The Turks and Europe

by Gaston Gaillard

So, in February, after the formidable campaign started in Great Britain and the United States, at the very time when the treaty of peace with Turkey was going to be discussed again, and definitely settled, the retention of the Turkish Government in Constantinople was still an open question.

On February 12 the Anglo-Ottoman Society addressed to Mr. Lloyd George an appeal signed by Lord Mowbray, Lord Lamington, General Sir Bryan Mahon, Professor Browne, Mr. Marmaduke Pickthall, and several other well-known men, referring to the pledge he had made on January 5, 1918, to leave Constantinople to the Turks. The appeal ran as follows:

“We, the undersigned, being in touch with Oriental opinion, view with shame the occupation of the vilayet of Aidin, a province ‘of which the population is predominantly Turkish,’ by Hellenic troops; and have noticed with alarm the further rumours in the Press to the effect that part of Thrace—and even Constantinople itself—may be severed from the Turkish Empire at the peace settlement, in spite of the solemn pledge or declaration aforesaid, on the one hand, and, on the other, the undeniable growth of anti-British feeling throughout the length and breadth of Asia, and in Egypt, owing to such facts and rumours.

“We beg you, in the interests not only of England or of India but of the peace of the world, to make good that solemn declaration not to deprive Turkey of Thrace and Asia Minor, with Constantinople as her capital.”

The next week a memorandum was handed to Mr. Lloyd George and printed in the issue of The Times of February 23. It was signed by, among others, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, the Bishop of London, Lord Robert Cecil, Mr. A. G. Gardiner (late editor of the Daily News), the socialist leader Hyndman, Lord Bryce (formerly ambassador to the United States), the well-known writer Seton-Watson, Dr. Burrows, Principal of King’s College, Professor Oman, and many professors of universities. In it the same desires lurked behind the same religious arguments, under cover of the same social and humanitarian considerations—viz., that the Turks should no longer be allowed to slaughter the Armenians, and that they should be expelled from Constantinople.

“As to Constantinople itself, it will be a misfortune and indeed a scandal if this city is left in Turkish hands. It has been for centuries a focus of intrigue and corruption; and it will so continue as long as the Turkish Government has power there. If Constantinople were transferred to the control of the League of Nations, there would be no offence to genuine Moslem sentiment. For the Khilafat is not, and never has been, attached to Constantinople. The Sultan, if he retains the Khilafat, will be just as much a Khalifa, in the eyes of Moslems all over the world, at Brusa or Konia, as at Stambul.”

Now the absurdity of such arguments is patent to all those who know that “the focus of intrigue and corruption” denounced in this document is the outcome of the political intrigues carried on by foreigners in Constantinople, and kept up by international rivalries. As to the exile of the Sultan to Brusa or Konia, it could only have raised a feeling of discontent and resentment among Moslems and roused their religious zeal.

Such a movement was resented by the Turks all the more deeply as, it must be remembered, they have great reverence for any religious feeling. For instance, they still look upon the Crusades with respect, because they had a noble aim, a legitimate one for Catholics—viz., the conquest of the Holy Places; though later on behind the Crusaders, as behind all armies, there came all sorts of people eager to derive personal profit from those migrations of men. But they cannot entertain the least consideration or regard for a spurious religious movement, essentially Protestant, behind which Anglo-Saxon covetousness is lurking, and the real aim of which is to start huge commercial undertakings.

Moreover, the Greek claims which asserted themselves during the settlement of the Turkish question partly originated in the connection between the Orthodox Church, not with Hellenism in the old and classical sense of the word, as has been wrongly asserted, but with Greek aspirations. For the Œcumenical Patriarch, whose see is Constantinople, is the head of the Eastern Church, and he still enjoys temporal privileges owing to which he is, in the Sultan’s territory, the real leader of the Greek subjects of the Sultan. Though the countries of Orthodox faith in Turkey have long enjoyed religious autonomy, their leaders keep their eyes bent on Constantinople, for in their mind the religious cause is linked with that of the Empire, and the eventual restoration of the Greek Empire in Constantinople would both consolidate their religious faith and sanction their claims.

In spite of what has often been said, it seems that the Christian Church did not so much protect Hellenism against the Turks as the Orthodox Church enhanced the prosperity of the Greeks within the Turkish Empire. The Greek Church, thanks to the independence it enjoyed in the Ottoman Empire, was a sort of State within the State, and had a right to open and maintain schools which kept up moral unity among the Greek elements. So it paved the way to the revolutionary movement of 1821, which was to bring about the restoration of the Greek kingdom with Athens as its capital; and now it serves the plans of the advocates of Greater Greece. Let us add that nowadays the Greek Church, like the Churches of all the States that have arisen on the ruins of Turkey, has its own head, and has freed itself from the tutelage of the Patriarch for the administration of its property.