Turkey, by virtue of position, has always stood closely related to every section of the European mainland. The country’s fate has affected the destiny of every European nation. The modern importance of Turkish affairs in European international problems is a measure of the extensive influence of the Near East over Europe. A study of European nationalities cannot therefore be complete without reference to the empire of Turkish Sultans.
A strong contrast constantly engages attention in the history of Ottoman lands. Of old, the world’s highest civilizations, its purest religions, arose within their confines. In modern days decadence on the heels of a steady recessional marks their lot. The explanation usually advanced is that Mohammedanism has impeded Turkish progress. But this religion was no obstacle to cultural growth in the countries surrounding Turkey. In Egypt, as in Arabia, Persia and northern India, the thought of the natives grew to splendid maturity. The intellectual life of these Mohammedan countries is altogether beyond the grasp of the Turkish mind.
The foundation of Turkey’s weakness as a nation and the failure of the cause of civilization within its boundaries lie in the country’s situation. The land staggers under the load of misfortune which its central position in the eastern hemisphere has heaped upon it. Its native populations have never been able to develop freely. The country is an open road alongside or at the ends of which nationalities have blossomed. It has been the prey of invaders by which it has been overrun. The Turks find themselves on this land today because they are descendants of wanderers. They have occupied the road because they ignored the ways of stepping off its path. Having come in numbers sufficiently strong, they managed to subdue the original inhabitants, who in their groping for the higher life had given the world a number of great conceptions in learning, art and religion. But hardly had the easterners occupied the road before the process of clearing it began.
Turkey has been a highway of commerce and civilization between Europe on the one hand and Asia and Africa on the other. The history of this country and of its inhabitants cannot be understood unless one is thoroughly impressed by this fundamental fact. On the east the Persian Gulf followed by the Mesopotamian valley, its natural prolongation, formed a convenient channel for the northwesterly spread of human intercourse. To the west, land travel between Europe and Africa drained into the Syrian furrow. Both of these natural grooves led to the passes which carried the traveler into Asia Minor. The peninsula therefore was both an important center of human dispersal and a meeting place for men of all nations.
The through roads converging into Turkish territory are probably the oldest commercial routes of the world. At any rate they connected the sites on which the most ancient civilizations rose. The remotest past to which the history of humanity carries us centers around the large river valleys of the tropical and subtropical zone in the eastern hemisphere. The banks of the Nile, of the Euphrates, of the Indian rivers, or of the broad watercourses in Chinese lowlands were nurseries of human culture. Abundance of water, together with a profuse flora and fauna, gave early man ease of life. Hunters, fishermen and shepherds were naturally converted into farmers. A short wait and the seeds they planted would grow to maturity without exacting other attention than the preliminary act of sewing. The life men led afforded time for thought. Curiosity was awakened regarding lands beyond. Ample provision of natural products furnished them with stocks available for barter. These conditions favored the development of commerce and stimulated the creation of trade routes, which were coveted by many as they became more and more trodden.
Between Europe and Asia the great movements of peoples have followed two parallel directions north or south of the central belt of high Eurasian mountains extending from east to west. Men have traveled back and forth in these two lines from the earliest known period. But exchange of ideas has been practically confined to the southern avenue. In the cold of the Siberian or northern European lowlands men had little opportunity to acquire refinement. They were active and energetic, while the followers of the southern pathways were thinkers.
From the dawn of history to our day only two departures of importance have taken place from this east-west traffic. Both were modern events. One occurred in the middle of the fifteenth century as soon as the Turks acquired mastery of western Asia and the Balkan peninsula. The Christian sailor-trader of that time was then obliged to circumnavigate Africa in order to reach eastern seaports. The other change took place when the Suez Canal was completed. This waterway diverted to its channel much of the overland Asiatic traffic routed between the Black Sea and the Persian Gulf or the Indian Ocean. But even these two diversions failed to eliminate entirely the picturesque caravans which plied over Turkish roads. Thus it may be assumed that these routes have been used uninterruptedly for about 10,000 years at least, that is to say, before the time in which their known history begins.
The southeastern portal of these celebrated highways is situated at the head of the Persian Gulf. The broad Tigris and Euphrates thence mark the northerly extension of the routes. On the western river, the natural road leaves the valley above Mosul and penetrates into the Armenian highland through the gorges in the neighborhood of Diarbekir. The very name Mosul, a contraction of the Greek “Mesopylae” or Central Gates, suggests its origin. The city grew at the meeting point of routes from the Caspian, Black and Mediterranean seas and from the Persian Gulf. The through highway links once more with the Euphrates in its upper reaches around Keban Maden in order to reach the Anatolian plateau. The passes are precipitous and the waters flow southward closely hemmed in by steep and rocky barriers. Access to the billowy surface of Armenian mountain lands is obtained by means of either the Murad Su or the Kara Su. The union of these two rivers into the single watercourse known as the Euphrates at a short distance above Keban Maden has at all times attracted much of the traffic and travel between Armenia and Mesopotamia. The eastern affluents of the Tigris south of Lake Van, on the other hand, reach the uplifted core of Armenia where they are lost in the tangle of steep valleys and deeply broken surfaces.
Because it is a region of water dispersal, Armenia is also the gathering-site of the heads of outflowing watercourses. If the distance at the divide between the uppermost reaches of two divergent watercourses be short, it is hardly a barrier to human intercourse. This condition prevails in the uppermost reaches of the Euphrates and of the Aras. The important town of Erzerum is the symbol of this union. Within its walled area the traffic of the central plateaus of Asia joined with Mesopotamian or Black Sea and Mediterranean freight, after having followed the easterly approach to Turkey through Tabriz and the southern affluents of the Aras, north of Urmiah Lake. Through this eastern avenue of penetration Asiatic peoples and products have been dumped century after century into Turkish territory.
The valley of the Euphrates, rather than that of the Tigris, is therefore the main artery of communication between north and south in eastern Turkey. It is the avenue through which the ideas of Iran came into contact with Semitic thought. But the uniting influence of the great river was far from being exerted on Oriental peoples alone. In its broad southern course, the river provided ancient merchants with a short-cut which greatly facilitated land travel between the Ægean or Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf. Another city, Aleppo, is the geographical monument which grew with the increase of travel in this stretch of the Euphrates or declined as the channel became less and less frequented. It is the western counterpart of Mosul in the sense that it also is a point of convergence for routes proceeding from every quarter of the compass.