Part 23

It first stated that whatever Power accepts the mandate must have under its control the whole of Anatolia, Constantinople, and Turkey-in-Europe, and have complete control over the foreign relations and the revenue of the Ottoman Empire.

Before coming to the reasons that tend in favour of the acceptance of the mandate by the United States, General Harboor made an appeal to the humanitarian feelings of the Americans and urged that it was their interest to ensure the peace of the world. Then he declared their acceptance would answer the wishes of the Near East, whose preference undeniably was for America, or, should the United States refuse, for Great Britain. He added that each Great Power, in case it could not obtain a mandate, would want it to be given to America.

The report valued the expenditure entailed by acceptance of the mandate at 275 million dollars far the first year, and $756,140,000 for the first five years. After some time, the profits made by the mandatory Power would balance the expenses, and Americans might find there a profitable investment. But the Board of Administration of the Ottoman Debt should be dissolved and all the commercial treaties concluded by Turkey should be cancelled. The Turkish Imperial Debt should be unified and a sinking fund provided. The economic conditions granted to the mandatory Power should be liable to revision and might be cancelled.

Further, it was observed that if America refused the mandate the international rivalries which had had full scope under Turkish dominion would assert themselves again.

The reasons given by the American Commission against acceptance of the mandate were that the United States had serious domestic problems to deal with, and such an intervention in the affairs of the Old World would weaken the standpoint they had taken on the Monroe doctrine. The report also pointed out that the United States were in no way responsible for the awkward situation in the East, and they could not undertake engagements for the future—for the new Congress could not be bound by the policy pursued by the present one. The report also remarked that Great Britain and Russia and the other Great Powers too had taken very little interest in those countries, though England had enough experience and resources to control them. Finally, the report emphasised this point—that the United States had still more imperious obligations towards nearer foreign countries, and still more urgent questions to settle. Besides, an army of 100,000 to 200,000 men would be needed to maintain order in Armenia. Lastly, a considerable outlay of money would be necessary, and the receipts would be at first very small.

On the other hand, the British League of Nations Union asked the English Government to give instructions to its representatives to support the motion of the Supreme Council according to which the protection of the independent Armenian State should be entrusted to the League of Nations.

According to the terms of the Treaty of Peace with Turkey, President Wilson had been asked to act as an arbiter to lay down the Armenian frontiers on the side of the provinces of Van, Bitlis, Erzerum, and Trebizond.

Under these circumstances the complete solution of the Armenian problem was postponed indefinitely, and it is difficult to foresee how the problem will ever be solved.

2. THE PAN-TURANIAN AND PAN-ARABIAN MOVEMENTS.

The attempts at Russification made immediately after the 1877 war by means of the scholastic method of Elminski resulted in the first manifestations of the Pan-Turanian movement. They arose, not in Russia, but in Russian Tatary. The Tatars of the huge territories of Central Asia, by reason of their annexation to the Russian Empire and the indirect contact with the West that it entailed, and also owing to their reaction against the West, awoke to a consciousness of their individuality and strength.

A series of ethnographic studies which were begun at that time by M. de Ujfalvi upon the Hungarians—all the peoples speaking a Finno-Ugrian idiom descending from the same stock as those who speak the Turkish, Mongol, and Manchu languages—and were continued by scholars of various nationalities, gave the Pan-Turanian doctrine a scientific basis; the principles of this doctrine were laid down by H. Vambéry,[40] and it was summed up by Léon Cahun in his _Introduction a l’histoire de l’Asie_.[41] This Turco-Tartar movement expanded, and its most authoritative leaders were Youssouf Ahtchoura Oglou; Ahmed Agayeff, who was arrested at the beginning of the armistice by the English as a Unionist and sent to Malta; and later Zia Geuk Alp, a Turkish poet and publicist, the author of _Kizil-Elma_ (The Red Apple), who turned the Union and Progress Committee towards the Pan-Turanian movement though he had many opponents on that committee, and who was arrested too and sent to Malta.

Islam for thirteen centuries, by creating a religious solidarity between peoples of alien races, had brought about a kind of religious nationality under its hegemony. But the ambitious scheme of Pan-Islamism was jeopardised in modern times by new influences and widely different political aspirations. It was hoped for some time that by grouping the national elements of Turkey and pursuing a conciliatory policy it would be possible to give a sound basis to that religious nationality. But that nationality soon proved unable to curb the separatist aspirations of the various peoples subjected to the Turkish yoke, and then, again, it wounded the pride of some Turkish elements by compelling them to obey the commandments of Islam, to which all the Turanian populations had not fully adhered. The Pan-Islamic movement later on grew more and more nationalist in character, and assumed a Pan-Turkish tendency, though it remained Pan-Turanian—that is to say, it still included the populations speaking the Turkish, Mongol, and Manchu languages.

Without in any way giving up the Pan-Islamic idea, Turkish Nationalism could not but support the Pan-Turanian movement, which it hoped would add the 18 million Turks living in the former Russian Empire, Persia, and Afghanistan, to the 8 million Turks of the territories of the Ottoman Empire.

Owing to its origin and the character it has assumed, together with the geographical situation and importance of the populations concerned, this movement appears as a powerful obstacle to the policy which England seems intent upon pursuing, and to which she seeks to bring over Italy and France. It also exemplifies the latent antagonism which had ever existed between the Arabian world and the Turkish world, and which, under the pressure of events, soon asserted itself.

Indeed, the mutual relations of the Arabs and the Turks had been slowly but deeply modified in the course of centuries.

After the great Islamic movement started by Mohammed in the seventh century, the Arabs who had hitherto been mostly confined within the boundaries of the Arabian peninsula spread to the west over the whole of Northern Africa as far as Spain, and to the east over Mesopotamia and a part of Persia. In the twelfth century Arabian culture reached its climax, for the Arabian Caliphs of Baghdad ruled over huge territories. At that time Arabic translations revealed to Europe the works of Aristotle and of the Chaldean astronomers, and the Arabs, through Spain, had an important influence on the first period of modern civilisation.

In 1453, when the Turks, who had extended their dominion over all the shores of the Mediterranean, settled at Constantinople, which became the capital of the Islamic Empire, the influence of Arabia decreased; yet the Arabs still enjoyed in various parts political independence and a kind of religious predominance.

For instance, the Arabs settled in the north of Western Africa, after losing Spain, became quite independent, and formed the Empire of Morocco, which was not under the suzerainty of Constantinople.

The Arabian tribes and Berber communities of Algeria and Tunis, which had more or less remained under the suzerainty of the Sultan, were no longer amenable to him after the French conquest. The Pasha of Egypt, by setting up as an independent Sovereign, and founding the hereditary dynasty of the Khedives, deprived the Ottoman dominion of Egypt, where the Arabs were not very numerous, but had played an important part in the development of Islam. The Italian conquest took away from Turkey the last province she still owned in Africa. Finally, when the late war broke out, England deposed the Khedive Abbas Hilmi, who was travelling in Europe and refused to go back to Egypt. She proclaimed her protectorate over the Nile valley, and, breaking off the religious bond that linked Egypt with the Ottoman Empire, she made Sultan of Egypt, independent of the Sultan of Constantinople, Hussein Kamel, uncle of the deposed Khedive, who made his entry into Cairo on December 20, 1914.

The Turks, however, kept possession of the Holy Places, Mecca and Medina, which they garrisoned and governed. This sovereignty was consolidated by the railway of the pilgrimage. The investiture of the Sherif of Mecca was still vested in them, and they chose the member of his family who was to succeed him, and who was detained as a hostage at Constantinople. But after the failure of the expedition against the Suez Canal during the late war, and at the instigation of England, the Sherif, as we shall see, proclaimed himself independent, and assumed the title of Melek, or King of Arabia.

On the other hand, the province of the Yemen, lying farther south of the Hejaz, has always refused to acknowledge the authority of Constantinople, and is practically independent. Lastly, at the southern end of the Arabian peninsula, the English have held possession of Aden since 1839, and have extended their authority, since the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, over all the Hadramaut. All the sheiks of this part of Arabia along the southern coast, over whom the authority of Turkey was but remotely exercised and was practically non-existent, naturally accepted the protectorate of England without any difficulty, in return for the commercial facilities she brought them and the allowances she granted them, and in 1873 Turkey formally recognised the English possession of this coast.

On the eastern coast of the Arabian peninsula the territory of the Sultan of Oman, or Maskat, lying along the Persian Gulf, has been since the beginning of the nineteenth century under the authority of the Viceroy of India. This authority extends nowadays over all the territories lying between Aden and Mesopotamia, which are in consequence entirely under English sway.

Moreover, the English have proclaimed their protectorate over the Sheik of Koweit.

Koweit had been occupied by the British Navy after the Kaiser’s visit to Tangier, and thus Germany had been deprived of an outlet for her railway line from Anatolia to Baghdad. The Rev. S. M. Zwemer, in a book written some time ago, _Arabia, the Birthplace of Islam_, after showing the exceptional situation occupied by England in these regions, owned that British policy had ambitious designs on the Arabian peninsula and the lands round the Persian Gulf.

Since the outbreak of the war, Ottoman sovereignty has also lost the small Turkish province of Hasa, between Koweit and Maskat, inhabited entirely by Arabian tribes.

The rebellion of the Sherif of Mecca against the temporal power of the Sultans of Mecca shows how important was the change that had taken place within the Arabian world, but also intimates that the repercussions of the war, after accelerating the changes that were already taking place in the relations between the Arabs and the Turks, must needs later on bring about an understanding or alliance between these two elements against any foreign dominion. In the same way, the encroachments of England upon Arabian territories have brought about a change in the relations between the Arabs and the English; in days of yore the Arabs, through ignorance or because they were paid to do so, more than once used English rifles against the Turks; but the recent Arabian risings against the British in Mesopotamia seem to prove that the Arabs have now seen their mistake, and have concluded that the English were deceiving them when they said the Caliphate was in danger.

Finally, in order to pave the way to a British advance from Mesopotamia to the Black Sea, England for a moment contemplated the formation of a Kurdistan, though a long existence in common and the identity of feelings and creed have brought about a deep union between the Kurds and the Turks, and a separation is contrary to the express wishes of both peoples.

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It is a well-known fact that the descendants of Ali, the Prophet’s cousin, who founded the dynasty of the Sherifs, or Nobles, took the title of Emirs—_i.e._, Princes—of Mecca, and that the Emir of the Holy Places of Arabia had always to be recognised by the Sherif to have a right to bear the title of Caliph. This recognition of the Caliphs by the Sherifs was made public by the mention of the name of the Caliph in the Khoutba, or Friday prayer.

In consequence of political vicissitudes, the Emirs of Mecca successively recognised the Caliphs of Baghdad, the Sultans of Egypt until the conquest of Egypt by Selim I in 1517, and the Sultans of Turkey, whose sovereignty over the Holy Places has always been more or less nominal, and has hardly ever been effective over the Hejaz.

When the Wahhabi schism took place, the Wahhabis, who aimed at restoring the purer doctrines of primitive Islam, and condemned the worship of the holy relics and the Prophet’s tomb, captured Mecca and Medina.

Mehmet Ali, Pasha of Egypt, was deputed by the Porte to reconquer the Holy Places, which he governed from 1813 to 1840. Since that time the Ottoman Government has always appointed a Governor of the Hejaz and maintained a garrison there, and the Porte took care a member of the Sherif’s family should reside in Constantinople in order to be able to replace the one who bore the title of Sherif, should the latter ever refuse to recognise the Caliph.

Long negotiations were carried on during the war between the British Government and Hussein, Sherif of Mecca, the Emir Feisal’s father, concerning the territorial conditions on which peace might be restored in the East. These views were set forth in eight letters exchanged between July, 1915, and January, 1916.

In July, 1915, the Sherif offered his military co-operation to the British Government, in return for which he asked it to recognise the independence of the Arabs within a territory including Mersina and Adana on the northern side and then bounded by the thirty-seventh degree of latitude; on the east its boundary was to be the Persian frontier down to the Gulf of Basra; on the south the Indian Ocean, with the exception of Aden; on the west the Red Sea and the Mediterranean as far as Mersina.

On August 30, 1915, Sir Henry MacMahon, British resident in Cairo, observed in his answer that discussion about the future frontiers was rather premature.

In a letter dated September 9, forwarded to the Foreign Office on October 18 by Sir Henry MacMahon, the Sherif insisted upon an immediate discussion. As he forwarded this letter, Sir Henry MacMahon mentioned the following statement made to him by the Sherif’s representative in Egypt:

“The occupation by France of the thoroughly Arabian districts of Aleppo, Hama, Homs, and Damascus would be opposed by force of arms by the Arabs: but with the exception of these districts, the Arabs are willing to accept a few modifications of the north-western frontiers proposed by the Sherif of Mecca.”

On October 24, 1915, by his Government’s order, Sir Henry MacMahon addressed the Sherif the following letter:

“The districts of Mersina and Alexandretta and the parts of Syria lying to the west of the districts of Damascus, Homs, Hama, and Aleppo cannot be looked upon as merely Arabian, and should be excluded from the limits and frontiers that are being discussed. With these modifications, and without in any way impairing our present treaties with the Arabian chiefs, we accept your limits and frontiers. As to the territories within these limits, in which Great Britain has a free hand as far as she does not injure the interests of her ally, France, I am desired by the British Government to make the following promise in answer to your letter.

“‘With the reservation of the above-mentioned modifications, Great Britain is willing to recognise and support Arabian independence within the territories included in the limits and frontiers proposed by the Sherif of Mecca.’”

On November 5, 1915, the Sherif, in his answer, agreed to the exclusion of Mersina and Adana, but maintained his claims on the other territories, especially Beyrut.

On December 13 Sir Henry MacMahon took note of the Sherif’s renunciation of Mersina and Adana.

On January 1, 1916, the Sherif wrote that, not to disturb the Franco-British alliance, he would lay aside his claims to Lebanon during the war; but he would urge them again on the conclusion of hostilities.

On January 30, 1916, Sir Henry MacMahon took note of the Sherif’s wish to avoid all that might be prejudicial to the alliance between France and England, and stated that the friendship between France and England would be maintained after the war.

On June 10, 1916, a rebellion broke out at Mecca. At daybreak the barracks were encircled by Arabs. Hussein ibn Ali, who was at the head of the movement, informed the Turkish commander that the Hejaz had proclaimed its independence. On June 11 the Arabs captured the Turkish fort of Bash-Karacal, and on the 12th Fort Hamadie. Soon after Jeddah surrendered, and on September 21 El Taif.

In a proclamation dated June 27, 1916, the Sherif Hussein ibn Ali stated the political and religious reasons that had induced him to rebel against the Ottoman Government. He declared the latter was in the hands of the Young Turk party, that the Committee of Union and Progress had driven the country to war, was destroying the power of the Sultan, and had violated the rights of the Caliphate.

On October 5 the Sherif Hussein formed an Arabian Cabinet, convened an Assembly, and on November 6 caused himself to be proclaimed King of the Arabs.

In November, 1916, he issued a second proclamation, not so lofty in tone, but more wily in its wording, which seemed to lack personality in its inspiration. It began thus: “It is a well-known fact that the better informed people in the Moslem world, Ottomans and others, saw with much misgiving Turkey rush into the war.” He then stated that—

“The Ottoman Empire is a Moslem empire, whose wide territories have a considerable sea-frontage. So the policy of the great Ottoman Sultans, inspired by this twofold consideration, has always aimed at keeping on friendly terms with the Powers that rule over the majority of Moslems and at the same time hold the mastery of the seas.”

He went on as follows:

“The one cause of the downfall of the Ottoman Empire and the extermination of its populations was the short-sighted tyranny of the leaders of the Unionist faction—Enver, Jemal, Talaat, and their accomplices; it is the giving up of the political traditions established by the great Ottoman statesmen and based on the friendship of the two Powers that deserve most to be glorified—England and France.”

He shared the opinion of those who reproached the Turks with the “atrocities committed by Greeks and Armenians”; he called upon them “the reprobation of the world”; and he wound up his proclamation with these words:

“Our hatred and enmity go to the leaders who are responsible for such doings—Enver, Jemal, Talaat, and their accomplices. We will not have anything to do with such tyrants, and in communion with all believers and all unprejudiced minds in the Ottoman Empire and Islam throughout the world we declare our hatred and enmity towards them, and before God we separate our cause from their cause.”

Great Britain later on insisted upon this point—that the question of the territorial conditions with a view to restoring peace had not been dealt with since the beginning of 1916, except in the above-mentioned exchange of notes. In September, 1919, in a semi-official communication to the Press, she emphatically declared that it followed from these documents:

(1) That in the letter dated October 24, 1915, which formulates the only engagement between Great Britain and the Sherif, the British Government had not pledged itself to do anything contrary to the Anglo-French treaty of 1916.

(2) That no fresh engagement had been entered into by Great Britain with the Sherif since the beginning of the negotiations that M. Georges Picot had been directed to carry on in London to pave the way to the treaty of 1916. For the negotiators had met for the first time on November 23, 1915, and the last two letters exchanged in January, 1916, added nothing to the engagements made with King Hussein in the letter of October 24 of the previous year.

Finally, on March 5, 1917, Hussein, now King of the Hejaz, sent an appeal to all the Moslems of Turkey against the Ottoman Government, which he charged with profaning the tomb of the Prophet in the course of the operations of June, 1916.

On October 1, 1918, Feisal entered Damascus at the head of his own victorious troops, but not with the Allied armies, after fighting all the way from Maan to Aleppo, a distance of above 400 miles. By his military and political activity, he had succeeded in quelling the private quarrels between tribes, and grouping round him the Arabian chiefs, between whom there had been much rivalry not long before, at the same time protecting the right flank of the British army, which was in a hazardous position.

Without giving up his favourite scheme, he was thus brought face to face with the Syrian question.

Though the Arabian movement cannot be looked upon merely as the outcome of the arrangements concluded in regard to Syria between the Allies during the war, the latter seem at least to have brought about a state of things which reinforced the Syrian aspirations and encouraged them to assert themselves.

The Syrians had once more taken advantage of the events which had convulsed Europe, and had had their after-effects in Asia Minor, to assert their determination to be freed from Ottoman sovereignty; and now they hoped to bring the Peace Conference to recognise a mode of government consistent with their political and economic aspirations.

The suppression of the autonomy of Lebanon, the requisitions, the administrative measures and prosecutions ordered in 1916 by Jemal Pasha against the Syrians, who wanted Syria to be erected into an independent State, had not succeeded in modifying the tendency which for a long time had aimed at detaching Syria from the Ottoman Empire, and at taking advantage of the influence France exercised in the country to further this aim.

In 1912 M. R. Poincaré, then Minister of Foreign Affairs, clearly stated before the French Chamber that the French and British Governments shared exactly the same views concerning the Syrian question. Yet later facts soon proved that the English policy would necessarily conflict with French influence and try to destroy it after turning it to her own advantage. Simultaneously the Turks saw that the time had come to modify the existing régime.

M. Defrance, who is now French High Commissioner in Turkey, but was then French Consul-General at Cairo, informed the French Government that the Ottoman Committee of decentralisation was of opinion that Syria should become an autonomous country, governed by a Moslem prince chosen by the people, and placed under the protection of France.