During the Boer war the most horrible charges were made on the Continent against the conduct of our troops. One picture, for example, in the then famous and widely circulated French Assiette de Beurre, showed a number of British soldiers lining a trench and firing on the advancing Boers, who were unable to reply because a number of their own women-folk were tied to stakes along the front of the British trenches. By pictures such as these the fury of the European nations was roused against us, and there was hardly a single one we could call a friend. Turkey, however, stood true: thousands of her Moslem subjects volunteered to fight for us, and prayers were offered up in her mosques for the success of the British arms. And over a score of influential Moslems, headed by Obeid-Ullah Effendi, formerly Minister of Education for Syria and to-day a member of the Ottoman Legislative Assembly, attended at the British Embassy at Pera, and there openly made prayers for the success of the British Arms in South Africa.
The Turks are one of the few races who have always found themselves in full sympathy with the British character, and to whom we appeared neither “cold” nor “perfidious.” This is not surprising, because the characteristics of the two peoples are very similar, with the exception that the Turk is not a sportsman for the reason that he objects to taking life unnecessarily; which fact does not however prevent the British soldier from referring to him as a “good sport.”
Although the Turks may at times have expressed regret and disappointment at some action of the British Government, they always ended by saying: “ah, if only Beaconsfield or Palmerston were alive; they were men!” This liking is reciprocated by most Englishmen, and especially by those who have lived for any length of time in close contact and community with the Turks (such as the Whittalls, one of the great families of English merchants who have made Constantinople their home). On the occasion of King Edward’s telegram of congratulation to Sultan Abdul Hamid after the grant of the Turkish Constitution, Sir William Whittall wrote in the Near East October 1908:
It is to be hoped that, as now practically the whole of Turkey is enthusiastic for England, we shall know how to meet the circumstances and preserve their affection, for they are worth loving, and some future day their love for us will be an important factor in our history.
Unfortunately these high expectations remain unfulfilled.
British officers and soldiers fighting in Gallipoli have under strange conditions developed this sentimental liking for their opponents. The Rev. Dr. Ewing, a Scottish chaplain serving with the forces in Gallipoli, relates the appreciation shown by a captured Turkish officer when, being led behind our lines, he saw the care with which the clergyman had fenced round the little Moslem cemetery to protect “God’s acre” from destruction, and writes:—“Such little amenities may do something to soften the asperities of war, and make easier the resumption of friendly relations when the war is over.” “On the whole, however,” he adds, “I can hardly imagine a war waged with less animosity on both sides, than this between ourselves and the Turks.” If such are the impressions and experience gathered on the battlefield itself, it would behove us here at home in England to treat with the greatest circumspection, at least, the accusations against an honourable foe and—mindful of the many “God’s acres” that have been consecrated on the fire-swept slopes of Gallipoli by the blood of Christian and Moslem heroes alike—to be careful lest any wanton or unqualified word of ours make more difficult “the resumption of friendly relations when the war is over.”
FOOTNOTES
[1] “Through Asiatic Turkey”.
[2] “Three American missionaries called: they had been settled for several years in Anatolia, and had succeeded in making some converts amidst the Armenians, but they had not in any one instance induced a Mohammedan to change his faith. One of them observed that the Turks were by no means a cruel race.” (Col. F. Burnaby: “On Horseback through Asia Minor.”)
[3] “Odysseus”: “Turkey in Europe.”