There have been surface indications, however, of a seeming Mohammedan solidarity, which have deceived the casual newspaper reader and have undoubtedly powerfully helped the Turkish Nationalist cause. A sacred flag of Islam was sent by the Turks to the Mohammedans of India in February, 1923, when the first Lausanne Conference broke up. It was used as a symbol in processions in Bombay and other cities, which ended in mass meetings of Mohammedans in which sympathy and support for Turkey were voted. Along with these demonstrations there has been a recruiting movement in Northern India, which has been supplying the Turks with Indian and Afghan volunteers. Assurances have been given that Angora can rely on 200,000 trained volunteers and an insurrectionary movement in India as well, should war come as a result of the failure of the Lausanne Conference.
These indications must be interpreted as moves in the Nationalist trouble against the British in India, and not as a recognition of the importance of the Turks in the Mohammedan world. The whole Turkish race in Asia Minor numbers less than one-tenth of the Moslems of India! While the Indian Moslems are backing the Turks they are also interested in gauging the strength of Arabic opposition to Great Britain, and have accepted the Arabic determination to remain from now on free from Turkish domination. Angora was ignored at the April Lucknow Conference, on the question of the administration of Mohammedan Holy Lands and regulations for the Mecca pilgrimage. There was no reference to Constantinople or Angora, and it was decided to send a deputation to the rulers of Hedjaz and Irak, for the purpose of anti-British agitation.
If it is difficult to see how the Turkish Nationalist movement is going to control the Mohammedan world, it is still more difficult to accept the idea that there is such a movement as pan-Turanianism, of which the Nationalists make so much. In the days of its glory, the Ottoman Empire included the Caucasus and the entire coast of the Black Sea. The Ottoman Turks were masters of a part of the Turanian race and neighbors of the Turanians of Central Asia. During the latter part of the World War, and for a brief moment in the early part of 1921, the Ottoman Turks partly restored the old contacts. But these were broken again by the Bolshevists, who have proved themselves in Asia tenacious inheritors of traditional Russian foreign policy. Half a century ago the Ottoman Turks lost to Russia the last of the Turanian regions in the Caucasus. In 1921 they were compelled again to relinquish the dream of leading the Turanians. The Ottoman Turks are incapable of coping with the Russians, whatever form of government Russia may have. A pan-Turanian movement, deriving its inspiration from Turkey and giving power to Turkey, does not need to be reckoned with as a probability in world politics.
The strength of the Turkish Nationalists is in the geographical position of their country, from the outlet of the Black Sea to the sources of the Mesopotamian rivers, where Russia and Great Britain fear they will some day meet in a struggle for the control of India, and from which France, Italy, and Germany are determined not to be excluded. If we realize this, we shall see that governmental backing of oil, mining, railway, and port concessions have a political as well as a commercial motive. Fear is the incentive to greed. The success that has attended the Turkish Nationalist movement is due to the recognition of this fact by Mustafa Kemal Pasha and his associates; their own political future—and the importance of the New Turkey—will depend upon their ability to make good use of it.
CHAPTER XXIII
THE ENTENTE POWERS AND THE QUESTION OF THE STRAITS
Shortly before the debacle of the Greek army in Asia Minor I was discussing the question of war weariness with English friends at luncheon in a London club. Aware that good fortune had thrown me with men who knew—if any did—the state of the public mind in Great Britain, I was trying to find out whether the British would be ready to back by force of arms the French reparations demands upon Germany. My informants were unanimous in the belief that no Government could lead the English people into a new war. “Not a chance in the world, any more than there is in your country,” declared a Foreign Office man. “We know that so well that we got out of Ireland, compromised with Egypt, put up with a makeshift in Mesopotamia, stalled on the Zionist business in Palestine, and are constantly warning the Government of India to avoid trouble internally and with Afghanistan.”
“You mean that the people are not behind you in support of traditional policies abroad, unless you can work them into feeling that pride and honor are involved.”
“As for pride, we’d swallow a lot before we would allow the income tax to go higher, and that honor business depends upon the press. Well, our press is as pacifist now as it was jingo a few years ago. We are not in a fire-eating mood. I do not think of any problem in international politics that could involve our people in war.”
“How about the Straits?” I asked.