In the Young Turkish memorandum on this act of spying and bloodshed, the passages most underlined and printed in the boldest characters, the passages which, according to official intention, were to justify these frightful reprisals, form the most terrible indictment ever brought against Turkish despotism, and provide the most complete proof of the truth of all the accusations made against the Turkish Government by the ill-treated and oppressed Syrians and Arabians. On anyone who does not read with Young Turkish eyes the memorandum makes directly the opposite impression to what was intended. And even if the Separatist movement had existed in any greater extent—which was quite out of the question owing to lack of weapons, conflicting interests, the contrasts in the people themselves, some of them Mohammedan, some Christian, some sectarian, and the impossibility of any kind of organisation under the stern discipline of Turkish rule—the Turks would have most richly deserved it and it would have been justified by the thousands of brutalities inflicted by the Old and Young Turkish régimes on the highly civilised Arabian people and their industrious and commercial neighbours the Syrians, who had always been much influenced by European culture. Anyone who has once watched how the Committee in Stamboul made a pretext of events on the borders of Caucasia to exterminate a whole people, including women and children, even in Western and Central Anatolia and the Capital, can no longer be in the least doubt as to the methods employed by Djemal Pasha, the "hangman" of Syrians and Arabs, how grossly he must have exaggerated and misstated the facts to find enough victims so that he could look on for a year and a half with a cigar in his mouth—as he himself boasted—while the flower of Syrian and Arabian youth, the élite of society, and the aged heads of the best families in the land were either hanged or shot.
I should like to take the opportunity here of giving a short description of Djemal Pasha, this man who, according to Turkish ideas, is destined still to play a great part in Turkish politics. I should also like to clear up a misunderstanding that seems to exist in civilised Europe with regard to him. There is still an idea abroad that Djemal Pasha is pro-French, this man who set out on his adventure against the Suez Canal as "Vice-king of Egypt," and, after he had been beaten there, settled in Syria as dictator with unlimited power—even openly defying the Central Government in Constantinople when he felt piqued—so that as commander of the Fourth Army he could support the attempt against Egypt, but principally to satisfy his murderous instincts. Anyone who has seen this man close at hand (whom a German journalist belonging to the Berliner Tageblatt with the most fulsome flattery once called one of the handsomest men in Turkey) knows enough. Small, thickset, a beard and a pair of cunning cruel eyes are the most prominent features of this face from which everyone must turn in disgust who remembers the "hangman's" part played by the man.
It is extraordinary that he should still pass as Pro-French in many quarters, and perhaps it is part of his slyness to preserve this rôle. Djemal is not Pro-French; he is only the most calculating of all the leading men of Turkey. He certainly had pro-French tendencies, in the current meaning of the word, before the war; that is, he thought the interests of his country would be best safeguarded against German machinations for winning over the Young Turks by taking advantage of Turkey's traditional friendship for France. He was also against Turkey's participation in the war on the side of the Central Powers, and he was furiously angry when the fleet which was supposed to be under his control appeared against his will under the direction of the German Admiral of the Goeben and Breslau in the Black Sea.
But when the war actually broke out, he very soon accommodated himself to the new state of affairs. Instead of handing in his resignation, he added to his naval duties the chief command of the army operating against Egypt, for Djemal's chief characteristics were characterless opportunism and inordinate ambition. Suiting his opinions to the facts of the case, he was not long in advertising his Pro-French feelings again so that he might be popular with the people of Syria. That of course did not prevent him later on from carrying out his "hangman's policy" against the Syrians who were bound by so many social ties to France. From that it is not difficult to judge just how genuine his Pro-French feelings are!
The only genuine thing in his whole attitude is his admitted deep hatred of Germany and his personal animosity towards the pro-German Enver Pasha, arising partly from jealousy, partly from a feeling of being slighted, and only concealed for appearance' sake. During the war he has often enough made very plain utterances of his hatred of Germany, and it would certainly betoken ill for German politics in Turkey if Djemal Pasha succeeded in obtaining a more active rôle in the Central Government. So far the Minister for War has managed to hold him at arm's length, and Djemal has no doubt found it of advantage to wait for a later moment, and content himself for the present with his actual powerful position.
From his own repeated anti-German speeches it has, however, been only too easy to glean that his anti-German opinions and actions are not the result of his being Pro-French, but of his being a jingoistic Pan-Turk. He may simulate Pro-French feelings again and play them as the trump card in his surely approaching decisive struggle with Enver Pasha, when Enver's system has failed; Djemal will no doubt maintain then that he foresaw everything, and that he has always been for France and the Entente. Everyone who knows his character is at any rate sure of one thing, and that is that he will stop at nothing, even a rising against the Central Government, if his ambitious opportunism should so dictate it. It is to be hoped, however, that public opinion among the Entente will not be deceived as to his true character, and will recognise that he is nothing more than a jingoistic, greedy, raging Young Turkish fanatic and one of the most cunning at that. It would really be doing too much honour to a man with a murderer's face and a murderer's instinct to credit him with honest sympathies for France.
Djemal's work is nearing fruition. His cruel executions, his cynical breaking of promises in Syria, have at any rate contributed, along with other politically more important tendencies which have been cleverly utilised by England for the establishment of an Arabian Caliphate, towards the decisive result that the Emir of Mecca has revolted against the Turks. The Emir's son and his great Arabian suite had to pay a prolonged visit to Djemal at one time, and it is evident that the brutal execution of Arabian notables that he saw then directly influenced his father's attitude. The movement is bound to spread, and slowly and surely it will roll on till it ends in the full and perfect separation from Turkey of all Arabic-speaking districts as far as Northern Syria and the borders of Southern Kurdistan. The so-called Separatist movement, that Djemal tried to drown in a sea of blood before it was well begun, is now an actual fact.
In Egypt England has been seeing for quite a long time the practical and favourable results of her success in founding the Arabian Caliphate. She has now gained practically absolute security for her rule on the Nile, and she has even been able to remove troops and artillery from the Suez Canal to other fronts. The German dream of an offensive against Egypt vanished long ago; now even the last trace of a German-Turkish attempt against the Canal has ceased, and the English troops have moved the scene of their operations to Southern Palestine. While I write these lines, there comes from the other side, from Arabian Mesopotamia, the news of the recapture of Kut-el-Amara by British troops. I should not like to prophesy what moral or political results the fall of Baghdad, Medina, and Jerusalem will have for Turkish rule; possibly, nay probably, iron necessity, the impossibility of returning, the constraint imposed by their German Allies—for Turkey is fully under German military rule—may weaken the direct results of even such catastrophes as these. But the hearts which beat to-day with high hopes for the freedom of Great Arabia and autonomy for Syria under Franco-English protection will flame with new rapture, and in the Turkish capital all grades of society will realise that Osmanic power is on the decline.
Meantime Djemal Pasha is still occupied in Syria raking in the property of the murdered citizens and dividing it up among his minions, the least very often being given over to commissions consisting of individuals of extremely doubtful reputation. When he is not thus busily engaged, he spends his time round the green table playing poker. It is to be ardently hoped that even this great organiser will soon be at the end of his tether in Syria and have to leave the country where he has kinged in royally for two years. Then, perhaps, the moment may come when things are going so badly for the whole of Turkey that Djemal will at last have the opportunity, in spite of the failure of his policy in Syria, of measuring his military strength against his hated enemy Enver in Stamboul. That would be the beginning of the last stage before the complete collapse of Turkey.