but when he feels he has met his match he is chivalrous, 

 when he is defeated he is a pathetic and distressed gentle- 

 man. And so he contrives that the Turk has never been in 

 the wrong, no one has ever convicted a Turk of a mean or 

 cruel act. 



When he is beaten, or near beaten, he would have us 

 believe that the Armenians were killed by wicked Kurds, 

 that the Lebanon famine was a disaster which was beyond 

 the power of man to avert, that the British prisoners died 

 because they were delicate, that the war itself was the work 

 of the Germans (curses on them !), and so on. When his 

 star is in the ascendant the tale is pitched in a different key. 

 ' The Armenians shall not talk of independence for fifty 

 years," said Talaat; " The English civilians shall be ex- 

 posed to English shells," said "Enver; " I will teach the 

 Arabs who is master," said Djemal; " One sound Turk for 

 every sick or wounded Englishman or Indian," said the 

 victors of Kut, knowing that every sick Englishman and 

 Indian must die if he were unexchanged. Thus we get a 

 glimpse of the seamy side of Turkish mentality, which is 

 made up of the craft of Byzantium, the ruthlessness of the 

 nomad of Steppe, the cold cruelty of the fanatic. 



THE YOUNG TURK AND THE OLD. 



The Turk has strewn the earth with ruins and has made 

 the prettiest nursery rhymes; he has shattered civilizations 

 both Moslem and Christian ; he has coined the most witty 

 and delightful proverbs. He is a thoughtful and solicitous 

 host, an easy-going master, and a mild landlord, but he is 

 a merciless mis-governor, a feckless squanderer, and as 

 revengeful as a camel. 



Hulagu devastated Irak and Syria and laid Baghdad in 

 ruins; he destroyed some eight millions of peaceful people, 

 but he wept when he heard of his brother Mangu's death. 

 Hulagu was a very typical Turk with a warm heart and 

 great feeling. 



Timur raged over Asia Minor and put civilization back 

 three centuries, but he was exceedingly kind to the people 

 who survived the passage of his armies. Timur was a true 

 Turkish gentleman, and it is an historical libel to say that 



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