To these petty vexations must be added the more serious trouble Turkey has constantly to reckon with in consequence of the peculiar attitude of the Russian Government in regard to the Armenian revolutionary movement. We have been witnesses in our time of the vast resources of the Russian Government when called upon to deal with their own revolutionary parties. If the Russian Armenians would like to put them to the test they need only try to force the Russian Government to cease interfering with their schools, their language, and their creed. They might then indeed discover for themselves what a Russian millstone is like. But no!—they submit to Russian tyranny, preferring to organize revolutionary work at Kars, Tiflis, and Batoum directed against Turkey; and “helpless” Russian bureaucracy avows its inability to discover, much less to interfere with such!
The problem to be faced by Turkey is to ensure that security of life and property in her Asiatic dominions which is a sine qua non with every Government, be it under the Crescent or the Cross. The Kurds must be forced to give up their predatory propensities. They still defy the Valis, and are, I was credibly assured, now and then secretly encouraged in this by the military commanders, who intrigue against the civil authorities, and it is difficult for the Government in Constantinople to ascertain the true facts of the case. Shortly after our journey the Modiki Kurds slew the kaimakan of Modiki and along with him eight Turkish officers. They were still unpunished a year afterwards.[[11]] And yet if such men cannot be brought to respect the law, and security for life and property be assured, it will shortly be said of Asiatic Turkey as it was of ancient Carthage: “Delenda est Carthago.” The Kurd, like Zola’s hero in “La Débâcle,” must take to the plough and work. It is the law of the Universe; not even a Khalif can exonerate his subjects from its inexorable working. Turkey is in need of reforms—nor is she the only country in need of them. This is admitted on all hands. And among these none are so vitally necessary as those of an economic nature. It is a misfortune for Turkey to-day that Mohammed lived practically in a desert, where trees and roads were few and far between. If this great reformer had lived, for instance, in Anatolia or Mesopotamia, one of his earnest injunctions to his followers would doubtless have been that every one of the Faithful should consider it to be his duty to plant a tree and assist in making public roads, the latter being the occupation which Goethe tells us finally brought contentment to the restless soul of Faust. The Mohammedans, who after twelve hundred years still religiously obey every injunction of their Prophet, down to the number of prayers and ablutions to be said and practised per diem, would have naturally carried out his wishes in this particular. And, if so, Asiatic Turkey would wear a very different aspect from what it does to-day. Alas! those who have travelled through Turkey in Asia and witnessed the absolute lack of roads, bridges, and almost every other civilized convenience which marks a certain mean level of social organization, can only come to the conclusion that the Turk is more or less of a nomad: a nomad horseman, as he was a thousand years ago, leading the life of a nomad, even though his predatory instincts are now and then dormant, and, when exercised, are impartially put into practice at the expense of both the Mohammedan and the Christian.
[11]. At the moment of preparing these pages for the press, sixteen years after my journey through Asiatic Turkey, I learn from several independent sources that although no recrudescence of the massacres has taken place, the conditions prevailing there to-day are even more unsatisfactory than of yore. The Imperial authority under the régime of the Young Turks is at a lower ebb even than in Abdul Hamid’s time. In addition thereto must be reckoned the dreadful losses in human life caused by the wars in Tripoli and the Balkans, so that the fields are now largely tilled by women and old men.
The American mind is said to be able to find the shortest and straightest road from one given point—logical or material—to another. The Englishman may possibly come next to the American in this; the German is slower, but he is infallible in the long run, for he works a problem out stolidly with the assistance of logarithms and trigonometry. As you near the East, the capacity for discovering the short, straight, logical line decreases—the Austro-Hungarian finds it sometimes, the Turk hardly ever.
This constitutional inability to seize the value of an established fact or series of facts, and to draw the obvious logical conclusion therefrom, has all along hampered the Turk in putting his case before the world, even in instances where seven out of ten points were in his favour. I have heard an educated Turk cite the case of an Armenian tailor who had deserted his wife and run away with another woman as a proof of the iniquity of that interesting race. In his lack of logic the Turk recalls the Swiss woman who appealed to the court for a divorce from her husband. On being asked what grounds she could advance in support, she replied after thinking awhile: “He is not the father of my last child.”
Individual Americans, Englishmen, Germans—yes, even English missionaries—will now and then make out a better case for Turkey than all the Turks put together with whom I conversed during my several prolonged visits to Turkey.
“Yes, you must remember this question has two sides. There is a deal to be said for the Turks; the Armenians are not all angels,” an American missionary said to me in Anatolia. “For, let there be no mistake about it, it is only the Pharisee who bids us fancy that the priests of Baal have erected altars exclusively among the Turks.”
I contend that the responsibility for the horrors which took place in Asia Minor rested in the first instance with the Armenian revolutionists who instigated them, and not with the Turks, who are an Asiatic people like the Russians and the Persians, and whose methods of repression are not very different from theirs. The Armenian revolutionists were responsible for the suffering of the innocent for the guilty. I have read their pamphlets, their stirring circulars urging the helpless Armenian hamal (porter), peasant, and artisan to rise and throw off the Turkish yoke. These documents were only too often ruthless and indefensible in their unbridled lawlessness. The Armenian revolutionists stated that it was impossible to hope for anything but persecution on religious grounds from the Turk. Now the Armenian language, creed, and schools are perfectly free in Turkey, whereas they have always been persistently interfered with in Russia. The Armenians accuse the Turk of persecuting Christians, whereas the high road from Trebizond to Erzeroum, as already stated, is dotted with Christian monasteries and churches unmolested during centuries.
Our steamer stopped at Mersina, Rhodes, and Smyrna on our way, but we landed only at the last-named place. In strolling through the city, we took our farewell of Asiatic life with its caravans and its camels—a long line of which met us in the street. Our arrival at Constantinople took place after sunset, and in observance of some queer harbour regulations we were obliged to pass the night on board, being allowed to disembark only in the morning.
Before leaving for Paris we stayed a few days at Constantinople. The Sultan sent word asking me to draw up a report of the impressions gained on our journey. This I did, and expressed myself to the effect that what had made the deepest impression on us was the lack of roads, bridges, and trees, and the desolate nature of the whole country, some parts being little better than a wilderness. There would seem to be a great field for beneficent work in these lands.