The Downfall of Greece
Meanwhile in Constantinople, where I happened to be, our Military Mission was getting anxious. A new leader had arisen among the Turks named Mustapha Kemal Pasha. Established at Angora, with a Committee of Turkish Nationalists, he defied the terms of peace imposed upon his people, refused to acknowledge the decree of a Sultan in the hands of the inter-allied force, rallied to his standard every Turkish patriot, raised a new army, filled Constantinople with his spies and agents, and proclaimed a “Holy War” of Islam. He vowed to recapture Smyrna, to liberate Constantinople, and to take possession of Thrace.
The Greek troops before Smyrna were confident, as I saw them, of holding their lines against the Turk. The Greek Commander-in-Chief, whom I interviewed, was ready to break the Turkish lines “as though on parade.” Lloyd George gave them the moral support of emotional words, and they were very grateful to him, and believed that England was behind him. The world knows what happened. Its conscience must still burn at times as it hears the cries of terror and anguish on that quayside at Smyrna when the Turkish irregulars set fire to the Christian quarters and massacred men, women and children, while British and American warships stood by, with their officers and men staring through that pall of smoke and its rending fire, listening to the shrieks beyond.
The Turks advanced to the Ismid Peninsula overlooking the Dardanelles. They advanced to the very lines which the British troops—young boys mostly—held at Chanak. Beyond that they could not go without a war with Great Britain, which hung by a thread day after day and week after week. The French, whose politicians and public opinion were sympathetic to the Turks, and who were incredibly jealous of British influence in Egypt, Palestine and Mesopotamia—an old source of enmity stirred up again in military minds—withdrew their own troops from Chanak, and left the British troops isolated. They made it perfectly clear, very courteously, but very firmly, that they would not engage in war against Turkey. It is certain that the French people after all their loss of blood and years of strife would have refused to support such a war. In any case, they preferred the Turks to the Greeks, and were glad of the Greek defeat.
To Lloyd George, in England, these Turkish victories were heavy blows. His honour was engaged to Greece. He believed that British honour was engaged, though certainly his pro-Greek policy had never gained the support and enthusiasm of public opinion. He hated the thought of seeing the Turk in power again at Constantinople. He had incited the Greek Army to attack. The horror at Smyrna made his blood run cold. It was Winston Churchill, without waiting for Parliamentary sanction, who raised the fiery cross and sent an emotional appeal for help to all the Dominions. It was received at first in stony silence, and then with deadly hostility. Neither Canada nor Australia would send a man to fight in a new war. They had done enough; they were not interested. At home in England and Scotland there was no support for a new war. There was a fierce outcry in the Press. The nation refused to envisage war, for any reason. They were sick of war. They could not afford it in men or money after years of colossal sacrifice.
The war did not happen, thanks a good deal to General Sir Charles Harington, commanding in Constantinople. Cool as ice in the face of extreme provocation, determined to keep the peace by every method of statesmanship, unless his men were actually attacked, it was his fine chivalry, his diplomatic wisdom with the Turkish Generals and statesmen, which resulted in an Armistice hanging on a hair-trigger. Lord Curzon patched up a peace which gave to the Turks most of what they claimed and more than they ought to have had in humanity and justice. The expulsion of the Christian communities from Asia Minor was one of the most infernal tragedies of history, hushed up in the British and European Press because it hurt the conscience of too many of us. The flight of the Greek refugees still calls to God for pity....
What a world—ten years after!
The Denial of Democracy
When I went about Europe I was dismayed by the denial of all mental progress towards a state of peace. Physically there was a slow recovery from war. Morally there was a reaction in many countries to black passion, militarism, and ideas of Force. Austria-Hungary and Germany were swinging right back to the old traditions of nationalism. They saw no way of freedom except by future war. They desired vengeance—against the French. They were talking of calling back their Emperors. In Germany the Crown Prince came home as a “private citizen” ready for a call to the throne at some not distant date. The war which was to make the world safe for democracy had been followed by a peace in which democracy was repudiated by many leaders and by public opinion in many countries. “I do not believe in democracy,” Herr Streseman told me in Berlin. The Italian Fascists under Mussolini did not believe in democracy, nor in Parliamentary institutions, nor in free speech. They bludgeoned men who disagreed with their ideas and methods or poured castor oil down their throats. They saved Italy from anarchy, which was a good deed, but Mussolini, the autocrat, was quite willing to play the anarchist against international laws, and did so when he flouted the League of Nations and bombarded Corfu. Students of world affairs, thoughtful observers like Sir Edward Grey and General Smuts, men not given to exaggerated speech and morbid fears, expressed their alarm at the state of Europe ten years after the outbreak of the world war, and confessed that it seemed to be slipping downhill towards general catastrophe.