Who touches Turkey, with Right behind her, will set all Islam on fire to put down Might.
Mustapha Kemal Pasha’s Sitting-room.
In Egypt they speak of “Holy Angora,” and, wherever future assemblies may meet, she will be always sacred. An Egyptian princess, I notice, uses capitals when referring to the Ghazi Pasha as “He” or “Him.” If only the delegates at Lausanne could have managed to peep behind the scenes at Angora! If they still considered the Nationalist demands unreasonable, they could scarcely have failed to pause before the deep-rooted fanaticism they have inspired.
The Pasha is nothing if not frank. He has no time for bluff, though his pride was stung by the idle boasting of our ex-Premier: “You’ve got to speak to these people with guns.”
No charge could be more ridiculous or untrue than to say that Mustapha Kemal is ever influenced by Camerad Areloff. Bolshevism and Nationalism are poles apart. Yet the Pasha could scarcely refuse invitations to conversation with any credited representative from a country like Russia; though no words of his are likely to change M. Kemal’s invariable habit of using his own judgment and making up his own mind.
Though he seldom speaks without a practical purpose, I was honoured by an intimacy that nearly approached that of an old school friend. There were changes, however, to rather puzzling reserve, almost frigid politeness, in his case probably not caused by any reminder of my nationality. He knows not only whom, but when, to trust, and I suppose I had unwittingly opened some dangerous topic.
One almost wishes at times that he need not live so perpetually in the heat of the fray. Driven, perhaps, by greater intelligence or stricter integrity, to some unpopular action, he might lose his halo, or at least dim its lustre, while the new country was still too unstable for any weakening of his guiding hand. There are fanatical members of the Assembly who, bien entendu, are far more extreme than he, whose unchecked counsels might spell disaster. I sought, indeed, for the opposition within of which we have heard so much, and found only a very small group of rather small-minded men, at present with little power.