LAND &* WATER 
.December 26, 1918 
Why the Turkish Empire must be Dissolved : 
By HENRY MORGENTHAU 
In the opinion of the wnter, whose knowledge of Turkey and its rulers is unique, it is not suffi- 
cient to drive the Turk out of Europe. As an incorrigible among the nations, Turkey must be 
debarred from the rule of any subject peoples, ichich necessitates not only the extinction of Turkey 
in Europe, but the total reconstitution of what is noio Turkey in Asia as well. 
IN most discussions of the future of the Ottoman Empire, 
we usually find one curious misa])prehension. Even 
Mr. Balfour made this mistake wiien framing, almost 
two years ago, the terms upon which the Allies would 
consent to ending the war. He used the expression, 
"the expulsion of the Turk from Europe" as comprising the 
solution of the problem presented by the Ottoman Empire. 
Yet this Turkish problem is no longer one merely of "driying 
the Turk from Europe. " The Turk has already been practic- 
ally "driven from Europe" ; the Balkan States accomplished 
this in the Balkan wars. Our school geographies divided 
the Ottoman Empire into "Turkey in Europe" and "Turkey 
in Asia" ; yet to-day all that remains of European Turkey 
is Constantinople and a small piece of adjoining territory. 
The Turkish problem of to-day is presented by the Turkish 
domains in Asia. One may safely take it for granted that, 
after tliis war is over, Constantinople will no longer be the 
Sultan's capital. At present, the real mattere for discussion 
are these : Wliat is to become of Palestine, of Syria, of Armenia, 
of Mesopotamia, of the Asiatic littoral occupied by the Greeks, 
of Anatolia ? The Turk has already been virtually " driven 
from Eurojje" ; the important point now is that he must be 
"driven from Asia," in the sense that he must no longer be 
permitted to rule over the subject Asiatic peoples that for 
five or six centuries have suffered so terribly from his bloody 
and destroying hand. We have fairly completed the task 
of freeing from his control Serbians, Bulgarians, Rumanians, 
and European Greeks ; our problem now is to give similar 
freedom to Armenians, Asiatic Greeks, Syrians, Arabs, and 
Jews. 
In Constantinople I became acquainted with an American 
doctor who had travelled extensively in the East and who 
had the most intimate knowledge of conditions in the Otto- 
man Empire. He told me that Herr von Gwinner, the 
manager of the Deutsche Bank, whom he had visited in 
Berlin, had asked him to spend an entire evening discussing 
Turkish affairs. When my friend went to keep his 
appointment, he began this way :■ — 
" You have set aside this whole evening to discuss the 
Ottoman Empire. We do not need all that time. I can 
tell you the whole story in just four words : Turkey is not 
reformahle \" 
"You have summed up the whole situation perfectly," 
replied von Gwinner. 
That is the fundamental fact which we must constantly 
keep in mind while discussing this problem. We are dealing 
with a nation that is absolutely incorrigible. Its hopeless- 
ness has been demonstrated over and over again. Turkey 
has repeatedly made promises to reform her ways and has 
just as consistently broken them The European Powers 
have given her endless opportunities to lead a sober and a 
decent Ufe, and Turkey has never shown the slightest indica- 
tion of doing so. In the last three years the Ottoman Empire 
has had every chance to run its own affairs. It cast off the 
Capitulations — the foreign restrictions that for centuries had 
made the country almost a vassal of tlie European Powers 
and started a new life as an independent nation. The lirst 
thing these newly liberated Turkish statesmen did was to 
ally themselves with the Central Powers. Their next 
move was to begin the wholesale looting of their own 
people. I have already described the treatment wliich 
Turkey has visited upon its enslaved peoples — Armenians, 
Greeks, Syrians, and other races. These massacres are only 
the cuhnination of a policy that has been pursued for five 
hundred j-ears. Are the enlightened nations of the world 
wilUng to permit such crimes to be committed indefinitely ? 
There is only one way to stop them — that is to annihilate 
this insatiable appetite for pillage, arson, and murder which 
is called the Ottoman Empire. It has had more than five 
hundred years to demonstrate its capacity to govern, and its 
failure is more conspicuous now than when it began. There 
is to-day, as in 1876, only one solution of the Turkish problem. 
The words in which Gladstone forty years ago framed this 
solution are even more timely now than they were then. 
"Let the -Turks now carry away their abuses in the only 
possible manner, namely, by carrying away themselves. 
Their Zaptiehs and their Mudirs, their Bimbashis and their 
Yugbashis, their Kaimakams and their Pashas, one and all, 
bag and baggage, shall, I hope, clear out from the province 
they have desolated and profaned." 
After this desirable consummation has been attained^ what 
are we then to do with the territories that made up the 
Ottoman Empire ? 
There is first the question <■ f the only vestige of Turkish 
authority that still remains in Europe — that of Constantinople 
and tlie Straits. History probably presents no greater and 
more criminal absurdity than that the enlightened nations 
of Europe should have permitted a nomadic tribe from 
Eastern Asia to have practically unlimited control for five 
centuries of one of the world's greatest highways of commerce. 
Let us seek a comparison in our own country. The economic 
relation which New Orleans and the Mississippi River bore 
to the Mississippi Valley in an'e bellum days — the develop- 
ment of the railroad system has changed the situation since — 
is that which Constantinople arid the Straits bear to-day 
toward that Eastern Europe which borders upon the Black 
Sea. Russia's principal commercial access to the outside 
world is by way of the Black Sea, the Bosphorus and the 
Dardanelles ; this is the only route by which Rumania and 
Bulgaria can reach the ocean. All the rivers of these countries 
which drain into the Black Sea are merely the beginnings 
of water routes that end with the Dardanelles ; without 
this forty miles of water these greater systems are practically 
useless. These Straits should be absolutely free to the 
commerce of the world at all times and under aU conditions. 
The fortifications that guard them should be razed. Not 
one nation should control them, but an International Com- 
mission. The League of Nations, which Mr. Wilson proposes, 
could find no better field for its activities than the control 
of Constantinople and these waterways. The cosmopolitan 
population of Constantinople makes it a favourable city for 
internationalization. On the basis of race, no one people 
can claim it ; its population is a mixture of Turks, Greeks, 
Armenians, Jews, Arabs, Kurds, and Europeans ; its inter- 
nationahsation, therefore, would merely be the poHtical 
recognition of a racial fact that already exists. 
The Asiatic Problem 
So much, then, for our "Turkey in Europe"; the more 
diSicult problem remains of "Turkey in Asia." Here the 
processes of liistory, by its distribution of races in Asia Minor, 
have also laid the basis for a satisfactory and permanent 
settlement. Besides the population that calls itself Turk, 
there are several fairiy compact populations of distinct race, 
particulariy Armenians, Arabs, Greeks, Syrians, and Jews. 
All these people have their national aspirations. Undoubtedly 
an attempt to create distinct political organisations, founded 
on race and religion, will involve certain difficulties, owing 
to the fact that certain of these peoples, especially the 
Armenians, do not form the majority of the population any- 
where ; but this problem, which is by no means insoluble, 
• may be safely left to a peace conference wliich is guided only 
by prmciples of justice. What is apparent is that all the 
races I have named are vastly superior, mentally and morally, 
to the Turkish population ; that they have every right to a 
free and mdependent existence, and that they possess quahties 
that will make them respected members of the family of 
nations. AU of these peoples have great pasts ; aU of them 
have made substantial contributions to human advance- 
ment, and all of them have lived for five centuries or more 
under a brutal tyranny that would warp tlie character of 
almost any people. When we think of what the Arabs have 
contributed to art, hterature, and science; the Greeks to 
practically every form of human enlightenment ; the Jews 
to religion and moraUty ; and the Armenians to the economic 
life of the Near East, it is hardly necessary to insist that 
these peoples comprise the racial bases for orderiy States. 
Nor should we oyeriook the fact that the country which they 
inhabit IS exceedingly rich in natural resources. Asia Minor 
