12 
LAND &' WATER 
November 7, 1918 
The Psychology of the Turk : By H. Morgenthau 
Away from and virtually uninfluenced by events in the 
Western theatre of ivar, the Turks saw the Gallipoli victory 
in a far different light from that in which it u'as regarded 
by other nations in the war. Mr. Morgenthau explains 
the psychological tendencies which produced the present 
Turkish attitmle toward modern Western civilisation. 
THE withdrawal of the Allied Fleet at tlie Dar- 
danelles-had consequences which the world does 
not yet completely understand. Tlie practical 
effect of the event, as I have said, was to isolate 
the Turkish Empire from all the world excepting 
Germany and Austria. England, France, Russia, and Italy, 
which for a century had held a restraining hand over the 
Ottoman Empire, had finally lost all power to influence or 
control. 'I^he Turks perceived that a series of dazzling 
events had changed them from cringing dependents, of the 
European Powers into free agents. For the first time in 
two centuries they could now live their national life according 
to their own inclinations, and govern their peoples according 
to their own will. The first expression of this rejuvenated 
national life was an episode which, so^^far as I know, is the 
most terrible in the history of the world. New Turkey, 
freed from European tutelage, celebrated its national rebirth 
by murdering not far from a million of its own subjects. 
I can hardly exaggerate the effect which the repulse of the 
Allied Fleet produced upon the Turks. They believed that 
they had won the really great decisive battle of the war. 
For several centuries, they said, the British Fleet had vic- 
toriously sailed the seas, and had now met its first serious 
reverse at the hands of the Turks. In the first moments 
of their pride, the Young Turk leaders saw visions of the 
complete resurrection of their Empire. What had for two 
centuries been a decaying nation had suddenly started on 
a new and glorious life. 
" Wliy should we feel any obligation to the Germans ? " 
Enver would say to me. "What have they done for us 
which compares with what we have done for them ? They 
have lent us some money and sent us a few officers, it is true, 
but see what we have done ! We have defeated the British 
Fleet — something which the Germans and no other nation 
could do. We have stationed armies on the Caucasian front, 
and so have kept busy large bodies of Russian troops that 
would have been used on the Western front.- Similarly we 
have compelled England to keep large armies in Egypt, in 
Mesopotamia, and in that way we have weakened the Allied 
armies in France. No, the Germans could never have 
achieved their military successes without us ; the shoe of 
obligation is entirely on their foot." 
This conviction possessed all the leaders of the Union and 
Progress party, and now began to have a determining effect 
upon Turkish national life and Turkish policy. Essentially 
the Turk is a bully and a coward ; he is brave as a lion 
when things are going his way, but cringing, abject, and 
nerveless when reverses 'are overwhelming him. And now 
that the fortunes of war were apparently favouring the 
Empire, I began to see an entirely new Turk unfolding before 
my eyes. The hesitating and fearful Ottoman, feeling his 
way cautiously amid the mazes of European diplomacy, and 
seeking opportunities to find an advantage for himself in 
the divided counsels of the European Powers, gave place 
to an upstanding, almost dashing figure, proud and asser- 
tive, determined to live his own life, and absolutely con- 
temptuous of his Christian foes. The ragged, unkempt 
Turk of the twentieth century was vanishing, and in his 
place was appearing the Turk of the fourteenth and the 
fifteenth, the Turk who had swept out of his Asiatic fast- 
nesses, conquered all the powerful peoples in his way, and 
founded in Asia, Africa, and Europe one of the most extensive 
Empires that history has known. If we are properly to 
' appreciate this new Talaat and Enver, and the events which 
now took place, we must understand the Turk who, under 
Osman and his successors, exercised this mighty but devas- 
tating influence in the world. We must realise that the 
basic fact underlying the Turkish mentality is its utter 
contempt for all other races. A fairly insane pride is the 
element that largely explains this strange human species. 
The common term applied by the Turk to the Christian is 
"dog," and in his estimation this is no mere rhetorical figure ; 
he actually looks upon his European neighbours as far less 
worthy of consideration than his own domestic animals. 
"My son," an old Turk once said, "do you see that herd of 
swine ? Some are white, some are black, some are large. 
some are small — they differ from each other in some respects, 
but they are all swine. So it is with Christians. Be not 
deceived, my son. These Christians may wear fine clothes, 
their women may be very beautiful to look upon ; their 
skins are white and splendid ; many of them are very intelli- 
gent, and they build wonderful cities and create what seem 
to be great States. But remember that underneath all this 
dazzling exterior, they are all tiie same — they are all swine." 
The Inspiration of Turkish Policy 
Practically all foreigners, in the presence of a Turk, are 
conscious of this attitude. The Turk may be obsequiously 
polite, but there is invariably an almost unconscious feeling 
that he is mentally shrinking from his Christian friend as 
something unclean" And this fundamental conviction for 
centuries directed the Ottoman policy toward its subject 
peoples. This wild horde swept from the plains^f Central 
Asia and, like a whirlwind, overwhelmed the nations of 
Mesopotamia and Asia Minor, it conquered Egypt, Arabia, 
and practically all of Northern Africa, and then poured into 
Europe, crushed the Balkan nations, occupied a large part 
of Hungary, and even established the outposts of the Ottoman 
Empire in the Southern part of Russia. So far as I can 
discover, the Ottoman Turks had only one great quality — 
that of military genius. They had several mihtary leaders 
of commanding ability, and the early conquering Turks 
were brave, fanatical, and tenacious fighters, just as their 
descendants are to-day. I think that these old Turks present 
the most complete illustration in history of the brigand idea 
in politics. They were lacking in what we may call the 
fundamentals of a civilised commiuiity. They had no 
alphabet and no art of writing, no books, no poets, no arts, 
and no architecture ; they built no cities and they estab- 
lished no lasting State. They knew no law except the rule 
of might, and they had practically no agriculture and no 
industrial organisation. They were simply wild and maraud- 
ing horsemen, whose one conception of tribal success was to 
pounce upon people who were more civilised than them- 
selves and plunder them. In tlie fourteenth and fifteenth 
centuries these tribes overran the cradle of modern civilisa- 
tion, which has given Europe its religion and, to a large 
extent, its civilisation. At that time these territories were 
the seats of many peaceful and prosperous nations. The 
Mesopotamian Valley supported a large, industrious, agri- 
cultural population ; Bagdad was one of the largest and 
most flourishing cities in existence ; Constantinople had a 
greater population than Rome, and the Balkan region and 
Asia Minor contained several powerful States. Mesopotamia 
in a few years became a desert ; the great cities of the East 
were reduced to misery, and the subject peoples became 
slaves. Such graces of civilisation as the Turk has acquired 
in five centuries have practically all been taken from the 
subject peoples whom he so greatly despises. His religion 
comes from the Arabs ; his language has acquired a certain 
literary value by borrowing certain Arabic and Persian 
elements ; his writing is Arabic. Constantinople's finest 
architectural monument, the Mosque of St. Sophia, was 
originally a Christian church, and all so-called Turkish 
architecture is derived from the Byzantine. The mechanism 
of business and industry has always rested in the hands of 
the subject peoples — Greeks, Jews, Armenians, and Arabs. 
The Turks have learned little of European art or science, 
they have established very few educational institutions, and 
illiteracy is the prevailing rule. The result is that poverty 
has attained a degree of sordidness and misei-y in the Ottoman 
Empire which is almost unparalleled elsewhere. The Turkish 
peasant lives in a mud hut ; he sleeps on its dirt floor, he 
has no chairs, no tables, no eating utensils, and no clothes 
except the few scant garments which cover his back, and 
which he usually wears for many years. 
In the course of time these Turks might learn certain 
things from their European and Arabic neighbours, but 
there was one idea which they could never even faintly 
grasp. They could not imderstand that a conquered people 
were anything except slaves. When they took possession 
of a land, they found it occupied by a certain number of 
camels, horses, buffaloes, dogs, swine, ai)d human beings. 
Of all these living things the object that physically most 
resenjbled themselves they regarded as the least important. 
It became a common saying with them that a horse or a 
camel was far more valuable than a man ; these animals 
cost money, whereas "infidel Christians" were plentiful in 
