Letters from the Near East : 1909 and 1912

Preface

This book consists partly of letters written from Constantinople in 1909 to the Morning Post, and partly of letters written from the Balkans during the war of 1912 to The Times.
 

I

The letters to the Morning Post, which were written during and after the counter-revolution of 1909, are here republished without one word of alteration, ' with all their imperfections on their head.' Where I made mistakes I have left them. They are not the letters of an expert. They are the letters of a man who had never been to the Near East before, who knew little or nothing about the Balkan States, the history of the Turks, or the complicated conditions of political and social life at Constantinople.

When I arrived at Constantinople, at the end of April 1909, I found all the local foreign opinion, and especially the local English opinion, in a ferment of enthusiasm for the Young Turks, and in a tumult of indignation against the English government, and its representatives at Constantinople, for the lukewarm support that they were said to be giving to the new movement and the new regime.

I arrived at Constantinople with a perfectly blank mind as to the merits of the case. I cared neither one way nor the other. I had no preconceived notions, and no theories on the subject. My business was simply to keep my eyes open and to write down my impressions of what I saw : choses vues. I started, as will be seen from the letters that I wrote, with every desire to be as enthusiastic about the new regime, and as hopeful and confident, as my fellow-countrymen whom I met in Constantinople. The five letters that I here reprint, written in 1909, tell the story of a gradual disillusionment. They begin by being enthusiastic, and then, little by little, enthusiasm gives way to scepticism, scepticism to doubt, and, finally, doubt to disbelief. After five weeks, I left Turkey, and I did not return thither until the autumn of 1912, when the war was already in full swing. I found on returning that my scepticism had been justified by facts, and that in the space of four years, the new regime of the Young Turks, and the rule of the Committee of Union and Progress, which had been hailed so joyfully by the Liberals of Europe, and which had raised such high hopes in the breasts of all lovers and defenders of freedom and of constitutionalism, had succeeded in bringing the Ottoman Empire to the very brink of ruin.

Since these letters were written the Young Turks have come once more into power and appear to be bent on dealing the coup de grace or the coup de Bourse (the two are synonymous) to their dying Empire, and they seem to be desirous of crowning their long and discreditable record of incompetent statesmanship by one final act of folly.

The experiment made by the Young Turks, and its failure to restore order and to inaugurate progress in the Ottoman Empire, raises a question of immense general interest, and of particular importance to the English people. The British Empire includes large dominions inhabited by Moslims, and ever since the Russo-Japanese war, in all the Moslim countries which are under British sway, there have been movements and agitations in favour of Western methods of government, constitutionalism, and self-government. There has been a cry of ' Egypt for the Egyptians,' and of ' India for the Indians,' and in some cases this cry has been supported and punctuated by bombs and assassination. Now the question which arises is this : Is it possible to pour the new wine into the old bottles ? Is it possible to graft on to Oriental habits the modes of thought, the systems and forms of government of the West ? Can Eastern and Moslim countries govern themselves according to Western ideas ? Is constitutional government possible in the East ? At first sight, recent events in Turkey seem to have answered the question finally, and once for all, in the negative ; but on looking closer into the question, we find that this is not so really ; for during the period in which Turkey was at the mercy of the Committee of Union and Progress, there was in Turkey never for one moment the shadow of anything like constitutional government or Western methods--there was, in fact, merely a different and equally ruthless form of despotism. Turkish administration went on exactly as it had done before. That is to say, it didn't go on. Armenians, and other Christian peoples subject to the Turks, were massacred exactly as they had been massacred before. The organisers and the instruments of these massacres went unpunished just as they had gone unpunished before. There was this difference only : that, whereas under the old regime, when the Christians were massacred, the Powers used to put pressure on the Sultan, under the new regime the Powers merely replied to the complaining sufferers, ' It is no longer our business ; you must present your grievances through the proper and legal channel of Parliament, and your constituents will no doubt see that they are speedily redressed.' But the influence of the Young Turks was by no means simply negative. Superficially they plunged headlong into every kind of modern innovation, and this was especially true as far as the army was concerned. The old order was changed, but nothing was put in its place, and the only result of such changes was to sow in the hearts of the population — and especially in the hearts of the-' soldiers — the seed of disbelief in the wisdom and the sound qualities of those who brought the changes into effect.


The reasons why the experiment of the Young Turks in constitutional government failed, were, first, that the changes they effected were superficial and not fundamental, and secondly that the changes they made were premature and carried out in a rash haste against the advice of all mature opinion. Now, as I have already said, the Turkish experiment does not prove anything with regard to the main question of whether it is possible or not to introduce progress and new forms of government into Eastern and Moslim countries. Or, rather, all that it proves is this : (a) it is impossible to bring about any such changes in a hurry ; (b) superficial changes will do more harm than good. But let us return now to the larger question, which is of vital importance to England at the present day in India, in Persia, in Egypt, in fact wherever there are any Moslim British subjects. Is it possible gradually, and by degrees, to instill such lessons of progress into these peoples as will ultimately end in their governing themselves according to Western methods ? Some people say it is. And the people who say it have had very large experience of the East ; but they say it can only be done slowly and gradually, and that the change must be fundamental and not superficial. All intelligent observers of Eastern hfe and Eastern ideas, who have had a long and first-hand experience of Oriental countries, are agreed that if you introduce into Eastern countries the forms without the reality of Western government and Western methods, the / result will be ferocious despotism and ultimate disintegration. This is exactly what has happened in Turkey under the regime of the Committee of Union and Progress. To a man who is not an expert in such matters — to someone like myself whose knowledge of the East and of Oriental life is of the slenderest and of the most superficial kind — it is exceedingly difficult to understand how progress can ever become a reality in Moslim countries unless the Mahomedan religion is changed out of all recognition, unless, in fact, it ceases to be Mahomedan : unless the word Islam ceases to mean resignation and becomes synonymous with hustle. Here, for instance, is what one of the wisest of all experts in Oriental matters, and one of the most brilliant of all writers on Eastern affairs, says on the subject . . .

. . . Of course in saying that the Young Turks are responsible for the recent disasters to Turkish arms I do not mean to say that the Young Turks are the sole cause of the general decay of Turkey in Europe. That would be nonsensical as well as grossly unfair. As everybody knows, the decay of the Ottoman Empire, which has been going on for years, and in fact for centuries, was caused by the fact that the Turks arrived as a conquering nation in Europe, treated Europe as an armed camp, and refused to assimilate or be assimilated by the people whom they conquered. Their military power declined, that of the subject races progressed. The Turks remained stationary in this as well as in all other matters, and in 1897 Sir Charles Eliot summed up the matter in the following prophetic words : 'The Turkish reformer and the Christian have nothing in common, and the mass of Turks mistrust the reformer. Even in such a matter as military reform, where there can be no doubt that improvements are in the interest of the Moslim, and the Moslim only, the Turk will not take the view which his friends think he obviously ought to take. Foreign military instructors have again and again presented recommendations, and again and again they have been rejected, sometimes openly, sometimes with a pretence of acceptance, but always quite firmly. The Turk has a dim perception that even in military matters he cannot understand and practise European methods. If he tries to do so, the control will pass out of his hands into those of people who are cleverer than himself. But though he may think them clever, he does not on that account feel any respect for them. He regards them as conjurers who can perform a variety of tricks which may be, according to circumstances, useful, amusing, or dangerous ; but for all Christendom he has a brutal, unreasoning contempt — the contempt of a sword for everything that can be cut, and to-day the stupid contempt of a blunt sword.' Here we have in a sentence the whole secret of the failure of the Turks to compete with the races they had formerly conquered. ' The stupid contempt of a blunt sword ' — here also we have the explanation of the failure of the Young Turks reformers as far as military matters were concerned. Under the new regime foreign military instructors were introduced, foreign military methods were adopted, foreign theories of strategy were applied. But all this reform was superficial and negative. It had a negative effect. Old-fashioned officers were dismissed ; the young officers talked French and German. The oldfashioned sergeants were abolished. The ancient and fundamental idea of Islam, to fight for the faith against the unbeliever, was deprecated. But the army retained its brutal and unreasoning contempt for all Christendom, the sword remained blunt, and the new-fashioned manner of using it, which the foreign instructors attempted to inculcate, had merely the effect of bewildering the wielder of it. The result of the reforms on the army was, roughly speaking, to dig a gulf between the officers and the men, and to bewilder the executive by an ill-digested theory of strategy and practice. The result was disorganisation, confusion and chaos, and this result has now been written in history.

In blaming the Young Turkish regime I am in no way casting any reflection on the Turks themselves. The Young Turks were foreigners. They were puppets whose strings were pulled in Europe. Their temporary success was due to their throwing dust in the eyes of Europe and to the support of the Freemasons and of certain financiers. They obtained this support because they appeared to be at one time the only thing in Turkey which there was to support. The story of their doings resembles Hans Andersen's tale of the Emperor's new clothes. The whole of Europe admired the new clothes whose manifold and brilliant qualities the cunning tailors pointed out, until a little boy cried out that the King was naked. During the whole period of the Young Turks regime Turkey was naked ; the part of the little boy was played by the Bulgarians and the Allies.

All this does not prevent one from sympathising with the Old Turks — that is to say, with the Turks ; for there are in reality no such things as Young Turks ; there are only Turks and foreigners. Everybody who goes to Turkey is attracted by the character of the Turk, especially by the poor Turk — his dignity, his selfrespect, his hospitality, his perfect manners, his infinite and never-failing courtesy. And now, in the hour of his disaster, one cannot help feeling indignant with those, his former friends, who for so many years were so loud and ostentatious in their support of him, and who now, in the dark hour of his trial, have so suddenly veered round, and are equally loud and ostentatious in their denunciation, their scorn and their jeers. If the Turks were now to turn round and massacre every single European in Constantinople and in Turkey — much as I should feel for the Europeans — I should recognise that they had brought it upon themselves. There has never been a country which has suffered such ruthless exploitation at the hands of the foreigner as Turkey ; and, since in all matters of practical business the foreigner is cleverer than the Turk, the only means that the Turk has of redressing the balance is to turn round and to massacre the Christians. This is the initial and central difficulty of the situation of Turkey in Europe. The Turks have so far refused, or been unable, to assimilate Western methods. Westerners employ these methods against them and exploit them. The Turks' only answer is the sword. So has it always been, so will it always be. This leads one to believe that the happiest thing that could perhaps happen to the Turks would be for them to shake the dust of Europe off their feet and to seek the more congenial clime of Asia, from whence they came, to which they properly belong, and where they would have nothing to fear from Western competition. The blend of Turkish administration and Christian population is fatal and hopeless ; for Turkish administration does not practically exist. Turkish rule is misrule. But of course the fact remains that they have had an Empire in Europe, that the Empire has decayed, and that this decay is a sad thing. I for one will not join in the paean of triumph, much as I admire the patriotism of the Allies, deeply as I believe in the reality of their past grievances, and in the justice and the logic of their cause. However great the sins of the Turks may be, it is none the less a sad thing when we see that which has once been great and proud betrayed, humiliated and in the dust. Mentem mortalia tangunt.

' Men are we, and must grieve when even the shade Of that which once was great is pass'd away.'
 

II

The second part of this little book consists of letters written recently from the Balkans. The time I spent there was brief. I saw nothing of the fighting, and little of the war. But I did have the opportunity of getting some first-hand knowledge of the Bulgarians and the Servians, and I left both countries with feelings of admiration. When I reached Sofia the whole country seemed to be emptied of men. The city was deserted save by women, children and youths. All the able-bodied men had gone to the war. And what struck me throughout, during my stay in Bulgaria, and in the dealings I had with the Bulgarian people, was this : that the ideals of their nation and their people were concentrated in one burning quality, namely patriotism.

Patriotism was their religion, their art, their ambition, their recreation, their occupation, their inner life. Like the Spartans or the Japanese, they seemed to be imbued with one single purpose and to subordinate all their desires, ambitions, and feelings to one single aim. In Servia you are struck by older traditions, by a mass of historical associations, by the tinge and hue which an ancient and rich literature gives to a country. But here also you were met by a vital spirit of selfsacrifice and a strong motive power. But in Servia, voice and expression were given fully to the ideals of the people. In Bulgaria, the patriotism of the people was shrouded in a veil of impenetrable modesty and reserve. I came back from the war with the feeling that the cause of the Allies was not only the just, but the sensible one — that their victory was a logical one, and in accordance with the larger interests of Europe and the only possible solution of the Eastern Question. Moreover I liked these peoples, and experienced kindness at their hands ; but this does not prevent me from feeling the utmost sympathy with the fallen Turk in the hour of his trouble ; and had I to spend the rest of my life in the Near East, I think I would choose the unreclaimed rather than the reclaimed Turkey ; and yet I should be glad if Brusa and not Constantinople were the capital of Turkey : not that I envy any country the possession of the poisonous and cosmopolitan city of Byzantium, where the men of the East forget their virtues, and the men of the West add to the store of their vices.

MAURICE BARING.

February 1913.