TURK WAR REVEALS GREED OF POWERS

...The fart that Greece had discarded the pro-ally Venizelos and had brought back the pro-German Con-stantine was an additional reason for France to prefer the Nationalist Turks to the imperialistic Greeks...

...From the time of Pitt to that of Gladstone, with the exception of the unexpected and regretted attack of Navarino, it was Great Britain that played the Turkish game...

...If Russia had not collapsed, the situation would have been simpler—in fact, a secret treaty giving Constantinople to Russia had been signed in 1915...

...The Kemalists, however, would have none of this arrangement—they insisted upon the withdrawal of the Greeks from Smyrna...

...During the great war of independence, the Austrian arch-conspirator, Met-ternich, preferred to take the side of the bloody Sultan in preference to the revolutionary and freedom loving Greeks...

...except perhaps Greece and Great Britain...

...The result was disaster for the Greek army, utter destruction of the ancient city of Smyrna, desolation and death for thousands of innocent women and children, and the imminent prospect of a holy war which would involve Christian and Moslem from Morocco to India...

...To fix the blame for the situation avails little now...

...Up until Napoleon's famous campaign in Egypt, France had been the ally of Turkey for two centuries...

...In other wards, Italy received that part of Asia Miner east and south of the Smyrna enclave which went to Greece, a territory centering around the Adalia region...

...in 1913 after the second Balkan War, Turkish possessions had dwind to the small territory bounded by the Maritza River commonly known as Eastern Thrace...

...This conflicted with the French aims, but by a compromise France agreed to take Syria and Cil-icia...

...This section bordered upon the French sphere of interest which commenced at the Gulf of Alexandretta and included Syria with the exception of Palestine and Cilicia...

...It was only the disastrous falling out of the Balkan allies that permitted this much to remain under the Turk's control...

...The Greeks not only refused such a solution but even proposed to seize Constantinople...

...But Turk Survives THE situation in the Near East became so threatening that in March, 1922, the allied Council of Ministers met in Paris to revise the Sevres treaty...

...The Turks bitterly denounced the whole agreement and the Nationalists under Musta-pha Kemal organized a government at Angora with a fixed determination to resist execution to the end...

...The boundaries of Armenia were to be decided by President Wilson and the United States was to become the mandatory power for this state if we could be prevailed upon to accept...

...When this pronouncement was followed by the Bagdad Railway concessions it was seen that the new physician was receiving fees commensurate with his ministrations to the "Sick Man of Europe...

...Various secret agreements had been signed between the powers principally interested in the Near East before the armistice, and to understand the present situation it is necessary to try and see just what each power hoped to gain...

...The Bosphorous and the Dardenelles, that is the "zone of the Straits," were placed under a commission of representatives of the allied powers appointed by the League of Nations...

...No One Was Pleased THE Treaty of Sevres satisfied no one...

...It is interesting to note that a considerable part of Turkey's territorial losses came after 1907 when Great Britain and Russia had settled their disputes and come into the Entente with France...

...The settlement with Turkey was made at Sevres, Aug...

...30, 1921, with the Kemalist government at Angora, agreeing to give up Cilicia for a free hand in Syria___Great Britain protested vigorously against this violation of her treaty agreements with France, but as the Sevres Treaty had neither been ratified by the Turks nor allies, France argued the necessity of protecting her own interests which were seriously threatened by both the Arabs (supported by the British) and the Kemalists...

...Tried to Save Self WHEN the World War broke out it was not difficult to guess which side Turkey would join...

...Wanted Outlet RUSSIA alone of the great powers followed a consistent policy of attempting to rid Europe of the Turkish incubus, and from the beginning of the 18th century up to its entrance into the World War, Russia had waged eight wars and instigated several others to accomplish this laudable purpose...

...But even if Russia had been a party to the peace treaties there would still have remained the conflicting interests of France and Great Britain in Asia Minor and Italy and Greece in the Mediterranean...

...Italy resented the advantages conferred upon Greece, and France objected to the taking over of Palestine by the British, and particularly the attempt to turn over Damascus to the Arabs...

...France, in a similar situation in her territories of Morocco, Algeria, Tunis, and Syria, could not if she would...

...Finally, Germany in spite of Bismark's rhetorical flourish that the Ottoman Empire wasn't worth the bones of a Pomeranian grenadier, elected to take up the cudgels on behalf of the unspeakable Turk, and the Kaiser informed his brother, the Sultan, that Germany would protect its new friend against the world...

...The crescent again shines over Constantinople, but upon ouW than the True believers...

...Turk War Reveals Greed of Powers Division Between England and France Brings Desolation and Death For Thousands of Innocent Women and Children By GRAHAM H. STUART (Professor of Political Science) The following article was written by Graham H. Stuart, assistant professor of political science in the University of Wisconsin...

...Great Britain was made mandatory over Mesopotamia and Palestine...

...In 1908 Bulgaria declared her complete independence of Turkey, and Austria annexed Bosman and Herzegovina...

...Fortunately for Turkey the Russian policy was so evidently based upon the selfish through justifiable desire for an outlet upon open water, that the other European powers were always ready to intervene through the jealous fear lest a rival's profit be their loss...

...But when the British succeeded in separating the Arabs from the Turks by allying themselves with the Sherif of Mecca and recognizing the independence of the Hedjaz, the danger of pan-Islamism was past...

...10, 1920...

...He teaches courses in foreign diplomacy and political science at the university.— Editor's Note...

...Secret Pacts Fail WITH the downfall of the Central Powers the question of the Near East was one of the most troublesome which faced the allied statesmen...

...Thus throughout the centuries the maintenance of the status quo has been Turkey's sheet anchor of safety in the storms of European discord...

...Great Britain with her interest in Egypt and the Suez and in Persia, insisted upon Mesopotamia, Palestine and the Sinai peninsula...

...However, in spite of the clever employment of the device, "divide et vive," the Ottoman Empire in Europe has been a failing proposition...

...The Turk can expect his pound of flesh, nor is there any restriction on the shedding of blood to restrain hint...

...After much haggling, an agreement was reached giving back to Turkey all Asia Minor except Smyrna, also Eastern Thrace and Constantinople—the Straits to be demilitarized and controlled by the allies...

...In fact, with the exception of Russia, every class power in Europe has taken its turn in standing guard at the bed chamber of the "Sick Man" on the Bosphorus...

...The Sultan would hardly find it easy to control the Bosphorus with a victorious Russia seeking egress from the Black Sea...

...Stuart spent much time abroad in 1921, and is acquainted with the situation in the Near East...

...From the great empire of Suleiman the Magnificent in the middle of the 16th century, when it included all of the present Balkan States, Hungary and a part of Poland, it had dwindled at the outbreak of the World War to a small territory scarcely much larger than Montenegro...

...The temporary settlement is easily outlined...

...Greece Given Thrace THE treaty of Versailles said little about Turkey other than that Germany would recognize any agreements made by the allied powers with Turkey (Art...

...Turkey threw in her lot with the enemies of her enemy, and under the circumstances it would have been contrary to the law of self-preservation to have done otherwise...

...Incidentally, Greek armies were compelled to expel Turkish forces from both Thrace and Smyrna...

...The struggle which resulted forced a division between the powers whereby Greece, ostensibly backed by Great Britain, attempted to hold Smyrna and Thrace by crushing Kemal-ist forces, while the Turkish Nationalists with the support of France and Italy endeavored to regain the territories taken by the treaty of Sevres...

...When to these conflicting interests were added the just claims of the Arabs and Armenians and all the rest of the subject peoples of the Ottoman empire, it is easy to understand why the treaty with Turkey was the last and least satisfactory of the post bellum settlements...

...The allied governments have already declared in a note to Mustapha Kama!, couched in most conciliatory language, that they "view with favor the desire of Turkey to recover Thrace as far as the River Maritza and also including Adrisaople.'* The sole condition seems to be neutralization of the strait* under the administration and guarantee of the League of Nations...

...Certainly Great Britain, aware of the ominous possibilities of rebellion among her millions of Moslem subjects in Egypt, Asia Minor and India is in no position to say him nay...

...furthermore, Smyrna, with its hinterland, was to be under Greek administration...

...Even if Baron Marschall von Bieberstein had not outgeneraled and outbid the allied ambassadors at Constantinople, Turkey could have taken sides with the allies of her perpetual enemy, Russia...

...But according to the arguments of Venizelos, by the principle of nationality Greece should have the islands of the Dodecanese as we'll as the essentially Greek cities and districts of Asia Minor on the Aegean—as, for example, Smyrna...

...Various secret agreements had been signed in 1915...

...Italy, excluded from the eastern end of the Mediterranean, demanded the Aegean islands including Rhodes and the Smyrna and Adalia regions of Asia Minor...

...156} and that certain communities formerly belonging to the Turkish Empire would be recognized as independent, subject to the rendering of asistance by a Mandatory (Art...

...In fact, Great Britain went so far as to engage in the costly and inexcusable Crimean War to protect Turkey against the slow but steady advance of the Russian giant...

...But even if Russia bad been a party to the peace treaties there would still have remained the conflicting interests of France and Great Britain in Asia Minor and Italy and Greece in the Mediterranean...

...Although Turkey failed completely in attempting to stir up a jihad or holy war against the allies, her defense of Gallipoli and the victory at Kut-el-Amara showed that the Turk must still be reckoned with as a warrior...

...In somewhat similar fashion since the end of the 17th century when Prince Eugene of Austria struck the vital blow at the Turkish power in Europe, the Sultans have been postponing the evil day of destruction by playing upon the jealousy and cupidity of the principal powers of Europe...

...Turkey also recognized the independence of Mesopotamia, the Hedjax, Syria and Armenia, which simply meant that these regions would come under the mandate of the great powers particularly interested...

...By this treaty Greece, through the brilliant maneuvering of Venizelos, received Thrace up to Constantinople, and the islands of the Dodecanese, except Rhodes...

...The split was seen the more clearly when the French in order to strengthen their hold upon Syria signed an agreement on Oct...

...Then, to obtain the help of the Arabs the British promised them Damascus, which the year before they had promised to France...

...MANY centuries ago an Eastern queen, threatened with immediate death by her consort, an omnipotent sultan, succeeded in staving off the cruel fate for at least a thousand and one nights by inventing and regaling her lord and master with a collection of most fanciful and ingenious tales...

...The Turk has once more profited by the jealous rivalries of the European powers and is in s position to dictate his own terms...