This wholesale destruction, which has already overtaken two of the subject peoples in Turkey, and threatens all that 60 per cent. of the population which is not Turkish in language, is the direct work of the Turkish government. The “Deportation Scheme” was drawn up by the central government at Constantinople and telegraphed simultaneously to all the local authorities in the Empire; it was executed by the officials, the Gendarmerie, the Army, and the bands of brigands and criminals organised in the government’s service. No State could be more completely responsible for any act within its borders than the Ottoman State is responsible for the appalling crimes it has committed against its subject peoples during the War.
“Radically Alien to Western Civilisation.”
These crimes, and the phases of Ottoman History which lead up to them, demonstrate, in the language of the Allies’ Note, that “the Ottoman Empire has proved itself radically alien to Western Civilisation.” Where Ottoman rule has spread, civilisation has perished. While Ottoman rule has lasted, civilisation has remained in abeyance. It has only sprung up again when the oppressed peoples, at the cost of their own blood and by the aid of civilised nations more fortunate than themselves, have succeeded in throwing off the Turkish yoke; and these struggles have been so much regained for liberty and progress in the world, because the infliction of Turkish rule upon any other people has been an incalculable loss.
To this long history of horror the Allies are determined to put an end. They will “liberate the peoples who now lie beneath this murderous tyranny.” But they proclaim no tyrannous intention against the Turks themselves. In another clause of their note, they put it on record that “it has never been their intention to seek the extermination or the political extinction of the Germanic peoples.” The declaration holds good, by implication, for the Magyar, Bulgar, and Turkish peoples who are the Germanic peoples’ allies. There are regions in Asia Minor where the Turk is undisputed occupant of the land. The Allies have no intention of “deporting” or exterminating the Turk from these regions, as the Turk has deported the Armenians from the regions that are theirs. The Turk, like the German, Magyar and Bulgar, will remain where he belongs. Out of the broad territory over which he at present domineers, he will be allowed to keep his just pound of flesh, but woe to him hereafter if he sheds one drop of Christian blood....
The Reorganisation of Europe.
This settlement of Turkey is a logical element in the Allies’ general aim in the War:—“The reorganisation of Europe, guaranteed by a stable settlement, based alike upon the principle of nationalities, on the right which all peoples, whether small or great, have to the enjoyment of full security and free economic development, and also upon territorial agreements and international arrangements so framed as to guarantee land and sea frontiers against unjust attacks.”
This aim is no invention of yesterday; it has been the aspiration of all lovers of liberty for a century past.
“Let the Turks,” said Mr. Gladstone in a famous speech, “now carry away their abuses in the only possible manner, namely, by carrying away themselves. Their Zaptiehs and their Mudirs, their Bimbashis and their Yuzbashis, their Kaimakams and their Pashas, one and all, bag and baggage, shall I hope clear out from the province they have desolated and profaned.”
The province for which Mr. Gladstone pleaded was Bulgaria; but since Bulgaria has been freed, the other peoples who have still remained under the tyranny have suffered horrors infinitely worse in their extent and their iniquity than those which in 1876 aroused the indignation of the world.