No More Learning

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? TURKEY AND THE WAR
war proves unable to solve such questions
as Alsace-Lorraine, the Trentino, or Poland,
that will not imply that the concerned
nations renounce their respective claims.
Neither France nor Alsace will ever recon-
cile themselves with the brutal fact of
1871 ; never will Italy forget the terre
irredente ; the Polish nation will strive
and struggle against her three rulers, just
as the other nationalities of Russia and
Austria-Hungary will never bow to their
yoke. But the nature of all these as-
pirations does not necessarily imply a
European war as the only, or even the
main way of realization. Other ways are
open -- internal developments of the back-
ward countries, international bargains and
compensations in the case of eventual
oversea acquisitions, and in general that
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? THE ALLEGED AIMS OF THE WAR
vague but still undeniable thing which
we call progress. It may assume forms
of revolution or evolution ; in either case
it is a slow process, certainly much slower
than a decision enforced by war. But we
can be assured that everybody in the
civilized countries of Europe will prefer
the slow way to a repetition of the uni-
versal horror that is passing before our
eyes. Now that the world is at war, the
Allies must undoubtedly do their utmost
to achieve a fair settlement of the men-
tioned ethnical and territorial problems ;
but a failure in this regard, sad though it
would be, is not likely to set the world
at war again.
(c) Militarism
What is meant by " destruction of
Prussian militarism " ? Mr. Asquith, the
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? TURKEY AND THE WAR
responsible author of the phrase, gave an
explanation of it some time ago that
seemed to restrict its meaning very closely.
He said : "As a result of the war we
intend to establish the principle that inter-
national problems must be handled by
free negotiations on equal terms ^between
free peoples, and that this settlement shall
no longer be hampered and swayed by
the overmastering dictation of a Govern-
ment controlled by a military caste. That
is what I mean by the destruction of the
military domination of Prussia. "
Put this way the crushing of Prussian
militarism is an obvious necessity. It can-
not even be said to be one of the distinct
aims of the war -- it is simply an essential
and inherent element of victory. The vic-
tory of the Allies, whatever be the peace
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? THE ALLEGED AIMS OF THE WAR
terms after the struggle is won, will nat-
urally imply the liquidation of the German
dream of an " overmastering dictation/'
Perhaps it can be said that the buzzing
of this dream has been already stopped
even in the most sanguine German heads.
It is already killed, the victory of the Allies
will bury it for ever.
But this sensible and obviously fair
scheme has nothing to do with the des-
truction of militarism. Militarism is a
system applied nowadays in the major-
ity of civilized countries : it consists in
employing a big part of the State's
resources, directly or indirectly, for arma-
ments. It is a very wicked system ; it
obstructs the development of education
and social reforms ; it poisons the soul
of the civilized peoples ; the removal of
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? TURKEY AND THE WAR
it would be a blessing for the world. But
it is clear that it cannot be removed in
Prussia without being removed at the
same time and in the same measure in
all the other countries. It is again the
old question of limitation of armaments --
a question of ideals, while we must not
forget that in this war we are dealing
with realities.
It is a favourite formula with many of
us to say that militarism by itself is a
mutual provocation to war, that the weight
of military expenditures in the different
countries compels them, as it were, to
make good their sacrifices by utilizing the
formidable weapons which they have ac-
cumulated. It may be true. But there
are truths which, like medals, have their
reverse. The facts of the last thirty-five
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? THE ALLEGED AIMS OF THE WAR
years of world's history hardly suggest that
militarism means frequency of wars between
militaristic countries. It cannot be denied
that the last decades which witnessed an
unparalleled flourishing of militarism, have
been just those in which conflagrations
between Great Powers have occurred much
more seldom than before. The only real
exception was the Russo-Japanese war.
The Spanish-American war was a conflict
between two nations to which the reproach
of militarism can hardly be applied. The
same must be said of the Anglo-Boer war :
as a land-power England has never been
accused of " militarism " even in paci-
fist pamphlets. The Italian Tripoli cam-
paign was rather a military expedition
than a war : it is enough to recall that
the Italian casualties in the conquest of
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? TURKEY AND THE WAR
Tripoli amounted to a few thousands.
The Chino-Japanese war belonged to the
same category, and also the European
expedition against the Boxers. In the
Graeco-Turkish war, and in the two recent
Balkan wars, however cruel the latter
may have been, none of the leading
militaristic Powers were engaged. The
leading militaristic Powers managed to
avoid the danger for a longer period than
would have been possible in the middle of
the nineteenth century, when armaments
were cheap and childish in comparison
with ours of to-day. The long European
peace may have been a chance ; but it
may have been also, and perhaps with
more probability, a consequence of the
formidable development of armaments.
Knowing what it costs in money and
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? THE ALLEGED AIMS OF THE WAR
guessing what it might cost in human
lives, the Great Powers felt naturally afraid
of taking irreparable steps. Buckle proved
that the invention of gunpowder, instead
of increasing the frequency of wars, dimin-
ished it in a very considerable proportion.
The cheaper the easier -- it is a rule for
wars as for goods. All this will certainly
not prevent us from hating militarism ;
but on the other hand there is no direct
proof that the present war is simply or
mainly " a result of excessive armaments/ '
Militarism is responsible for the cruel
character of the tragedy, but the causes
of the tragedy are to be found in the
presence of conflicting interests, not of
modern weapons. The liquidation of
militarism, in Prussia and everywhere, is
a thing fair, holy and necessary, but it
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? TURKEY AND THE WAR
is not one of the natural, objective, im-
manent aims of the Great War.
This particular question of armaments
as cause of wars includes one especially
crucial point : the Anglo-German naval
competition. This was perhaps one of
the chief causes of England's entry into
the war, but certainly not of the war
itself. Speaking as we are of its aims
we could dismiss this point even with-
out consideration. No responsible man in
England has ever formulated any intention
of including in the peace terms a clause
preventing Germany from further increase
of her navy. Of course there was, and
there is still, a hope that engagements
on the sea will result in a de facto reduc-
tion of the strength of the German fleet.
But from this hope to the view that a
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? THE ALLEGED AIMS OF THE WAR
Power of seventy million inhabitants can
be " forbidden " ship-building is a long
way, and so far w T e have no proof that
anybody here intends to press this special
point at the peace negotiations. So we
have the right to leave this question out.
Still let us remember that it presents the
same pros and cons of the greater con-
troversy of armaments. Naval militarism
is, after all, a sub-division of general
militarism. The one can no more than
the other be made directly responsible
for conflicts between State and State.
Here again we have only a weapon which
serves warlike purposes but does not create
them. Two strong naval Powers can live
in peace side by side indefinitely just as
two strong military Powers, unless con-
tending interests force them to draw the
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? TURKEY AND THE WAR
swords -- or to weigh the anchors. Of
course an international agreement for
mutual limitation of naval armaments
would be a very useful reform just as
in the case of land armaments. But it
would be risky to think that the time
has already come for such an arrangement
on land or sea. It is not likely that
peoples, all conscious of the mighty re-
sources within their grasp, would willingly
renounce using them. It is the same
psychological impossibility that we should
meet if we advised a healthy youth to
abstain from sport under the pretext that
he may become too strong and thus dan-
gerous to his neighbours. We do not
think that the innate human tendency to
develop one's full strength is likely yet
to be bound. It is much easier to deal
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? THE ALLEGED AIMS OF THIS WAR
with the contending interests : they are
the causes of wars, and they do admit
practical settlements which are within the
boundaries of real life, not within those
of Utopia.
*** *
Thus it is to the contending interests
that we have to return in our search for
the root of the present evil. Of those,
we have already seen that none either
of the western or the northern ethnical
problems, was ripe enough or bad enough
to provoke the European war ; and, in
consequence, none of them is likely to
provoke a new conflagration even if this
one leaves their settlement to future times.
So we are forced to turn our minds and
eyes, once and for always, to the Near
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? TURKEY AND THE WAR
East. A closer examination will show us
that the manifold contending interests
knotted here could not have been untied
in any other way but by war ; and that,
in consequence, should the present war
leave them tangled as before, they would
inevitably lead to another.
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? -ASIATIC TURKEY
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? Ill
Asiatic Turkey
Everybody, of course, remembers that
the European war originated from events
in the Near East : the crime of Serajevo,
the Austrian ultimatum to Serbia, Russia's
desire to defend her natural ally in the
Balkans. And yet it seems sometimes as
though we have forgotten it. Since August,
1914, other developments filled the fore-
ground ; and even the Gallipoli campaign
did not restore the Near East to its due
place in the public's attention. It almost
looks as if the circumstances which preceded
the Russian mobilization had only been
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? TURKEY AND THE WAR
futile accidents, mere pretexts used and
then deservedly dismissed. It is time to
remind ourselves that it was not so. We
say remind, because surely it is only a
question of temporary distraction, not of
ignorance.
Whoever has any notion of
politics knows that the death of the Arch-
duke Franz Ferdinand was a consequence
of the old Austro-Serbian tension, that
the Austro-Serbian tension was a result
of a phenomenon called " Drang nach
Osten," and that the Drang nach Osten
is the greatest driving force in the Balkans.
This point need not be explained -- simply
recalled.
What has to be explained is the geo-
graphical meaning of the term Near East.
The Near East which has magnetized the
lusts of nations for ages and still magnetizes
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? ASIATIC TURKEY
them now, is not Serbia, not Albania, not
Macedonia -- it is Asia Minor. Our imme-
diate attention for the last years has been
too much absorbed by the little, though
bloody, struggles of little Balkan peoples,
and we forgot that the real problem of
the Near East is a problem of Western
Asia, not of the Balkans. The Balkans
may constitute the final aims of Greece,
Bulgaria or Serbia ; for the Great Powers,
whose relations determine the destinies
of the world, the Balkans are nothing
more than an antechamber leading some-
where else. Put in plain words the Near
East question is the question of the parti-
tion of what remains of Turkey.
" Drang nach Osten " is a term generally
applied to both Austria and Germany.
Let us begin with Austria. Is her " Drang "
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? TURKEY AND THE WAR
circumscribed to the Balkans, do her
dreams end at Salonika ? What is Salon-
ika by itself ? A little provincial town
of 150,000 inhabitants with an annual
harbour trade of some ? 2,500,000 in im-
ports and some ? 1,200,000 in exports. *
It cannot justify the historical policy of
a Great Power, unless we admit that the
Great Power saw and sees in the possession
of the small town only a starting-point
for a further push. f Look at the Austrian
* Cf. Trieste with ? 47,750,000 imports, ? 42,300,000
exports ; Smyrna with ? 3,725,000 imports, ? 5,722,000
exports.
f " Salonik ist eine Zukunftshoffnung. Dereinst,
wenn Vorderasien der Kultur erschlossen, wenn die
Eisenbahn Mesopotamien durchziehen und der Per-
sische Meerbusen durch einen Schienenstrang mit
Smyrna verkniipft sein wird, dann wird Mazedonien
als Durchzugsgebiet fur den grossen Ueberlands-
verkehr zwischen Mitteleuropa und Vorderasien wohl
zu neuer Blute emporsteigen, und Salonik zu grosser
Bedeutung gelangen. " -- (Leopold Freiherr von Chlum-
ecky, " Oesterreich-Ungarn und Italien," 1907, p. 233. )
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? ASIATIC TURKEY
exports : they prove that the focus of
Austrian interests, even commercial, is
in Asia Minor and Syria, not in the Bal-
kans. Look at the admirable organization
of the Austrian Consular Service in Western
Asia, at the elaborate system of education
which prepares officials for this service ;
look at the programmes of the commercial
academies in Vienna and Budapest which
include much more Arabic and Turkish
than Serbian or modern Greek, and care
much more for the geography of Anatolia
and Mesopotamia than for that of Albania
or Thrace. These facts speak with a clear
tongue. No matter whether we can or
whether we cannot find in books, articles
or speeches of Austria's leading men direct
hints pointing to ambitions which go be-
yond Salonika. Even for ambitions point-
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? TURKEY AND THE WAR
ing to Salonika such literary evidence is
not abundant. Acts are more eloquent
than words or absence of words. Even
admitting for a moment that Austria would
politically stop at Salonika we see the
prospect unchanged. From this harbour
Austria would overflow Western Asia's
ports with her own and German products
and thus cut a thoroughfare for both her-
self and Germany. Austrian and German
policy in the Orient has always been con-
sidered as one and the same thing, Austria
playing the part of propeller on tracts
which were beyond Germany's immediate
reach. Be it for herself or for her ally,
Austria coveted the borderless spaces and
the bottomless resources of Asiatic Turkey,
not the strip of second-rate land leading
to a third-rate coast town on the iEgean.
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? ASIATIC TURKEY
The case of Germany is even clearer.
Here there is no lack of plain words either.
Beginning with Moltke and up to Professor
Hasse, the Pan-Germanists have always
pointed to Syria, Palestine, Anatolia, Ar-
menia, even Mesopotamia as to future
German dominions. * In the well-known
series of Pan-Germanist pamphlets pub-
lished by Lehmann in Munich under the
general heading " Kampf urns Deutsch-
tum," a special issue written by a good
specialist has been dedicated to these
ambitions. It dwelt especially upon the
* Cf. The excellent book of Mr. P. Evans Lewin,
" The German Road to the East," 1916. -- Mr. Barker
in the Nineteenth Century, June, 1916, produces the
* following list of authors who at different times advo-
cated the idea of " Deutsch Kleinasien " : Wilhelm
Roscher, Friedrich List, Paul de Lagarde, Lassalle,
Rodbertus, Karl Rittel, Moltke, Ernst Hasse, Dehn,
Rohrbach, Sprenger, Sachau, von der Golz, Kaerger,
Nauman, Schlagintweit. . . .
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? TURKEY AND THE WAR
value of the German colonies in Palestine
and Anatolia as forerunners of the coming
German rule. Another pamphlet of the
same series wore the suggestive title :
" Germany's claim on the Turkish heri-
tage " (" Deutschlands Anspruch an das
Tiirkische Erbe "). * To these full-mouthed
* Other suggestive titles : Amicus Patriae, . . " Ar-
menien und Kreta -- eine Lebensfrage fur Deutsch-
land," 1896 ; Dr. Karl Kaerger, " Kleinasien, ein
deutsches Kolonisationsfeld," 1892. We read in
this pamphlet : " Nicht Hunderte und Thausende,
nein, Millionen von Kolonisten konnen hier eine
zweite Heimath finden " -- and, in order to get
Turkey's permission for such a flood, the author
suggests that Germany should, in recompense, guar-
antee Turkey's integrity " gegeniiber fremden
Angriffen. " -- A. Sprenger, " Babylonien, das reichste
Land in der Vorzeit und das lohnendste Kolonisations-
feld fur die Gegenwart," 1886. M. A. Cheradame
quotes from this book the following lines which we
give in his translation : " De toutes les terres du
globe il n'y en a pas invitant davantage a la colonisa-
tion que la Syrie ou l'Assyrie. . . . Si l'Allemagne
ne manque pas l'occasion . . . elle aura dans le
partage du monde acquis la meilleure part. " The
same French writer quotes from the famous review
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? ASIATIC TURKEY
manifestations we can add the Kaiser's
journey to Palestine in 1898. Before the
war we used to treat as nothing such
pamphlets and visits. Now we have seen
that what pamphlets said and visits fore-
shadowed Governments really meant and
were preparing for. Some people tried
even to deny the political intention under-
lying the colossal project of the Bagdad
railway : recent events, we hope, have
told them the truth. Germany was per-
haps not exactly aiming at the partition
of Turkey, because she would prefer to
swallow Turkey as a whole.
Alldeatsche Blaetter, number for 8th December, 1895 :
" L'interet allemand demand que la Turquie d'Asie,
au moins, soit placee sous la protection allemande.
Le plus avantageux serait pour nous 1' acquisition
en propre de la Mesopotamie et Syrie et Fobtention
du protectorat de l'Asie Mineure habitee par les
Turcs. " -- (A. Cheradame, " Le chemin de fer de
Bagdad et les puissances," pp. 5 and 7. )
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? TURKEY AND THE WAR
The French claim on Syria, the British
on Mesopotamia, the Russian on the Straits
and Armenia, the Italian on Adalia, Greece's
pretence upon Smyrna, and some other simi-
lar demands will be partially dealt with in
the last part of this book. Here it is enough
to mention them. They give us, in con-
junction with what we have said of Austria
and Germany, a whole net of political wills
and tendencies converging to the same
end : destruction of Turkey.
It is mere commonplace to say : Austria
sent the ultimatum to Serbia because she
wanted to get nearer to Salonika. But
if we look deeper we at once disclose what
this commonplace means. Austria sent
the ultimatum to Serbia because she wanted
to get nearer to the Turkish heritage in
Asia Minor. The real cause of the Austro-
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? ASIATIC TURKEY
Serbian conflict was the problem of further
partition of the Ottoman Empire.
It is mere commonplace to say : Russia
wanted to shield Serbia because the little
Slav kingdom was her main fortress in
the Balkans. If we look deeper we see
at once why Russia wants fortresses in
the Near East. She wants them because
of her need to push towards the warm
seas, through the Straits or through the
mountain chains of Armenia. The real
cause of the Russo-Austrian conflict was
the problem of further partition of the
Ottoman Empire.
It is mere commonplace to say : Ger-
many wanted to shield Austria because
Austria was her only reliable ally. Were
it only for this reason, then it would have
been much easier for Germany to advise
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? TURKEY AND THE WAR
Austria to settle the Serbian conflict in
some peaceable way. Germany chose the
other more dangerous course, because she
wanted Austria to conquer the little Slav
kingdom. Why ? The answer is given
in the now fashionable battlecry : Berlin
to Bagdad. The real cause of the Russo-
German conflict was the problem of the
future domination of Asia Minor.
Now it would be, of course, an exaggera-
tion to say that France and England have
also been involved in the war because
of their respective " claims upon the
Turkish heritage/' The immediate con-
siderations which forced France to abide
with her ally and Great Britain to join
them were surely of quite another nature.
But this fact does not affect the truth
upon which we insist. When once the
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? ASIATIC TURKEY
whirlpool sets in movement, it is natural
that boats passing within the circle of its
force should be caught into the maelstrom.
What matters is to discover the thing which
started the vortex. Just in the same
way, had the initial conflict arisen because
of Alsace, Russia would probably have
been driven into the war, though she has
nothing to do with this particular question.
But Alsace did not and could not generate
the initial conflict. It was born in the
Near East by the peculiar problem of the
Near East, and this fact is the essential
feature of the whole situation.
That is not all. The problem of the
" Turkish heritage " is one which can be
settled only by war. Alsace-Lorraine con-
stitutes only one thirty-sixth of the Ger-
man territory, the Italian Irredenta is
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? TURKEY AND THE WAR
not more than one-sixteenth of the Haps-
burg Monarchy. Their separation from
their present owners would not mean
destruction of the Central Empires.