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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