The Turks and Europe

by Gaston Gaillard

At the present time, forty or fifty thousand[58] Russian emigrants, fleeing before the Bolshevists, have reached Pera and have settled down in it; others are arriving there every day, who belong to the revolutionary socialist party—an exiled party temporarily—or who are more or less disguised Bolshevist agents. It is obvious that all these Russians will not soon leave Constantinople, which they have always coveted, especially as the Bolshevists have by no means renounced the designs of the Tsars on this city or their ambitions in the East.

Not long ago, according to the Lokal Anzeiger,[59] a prominent member of the Soviet Government declared that, to safeguard the Russian interests in the East and on the Black Sea, Constantinople must fall to Russia.

Being thus invaded by Russian elements of all kinds, Constantinople seems doomed to be swallowed up by Russia as soon as her troubles are over, whether she remains Bolshevist or falls under a Tsar’s rule again; then she will turn her ambition towards the East, which we have not been able to defend against the Slavs, and England will find her again in her way in Asia and even on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea.

On the other hand, as Germany is endeavouring to come to an understanding with Russia and as the military Pan-Germanist party has not given up hope of restoring the Kaiser to the throne, if the Allies dismembered Turkey—whose policy is not historically linked with that of Germany, and who has no more reason for being her ally now, provided the Allies alter their own policy—they would pave the way to a union of the whole of Eastern Europe under a Germano-Russian hegemony.

Again, the Turks, who originally came from Asia, are now a Mediterranean people owing to their great conquests and their wide extension in the fifteenth century, and though in some respects these conquests may be regretted, they have on the whole proved beneficial to European civilisation, by maintaining the influence of the culture of antiquity. Though they have driven back the Greeks to European territories, they have not, on the whole, attempted to destroy the traditions bequeathed to us by antiquity, and the Turk has let the quick, clever Greek settle down everywhere. His indolence and fatalism have made him leave things as they were. What would have happened if the Slavs had come down to the shores of the Mediterranean Sea? The Bulgars and Southern Slavs, though they were subjected to Greco-Latin influences, displayed much more activity and were proof against most of these influences. But the Turks checked the Slavs’ advance to the south; and, were it only in this respect, they have played and still play a salutary part of which they should not be deprived.

The new policy pursued by France towards Turkey becomes the more surprising—coming after her time-honoured Turkish policy and after the recent mistakes of her Russian policy—as we see history repeat itself, or at least, similar circumstances recur. Even in the time of the Romans the events of Syria and Mesopotamia were connected with those of Central Europe; as Virgil said: “Here war is let loose by Euphrates, there by Germany.” Long after, Francis I, in order to check the ambitious designs of Charles V, Emperor of Germany, who, about 1525, dreamt of subduing the whole of Europe, sought the alliance of Soliman. The French king, who understood the Latin spirit so well and the great part it was about to play in the Renaissance, had foreseen the danger with which this spirit was threatened by Germany.

Moreover, a recent fact throws into light the connection between the German and Russian interests in the Eastern question, and their similar tendencies. For Marshal von der Goltz was one of the first to urge that the Turkish capital should be transferred to a town in the centre of Asia Minor.[60] Of course, he professed to be actuated only by strategic or administrative motives, for he chiefly laid stress on the peculiar geographical situation of the capital of the Empire, which, lying close to the frontier, is directly exposed to a foreign attack. But did he not put forward this argument merely to conceal other arguments which concerned Germany more closely? Though the Germans professed to be the protectors of Islam, did not the vast Austro-German schemes include the ejection of the Turks from Europe to the benefit of the Slavs, notwithstanding the declarations made during the war by some German publicists—M. Axel Schmidt, M. Hermann, M. Paul Rohrbach—which now seem to have been chiefly dictated by temporary necessities?

Thus the Turkish policy of the Allies is the outcome of their Russian policy—which accounts for the whole series of mistakes they are still making, after their disillusionment with regard to Russia.

For centuries, Moscow and Islam have counterpoised each other: the Golden Horde having checked the expansion of Russia, the latter did her best to bring about the downfall of the Ottoman Empire. It had formerly been admitted by the Great Powers that the territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire should not be infringed upon, for it was the best barrier to Russia’s claims on the Straits and her advance towards India. But after the events of the last war, England, reversing her traditional policy, and the Allies, urged on by Pan-Russian circles, have been gradually driven to recognise the Russian claims to Constantinople in return for her co-operation at the beginning of the war.