10 
LAND &? WATER 
November 14, 1918 
The Turkish Collapse: By Sir Edwin Pears 
NOT since 1453, when the Ghazi Mahomet 
captured Constantinople, has there been so 
important an event for Eastern Europe, India, 
and the near East as the surrender of Turkey. 
After 1453 the Turks made astonishing mihtary 
progress for upwards of two centuries. Their tide of success 
continued until 1683. During that period they had con- 
quered the whole of North Africa from the Red Sea to the 
Atlantic. In addition to what our fathers knew as the 
Empire of Turkey as depicted on the maps, Persia was under 
their dominance and the whole of Hungary and South Russia 
as far as and including the Crimea. Macaulay in his famous 
chapter on the state of England in 1685 remarks that the 
first question asked of a traveller coming from the continent 
was " What is the progress made by the Grand Turk ? " 
But the flood tide had turned two years earlier when the siege 
of Vienna was raised by John Sobieski, King of Poland. 
From that day the ebb commenced, and it may fairly be 
said that not a generation since 1683 has passed without loss 
of territory to Turkey. How rapid that has been may be 
noted when it is remembered that a century ago the whole 
of the Balkan peninsula as far north as the Danube and 
including what is now the Kingdom of Rumania was under 
Turkish rule and that nearly all North Africa was held by 
her. The more rapid collapse of 'Turkey during the last 
half century was due largely to the folly of Abdul Hamid : 
for while nearly all previous sultans had alienated the Christian 
subjects of the empire, Abdul Hamid, after he had caused 
at least 100,000 Armenians to perish, plotted against his 
Moslem subjects. These united themselves to the Christians 
and Jews, and the result was the revolution which dethroned 
him in April, igog. The Committee of Union and Progress 
which had organised the revolution came into power and 
has held it to the present time. A writer whom the Times 
describes as a diplomatic correspondent stated on the 2nd 
instant that while Talaat and Enver, the two leadipg members 
of the Committee, had withdrawn to the wing^, they had 
allowed the stage to be occupied by other members for "the 
sole purpose of concluding peace." The suggestion is an 
awkward one because it seems to me to imply that if Talaat 
and Enver are not satisfied with the conditions of the peace 
which will follow the armistice they might try to raise the 
countrj'. The warning is timely, but it is almost incon- 
ceivable that if the conditions of the armistice are observed, 
either of the supposed leaders of the extreme party will be 
able to make a resistance when the Dardanelles are in pos- 
session of the Allies and the Bosphorus and Black Sea are 
within the range of the guns of the British Fleet. It is useless 
to abuse the Committee. It is in power and no reactionary 
or other party has shown that it possesses either patriotic 
feeUng or power or desire to supersede it. The Allies have 
to make the best of it, and ^I doubt the wisdom of abusing 
the men with whom you have come to an agreement. It 
is true that we are dealing with an Eastern and therefore a 
subtle foe, and no precaution indicated by the necessity 
of the situation should be neglected. In our navy* 
the story of Admiral Duckworth, who in 1807, during 
the Napoleonic wars, forced his way to Constantinople, is 
not forgotten ; after remaining with his fleet for several weeks 
before the Princes' Islands the Turks opposed great obstacles 
to his departure, and it was only by a serious sacrifice of ships 
and men that he was not caught in a trap. 
»fe It was a happy coincidence that on the very day when the 
conditions of armistice were signed General Marshall succeeded 
in entirely defeating the last Turkish army respectable in 
numbers. Practically the Powers have a clean slate on 
which to write the conditions for a new Turkey. The Turkish 
popu.ation is one which loves peace ; the Turkish peasant 
hates to be disturbed unless there is an immediate prospect, 
of booty. Such prospect does not e.xist under present con- 
ditions. What he wants above all things is to remain in 
peaceful occupation and freed from the arbitrary extortions 
of the tax gatherer. He is usually without any desire to 
obtain more than the necessaries of hfe. Speaking generally 
the Turks are always seen at their worst in their treatment 
of subject races. There is not a newspaper in the country 
which has not given illustrations of the abominable treatment 
to which Christians of subject races have been treated during 
the last thirty years. The Moslem non-Turkish races under 
Turkish rule have suffered hardly less severely. This is 
especially true of the Arabs, in which term is included all 
the races of Syria south of an extension of the line eastwards 
of the Taurus range. 
What then are to be the new conditions which the Allies 
will establish ? One of the first will be that no subject 'race 
shall be submitted to Turkish rule except by its own consent. 
If the principle of self-determination laid down by President 
Wilson is applied to all the population between the Levant 
and the Persian Gulf, then Turkish rule over other than 
Turkish races will have ceased to exist. 
Armenia's Future 
The six so-called Armenian provinces which are on the 
eastern side of the great tableland of Anatolia and the Pro- 
vince of Cilicia situated between the Taurus range and the 
Mediterranean will require separate and special treatment. 
Unfortunately in none of these provinces are the Christians 
in numerical majority, but no man who remembers the 
hideous massacres under Abdul Hamid between 1893 and 
1898, and the equally bad one mider the rule of the Salonica 
Committee in 1909, will willingly consent to allow the popu- 
lations to remain under Turkish rule. 
It is desirable that the six Armenian provinces in Turkey 
should be joined with their compatriots in Russia, and that 
they should be given access to the Sea. In spit^ of 
their numerical inferiority no Englishman ought to consent 
to leave these provinces under the rule of the Turks and Kurds, 
who have pillaged and outraged their neighbours during the 
last thirty years. With good government, within the same 
length of time the population of these previnces would receive 
from foreign lands an access of immigrants which would go 
far to enable them to hold their own. 
It should never be forgotten that every guarantee for the 
security of the Armenians given by the Berlin Congress in 
1878 was treated as waste paper. Sir Henry Layard, Mr. 
Goschen and every subsequent Ambassador failed to obtain 
from the Sublime Porte any serious reforms for the Arme- 
nians. Even the demands made in Constantinople in 1897, 
when the cold-blooded atrocities were being committed in 
the capital itself, were only discontinued When Sir Michael 
Herbert induced every Ambassador to join in sending an 
open telegram to Abdul Hamid stating that these things 
must stop or there would be danger to his throne and dynasty. 
The treatment of the Armenians during the last four years, 
under the guidance of the German-led Turks, was worse than 
it was under Abdul Hamid. 
When we come to Constantinople another group of ques- 
tions of first importance arises. Certain definite principles 
may however safely be la.d down. The passage of the 
Straits from the Black Sea to the yEgean must be made as 
free as the Straits of Dover. The enemy to such a condition 
is the ignorant diplomatist. Among the conditions laid 
down in the Treaty of Paris in 1856, one or two of which 
bitterly disappointed Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, was that 
Turkey should be left as the guardian of the Straits. It 
was intended as a blow against Russia, but it soon became 
evident to myself, to the successive correspondents of the 
Times, and to the later British Ambassadors, that Russia 
was the great opponent of any attempt to open the Straits. 
It was a foolish provision which must now be dropped. 
The Straits from the Black Sea to fhe^^Egean are a great 
natural road of the river Danube. "t 
Whoever may be the occupier of Constantinople should not 
be permitted to erect a fortification or any gun throughout 
the whole length of the Straits. The Straits would then 
be accessible to all commercial ships and to vessels of 
war. ^ 
Of course the restrictions placed by Germany on the 
navigation of the Danube and especially on the mouths of 
that river will be swept away. The International Danube 
Commission has done its work excellently during the last 
forty years, and it should be revived. 
As to the possession of Constantinople, the agreement 
said to have been made early in the war by which it should 
go to Russia has, I presume; become a dead letter. It was 
a fooHsh agreement, which in the interest of Russia herself 
was purely mischievous. The two proposals before the 
world as to the possession of Constantinople are : - r 
1. That if should be made the capital of a small inter- 
national state, bounded on the north by the Enos-Medea 
line and on the south by one drawn from the Black Sea 
to Ismidt, and thence to the south of Brusa and to some point 
on the coast near Adramyttium. This I venture to call 
the ideal proposal. 
2. The city should be allowed to remain in possession 
