menu_book Chapter 10

Section 10 of Imperialism and World Politics, Part 2 of 4, by Parker Thomas Moon. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Read by Alistair. Chapter 11C, Near Eastern Questions, Old and New. Subsection, War and Peace. During the war, the wildest dreams of German imperialists were realised, for a moment, in the Near East. Turkey, having secretly joined the Triple Alliance, was brought into the war

on Germany's side, partly by the efforts of young Turks like Enver Pasha, who felt that Russian victory would mean an end to Turkey, and partly by the presence of two German warships. Bulgaria, too, joined the Central Powers a little later, in October 1915. Serbia, Montenegro, Albania, and most of Romania were conquered by Germany and her allies. The Balkan Peninsula was now a broad highway connecting Austro-German Central Europe with Germanised Turkey. But Germany was defeated,

as all the world knows, and it was left to the Allies to divide the spoils of Turkey. The Allies were not unprepared. Even in the darkest hours of the war, Allied statesmen were optimistically arranging the partition of Turkey. Russia was to annex Constantinople and the adjoining territory, so France and England agreed in March 1915,

just before the great Russian defeat in Poland. A year later France agreed, to Zonlov-Paleologue Agreement of April 26, 1916, that Russia should also have about 60,000 square miles of northeastern Turkey, that is, of Turkish Armenia,

while the region stretching south-westward from this region to the Mediterranean including Syria should be French. Next France and England defined their claims by the Sykes-Picot agreement of May 1916. France was to administer Syria and the hinterland reaching up to the Russian zone in Armenia and a zone of French influence was to stretch eastward from Syria across the Euphrates and Tigris as far as the Persian border. All south of this would be a

British zone of influence, excepting Palestine, which would be under international control. The Palestinian ports of Acre and Haifa were to be British, however, and Mesopotamia, which would be under British administration. Italy, too, demanded a share. In the secret treaty of London, April 26th, 1915, by which they purchased Italy's entry into the war, England, France, and Russia promised Italy a just share of the Mediterranean region adjacent to the

province of Adalia. The demands of justice, apparently, were large, for when France and England came to settle details with Italy, in the Saint-Jean-de-Mariana agreement of April 17th, 1917, Italy would be contented with nothing less than the right to annex the southern third of Anatolia, stretching from Smyrna in the west, almost to Adana in the southeast, and in addition a large area north of Smyrna was to be a zone of Italian influence. Of Turkey, there would be left

after each of the Allies had taken its share, only the northern half or less, of Anatolia. The promissory generosity of the Allies toward each other was never fully realised, in fact. Russia, by becoming Bolshevist, forfeited her claims. It was convenient that she did so, for British statesmen were being besieged by the Mohammedans of India with petitions to leave Constantinople in the hands of the Mohammedan Caliph, the Turkish Sultan. Another change in

secret treaties was made at Italy's expense, when, during the temporary withdrawal of Italian delegates from the Paris Peace Conference, Louis-George, Clemenceau and Wilson authorised the Greeks to seize Smyrna. That province, one recalls, had been promised to Italy. On the whole, however, the Peace Treaty of Sèvres, which the Allies compelled the Turkish government to sign on August 10th, 1920, was a mosaic of the secret treaties, a document in

which imperialism was writ large. The Ottoman Empire was to be shorn of its Arab possessions, Syria, Palestine, Mesopotamia, and the intervening deserts and Hejaz, now independent with a ruler salaried by England, and other Turkish provinces in the Arabian Peninsula. These, it was planned, would be divided between France and England. The north-eastern corner of Turkey was to become an independent Armenia, with borders later marked out by President Wilson. Smyrna was to be handed over,

with unimportant reservations, to Greece, along with most of eastern Thrace. Italy was to have a sphere of influence in southern Anatolia, instead of annexing it as originally planned. And the Dodecanesia, the group of islands occupied by Italy since 1912, were, by a separate Greco-Italian treaty to be transferred to Greece. What was left of Turkey, most of Anatolia plus Constantinople, was to be saddled with such thorough-going, allied financial and administrative

supervision that it could hardly be called independent. The Treaty of Sevres, however, was torn up by Kamal Pasha, a brilliant and daring Turkish officer who gathered about him a patriotic army of Turkish nationalists, drove the Greeks out of Smyrna, and practically expelled the French from Cilicia, north of Syria, regained eastern Thrace, reconquered Turkish Armenia, deposed the Sultan, transferred the Turkish capital to Ankara in the inaccessible heart

of the Anatolian highlands, and declared Turkey a republic, an independent and progressive nation. This nationalist revolution, accomplished in the years 1921 through 1923, made the Treaty of Sevre a dead letter and necessitated a new peace conference between the Allies and Turkey. The conference met at Lausanne in the years 1922 and 1923 and after many accurate interchanges of wit and sarcasm between the Turkish and Allied delegates, the Treaty of Lausanne was signed in

the summer of 1923. Recognising the actual fact, the Allies had to allow Turkey to retain Smyrna, Eastern Thrace, Armenia and Cilicia, as well as Constantinople and the unquestionably Turkish Anatolian Plateau. Allied financial and judicial fetters on Turkey were struck off. The straits were opened to ships of peace and war, with some restrictions. Turkish nationalism, provoked by European imperialism, was apparently triumphant. But European imperialism was by no means wholly

thwarted. Syria, Mesopotamia, Palestine, Arabia, and the Dodecanesia were definitely severed from Turkey and appropriated by European powers. Moreover, all claims which the former Ottoman empire might have had to Egypt, Cyprus, Tripoli, and Cyrenaica, and Tannis were finally cancelled in favour of the imperialist powers occupying those former Ottoman provinces. But what needs special emphasis here is the fact that even in nationalist Turkey, the imperialism of the West

was still entrenched. A protocol attached to the Lausanne Treaty confirmed the railway and other concessions which had been granted by Turkey before she entered the Great War to nationals of the Allied powers. What had happened during all this turmoil to the unfinished Baghdad railway? the victorious allies put into the peace treaties of Versailles 1919 and Sèvres 1920 clauses which would mean practically confiscation of the German interests in the Baghdad and

Anatolian railways. The plan was to hand these railways over to a French-British-Italian company at a price to be fixed by an arbitrator. Neutral and French citizens would of course receive their proper share of the price, but the portion due to the Germans would be paid to the Reparation Commission. The Treaty of Sevres, however, was thrown into the scrap heap by Mustafa Kemal's nationalist government, and the part of the Baghdad railway which lay within the new Turkish frontiers

was simply taken over and operated by the Turkish government. The sections running through the French Mandate of Syria were acquired by a French company, and the sections in Mesopotamia became the Iraq railways under British control. Subsection, Petroleum and Politics. In the international battle after the Great War for concessions in Turkey, American interests began to compete with European in ominous fashion. We refer particularly to the

Chester concession granted in 1923. Years previously, in 1908, President Roosevelt had sent Admiral Chester to Turkey, and Chester had begun negotiations for rail and oil concessions in the Ottoman Empire. Two causes, probably, contributed to his ultimate success. One was the fact that the Americans in 1923, like the Germans in 1903, appeared to be disinterested businessmen, devoid of imperialist ambitions for political domination of Turkey. The other was the

possibility that by granting a valuable concession to Americans, the Turkish nationalists might enlist American sympathy and diplomatic support in their diplomatic contest with the Allies at Lausanne. At any rate, on April 30th, 1923, the Turkish Minister of Public Works signed the Chester concession, granting to the Ottoman American Development Company contracts even more ambitious than those which had been given, two decades earlier, to the Baghdad Railway Company.

Chester's syndicate was to undertake the construction of a network of railways in eastern Anatolia and Armenia, connecting Ankara, the new capital, with Samson and Trebizond on the Black Sea, with the Gulf of Alexandretta on the Mediterranean, with Mosul and northern Mesopotamia on the southeast. The total length of these lines, 2,714 miles, was considerably greater than that of the Baghdad railway system. They were long enough almost to span the breadth

of the American continent. The concessionaires were to have mining rights 20 kilometres on each side of the railway. The value of mineral resources thus assigned was estimated at 10 billion dollars. In addition, the Chester Syndicate was to erect a magnificent capital at Ankara, and to construct docks and port facilities at Samson on the Black Sea, and at Yuma Tuk in the Gulf of Alexandretta. Here was a truly stupendous business project,

but like its German forerunner it could not be entirely divorced from international complications. To begin with one of the railway routes now assigned to Chester had previously been promised to a French syndicate in April 1914 in exchange for a loan of 800 million francs and though the Turks stoutly claimed the promise had been cancelled by the failure of the French to pay more than 500 million francs of the loan. The French felt convinced that they had been shabbily

treated. There was also a dispute with the British over oil rights. One of the Chester lines was to traverse the Mosul district, supposedly very rich in petroleum, and the Chester interests would have oil rights 20 kilometers each side of the line. Now, the exclusive right to prospect for oil in Upper Mesopotamia, including Mosul, had been provisionally promised to the Turkish Petroleum Company on June 28th, 1914, as part of the Anglo-German-Turkish bargain of that year.

And the company resolutely insisted that this promise should be fulfilled, regardless of the conflicting Chester concession. The Turkish Petroleum, despite its name, was practically the British government. Half its stock was owned by the Anglo-Persian oil company, and in turn a controlling interest in the Anglo-Persian was owned directly by the British government. Another 25% was held by the Royal Dutch Shell Combine, an Anglo-Dutch syndicate,

about two-fifths of whose capital was British. The remaining 25% of the Turkish petroleum stock, formerly assigned to Deutsche Bank was confiscated by the British government in 1918 as enemy property. This quarter share was promised to France by the San Remo agreement of April 25th 1920. It was against such union of finance and diplomacy that the Chester concern entered the lists. Many Americans believed that the State Department at Washington should openly step

forward to champion Chester, as an American, against British and French rivals. The Chester concession, however, was not purely American. It was an international enterprise in which British interests were strongly represented. The State Department announced that it did not view the Chester concession as a concern of the United States government. But Secretary Hughes did protect the Chester interests indirectly. American diplomacy vetoed the attempt of the

British at the Lausanne Conference to include the Turkish Petroleum Concession, among the concessions to be confirmed by Turkey. With the United States refusing to recognise the British concession, and Great Britain discountenancing the Chester concession, the rivals were deadlocked. Complicated though the story must appear, it may be well to add a little more, if for no other reason than to show how intricate such imperialist conflicts are, and how apparently disinterested

political contentions may be built upon such things as oil. If Great Britain could obtain political sovereignty over Mosul, the Turkish government would have no right to grant Chester oil rights in that region. In the original Franco-British secret agreement of 1916 for the partition of Turkey, Mosul had been assigned to France, on condition that France respect the Turkish Petroleum Company's concession there. Later, however, Lloyd George persuaded Clemenceau

to draw a new line, leaving Mosul in the British sphere in return for a share of Mosul's oil and certain other considerations. The San Remo oil agreement, by the way, was made in pursuance of this bargain. Accordingly, Great Britain included Mosul in the British mandate of Mesopotamia. The Turkish nationalists, however, insisted that the inhabitants of Mosul were Kurds and, by right of self-determination, should belong with Turkey.

Great Britain, on the other hand, insisted that Mosul was part of the Mesopotamian mandate and the vigorously expressed desire of the Mesopotamian Arabs to keep Mosul within their borders afforded a reason less sordid than oil for the British position. Behind all the talk of self-determination and native rights, however, lay the question whether London or Ankara would dispose of the oil.

So uncompromising were the contestants that the fate of Mosul was left undetermined by the Treaty of Lausanne, and it was agreed simply that in case Great Britain and Turkey could not reach an accord, the dispute would be referred to the League of Nations. when a boundary commission sent out by the league reported after an investigation on the spot that the best solution would be the award of mosul to iraq on condition that great britain prolong

her mandatory control of iraq for 25 years the turks in the best nationalistic manner announced they would reject any decision unfavorable to them by the league even after the world court had upheld the League Council's right by the Treaty of Lausanne to decide the case, and after the League Council had awarded Mosul to Iraq, the Turks remained sullen. The British, of course, accepted the decision. Although there was some complaint on the part of taxpayers who considered

the maintenance of British troops in Mesopotamia an extravagance, British imperialists might well be satisfied. Mosul would belong to Iraq, and Iraq would be controlled by Britain. Moreover, the British-controlled Turkish Petroleum Company had obtained from the British-controlled government of Iraq a 75-year concession to exploit the oil resources of the Vilayets provinces of Mosul and Baghdad. This was only one aspect of the world's struggle for oil in which Great Britain and the

United States appeared, at the close of the Great War, as the foremost combatants. To enter into all the details of that struggle would be beside the point, here, but one or two points need to be touched on, insofar as they concern the Near East. When France and Great Britain, by the San Remo Agreement of 1920, proposed to divide between themselves the oil not only of Mosul, but of the entire Near East, the United States promptly and strongly protested that it had a right to be

consulted before the resources of the lands jointly conquered from the Central Powers were disposed of. This was only the beginning of a sharp diplomatic skirmish, the intricacies of which we need not pursue. But while the British Foreign Office composed masterly legal replies to American legal protests, Sir John Cadman visited the United States and endeavoured to come to a business agreement with American oil interests. It is asserted, perhaps without authority, that the

Standard Oil was offered a quarter share in the Turkish Petroleum, a half interest in northern Persia, and prospecting rights previously obtained, but hitherto opposed in Palestine. But the Standard was not the only American oil company interested in Turkish oil. There were at least a half dozen, and with these also the British had to negotiate. At length, in 1925, it was announced that a bargain had been made, permitting a group

of American oil companies, including the Rockefeller, Doheny and Sinclair Interests, to buy 25% of the Turkish Petroleum Company's stock. The remainder of this company's capital was to be held as follows. 25% by the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, controlled by the British government, 25% by the Royal Dutch Shell, two-fifths British, 25% by the Compagnie Française de Petrole, representing 67 French companies. Subsection, Turkish Nationalism. If it would

appear that much of the history of the Near East, since 1918, has been written in oil, the reader should not too hastily conclude that oil alone will determine the fate of this much contested part of the earth's surface. Human beings count for something, and there are almost 30 millions of them to be considered in what was before 1914 the Ottoman Empire in Asia. They may be considered as falling into two main groups, approximately 13 million, mainly Turks,

in the Republic of Turkey, and approximately 13 million Arabs and other racial elements mingled with the Arabs in regions which have been detached from Turkey, namely Syria, Palestine, Mesopotamia, Transjordan, Hejaz, Azzir and Yemen. The Turks form a pretty solid block of humanity in their historic homeland, the rough plateau of Anatolia. To call them Turks is perhaps to beg the question of their identity, for in the mass they are doubtless a very mixed breed,

in which a relatively small element of Mongolian or Turkish blood has been mingled with many other strains, some of which probably go back to the prehistoric inhabitants of Asia Minor. But they speak the Turkish language and seem to be learning to consider themselves members of a Turkish nation, as much entitled to nationhood as any other. This sentiment of nationality, be it noted, is a recent development, very different from the old Ottoman policy of

considering any Muslim, regardless of tongue or blood, as Ottoman. The new nationalism is the product of Western civilisation, transplanted by European imperialism into an oriental soil. And this new nationalism, fiercely jealous of independence, resentful of encroachment, is an obstacle to European imperialism.

The full import of the opposition is just beginning to appear. Turkish nationalism will not be content with political independence, It will translate itself into economic life also. For many years, the mass of the Turkish nation, the plotting peasants who till ungrateful soil,

have allowed Armenians, Greeks, and, to a smaller extent, Jews, to keep the shops, market the rugs and crops, lend the money in their country, and have permitted foreign capitalists to finance the railways, mines, and other large enterprises.

Now there appear symptoms of Turkish revolt against economic vassalage, of Turkish determination first to supplant the Armenians and Greeks in local commerce and petty finance, second to make sure that foreign concessions in Turkey are not of such a nature as to place the country permanently in the grip of foreign capitalists. These aims are easier to express than to achieve, but in attempting their achievement Turkish nationalists

will inevitably find themselves at odds with the imperialist Occident, if the Occident remains imperialist. Contact with European imperialism has taught the upper classes something of western social and political institutions, and the Turkish nationalist leaders, many of whom have been educated in Europe, have shown remarkable energy and courage in attempting to reform Turkish institutions to suit European ideals. They have made Turkey a republic, with a constitution of

a most radical democratic type, although probably the bulk of the people do not yet understand quite what a republic is, or what the exercise of franchise means. The nationalist leaders have destroyed the Sultanate and abolished the Caliphate. That is to say, they have done away with the sovereign and his claim to be the spiritual head of the Mohammedan world. They have taken other liberties with the Mohammedan institutions. For example, the wife of Mustafa Kemal Pasha,

the nationalist leader, discarded the traditional face veil and advocated the emancipation of women from the harem system. Polygamy, practiced only by the rich, but permitted by the Quran, was abolished. The fez gave place to the hat. European clothing was prescribed for officials. The Christian calendar was adopted. Women's rights were recognized in a new civil code. Not to prolong the list, we may say, in short, that in certain vital respects,

Turkish nationalism undertook the sudden Europeanization of Turkey. Whether this sudden transformation decreed by the leaders will provoke a temporary reaction by the masses is of small moment in the sweep of history. More important is the major fact that Europeanisation has begun. Subsection, Arab Nationalism. A line drawn east from the Gulf of Alexandretta, at the north-eastern corner of the Mediterranean Sea to the Persian border, would in a rough way

separate Anatolia and its Turkish population, on the north, from the Arab countries on the south. South of this line, in Syria, Palestine and Mesopotamia, live 6 million Arabs, and still farther south, in the Arab peninsula, are perhaps 10 million more Arabs. These figures are not much more than guesswork, because no census taker visits the desert tents of Arabia. Long and lean of limb, brown of skin, strong and hardy. Some of the Arab nomads are physically among the finest

types of humanity, and mentally they have shown gifts of very high order. In past centuries, the Arab has been a great warrior. Receiving Muhammad's creed, he carried it by word and sword, over the whole Near East, over Northern Asia, into Persia, and for a space in the Middle Ages, great was the renown of Arab caliphs at Damascus or at Baghdad. North Africa, with its Arab-sized population, still bears witness to the aggressive energy of this people, and the Arab

slave dealers and traders have not yet been entirely swept out of Central and East Africa. But the Arabs in modern times fell under foreign rule, except in the interior of the barren Arabian peninsula, into whose deserts alien conquerors were loath to venture. Perhaps it was the lack of ability for political organisation. More probably it was a traditional spirit of tribal independence, a spirit naturally bred of generations spent in wandering through desert and grassland,

that rendered the Arabs subject to conquest. At any rate, the Arabs of Syria, Palestine and Mesopotamia became Turkish subjects, and Turkish rule was more or less fitfully maintained in Hejaz, Aziah and Yemen on the Red Sea coast of the Arabian Peninsula. The Great War released these regions from Ottoman rule, and transferred them to French and British imperialism. Syria became a mandate of France, Palestine and Mesopotamia mandates of Great Britain, Hejaz

an independent Arab kingdom more or less under British control. The other Arab states in the Arabian Peninsula were considered to fall within the British sphere of influence. Though it was hardly worthwhile for Great Britain to interfere with them, so small was their population, so certain their resistance, so insignificant their economic value. As regards the administration of the mandates, full discussion may best be postponed to the chapter in which the mandate system is

considered. But before leaving the Near East, we shall do well to take mental note that 16 million Arabs scattered over a region largely barren, but almost half as large as the United States, represent an interesting problem for European imperialism. If the Arabic populations in North Africa are added, the problem becomes still larger in scope. As yet, most of the Arabs are quite willing to be divided. Racial or national consciousness has not translated itself in the

minds of the masses into a desire for political unity. Nevertheless, a number of young Arabs, especially those who have been educated abroad, and officers who served in the Great War against the Turks, have shown a fiery spirit of nationalism. Moreover, the fire is fanned by Arab colonies and Arab publications in Egypt, in New York, in Latin America. Whether this nationalism will communicate itself to the people at large

depends to some extent on British and French policy, and Great Britain and France have done much to promote Arab nationalism. During the war, to enlist Arab aid against the Turks, British and French authorities held out bright hopes of an independent Arab confederacy, then, by dashing these hopes to the ground,

created a resentment that only intensified the national spirit. When Arab leaders in Syria and Palestine desired to make an Arab prince their king, a French general expelled the prince. Great Britain, nothing loath to discommode her ally, gave this same prince a crown and made him king of Iraq,

the Arabic name for Mesopotamia. More than that, the London cabinet adopted what seemed to be a brilliant general policy toward Arabia. It would conciliate the Arabs by putting the sons of Hussein, the Arab king of Hejaz, on convenient thrones as kings or princes under British supervision. The new king of Iraq, Prince Faisal, was one of these sons.

His brother was made emir, prince of Karak, or Transjordan, the land east of the Palestinian Dead Sea. Further, for a time, the statesmen of London seemed inclined to favour the idea of making the king of Hejaz caliph of all Islam, in place of the deposed Turkish sultan. The conception of this policy was unquestionably bold and brilliant. If successful, it would make Britain ultimately the patron and protector of an Arab confederacy, and through the Arab caliph, Hussein, of the world

of Islam. One difficulty, however, was that the very fact of British support made Hussein and his sons, unpopular with other Arab chieftains, and perhaps with many of the tribesmen. Indeed, the warlike Ibn Saud, Sultan of the Nejd and leader of a Puritanical Muslim sect, the Wahhabis, invaded and conquered Hajjaz. Hussein was overthrown, though his sons remained on their thrones in Iraq and Karak. Admitting the failure of their former policy, the British, ever flexible,

now made terms with the victorious Ibn Saud. Quickly, the moving finger writes, the Near East, penetrated by German imperialism through the Baghdad railway, becomes an arena for Anglo-French imperialism, as Germany is eliminated. American capital enters the field as a politically disinterested third party

to seek oil and business profit. Turkey, ceasing to be an empire, becomes a defiant nation, and the Arab tribesmen stir uneasily with the ferment of nationalism. The historic question of the Near East has passed through many transformations. Until today, it is but part of the worldwide question. What will be the issue of the conflict between Europe's imperialism

and the new oriental nationalism? End of section 10.