It may, however, be urged that the testimony in question is that of friends and sympathizers. It affords me, therefore, special pleasure to reproduce here the generous appreciation of “The Terrible Turk” which has recently appeared in the Pall Mall Gazette[149] from the pen of a Serbian gentleman who has had an opportunity of knowing him in war as well as in peace. It fully corroborates all that has been stated in the preceding pages and is as great an evidence of the writer’s nobility of soul, as it is a splendid tribute to the character of a whilom foe:
We Serbians are fighting against the Turks with all our might, but we do not wish to be unjust to them. I am perfectly certain that every Serbian soldier, marching now victoriously through Macedonia and Albania, and every wounded Serbian lying somewhere in a hospital, and every Serbian mother, sister, wife, sweetheart, who has lost her son, or her brother, or her husband, or her lover, on one of the many bloody battlefields, would applaud my effort to do justice to our enemy. And, therefore, I do not hesitate to say a good word for the Turk. I do homage not to the Turk, but to truth.
An average Turk—or shall I perhaps call him a normal Turk?—is an excellent man. He believes in God, and prays to God more earnestly and more intensely than an average or normal Christian does. And he persistently and honestly tries to conform his everyday life to the commandments of his great Prophet. He is charitable, honest, trustworthy; he is modest, yet dignified; he is proud, but not vain; he is brave, but not boastful; he is sober, clean, polite; he is generally poor, but always hospitable; and he is patriotic, ready to starve and suffer and die, without a murmur, for his faith and the honor of his country. But this excellent, virtuous, and God-fearing brave man is heavy, slow and somewhat stupid, and in the electrical and aeroplanic twentieth century cannot stand against scientific organizations and quick-firing guns of the clever, sharp-witted Greeks, Serbians, and Bulgars.
The Turk was master of the Balkan nations for nearly five centuries. During all those centuries he consistently refrained from interfering with our national churches and with our village municipal life. From the liberty which the Turk left to our Church and our municipal life in the country, our political liberty was re-born. But, notwithstanding his religious tolerance and his non-interference with our village life, we hated him as long as, and just because he was our master. But now, when our victories have deprived him of his position as master of our countries, we will be pleased to have him for our friend, because—although he is not exactly a “jolly”—he is certainly a good fellow.
How different is this portrait of “The Unspeakable Turk,” painted by one who knew him by life-long association from that of the atrabilious author of Sartor Resartus, whose delineation of him was based on fancy and prejudice, if not on pathetic ignorance!
The great trouble in Asia Minor to-day is an economic one. This is the verdict of those who are most competent to judge—of those who have lived among the Osmanlis for years and have only words of praise for their many natural virtues and their abounding goodness of heart. It is the verdict of men and women to whom the brotherhood of man and the fatherhood of God are not empty words, of those who believe that the precepts of Christian charity are as obligatory for nations as for individuals, and that it behooves the Great Powers to assist in its economic stress at least this part of the Ottoman Empire and to help it to develop its marvelous natural resources. Were they to do this, Anatolia would again blossom as the rose and flourish once more as it did in the heyday of Greek and Roman splendor. But such altruism is quite alien to the self-seeking policy of the dominant nations of Europe. Acting on the theory that might makes right they coolly proceed to the dismemberment of the empire and endeavor to justify it by alleging, in French diplomatic phrase, the requirements of the action civilisatrice of Western as against Eastern civilization while every one who thinks knows that the real reason is the lust of conquest.
Although I do not hold a brief for the Osmanlis, I would make a plea for more tolerance for a people who have so long exhibited such tolerance toward others. Having myself been among the number of those who unconsciously did grave injustice to them before I came to know them as they are, I feel that I am fully warranted in urging a change of attitude towards them. Equitable statesmanship, as well as Christian charity, demands such a change. We can never hope to remove the barrier between the East and the West, between Islam and Christianity, so long as the age-long misunderstandings and misrepresentations above referred to continue to separate peoples who should live in union and harmony.
CHAPTER VII
THE BAGDAD RAILWAY
In its political and military, not to speak of its commercial, consequences, the securing by Germany of the Bagdad Railway is perhaps the most important event which has occurred in the Old World since the Franco-Prussian War.[150]
André Chéradame.