The present aim of Russia’s policy is also, perhaps, to prevent the Kurdish chiefs in the Turkish territory from making terms with the Turks or on the other hand with the Christians, and so to keep up the excuse for possible intervention.
Mr. Buxton then proceeds to justify this policy of creating disorder. It was the policy his friends the Bulgars had pursued with such success in Macedonia with the Komitadjis[11] (as was to be expected, we now find Mr. Buxton taking a prominent role in damning the Turks for the recent alleged massacres). Mr. Walter Guinness, M.P., in his description of a tour made in Kurdistan about the same time as Mr. Buxton, corroborates the evidence of that gentleman. He mentions numerous indications of an active Russian propaganda not only amongst the Armenians, but among the Kurds as well. He adds:
Many of these (the Kurds) are armed with Russian rifles, and in the mountains I found, in an out of the way village, a Russian dressed as a Kurd, and living the life of the Kurds.
Russia was arming both the Kurds and the Orthodox Armenians. The object was two-fold: the Kurds would resist the measures taken by the local officials to enforce the decree against the carrying of rifles, which had been promulgated by the Turkish Government in order to enforce law and order, and the Armenians, excited by agents-provocateur and revolutionaries, would be encouraged to revolt. In either event there would be disturbances, which would enable Russia to point to the failure of European control as justification for her armed intervention followed by annexation, on the ground that this was the only possible solution. The observant student of current history will no doubt perceive in this desired end an interesting and instructive parallel to the handing over to Austria of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and her final cynical annexation of those provinces; whether the parallel would stop here, if the object is gained, may be told by some future historian.
IX.
Some people, perhaps, will say that whether these stories of massacres be true or false, it is inopportune to defend the reputation of a nation with whom we are at war. If this argument were true, it would apply with equal force as a criticism of the officers and men who have written home from Gallipoli, giving spontaneously such wholehearted and generous testimony to the bravery and chivalry of the Turks. Truth can never be inopportune so long as our conscience is clear, which it would not be if we allowed false stories to remain uncontradicted simply because the untrue assertions might be detrimental to an enemy. But at this advanced stage of the war such stories are scarcely likely to have any effect on the neutral nations, who are, indeed, more likely to be influenced in our favour if we show ourselves fair-minded and willing to investigate the truth. Their object is simply to bias public opinion in this country still further against an already misjudged and badly maligned enemy.
Some good-natured people have indeed gone so far as to say, that “the fact of the Armenians rising in rebellion and butchering the Moslems of Van and only waiting an opportunity to do so in other places, was no justification for the severity of the Turkish Government, or for the reprisals of the local Turks and the cruelties of the Kurds.” But even admitting, all exaggeration apart, the severity of the Turkish Government’s action in ordering the removal of the Armenian population and the methods adopted by local officials to stamp out disaffection, it must not be forgotten how critical the situation was for Turkey: that for her it was a matter of life and death. There is not the slightest doubt that, unless the incipient revolution had been immediately crushed and further danger removed, the Turkish army on the Caucasus would have been hopelessly cut off and the Moslem population exterminated at the hands of the revolutionaries. The British Government has never hesitated under much less critical conditions to suppress rebellion within its borders with an iron hand and by measures which, surveyed after the time of stress and danger was past, have appeared both harsh and cruel in the extreme.
It is possible that a certain number of innocent Armenians may have been killed by the mob who, infuriated and panic-stricken by the reports they had received of the butchery of their co-religionists at Van, and the slaughter of the soldiers at Zeitun, believed that should the Armenians get the upper hand they would suffer in the same manner; but for the fate of these poor victims, or for the excesses committed by the Kurds, it would hardly be just to hold either the Turkish Government or the local Turkish officials responsible. These had done everything possible to disarm the tribes so as to make them amenable to law and order, but despite their endeavours the Kurds were being continually armed by outside agencies. One of the principal causes of the Albanian revolution was the attempt to disarm the mountaineers, and after that experience it is greatly to the credit of the Turkish Government that they still persisted in trying to deprive the Kurds of their rifles.
We have no hesitation in repeating that these stories of wholesale massacre have been circulated with the distinct object of influencing, detrimentally to Turkey, the future policy of the British Government when the time of settlement shall arrive. No apology, therefore, is needed for honestly endeavouring to show how a nation with whom we were closely allied for many years and which possesses the same faith as millions of our fellow-subjects, has been condemned for perpetrating horrible excesses against humanity on “evidence” which, when not absolutely false, is grossly and shamefully exaggerated.