W

ITH the triumphal advance of the Greek armies in Anatolia, with the fortresses and cities of Kutahia, Afioun-Karahissar, Eskishehr and Ismid fallen in quick succession to the victors, and with Angora itself threatened, one may attempt to write the closing chapter of the passing of Turkey. The Ottoman Empire, which was created by the sword, is being ended by the sword, and the nation which is dealing the coup de grace to the once mighty horde of Osman is, as if by some strange decree of fate, the one on whose ruins five hundred years ago Turkish power was founded. It is not only, however, as a military force that Turkey is dying; bad as her military plight is, it is further complicated by the debacle of Turanian nationalism, for which there was no room in a twentieth century Europe.

The Young Turk revolution of 1908, the starting point of the Turkish collapse, was encouraged by all those who calculated that its success would bring about the overthrow of Teuton influence in the Ottoman Empire. That influence, beginning in the late '80s, had acquired a new impetus after the famous pilgrimage of Wilhelm II. to Constantinople and the Holy Land in 1897.

The Young Turk revolution was launched in the small Macedonian town of Resna, by two young officers, Enver and Niazi Beys, with whom, later on, such leaders as Shevket Pasha, Djemal Pasha and Talaat Bey were associated.

It was then thought that the object of the movement was to bring about the federalization of the empire in a way that would give equal rights and opportunities, as well as an equal share in the government of the country, to all the different native races of the Turkish Imperial State, and this fact alone explains the sincere and undisguised enthusiasm with which such racial elements as the Greeks, Armenians and Arabs, as well as the Albanians, Bulgars, Serbs, Syrians and Kurds, came together fully prepared to help in the reconstruction of their common country. For a time the United States of Turkey was the slogan of all those people.

Now, indeed, that plan, honestly and sincerely applied, would have saved the Ottoman Empire, and in all probability would have prevented the World War. But it soon became apparent that what Enver and his party were scheming for was not the liberalization of Turkey, but the complete Turkification of an empire fourfifths of which was non-Turkish. The Young Turks feared that by giving equal rights to all the former subject peoples of the Sultan they were running the risk of entirely changing the racial and national character of the empire, and, extremely nationalistic as they certainly were, no sooner had they established their regime than they raised the banner of "Turkey for the Turks alone."

To fight these tendencies the Balkan countries for the first time in their long history buried the hatchet

of racial differences and formed that famous coalition of 1912 which was to finish the Sultan's hold over ninetenths of his European possessions, and over all the Greek Archipelago.

On the other hand, such events as the Austrian annexation of Bosnia

and Herzegovina, and the definite amalgamation of Eastern Rumelia with Bulgaria, in 1908, and finally the Italian war in Tripoli in 1911, although not directly due to the nationalist character of the Young Turks, nevertheless indicated the desire of Austria, Bulgaria and Italy to take advantage of the weakness of Turkey before her new regime succeeded in strengthening the decrepit empire; the same psychology actuated, partly at least, the policy of the Balkan States when they decided to put an end to Turkey's hold on Near Eastern Europe before the Young Turks got a chance to galvanize into life the crumbling Ottoman State.

After her Balkan defeats, Turkey threw herself into the arms of Ger

CONSTANTINOPLE SEA OF MARMARA

Geumlek

Bigha

Panderma

Mudania

Kaz Dagh

Edremid

Aivali

Bergama

Sama

Liranas Harmanjik σ

Balikesri

T

Chat

Demirji Dagh

Kirkagach
Ak Hissar

MANISA: MAGNESIA):

Salihli

R

Chai

Gediz

Crai

Sakaria

Eskishehr Y

Bozan

Ala Dagh

Beybazar

E

• Sivrihissar

ANGORA

Chaushjikeui

Ilgin

ΚΟΝΙΑ

Menemen

Sandikli

Akshehr

Sultan

Dinelr

Tire

Egerdir Caul

Sokia

Kirli Beyshehr Goul Beyshehr

SECOND NATIONALIST MOVEMENT

We come now to the second phase of the Young Turkish Nationalist movement, the utter debacle of which we are witnessing today. It may appear as a paradox, but it is nevertheless a fact that the second revival of Young Turk Nationalism was the indirect, but none the less actual, result of the mistaken allied policy pursued in Turkey immediately after the armistice. And this is how it all happened:

When the war ended with the coming of the allied fleet to Constantinople and the shattering of every Turkish front from Mesopotamia to Palestine and Thrace, an immeasurable fear seized the entire population that still remained under the more or less nominal control of the Sultan. The victorious alliance was still too strong and too compact to permit the Turks any indulgence in hopes they considered vain. The whole universe seemed to be crumbling on Turkey's head, and those who up to that time sat in the seats of the mighty were more dazed than the others by the sudden and unexpected turn of events.

At that time General Allenby in Asiatic Turkey and General Franchet d'Esperey in Thrace had under their command ten times as many troops as would have been needed to occupy and disarm the whole of Turkey. The state of mind of the population was such that an international gendarmerie could have put the whole country in order. It was then, however, that the old Turkish deus ex machina appeared in the shape of allied discord; because, no sooner was the Turk defeated than the various allied diplomats resumed their ante-bellum courtship for Turkish favors. French diplomacy began to suspect Britain, British policy began to distrust France, while Italy more openly than either came out in favor of the Turk.

Discussions of the different "mandates" were then going on in full pressure all over Europe and

America, and during those discussions each power interested in securing the mandate over some section of Turkey had its organization working overtime in the localities concerned, and in Constantinople. This condition was so propitious for the Turkish interests that an old and accomplished diplomat, the Grand Vizier Damad Shereef Pasha, was quick to understand all its portent and to act appointed to his position by the Enaccordingly. Damad, who had been tente, succeeded so skillfully in playing one allied diplomat against the other that he was enabled to create a double political and diplomatic Turkish front, the one loyalist in Constantinople, and the other revolutionary in Asia Minor, with the object of winning by one or the other way the diplomatic victory which alone could save Turkey from the consequences of her military defeat.

With this object in mind he dispatched, early in February, 1919, first to Samsun and then to Amasseia and finally to Angora, Brig. Gen. Mustapha Kemal Pasha, whom he placed at the head of the revolutionary movement of the Turkish Nationalists. Mustapha Kemal hails from Larissa, in Thessaly, and has studied in the Imperial Turkish Military School in Constantinople. Contrary to what is commonly said, he is not a graduate of the Berlin Kriegsakademie. He was formerly an officer of the Turkish General Staff, where he was known as an able but very eccentric militarist. During the war he was Divisional Commander in Gallipoli Peninsula, but he soon disagreed with his German chief, General Liman von Sanders, and with Vehib Pasha, after which he was sent to Syria. There, however, he became objectionable to General Djemal Pasha, who sent him to the chief of the Eastern armies, Izzet Pasha, with headquarters in Mosul. Shortly afterward he was recalled to Constantinople and accompanied the heir apparent to the Turkish throne-now Sultan Mehmet VI.-to

کی

Berlin. On their return from Germany he remained in Constantinople until he was sent to Asia Minor to organize the Nationalist movement.

CREATING THE KEMALIST Army.

The Turkish Army being demobilized soon after the armistice, Kemal was from the first confronted with the difficulty of raising a new body of troops. Nevertheless, he succeeded in rallying to him a number of officers, and through them he incorporated various irregular bands into a more solid organization. These bands were made up of all sorts of adventurers and the riffraff of the Turkish prisons, who had been released during the war by Talaat Pasha with the special mission of exterminating the Armenian and Greek populations of the Pontus and the interior of Anatolia. Kemal appointed the local leaders as Military Governors of the provinces in which their bands were operating, and to each he attached a prominent Young Turk civilian as counselor and personal representative of the supreme chief, which meant himself. In order to give an idea of the elements that Kemal used in the formation of his army, it is enough to say that an exboatman of Kerassund was appointed Governor of the Pontus and was instrumental in annihilating twothirds of the entire Greek and Armenian population of that province. The original Kemalist organizations contained twenty to fifty men each, but when the prospects of loot increased their strength strength was trebled and quadrupled.

soon

In the course of his organizing activities Kemal Pasha made use of his bands for the forcible conscription of the Turkish peasantry, the collection of all kinds of taxes from the population, and the service of his commissariat. Finally Kemal completed his organization with numerous Lazian pirates, who proved their worth by smuggling in arms and ammunition to Samsun from Batum and Constantinople.

EXTENT OF KEMALIST STATE

In the whole territory subject to Kemal's control the genuine Turkish population has never amounted to more than 1,500,000, scattered over a wide territory with primitive communications. On the other hand, during the ten years of almost continuous war and conscription, that part of the population which was capable of bearing arms was reduced. by half, so that, considering the circumstances, Kemal could not expect to raise more than 50,000 or 75,000 men if everything went well. According to the best information obtainable, the forces of Kemal from the central and northern part of Anatolia last April reached the figure of 60,000 men.

The Turkish Nationalist leader, however, had another Source of strength in the vast number of former officers of the imperial army whom the armistice had released in idleness and left starving in the streets of Constantinople and other cities of the empire. It is calculated that the Ottoman army employed over 25,000 officers, a considerable proportion of whom were not Turks, but men drawn from the Albanian, Khurdish, Arabian and other elements of the country that do not sympathize particularly with Nationalist Turkey. It is safe to say that at least 5,000 officers of the former army joined the forces of Kemal as the only open way to a decent livelihood. To these forces must be added the men that the southern provinces of Anatolia contributed to the Nationalist movement after it was well under way. These may be estimated at between 30,000 and 40,000 men. Finally comes the assistance given more or less openly by the Constantinople Government and the territory under the Sultan's jurisdiction. This is an unknown factor, but on the whole it is safe to assume that when Kemal took the field early in the Spring he had between 180,000 and 200,000

troops for use against the Greek armies.

In order to equip this army Mustapha Kemal had to depend on the following supplies: First, he had at his disposal the military stores of the Turkish eastern armies, chiefly located in Sou-Shehri, about a hundred miles inland from Kerassund. This was the base of the Turkish Third Army, which, after the armistice, ought to have been turned over to the Allies, but which remained in the hands of the Kemalists. In addition there were other smaller depots in Angora and Sivas, and these also fell to the Kemalists. It must be added that at the time of the demobilization of the army the soldiers and officers as a rule took with them their rifles and revolvers, with all the ammunition they could carry, while a large amount of war material was freely distributed to the peasantry to be used "should the need arise."

The Russians in their retreat from Trebizond had abandoned no less than two hundred pieces of heavy artillery, with two large dumps of ammunition. General Denikin made an attempt to get this material, but the Turks got wind of the plan and blew up one dump, keeping the other. The Kemalists also found a good deal of artillery in Kars and Batum, although in both cases the Armenians and the Georgians had appropriated the best pieces for their own armies. Finally the Kemalist Turks got their best artillery from Erzerum, because the Russian retreat there was so precipitate that the newest and largest guns were abandoned. These weapons, together with those smuggled from Constantinople, Bulgaria, Russia and certain countries of western Europe, helped arm the Kemalist troops.

Mustapha Kemal solved his financial problem partly by levying all the taxes and surtaxes previously paid to the Constantinople Government, and mostly by getting hold of all money that came in sight. The Greek and Armenian element, the backbone of the economic strength of the empire,

was stripped of its last penny, while remittances from Constantinople and Moscow and from other more opulent sympathizers of the Kemalist movement soon filled the coffers of the organization. To send troops to the assistance of Kemal was not an easy task, but monetary help was more convenient to get to him from all parts of Islam, and especially from the neighboring States.

KEMAL TAKES THE FIELD

From March, 1919, to March, 1921, Mustapha Kemal continued his preparations, entirely undisturbed by what was going on among European statesmen and the diplomats. His main idea seems to have been that success depended rather on the moral effect that his organization would have on the Entente than on an actual victory on the battlefield. He made no serious attempt to engage the Greek Army in Asia Minor during the two years following the occupation of Smyrna, because he had not the necessary forces for such an undertaking, and because he was convinced that European diplomacy could succeed in driving the Greeks out of Smyrna much better than force of arms. All the information that the Nationalist leader was getting from Paris and Rome, by way of Constantinople, was in sympathy with this view.

What Kemal aimed at was the revision of the Treaty of Sevres, and this was almost accomplished when his own representatives were accepted by the allied Governments to discuss in London the details of the Near Eastern settlement, during that memorable conference of last March, when Premier Briand of France came out openly in favor of their claims; Italy had been clamoring for the revision of the Turkish treaty ever since the day of its first inception in San Remo, a year before. Greece unanimously rejected the proposal to modify the Turkish treaty, and shortly afterward she launched her