"As a rule a
Christian in Stamboul knows Turkish only
if he is an Armenian or a lawyer/' said
an observer, and his word can be taken
roughly as the truth.
Christian in Stamboul knows Turkish only
if he is an Armenian or a lawyer/' said
an observer, and his word can be taken
roughly as the truth.
Jabotinsky - 1917 - Turkey and the War
"
Does not the same thing happen in all the
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? TURKEY AND THE WAR
constitutional countries ? About this last
point, too, Dr. Nazim was absolutely sure.
He " knew from the best sources " that
in free countries racial questions do not
exist. And Austria, Hungary, Belgium,
Canada, Ireland, Switzerland ? " Oh, tout
cela n'a pas d'importance," Dr. Nazim
used to reply, imperturbably. Besides, his
great hope was Socialism. He was sure
that this movement would soon develop
into Western proportions (and that in a
country where the first industrial factory,
so to say, was yet to be created). And
he " knew from the best sources," that the
Socialists fight everywhere against the con-
servation of local idioms in favour of the
one and indivisible language of the one and
indivisible State. His conclusion was : " Les
nationality ? nous les digererons toutes. "
ioo
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? THE YOUNG TURKS
These were not the ideas of one indi-
vidual. As we said, they inspired the
Young Turkish policy which led to the
revolts in Albania, to the loss of Macedonia,
and to the loss of what was far more
precious than any portion of land -- the
loss of trust.
But, in fairness to the Young Turks,
we must repeat : the main cause of their
failure was elsewhere. Had they been
wise as Solomon and wily as Macchiavelli
they would have failed all the same.
IOI
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? -THE TURKISH MINORITY IN TURKEY
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? VII
The Turkish Minority in Turkey
The essential feature of the Ottoman
Empire is the fact that its ruling nation,
the Turks, is a relatively small minority
of the population. Precise statistics for
Turkey do not exist, but it can be assumed
that out of the roughly estimated 21
million inhabitants of the Empire on
the eve of the war, 7 million were Turks,
9 million Arabs, ij million Armenians,
i| million Greeks, i| million Kurds, the
remainder Jews, Druses and smaller tribes.
The ruling race was only one third of
the whole. Yet we must remember that
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? TURKEY AND THE WAR
this is the most favourable proportion
ever attained in Turkish history. A hun-
dred years ago the Ottoman Empire em-
braced the whole of the Balkan Peninsula,
with Roumania and Bessarabia, Bosnia
and Herzegovina, Cyprus and Crete and
all the Isles of the Archipelago, Egypt,
Tripoli, and, at least nominally, the better
part of what is now the French Colonial
Empire along the Southern Mediterranean
coast. In that Greater Turkey the Turks
were perhaps one sixth of the population.
Yet they not only conquered that colossal
area -- they kept it and ruled it through
centuries. Such an achievement could not
be performed by the bare strength of
sword. It implies also a great deal of
true and wise statesmanship. The old
Sultans were mighty warriors and clever
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? TURKISH MINORITY IN TURKEY
rulers -- clever, of course, in their own
way. But they had naturally to pay a
heavy price for the keeping of their Empire.
The small Turkish race was forced to
concentrate all its energies on two objects :
war and government. Peasantry as the
natural storehouse of vital forces of the
race, soldiers, and officialdom -- these three
elements form the whole structure of the
Turkish nation. The heavy burden of
defending and running the State's machine
made it impossible for them to develop
a commercial, industrial, or intellectual
middle class. This fact is at the bottom
of all the decisive events of Turkish history
past and present.
Of course the world knows other and
even modern instances of Empires where
the ruling nation is a minority. The best
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? TURKEY AND THE WAR
example is Austria (apart from Hungary).
Its German population is only 37 per
cent, of the whole, but this minority still
dominates the country. In spite of the
fact that paragraph 19 of the Austrian
Constitution establishes complete equality
of all the racial elements and all the lan-
guages, the German tongue is still de facto
the true " Staatssprache," and the Germans,
although they have no numerical majority
in Parliament, constitute the overwhelming
element in Government and bureaucracy.
It would be unjust to suppose that such
predominance is simply the result of abuse
of power. It is rather a natural conse-
quence of the real superiority of the
German factor in various provinces of
social life. The German culture as a whole
is of course stronger than that of the
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? TURKISH MINORITY IN TURKEY
Poles, Czechs or Ruthenes ; the level of
individual culture is also far higher with
the Germans than with any other element,
and we can say that the Austrian
intelligentsia is two-thirds German. The
material wealth is also accumulated, from
days immemorial, in German hands. The
industrial capital in Austria -- even if we
speak of Bohemian or Galician industries --
is almost exclusively German. So are the
great majority of industrial staffs. The
organized proletariat -- one of the main
factors of Austrian political life -- is also pre-
dominantly German. The same statement
must be repeated speaking of Austrian com-
merce, inner and international. Last but
not least -- the big landowners, the feudal
lords whose influence is felt in that country
not less than in Prussia, is thoroughly
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? TURKEY AND THE WAR
German, with the exception of Galicia and
a part of Bohemia. Thus the German
element prevails in the life and in the
politics of Austria owing not so much
to State's protection as to its own real
weight.
It will be useful to compare this state
of things with the position of the Turkish
element in Turkey. The comparison will
be highly instructive.
Take the cultural side. In Austria the
Germans are unquestionably the leading
factor in this respect. Their language is
understood in the whole Empire not be-
cause it is forced upon the people, but
because it is indispensable for both in-
tellectual and economic life. The Turks
can hardly boast any such natural privi-
lege. Of all the races in the Ottoman
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? TURKISH MINORITY IN TURKEY
Empire which possess any culture at all,
the Turks are the last and the weakest.
Their culture has no right even to be
mentioned in comparison with the bottom-
less riches of Hellenism.
The Arabs possess a great old civiliza-
tion, a mighty literature which constitutes
practically the only base of the scanty
intellectual wealth of the Turks. The
literary Turkish is so permeated with
Arabic words that, not only in books
dealing with learned matters, but even in
simple newspaper leaders nearly all the
nouns are generally Arabic.
The little Armenian nation invented its
curious alphabet in the end of the fourth
century of the Christian era. Its old litera-
ture is comparatively very rich ; its modern
literature, which includes also translations
in
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? TURKEY AND THE WAR
of almost everything that is valuable in
European knowledge and fiction, is in-
comparably above the Turkish standard.
It is an unforgettable merit of the two
Mehitarist monasteries, in Vienna and
Venice, that even in the worst times of
Armenia's last century they never inter-
rupted their patient work of compilers,
translators, and publishers. The Armenian
press is up to good Russian standards,
a praise that means a lot. Their theatre,
without being first-rate, still does exist,
while the Turkish stage is so far practically
a mere project.
Before the severation of Macedonia,
Turkey had numerous Bulgarian and Ser-
bian subjects, who again had no reason
to look upon the Turks as their superiors
or even their equals in matters of culture.
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? TURKISH MINORITY IN TURKEY
The Ottoman Jews, with the exception
of those in Palestine, have no national
culture in the modern sense, but they
are educated in French schools, read French
books and newspapers and would consider
" turquisation " as a sort of degradation.
The only peoples over whom the Turks
can really claim cultural superiority are
Albanians and Kurds.
The most unfortunate feature of this
humiliating position of a ruling race is
the fact that all the subject nations are
receiving a constant intellectual support
and impulse from abroad -- Greeks and
Slavs from their respective kingdoms,
Arabs from Egypt, Armenians from Rus-
sian Armenia, etc. The only race which
has no intellectual centres beyond the
frontier are the Turks. Quite opposite
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? TURKEY AND THE WAR
to this is the condition of the Austrian
Germans. They are only 10 million, but
their civilization is the product of 60
million Germans who live outside Austria --
while their main opponents, the Czechs,
have nobody to support them from abroad.
The consequence of all this is the insig-
nificant part the Turkish language plays
in the Turkish Empire. In the Arab
provinces it practically does not exist :
nobody knows it, nobody minds it. But
even in Constantinople it has hardly any
importance outside of the pure Turkish
quarter of the town. In commercial re-
lations French and Italian are predominant,
Greek very useful, Turkish hardly ever
heard. The non-Turkish educated class
very seldom knows enough Turkish to
read a book, and hardly ever enough
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? TURKISH MINORITY IN TURKEY
to write a decent letter.
"As a rule a
Christian in Stamboul knows Turkish only
if he is an Armenian or a lawyer/' said
an observer, and his word can be taken
roughly as the truth. The Armenian com-
munity on the Golden Horn had been
forced to learn Turkish by horrible per-
secution in Hamid's days ; of the other
races, not so cruelly tried, only those
rare individuals need to know Turkish
who come in constant immediate touch
with Turkish courts or governmental offices.
Otherwise there is no need of Turkish in
Turkey.
In the economic life the Turkish element
has no part or significance whatever. Of
course there are about 6 million Turkish
peasants ; and among the small shop-
keepers and lower artisans we find a good
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? TURKEY AND THE WAR
many Turks. But in the somewhat higher
grades of economic activity we find none.
In the sea-borne trade, which constitutes
in Turkey the main source of wealth and
social influence, no presence of Turkish
capital or mind can be traced. The capital
is mostly foreign, the personnel partly
foreign, partly Greek, Armenian, Jewish,
Syrian, or Arab ; and most frequently it is
recruited from that mixture of all Euro-
pean races which is called the Levantines.
A Turkish clerk is indeed a rarity. Also
in the few existing embryos of Ottoman
industry -- mines and tobacco -- the capital
is foreign, the staff entirely non-Turkish.
It is true that the big landowners in
Anatolia are mostly Turkish pashas and
beys, and so it was in Macedonia. But
those " feudal lords " cannot be compared
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? TURKISH MINORITY IN TURKEY
with their prototypes in Austria. The
mighty landlords of old Europe are tied
by innumerable bonds to their hereditary
estates, to their peasants, to the population
of the neighbouring towns and suburbs.
From grandfather to grandson they were
looked upon as patrons, protectors, or
tyrants of their shires ; they lived in their
castles, they were loved or feared, they
left indelible traces on every page of local
history. Tradition and social intercourse,
not the bare fact of ownership, give them
that tremendous specific weight which
makes the political strength of the feudal
class -- in our instance of the feudal class
in Austria. The Turkish landlord has, as
a rule, nothing to do with his estate. The
" djiftlik " is mostly allot ed to the meri-
torious official or general as a reward or a
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? TURKEY AND THE WAR
favour ; the owner never saw it, is not
likely ever to see it, will certainly not
pitch his tent amid its primitive wilderness.
The estate is administered, or to be more
exact, is bled, by a manager, and so even
the hatred of the villagers is limited to
the servant without reaching the master.
To be sure, there are exceptions, but this
is the general type of big landownership
in Turkey. It is a source of revenue, not
of influence. It is almost as impersonal
as an investment in foreign shares. *
* " When speaking of the Turks of the higher class,
it is well to remember that there are no wealthy men
in the European sense among them. Nor is there
any class of nobles. There are no great families
proud of their descent, and possessing historic estates.
. . . In Turkey there are no ' country houses,' no
Moslems or even Christians who display wealth in
the villages. " -- (Sir Edwin Pears, " Turkey and its
People," 1911. )
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? VIII-ILLUSIONS AND DISAPPOINTMENTS
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? VIII
Illusions and Disappointments
These are the conditions with which one
has to reckon if one wants to realize how
hard a task it is to keep the Turkish rule
in Turkey. A small minority in num-
bers, they have not even the comfort of
being, as our often-mentioned Germans
in Austria, a relative majority : whilst,
against 10,000,000 Germans, there are only
6,435,000 Czechs, 5,000,000 Poles, etc. , in
the Ottoman Empire the Arabs outnumber
the Turks. The Turkish culture is one
of the poorest in Turkey, their language
is one of the least considered ; their part
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? TURKEY AND THE WAR
in the higher levels of economic life is little
short of nothing. Peasants, soldiers and
officials, they rule the country only as
long as they are able to keep the sword
and the seal in their hands. Their author-
ity is not supported by any fact of the
life outside the barrack and the office ;
it is built upon itself alone and can only
last as long as every seat representing
any infinitesimal fraction of power is kept
by a Turk.
The conclusion is clear. Turkish rule
in Turkey can be assured only by autoc-
racy, and rather a mediaeval autocracy.
When we say mediaeval our intention is
to point to the well-known fact that ab-
solutism in the middle ages meant practi-
cally much more individual freedom than
for instance " V absolutisme eclair e " of
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? ILLUSIONS AND DISAPPOINTMENTS
the eighteenth century. The latter en-
deavoured to interfere with every detail
of private or municipal life. The former
cared for recruits, taxes, obedience -- and
nothing else. Such was the system of
the Old Turkish Sultans, taken as a whole
and apart from exceptions. The Old Turk-
ish imperial formula was : " sovereignty,
power, politics are our exclusive business ;
the inner affairs of the non-Turkish com-
munities are their own exclusive business. "
So the Old Turk kept every thread of
political power jealously in Turkish hands.
But he despised and avoided, as a rule,
every meddling with the communal, ecclesi-
astical, or scholastic affairs of his Christian
and Jewish subjects. They enjoyed a kind
of communal autonomy which ought to be
studied even for purposes of modern legis-
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? TURKEY AND THE WAR
lation. Every non-Mahommedan nation-
ality throughout the Empire was considered
as a legally constituted and organized
" millet " (Turkish for "nation"). There
was the " millet-i-rum," including all the
Greeks of the Ottoman Empire, " millet-
i-bulgar " for the Bulgarian schismatics,
" millet-i-ermeni " for the Armenians,
11 millet-i-moussevie " for the Jews. Every
millet was ruled by a representative body,
called " Medjliss," i. e. , Parliament, or Diet,
and a spiritual Chief, Patriarch or Exarque,
or Chief Rabbi. The ecclesiastical titles
must not mislead us : the functions of
these dignitaries were far from being purely
ecclesiastical. The Chief was the acknow-
ledged legal representative of his millet
before the Sublime Porte in all political
matters. On the other side he was the
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? ILLUSIONS AND DISAPPOINTMENTS
constitutional leader of his " nation. " The
organization of the little " parliaments "
was sometimes very interesting. The most
complete of all those miniature constitu-
tions was the so-called " Sahmanadrutiun "
-- the Statute of the Armenian community,
passed law in 1862. It included elaborate
provisions for the election of members of
the medjliss. The latter was divided into
two boards^ -- one for purely ecclesiastical
affairs, one for the secular matters of the
community. These secular matters em-
braced a very wide province of civil life :
education, hospitals, charity, marriages,
divorces, questions of heritage, dowries,
etc. , transfer of real property from one
member of the community to another.
Such wide inner autonomy was especially
valuable in matters of education. The
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? TURKEY AND THE WAR
f
schools, elementary or higher, belonging
to the different communities, were free
from any interference of the Government :
they chose by themselves their language,
programme, school books, and teachers.
In numerous schools, where even foreign
languages were taught, the teaching of
Turkish was completely neglected. The
Old Turk did not care a snap for it.
" Speak what you like and learn what
you prefer, only do not interfere with my
State's power," was the basic principle of
his political wisdom.
Then the Young Turks came, and " ils
ont change tout cela. " On the one side
they introduced a constitution which ad-
mitted non-Turks to the control of State's
affairs. On the other side they showed
an unquestionably keen intention to inter-
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? ILLUSIONS AND DISAPPOINTMENTS
fere with the inner affairs of the up-to-then
autonomous communities. Their formula
was : " We meddle in your business and
you meddle in ours. " It was quite the
opposite of the old system -- the old system
which kept the Ottoman Empire through
centuries, because it left to the subject
races an illusion of freedom in the things
that were most sacred to them. The new
system frightened and exasperated them
by its menace to get under the thumb
of the State the last remnants of their
national life ; it made of them even
more implacable foes of the Ottoman
idea than before. At the same time it
handed to them a big share of the State's
power !
A Parliament is supposed to reflect the
co-relation of the social forces existing in
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? TURKEY AND THE WAR
the country. Those social forces are con-
stituted not only of numbers of men
belonging to the different groups of popu-
lation. Their respective wealth, culture,
the part they play in the vital branches
of the country's activity -- all these count
not less than bare numbers. Votes are
not simply counted -- they are weighed
says a modern political proverb. Here in
Turkey everything was against the Turks
-- numbers, culture, economic role. How-
ever, they managed to secure something
like a Turkish majority at the first elections
owing to the unpreparedness and disunion
of the Christian races, the disorganization
of Arabs and Albanians. But it soon
became clear that at the following elec-
tions the numerical and economic pre-
dominance of the non-Turkish elements
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? ILLUSIONS AND DISAPPOINTMENTS
would inevitably find its expression in the
structure of the Parliament.
In the beginning of the constitutional
era the Young Turks overlooked this per-
spective. They were yet under the spell
of the illusion which we have just described
-- the illusion of the coming " ottomaniza-
tion " of the non-Turkish races. At that
moment they were, or sincerely believed
that they were, utterly and thoroughly
democratic. We remember the outburst
of their indignation when, in 1909, Damad
Ferid, one of the Senators, proposed to
strengthen the constitutional powers of
the Crown. His argument was that, owing
to the overwhelming predominance of non-
Turks, the only asset which was and would
remain Turkish for ever was the Osman
dynasty : therefore, the State's power
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Does not the same thing happen in all the
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? TURKEY AND THE WAR
constitutional countries ? About this last
point, too, Dr. Nazim was absolutely sure.
He " knew from the best sources " that
in free countries racial questions do not
exist. And Austria, Hungary, Belgium,
Canada, Ireland, Switzerland ? " Oh, tout
cela n'a pas d'importance," Dr. Nazim
used to reply, imperturbably. Besides, his
great hope was Socialism. He was sure
that this movement would soon develop
into Western proportions (and that in a
country where the first industrial factory,
so to say, was yet to be created). And
he " knew from the best sources," that the
Socialists fight everywhere against the con-
servation of local idioms in favour of the
one and indivisible language of the one and
indivisible State. His conclusion was : " Les
nationality ? nous les digererons toutes. "
ioo
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? THE YOUNG TURKS
These were not the ideas of one indi-
vidual. As we said, they inspired the
Young Turkish policy which led to the
revolts in Albania, to the loss of Macedonia,
and to the loss of what was far more
precious than any portion of land -- the
loss of trust.
But, in fairness to the Young Turks,
we must repeat : the main cause of their
failure was elsewhere. Had they been
wise as Solomon and wily as Macchiavelli
they would have failed all the same.
IOI
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? -THE TURKISH MINORITY IN TURKEY
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? VII
The Turkish Minority in Turkey
The essential feature of the Ottoman
Empire is the fact that its ruling nation,
the Turks, is a relatively small minority
of the population. Precise statistics for
Turkey do not exist, but it can be assumed
that out of the roughly estimated 21
million inhabitants of the Empire on
the eve of the war, 7 million were Turks,
9 million Arabs, ij million Armenians,
i| million Greeks, i| million Kurds, the
remainder Jews, Druses and smaller tribes.
The ruling race was only one third of
the whole. Yet we must remember that
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? TURKEY AND THE WAR
this is the most favourable proportion
ever attained in Turkish history. A hun-
dred years ago the Ottoman Empire em-
braced the whole of the Balkan Peninsula,
with Roumania and Bessarabia, Bosnia
and Herzegovina, Cyprus and Crete and
all the Isles of the Archipelago, Egypt,
Tripoli, and, at least nominally, the better
part of what is now the French Colonial
Empire along the Southern Mediterranean
coast. In that Greater Turkey the Turks
were perhaps one sixth of the population.
Yet they not only conquered that colossal
area -- they kept it and ruled it through
centuries. Such an achievement could not
be performed by the bare strength of
sword. It implies also a great deal of
true and wise statesmanship. The old
Sultans were mighty warriors and clever
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? TURKISH MINORITY IN TURKEY
rulers -- clever, of course, in their own
way. But they had naturally to pay a
heavy price for the keeping of their Empire.
The small Turkish race was forced to
concentrate all its energies on two objects :
war and government. Peasantry as the
natural storehouse of vital forces of the
race, soldiers, and officialdom -- these three
elements form the whole structure of the
Turkish nation. The heavy burden of
defending and running the State's machine
made it impossible for them to develop
a commercial, industrial, or intellectual
middle class. This fact is at the bottom
of all the decisive events of Turkish history
past and present.
Of course the world knows other and
even modern instances of Empires where
the ruling nation is a minority. The best
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? TURKEY AND THE WAR
example is Austria (apart from Hungary).
Its German population is only 37 per
cent, of the whole, but this minority still
dominates the country. In spite of the
fact that paragraph 19 of the Austrian
Constitution establishes complete equality
of all the racial elements and all the lan-
guages, the German tongue is still de facto
the true " Staatssprache," and the Germans,
although they have no numerical majority
in Parliament, constitute the overwhelming
element in Government and bureaucracy.
It would be unjust to suppose that such
predominance is simply the result of abuse
of power. It is rather a natural conse-
quence of the real superiority of the
German factor in various provinces of
social life. The German culture as a whole
is of course stronger than that of the
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? TURKISH MINORITY IN TURKEY
Poles, Czechs or Ruthenes ; the level of
individual culture is also far higher with
the Germans than with any other element,
and we can say that the Austrian
intelligentsia is two-thirds German. The
material wealth is also accumulated, from
days immemorial, in German hands. The
industrial capital in Austria -- even if we
speak of Bohemian or Galician industries --
is almost exclusively German. So are the
great majority of industrial staffs. The
organized proletariat -- one of the main
factors of Austrian political life -- is also pre-
dominantly German. The same statement
must be repeated speaking of Austrian com-
merce, inner and international. Last but
not least -- the big landowners, the feudal
lords whose influence is felt in that country
not less than in Prussia, is thoroughly
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? TURKEY AND THE WAR
German, with the exception of Galicia and
a part of Bohemia. Thus the German
element prevails in the life and in the
politics of Austria owing not so much
to State's protection as to its own real
weight.
It will be useful to compare this state
of things with the position of the Turkish
element in Turkey. The comparison will
be highly instructive.
Take the cultural side. In Austria the
Germans are unquestionably the leading
factor in this respect. Their language is
understood in the whole Empire not be-
cause it is forced upon the people, but
because it is indispensable for both in-
tellectual and economic life. The Turks
can hardly boast any such natural privi-
lege. Of all the races in the Ottoman
no
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? TURKISH MINORITY IN TURKEY
Empire which possess any culture at all,
the Turks are the last and the weakest.
Their culture has no right even to be
mentioned in comparison with the bottom-
less riches of Hellenism.
The Arabs possess a great old civiliza-
tion, a mighty literature which constitutes
practically the only base of the scanty
intellectual wealth of the Turks. The
literary Turkish is so permeated with
Arabic words that, not only in books
dealing with learned matters, but even in
simple newspaper leaders nearly all the
nouns are generally Arabic.
The little Armenian nation invented its
curious alphabet in the end of the fourth
century of the Christian era. Its old litera-
ture is comparatively very rich ; its modern
literature, which includes also translations
in
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? TURKEY AND THE WAR
of almost everything that is valuable in
European knowledge and fiction, is in-
comparably above the Turkish standard.
It is an unforgettable merit of the two
Mehitarist monasteries, in Vienna and
Venice, that even in the worst times of
Armenia's last century they never inter-
rupted their patient work of compilers,
translators, and publishers. The Armenian
press is up to good Russian standards,
a praise that means a lot. Their theatre,
without being first-rate, still does exist,
while the Turkish stage is so far practically
a mere project.
Before the severation of Macedonia,
Turkey had numerous Bulgarian and Ser-
bian subjects, who again had no reason
to look upon the Turks as their superiors
or even their equals in matters of culture.
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? TURKISH MINORITY IN TURKEY
The Ottoman Jews, with the exception
of those in Palestine, have no national
culture in the modern sense, but they
are educated in French schools, read French
books and newspapers and would consider
" turquisation " as a sort of degradation.
The only peoples over whom the Turks
can really claim cultural superiority are
Albanians and Kurds.
The most unfortunate feature of this
humiliating position of a ruling race is
the fact that all the subject nations are
receiving a constant intellectual support
and impulse from abroad -- Greeks and
Slavs from their respective kingdoms,
Arabs from Egypt, Armenians from Rus-
sian Armenia, etc. The only race which
has no intellectual centres beyond the
frontier are the Turks. Quite opposite
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? TURKEY AND THE WAR
to this is the condition of the Austrian
Germans. They are only 10 million, but
their civilization is the product of 60
million Germans who live outside Austria --
while their main opponents, the Czechs,
have nobody to support them from abroad.
The consequence of all this is the insig-
nificant part the Turkish language plays
in the Turkish Empire. In the Arab
provinces it practically does not exist :
nobody knows it, nobody minds it. But
even in Constantinople it has hardly any
importance outside of the pure Turkish
quarter of the town. In commercial re-
lations French and Italian are predominant,
Greek very useful, Turkish hardly ever
heard. The non-Turkish educated class
very seldom knows enough Turkish to
read a book, and hardly ever enough
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? TURKISH MINORITY IN TURKEY
to write a decent letter.
"As a rule a
Christian in Stamboul knows Turkish only
if he is an Armenian or a lawyer/' said
an observer, and his word can be taken
roughly as the truth. The Armenian com-
munity on the Golden Horn had been
forced to learn Turkish by horrible per-
secution in Hamid's days ; of the other
races, not so cruelly tried, only those
rare individuals need to know Turkish
who come in constant immediate touch
with Turkish courts or governmental offices.
Otherwise there is no need of Turkish in
Turkey.
In the economic life the Turkish element
has no part or significance whatever. Of
course there are about 6 million Turkish
peasants ; and among the small shop-
keepers and lower artisans we find a good
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? TURKEY AND THE WAR
many Turks. But in the somewhat higher
grades of economic activity we find none.
In the sea-borne trade, which constitutes
in Turkey the main source of wealth and
social influence, no presence of Turkish
capital or mind can be traced. The capital
is mostly foreign, the personnel partly
foreign, partly Greek, Armenian, Jewish,
Syrian, or Arab ; and most frequently it is
recruited from that mixture of all Euro-
pean races which is called the Levantines.
A Turkish clerk is indeed a rarity. Also
in the few existing embryos of Ottoman
industry -- mines and tobacco -- the capital
is foreign, the staff entirely non-Turkish.
It is true that the big landowners in
Anatolia are mostly Turkish pashas and
beys, and so it was in Macedonia. But
those " feudal lords " cannot be compared
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? TURKISH MINORITY IN TURKEY
with their prototypes in Austria. The
mighty landlords of old Europe are tied
by innumerable bonds to their hereditary
estates, to their peasants, to the population
of the neighbouring towns and suburbs.
From grandfather to grandson they were
looked upon as patrons, protectors, or
tyrants of their shires ; they lived in their
castles, they were loved or feared, they
left indelible traces on every page of local
history. Tradition and social intercourse,
not the bare fact of ownership, give them
that tremendous specific weight which
makes the political strength of the feudal
class -- in our instance of the feudal class
in Austria. The Turkish landlord has, as
a rule, nothing to do with his estate. The
" djiftlik " is mostly allot ed to the meri-
torious official or general as a reward or a
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? TURKEY AND THE WAR
favour ; the owner never saw it, is not
likely ever to see it, will certainly not
pitch his tent amid its primitive wilderness.
The estate is administered, or to be more
exact, is bled, by a manager, and so even
the hatred of the villagers is limited to
the servant without reaching the master.
To be sure, there are exceptions, but this
is the general type of big landownership
in Turkey. It is a source of revenue, not
of influence. It is almost as impersonal
as an investment in foreign shares. *
* " When speaking of the Turks of the higher class,
it is well to remember that there are no wealthy men
in the European sense among them. Nor is there
any class of nobles. There are no great families
proud of their descent, and possessing historic estates.
. . . In Turkey there are no ' country houses,' no
Moslems or even Christians who display wealth in
the villages. " -- (Sir Edwin Pears, " Turkey and its
People," 1911. )
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? VIII-ILLUSIONS AND DISAPPOINTMENTS
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? VIII
Illusions and Disappointments
These are the conditions with which one
has to reckon if one wants to realize how
hard a task it is to keep the Turkish rule
in Turkey. A small minority in num-
bers, they have not even the comfort of
being, as our often-mentioned Germans
in Austria, a relative majority : whilst,
against 10,000,000 Germans, there are only
6,435,000 Czechs, 5,000,000 Poles, etc. , in
the Ottoman Empire the Arabs outnumber
the Turks. The Turkish culture is one
of the poorest in Turkey, their language
is one of the least considered ; their part
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? TURKEY AND THE WAR
in the higher levels of economic life is little
short of nothing. Peasants, soldiers and
officials, they rule the country only as
long as they are able to keep the sword
and the seal in their hands. Their author-
ity is not supported by any fact of the
life outside the barrack and the office ;
it is built upon itself alone and can only
last as long as every seat representing
any infinitesimal fraction of power is kept
by a Turk.
The conclusion is clear. Turkish rule
in Turkey can be assured only by autoc-
racy, and rather a mediaeval autocracy.
When we say mediaeval our intention is
to point to the well-known fact that ab-
solutism in the middle ages meant practi-
cally much more individual freedom than
for instance " V absolutisme eclair e " of
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? ILLUSIONS AND DISAPPOINTMENTS
the eighteenth century. The latter en-
deavoured to interfere with every detail
of private or municipal life. The former
cared for recruits, taxes, obedience -- and
nothing else. Such was the system of
the Old Turkish Sultans, taken as a whole
and apart from exceptions. The Old Turk-
ish imperial formula was : " sovereignty,
power, politics are our exclusive business ;
the inner affairs of the non-Turkish com-
munities are their own exclusive business. "
So the Old Turk kept every thread of
political power jealously in Turkish hands.
But he despised and avoided, as a rule,
every meddling with the communal, ecclesi-
astical, or scholastic affairs of his Christian
and Jewish subjects. They enjoyed a kind
of communal autonomy which ought to be
studied even for purposes of modern legis-
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? TURKEY AND THE WAR
lation. Every non-Mahommedan nation-
ality throughout the Empire was considered
as a legally constituted and organized
" millet " (Turkish for "nation"). There
was the " millet-i-rum," including all the
Greeks of the Ottoman Empire, " millet-
i-bulgar " for the Bulgarian schismatics,
" millet-i-ermeni " for the Armenians,
11 millet-i-moussevie " for the Jews. Every
millet was ruled by a representative body,
called " Medjliss," i. e. , Parliament, or Diet,
and a spiritual Chief, Patriarch or Exarque,
or Chief Rabbi. The ecclesiastical titles
must not mislead us : the functions of
these dignitaries were far from being purely
ecclesiastical. The Chief was the acknow-
ledged legal representative of his millet
before the Sublime Porte in all political
matters. On the other side he was the
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? ILLUSIONS AND DISAPPOINTMENTS
constitutional leader of his " nation. " The
organization of the little " parliaments "
was sometimes very interesting. The most
complete of all those miniature constitu-
tions was the so-called " Sahmanadrutiun "
-- the Statute of the Armenian community,
passed law in 1862. It included elaborate
provisions for the election of members of
the medjliss. The latter was divided into
two boards^ -- one for purely ecclesiastical
affairs, one for the secular matters of the
community. These secular matters em-
braced a very wide province of civil life :
education, hospitals, charity, marriages,
divorces, questions of heritage, dowries,
etc. , transfer of real property from one
member of the community to another.
Such wide inner autonomy was especially
valuable in matters of education. The
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? TURKEY AND THE WAR
f
schools, elementary or higher, belonging
to the different communities, were free
from any interference of the Government :
they chose by themselves their language,
programme, school books, and teachers.
In numerous schools, where even foreign
languages were taught, the teaching of
Turkish was completely neglected. The
Old Turk did not care a snap for it.
" Speak what you like and learn what
you prefer, only do not interfere with my
State's power," was the basic principle of
his political wisdom.
Then the Young Turks came, and " ils
ont change tout cela. " On the one side
they introduced a constitution which ad-
mitted non-Turks to the control of State's
affairs. On the other side they showed
an unquestionably keen intention to inter-
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? ILLUSIONS AND DISAPPOINTMENTS
fere with the inner affairs of the up-to-then
autonomous communities. Their formula
was : " We meddle in your business and
you meddle in ours. " It was quite the
opposite of the old system -- the old system
which kept the Ottoman Empire through
centuries, because it left to the subject
races an illusion of freedom in the things
that were most sacred to them. The new
system frightened and exasperated them
by its menace to get under the thumb
of the State the last remnants of their
national life ; it made of them even
more implacable foes of the Ottoman
idea than before. At the same time it
handed to them a big share of the State's
power !
A Parliament is supposed to reflect the
co-relation of the social forces existing in
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? TURKEY AND THE WAR
the country. Those social forces are con-
stituted not only of numbers of men
belonging to the different groups of popu-
lation. Their respective wealth, culture,
the part they play in the vital branches
of the country's activity -- all these count
not less than bare numbers. Votes are
not simply counted -- they are weighed
says a modern political proverb. Here in
Turkey everything was against the Turks
-- numbers, culture, economic role. How-
ever, they managed to secure something
like a Turkish majority at the first elections
owing to the unpreparedness and disunion
of the Christian races, the disorganization
of Arabs and Albanians. But it soon
became clear that at the following elec-
tions the numerical and economic pre-
dominance of the non-Turkish elements
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? ILLUSIONS AND DISAPPOINTMENTS
would inevitably find its expression in the
structure of the Parliament.
In the beginning of the constitutional
era the Young Turks overlooked this per-
spective. They were yet under the spell
of the illusion which we have just described
-- the illusion of the coming " ottomaniza-
tion " of the non-Turkish races. At that
moment they were, or sincerely believed
that they were, utterly and thoroughly
democratic. We remember the outburst
of their indignation when, in 1909, Damad
Ferid, one of the Senators, proposed to
strengthen the constitutional powers of
the Crown. His argument was that, owing
to the overwhelming predominance of non-
Turks, the only asset which was and would
remain Turkish for ever was the Osman
dynasty : therefore, the State's power
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