LAND AND WATER 
September 25, 1915. 
THE GENTLEMANLY TURK. 
T 
ilHE Turk," said a traveller who had ex..„„oi^v. ...^ 
vocabulary in abusing the other iiihabitant.s of 
the Ottoman Empire, '• the Turk is a perfect 
gentleman." 
It seemed an insufficient description when 
one remembered certain {>aiaful episode? wliich no Turco- 
j)hile could deny, episodes in which it is hard to discover 
either gentleness or gentility. Also we have known Turks 
not averse from the practice of bribery, and capable of that 
kind of prevarication which iu this country is called lying. 
We have even known Turks — among them Enver Pasha — 
who have combined the cheap vulgarity of the West with an 
llamidian aptitude for bloodthirsty intrigue. But I have 
known many who were likeable, humane and " gentlemanly." 
1 should like to think that the type was fairly repre- 
sented by that dignified Vali of Adriauople who received me at 
his home in his capital. With the appearance of real regret 
rather than apology, he made amends for some trouble to 
wliich the gendarmes liad put me on my arrival in his Pro- 
vince. He had sent his Director of Political Affairs to call 
on me, and excused himself for not having come in person. 
IJe showed mo over every room in his palace, excepting, 
of Coarse, those in the women's quarters, pointing out 
some fine carved furniture and some paintings, including 
several by his daughter, who was soon to be married : and told 
nie why there are just 999 windows iu the mosque of the 
Sultan Selini. (The Sultan, it appears, want-ed to have as 
many windows as possible in his magnificent mosque, and 
the number selected seemed more numerous and more impres- 
sive than a round thousand.) 
An Anachronism. 
For us, in England, the Turk has long ceased to be 
wholly a creature of wild legend and mystery. To-day we are 
compelled to regard him as an anachronism which by a strange 
chance has survived among the body-politics of the world, an 
antiquity which some would preserve as they preserve ruined 
castles, which others would destroy because it is dangerous. 
For centuries the whole of Christendom has been at war with 
Liin. For centuries he was to us merely the " infidel," just 
as we were to him llie " giaours." He was the barbarian who 
despoiled the capital of the Eastern Greek Empire, and drove 
from Constantinople the scholars wlio brought the Reuais- 
sanc« to us. His was the irresistible horde which swept across 
Hungary and threatened Europe at the gates of Vienna. 
Then the flood began to recede, leaving devastated regions to 
be reclaimed by Christendom. He was driven out of Hun- 
gary. The Greeks, the Serbians, the Roumanians, and the 
Bulgarians, each in turn threw off the yoke. 
But for half a century he has ceased to he the univers- 
ally dreaded " infidel." More often, in our modern tolerance, 
we speak of the " faithful " as if Moslems had the first claim 
to religious orthodoxy. For decades it was Great Britain's 
settled policy, established by Disraeli, to maintain the "in- 
tegrity of Turkey," a phrase which implied that the Ottoman 
Empire was in danger of crumbling to pieces. It had become 
the ''sick man" of Europe, and the average Englishman, 
ihuddering at the atrocities denounced by Mr. Glad'-toue 
thought of the "unspeakable" or the "incurable" Turk' 
At last, whilst many liked him personally because he was 
picturesque, almost everyone inveighed against him because 
he was incapable of governing. 
But what, after all, is this Turk who has been held up 
now as a terrible ogre like that " Black Douglas " whose name 
terrified children in the Middle Ages, now as a sick iucom- 
F^tent, now as a last refuge of the " faithful," now as an 
effeminate child of the harem ? Or what is the relation of 
tnose unconquerable Osmanlis who followed Othman to the 
"lores of the Bosphorus, and established the Ottoman Empire 
Tailed ''T'"5''.f^ ^T"' ^° *''" ™°"^y multitude of people 
tvnl. = .r. . to-day-people who include such diverse 
fllnlom! -f t,-,'^''',''" ^'^''^'^° ^"^'' P^^''«' that courtly 
tl e rib -r ^'^''"- *''^' ^""^" Anatolian private, with 
to r n ', r *''° ^°''^' ^°' ''■'' '" ^^^ fields and is designed 
to perpetual poverty? ° 
«»aiJ'.'ndt"^ ''^.V" °'''-'""' ^^'"=">^'* ^^' ^^'^ diluted 
es^t'b is li d fhl"- V''^' ""'■^ ^"* * t^'^ ''f %1'tJng men who 
est.-»bl.3lied themselves on the ruins of a civilisation. They 
^8 
By R. A. Scott-James. 
hausted his 
multiplied by taking to themselves wives and concubiues from 
the races amongst whom they settled — Greek maidens, Cir- 
cassians, Armenians; and many women from more distant 
lands were taken captive and established in the harem ; all 
the blood of the Levant soon mingled in the veins of this con- 
quering racj. It became impossible to distinguish between 
the descendants of the original Turk and those who perforce 
accepted the Moslem religion and the yoke of the Sultan. 
Millions of people who have little, if any, Osmanli blood in 
their veins call themselves Turks to-day; though there still 
exist within the empire many clearly defined Moslem races- — 
the Arabs, for instance, and the Albanians — who cling to 
their own race and refuse to be absorbed. 
Mixed Bloods. 
But putting aside the Christians and certain clearly 
differentiated Moslem peoples, there emerged from this 
inixture of blcod a type which we know as that of the modem 
Turk. It may be seen especially in the population of Stam- 
boul, in Thrace, in Anatolia, and amongst the military and 
governing classes scattered over the whole Empire. It has 
acquired a common character through submission to the same 
system of government, through the observance of the social 
and religious code of ]\[oslemism, and through the mere fact 
that it has been sharply distinguished from the less submis- 
sive Christians and the Jews. 
The humbler Turk of the country districts is hard work- 
ing. Ignorant, and very poor. He is unenterprising, long- 
suffering, patient, and hardy. The menfolk are taken awav 
for years of service in the army, where, till lately, their pay 
was long iu arrears, and they were hungry and ill-clad. TheV 
are apathetic, kindly, easily jjleased; they can endure hunger 
and hardship in war; they are very brave as long as they 
believe that Allah has willed victory to their arms, but they 
are apt to go to pieces under defeat. When their blood is up 
and the fighting spirit is in them they are as ferocions as thev 
are reputed to be, especially against a despised Christian 
enemy. But it is unfair to judge them by their occasional 
cruelties. When a man is parted for years from wife and 
friends and put in a strange province; is allowed to be hungry, 
ill-clad, hard-worked, and unpaid; is taught to regard the 
Christian as a " Giaour " who immorally exposes the faces of 
his women; and is then armed with a loaded gun— the result, 
under the stress of violence, may be imagined. 
Such are the rank and file of the mert who are opposing us 
tow in the Dardanelles. They are fighting-men, constantly 
engaged now against this foe, now against that, and they do 
as they are told. They will oppose us with splendid braverv 
and bloody ferocity to-day and they would be ready to be 
friends with us to-morrow. Above all things they would lik' 
to go back to their homes, to be left to till their fields or ply 
their trades, with leisure to sip their coffee at intervals and 
smoke their cigarettes. 
European Influence. 
But their destinies lie, under Allah, in the hands of the 
officers and the politicians, and these two classes have chano-ed 
not a httle in recent years. The change amongst the officers 
came not so much through European influences as tbroucrh 
antagonism to them. Their pride revolted at the sight °of 
Europeans nding about in their own country and interfering 
in their internal politics; they blamed Abdul Hamid and his 
^stem; they alhed themselves with the politicals— the Young 
Turks— and overthrew the Hamidian regime. It was the 
worst element in the Young Turkish party which came to the 
front and ruled by pandering to the Army and terrorising 
opponents. In the hotbed of intrigue at Constantinople only 
the Iea,st scrupulous or the completely obscure could survive 
It IS stra.nge that such a man cs Enver Pasha should ever have 
come to rule an Empire. I met the man after the revolution. 
but before he had become the supreme autocrat that he ii 
now. It was bard to believe that this neat, dandified little 
man had stirred the soldiers to a flame of revolt, that it was 
indeed he v,-ho had set up the standard of "liberty and 
iraternity. He lean.t his manners in Paris and Munich. 
He eiriit religion under those who retail Auguste Comte. A 
treethinker and a fop, a demagogue with the soul of a Pvobo»- 
pierre, his true qualities were appreciated in Berliu. 
