Since my return I have been frequently asked to explain the rôle of the French colonel in Angora. I cannot feel that his presence implied any disloyalty to Great Britain. Again and again we have been asked by France to modify our policy in the Near East. But as neither threats nor coaxing has availed to save us from being the tools of designing Greece, France was driven to “make her own arrangements.”
I do not say that she abandoned Cilicia simply for conscience’ sake, or that she gave back that rich cotton district to Turkey from a pure love of justice. But I am ready to congratulate her on the wisdom of retiring before she was driven out. We must obviously own that Angora is not on the direct road back to Syria, and that the colonel has lingered some months by the way. That, however, is really his own business; and I do not forget that I, too, once went to Turkey for six weeks and stayed six months! No doubt he is no less welcome to M. Kemal Pasha than I was to the Grand Vizier’s daughter.
He certainly proved an invaluable source of information. As I told him, “he must have telegraphed to his Government every time he heard the Pasha sneeze”; and, emphatically, he has done good work. Honest, upright, and sincere, he can “explain many things” to the Turks, and assist them with tactful advice. At the worst, he has harmed no one, which cannot be said of all diplomatists in Constantinople!
I, personally, can respect those with whom I do not agree, even those who, on behalf of their own country, dislike mine. It would surely have been more prudent to follow the French example, by having a representative in Angora, than to criticise them. Suspicion leads nowhere, and such a man as General Harington “on the spot” could have done a great deal to hasten peace.
France has no desire, or, at least, no considered campaign, to undermine our influence in the East; and the colonel, at any rate, was quite aware that, whatever the gratitude Turkey may owe and feel to her, it is England who will soon (once more) hold the first place in Turkey’s affections. The terrible and tragic bunglings of these last years will then be forgotten.
They have told me themselves that M. Franklin-Bouillon did all he could to advise them to preserve good relations with England.
The car arrived about eleven o’clock, and though we were driven to spend the night in the station (a junction between HAÏDAR Pasha, Angora and Smyrna); though the wind howled over the beating rain, and the train shrieked in the distance, the contrast of so much comfort (on the luxurious couch of a roomy car) with the experience of the previous night, made one feel that the discomfort itself had been worth while.
As the colonel, the cheik and the officers in turn brought me a glass of tea by way of nightcap, I said to each: “How good it is to be here!”