Crescent and Iron Cross Part 4

Only once was there a check in the growth of the Prussian infant, and that was no more than a childish ailment. For when the Balkan wars broke out the Turkish army was in the transitional stage. Its German tutors had not yet had time to inspire the army with German discipline and tradition; they had only weeded out, so to speak, the old Turkish spirit, the blind obedience to the Ministers of the Shadow of G.o.d. The Shadow of G.o.d, in fact, in the person of the Sultan, had been dragged out into the light, and his Shadow had grown appreciably less. In consequence there was not at this juncture any cohesion in the army, and it suffered reverse after reverse. But a strong though a curtailed Turkey was more in accordance with Prussian ideas than a weak and sprawling one, and Germany bore the Turkish defeats very valiantly. And that was the only set-back that this Pan-Prussian youngster experienced, and it was no more than an attack of German measles which he very quickly got over. For two or three years German influence wavered, then recovered, 'with blessings on the falling out, that all the more endears.'

It is interesting to see how Germany adapted the Pan-Turkish ideal to her own ends, and, by a triumphant vindication of Germany's methods, the best account of this Pan-Turkish ideal is to be found in a publication of 1915 by Tekin Alp, which was written as German propaganda and by Germany disseminated broadcast over the Turkish Empire. An account of this movement has already been given in Chapter II., as far as the Turkish side of it is concerned, and it remains only to enumerate the German contribution to the fledging of this new Turkish Phoenix. The Turkish language and the Turkish Allah, G.o.d of Love, in whose name the Armenians were tortured and ma.s.sacred, were the two wings on which it was to soar. Auxiliary soaring societies were organised, among them a Turkish Ojagha with similar aims, and no fewer than sixteen branches of it were founded throughout the Empire. There were also a Turkish Guiji or gymnastic club, and an Izji or boy scouts' club. A union of merchants worked for the same object in districts where hitherto trade had been in the hands of Greeks and Armenians, and signs appeared on their shops that only Turkish labour was employed. Religious funds also were used for similar economic restoration.

Germany saw, Germany tabulated, Germany licked her lips and took out her long spoon, for her hour was come. She did not interfere: she only helped to further the Pan-Turkish ideal. With her usual foresight she perceived that the Izji, for instance, was a thing to encourage, for the boys who were being trained now would in a few years be precisely the young men of whom she could not have too many. By all means the boy scout movement was to be encouraged. She encouraged it so generously and methodically that in 1916, according to an absolutely reliable source of information, we find that the whole boy scout movement, with its innumerable branches, was under the control of a German officer, Colonel von Hoff. In its cla.s.ses (derneks) boys are trained in military practices, in 'a recreational manner,' so that they enjoy--positively enjoy (a Prussian touch)--the exercises that will fit them to be of use to the Sultan William II. They learn trigger-drill, they learn skirmishing, they are taught to make reports on the movements of their companies, they are shown neat ways of judging distances. They are divided into two cla.s.ses, the junior cla.s.s ranging from the ages of twelve to seventeen, the senior cla.s.s consisting of boys over seventeen, but not yet of military age. But since Colonel von Hoff organised this, the military age has been extended, and boys of seventeen have got to serve their country on German fronts. Prussian thoroughness, therefore, saw that their training must begin earlier; the old junior cla.s.s has become the senior cla.s.s, and a new junior cla.s.s has been set on foot which begins its recreational exercises in the service of William II., Got and Allah, at the age of eight. It is all great fun, but those pigeon-livered little boys who are not diverted by it have to go on with their fun all the same, for, needless to say, the Izji is compulsory on all boys. Of course they wear a uniform which is made in Germany and is of a 'semi-military' character.

The provision of soldiers and sailors, then, trained from the early age of eight, was the first object of Germany's peaceful and benign penetration. As from the Pisgah height of the Pan-Turkish ideal she saw the promised land, but she had no idea of seeing it only, like Moses, and expiring without entering it, and her faith that she would enter it and possess it and organise it has been wonderfully justified. She has not only penetrated, but has dominated; a year ago towns like Aleppo were crammed with German officers, while at Islahie there were separate wooden barracks for the exclusive use of German troops. There is a military mission at Mamoura, where all the buildings are permanent erections solidly built of stone, for no merely temporary occupation is intended, and thousands of freight-cars with Belgian marks upon them throng the railways, and on some is the significant German t.i.tle of 'Military Headquarters of the Imperial Staff.' There are troops in the Turkish army, to which is given the t.i.tle of 'Pasha formation,' in compliment to Turkey, but the Pasha formations are under command of Baron Kress von Kressenstein, and are salted with German officers, N.C.O.'s, and privates, who, although in the Turkish army, retain their German uniforms.

This German leaven forms an instructional cla.s.s for the remainder of the troops in these formations, who are Turkish. The Germans are urged to respect Moslem customs and to show particular consideration for their religious observances. Every German contingent arriving at Constantinople to join the Pasha formations finds quarters prepared on a ship, and when the troops leave for their 'destination' they take supplies from depots at the railway station which will last them two or three months. They are enjoined to write war diaries, and are provided with handbooks on the military and geographical conditions in Mesopotamia, with maps, and with notes on the training and management of camels. This looks as if they were intended for use against the English troops in Mesopotamia, but I cannot find that they have been identified there. The greatest secrecy is observed with regard to those Pasha formations, and their const.i.tution and movements are kept extremely well veiled.

Wireless stations have been set up in Asia Minor and Palestine, and these are under the command of Major Schlee. A Turkish air-service was inst.i.tuted, at the head of which was Major Serno, a Prussian officer, and Turkish aviators are now in training at Ostend, where they will very usefully defend their native country. At Constantinople there is a naval school for Turkish engineers and mechanics in the a.r.s.enal, to help on the Pan-Turkish ideal, and with a view to that all the instructors are German: a floating dock is in construction at Ismid, and the order has been placed with German firms. It will be capable of accommodating ships of Dreadnought build, which is a new departure for the strictly Pan-Turkish ideal. The cost is 740,000, to be repaid three years after the end of the war. Similarly, by the spring of this year, Germany had arranged to start submarine training in Constantinople for the Turks, and a submarine school was open and at work in March. A few months later it was established at the island of Prinkipo, where it is now hard at work under German instructors. Other naval cadets were sent to Germany for their training, and Turkish officers were present at the battle of Jutland in June 1916, and of course were decorated by the Emperor in person for their coolness and courage.[1]

[Footnote 1: In October 1917 a bill was pa.s.sed for the entire remodelling of the Turkish fleet after the war, on the lines of the German fleet, 'which proved its perfect training in the battle of Skager Rak.']

A complete revision of the Turkish system of exemptions from military service was necessary as soon as Germany began to want men badly. The age for military service was first raised, and we find a Turkish order of October 1916, calling on all men of forty-three, forty-four, and forty-five years of age to pay their exemption tax if they did not wish to be called to the colours. That secured their money, and, with truly Prussian irony, hardly had this been done when a fresh army order was issued calling out all men, whether they had paid their exemption tax or not. Germany thus secured both their money and their lives.

Still more men were needed, and in November a fresh levy of boys was raised regardless of whether they had reached the military age or not.

This absorbed the senior cla.s.s of the boy scouts, who hitherto had learned their drill in a 'recreationary manner.' Neither Jews nor Christians are exempt from service, and frequent press gangs go round Constantinople rounding up those who are in hiding.

Again the Prussian Moloch was hungry for more, and in December 1916 the Turkish _Gazette_ announced that all males in Asia Minor between the ages of fourteen and sixty-five were to be enrolled for military service, and in January of this year, 1917, fresh recruiting was foreshadowed by the order that men of forty-six to fifty-two, who had paid their exemption money, should be medically examined to see if they were fit for active service. This fresh recruiting was also put in force in the case of boys, and during the summer of 1917 all boys above the age of twelve, provided they were sound and well-built, were taken for the army. Wider and wider the net was spread, and in the same month a fresh Turco-German convention was signed, whereby was enforced a reciprocal surrender in both countries of persons liable to military service, and of deserters, and simultaneously all Turks living in Switzerland, and who had paid exemption money, were recalled to their Germanised fatherland. By now the first crops of the year were ripening in Smyrna, and in default of civilian labour (for every one was now a soldier) they were reaped by Turkish soldiers and the produce sent direct to Germany.

Already in August 1916, certificates of Ottoman nationality had been granted to Serbians resident in the Empire who were willing to become Ottoman subjects, and their 'willingness' was intensified by hints that incidents akin to the Armenian ma.s.sacres might possibly occur among other alien peoples. They had to sign a declaration that they would not revert to their former nationality, and thus, no doubt, many Serbs pa.s.sed into the Turkish army. Further enrolments were desirable, and, in March 1917, all Greeks living in Anatolia were forcibly proselytised, their property was confiscated, and they were made liable to military service. Unfortunately all were not available, for of those who were removed from the villages where they lived to military centres, ten per cent. died on the forced marches from hunger and exposure. That was annoying for the German recruiting agents, but it suited well enough the Pan-Turkish ideal of exterminating foreign nationalities. When trouble or discontent occurred among the troops, it was firmly dealt with, as, for instance, when, in November 1916, there were considerable desertions from the 49th Division. On that occasion the order was given to fire on them, and many were killed and wounded. The officer who gave the order was commended by the Prussian authorities for his firmness. Should such an incident occur again, it will no doubt be dealt with no less firmness, for, in April 1917, Mackensen was put in supreme command of all troops in Asia Minor. But in spite of this desertions have largely increased lately, and during the summer deserters out of all the Turkish armies were believed to number about 200,000. Many of those have formed themselves into brigand bands, who make the roads dangerous for travellers. The exchange of honours goes on, for not long ago, in Berlin, Prince Zia-ed-Din, the Turkish Sultan's heir, presented a sword of honour to the Sultan William II. Probably he gave him good news of the progress of the German harbour works begun in the winter at Stamboul, and himself learned that the railway bridge which the Turks proposed to build over the Bosporus was not to be proceeded with, for the German high command had superseded that scheme by their own idea of making a tunnel under the Bosporus instead, which would be safer from aircraft.

Such up-to-date, though in brief outline, is the history of the establishment of the Prussian octopus grip on military and naval matters in Turkey. We have largely ourselves to blame for it. Upon that pathetic and lamb-like record of our diplomacy during the months between the outbreak of the European War, and the entry of Turkey into it in October 1914, it would be morbid to dwell at any length, though a short summary is necessary. As we all know now, Turkey had concluded a treaty with Germany early in August, and when our Amba.s.sador in Constantinople, Sir Louis Malet, who was on leave in England at that date, returned to his post on August 16th, all that Turkey wanted was to gain time in which to effect her mobilisation. This she did, with complete success, and our Amba.s.sador telegraphed to England stating his perfect confidence in the sincerity with which the Grand Vizier professed his friendship for England. All through those weeks of August and September this confidence appeared to continue unabated. The Moderate party in Turkey--that is to say, the hoodwinking party--were reported to be daily gaining strength, and it was most important that the Allies should give them every a.s.sistance, and above all not precipitate matters. All was going well: all we had to do was to wait. So we waited, still blindly confident in the sincerity of Turkey's friendship for England, while the mobilisation of the Turkish forces proceeded merrily. By the end of September this was nearly complete, and quite suddenly the Amba.s.sador informed the Foreign Office that Turkey appeared to be temporising. That was perfectly true, but the period of temporisation was nearly over, and by mid-October Turkey had something like 800,000 men under arms, and for nine weeks Enver Pasha had had his signed treaty with Germany in his pocket. Possibly this diplomatic procrastination was useful to us, for it enabled us to bring troops from India in security, and send others to Egypt. But without doubt it was useful to the Turks, for it enabled them to mobilise their armies, and to strengthen enormously the defences of the Dardanelles. Then came the day when Germany and Turkey were ready, the attack was made on Odessa, and out of Constantinople we went. We climbed into the railway carriages that took the last rays of English influence out of the Ottoman Empire, and steep were the stairs in the house of a stranger! Turks are not much given to laughter, but Enver Pasha must at least have smiled on that day.

Already, of course, German influence was strong in the army, which now was thoroughly trained in German methods, but that army might still be called a Turkish army. Nowadays, by no stretch of language can it be called Turkish except in so far that all Turkish efficient manhood is helplessly enlisted in it, for there is no branch or department of it over which the Prussian octopus has not thrown its paralysing tentacles and affixed its immovable suckers. Army and navy alike, the wireless stations, the submarines, the aircraft, are all directly controlled from Berlin, and, as we have seen, the generalissimo of the forces is Mackensen, who is absolutely the Hindenburg of the East. But thorough as is the control of Berlin over Constantinople in military and naval matters, it is not one whit more thorough than her control in all other matters of national life. Never before has Germany been very successful in her colonisation; but if complete domination--the sucking of a country till it is a mere rind of itself, and yet at the same time full to bursting of Prussian ichor--may be taken as Germany's equivalent of colonisation, then indeed we must be forced to recognise her success.

And it was all done in the name and for the sake of the Pan-Turkish ideal. Even now Prussian Pecksniffs like Herr Ernst Marre, whose pamphlet, _Die Turken und Wir nach dem Kriege_, was published in 1916, continue to insist that Germany is n.o.bly devoting herself to the well-being of Turkey. 'In doing this,' he exclaims in that illuminating doc.u.ment, 'we are benefiting Turkey.... This is a war of liberation for Turkey,' though omitting to say from whom Turkey is being liberated.

Perhaps the Armenians. Occasionally, it is true, he forgets that, and naively remarks, 'Turkey is a very difficult country to govern. But after the war Turkey will be very important as a transit country.' But then he remembers again and says, 'We wish to give besides taking, and we should often like to give more than we can hope to give.' Let us look into this, and see the manner in which Germany expresses her yearning to impoverish herself for the sake of Turkey.

All this reorganisation of the Turkish army was of course a very expensive affair, and required skilful financing, and it was necessary to get the whole of Turkey's exchequer arrangements into German hands. A series of financial regulations was promulgated. The Finance Minister, during 1916, was still Turkish, but the official immediately under him was a German. He was authorised to deposit with the Controllers of the Ottoman National Debt German Imperial Bills of T30,000,000, and to issue German paper money to the like amount. This arrangement insures the circulation of the German notes, which are redeemable by Turkey in _gold_ two years after the declaration of peace. Gold is declared to be the standard currency, and no creditor is obliged to accept in payment of a debt more than 300 piastres in silver or fifty in nickel. And since there is no gold in currency (for it has been all called in, and penalties of death have been authorised for h.o.a.rders) it follows that this and other issues of German paper will filter right through the Empire. At the same time a German expert, Dr. Kautz, was appointed to start banks throughout Turkey in order to free the peasants from the Turkish village usurer, and in consequence enslave them to the German banks. Similarly a German was put at the head of the Ottoman Agricultural Bank. These new branches worked very well, but it is pleasant to think that one such was started by the Deutsche Bank at Bagdad in October 1916, which now has its shutters up. Before this, as we learn from the _Oesterreichischer Volkswirt_ (June 1916), Germany had issued other gold notes, in payment for gold from Turkey, which is retainable in Berlin till six months after the end of the war. (It is reasonable to wonder whether it will not be retained rather longer than that.) These gold notes were accepted willingly at first by the public, but the increase in their number (by the second issue) has caused them to be viewed with justifiable suspicion, and the depreciation in them continues. But the Turkish public has no redress except by h.o.a.rding gold, which is a penal offence. That these arrangements have not particularly helped Turkish credit may be gathered from the fact that the Turkish gold 1, nominally 100 piastres, was very soon worth 280 piastres in the German paper standard, and it now fetches a great deal more.

Again, the Deutsche Orientbank has made many extensions, and is already financing cotton and wool trade for after the war. The establishment of this provoked much applause in German financial circles, who find it to be an instance of the 'far-reaching and powerful Germano-Austrian unity, which replaces the disunion of Turkish finance.' This is profoundly true, especially if we omit the word 'Austrian' inserted for diplomatic reasons. Again we find Germany advancing 3,000,000 of German paper to the Turkish Government in January 1917, for the payment of supplies they have received from Krupp's works and (vaguely) for interest to the German Financial Minister. This, too, we may conjecture, is to be redeemed after the war in gold.

In March of this year we find in the report of the Ottoman Bank a German loan of 1,000,000 for the purchase of agricultural implements by Turkey, and this is guaranteed by house-taxes. In all up to that month, as was announced in the Chamber of Deputies at Constantinople, Germany had advanced to Turkey the sum of 142,000,000, entirely, it would seem, in German paper, to be repaid at various dates in gold. The grip, in fact, is a strangle-hold, all for Turkey's good, as no doubt will prove the 'New Conventions' announced by Zimmermann in May 1917, to take the place of the abolished Capitulations, 'which left Turkey at the mercy of predatory Powers who looked for the disruption of the Ottoman Empire.'

Herr Zimmermann does not look for that: he looks for its absorption. And sees it.

The industrial development of Turkey by this benevolent and disinterested Power has been equally thorough and far-reaching, though Germany here has had a certain amount of compet.i.tion by Hungary to contend against, for Hungary considered that Germany was trespa.s.sing on her sphere of interest. But she has been able to make no appreciable headway against her more acute partner, and her application for a monopoly of sugar-production was not favourably received, for Germany already had taken the beet industry well in hand. In Asia Minor the acreage of cultivation early in 1917 had fallen more than 50 per cent.

from that under crops before the war, but owing to the importation of machinery from the Central Powers, backed up by a compulsory Agricultural Service Law, which has just been pa.s.sed, it is hoped that the acreage will be increased this year by something like 30 per cent.

The yield per acre also will be greatly increased this year, for Germany has, though needing artificial manures badly herself, sent large quant.i.ties into Turkey, where they will be more profitably employed. She has no fear about securing the produce. This augmented yield will, it is true, not be adequate to supply the needs of Turkey, who for the last two years has suffered from very acute food shortage, which in certain districts has amounted to famine and wholesale starvation of the poorer cla.s.ses. But it is unlikely that their needs will be considered at all, for Germany's needs (she, the fairy G.o.dmother of the Pan-Turk ideal) must obviously have the first call on such provisions as are obtainable.

Thus, in the new preserved meat factory at Aidin, the whole of the produce is sent to Germany. Thus, too, though in February 1917 there was a daily shortage in Smyrna of 700 sacks of flour, and the Arab and Greek population was starving, no flour at all was allowed to be imported into Smyrna. But simultaneously Germany was making huge purchases of fish, meat, and flour in Constantinople (paid for in German paper), including 100,000 sheep. Yet such was the villainous selfishness of the famine-stricken folk at Adrianople that, when the trains containing these supplies were pa.s.sing through, a mob held them up and sold the contents to the inhabitants. That, however, was an isolated instance, and in any case a law was pa.s.sed in October 1916, appointing a military commission to control all supplies. It enacts that troops shall be supplied first, and specially ordains that the requirements of German troops come under this head. (Private firms have been expressly prohibited from purchasing these augmented wheat supplies, but special permission was given in 1915 to German and Austro-Hungarian societies to buy.) A few months later we find that there are a hundred deaths daily in Constantinople from starvation, and two hundred in Smyrna, where there is a complete shortage of oil. But oil is still being sent to Germany, and during 1916 five hundred reservoirs of oil were sent there, each containing up to 15,000 kilogrammes. Similarly during this summer the price of fruit has gone up in Smyrna, for the Germans have reopened certain factories for preserving it and turning it into jam, which is being sent to Germany. The sugar is supplied from the new beet-fields of Konia. But Kultur must be supplied first, else Kultur would grow lean, and the Turkish G.o.d of Love will look after the Smyrniotes. It is no wonder that the blockade of Germany does not produce the desired result a little quicker, for food is already pouring in from Turkey, and when the artificial manures have produced their early harvest the stream will become a torrent.[1]

[Footnote 1: The harvest has now come in, and is most abundant.]

But during all these busy and tremendous months of war Germany has not only been denuding Turkey of her food supplies, for the sake of the Pan-Turkish ideal; in the same altruistic spirit she has been vastly increasing the productiveness of her new and most important colony. The great irrigation works at Konia, begun several years ago, are in operation, and the revenues of the irrigated villages have been doubled.

In fact, as the report lately issued says, 'a new and fertile province has been formed by the aid of German energy and knowledge.' At Adana are similar irrigation works, financed by the Deutsche Bank. Ernst Marre gives us a most hopeful survey of them, for Adana was already linked up with the Bagdad Railway in October 1916, which was to be the great artery connecting Germany with the East. There is some considerable shortage of labour there (owing in part to the Armenian ma.s.sacres, to which we shall revert presently), but the financial arrangements are in excellent shape. The whole of the irrigation works are in German hands, and have been paid for by German paper; and to get the reservoirs, etc., back into her own control, it has been agreed that Turkey, already completely bankrupt, will have to pay not only what has been spent, but a handsome sum in compensation; while, as regards shortage of labour, prisoners have been released in large numbers to work without pay. This irrigation scheme at Adana will increase the cotton yield by four times the present crop, so we learn from the weekly Arab magazine, _El Alem el Ismali_, which tells us also of the electric-power stations erected there.

The same paper (October 1916) announces to the Anatolian merchants that transport is now easy, owing to the arrival of engines and trucks from Germany, while _Die Zeit_ (February 1917) prophesies a prosperous future for this Germano-Turkish cotton combine. Hitherto Turkey has largely imported cotton from England; now Turkey--thanks to German capital on terms above stated--will, in the process of internal development so unselfishly devised for her by Germany, grow cotton for herself, and be kind enough to give a preferential tariff to Germany.

A similarly bright future may be predicted for the sugar-beet industry at Konia, where are the irrigation works already referred to. Artesian wells have been sunk, and there is the suggestion to introduce Bulgarian labour in default of Turkish. As we have seen, Hungary attempted to obtain a monopoly with regard to sugar, but Germany has been victorious on this point (as on every other where she competes with Hungary), and has obtained the concession for a period of thirty years.

She reaped the first-fruits this last spring (1917), when, on a single occasion, 350 trucks laden with sugar were despatched to Berlin. A similar irrigation scheme is bringing into cultivation the Makischelin Valley, near Aleppo, and Herr Wied has been appointed as expert for irrigation plant in Syria. There has been considerable shortage of coal, but now more is arriving from the Black Sea, and the new coal-fields at Rodosto will soon be giving an output.

Indeed, it would be easier to enumerate the industries and economical developments of Turkey over which Germany has not at the present moment got the control than those over which she has. In particular she has shown a parental interest in Turkish educational questions. She established last year, under German management, a school for the study of German in Constantinople; she has put under the protection of the German Government the Jewish inst.i.tution at Haifa for technical education in Palestine; from Sivas a mission of schoolmasters has been sent to Germany for the study of German methods. Ernst Marre surmises that German will doubtless become compulsory even in the Turkish intermediate (secondary) schools. In April 1917, the first stone of the 'House of Friendship' was laid at Constantinople, the object of which inst.i.tution is to create among Turkish students an interest in everything German, while earlier in the year arrangements were made for 10,000 Turkish youths to go to Germany to be taught trades. These I imagine were unfit for military service. With regard to such a scheme Halil Haled Bey praises the arrangement for the education of Turks in Germany. When they used to go to France, he tells us, 'they lost their religion' (certainly Prussian Got is nearer akin to Turkish Allah) 'and returned home unpatriotic and useless. In Germany they will have access to suitable religious literature' (Gott!) 'and must adopt all they see good in German methods without losing their original characteristics.'

Comment on this script is needless. The hand is the hand of Halil Haled Bey, but the voice is the voice of Potsdam. Occasionally, but rarely, Austrian compet.i.tion is seen. Professor Schmoller, in an Austrian quarterly review, shows jealousy of German influence, and we find, in October 1916, an Ottoman-Austrian college started at Vienna for 250 pupils of the Ottoman Empire. But Germany has 10,000 in Berlin. At Adana (where are the German irrigation works) the German-Turkish Society has opened a German school of 300, while, reciprocally, courses in Turkish have been organised at Berlin for the sake of future German colonists.

In Constantinople the _Tanin_ announces a course of lectures to be held by the Turco-German Friendship Society. Professor von Marx discoursed last April on foreign influence and the development of nations, with special reference to Turkey and the parallel case of Germany. A few months later we find Hilmet n.a.z.im Bey, official head of the Turkish press, proceeding to Berlin to learn German press methods. A number of editors of Turkish papers will follow him, and soon, no doubt, the Turkish press will rival Cologne and Frankfort.

So much for German education, but her penetrative power extends into every branch of industry and economics. In November 1916, a Munich expert was put in charge of the College of Forestry, and an economic society was started in Constantinople on German lines with German instructors. Inoculation against small-pox, typhoid, and cholera was made compulsory; and we find that the Turkish Ministers of Posts, of Justice, and of Commerce, figureheads all of them, have Germans as their acting Ministers. In the same year a German was appointed as expert for silkworm breeding and for the cultivation of beet. Practically all the railways in Asia Minor are pure German concerns by right of purchase.

Germany owns the Anatolian railway concession (originally British), with right to build to Angora and Konia; the Bagdad railway concession, with preferential rights over minerals; they have bought the Mersina-Adana Railway, with right of linking up to the Bagdad Railway; they have bought the Smyrna-Ca.s.saba Railway, built with French capital.

They have secured also the Haidar Pasha Harbour concession, thereby controlling and handling all merchandise arriving at railhead from the interior of Asia Minor.[1] Already on the Bagdad Railway the big tunnels of Taurus and Ama.n.u.s are available for narrow-gauge petrol-driven motors, and the broad-gauge line will soon be complete. Meanwhile railway construction is pushed on in all directions under German control, and the Turkish Minister of Finance (August 1916) allocated a large sum of German paper money for the construction of ordinary roads, military roads, local government roads, all of which are new to Turkey, but which will be useful for the complete German occupation which is being swiftly consolidated. To stop the mouths of the people, all political clubs have been suppressed by the Minister of the Interior, for Prussia does not care for criticism. To supply German ammunition needs, lead and zinc have been taken from the roofs of mosques and door-handles from mosque-gates, and the iron railings along the Champs de Mars at Pera have been carted away for the manufacture of bombs. Not long after eight truck-loads of copper were sent to Germany: these, I imagine, represent the first produce of copper roofs and utensils. A Turco-German convention signed in Berlin in January of this year, permits subjects of one country to settle in the other while retaining their nationality and enjoying trading and other privileges. In Lebanon Dr. Konig has opened an agricultural school for Syrians of all religions. In the Homs district the threatening plague of locusts in February 1917 was combatted by Germans; and a German expert, Dr. Bucher, had been already sent to superintend the whole question. For this concerns supplies to Germany, as does also the ordinance pa.s.sed in the same month that two-thirds of all fish caught in the Lebanon district should be given to the military authorities (these are German), and that every fish weighing over six ounces in the Beirut district should be Korban also. The copper mines at Arghana Maden, near Diarbekr, are busy exporting their produce into Germany; the coal-mines at Rodosto will very soon be making a large output.[2]

[Footnote 1: The balance-sheets for 1916 of certain of those railways in which the Deutsche Bank has an interest have come to hand. They show a very disagreeable degree of prosperity. The Anatolia Railway Company has large profits with a gross revenue of 25,737,995 marks. The profit on the Haidar-Pasha-Angora Line has risen from 42,566 francs per kilometre to 45,552. The Mersina-Tarsus-Adana Railway has paid 6 per cent. on its preference shares, and 3 per cent. on its ordinary shares. The Haidar Pasha Harbour Company has paid 8 per cent.]

[Footnote 2: Later in this year we find three trains daily leaving Constantinople for Germany, laden with coal and military supplies.]

There is no end to this penetration: German water-seekers, with divining and boring apparatus, accompanied the Turkish expedition into Sinai; Russian prisoners were sent by Germany for agricultural work in Asia Minor, to take the place of slaughtered Armenians; a German-Turkish treaty, signed January 11, 1917, gives the whole reorganisations of the economic system to a special German mission. A Stuttgart journal chants a characteristic _Lobgesang_ over this feat. 'That is how,' it proudly exclaims, 'we work for the liberation of peoples and nationalities.'

In the same n.o.ble spirit, we must suppose, German legal reforms were introduced in December 1916, to replace the Turkish Shuriat, and in the same month all the Turks in telegraph offices in Constantinople were replaced by Germans. Ernst Marre gives valuable advice to young Germans settling in Turkey. He particularly recommends them, knowing how religion is one of the strongest bonds in this murderous race, to 'trade in articles of devotion, in rosaries, in bags to hold the Koran,' and points out what good business might be built up in gramophones. Earlier in this year we find a 'German Oriental Trading Company' founded for the import of fibrous materials for needs of military authorities, and a great carpet business established at Urfa with German machinery that will supplant the looms of Smyrna. A saltpetre factory is established at Konia by Herr Toepfer, whose enterprise is rewarded with an Iron Cross and a Turkish decoration. The afforestation near Constantinople, ordered by the Ministry of Agriculture, is put into German hands, and in the vilayet of Aidin (April 1916) ninety concessions were granted to German capitalists to undertake the exploitation of metallic ores.

Occasionally the German octopus finds it has gone too far for the moment, and releases some struggling limb of its victim, as, for instance, when we see that, in September 1916, the German Director's stamp for the 'Imperial German Great Radio Station' at Damascus has been discarded temporarily, as that station 'should be treated for the present as a Turkish concern.'

A 'Trading and Weaving Company' was established at Angora in 1916, an 'Import and Export Company' at Smyrna, a 'Trading and Industrial Society' at Beirut, a 'Tobacco Trading Company' at Latakieh, an 'Agricultural Company' at Tripoli, a 'Corn Exporting Company' in Lebanon, a 'Rebuilding Commission' (perhaps for sacked Armenian houses) at Konia. More curious yet will be a Tourist's Guide Book--a Baedeker, in fact--for travellers in Anatolia, and the erection of a monument in honour of Turkish _women_ who have replaced men called up for military duty. Truly these last two items--a guide-book for Anatolia, and a monument to women--are strange enterprises for Turks. A new Prussian day is dawning, it seems, for Turkish women as well, for the _Tanin_ (April 1917) tells us that diplomas are to be conferred on ladies who have completed their studies in the Technical School at Constantinople.

It is needless to multiply instances of German penetration: I have but given the skeleton of this German monster that has fastened itself with tentacles and suckers on every branch of Turkish industry. There is none round which it has not cast its feelers--no Semitic moneylender ever obtained a surer hold on his victim. In matters naval, military, educational, legal, industrial, financial, Germany has a strangle-hold.

Turkey's life is already crushed out of her, and, as we have seen, it has been crushed out of her by the benevolent Kultur-mongers, who, among all the Great Powers of Europe, invested their time and their money in the achievement of the Pan-Turkish ideal. Silently and skilfully they worked, bamboozling their chief tool, Enver Pasha, even as Enver Pasha bamboozled us. As long as he was of service to them they retained him; for his peace of mind at one time they stopped up all letter-boxes in Constantinople because so many threatening letters were sent him. But now Enver Pasha seems to have had his day; he became a little autocratic, and thought that he was the head of the Pan-Turkish ideal.

So he was, but the Pan-Turkish ideal had become Pan-Prussian, and he had not noticed the transformation. Talaat Bey has taken his place; it was he who, in May 1917, was received by the Emperor William, by King Ludwig, and by the Austrian Emperor, and he who was the mouthpiece of the German efforts to make a separate peace with Russia. Under Czardom, he proclaimed, the existence of Turkey was threatened, but now the revolution has made friendship possible, for Russia no longer desires territorial annexation. And, oh, how Turkey would like to be Russia's friend! Enver Pasha has of late been somewhat out of favour in Berlin, and I cannot but think it curious that when, on April 2, 1917, he visited the submarine base at Wilhelmshaven, he was very nearly killed in a motor accident. But it may have been an accident. Since then I cannot find that he has taken any more active part in Pan-Turkish ideals than to open a soup-kitchen in some provincial town, and lecture the Central Committee of the Young Turks on the subject of internal affairs in Great Britain. I do not like lectures, but I should have liked to hear that one.

I have left to the end of this chapter the question of Germany's knowledge of, and complicity in the Armenian ma.s.sacres. From the tribune of the Reichstag, on January 15, 1916, there was made a definite denial of the existence of such ma.s.sacres at all; on another subsequent occasion it was stated that Germany could not interfere in Turkish internal affairs.

In view of the fact that there is no internal affair appertaining to Turkey in which Germany has not interfered, the second of these statements may be called insincere. But the denial of the ma.s.sacres is a deliberate lie. Germany--official Germany--knew all about them, and she permitted them to go on. A few proofs of this are here shortly stated.

(1) In September 1915, four months before the denial of the ma.s.sacres was made in the Reichstag, Dr. Martin Niepage, higher grade teacher in the German Technical School at Aleppo, prepared and sent, as we have seen, in his name, and that of several of his colleagues, a report of the ma.s.sacres to the German Emba.s.sy at Constantinople. In that report he gives a terrible account of what he has seen with his own eyes, and also states that the country Turks' explanation with regard to the origin of these measures is that it was 'the teaching of the Germans.' The German Emba.s.sy at Constantinople therefore knew of the ma.s.sacres, and knew also that the Turks attributed them to orders from Germany. Dr. Niepage also consulted, before sending his report, with the German Consul at Aleppo, Herr Hoffman, who told him that the German Emba.s.sy had been already advised in detail about the ma.s.sacres from the consulates at Alexandretta, Aleppo, and Mosul, but that he welcomed a further protest on the subject.

(2) These reports, or others like them, had not gone astray, for in August 1915, the German Amba.s.sador in Constantinople, Baron w.a.n.genheim, made a formal protest to the Turkish Government about the ma.s.sacres.

There is, then, no doubt that the German Government, when it officially denied the ma.s.sacres, was perfectly cognisant of them. It was also perfectly capable of stopping them, for they were not local violences, but wholesale murders organised at Constantinople. In support of this view I find an independent witness stating that 'there is no Turk of standing who will not readily declare that it would have been perfectly possible for Germany to have vetoed the ma.s.sacres had she chosen.'

Germany had indeed already given a.s.surances that such ma.s.sacres should not occur. She had a.s.sured the Armenian Katholikos at Adana that so long as Germany has any influence in Turkey he need not fear a repet.i.tion of the horrors that had taken place under Abdul Hamid. Had she, then, no influence in Constantinople, or how was it that she had obtained complete control over all Turkish branches of government? The same a.s.surance was given by the German Amba.s.sador in April 1915, to the Armenian Patriarch and the President of the Armenian National Council.

So, in support of the Pan-Turkish ideal, and in the name of the Turkish Allah, the G.o.d of Love, Germany stood by and let the infamous tale of l.u.s.t and rapine and murder be told to its end. The Turks had planned to exterminate the whole Armenian race except some half-million, who would be deported penniless to work on agricultural developments under German rule, but this quality of Turkish mercy was too strained for Major Pohl, who proclaimed that it was a mistake to spare so many. But he was a soldier, and did not duly weigh the claims of agriculture.

The choice was open to Germany; Germany chose, and let the Armenian ma.s.sacres go on. But she was in a difficulty. What if the Turkish Government retorted (perhaps it did so retort), 'You are not consistent.

Why do you mind about the slaughter of a few Armenians? What about Belgium and your atrocities there?'

And all the ingenuity of the Wilhelmstra.s.se would not be able to find an answer to that.

I do not say that Germany wanted the ma.s.sacres, for she did not. She wanted more agricultural labour, and I think that, if only for that reason, she deprecated them. But she allowed them to go on when it was in her power to stop them, and all the perfumes of Arabia will not wash clean her hand from that stinking horror.

Here, then, are some of the problems which those who, at the end of the war, will have to deal with the problem of Turkey must tackle. It is just as well to recognise that at the present moment Turkey is virtually and actually a German colony, and the most valuable colony that Germany has ever had. It will not be enough to limit, or rather abolish, the supremacy of Turkey over aliens and martyrised peoples; it will be necessary first to abolish the supremacy of Germany over Turkey. To do this the victory of our Allied Nations must be complete, and Germany's octopus envelopment of Turkish industries severed. Otherwise we shall immediately be confronted with a Germany that already reaches as far as Mesopotamia. That is done now; and that, before there can come any permanent peace for Europe, must be undone. Nothing less than the complete release of that sucker and tentacle embrace will suffice.

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