CONCERNING
the
manner in which the Turk has always profited from the conflicting interests and
jealousies of Christian powers, Lord Morley made the following shrewd remark
years ago:
“This peculiar strife between
Ottoman and Christian gradually became a struggle among the Christian Powers of
Northern and Western Europe to turn tormenting questions in the East to the
advantage of private ambitions of their own.”
This
comment of the famous Englishman was voiced before the full dawn of the
Petroleum Age, and while as yet America’s chief interest in Turkey was the
protection of a few missionaries.
A
brief
review of the political situation, which afforded the Turks unbridled license to
“raise the hand of violence,” is here necessary. It will be evident that they
have again profited by their well-known policy of exploiting the dissensions and
conflicting interest of Christian powers.
They have been as sensitive as a barometer to the least sign of dissension
among European governments or peoples, and have shown extraordinary shrewdness
in provoking or augmenting it.
The
Turk was the ally of the Germans during the Great War, and perhaps his most
useful one.
Practically all the gold disappeared from Turkey and there is only one place to
which it could have gone. The Turkish Empire was ransacked for wheat and other
food supplies. Long train-loads of foodstuffs, marked “Berlin” were moved with
great frequency toward Constantinople from Smyrna and other distant points. He
held the Straits stoutly against the British and French, and one of his proudest
and most frequent boasts to-day is that he defeated them there. Germany, one of
the great-civilized powers, was the ally of the Turks while they were carrying
on the extermination of the Armenians. After the defeat of Germany, it was taken
for granted that the bad days of the Christians of the Ottoman Empire were over.
Turkey was paralyzed.
Mustapha
Khemal, who burned Smyrna and completed the destruction of the Christians, is a
creature of Europe. It can not be denied that the original plan of the Allies
included the partition of the Ottoman Empire and that various projects were
formed and promises made which could not be realized on account of conflicting
interests, and that the Turks were aided by one or the other of the Powers
either secretly or openly to defeat the ambitions of
rivals.
In
the course of this sad history, Christians were armed against their hereditary
oppressors and then left to the vengeance of the latter. In general, they were
abandoned, as no Christian power desired to offend the Turk, from whom great
benefits were expected, to be in turn showered on the subjects of the power that
showed itself most Turkophile. The United States did not abstain from this
gruesome competition. In the beginning, interest prompted the spread of what
came to be a well-nigh universal pro-Turk propaganda in Christian countries.
When the fearful death harvest of this sinister sowing began to be reaped, fear
of popular indignation and disapproval gave rise to a policy of suppression of
the truth and to anti-Christian propaganda.
During
my days in Saloniki, 1910-14, both Italy and Austria were supposed to be looking
forward to an early occupation of that city and their battleships made frequent
visits there, vying with one another in the lavishness of their hospitality to
the inhabitants. The common subject of conversation was, “Which will have
Saloniki, Austria or Italy ?
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