, the clauses concerning the protection of minorities.

Meanwhile the Greeks seemed eager to carry on their campaign in Asia Minor, without even waiting for the definite settlement of the treaty. According to information sent from Greece,33 the Hellenic army, having reached all its objectives, was waiting for the decisions of the Spa Conference, and if the latter wished her to carry on her operations in Asia Minor, her fourth objective would probably be Eskishehr, the nucleus of the Anatolian railways, which commands all the traffic and revictualling of Asia Minor, and whose fall would perhaps bring the war to an end.

The Allied answer to the Turkish request for further delays and to the Turkish remarks was handed to the Ottoman delegation on July 17.

In this answer, the main lines or perhaps even the very words of which had been settled at Spa, the Allies only repeated their previous arguments—some of which were ineffective and others unfounded; and both the letter and the spirit of the answer were most unconciliatory.

The assertion that “Turkey entered into the war without the shadow of an excuse or provocation,” recurred again in it and was fully enlarged upon. The events that had taken place lately and the character they had assumed since the end of hostilities did not seem to have taught the writers or instigators of the answer anything at all. We do not wish here to mitigate in any way the responsibilities of Turkey or her wrongs to the Allies; yet we should not overlook the most legitimate reasons that drove her to act thus, and we must own she had a right to mistrust the promises made to her. For the policy that the Allies pursued at that time and that they have not wholly repudiated obviously proved that they would give a free hand to Russia to carry out her ambitious schemes on Constantinople and Turkey-in-Asia, as a reward for her energetic share in the war.

Besides, a fact helps us to understand how Turkey was driven to enter into the war and accounts for her apprehension of England and the Anglo-Hellenic policy pursued by England in relation with her later on, both in the working out of the Sèvres treaty and after the signature of this treaty; it is the proposition made by England to Greece to attack Turkey. According to the letter that M. Venizelos addressed to King Constantine on September 7, 1914, sending in his resignation, which was not accepted by the King, Admiral Kerr, the very man whom later on, in 1920, the British Government was to entrust with a mission to the Hellenic King while he was at Lucerne, formally waited upon the latter to urge him to attack Turkey. The King is said to have laid down as a necessary condition to his consent that Britain should guarantee the neutrality of Bulgaria and should contrive to bring Turkey to afford him a pretext for opening hostilities. Admiral Kerr, speaking on behalf of the British Government, is reported to have given him full guarantee on the first point; but with reference to the second point he hinted that he thought it unnecessary to seek for a pretext or wait for a provocation as the Hellenic policy constantly evinced a feeling of hostility towards Turkey.34

In this answer the Allies again reproached the Turks with their atrocities—without mentioning the atrocities committed by the Armenians against the Turks; and yet at that time Mr. Lloyd George seemed to have wholly forgotten the German atrocities, for he did not say a word about the punishment of the war criminals, and seemed ready to make concessions as to the reparations stipulated in the treaty with Germany. Why should the Turks be chastised—as was said at the time—if the other criminals were not punished? Was it merely because they were weaker and less guilty than the Germans?

Though it was a palpable falsehood, it was asserted again in this document that in Thrace the Moslems were not in a majority.

The Powers also gravely affirmed they contemplated for Smyrna “about the same régime as for Dantzig,” which could not greatly please either the Greeks or the Turks, judging from the condition of the Poles in the Baltic port; but they did not add that perhaps in this case too England would finally control the port.

“With regard to the control of the Straits,” said the document, “the Powers must unhesitatingly take adequate measures to prevent the Turkish Government from treacherously trampling upon the cause of civilisation.” It seemed to be forgotten that Turkey insisted upon keeping them in order to prevent Russia from seizing them; and at the very time when the note was drawn up some newspapers declared—which might have sufficed to justify the Turkish claim—that the passage of the Straits must be free in order to allow the Allies to send munitions to Wrangel’s army.

The Allies, however, decided to grant to “Turkey, as a riparian Power and in the same manner and on the same conditions as to Bulgaria, the right to appoint a delegate to the Commission and the suppression of the clause through which Turkey was to surrender to the Allied Governments all steamers of 1,600 tons upwards.” These were the only two concessions made to Turkey.

The Allies’ answer laid great stress upon the advantages offered by the organisation of a financial control of Turkey, which, to quote the document itself, “was introduced for no other purpose than to protect Turkey against the corruption and speculation which had ruined her in the past.” As a matter of fact, that corruption and speculation had been let loose in Turkey by the Great Powers themselves, under cover of the privileges given by the Capitulations.

Judging from the very words of the clause which left Constantinople in the hands of the Turks, the Allies seemed to allow this merely out of condescension, and even alleged that the territory left to Turkey as a sovereign State was “a large and productive territory.”

Finally, the note concluded with the following threat:

“If the Turkish Government refuses to sign the peace, still more if it finds itself unable to re-establish its sovereignty in Anatolia or to give effect to the treaty, the Allies, in accordance with the terms of the treaty, may be driven to reconsider the arrangement by ejecting the Turks from Europe once and for all.”

These lines plainly show that some Powers had not given up the idea of ejecting the Turks from Europe, and were only awaiting an opportunity that might warrant another European intervention to carry out their plans and satisfy their ambition; and yet this policy, as will be seen later on, went against their own interests and those of Old Europe.

The idea that the British Premier entertained of the important strategic and commercial consequences that would ensue if the Near East were taken away from Turkish sovereignty was obviously contradictory to the historical part played by Turkey; and by disregarding the influence of Turkey in European affairs in the past and the present, he made a grievous political mistake. If one day Germany, having become a strong nation again, should offer her support to Turkey, cut to pieces by England, all the Turks in Asia might remember Mr. Lloyd George’s policy, especially as M. Venizelos might then have been replaced by Constantine or the like.

Turkey was granted a period of ten days, expiring on July 27 at 12 midnight, to let the Allies definitely know whether she accepted the clauses of the treaty and intended to sign it.

This comminatory answer did not come as a surprise. Mr. Lloyd George openly said he was convinced the Greeks would be as successful in Thrace as they had been in Asia Minor, which was easy to foresee but did not mean much for the future; and he thought he was justified in declaring with some self-satisfaction before the Commons on July 21, 1920—

“The Great Powers had kept the Turk together not because of any particular confidence they had in him, but because they were afraid of what might happen if he disappeared.

“The late war has completely put an end to that state of things. Turkey is broken beyond repair, and from our point of view we have no reason to regret it.”

The Greek troops, supported by an Anglo-Hellenic naval group, including two British dreadnoughts, effected a landing in the ports of Erekli, Sultan Keui (where they met with no resistance), and Rodosto, which was occupied in the afternoon.

The Hellenic forces landed on the coasts of the Marmora reached the Chorlu-Muradli line on the railway, and their immediate objective was the occupation of the Adrianople-Constantinople railway in order to cut off all communications between Jafer Tayar’s troops and the Nationalist elements of the capital, and capture Lule Burgas. From this position they would be able to threaten Jafer Tayar and Huhi ed Din on their flanks and rear in order to compel them to withdraw their troops from the Maritza, or run the risk of being encircled if they did not cross the Bulgarian frontier.

The Greek operations against Adrianople began on July 20. The Turkish Nationalists had dug a network of trenches on the right bank of the Tunja, which flows by Adrianople; they offered some resistance, and bombarded the bridgeheads of Kuleli Burgas and of the suburbs of Karagatch, three miles from Adrianople, where the Greeks had taken their stand for over a month. But on Saturday, July 24, the confident spirit of the Turkish civilians and officers suddenly broke down when it was known that the Greeks had landed on the shores of the Marmora, had reached Lule Burgas, and threatened to encircle the troops that defended Adrianople. In the absence of Jafer Tayar, who had repaired to the front, the officers suddenly left the town without letting it be known whether they were going to Northern Thrace or withdrawing to Bulgaria, and the soldiers, leaving the trenches in their turn, scattered all over Adrianople. The white flag was hoisted during the night, and the next day at daybreak a delegation, including Shevket Bey, mayor of the town, the mufti, the heads of the Orthodox and Jewish religious communities, repaired to the Hellenic outposts, at Karagatch, to ask the Greeks to occupy the town at once. At 10 o’clock the troops marched into the town, and by 12 they occupied the Konak, the prefect’s mansion, where the Turks had left everything—archives, furniture, carpets, and so on.

Meanwhile, it was reported that 12,000 Turks who had refused to surrender and accept Greek domination crossed the Bulgarian frontier.

As soon as the Grand Vizier came back to Constantinople a conflict arose between the latter, who maintained Turkey was compelled to sign the treaty, and some members of the Cabinet. As the Grand Vizier, who was in favour of the ratification, hesitated to summon the Crown Council, the Minister of Public Works, Fakhr ed Din, Minister of Public Education, Reshid, Minister of Finance and provisional Minister of the Interior, and the Sheik-ul-Islam, who all wanted the Council to be summoned, are said to have offered their resignation, which was not accepted by the Sultan—or at any rate was no more heard of.

On July 20 the Sultan summoned a Council of the Imperial Family, including the Sultanas, and on July 22 the Crown Council, consisting of fifty-five of the most prominent men in Turkey, among whom were five generals, a few senators, the members of the Cabinet, and some members of the former Government. The Grand Vizier spoke first, and declared Turkey could not do otherwise than sign the treaty. All the members of the Council supported the Government’s decision, with the exception of Marshal Fuad, who had already used his influence with the Sultan in favour of the Nationalists and who said the Turks should die rather than sign such a peace, and of Riza Pasha, who had commanded the artillery before the war, who said Turkey did not deserve such a grievous punishment and refused to vote. Turkey had been at war for ten years, which partly accounts for the decision taken. Therefore the order to sign the treaty of peace was officially given, and, as had already been announced, General Hadi Pasha, of Arabian descent, Dr. Riza Tewfik Bey, and Reshad Halis Bey, ambassador at Berne, were appointed Turkish plenipotentiaries.

The Grand Vizier in an appeal to Jafer Tayar, the Nationalist leader in Thrace, begged of him “to surrender at once and leave Thrace to the Greek army.” He concluded with these words: “We fully recognise your patriotism, but protracting the war would be detrimental to the interests of the nation. You must submit.”

Then the question arose how the treaty—which now admitted of no discussion—after being enforced and carried out by arms, before the delay for acceptance granted to the Ottoman Government had come to an end, against all rules of international law and diplomatic precedents, could solve the Eastern question.

Of course it was alleged that the Greek offensive in Anatolia had nothing to do with the treaty of peace presented to Turkey, that it only constituted a preventive measure in support of the treaty and it was not directed against the Stambul Government, but against Mustafa Kemal’s troops, which had broken the armistice by attacking the British troops on the Ismid line. Yet this was but a poor reason, and how was it possible to justify the Greek attack in Thrace, which took place immediately after? The fact was that England and Greece, being afraid of losing their prey, were in a hurry to take hold of it, and neither Mr. Lloyd George nor M. Venizelos shrank from shedding more blood to enforce a treaty which could not bring about peace.

Now that the Allies had driven a Government which no longer represented Turkey to accept the treaty, and the latter had been signed, under English compulsion, by some aged politicians, while the Greeks and the British partitioned the Ottoman Empire between themselves, was it possible to say that all the difficulties were settled? The signature of the treaty could but weaken the tottering power of the Sultan. Moreover, England, eager to derive the utmost benefit from the weakness of Turkey, raised the question of the Caliphate; it was learned from an English source that the title of Caliph had been offered to the Emir of Afghanistan, but the latter had declined the offer. On the other hand, how could Mustafa Kemal be expected to adhere to the decisions taken in Constantinople? It was to be feared, therefore, the agitation would be protracted, for an Anatolian campaign would offer far greater difficulties than those the Greek army had had to overcome on the low plains along the sea; and at Balikesri, standing at an altitude of 400 feet, begin the first slopes of the Anatolian uplands. As a matter of fact, Turkey was not dead, as Mr. Lloyd George believed, but the policy of the British Premier was doomed to failure—the same policy which the Soviets were trifling with, which was paving the way to the secession of Ireland, and may one day cost Great Britain the loss of India and Egypt.

It has even been said the Bolshevists themselves advised Turkey to sign the treaty in order to gain time, and thus organise a campaign in which the Bolshevist forces and the Nationalist forces in Turkey and Asia Minor would fight side by side.

The Ottoman delegation, consisting of General Hadi Pasha, Riza Tewfik Bey, a senator, and the Turkish ambassador at Berne, Reshad Halis Bey, arrived in Paris on Friday, July 30. The signature of the treaty, which was first to take place on July 27 and had been put off till the next Thursday or Saturday because the delegates could not arrive in time, was at the last moment postponed indefinitely.

Some difficulties had arisen between Italy and Greece concerning the “Twelve Islands,” or Dodecanese, and this Italo-Greek incident prevented the signature of the treaty. For it was stipulated in Article 122 of the treaty:

“Turkey cedes to Italy all her rights and titles to the islands of the Ægean Sea—viz., Stampalia, Rhodes, Calki, Scarpanto, Casos, Piscopis, Nisyros, Calimnos, Leros, Patmos, Lipsos, Symi, and Cos, now occupied by Italy, and the islets pertaining thereunto, together with the Island of Castellorizzo.”

The thirteen islands mentioned here constitute what is called the Dodecanese, and Italy had taken possession of them in 1912, during the war with the Ottoman Empire. But in July, 1919, an agreement, which has already been mentioned, had been concluded between the Italian Government, represented by M. Tittoni, and the Greek Government, represented by M. Venizelos, according to which Italy ceded to Greece the Dodecanese, except Rhodes, which was to share the fate of Cyprus, and pledged herself not to object to Greece setting foot in Southern Albania. Of course, Italy in return was to have advantages in Asia Minor and the Adriatic Sea.

At the meeting of the Supreme Council held in London before the San Remo Conference to draw up the Turkish treaty, M. Venizelos had stated that Greece could not accept Article 122, if the Italo-Greek agreement did not compel Italy to cede the Dodecanese to Greece. M. Scialoja, the Italian delegate, had answered that on the day of the signature of the Turkish treaty an agreement would be signed between Italy and Greece, through which Italy transferred to Greece the sovereignty of the aforesaid islands.

Now Italy, in 1920, considered that the agreement which was binding on both parties had become null and void, as she had not obtained any of the compensations stipulated in it, and so she thought she had a right now not to cede the islands—Castellorizzo, though inhabited by 12,000 Greeks, not being included in the agreement. As to Rhodes, that was to share the fate of Cyprus: England did not seem willing now to cede it to Greece; so that was out of the question for the moment. Moreover, the Italian Government insisted upon keeping the Island of Halki, or Karki, lying near Rhodes. Lastly, as Italy, after the solemn proclamation of the autonomy and independence of Albania, had been obliged to evacuate nearly the whole of Albania, the cession to Greece of part of Southern Albania could not be tolerated by Italian public opinion and had now become an utter impossibility.

Under such circumstances the Greek Government had stated it was no longer willing to sign the Turkish treaty, which, if the previous agreement alone is taken into account, assigns the Dodecanese to Italy. This incident at the last moment prevented the signature of the treaty which had been so laboriously drawn up, and put the Powers in an awkward situation since the regions occupied by the Greek armies in Asia Minor were five times as large as the Smyrna area assigned to Greece, and obviously could not be evacuated by the Greeks before a state of peace was restored between them and Turkey.

The signature of the treaty, which had been put off at first, as has just been mentioned, till the end of July, was, after various delays, arranged for Thursday, August 5, then postponed till the next Saturday, and finally took place only three days later.

Meanwhile, the Armenian delegation raised another objection, and informed the Allies that as their president, Nubar Pasha, had been admitted by the Allied Governments to the signature of the Peace Treaty, as representing the Armenians of Turkey and the Armenian colonies, they thought it unfair not to let him sign the Turkish treaty too, merely because he represented the Turkish Armenians. The Allies advised the Armenians for their own sake not to insist, in order to avoid an official protest of Turkey against the treaty after its signature, under the pretext that it had not been signed regularly.

In the House of Lords the treaty was sharply criticised by Lord Wemyss, especially in regard to the condition of Smyrna and the cession of Eastern Thrace to Greece.

In the speech he delivered on Friday, August 6, at Montecitorio, Count Sforza, coming to the question of the Dodecanese, summed up the Tittoni-Venizelos agreement of July 29, 1919, as follows:

“Italy pledged herself to support at the Conference the Greek claims on Eastern and Western Thrace; she even pledged herself to support the Greek demand of annexing Southern Albania. Greece, in return for this, pledged herself to give Italy a free zone in the port of Santi Quaranta, and to give Italian industry a right of preference for the eventual building of a railway line beginning at this port.

“Greece pledged herself to support at the Conference the Italian mandate over Albania, to recognise Italian sovereignty over Valona, and confirm the neutralisation of the Corfu Canal already prescribed by the London Conference in 1913-14, when Greece had promised not to build any military works on the coast between Cape Stilo and Aspriruga.

“Greece pledged herself, in case she should have satisfaction in Thrace and Southern Albania, to give up, in favour of Italy, all her territorial claims in Asia Minor which hindered Italian interests.

“The Italian and Greek Governments promised to support each other at the Conference concerning their claims in Asia Minor.

“Italy had already pledged herself to cede to Greece the sovereignty of the isles of the Ægean Sea, except Rhodes, to which the Italian Government promised to grant a liberal administrative autonomy.

“Italy also pledged herself to respect the religious liberty of the Greeks who were going to be more under her rule in Asia Minor, and Greece took a similar engagement with respect to the Italians.

“Article 7 dealt with what would happen if the two countries wished to resume their full liberty of action.

“Italy pledged herself to insert a clause in the treaty, in which she promised to let the people of Rhodes freely decide their own fate, on condition that the plebiscite should not be taken before five years after the signature of the Peace Treaty.”

Count Sforza proceeded to say that on July 22, after coming back from Spa, he had addressed M. Venizelos a note to let him know that the Allies’ decisions concerning Asia Minor and the aspirations of the Albanian people compelled the Italian Government to alter their policy in order to safeguard the Italian interests in those regions:

“Under the circumstances, the situation based on the agreement of July 29, 1919, as to the line of conduct to be followed at the Conference was substantially modified.

“Therefore Italy, in conformity with Article 7 of the agreement, now resumes her full liberty of action. Yet the Italian Government, urged by a conciliatory spirit, intends to consider the situation afresh, as it earnestly wishes to arrive at a satisfactory and complete understanding.

“The desire to maintain friendly relations with Greece is most deeply felt in Italy. Greece is a vital force to the East. When I tried to get better conditions of peace for Turkey, I felt convinced I was safeguarding the independence and the territorial integrity which the Turkish people is entitled to, and at the same time I was serving the true interests of Hellenism.”

In an interview published by the Stampa, M. Tittoni on his side declared, concerning the Dodecanese and the arrangement he had negotiated with M. Venizelos, that, as circumstances had changed, the clauses of the agreement had become null and void.

Alluding to the note handed by him on coming to Paris to M. Clémenceau and Mr. Lloyd George and recently read to the Senate by M. Scialoja, he complained that the Allies supported the Greek claims in Asia Minor, and overlooked the Italian interests in the same region. As Greece had got all she wanted and Italy’s hopes in Asia Minor had been frustrated, the agreement with M. Venizelos was no longer valid, according to him, and he concluded thus: “The agreement became null and void on the day when at San Remo the draft of the Turkish treaty was definitely drawn up.” Finally, on August 9 Greece and Italy came to an agreement, and a protocol was signed. The Dodecanese, according to the Tittoni-Venizelos agreement, were given up to Greece, with the exception of Rhodes, which, for the present, remained in the hands of Italy. In case England should cede Cyprus to Greece, a plebiscite was to be taken at Rhodes within fifteen years, instead of five years as had been settled before. There was no reason why Italy should give up Rhodes if England, which had ruled over Cyprus since 1878, did not hand it over to Greece. The League of Nations was to decide in what manner this plebiscite was to be taken; meanwhile Italy would grant Rhodes a wide autonomy. According to the account given of the Italo-Greek agreement, it includes some stipulations concerning Smyrna, and at the request of the Italian Government the Italian schools, museums, and subjects enjoy a special treatment. Italy keeps her privilege for the archæological excavations at Kos.

Not a word was said of Albania, though there had been some clauses about it in the 1919 agreement. Italy and Greece were to make separate arrangements with the Albanians.

Yugo-Slavia in its turn protested in regard to the share of the Turkish debt that was assigned to her and complained that the charges inherent in the Turkish territories she had received in 1913 were too heavy.

King Hussein too was dissatisfied with the Syrian events and the attitude of France. So he refused to adhere to the treaty, though it indirectly acknowledged the independence of his States and his own sovereignty. He thus showed he really aimed at setting up a huge Arabian Kingdom where his sons would have only been his lieutenants in Syria and Mesopotamia. Besides, King Hussein earnestly begged that the Kingdom of Mesopotamia, which had hitherto been promised to his son Abdullah, should be given to the Emir Feisal as a compensation for Syria, and a hint was given that England would not object to this.

Then the Turkish delegates, seeing the Allies at variance, raised objections to the treaty, and on the morning of August 10 Hadi Pasha informed the Conference he could not sign the treaty if the Allies could not agree together. However, at the earnest request of a high official of the Foreign Office and after he had been repeatedly urged to do so, he consented to sign the treaty in the afternoon at Sèvres.

Together with the Turkish treaty seven treaties or agreements were also signed—namely:

“A treaty in regard to Thrace; sanctioning the cession to Greece of some territories given up by Bulgaria in accordance with the Versailles treaty, and giving Bulgaria a free outlet to the sea at the port of Dedeagatch.

“A tripartite convention between England, France, and Italy, settling the zones of economic influence of France and Italy in the Ottoman territory of Asia Minor.

“A Greco-Italian convention assigning the ‘Twelve Islands’ to Greece—a plebiscite was to be taken in regard to the sovereignty over Rhodes.

“A treaty between Armenia and the Great Powers, settling the question of the minorities in the future Armenian State.

“A treaty in regard to the Greek minorities, ensuring them protection in the territories that had newly been occupied by Greece.

“A treaty concerning the New States, settling administrative questions between Italy and the States which occupied territories formerly belonging to Austria-Hungary.

“A treaty fixing various frontiers in Central Europe at some places where they had not yet been definitely laid down.”

According to the terms of the agreement concerning the protection of minorities, Greece pledged herself to grant to Greek subjects belonging to minorities in language, race, or religion the same civil and political rights, the same consideration and protection as to the other Greek subjects, on the strength of which France and Great Britain gave up their rights of control over Greece, established by the London treaty of 1832, their right of control over the Ionian Islands established by the London treaty of 1864, and their right of protection of religious freedom conferred by the London Conference of 1830.

Greece pledged herself also to present for the approval of the League of Nations within a year a scheme of organisation of Adrianople, including a municipal council in which the various races should be represented. All the clauses of the treaty for the protection of minorities were under the guarantee of the League of Nations. Greece also pledged herself to give the Allies the benefit of the “most favoured nation” clause till a general commercial agreement had been concluded, within five years, under the patronage of the League of Nations.

All these delays and incidents bore witness to the difficulty of arriving at a solution of the Eastern question in the way the Allies had set to work, and to the frailty of the stipulations inserted in the treaty.

They also testified to the lack of skill and political acuteness of Mr. Lloyd George. Of course, the British Premier, owing to the large concessions he had made to Greece, had managed to ensure the preponderance of British influence in Constantinople and the zone of the Straits, and by seeking to set up a large Arabian Empire he had secured to his country the chief trunk of the Baghdad Railway.

But the laborious negotiations which had painfully arrived at the settlement proposed by the Conference did not seem likely to solve the Eastern question definitely. It still remained a burning question, and the treaty signed by the Ottoman delegates was still most precarious. Accordingly Count Sforza, in the Chamber of Deputies in Rome, made the following statement with regard to Anatolia:

“Everybody asserts the war has created a new world; but practically everybody thinks and feels as if nothing had occurred. The Moslem East wants to live and develop. It, too, wants to have an influence of its own in to-morrow’s world. To the Anatolian Turks it has been our wish to offer a hearty and earnest collaboration on economic and moral grounds by respecting the independence and sovereignty of Turkey.”

The signatures of plenipotentiaries sent by a Government which remained in office merely because its head, Damad Ferid, was a tool in the hands of England, were no guarantee for the future, and the failure of the revolutionary movement indefinitely postponed the settlement of the Eastern question which for half a century has been disturbing European policy.

Islam remains, notwithstanding, a spiritual force that will survive all measures taken against the Sublime Porte, and the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire does not solve any of the numerous questions raised by the intercourse of the various races that were formerly under the Sultan’s rule. Russia has not given up her ambitious designs on the Straits, and one day or another she will try to carry them out; and it is to be feared that German influence may benefit by the resentment of the Turkish people. These are some of the numerous sources of future conflicts.

On the day that followed the signature of the treaty all the Turkish newspapers in Constantinople were in mourning and announced it as a day of mourning for the Turkish nation.

At Stambul all public entertainments were prohibited, all shops and public buildings were closed. Many Turks went to the mosques to pray for the welfare of the country, the people who seek nothing but peace and quietude looked weary and downcast.

A few organs of the Turkish Press violently attacked the delegates who had signed “the death-warrant of Turkey and laid the foundations of a necessary policy of revenge.”

Turkey under the Treaty of Sèvres.

Larger image (201 kB)

Schematic Map of the Territories lost by Turkey since 1699, and of the Territories left to Turkey by the Sèvres Treaty.

Larger image (204 kB)

Others hoped the Great Powers would take into account the goodwill of Turkey, and would gradually give up some of their intolerable demands.

Others, finally, bewailing the direful downfall of the Turkish Empire and insisting upon the lesson taught by this historical event for the future, hoped that the future would forcibly bring on a revision of that “iniquitous and impracticable” treaty of peace.

In France, M. Pierre Loti devoted one of his last articles to the treaty, which he called “the silliest of all the silly blunders of our Eastern policy.”35

The map on p. 269 shows the area left to the Turks in Europe and in Asia Minor by the Treaty of Sèvres. There will be seen the territories of Mesopotamia under English mandate, those of Syria under French mandate, and those which have been added to Palestine and are practically under English control. There will also be seen the regions on which France and Italy, in virtue of the tripartite agreement signed on August 10, 1920, enjoy preferential claims to supply the staff required for the assistance of the Porte in organising the local administration and the police. The contracting Powers in that agreement have undertaken not to apply, nor to make or support applications, on behalf of their nationals, for industrial concessions in areas allotted to another Power.

The map on p. 270 is a scheme of the territories lost by Turkey from 1699 down to the Sèvres Treaty; it shows that, by completing the dismemberment of Turkey, the treaty aimed at her annihilation.

Footnotes:

26 The Times, March 26, 1920.

27 The Times, March 27, 1920: “Mesopotamia and the Mandate.”

28 The very words of this agreement were given by M. Pierre Loti in his book, La Mort de notre chère France en Orient, p. 153.

29 Journal des Débats, May 26, 1920.

30 Daily Telegraph, June 12, 1920.

31 Matin, June 12, 1920.

32 La Croix, July 14, 1920.

33 Le Temps, July 17, 1920.

34 Cf. Ex-King Constantine and the War, by Major J. M. Melas, p. 239.

35 The Œuvre, August 20, 1920.