About these events pamphlets have been published in Germany, which in certain respects perhaps deserve some attention even outside that country. Deutschland, die Türkei und der Islam is the title of a pamphlet by Hugo Grothe, who is considered as qualified in the field of economics, and whose former writings contain the results of his scientific journeys in European and Asiatic Turkey, in Persia and in Tripolitania. This pamphlet is part of a series, Zwischen Krieg und Frieden, edited by Irmer, Lamprecht, and von Liszt, containing political articles for the public at large. Amongst its contributors appears Prince von Bülow.
When Grothe departs from economic politics he at once shows himself to be in unfamiliar surroundings. The political problem of Islâm, e. g., is not clear in his mind. The Caliphate he calls the secular representation of the religious community of the Mohammedans, a rather vague expression of the idea that all Mohammedans in a political sense are legally subjects of the Caliph; who to be sure is kept from exercising his administrative rights over what now amounts to ninety-five per cent. of these subjects by unbelieving princes whose authority is necessarily illegal. But now Grothe on another page quotes the following from a proclamation issued by the Imperial Governor of Kamerun to the native population: “We are further given help by the Sultan in Stambul, who in matters of religion is the Supreme Lord of all Mohammedans,” and far from adding the necessary correction, he calls this official nonsense “interesting.” Grothe’s assertion that at the outset of the present war the “jihâd of Germany” had been the subject of debates and prayers in the mosques of Turkey is perhaps a poetical phrase, for, even if we translate jihâd about correctly as “holy war,” still our “holy war,” as now every belligerent calls his own struggle, is by no means rendered by the Arabic-Mohammedan jihâd. When old-fashioned pious Mohammedans refer to this war in their prayer, the prayer will sound about as follows: “We thank Thee, Allah, for having divided the legions of the Devil against themselves and because Thy almightiness forces some of them to support the defenders of Islâm with their arms and their men. Arrange all this, O Lord, for a speedy victory of the faithful and for the ruin of all who disobey Thee and Thy Messenger.” Thus and thus only is the conception of those Moslims who have not yet been sufficiently sobered by history to share the view of the Turk whose words I quoted at the beginning of this article.
It is also poetical phrasing of Grothe’s when he makes an earthquake perceived at Konia, Bundur, and Sparta contribute towards giving the Turks real insight into the meaning of the catastrophe which has befallen us; poetical phrasing, when in his travels he continually hears Turks, Arabs, Kurds, and Anatolians professing their sympathy for Germany and expressing views on contemporary politics which do not, either, differ one jot from Grothe’s own. He hears them expressing those in languages of which he understands nothing, for the two Turkish expressions which Grothe uses are unidiomatic.[3]
We remain nearer to reality when we follow Grothe’s survey of the politico-economic relations between Turkey and Germany, as they developed in the last twenty years of the nineteenth century. Germany, he says, through a concourse of unfavourable circumstances, has been badly outdistanced in the race of the European powers for the economic and commercial advantages which are to be had in Turkish territory. In fact, a change for the better started only with the concession of the Anatolian railway to a German syndicate (1888) which was followed later on by that of the Bagdad railway. One gets an idea of the rapidity of the movement by looking at the figures of imports and exports combined, between Germany and Turkey: 14 million for 1888, but for 1913, 200-250 million marks. The competition with England, France, and Russia again made it desirable for all parties that their spheres of interest should be determined. Before the war the understanding had come so far that they were expected in the present year to reach an agreement, by which England would receive Southern Mesopotamia as its economic territory, France Syria, Germany the part of Mesopotamia and Asia Minor which is bounded on the one hand by the 34th and 41st degrees of east longitude, and on the other by the 36th and 39th degrees of northern latitude, whereas the northern part of Asia Minor was to be given to a French-Russian combine for railway construction.
For this economic sphere of influence Germany would have felt slightly grateful, but by no means satisfied. Since August she has started pegging out quite different frontiers, on the assumption, of course, that her expectations of a propitious result of the war will not be disappointed. For this, according to Grothe, she has every right. For it must be considered certain that in case Germany were to fail, Russia would not hesitate to destroy the Turkish Empire. As Russia cannot find in the Far East the ice-free waterway which she needs for her development without getting into conflict with Japan, and not in the Persian Gulf without getting into conflict with England, the Empire of the Czars is more than ever determined to possess Constantinople. England, who formerly has always opposed this, would now support it; in return, she would be allowed to look upon Mesopotamia and Arabia as her own.
Germany alone can save Turkey, and she has a huge interest in doing so since only the preservation of the complete integrity of the Ottoman Empire will make it possible for Germany to protect and to develop the economic position which she has gained in it. Besides, Germany is the only one among the large powers with which Turkey has to count who would not wish to annex a single foot of the country, and could not even if she wanted to. Germany’s geographical position would prevent her from effectively protecting such possessions and deriving profit from them. That is why during the twenty-five years of her more intimate relations with Turkey, Germany has always been the only trustworthy friend of the Empire of the Sultan-Caliph. There is between the two countries, apart from all questions of sentiment, a natural community of interests, whereas the interests of all the other large powers can only be furthered at the cost of Turkey’s welfare, and finally of her existence.
Turkey has not always looked at it quite in this light; a certain distrust had to be overcome, fostered by the unfair competition of those who envied Germany and also partly strengthened by Germany’s often too feeble policy. But now the scales have fallen from the eyes of the Young Turks, who hold the helm of state. It seems that in Constantinople they are only waiting for German victories in Northern France and in Galicia—Grothe wrote before the Turkish declaration of war—before uniting with Germany and Austria against the Allied Powers. The Turkish army, which in its organization owes so much already to German teaching and direction, will have great need of German help and support in order to accomplish its task, but then it will also constitute a far from contemptible ally. This will be especially true if the Caliph decrees the great holy war, the jihâd.
Here now Grothe finds himself quite at sea, as he does not know that for Mohammedans of the old stamp, who have not taken part in the intellectual movement of the Mohammedan East in the last few years, every war waged by Turkey is a jihâd. For such as these the question is not: “jihâd or secular war?” but “against whom has Turkey declared jihâd?” And then, supposing the answer is as Grothe imagines, i. e., jihâd “against all powers that have devoured Mohammedan countries and thus have robbed Islâm of its splendour,” the question remains whether, as Grothe hopes and expects, the Mohammedan nations under European rule will really be so charmed by the call to arms issued in the name of Sultan Mehmed Reshâd, that they will attack their masters “here with secrecy and ruse, there with fanatical courage.” Grothe already sees in his imagination how “the thus developed religious war”—so he openly calls it—is to mean especially for England “the decline of her greatness.”
We know that Turkey is at present engaged in an experiment with just such a holy war, as suggested by Grothe and his intellectual kin. The highest juridical authority in Constantinople, the Sheich-ul-Islâm, who since the revolution of 1908 has ever been a creature and an instrument of the Young Turk Committee, has answered affirmatively a series of questions submitted to him by the insignificant successor of Abdulhamîd, with whom the leaders of the Young Turk Committee can do as they please. In reality those questions and answers together form a proclamation of Enver and Taläat, the leading ministers on the Committee, and both he who asks the questions (the Sultan) and he who answers them (the Sheich-ul-Islâm) fill the office of puppets. This proclamation of the men on the Committee of Unity and Progress (by which—let it be noted!—was originally meant the union of the several nations under the Crescent and their progress as a modern state) is to the effect, that, when the Lord of all Mohammedans declares holy war against the enemies of Islâm, who plunder the countries of Islâm and slaughter their inhabitants or reduce them into slavery, it is the duty of all Mohammedans in this world to take part in this war with life and goods; that therefore especially the Mohammedan subjects of France, Russia, and England are also obliged to participate in it; that those who neglect this duty and avoid the struggle incur the anger of God; that, however, Mohammedans who live under the rule of the said powers or their allies and help them wage war against Germany and Austria, the supporters of Turkey, commit a great sin that will certainly bring on the wrath of God. This proclamation of the prescriptions of the Divine Law as applied to the political situation of the moment, and according to the pronouncement of its authoritative interpreter, served as the basis of a manifesto of the Sultan to the army and navy, issued on November 12, 1914.