And now we come to the question of accepting a mandate for Armenia. In order to get a mental picture of this foundling which we are asked to rear you must imagine a country about the size of North Dakota, with Dakota's cold winters and scorching summers, consisting of a dreary, monotonous, mile-high plateau with grass-covered, treeless mountains and watered by many rivers, whose valleys form wide strips of arable land. Rising above the general level of this Armenian tableland are barren and forbidding ranges, broken by many gloomy gorges, which culminate, on the extreme northeast, in the mighty peak of Ararat, the traditional resting-place of the Ark. Armenia is completely hemmed in by alien and potentially hostile races. On the northeast are the wild tribes of the Caucasus; on the east are the Persians, who, though not hostile to Armenian aspirations, are of the faith of Islam; along Armenia's southern border are the Kurds, a race as savage, as cruel and as relentless as were the Apaches of our own West; on the east is Anatolia, with its overwhelmingly Ottoman population. Before the war the Armenians in the six Turkish vilayets—Trebizond, Erzeroum, Van, Bitlis, Mamuret-el-Aziz and Diarbekir—numbered perhaps 2,000,000, as compared with about 700,000 Turks. But there is no saying how many Armenians remain, for during the past five years the Turks have perpetrated a series of wholesale massacres in order to be able to tell the Christian Powers, as a Turkish official cynically remarked, that "one cannot make a state without inhabitants."
As just and accurate an estimate of the Armenian character as any I have read is that written by Sir Charles William Wilson, perhaps the foremost authority on the subject, for the Encyclopædia Britannica: "The Armenians are essentially an Oriental people, possessing, like the Jews, whom they resemble in their exclusiveness and widespread dispersion, a remarkable tenacity of race and faculty of adaptation to circumstances. They are frugal, sober, industrious and intelligent and their sturdiness of character has enabled them to preserve their nationality and religion under the sorest trials. They are strongly attached to old manners and customs but have also a real desire for progress which is full of promise. On the other hand they are greedy of gain, quarrelsome in small matters, self-seeking and wanting in stability; and they are gifted with a tendency to exaggeration and a love of intrigue which has had an unfortunate effect on their history. They are deeply separated by religious differences and their mutual jealousies, their inordinate vanity, their versatility and their cosmopolitan character must always be an obstacle to a realization of the dreams of the nationalists. The want of courage and selfreliance, the deficiency in truth and honesty sometimes noticed in connection with them, are doubtless due to long servitude under an unsympathetic government."
It seems to me that it is time to subordinate sentiment to common sense in discussing the question of Armenia. I have known many Armenians and I have the deepest sympathy for the woes of that tragic race, but if the Armenians are in danger of extermination their fate is a matter for the Allies as a whole, or for the League of Nations, if there ever is one, but not for the United States alone. To administer and police Armenia would probably require an army corps, or upwards of 50,000 men, and I doubt if a force of such size could be raised for service in so remote and inhospitable a region without great difficulty. My personal opinion is that the Armenians, if given the necessary encouragement and assistance, are capable of governing themselves. Certainly they could not govern themselves more wretchedly than the Mexicans, yet there has been no serious proposal that the United States should take a mandate for Mexico. Everything considered, I am convinced that the highest interests of Armenia, of America, and of civilization would be best served by making Armenia an independent state, having much the same relation to the United States as Cuba. Let us finance the Armenian Republic by all means, let us lend it officers to organize its gendarmerie and teachers for its schools, let us send it agricultural and sanitary and building and financial experts, and let us give the rest of the world, particularly the Turks, to understand that we will tolerate no infringement of its sovereignly. Do that, set the Armenians on their feet, safeguard them politically and financially, and then leave them to work out their own salvation.
Though prophesying is a dangerous business, and likely to lead to embarrassment and chagrin for the prophet, I am willing to hazard a guess that the future maps of what was once the Ottoman Dominions will be laid out something after this fashion: Mesopotamia will be tinted red, because it will be British. Palestine will also be under Britain's ægis—a little independent Hebrew state, not much larger than Panama. Under the word "Syria" will appear the inscription "French Protectorate." The Adalia region will be designated "Italian Sphere of Influence," while Smyrna and its immediate hinterland will probably be labeled "Greek Sphere." Across the northeastern corner of Asia Minor will be spread the words "Republic of Armenia" and beneath, in parentheses, "Independence guaranteed by the United States." The whole of Anatolia, save the Greek and Italian fringes just mentioned, will be occupied and ruled by the Turks, for it is their ancestral home. The fortifications along the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus will be leveled and they, with Constantinople, will be under some form of international control, with equal rights for all nations. But, unless I am very much mistaken, the Turks will not be driven out of Europe, as has so long been predicted; the Ottoman Government will not retire to Brusa, in Asia Minor, but will continue to function in Stamboul, and the Sultan, as the religious head of Islam, will still dwell in the great white palace atop of Yildiz hill.
CHAPTER VI
WHAT THE PEACE-MAKERS HAVE DONE ON THE DANUBE
When I called upon M. Bratianu, the Prime Minister of Rumania, who was in Paris as a delegate to the Peace Conference, I opened the conversation by innocently remarking that I proposed to spend some weeks in his country during my travels in the Balkans. But I got no further, for M. Bratianu, whose tremendous shoulders and bristling black beard make him appear even larger than he is, sprang to his feet and brought his fist crashing down upon the table.
"You ought to know better than that, Major Powell," he angrily exclaimed. "Rumania is not in the Balkans and never has been. We object to being called a Balkan people."