There followed the French check in Cilicia, and the negotiations at Angora with Mustapha Kemal, which were both single-handed and under-handed; for the Allies were not even informed of what was going on. This was a fatal step, for it broke up the unity which alone would enable the Western Powers to deal effectively with the Turk. This unity was never fully re-created. There can be no reunion without confidence. There can be no trust in the West that is broken in the East. Much of the recent mischief in the Entente came from the clandestine negotiations at Angora.
The last fatal change was the Greek revolt against Venizelos. It is often said that he is the greatest statesman thrown up by that race since Pericles. In all he has undertaken he has never failed his people. Disaster has always come to them when they refused to follow his guidance. When King Alexander was killed by a monkey, the Greeks were called upon to decide between Constantine and Venizelos. Their choice was ruinous to their country. No greater evil can befall a nation than to choose for its ruler a stubborn man with no common sense. Before the advent of Constantine, Greece, with no aid and little countenance from the Powers, was able to hold the forces of Mustapha Kemal easily at bay and even to drive him back into the fastnesses of Anatolia. In encounter after encounter the Greek army, led by men chosen for their military gifts and sufficiently well equipped, inflicted defeat after defeat on the armies of Angora. But with Constantine came a change. In the Greek army, courtiers were substituted for soldiers in the high command. French, British and Italian public opinion, with the memory of Constantine's treachery during the war still fresh in their minds, altered their attitude towards the Greeks who had elevated him to the throne in defiance of Allied sentiment. Indifferent Powers became hostile; hostile Powers became active. The final catastrophe began with the heroic but foolish march of the Greek army into the defiles of Asia Minor, followed by the inevitable retreat. It was consummated when Constantine for dynastic reasons appointed to the command of the troops in Asia Minor a crazy general whose mental condition had been under medical review. The Greeks fight valiantly when well led, but like the French, once they know they are not well led, confidence goes, and with confidence courage. Before the Kemalist attack reached their lines the Greek army was beaten and in full retreat. With attack came panic, with panic the complete destruction of what was once a fine army. With the disappearance of that army vanished the last hope for the salvation of Anatolia. That the history of the East, and probably the West, should have been changed by the bite of a monkey is just another grimace of the comic spirit which bursts now and again into the pages of every great tragedy.
All that could be done afterwards was to save the remnants of a great policy. Western civilisation put up its last fight against the return of savagery into Europe, when in September and October of last year British soldiers and sailors, deserted by allies and associates alike, saved Constantinople from hideous carnage. The Pact of Mudania was not Sèvres, but it certainly was better than Lausanne. From Sèvres to Mudania was a retreat. From Mudania to Lausanne is a rout.
What next? Lausanne is not a terminus, it is only a milestone. Where is the next? No one claims that this Treaty is peace with honour. It is not even peace. If one were dealing with a regenerated Turk, there might be hope. But the burning of Smyrna, and the cold-blooded murders of tens of thousands of young Greeks in the interior, prove that the Turk is still unchanged. To quote again from the correspondent of The Times at Lausanne:—
"All such evidence as can be obtained here confirms the belief that the new Turk is but the old, and that the coming era of enlightenment and brotherly love in Turkey, for which it is the correct thing officially to hope, will be from the foreigners' point of view at best a humiliating, and at worst a bloody, chaos."
The amazing legend that the Turk is a gentleman is dying hard. That legend has saved him many a time when he was on the brink of destruction. It came to his aid in October last when the policy of this country was changed by the revolt of the Turcophile against the Coalition. The Turk has massacred hundreds of thousands of Armenians, and dishonoured myriads of Christian women who trusted to his protection. Nevertheless the Turk is a gentleman! By his indolence, his shiftiness, his stupidity, and his wantonness, he has reduced a garden to a desert. What better proof can there be that he is a real gentleman? For a German bribe he sold the friends who had repeatedly saved his wretched life. All the same, what a gentleman he is! He treated British prisoners with a barbarous neglect that killed them off in hundreds. Still, he is such a gentleman! He plunders, he slays, and outrages those who are unable to defend themselves. He misgoverns, cheats, lies, and betrays. For all that, the Turk is a gentleman! So an agitation was engineered with perverse tenacity to save this fine old Oriental gentleman from the plebeian hands that sought his destruction. Hence the black Treaty of Lausanne.
London, July 25th, 1923
FOOTNOTE:
[12] London, July 25th, 1923. The Treaty of Lausanne, between the Allies and the Turks, was signed on July 24th, 1923.