Yet under the pressure of a section of public opinion and the agitation let loose against Turkey, England seemed more and more resolved to occupy Constantinople, and The Times, though it had never been averse to the eviction of the Turks from Constantinople, now showed some anxiety:
“We cannot imagine how the greatest lovers of political difficulties in Europe should have ever dreamt that Constantinople should be occupied exclusively by British troops, or that such a decision may have been taken without previously taking the Allies’ advice.
“As things now stand, we are not at all surprised that such stories may have given birth to a feeling of distrust towards us. These are the fruits of a policy tainted with contradiction and weakness. The Allied countries refuse to sacrifice any more gold or human lives, unless their honour is concerned. They will not consent to go to war in order to safeguard the interests of a few international financiers, who want to dismember Turkey-in-Asia.”
This movement was brought about by the explosion of very old feelings which had been smouldering for nearly forty years, had been kept alive by the Balkan war, and had been roused by the last conflict. Even at the time of Catherine II the merchants of the City of London merely looked upon Russia as a first-rate customer to whom they sold European and Indian goods, and of whom in return they bought raw materials which their ships brought to England. So they felt inclined to support the policy of Russia, and, to quote the words of a French writer in the eighteenth century, the English ambassador at Constantinople was “le chargé d’affaires de la Russie.” So a party which took into account only the material advantages to be drawn from a closer commercial connection with Russia arose and soon became influential. William Pitt inveighed against this party when, in one of his speeches, he refused to argue with those who wanted to put an end to the Ottoman Empire. But the opinion that England can only derive economic advantages from the dismemberment of Turkey in favour of Russia soon found a new advocate in Richard Cobden, the leader of the Manchester school, who expounded it in a little book, Russia, by a Manchester Manufacturer, printed at Edinburgh in 1835. This dangerous policy was maintained, in spite of David Urquhart’s campaign against the Tsarist policy in the East in a periodical, The Portfolio, which he had founded in 1833, and, notwithstanding the strenuous efforts made by Blacque, a Frenchman, editor of The Ottoman Monitor, to show that Europe was being cheated by Russia, and was going the wrong way in her attitude towards Turkey. And the same foolish policy consistently pursued by Fox, Gladstone, and Grey towards Tsardom is still carried on by Britain towards Bolshevism. The same narrowly utilitarian views, the typical economic principles of the Manchester School, linked with Protestant ideas, and thus strengthened and aggravated by religious feeling, seem still to inspire the Russian policy of Britain as they once inspired the old “bag and baggage” policy of Mr. Gladstone, the “Grand Old Man,” that the Turks should be expelled from Constantinople with bag and baggage. Indeed, this policy may be looked upon as an article of faith of the English Liberal party. Mr. Gladstone’s religious mind, which was alien to the Islamic spirit, together with the endeavours of the economists who wanted to monopolise the Russian market, brought about an alliance with Holy Orthodox Russia, and within the Anglican Church a movement for union with the Holy Synod had even been started.
That campaign was all the more out of place as the Turks have repeatedly proclaimed their sympathy for England and turned towards her. Just as after the first Balkan war the Kiamil Cabinet had made overtures to Sir Edward Grey, after the armistice of November 11 Tewfik Pasha, now Grand Vizier, had also made open proposals. England had already laid hands on Arabia and Mesopotamia, but could not openly lay claim to Constantinople without upsetting some nations with whom she meant to keep on good terms, though some of her agents and part of public opinion worked to that end. Generally she showed more diplomacy in conforming her conduct with her interests, which she did not defend so harshly and openly.
But religious antagonism and religious intolerance were at the bottom of that policy, and had always instigated and supported it. The Anglicans, and more markedly the Nonconformists, had taken up the cry, “The Turk out of Europe,” and it seems certain that the religious influence was paramount and brought on the political action. Mr. Lloyd George, who is a strong and earnest Nonconformist, must have felt it slightly awkward to find himself in direct opposition to his co-religionists on political grounds. Besides, the British Government, which in varied circumstances had supported contradictory policies, was in a difficult situation when brought face to face with such contradictions.
It also seems strange at first that the majority of American public opinion should have suffered itself to be led by the campaign of Protestant propaganda, however important the religious question may be in the United States. Though since 1831 American Protestant missionaries have defrayed the expenses of several centres of propaganda among the Nestorians (who have preserved the Nazarene creed), paid the native priests and supported the schools, America has no interests in those countries, unless she thus means to support her Russian policy. But her economic imperialism, which also aims at a spiritual preponderance, would easily go hand in hand with a cold religious imperialism which would spread its utilitarian formalism over the life and manners of all nations.
At any rate, the plain result of the two countries’ policy was necessarily to reinforce the Pan-Turkish and Pan-Arabian movements.
Of course, Mr. Wilson’s puritanism and his ignorance of the complex elements and real conditions of European civilisation could not but favour such a movement, and on March 5 the New York World, a semi-official organ, plainly said that Mr. Wilson would threaten again, as he had already done about Italy, to withdraw from European affairs, if the treaty of peace with Turkey left Constantinople to the Turks, and gave up all protection of the Christian populations in Turkey.