No More Learning

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? -PARTITION AND WAR
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? IV
Partition and War
Is it, however, inevitable that the old
owner's death should be accompanied by
a fight between the heirs ? Can we not
imagine a joint European action against
Turkey based upon a previous compact
which should allot to every Power its fair
portion of the estate, thus excluding any
danger of a second European war ? Could
not the successful experience of the first
Balkan war be repeated on a greater scale ?
To this question, sad to say, we must reply
with a doubt. Let it never be forgotten
that the first Balkan war was followed
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? TURKEY AND THE WAR
by the second, and the lesson of this ex-
perience is perhaps much more human
than the other. The claimants on Turkey's
future spoils are England, France, Russia,
Germany, Italy, perhaps Austria, then
also Greece and Bulgaria. Even forgetting
for a moment that they are divided into
two hostile camps, it needs too much
imagination and optimism to admit the
probability of an agreement conciliating
such a host of different wills in such a
delicate matter. When Venizelos suc-
ceeded (and only for a moment) in bringing
three little Balkan Powers to a mutual
accommodation in a question touching
historical national lusts, he was proclaimed
a genius ; and yet his task was so much
easier because the little Powers felt very
dubious about their own capacity to kill
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? PARTITION AND WAR
the Bear, and it is known that such doubts
make people more conciliatory. When
they saw the bearskin in their hands the
conciliatory spirit vanished and the only
voice heard was that of greed. For a
" concert " including all the great Euro-
pean Powers the acquisition of the bear's
skin would be a sure and easy job ; that is
why the voice of greed would be loud from
the very beginning. Where is the genius
able to conciliate half a score of mighty
appetites under these conditions ? Ger-
many looks to Bagdad with the same
insistence as England ; Armenia and Kur-
distan, claimed by Russia, are at the
same time included in the most popular
schemes of " Drang nach Osten " ; Con-
stantinople is coveted at least from three
different sides. And what about Turkey
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? TURKEY AND THE WAR
herself ? She would never submit to lie
still and " wait and see " how her neigh-
bours conspire against her : she would
conspire herself, she would make alluring
offers to one of them in order to keep him
apart from the others ; she would com-
plicate the game, mix the cards and render
a general concert impracticable, even if
it were feasible by itself. The partition
of Turkey can only be a result of a Euro-
pean war, not of a concerted European
expedition.
Some soft-hearted people may perhaps
ask: But is it not possible for all these
great Powers to renounce their claims
on Ottoman property ? We believe that
it is humanly impossible. Of course the
world knows instances of renounced and
forgotten claims. The best example is
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? PARTITION AND WAR
the Italian indifference to such parts of
the Terre Irredente which are under French
or Swiss rule. Corsica speaks an Italian
dialect ; Savoy is the cradle of the dynasty
which united Italy ; Garibaldi was born
in Nice and bitterly resented her non-
inclusion in the young State which he
more than helped to create. To-day all
those vindications are more than for-
gotten : they are dead, dead in Italy as
well as in Corsica, Nice and Savoy. The
canton of Ticino is Italian in tongue and
Swiss in soul, and no Italian Nationalist
dreams of annexing it. There is a power-
ful force in the world known by the much
abused name of Culture. This force se-
cures a State's dominions better than any
wall of bayonets. Culture is impervious.
Where its fertilizing presence is felt, where
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? TURKEY AND THE WAR
it constantly produces higher standards
of life and work, where it unceasingly
causes all the vital energies to play, all
the germs to grow, there a foreigner's
claim, meeting no echo, is soon stifled,
worn out, drowned in indifference on both
sides. What excites and feeds again and
again a neighbour's greed is the emptiness
and lifelessness of waste ground that could
be turned into gardens, the consciousness
of rich possibilities which the present
owner is impotent to exploit. It has
something to do with the old belief that
Nature abhors a vacuum. The push
towards cultureless spaces is humanly
irresistible. Their desolation itself is a
constant provocation. That is why the
thirst for the " Turkish heritage " can
never die -- except through satisfaction.
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? PARTITION AND WAR
And it can be satisfied in no other way
but through war. That is how the present
conflict was born. That is why, if this
war leaves Turkey undivided, a new war
of the same size will follow sooner or later,
with the inevitability of the tide.
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? PART II-- THE INNER STATE OF TURKEY
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? -AFTER SIX YEARS OF CONSTITUTION
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? \
V
After Six Years of Constitution
It is a painful duty to insist upon the
destruction of a living body. It is es-
pecially painful for a writer who knows
the people he dooms to death. If there
are good peoples and bad peoples, the
Turks certainly belong to the first sort.
As a rule they are honest, modest, hos-
pitable, chivalrous. Their ancient glory
as soldiers stands in spite of all. They
are fine statesmen -- of course for con-
ditions which are no more. It is hardly
possible to get in touch with them and
not to love them. If politics could -- or
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? TURKEY AND THE WAR
should -- be based upon sympathy, nobody
would like the idea of destroying an Empire
founded and maintained by these nice
fellows. Unhappily politics are based upon
other factors.
The whole world hailed the Young
Turkish Revolution of 1908 in the sincere
hope that a new era of real progress had
opened before the Ottoman Empire. On
the eve of the Great War the disappoint-
ment was general and for ever incurable.
Experience has clearly shown that there
was practically no difference between the
Old Turkish and the Young Turkish regime.
The Parliament, almighty in the early
days of the Revolution, was reduced to
practical slavery. The administration was
as bad as in Abdul Hamid's days. The
condition of the Christian races " im-
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? AFTER SIX YEARS OF CONSTITUTION
proved " only in as much as they were
admitted to compulsory military service ;
but the most precious stronghold of their
national existence, the communal and edu-
cational autonomy which even Abdul
Hamid had respected, was made a target
for menaces and attempts. Never had
the Old Turk tried to interfere with the
national individuality of his non-Turkish
subjects : he was indifferent to the lan-
guage they spoke at home or in school.
The Young Turk did not hide his object
of gradually imposing his language upon
Arabs, Albanians, Armenians, Greeks and
Slavs of the Empire. Bribery in office,
muddle and corruption in court showed
no promise of disappearing -- rather the
opposite. The Albanians, the most loyal
of Ottomans in former days, were driven
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? TURKEY AND THE WAR
into revolt by stupid governmental pro-
ceedings. The massacre of Armenians in
Adana left nothing to desire for one who
remembers the high standards of the
massacres of 1894-1896; and the Young
Turkish Government left the official cul-
prits unpunished like the Old Turkish.
Against all this not one step, not one act
of any progressive character can be written
on the credit side. We mean progress in
any sense -- political, social or economic.
The obsolete laws ruling the tenure of land
are still unchanged in spite of all efforts,
although they constitute the greatest
obstacle to the economic development of
the country. Mortgage of rural properties
is still practically impossible, and so no
sound system of agricultural credit can be
created. The recognition of the " persona
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? AFTER SIX YEARS OF CONSTITUTION
juridica/' indispensable condition to a free
immigration of foreign capital, is still a
pious wish.
It has been said that the Young Turkish
Government " had no time to do things. "
This is an exaggeration. The constitutional
regime was consolidated in the early sum-
mer of 1909 ; the Tripoli War began only
in the autumn of 1911. Two years are
sufficient to show a good will and a fair
understanding. Of course nobody pretends
that the Young Turks could have carried
out social reforms in two years ; but
it is an awful exaggeration to say
that such reforms could not have been
passed in Parliament. They were not even
proposed. Whoever witnessed in those
years the life of the Ottoman Chamber
will attest that it had plenty of time to
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? TURKEY AND THE WAR
legislate ; but the time was spent in futile
intrigues behind the curtain. Was it lack
of patriotism ? Certainly not. Was it
lack of statecraft ? Perhaps. But first
of all the cause of this innate impotence
of the " new 99 r6gime is to be found in
the organic construction of the Turkish
Empire.
Before we deal with this organic defect
of the country it will be of some use to
throw a glance upon the men. We said,
just now, that one of the reasons of the
failure was perhaps lack of statecraft.
Let us shortly recall the essential features
of the human element known by the name
of Young Turks.
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? VI-THE YOUNG TURKS
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? VI
The Young Turks
The morning after the Turkish Revolution
everybody in Constantinople, Salonika, etc. ,
was " a Young Turk," " a member of the
Committee/ ' a Somebody or a Something
in the then victorious conspiracy. But
the real Young Turks who prepared and
carried out the Revolution were not numer-
ous. They formed two distinct groups :
we shall describe them roughly as the
Young Turks of Paris -- and those of Turkey.
When we say Paris we mean not only
the French capital but also London, Geneva,
in general all the western towns where
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? TURKEY AND THE WAR
Turkish emigrants used to concentrate in
the long days of Hamid. Paris was the
main centre. Here Ahmed-Riza published
his organ, the " Meshveret," in two edi-
tions -- the Turkish one for his fellow-
countrymen in the distant homeland, and
the French one for Europe. Here Prince
Sabaheddin conceived his own programme
of Ottoman reconstruction which included
in a rather unexpected combination the
two battlecries of decentralization and
private initiative. The few members of
the Liberal Turkish intelligentsia who were
lucky enough to get permission to go
abroad, used to make their pilgrimage to
Paris as to a kind of political Mecca. Even
those among the emigrants who lived in
England or Switzerland drew their political
wisdom only from Paris. It is useless for
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? THE YOUNG TURKS
us to inquire why they chose France -- of
all the European countries the most un-
like their own -- to be the school and the
model of their constitutional lore. Enough
to know that it just happened so, and that
in describing the Young Turkish emigrants
as a Paris group we point not only to a
geographical fact but also to the main
factor which influenced their intellectual
development.
France is a strongly centralized country,
uniform and ruled by a uniform system
which is applied everywhere in the same
way. There are even Frenchmen who
think this uniformity too exaggerated.
But it is a consequence of a past disease
-- of the excessive provincialism which
divided and sterilized France before 1789.
Every province was almost a different
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? TURKEY AND THE WAR
state, with different laws and taxes ; it
was not uncommon to talk of a " nation
Normande," " nation Picarde," or " nation
Auvergnate. " The great Revolution had
before it the task of amalgamating them
all into one nation. That is why it in-
sisted upon the principle of uniformity
and centralization with such emphasis that
even now the average French politician
recognizes in them one of the holiest
dogmas of 1789, one of the main assets
of freedom and progress. The Young
Turks imbibed these ideas without any
criticism or discrimination. They knew
that the greatest misfortune of their own
country was also the fatal disunion of the
different elements of population ; and they
conceived the naive belief that the remedy
which saved France would be equally fit
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? THE YOUNG TURKS
to save Turkey. It seemed to them that
differences between Turks and Armenians,
Greeks and Bulgars, Serbs and Albanians
were to be taken and treated in the same
way as differences between Normans and
Picardians. Thus was born and rooted
their deep enthusiasm for the system of
centralization and assimilation. Sabahed-
din, with his confused programme which
admitted a shadow of local distinctions,
remained in a hopeless minority. The
Armenian Revolutionists tried several times
to persuade the " Meshveret " party that
the only system fit for a constitutional
Turkey is that applied in Switzerland or
at least in Austria -- system of provincial
self-government and national autonomy.
But the Young Turks abhorred their
scheme, and so it came, towards the end
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? TURKEY AND THE WAR
of the 'nineties, to a definite break between
the followers of Ahmed-Riza and the
Dashnaktzutiun.
Such curious political aberration implies
of course a tremendous ignorance of the
real conditions in Turkey. And ignorance
it was. The Young Turks were not the
first example of emigrants who lost in
exile every feeling of the realities in the
Motherland. We have instances of no
lesser miscomprehension in the schemes
and tactics of the Russian Revolutionists
who tried to " lead 99 from abroad the
popular movement of 1905. Their mis-
takes showed how deeply they ignored the
most essential facts of Russia's intellectual
and social life. Yet Russia was not an
unexplored country like Turkey is ; they
had at their disposal exact statistics, mono-
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? THE YOUNG TURKS
graphies dealing in a scientific way with
the different problems of the country, a
highly developed monthly and daily Press,
a constant intercourse with tens of thou-
sands of educated Russians travelling
abroad. The Young Turks of Paris lacked
all that. For long, long years they were
practically cut off from any living touch
with the milieu which they struggled to
free and revive. Visitors from Turkey
were rare, shy and uninformed. No wonder
if they gradually lost all sense of possi-
bilities, distances and proportions.
This reproach could not be fairly applied
to the other group -- the Young Turks in
Turkey. These were humble, poor fellows
living in the everyday life, little post clerks
like Taraat, schoolmasters like Djavid,
soldiers like Enver. They worked among
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? TURKEY AND THE WAR
the masses and knew them thoroughly.
They fully realized the deep gulf fixed
between the various races which hated
each other in Macedonia and Armenia.
They knew their own country. But this
was the only thing they knew. It must
not be imputed for blame to a person
brought up in Turkey if we admit certain
gaps in his education -- or even if in some
cases we consider his whole education as
one big gap. Hamid's system of censor-
ship was ideal in its own way -- it was
impenetrable. The Young Turks in Turkey
were doomed to ignore many things which
are written in books. But the thing about
which their ignorance was really fabulous
was one that cannot be learnt from books.
This thing was; -- Constitution. Its bless-
ings and its failures can be taught only by
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? THE YOUNG TURKS
life itself, by life in a constitutional country.
Peoples accustomed to Parliaments and
responsible Governments know that a con-
stitution is not the solution of difficult
problems -- it is only the way through
which the contending forces of a country
can search for settlements of problems.
They know that a constitution means
growth and development of internal
struggles, not pacification. For a people
living under tyranny the constitution is
a dream, perfect and absolute as only
things in dreams can be. It is the con-
ciliation of all the dissensions, settlement
of all the quarrels, it transforms enemies
into brothers and hate into love. Such
was the political dream of the Young
Turks in Turkey. Well they knew how
serious was the clash of conflicting interests
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? TURKEY AND THE WAR
between the different nationalities of their
country ; but firm and strong was their
belief that there is one magic remedy and
its name is Constitution.
So the two groups represented two
different types of misinformation. Those
in Paris were acquainted with the lights
and shades of representative government,
but they did not know the country to
which it had to be applied. Those in
Turkey knew the country, but had a queer
idea about the omnipotence of a parlia-
mentary regime. With a little good luck
the two groups might have been the
complement each of the other. The
Parisian Turks might have contributed
their knowledge of constitutional life,
the local workers their acquaintance with
local realities. It might have made quite
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? THE YOUNG TURKS
a valuable combination of statesman-
ship.
But the Young Turks had in this sense
bad luck. Their misfortune was the too
easy victory of the revolutionary move-
ment. In a fortnight's time, without a
shot, without any bloodshed, they became
the rulers of Turkey. Easy victories are
dangerous.