FRANCE’S
participation
in the Near Eastern tragedy is well known. Her motives are not far to seek: A
frank, bitter and undiluted hatred of King Constantine and everything connected
with him, and suspicion of England’s expansion in a region to which France
herself has been devoting great attention for many years. French
capitalists and the French Government have been investing heavily in Turkey and
Gallic propaganda has been pushed by a vast network of Catholic schools
officially supported, whose object, in so far as the government’s interest is
concerned, has been to catch the natives young and make Frenchmen of
them. British or other expansion and predominating influence in Turkey
has meant the imperiling of the great sums invested and the annulment of years
of patient labor.
This
invasion of the Ottoman Empire is admirably set forth in a lecture delivered in
1922 by Monsieur Passereau, Director of the French Commercial Bureau of
Constantinople, and published in ext enso in the Echo de France of
Sniyrna. Extracts are herewith given:
“To-day
one unconsciously associates such places as Constantinople, Jerusalem, Beirut,
Syria and the Lebanon with French influence, and here are in fact presented
almost innumerable proofs of the many ways in which the French now exert and
have for a long time exercised a vast and beneficial influence from one end of
the Orient to the other.”
“Our
schools, our welfare institutions, hospitals, asylums for the aged, homes for
the foundlings and orphanages are established in every port in the Levant. In
every city of the interior, in all of the important villages, along the entire
length of the railways completed or under construction, there are French
instructors, people who teach the children our name, our language and our
history.”
“Let
us now make a survey of French financial interests in the Ottoman Empire and see
to what extent French influence has made itself felt in this connection. Some of
these interests are herewith listed and enlarged upon:
“Ottoman
Public Debt: France’s
share of the Public Debt, external and internal, is 250,000,000,000 francs, or
60.81% of the capital of the entire debt. The remainder of the debt is
principally divided between England and Germany, the former holding 14.19% and
the latter 21.81%.”
“Turkish
Loans: The
history of governmental loans in Turkey dates back to the Crimean War. Since
that time, France has without cessation, upon every occasion where the public
debt was threatened by internal difficulty, intervened either in the form of
assistance in reorganization or financial subscription;”
“French
Private Enterprises in Turkey: France
has approximately 1,100,000,000 francs invested in private concerns in the
Ottoman Empire. Her participation in the industrial activities of the Empire
aggregates 53.5% of the total, as opposed to 13.68% enjoyed by Great Britain and
32.77% by Germany. These organizations embracing activities in the form of
banks, railways, ports, electric power plants, telephones, tramways, etc.,
extend over the entire domain of Turkey and surround the economic life of the
Orient with a network of French interests. (Among interests of this sort
mentioned by the lecturer are the Imperial Ottoman and other banks, the tobacco
monopoly, etc.)”
“Railways:
France
has under construction and exploitation 2,077 kilometres, with an invested
capital of 550,288,000 francs, as opposed to Germany’s 2,565 kilometres and
England’s 610. France has 42,210,000 francs invested in mines in Turkey, besides
about 80,000,000 in quays and ports.”
In
addition, the lecturer gives a list of thirty-nine important miscellaneous
enterprises, including industrial, commercial, insurance, shipping and other
corporations. It should be remembered that the investments listed above were
made in gold.
French
sentiments, especially as regards England, are revealed in a work by the French
writer, Michel Paillares, entitled Le Khemalism devant Les Allies,
published in 1922. Monsieur Paillares is one of the editors of the journal
L’Eclaire of Paris.
The
following quotation is from one of the conversations held by Paillares with
French officers at Constantinople, showing their strong pro-Turk, anti-Christian
and anti-English feelings:
“I
am introduced to an officer in command. He is a man all of one piece. He does
not mince his words. He is like a man carved out of rock, for he is unmovable in
his sympathies and his antipathies. Like the lieutenant of the Navy whom we have
already heard, but more furiously still, he is the enemy of the Armenians, the
Greeks, the Jews and—the English.”
“
‘As for me,’ he snaps, ‘there is not even room for discussion! We ought to
be completely, absolutely Turkophiles—I will say more, Turko-enthusiasts
(Turcomanes). I love the Mussulmans and I hate their non-Mussulman subjects, who
are rubbish. Assure these brave men their independence and their territorial
integrity and we shall have in them the most faithful and the most loyal of
allies. What do we seek here! A rampart against Russia and British
imperialism! The maintenance of our prestige! The free development of our
commerce, the expansion of our language! The respect of our schools and
colleges! The safeguarding of our financial interests! We shall have all
that by means of a French-Turkish collaboration. We ought no longer
to hear the Jeremiads of the Armenians and the Greeks and the Jews. We
must no longer play the game, neither of England nor of Russia. Russia, although
split up by Bolshevism, must always be watched. She has intentions with regard
to this country, which we must not encourage. But I do not think that she is an
immediate danger. It is Great Britain, which, above all, is becoming
troublesome. We are, nearly all of us (French officers) for the Khemalists
and against the British and the Greeks.”
Though
this is the opinion of a single individual, it expresses pretty clearly the
general French attitude of mind as shown by French policy since the Armistice.
It is evident that the sentiments of this French officer and of his colleagues,
for whom he speaks, display a keen note of discord among the Allies, helpful to
the Turk even in his gruesome work of massacring
Christians.
Professor
Davis says in “A Short History of the Near East”:
“In
August, 1922, apparently with French munitions and French counselors, the
Khemalists suddenly attacked the Greek positions in Bithynia. The Greeks were in
poor morale, worn out by long campaigning and miserably led. Their army was
utterly routed and evacuated Anatolia with almost incredible speed. The
Turks drove straight onward to Smyrna, which they took (September 9, 1922) and
then burned. The world was again horrified by one of the now standardized
Ottoman massacres of conquered populations.”
It
is to be noted that neither the French nor the Italians permitted the Greek navy
to search the ships of their nationals proceeding to Turkish ports, which is in
itself a breach of neutrality and can have but one interpretation—that they were
carrying arms and supplies to the Khemalists, with the consent and protection of
their governments.
For
these reasons the battle-ships of the brave and chivalric French, “Protectors of
the Christians in the Orient,” were obliged to sit quietly among the dead bodies
floating in the Bay of Smyrna and watch the massacre going
on.
The
following typical incident illustrates the perfect harmony prevailing in naval
circles in the Harbor of Smyrna resulting from international discords and how
punctiliously the amenities were observed: An admiral of a battle-ship had been
invited to dine with one of his colleagues. He arrived some minutes late
and apologized for the delay, which had been caused by the dead body of a woman
getting tangled up in the propeller of his launch.
That
lucid and well-informed writer, Doctor Herbert Adams Gibbons, in an article in
the “Century Magazine” for October, 1921, gives the best analysis of the
French and Italian attitude with regard to the Turks that I have seen anywhere.
It can not, of course, be reproduced in extenso here, but a few
quotations will be sufficient to show that French support of the Turks was due
to fear and jealousy of the British. Says Doctor Gibbons:
“The
British regarded Greece as a sort of protectorate, financially and militarily
under the control of Great Britain. The scheme was spoiled by the fall of
Venizelos and the subsequent defeat of the Greek armies in Asia
Minor.”
“The
Near East had been culturally French since the Crusades. From Saloniki to
Beirut, France was determined to reign supreme. Palestine represented the very
last concession that it was possible for the French to make. Of course the
French did not hope to possess Constantinople, but they were not going to let
the British settle themselves on the Bosphorus, as they had done at Gibraltar
and Port Said, in Malta and Cyprus. For this would mean British domination of
the Mediterranean and the Black Seas, and for British capital and British goods
the priority in markets which had been traditionally
French.”
“I
am not conjecturing. The trend of the French press, inspired by the government,
leaves no room for doubt as to what is prompting France to send arms and money
to Khemal Pasha.”
“During
the war one of the telling indictments against Germany was her friendship for
and alliance with Turkey when the Armenians were being massacred. Germany was
held responsible for the massacres on the ground that she could have stopped
them had she used her influence with her ally. This was true; but is it not
equally true now that France must bear the opprobrium and in a measure the
responsibility, of the Armenian and Greek massacres of 1920 and 1921? A French
general negotiated with the Nationalists in Cilicia without stipulating, that
the massacres should cease. French diplomats have negotiated with the Angora
Government of Khemal Pasha, conniving at the massacres of Armenians and Greeks.
The sole thought of the Germans during the war was to use the Turks and not run
any risk of offending them by protesting against the massacres. This is exactly
what the French are doing now.”
This
is plain talk and—horrible. The question that naturally arises in the mind of
any decent American is, what, if anything, was the United States, the great
Christian country, the hope of the world and fountain of missionary activities,
doing while all this was going on? What influence was she using, what resounding
note of protest and horror was she giving utterance to?
Various
historical events connected with the French pro-Turk, but really anti-English
activities, are interesting to the student of diplomatic psychology, and the
ease with which peoples can be influenced in their predilections and hatreds by
those governing them.
At
a critical period of the War, on the Balkan front, the Allies demanded the
demobilization of the Greek army, the surrender of half of the Greek fleet and a
great part of the Greek artillery. King Constantine, after his successful
campaigns in the Balkans, had become an object of almost divine worship to the
Greeks, and the Allies were afraid of him. On December 2, 1916, a party of
French Marines marched into Athens to take possession of the Greek material
demanded. They were fired on by Greek soldiers and a number of French Marines
were killed.
This
was a most regrettable act on the part of the Greeks, and foolish. It was more
foolish to send a few foreign Marines into a capital city to drag off its
artillery and expect them to be received with open arms. This unfortunate event
is the basis to-day of deep-seated hatred of French against
Greek.
O.
F. Abbott, in his work, “Greece and the Allies”, gives the results of the
so-called “Battle of Athens” as follows:
“And
so the ‘pacific demonstration’ was over, having cost the Greeks four officers
and twenty-six men killed and for officers and fifty-one men wounded. The Allied
casualties were sixty killed, including six officers, and one hundred and
seventy-six wounded’’
On
April 10, 1920, the Khemalmts treacherously massacred the French garrison at
Urfa, killing one hundred and ninety men and wounding about one hundred more,
and on October 20, 1921, Franklin Bouillon, in the name of the French Republic
signed a separate treaty with the Turks. Immediately after the burning of Smyrna
he rushed to the still-smoking city and, seizing Mnstapha KhemaI in his arms,
kissed him.
This
kiss of Franklin Bouillon has become historic, and while bearing no resemblance
to a certain other famous and sinister caress, deserves to rank with it as one
of the two most famous kisses in sacred and profane
history.
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