THE GRIP OP THE OCTOPUS
It will not be sufficient for the
fulfilment of the Allies’ aims as regards Turkey
to free from her barbarous control the subject peoples
dwelling within her borders, for Turkey herself has
to be delivered from a domination not less barbaric
than her own, which, if allowed to continue, would
soon again be a menace to the peace of the world.
We have seen in a previous chapter how deeply set
in her are Germany’s nippers, how closely the
octopus-embrace envelops her, and we now have to consider
how those tentacles must be unloosed from their grip,
and what will be the condition of the victim, already
bled white, when that has been done. In the beginning,
as we have seen, Germany obtained her hold by professing
a touchingly beautiful and philanthropic desire to
help Turkey to realise her national ideals, and her
Pecksniffs, Tekin Alp and Herr Ernst Marre, were
bidden to write parallel histories, the one describing
the aims of the Nationalist party, the other the benevolent
interest which Germany took in them. Occasionally
Herr Ernst Marre could not but remember that he was a German, and
permitted us to see the claws of the cat, without quite letting it out of the
bag, but then he pulled the strings tight again, and only loud comfortable
purrings could be heard, the Prussian musings over the liberation of Turkey
which she was helping to accomplish. But nowadays, so it seems to me, the
strings have been loosened, and the claws and teeth are clearly visible.
It is not so long since Dr. Schnee, Governor of German East Africa, sent a very
illuminating document to Berlin from which I extract the following:-
’Do you consider it possible
to make a regulation prohibiting Islam altogether?
The encouragement of pig-breeding among natives is
recommended by experts as an effective means of stopping
the spread of Islam....’
That seems clear enough, and I can
imagine Talaat Bey, with his sword of honour in his
hand, exclaiming with the Oysters in Alice in Wonderland:-
’After such kindness that would be
A dismal thing to do.’
But I am afraid that Germany is contemplating
(as indeed she has always done) a quantity of dismal
things to do, and is now, like the Walrus and the
Carpenter, beginning to let them appear. She has
taken the Turkish oysters out for a nice long walk,
and when the war is over she proposes to sit down
and eat them. And did she not also interfere in
the affair of Jewish massacres and declare that ’Pan-Turkish
ideals have no sort of meaning in Palestine’?
That must have been almost an unfriendly act from
Turkey’s point of view, for it cannot be stated
too clearly that part of the price which Germany paid
for Turkey’s entry on her side into the war,
was the liberty, as far as Germany was concerned, of
managing her internal affairs, massacres and the rest,
as best suited the damnable doctrines of Ottomanisation.
The other Powers could not interfere, for they failed
to force the Dardanelles, and Germany promised not
to. That promise, of course, was binding on Germany
for just so long as it suited her to keep it, and
it suited her to keep it, on the whole, during the
Armenian massacres. And in that matter her refusal
to interfere is, among all her crimes, the very flower
and felicity of her vileness.
Signs are not wanting that Turkey
is beginning to realise the position in which she
has placed herself, namely, that of a bankrupt dependant
at the mercy of a nation to whom that quality is a
mere derision. Lately a quantity of small incidents
have occurred, such as disputes over the ownership
of properties financed by Germany and the really melodramatic
depreciation in the German coinage, which unmistakably
show the swift ebb of Turkey’s misplaced confidence.
More significant perhaps than any is a transaction
that took place in May 1917, when Talaat Bey and Enver
Pasha took the whole of their private fortunes out
of the Deutsche Bank in Constantinople, and invested
them in two Swiss banks, namely, the Banque Nationale
de Suisse, and the Banque Fédérale:
they drew out also the whole funds of the Committee
of Union and Progress, and similarly transferred them.
This operation was not effected without loss, for in
return for the Turkish L1 they received only thirteen
francs. But it is significant that they preferred
to lose over fifty per cent. of their capital, and
have the moiety secure in Switzerland to leaving it
in Constantinople. It is certain therefore that
at both ends of the scale a distrust of German management
has begun. A starving population has wrecked
trains loaded with food-stuffs going to Germany, and
at the other end the men with the swords of honour
and dishonour deem it wise to put their money out
of reach of the great Prussian cat. That the
Germans themselves are not quite at their ease concerning
the security of their hold may also be conjectured,
for they are, as far as possible, removing Turkish
troops from Constantinople, and replacing them with
their own regiments. An instance of this occurred
in June 1917, when, owing to the discontent in the
capital, it was found necessary to guard bridges,
residences of Ministers, and Government offices.
But instead of recalling Turkish troops from Galicia
to do this, they kept them there in the manner of
hostages, mixed up in German regiments, and sent picked
bodies of German troops to Constantinople. Fresh
corps of secret police have also been formed to suppress
popular manifestations. They are allowed to ‘remove’
suspects by any means they choose, quite in the old
style of bag and Bosporus, but the organisation of
them is German. And well may the German Government
distrust those signs of popular discontent in a starving
population: already the people have awoke to
the fact that the German paper money does not represent
its face-value, and, despite assurances to the contrary,
it is at a discount scarcely credible. Three
German L1 notes are held even in Constantinople to
be the equivalent of a gold L1, while in the provinces
upwards of five are asked for, and given, in exchange
for one gold pound. It is in vain that German
manifestoes are put forth declaring that all Government
offices will take the notes as an equivalent for gold,
for what the people want is not a traffic with Government
offices, but the cash to buy food. Even more
serious is the fact that Austrian and Hungarian directors
of banks will no longer accept these scraps of paper.
In vain, too, is it that the hungry folk see the walls
of the ‘House of Friendship’ rise higher
and higher in Constantinople, for every day they see
with starving eyes the trains loaded with sugar from
Konia, and the harvests raised in Anatolia with German
artificial manures guarded by German troops and rolling
westwards to Berlin. According to present estimates
the harvest this year is so vastly more abundant than
that of previous years, that no comparison, as the
Minister of Agriculture tells his gratified Government,
is possible. But the poorer classes get no more
than the leavings of it when the armies, which include
the German army, have had their wants supplied.
The governing classes, whom it is necessary to feed,
are not yet suffering, for the Germans grant them enough,
issuing rations to such families as are proved adherents
of the German-Turkish combination, and until the pinch
of want attacks them we should be foolishly optimistic
if we thought that a starving peasantry would cause
the collapse or the defection of Germany’s newest
and most valuable colony. There is enough discontent
to make Germany uneasy, but that is all. Long ago
she proved the efficiency of her control, and the
successful pulling of her puppet-strings, and no instance
of that is more complete than the brief story of Yakub
Jemil and the extinction of him and his party, which,
though it happened a full year ago, has only lately
been completely transmitted. Yakub Jemil was an
influential commander of a frontier guard near the
Black Sea coast. In July 1916 he went to Constantinople,
accompanied by his staff (which included the informant
from whom this account is derived), and, being cordially
received by Enver and Talaat, discussed the situation
with them. He pointed out the demoralising effect
of the Armenian massacres, and the danger of Jemal
the Great’s attitude towards the Arabs in Syria,
realising, and seeking to make them realise, the stupendous
folly of making enemies of the subject peoples, and
urging the re-establishment of cordial relations between
the Turks and them. That, considering that Enver
and Talaat were responsible (under the Germans) for
the Armenian massacres, was a brave outspeaking.
He went on to say that Turkey was at war not on behalf
of herself, but on behalf of Germany, and that it
would be wise of the Government to consider the possibility
of a separate peace with the Powers of the Entente.
He was heard with interest, and took his leave.
He remained in Constantinople, and his views obtained
him many adherents, not only among Turkish officers
whose sympathies were already alienated from Germany,
but among members of the Committee of Union and Progress.
But before long his adherents began to disappear,
and he asked for another interview with Talaat.
He was received, as the informant states, ‘with
open arms,’ for Talaat seized and held him,
called for the guard, and he was searched, and on him
were found certain documents which proved him to hold
the views he had already expressed. That now,
was enough. He was ‘interrogated’
for two days (interrogation is otherwise called torture),
and was then hanged. Subsequently 111 officers
and men in the army also disappeared. Some were
marched into the Khiat Khana Valley, opposite Pera,
and were stabbed: others were sent under escort
to the provinces and murdered. No courts-martial
of any kind were held.
And should anybody doubt the efficiency
of German control in Turkey, and be disposed to be
optimistic about the imminence of Turkey’s detachment,
he might do well to ponder that story.
Meantime the efficacy of our naval
blockade is largely discounted by Germany’s
new source of supply. Possibly in the ensuing
winter of 1917-18 conditions may get unbearable, but
if the Turkish Government only two years ago massacred
more than a million of its subjects, it would be absurd
to expect that the starving of a million more would
produce much effect on the Ministers of the Turkish
God of Love. The people are, of course, told, with
suitable statistics, how famine is decimating England
and France, and how the total starvation of those
unfortunate countries is imminent. Indeed, of
all the signs of want of confidence in their German
overlords, by far the most promising are the facts
that Talaat and Enver have sent their money out of
the country, and that Jemal the Great has a swelled
head. On these facts there is a certain justifiable
optimism to be based. It will do no good to consider
them academically in London; but are there not practical
channels to reach the instincts of the Turkish triumvirate
that might be navigated?
The following list of prices in Constantinople is of
interest:-;
July 1914. July 1917.
Rice, per lb. 2-1/4 d. 3d.
Milk, per
quart 5d. 2s.
Flour, per lb.
3d. 2d.
Petroleum, per lb. 1d. 4d.
Pair of boots 1 8.
We need not trouble ourselves with
considering what the Allies will have to do with the
Turkish army when once the end of the war comes, for
the collapse of the military party in Turkey, which
owes its whole vitality to Germany, will be perfect
and complete. But the economical future of Turkey
is not so plain: at the present moment its bankruptcy
is total. Early in the war Germany drained it
of such bullion as it had, and has since then advanced
it about L150,000,000, which, as far as I can trace,
is entirely in German paper, and must be redeemed in
gold at some period (chiefly two years) after the
end of the war. That is wonderful finance, and
one marvels that Turkey could have been so far blinded
as to accept it. But I expect that the swallowing
of the first loan was sweetened by a spoonful of jam
of this kind. Germany pointed out that, though
England was quite certainly going to lose the war,
she had issued an immense paper coinage which had
all the purchasing power of gold. Germany, on
the other hand, with her dear Ally to help her, was
just as certainly going to win the war. How, then,
could there be the slightest risk of the German paper
money depreciating a single stre in value?
That sounded very good sense to Turkey, who was equally
convinced that she would be on the victorious side
(else she would not have joined it), and down went
the loan with a pleasant sensation of sweetness.
A second loan was easily induced by the failure of
the Dardanelles expedition, and about then the ‘ignorant’
Turkish peasant began to wonder whether the paper
was quite as valuable as gold, and to prefer gold
or even the ordinary silver piastre to its German
equivalent. To counteract that, as we have seen,
a law was passed making it criminal to hoard gold,
and, to complete the ruin, the silver piastre was
called in, and a nickel token was substituted....
We can but bow our heads in reverence of the thoroughness
of German swindling.
Now Turkey is completely bankrupt,
and we must ask ourselves why Germany ever bargained
for the repayment in gold, after the war, of the millions
she had lent the Turks in paper, if she knew that Turkey
could never repay her. True, the loans had only
cost her the paper the notes were printed on, so that
in no case could she prove a loser, but how could
she be a gainer? The answer to that question shouts
at us from every acre of Turkish soil. The immense
undeveloped riches of Turkey supply the answer.
Some indeed are already being developed, and the labour
and most of the materials have been paid for by the
German paper notes. There are the irrigation
works at Adana, there is the beet-sugar industry at
Konia, the irrigation works in the Makischelin Valley,
the mineral concessions of the Bagdad Railway, the
Haidar Pasha Harbour concessions, the afforestation
scheme near Constantinople, the cotton industry in
Anatolia-there is no end to them. Turkey
may not be able to pay in cash, but over all these
concessions already working, and over a hundred more,
of which the concessions have been granted, Germany
has a complete hold, and her victim will pay in minerals
and cotton and sugar and corn. She will pay over
and over and over again, as none who have the smallest
knowledge of Kultur-finance can possibly doubt.
She is bled white already, and for the rest of time
bloodless and white will she remain. Only one
event can possibly avert her fate, and that is the
victory of the Allies.
We have been so bold as to assume
that this is not an impossible contingency, and on
that assumption there is a brighter future for Turkey
than the Prussian domination could ever bring her.
Bankrupt she is, but, as Germany saw, she is rich
in possibilities even with regard to the restricted
territory to which she will surely find herself limited,
and it is a pleasant chance for her that Germany has
already been so busy in developing the resources of
Anatolia. For Germany may safely bet her last
piece of paper money that she will not lay a finger
on them.
TheThe Turkey of the future is to be
for the Turks; not for the persecuted Armenians, nor
for the Arabs, nor for the Greeks, and assuredly it
is not to be for the Prussians. While the war
lasts, Germany may draw supplies from the fields her
artificial manures have enriched, and from the acres
that her paper money has planted, but after that no
more. Her Ottomanising work will be over.
Such development (and it is far from negligible) as
she has done in Syria will be continued under French
protection for the Arabs, such as she has done in Mesopotamia
under English protection, and such as she has done
in Anatolia will be continued by the Turks to drag
them out of the utter insolvency that she has brought
them to. Never before has a country so justly
and so richly deserved the repudiation of a debt incurred
by the confidence trick. Not a civilised Government
in the world would dream of enforcing payment, any
more than a magistrate would enforce a payment to some
thimble-rigger returning from a race-meeting.
The roar of battle still renders inaudible
all voices save its own, but already the dusk begins
to gather over the halls where sit the War-lord and
those who, for the realisation of their monstrous dreams,
loosed hell upon the world, and in the growing dusk
there begin to steal upon the wall the letters of
pale flame that to them portend the doom, and to us
give promise of dawn. Faintly they can see the
legend Mené, Mené, Tekel, Upharsin....