arnold j. toynbee - the western question in greece and turkey (1922)

8/13/2019 Arnold J. Toynbee - The Western Question in Greece and Turkey (1922)

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BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THESAGE ENDOWMENT FUND

THE GIFT OFHENRY W. SAGE

1891


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Cornell University LibraryD 465.T75Western question in Greece and Turkey.

3 1924 027 921 778


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Cornell UniversityLibrary

The original of tiiis book is intine Cornell University Library.

There are no known copyright restrictions inthe United States on the use of the text.

http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924027921778


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THE WESTERN QUESTION


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THE WESTERN QUESTIONIN GREECE AND TURKEY

A STUDY IN THE CONTACT OF CIVILISATIONSBY

ARNOLD J. TOYNBEE

'For we are also His oflfspring'

CONSTABLE AND COMPANY LTDLONDON BOMBAY SYDNEY1922


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TOTHE PRESIDENT AND FACULTY OP THE

AMERICAN COLLEGE FOR GIRLS AT CONSTANTINOPLEthis book is dedicated bythe authoe and his wife

in gratitude for their hospitalityand in admiration of their neutral-mindedness

in circumstances in which neutrality is'hard and rare'


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viii THE WESTERN QUESTIONcrimes incidental to an abnormal process, which all partieshave committed in turn, and not as the peculiar practice ofone denomination or nationality. Finally, the masterfulinfluence of our Western form of society upon people of othercivilisations can be discerned beneath the new phenomenaand the old, omnipresent and indefatigable in creation anddestruction, like some gigantic force of nature.

Personally, I am convinced that these subjects are worthstudying, apart from the momentary sensations andquandaries of diplomacy and war which are given moreprominence in the Press, and this for students of humanaffairs who have no personal or even national concern in theEastern Question. The contact of civilisations has alwaysbeen, and will always continue to be, a ruling factor inhuman progress and failure. I am, of course, aware thatthe illustrations which I have chosen involve burningquestions, and that my presentation of them will notpass unchallenged. Indeed, the comparatively few peopleinterested in disproving or confirming my statements maybe my chief or only readers. I had therefore better men-tion such qualifications as I possess for writing this book.

I have had certain opportunities for first-hand study ofGreek and Turkish affairs. Just before the Balkan Wars, Ispent nine months (November 1911 to August 191 2) travellingon foot through the old territories of Greece, as well as inKrete and the Athos Peninsula, and though my main interestwas the historical geography of the country, I learnt a gooddeal about the social and economic life of the modernpopulation. Duruig the European War, I edited, under thedirection of Lord Bryce.^ the Blue Book published by theBritish Government on the ' Treatment of Armenians in the

* Whose death haa removed one of the most experienced and distinguishedWestern students of Near and Middle Eastern questions, though this wasonly one among his manifold interests and activities.


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PREFACE ixOttoman Empire : 1915 ' (Miscellaneous No. 31, 1916), andincidentally learnt, I believe, nearly all that there is to belearnt to the discredit of the Turkish nation and of their ruleover other peoples . Afterwards I worked, always on Turkishaffairs, in the Intelligence Bureau of the Department ofInformation (May 1917 to May 1918) ; in the PoliticalIntelligence Department of the Foreign Office (May toDecember 1918) ; and in the Foreign Office section of theBritish Delegation to the Peace Conference at Paris (Decem-ber 1918 to April 1919). Since the beginning of the 1919-20Session, I have had the honour to hold the Korais Chair ofByzantine and Modern Greek Language, Literature, andHistory, in the University of London ; and on the 20thOctober 1920 ^ the Senate of the University kindly grantedme leave of absence abroad for two terms, in order to enableme to pursue the studies connected with my Chair by travelin Greek lands. I arrived at Athens from England on the 15thJanuary 1921, and left Constantinople for England on the15th September. During the intervening time, I saw aU thatI could of the situation from both the Greek and the Turkishpoint of view, in various parts of the two countries. Themost important of my journeys and other experiences wereshared by my wife, and I have profited more than I can sayby constant discussion with her of all that we saw and didtogether, though I alone am responsible for the verificationand presentation of the results of our observations.My itinerary was as follows : ^(o) Jan. 15-26 : Athens ;(6) Jan. 27-March 15 : Smyrna, and the following journeys

into the hinterland :1. Feb. 1-8 : Alashehir, Ushaq, Kula, Salyhly, Sardis ;

' Just a month before the change of government and consequent orisis inGreece, which I (like most other observers at a distance) had not foreseen.

The route is plotted out on the map at the end of the volume.


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xU THE WESTEEN QUESTIONconnection of past events do occasionally and incidentallyhave some effect upon the present and the future.

In this connection I ought to add that I made my journeysia 1 92 1 as special correspondent for the ManchesterGuardian, ^and to mention the reasons. I did so first in order to paymy expenses ; secondly, because the Guardian is a paperwhich it is an honour to serve ; and thirdly, because withoutthis status it would hardly have been possible for me to learnwhat I wanted. My travels coincided with a historical crisis ;and, during such crises, travellers like myself who are notpersons of eminence have little chance of meeting theimportant people and witnessing the important events, ifthey travel as students or tourists ; while journalists,however unimportant personally, have greater opportunitiesin such circumstances than under normal conditions.

ARNOLD J. TOYNBEE.London, 22nd March 1922. The sketches appended to Chapters IV. -VII. were originally publishedin the Manchester Guardian, and are reprinted here by the kind permission

of the Editor.


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NOTE ON SPELLINGI CANNOT pretend that my spelling of Greek and Turkishproper names, of which this book is full, has been consistent,though I have been careful always to spell the same name inthe same wayexcept in quotations, where I have purposelyleft the names as they stand. I have used the followingsymbols :

(i) In Turkish words'= ain (impossible to transUterate into the

Roman alphabet).'=hemze (a hiatus in the middle of a word).^gh=ghain (Uke the German guttural g).q=qaf (hard k).

y (when a vowel)=hard y6 or hard essere (something like thew in English ' until ' when rapidlypronounced).

other unmodified ) ^^ i-, }-=ltahan vowels,vowels )modified vowels=German modified vowels.

(ii) In Greek wordsgh=hard gamma (Uke ghain).

consonantal y=soft gamma.dh=dhelta (hke the th in English ' the ')th=thita (like the thin. English ' thin ').s=sigma (like s in English ' this,' but never

hke s in English ' his ')kh=khi (like cAin Scotch ' loch ').

' Except in the proelision of the Arabic definite article (e.g. in ' Abdu'l-Hamid'), which I have indicated by using this sign in the ordinary Englishway.


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THE SHADOW OF THE WESTSavages are distressed at the waning of the moon andattempt to counteract it by magical remedies. They donot realise that the shadow which creeps forward till itblots out aU but a fragment of the shining disc, is cast bytheir world. In much the same way we civilised people ofthe West glance with pity or contempt at our non-Westerncontemporaries Ijang under the shadow of some strongerpower, which seems to paralyse their energies by deprivingthem of hght. Generally we are too deeply engrossed inour own business to look closer, and we pass by on the othersideconjecturing (if our curiosity is sufficiently arousedto demand an explanation) that the shadow which oppressesthese sickly forms is the ghost of their own past. Yet ifwe paused to examine that dim gigantic overshadowingfigure standing, apparently unconscious, with its back to itsvictims , we should be startled to find that its features are oursThe shadow upon the rest of humanity is cast by Western

civilisation, but it is difficult for either party to comprehendthe whole situation. The other human societies, or at anyrate the civihsed and educated people among them, arethoroughly aware of the penetrating and overpowering effectof the West upon their pubHc and private life, but fromthis knowledge they draw a mistaken inference. In theNear and Middle East, for example, most observers areprobably struck by the fact that their Greek and Turkishacquaintances, who differ about almost everything else,agree in the conviction that Western poMtics turn upon theEastern Question, and that the Enghshman or Frenchman

A


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2 THE WESTERN QUESTIONlooks abroad on the world with eyes inflamed by a passionatelove or hatred, as the case may be, for the Greek or theTurkish nation. At first one is inclined to attribute thismisconception purely to megalomania, and to shrug one'sshoulders at it as being the kind of infirmity to which non-Western peoples are heir. Later, one realises that, erroneousthough it is, it arises from the correct understanding of animportant fact regarding us which we ourselves are apt tooverlook. Just because we are aware of what passes inour own minds, and know that interest in Eastern affairsis almost entirely absent from them, it is difiicult for us torealise the profound influence on the East which we actually,though unconsciously, exercise. This conjunction of greateffect on other people's fives with little interest in or intentionwith regard to them, though it is common enough in humanlife, is also one of the principal causes of human misfortunes ;and the relationship described in my allegory cannot per-manently continue. Either the overshadowing figure mustturn its head, perceive the harm that unintentionally ithas been doing, and move out of the fight ; or its victims,after vain attempts to arouse its attention and request itto change its posture, must stagger to their feet and stabit in the back.

It is worth examining these two features in our relation-ship to other civilisations which are so dangerous in com-bination. Our indifferenceto start with that^is partlytemporary, at any rate in its present degree of profundity.Interest in Eastern (as in other) foreign affairs was suddenlyand artificially stimulated in all Western countries duringthe European War. The destinies of England, France,Germany, and even the United States were obviouslyaffected then by the poficy of the Greek, Ottoman, and otherEastern Governments, and hundreds of thousands of Engfishsoldiers, and many thousand French, German, and Austriansoldiers, serving in the East, were constantly in the thoughtsof their famifies at home. But the moment Turkey asked


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THE SHADOW OF THE WEST 3for an armistice and the bulk of the European expeditionaryforces were drafted back and demobiUsed, this unusualinterest died away and was followed by an access of apathy,also abnormal, which was partly due to war-weariness andpartly to the pressure of more urgent post-war problemsnearer home. Greece and Turkey have been pushed intothe background by Silesia, the Coal Strike, Reparations,Ireland, the Pacific, Unemployment, and the rift in theEntente. During the eight months of 1921 ^ which I spentin Greece and Turkey, Greek and Turkish affairs onlyoccupied the attention of Western statesmen or were givenprominence in Western newspapers during the three weeks ^when a conference of Allied ministers, expressly convenedto reconsider the Treaty of Sevres, was sitting in London.But even on this special occasion the faint interest arousedwas immediately echpsed by a crisis in the relations betweenthe three Entente Powers and Germany.

I generally found the Greeks and Turks incredulous whenthis was pointed out to them. They insisted (of courseerroneously) that the immense effects which were beingproduced all the time in the East by Western action, mustbe the result of pohcy ; it was inconceivable that theycould be unintentional and unconscious ; or at any ratethe interest of the Western public was bound in the nearfuture to be aroused by the striking consequences of itsunconscious activity. The most effective way to combatthis delusion was to remind them that the British public wasalmost apathetic about the violent disturbances which werethen taking place in Ireland, a country next door to GreatBritain, vitally affecting our security and actually underour government. Was it hkely, then, that Great Britainwas or would be interested in Near and Middle Easterncountries for which we had no direct responsibiHty andwhose fate was of secondary concern to the British Empire ?

1 15th January to 16th September.' 2l8t February to 12th March.


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4 THE WESTERN QUESTIONThis extreme degree of indifference towards non-Western

affairs is no doubt unlikely to be permanent ; but in thelesser degree in which it has always existed, it will probablycontinue, because it is a natural state of mind. Westernsociety is a unitya closer and more permanent unity thaneither the independent states that form and dissolve withinits boundaries or the Empires compounded of Western andnon-Western populationsand its own internal affairs arebound to draw its attention away from the borderlandsor the regions beyond them. Our EngUsh pohtics andeconomics are more closely concerned with the East thanare those of any other Western nation, and yet Enghshchildren at school are still taught French and German andnot Hindustani and Arabicjust because many moreindividual Enghsh people have relations with neighbouringWestern nations than with our non-Western fellow-subjectsoverseas.

This historic Western indifference is strikingly illustratedby the pohcy of the Hapsburg Monarchy, a Western Powerwhich had vital interests in the Eastern borderlands of ourworld and might have made its fortune,betweenA.D. 1699and1768, as heir to all the provinces of the Ottoman Empire onthis side of Constantinople . Yet though, during this favour-able period, the Austrian Government had at its disposalsome of the best pohtical talent in Europe, the Drang nachOsten was perpetually arrested and reversed by the attractionof the West. Even to the most sharp-sighted statesmen atVienna, a province in Germany or Italy looked as large andas desirable as a kingdom in the Balkans. They expendedtheir strength in the three great Western wars of the eigh-teenth century ; Russia got ahead of them on the road toConstantinople ; and then the spread of Western pohticalideas among the local nationahties closed the thoroughfarealtogether. When Bismarck at last cut off the AustrianEagle's Western head, and advised the bird to use the other,it waa too late . The optical illusion which minimised Eastern


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THE SHADOW OP THE WEST 6and magnified Western objectives in the eyes of eighteenth-century Austrian statesmen, is possibly the principal causeof the break-up of that ancient Western Monarchy in ourown generation, and it is certainly characteristic of thepermanent attitude of the Western pubUc.

In dramatic contrast to this indifference is the actualinfluence on Eastern hfe which the West has long exerted.On the Near and Middle East, at any rate, where the superiorvitaMty and effectiveness of Western civilisation are rein-forced by proximity, our influence has been increasing duringthe last two and a half centuries till it is actually paramountthere, while we have remained hardly conscious of a processwhich now impresses itself upon the local populations atevery turn. This combination of maximum actual effectwith minimum consciousness and interest has made theWestern factor in the Near and Middle East on the wholean anarchic and destructive force, and at the same timeit appears to be almost the only positive force in thefield. Whenever one analyses a contemporary movementpoMtical, economic, reHgious, or intellectual^in thesesocieties, it nearly always turns out to be either a responseto or a reaction against some Western stimulus. In someform, a Western stimulus is almost invariably there, and apurely internal initiative is rarely discoverable, perhapseven non-existent, the reason being that, before Westernpenetration began, the indigenous civilisations of theseregions had partly or wholly broken down. A brief reviewof these break-downs is necessary for an understanding ofthe present situation, and in attempting it I can at thesame time define my terms.The term ' Near Eastern ' is used in this book to denotethe civihsation which grew up from among the ruins ofAncient Hellenic or Graeco-Roman civilisation in Anatoliaand at Constantinople, simultaneously with the growth ofour civUisation in the West . The two societies had a commonparent, were of the same age, and showed the same initial


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6 THE WESTERN QUESTIONpower of expansion, but here the parallel ends. Westerncivilisation (whatever its ultimate limitations) has so farcontinued to progress and expand, while Near Easterncivilisation, after a more brilliant opening, broke down un-expectedly in the eleventh century after Christ, and fell intoan incurable decHne, until, about the seventeenth century, itsinfluence overmen's minds became extinct, except in Russia.The cause of this break-downto state it briefly and

roughlywas the premature development of the NearEastern state, which reached aln efficiency at the verybeginning, in the eighth century, which the Western statedid not attain until the close of the fifteenth. ^ This over-growth of a particular social organ had two fatal effects.First, it stunted or arrested the growth of other socialiastitutions and activities. The Church became a depart-ment of state in the various Near Eastern monarchies, not,as in the West, an institution transcending states and bindinga civihsation together ; monastic orders, boroughs, marches,bishoprics, and universities never struggled into autonomy,and only the rudiments of new vernacular hteraturesappeared. The state absorbed or subordinated all, and sothere was nothing to mediate between one state and another.The ' East Roman ' (that is, the mediaeval Greek) and theBulgarian Empires, each claiming to be a complete embodi-ment not only of the political but of the ecclesiastical andspiritual life of Near Eastern civilisation, were incompatible.There was no room for both in the Near Eastern world,and the fatal consequence was the Hundred Years' War(a.d. 913-1019) between these two principal Near EasternPowers, which resulted in the temporary subjection ofmediaeval Bulgaria and the exhaustion of mediaeval Greece.The victorious empiremihtarised, distended, and over-strainedbecame an easy prey to its neighbours, and Near

^ Except in the city-states of Northern and Central Italy, where duringthe fourteenth and fifteenth centuries miniature samples of the modernWestern ' Great Power ' were grown experimentally, like seedlings in anursery-garden.


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THE SHADOW OF THE WEST 7Eastern civilisation, which it had pressed altogether intoits service, fell with it.The inroads of the Central Asian nomads upon Eastern

and Central Anatolia in the eleventh century are discussedin Chapter IV., but the first general conquest of Near Easternsociety by another came from the West. Near relationsare not always the best friends, and any one who readsLiutprand of Cremona's memoir of his embassy to thecourt of Constantinople ^ (a.d. 968) or Anna Comnena'sdescription of the First Crusade (a.d. 1096-7), ^ will beimpressed by the mutual antipathy of the Near East andthe West at their first encounters.The Western conquest (begun by the Norman invasions,

and completed at the beginning of the thirteenth centuryby the Fourth Crusade) naturally increased and embitteredthis antipathy on the Near Eastern side, and hatred of the' Latins ' materially assisted the later and more thoroughconquest of the Near Eastern world for Middle Eastern civili-sation by the Osmanhs (fourteenth and fifteenth centuriesafter Christ). On the eve of the capture of Constantinopleby the Ottoman Power, ' the first minister of the [EastRoman] Empire . . . was heard to declare that he had ratherbehold, in Constantinople, the turban of Mahomet than thePope's tiara or a cardinal's hat ' ; ^ and while the submerg-ence of Near Eastern society was naturally accompanied bya general heightening of consciousness among its membersof their difference from other civiHsed communities, thememories of Western domination seem to have over-shadowed the actuahties of Middle Eastern for at least twocenturies . At any rate ,down to the middle of the seventeenthcentury the Near East on the whole displayedgreater hostilitytowards Western than towards Middle Eastern infiuencesThe exception which proved the rule, while also pointing' New edition by Becker, J. (Hanover, 1915, Hahn), of Pertz's edition in

the Monumenta Germ. Hiit., vol. iii. Annae Oomnenae Alexias, ed. Reiffersoheid, J. (Leipzig, 1884, Teubner,

2 vols.). ^ Gibbon, Decline and Fall, oh. Ixviii.


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8 THE WESTERN QUESTIONtowards an approaching mental revolution, was the careerof Cyril Lukaris. This exceptional man was a Greek anda priest of the Orthodox Church who went westward to studyin Venice and Padua, pushed on to Geneva, and (withoutleaving his own Church) came under the spell of Calvinism.His character and his Western education carried him tothe highest positions. In 1602 he was elected Patriarch ofAlexandria, in 1621 of Constantinople. He held theOecumenical Patriarchate for sixteen years ; sent numbersof young Greeks to study in the Protestant Universities ofWestern Europe ; and pubUshed a Confession of Faith(adapting Calvinistic ideas to Orthodox theological ter-minology) not only in Greek butsignificant innovationin simultaneous French, Latin, German, and Enghsheditions. And then he fell. The Near Eastern hatred ofthe Westeven when represented by Western opponentsof the Roman Churchwas stronger than Lukaris's genius.His enemies persuaded the Ottoman Government in 1 637 tohave him executed as a dangerous innovator, and his doctrinewas finally condemned by an Orthodox synod in 1691.^By that date, however, the mental reorientation of the Near

East towards the West was in full swing. The ' Westernisa-tion ' of the Near Eastern world is one of the most remark-able phenomena in the intercourse between differentciviUsations. It appears to have begun rather suddenlyin the same generationabout the third quarter of theseventeenth centuryamong both the Russians and theGreeks, and among the latter, where there was no 'en-lightened monarch ' hke Peter the Great to give it an im-pulsion, its origins are more mysterious and more interesting.No doubt it was encouraged by the contemporary tendencyin the West towards rehgious toleration, which was at lastmaking Western culture accessible without the necessity ofaccepting some variety of Western rehgious dogma. Atany rate, a movement began among Near Easterners of that

' The Roman Catholic miasionaries in the Levant were his enemies aswell as the anti-Western majority of the Orthodox hierarchy.


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THE SHADOW OF THE WEST 9generation which will have far more momentous resultsthan the commercial, diplomatic, and mihtary rivalries ofWestern Powers in the Levant, for which the name of' Eastern Question ' is commonly reserved. The Near Eastsaw its Western neighbours in a new hght, no longer as thebarbarian Pranks, but as ' Enlightened Europe ' (a phrasethat constantly recurs in the writings of Korais), and itadopted Western clothes and manners, Western commercialand administrative methods, and above aU Western ideas.Western Hterature was translated, was imitated, and was ableto propagate new branches in the Near Eastern vernaculars,which had failed in the Middle Ages to produce a hteratureof their own. For the last two and a half centuries, theNear East, having lost its distinctive civihsation, has flungitself into the Western movement with hardly any reservesor inhibitions.Middle Eastern civilisation has broken down in a differentway and with different consequences. In this book theterm ' Middle Eastern ' is used to denote the civihsationwhich has grown up from among the ruins of the ancientcivilisations of Egypt and Mesopotamia. Its parentage isnot the same as ours, and it is not our contemporary butour junior by about six centuries. The interregnum,accompanied by barbarian invasions, between the break-down of Hellenic or Graeco-Roman civihsation and thebegiimings of the modern West occurred approximatelybetween the years a.d. 375 and 675, while the similarinterregnum, preceding the birth of the modem Middle East,when the Abbasid Empire broke down and the Egyptianand Mesopotamian world was overrun by Turkish andMongol nomads and Western Crusaders, did not begin til]the tenth century a.c. and was hardly over by the close ofthe thirteenth. The new civilisation which was emergingby the date a.d. 1300 had a not unpromising beginning.There was practical genius in the pohtical and mihtaryorganisation of the early Ottoman Empire ; rehgiousfervour in the Shi'i revival in Persia ; architectural beauty


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10 THE WESTERN QUESTIONin such buildings as the Great Mosque at Ephesus, the GreenMosque at Brusa, the Mosque of Sultan Ahmed at Con-stantinople, or the Taj Mahal at Agra, which range fromthe close of our thirteenth to the middle of our seventeenthcentury. Yet the break-down in Middle Eastern civihsa-tion began at an earUer stage than in Near Eastern. Inboth the Ottoman and the Indian ^ Empire, the dechne ofvitaUty and creative power was perceptible by the close ofthe sixteenth century, only about three hundred years frombirth ; and by a.d. 1774 the Mogul Power in India and theSafawi Power in Persia had perished, while the OttomanPower seemed to be in its death agony.Two causes of this Middle Eastern break-down suggest

themselves, one connected with the design of the newbuilding, the other with the site on which it was laid out.Middle Eastern institutions, which were worked out mostlogically in the Ottoman Empire and somewhat less syste-matically in Northern India, did not lack originaUty. Theselection, education, and hfe-long disciphne of soldiers andofficials were as audaciously conceived in the Empire ofMuhammad the Conqueror as in the imaginary RepubMc ofPlato, ^ but they were equally contrary to nature. The newinstitutions were a thorough-going adaptation to sedentaryconditions of the nomad economy which had enabled theancestors of the Moguls and Osmanhs to make a liveUhoodon the steppes, and the relations between ruler, servants,and subjects were modelled on those between shepherd,watch-dog, and herd. The system could hardly have sur-vived even if the populations on whom the founders of the

^ The Mogul dynasty, which did not really secure its hold over NorthernIndia till the beginning of Akbar's reign (a. D. 1556), was only the last andoutwardly most magnificent phase of a Moslem state in Northern India whichhad a continuovis history, in spite of changes of dynasty and other vicissi-tudes, from the conquests of Muhammad Ghori in the last decade of thetwelfth century after Christ onwards.

' See Lybyer, A. H., Oovernment of the Ottoman Empire in the Time ofSuleiman the Magnificent (Harvard, 1913, University Press), and compareLane-Poole, S., Mediaeval India (London, 1903, Pisher Unwin), for theslave system of Firoz Shah of Delhi, in the fourteenth century after Christ.


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THE SHADOW OF THE WEST 11new order imposed it had been characterless and impres-sionable, for the Osmanli watch-dogs rebelled against theirSultan's regulations long before the Near Eastern rayah ^challenged the watch-dogs' control. But the principalexperiments in this system happened to be made in areaswhere other civilisations, or at least the ruins of othercivilisations, already covered the ground, and this wascertainly the second cause of failure. It is not difficult tosee why the new civilisation attempted to develop inNorthern India and in the Near East. The old centres ofMesopotamian and Egyptian civilisation were exhausted.Persia and Iraq had been trampled down by the first sweepof the nomadic invasions in the interregnum, Syria andEgypt broken by resistance on two fronts, to the Crusadersand the Mongols. It also seems to be a law of history thatevery death, interregnum, and rebirth of civiHsation isaccompanied by a change of locahty. Modern Westerncivilisation made its first progress not in Greece and SouthernItaly, which had nurtured its parent, but on the almostvirgin soil of outlying provinces of the Roman Empire ;and even Near Eastern civilisation started, away from thecentres of Ancient Greek culture, in inner Anatolia, andexpanded among the unsophisticated Slavs. But the siteswhich fell to Middle Eastern civilisation were not untenanted,though its own principal parent had not been the occupant.To conquer and assimilate such venerable, self-conscious, andexclusive societies as the Near Eastern and the Hindu wasa difficult enterprise for any young civiUsation, and theproximity of Western civilisation, rising towards its prime,made the attempt dangerous. The early break-dovm of thenomadic institutions was neither surprising nor necessarilyfatal in itself. The Teutonic institutions with which theWest made its first experiments in construction were equallyunsuccessful, yet the failure of the CaroUngian system didnot kill the new Western civihsation which had begun to

' 'Cattle.'


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12 THE WESTEKN QUESTIONdevelop within that framework. It has Uved to build itselfa whole series of pohtical mansions. The parallel break-down in the modern Middle East was less easy to repairbecause it laid bare the old ruins on the site which had notbeen worked into the new plan, and set free their originaltenants to reconstruct them on the quite different and moreattractive Western model.

This ' Westernisation ' of the Near East has been discussedabove, but it is important to note that the break-down ofMiddle Eastern ciAnhsation, which helped to make it possible,has only been partial. Civihsations, hke individuals, springfrom two parents,and in all newcivihsations whose parentagewe can trace, the heritage from the civihsed mother has beenmore important than that from the barbarian who violatedher. In the West, the Near East, and the Middle East aMke,this heritage from the mother civihsation has been handeddown in the form of ' universal religions 'Christian churchesin the two former cases, Islam in the other. Just asthe Western Church survived the failure of the early Teu-tonic kingdoms, so Islam has survived the collapse of theMogul and Osmanll Powers. Moreover, because modernMiddle Eastern civilisation is six centuries younger thanours, Islam is still a greater force in its world than Chris-tianity now is among us . As an expression of emotions andideas and as a bond of society, it is at least as powerful asChristianity was in the West in the fourteenth century, andeven more indispensable^for in the Middle East no newsecular structure has yet been successfully erected, thesubmerged Hindus and Near Easterners have hfted theirhorns, and the West has trespassed through the ruined walls.Islam, and nothing but Islam, now holds the Middle Easternworld together.These considerations explain the difference between the

two processes of ' Westernisation ' in the Middle East andthe Near East which are observable in our generation.The process in the Near East began about 250 years ago and


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THE SHADOW OP THE WEST 13has gone forward fairly smoothly and easily, because thepositive previous obstacles had already been removed.In the Middle East it did not begin till a century later. Itfirst manifested itself in the Ottoman Empire after thedisastrous Treaty of Kuchuk Kainarjy, imposed by Russiain 1774, and it has been constantly retarded and inter-rupted by the real presence of Islam. In fact, though theOttoman Empire, by adopting Western methods, hasachieved what seemed impossible a century and a half agoand has survivedeven though with diminished territoryand sovereignty^until our day, it has never so far gonemuch beyond the minimum degree of Westernisationnecessary to save it, at any given moment, from goingunder. It has borrowed more technique than ideas, moremihtary technique than administrative, more administrativethan eqonomic and educational. Thus, if Westernisationwere in itself the summum bonum for non-Western peoples,the Middle Eastern world, just because it is not a tabula rasa,would be a less promising field than the Near Eastern worldfor the advancement of humanity. But any such notion,though flattering and therefore plausible to Western minds,is surely improbable. Middle Eastern civiHsation, whilein many respects obviously less successful than ours, is alsolikely to contain valuable different possibihties, and itsdisappearance would be a loss, as the disappearance of adistinctive Near Eastern civilisation in South-Eastern Europehas proved to be already. The practical certainty, therefore,that the ' Westernisation,' like the break-down, of theMiddle East will only be partial, is a gain and not a calamity.It would only be disastrous if the Islamic element in MiddleEastern civiMsation and the constructive element in con-temporary Western Ufe were incompatible, for then thesurvival of Islam in the Middle East might certainly wreckthe development of Middle Eastern society and involveour two worlds in an irreconcilable confhct. But > this in-compatibility, though often asserted, is disproved by the


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14 THE WESTEEN QUESTIONmodus Vivendi between Islam and the Western spirit whichthe Middle Eastern peoples have been working out, in theirinternal Ufe as well as in their relations with Westerncountries, during the last 150 years. Their problem is morecompHcated than that of their Near Eastern neighbours,it will take longer to solve, and they have begun a centurylater. But it is certainly not insoluble, and if and when themodus Vivendi is completed, it may have more fruitfulresults than are to be expected from the more thorough-going assimilation of the Near East to the Western character.

Moreover, when the difference between the processes ofWesternisation in the Near and the Middle East has beengiven full consideration, the fact remains that both societiesare moving along the same road in the same direction. Itwould be out of place to digress further here in order todemonstrate this proposition. It is a postulate of this book.It will meet with opposition, partly through prejudice andpartly because it is easier to regard objects of thought asconstants than as variables. One shps into thinking ofWestern, Near Eastern, and Middle Eastern civilisation aseach something with an unchanging identity, and from thisit is only a step to assume that because the Near East isat this moment nearer than the Middle East to the West,it is therefore somehow a priori within the Western pale,and the Middle East permanently outside it. It is moredifficult to bear in mind that none of the three are stationary,and that while the Near and Middle East are both approach-ing the West, at different rates and intervals and fromdifferent angles, the West is all the time moving on a courseof its own. Yet relativity is as fundamental a law in humanUfe as it now appears to be in the physical universe, andwhen it is ignored, a true understanding of past history orcontemporary poUtics ceases to be possible.When one turns from generaHsations to instances, it

becomes clearer that the phenomena produced respectivelyby the contact of the Middle East and the Near East with


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THE SHADOW OF THE WEST 15the West have more resemblances than differences. Aswe look into the recent problems and struggles of each ofthese societies, we find the same necessity to borrow fromthe West and the same destructive initial consequences.On the one hand, the survival of Near and Middle Easterncommunities, after the break-down of their own forms oflife and in the face of Western expansion, has only beenmade possible by the adoption of certain Western elements.The present Greek National State could never have beenbuilt up, as it has been since 1821, if during the precedingcentury numbers of Greeks had not acquired Westerncommercial methods and educational ideals. Again, theOttoman Empire could never have survived the apparentlydesperate crisis of 1774-1841, during which its indigenousinstitutions finally broke down and its existence was threat-ened by Russia, the Greek Revolution, and Mehmed Ah,if it had not taken over successfully a modicum of Westernmilitary and administrative technique. Yet all the timethis infusion of Western life, which was essential to thepeoples that experienced it and was welcomed and broughtabout by these peoples deHberately because they recognisedthat it was the alternative to going under, has worked havocwith their Uves. It has been new wine poured suddenlyand clumsily into old bottles.

This is equally true of ideas, institutions, and intellectualactivities^for example, the Western poHtical idea ofnationahty. The Near and Middle Eastern peoples had toreorganise themselves on national Unes if they were to holdtheir own at all in modern international pohtics, becausenationahty is the contemporary basis of Western states and,owing to the ascendency of the West in the world, therelations of non-Western peoples to each other and toWestern Powers have to approximate to the forms whichthe Western world takes for granted. Yet this principleof nationality in poHtics is taken for granted by us simplybecause it has grown naturally out of our special conditions,


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16 THE WESTERN QUESTIONnot because it is of universal application. The doctrinereally is that a sovereign independent territorial state oughtto be constituted, as far as possible, of all and none but thespeakers of a single vernacular. The existence of a French-speaking population implies for us an ' all-French' sovereignnational state, an EngUsh-speaking population an EngUshone, and so on. This is common-sense in Western Europe,where languages are on the whole distributed in homogeneousterritorial blocks, corresponding to convenient pohticalunits. The Western national state has grown up amongus because it has brought with it the maximum pohticalefficiency and economy of effort possible for our world, andsince it has grown and has not been manufactured, it hasaccommodated itself to other pohtical reahties and notasserted itself d outrance. The survival of Switzerland andBelgium, whose unity is real but not Unguistic, is evidenceof the pohtical moderation and sanity of Western Europe.But the value of this nationahty principle depends on theprevalence of sohd blocks of ' homophone ' population, acondition which is unusual in the homelands of civilisations,which are perpetually drawing into their focus fresh rein-forcements of population from all quarters . No doubt thisis the reason why no known civiUsation except ours hasmade community of language the basis of pohtical de-marcation ; and in this the Near and Middle East bothconform to the general rule, while we are exceptions.

In the Near and Middle East (at any rate since theircontact with the West began) populations speaking differentlanguages have been intermixed geographically, and do notrepresent local groups capable of independent pohtical hfeso much as different economic classes whose co-operationis necessary to the well-being of any local state. Theintroduction of the Western formula among these peoplehas therefore resulted in massacre. The formula has beenrigidly apphed, because it has had no local history behind it,and local institutions, which might have modified it, had


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THE SHADOW OP THE WEST 17akeady broken down. It has been applied more andmore savagely as it has exacted its toll of suffering andexasperation. The Greek War of Independence, whichwa perhaps the first movement in this region produced bya conscious apphcation of the Western national idea/occasioned massacres of Turks throughout the Morea andof Greeks at Aivali and in ELhios. Even the nuclei of theNear Eastern national states, though formed in areas wheresome single nationahty predominated, had to be carved outby Procrustean methods, and the evil has increased sincethe attempt to reorganise the poUtical map on Westernhnes has been carried into districts where no single nation-ality is (or was) numerically preponderant. In the north-eastern provinces of Turkey, the massacre of Armeniansby Moslems has been endemic since 1895 ; in Macedoniathe mutual massacre of Greeks , Bulgars ,Serbs , and Albanianssince about 1899 ; and after the Balkan Wars the plagueof racial warfare spreadwith the streams of Moslemrefugees^from Macedonia to Thrace and Western Anatoha.In the latter country, a Greek and a Turkish populationwhich had hved there side by side, on the whole peaceably,for at least five centurieseven during the wars betweenGreece and Turkey in 1821-9 ^ and in 1897have both beenseized by fits of homicidal national hatred. It broke outamong the local Turks in 1914 and 1916 ; among the localGreeks at the landing of the Greek Army in May 1919 and,since April 1921, all over the interiorof the occupied territory,in parts of which my wife and I had personal experience ofit during the May and June of that year.^ Such massacresare only the extreme form of a national struggle betweenmutually indispensable neighbours, instigated by this fatal

^ The Serbs of course revolted earlier, but Serbian independence, thoughthe influence of Western ideas was no doubt at work from the beginning,came about more by a gradual re-grouping of certain indigenous forces inthe Ottoman Empire. The movement was not so revolutionary, nor theWestern idea so dominant, as in the Greek case.

' In Anatolia, in contrast to Rumili, the destruction of Greeks by Turksat Aivali in 1821 was exceptional. ' See Chapter VIL

B


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18 THE WESTERN QUESTIONWestern idea, and carried on unremittingly by the otherdeadly weapons of expropriation, eviction, hostile interfer-ence with education and worship and the use of the mother-tongue, and the refusal of justice in courts of law. Therecent history of Macedonia and Western Anatoha has beena rediictio ad absurdum of the principle of nationahty, andhas made the Western pubhc begin to see that there arehmits to the application of it in non-Western countries.But the historical interest of these hmiting cases hes inthe doubt which they cast back upon the fruitfulness of theprinciple even in those areas where, by hook or by crook,it has been made to work. The historian is led to speculatewhether the inoculation of the East with nationalism hasnot from the beginning brought in diminishing returns ofhappiness and prosperity. Given the previous break-downof indigenous institutions and the irresistible ascendency ofthe West, he must admit that it has been inevitable. Butwhen, after a century of waste and bloodshed, the resultantJugoslav, Rumanian, Greek, Bulgarian, Albanian, Turkish,Arab, Armenian, Georgian, and other Near and MiddleEastern national states have reached (if they ever do reach)some stable equihbrium, he will possibly judge the move-ment of which they are a monument to have been not somuch a pohtical advance as a necessary evil.

Next, let us consider the Westernisation of some in-stitution, hke the Ottoman Army. The most importantinternal struggle in Turkey during the crisis of 1774-1841 wasbetween would-be reformers of the army on Western hnesand the interests vested in the lumber of the old, broken-down Osmanh system . Sultan Mahmud's principal achieve-ment was that he got rid of the Janissaries during the GreekWar of Independence and built up enough of a new modelarmy to save Constantinople from the Russians in 1828-9.The formation of regional army corps on the Prussian modelwas carried out in 1843, and universal service introducedfor Moslems in 1880 and for Christian subjects of the Empire


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THE SHADOW OF THE WEST 19after the Revolution of 1908. The progressive Westernisa-tion of the army has undoubtedly saved Turkey fromextinction during the last century, and has made possiblean unprecedented assertion of the Central Government'sauthority over unruly tribes and outlying provinces. Themihtary schools for ofl&cers have also been a valuableinstrument of national education. Yet these essentialmihtary reforms have almost been the death of the Turkishnation, because they have been introduced artificially andtherefore in isolation from the contemporary advances inhygiene, administrative method, and official integrity,which, in the Western countries where universal servicehas grown up, have counteracted the dangers otherwiseattaching to such a vast extension of state power over thelife of the individual. The Turks had to mobihse, trainand arm in Western fashion a large^too largeproportionof their able-bodied male population in order to preservethe Ottoman Empire's existence, and under this stimulusthey mastered the means, but they never learnt to clothethese conscripts adequately, pay them regularly, look aftertheir health, and demobilise them punctually after theirproper term of service. Western efficiency was no morenatural to nineteenth-century Turks in these spheresthan in the sphere of pure mihtary technique, and thenecessity for it was less immediately obvious. Accord-ingly, for several generations the Turkish peasantry havebeen mobilised to die of neglect or mismanagement or toreturn home with broken health, perhaps carrying con-tagious diseases, to find their family dispersed or theirproperty ruined. The drafts of soldiers from Anatolia,shipped off in Western-made uniforms and Western-builtsteamers to fight in Albania or the Yemen with hardly anyof the arrangements for personal welfare which make suchcampaigns endurable for Western troops, were also victimsof the fatal side of the contact between the Ottoman Empireand the West. Their Government was not capable of


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20 THE WESTERN QUESTIONvictimising them in this way before it borrowed the neces-sary minimum of Western technique. All that can besaid is that the reduction of the Ottoman Empire to theterritories inhabited by a Turkish majority (itself the resultof a Western agency, the principle of nationality) may atlast bring the Turkish peasant some rehef . His antagonistswill have unwittingly liberated him, by liberating from hisGovernment those useless alien provinces which used todrain his blood. If the blood of foreign soldiers is shedhereafter among the Albanian or Arabian mountains,it wiU be Serb, Greek, Italian, Indian, or EngKsh blood,not Turkish.A final examplethis time from the intellectual fieldis offered by the history of the Modern Greek language andHterature. Here, too, sudden contact with the West hassown confusion. It is to the credit of the Greeks that theyhave been fascinated by the Western intellect as well asby Western fashions, comforts, money-making, weapons,constitutions, and other externals. From the beginningthey wanted to conceive and exchange Western thoughtsin their own language and bring a new tributary to the greatstream of Western literature. But what language 1 Theybroke out of the Ottoman Empire not as a Western nationwith a long national history but as a commercial class anda provincial peasantry in a Middle Eastern scheme of society.The poverty of their previous social hfe was reflected,naturally enough, in the poverty of their vernacular. Itwas poor in syntax, in vocabulary, in power of expression.In the course of centuries it might no doubt have eruicheditself with the progress and experience of those who spokeit, but there were no centuries to spare. The languagehad to be Westernised Uke the nation. It had immediatelyto be converted into a vehicle for Western ideas, and it wasan inevitable temptation to reconstruct it artificially outof the materials of Ancient Greek. Here was a languagethe parent of the living vernacular, never obsolete as theliturgical language of the Church, a Hnk with the mediaeval


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THE SHADOW OF THE WEST 21splendours of Near Eastern civilisation and with the greaterancient splendours of Hellenic. The West admired AncientGreece as much as Modern Greece admired the West, andthe ancient language, having sufficed in its day for a civiHsa-tion which enlightened Westerners regarded as the equal oftheir own, would surely supply now the indispensablemedium for a Modem Greek variety of Western culture.Every motive for recourse to Ancient Greek existedthewish to establish a connection with past greatness, the wishto impress the West and flatter themselves, and the urgentneed for a wider range of expression. Modem Greek menof letters, moved by these important and legitimate con-siderations, persuaded themselves that the ancient languagehad never been replaced by another, and that in contamina-ting Modern Greek with Ancient they were really purifyingtheir ancestral language from vulgarisms. The line thatthey took was inevitable, but short cuts are even moredangerous in literature than in pohtics, and the ancientlanguage had two fatal defects for their purpose : it was adifferent language from Modern Greek and it was dead.Their amalgam of dead and hving idioms has been un-satisfactory, even for official and technical prose, and poetryrebels against it. Its Mmitations have become so apparentthat in the present generation a movement has set in forpurifying the purified language in its turn by going back tothe elements of the vernacular. But this popularisingmovement has its own fanaticisms and pedantries, andthough it may be healthier in principle, it ignores theproblem which the amalgam was intended to solve. The' popularists ' have not satisfactorily discovered how toexpress Western thought in Modern Greek without caUingup reinforcements from the ancient language. The contro-versy is bitter, and is hampering not only literature butpublic education. Contact with the West is again the causeof the mischief, and here, too, it is difficult to see any solution.Such examples seem to support the thesis that the shadow

cast by the West, which is affecting these two contemporary


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22 THE WESTERN QUESTIONcivilisations profoundly in every department of life, has atpresent a destructive rather than a constructive influence.But the more one examines its effects the more one feels thatthey have hardly yet begun to work themselves out, andthis is also indicated by the nearest historical parallelwithin our knowledge. The ancient civilisations of Egyptand Mesopotamia were in contact with Ancient Hellenicor Graeco-Roman civilisation from the early seventh centuryB.C., when the first Greek pirates and mercenaries landed inCiUcia and Egypt, to the late seventh century after Christ,when the last official documents in Greek were draftedin the pubUc offices of the Arab Empire.^ Out of thesethirteen centuries, the two Eastern civiHsations may besaid to have been overshadowed by Hellenic, as Near andMiddle Eastern are overshadowed now by Western, duringthe ten centuries from the conquests of Alexander (334-323B.C.) to the conquests of the first two Cahphs of Islam(a.d. 632-644). Compared with this millennium, the twoand a half centuries of modern Western influence over theNear Eastern world, and the century and a half of its in-fluence over the Middle Eastern world, can be seen in theirtrue proportions . They are only the opening phase in whatwill be a far longer relationship, and if the ancient analogyholds good, that relationship will change its character asit continues. The contact between the Hellenic world andthe two ancient Eastern societies began with the superficialconquests of commerce, war, and administration, and endedwith a fusion of rehgious experiences . Further, while thosefirst external conquests were made by the dominant, over-shadowing Power, the rehgious fusionthe most thoroughand intimate kind of conquest which it is possible for onesociety to make over anotherwas substantially a victoryfor the worlds of Egypt and Mesopotamia. As the relation-ship worked itself out, it deepened in character, changed

* One might even say : Until the last translations were made fromelassioal Greek literature into Arabic, which was about two centuries later.


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THE SHADOW Or THE WEST 23from a one-sided influence into an interaction, and endedin the spiritual ascendency of the externally conqueredparty over the original conqueror.Some similar ultimate reversal in the relations between

the modem West and our Eastern contemporaries is notimprobable, and we shall view the passing situation withgreater interest and in better perspective if we bear thispossibihty in mind. At the same time, we must recognisethat it is still beyond our horizon. Our first acttheWestern conquest of the East^is still far from completion,and there is little prospect in the near future of dramaticor catEistrophic reactions by the Eastern civihsations uponthe West, particularly in the field of international politicsand war. It would be a mistake, for instance, to take tooseriously the bogeys lately dangled before us to draw usinto some ' pro-Moslem ' or ' anti-Moslem ' pohcy. Thedangers of an entente between the Turkish NationalistPower in Anatoha and the Bolshevik Power in Russia havebeen portrayed now as a reason for crushing the Nationahsts,now as a reason for concihating them. By force or bypersuasion, we have been urged to deprive Russia of aformidable ally, but neither school of alarmists ever suc-ceeded in demonstrating that this Russo-Turkish combina-tion was going to be a permanent reaUty. On the face ofit, it has been an entente not for action but for concertedbluff and propaganda. Even within these limits, it hasevidently been viewed by both parties with misgiving.They have been forced into it because the AUied Powershave insisted on treating them both as enemies, but bothhave shown themselves anxious to come to terms with oneor all of the Allies (even at their partner's expense), when-ever they have seen an opportunity. The continuance ofthe special intimacy between them, after the removal of itstransitory cause, is most improbable. At present Russiansand Turks are more ahen from each other than either arefrom the West, and a temporary common danger can hardly


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24 THE WESTERN QUESTIONefface centuries of antipathy. A genuine rapprochementbetween Russia and Turkey is only conceivable on commonground produced by simultaneous Westernisation . Reactionagainst the West seems bound to result incidentally inmutual alienation on those deeper planes of consciousnesswhich are not touched by poUcies of state.Another recent bogey is the Moplah rebeUion in the

Madras Presidency of India, on account of which we wereasked to believe a general armed rebelhon in India imminentunless the British Government's policy towards Turkey werereversed. It is true that the Moplah leaders called theirorganisation a ' Kliilafat Kingdom,' but any one who hasbeen following the Khilafat movement in India and haslooked up the Moplahs' record, will not be misled by names.The Moplahs are a wild mountain population who haverisen periodically against British rule ever since it has beenestabHshed over them, though for the greater part of thetime the British Government have been friendly to theGovernment of the Ottoman CaUph and have frequentlygiven Turkey diplomatic and mihtary support against herChristian enemy Russia. Thus the name attached to thelatest Moplah rebelUon is not the true explanation of itsorigin, and indeed the choice of this name by Indian Moslemswho made a rebellion against the British Governmentan occasion for massacring Hindus, can only have beenembarrassing to the educated Moslem leaders of the realELhilafat movement, whose policy has been based on Moslemand Hindu co-operation. The Khilafat movement amongthe educated classes (the only classes capable of under-standing its rather abstract chains of argument) is certainlynot a force to be underestimated. Underneath its academicformulas, there is a real sentiment and a real grievance, asis argued below. But the features of the Moplah rebeUionindicate that the Khilafat movement will be forced to takea slow and peaceful rather than a violent headlong course.The effectiveness of the movement lies in the co-operation


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THE SHADOW OF THE WEST 25of the Hindus, and the Moplahs have demonstrated thatwhile co-operation may now have become possible betweenWestern-educated Hindus and Moslems when confined toWestern lines of pohtical agitation, they cannot take upthe sword against the British without a danger of theirfollowers turning their swords against each other.

Indeed, all the symptoms at present visible of reflexaction by the Near and Middle Eastern worlds upon the West,point to slower and vaguer, though perhaps ultimatelywider, movements than those generally prophesied in dis-cussions of international pohtics. A real and a ratherdisquieting process is indicated by the word ' Balkanisation.'It was coined by Gterman socialists to describe what wasdone to the western fringe of the Russian Empire by thePeace of Brest-Litovsk, and it has since been applied tocertain general effects of the Versailles and supplementaryTreaties upon Europe. It describes conveniently thegrowing influence in the Western world of Near Easternpeoples who are stiU only imperfectly assimilated to Westerncivilisation, and it can be traced in various spheres. It ismost obvious in pohtics. The sovereignty of the WesternAustro-Hungarian Monarchy has been superseded overlarge territories by that of two Near Eastern states, Jugo-slavia and Rumania, and Western populationsGermansand Magyarshave even been brought under the govern-ment of Rumans and Serbs. This settlement is in accordwith our own Western principle of nationahty. The greaterpart of the redistributed districts are inhabited by thepeoples to whose national states they have now beenassigned, and the new subject Western populations areminorities, some at least of whom were bound to be trans-ferred with the non-Western majorities among which theyhve. StiU, when one compares the standards of the oldAustrian, or even the old Hungarian Government withthose of the new governments, or the relative civiHsationof the new subject minorities and the old subject majorities.


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26 THE WESTERN QUESTIONone feels that the principle of nationality oEers no more thana partial solution for the problems of South-Eastem Europe.Balkanisation is an unmistakable and an unsatisfactory,though it is to be hoped only a temporary, result.The process is even more disquieting in the economic

sphere, for the Western countries, just because they aremore civihsed and more comphcated in their economicorganisation, suffered more damage from the War in pro-portion than the non-Western belligerents. The immenseexpenditure of munitions on the Western front devastatedthe industrial districts of Belgium and Northern Francefar worse than Mackensen's and Franchet d'Esperey's briefcampaigns of movement damaged the fields and pasturesof Serbia. German industry was crippled by the blockade ;Austrian (and to some extent Tchecho-Slovak) by the net-work of new frontiers ; British by the collapse of our bestcontinental customers. On the other hand, Jugoslavia,Rumania, and Greece have been strengthened economicallyby the great enlargement of their territories, and at anyrate the two former by the enhanced value of Near Easternraw materials, especially food-stuffs, compared with Westernmanufactures. This change has been as legitimate as thesimultaneous redistribution of national wealth among theinhabitants of every country, but Westerners cannot regardit with satisfaction.

It is also not fanciful to discern a psychological reactionof the Near East upon the West. It has been pointed outthat Western nationalism, introduced into the Near East,has promoted violence and hate. It now looks as if theNear East were infecting conflicts of nationahty in WesternEurope with the ferocity and fanaticism which it has im-ported into its own. Before the War, the ancient conflictsof interest between Ulstermen and CathoUcs in Ireland orGermans and Poles in Silesia were waged with some restraint,and bloodshed was uncommon. In 1921 both these andother zones of national conflict in the West were a prey to


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THE SHADOW OF THE WEST 27revolutionary bands, semi-official bashy-bozuks, regularcombatants whose activities were disavowed while approvedby their governments, and all the other indecencies familiarin the Armenian vilayets or Macedonia. This moral Balkan-isation is also unmistakable, and it is more dangerous thanthe political and economic manifestations of the tendency.For good or evil, the barriers between the West and the

Near East are down, and the interchange of currents seemscertain to go on increasing until the waters find a commonlevel. It is to be hoped that the Western level will nothave to be permanently depressed in order to enable theNear Eastern to rise to it. But at any rate, as has beensuggested above, the process will probably be spread overa long period. There is one sphere, however, in which itmay produce important immediate effects, and that is inthe relations between the West and the Middle East. Theequally desirable adjustment between these two civilisationsis so difficult, and is in so dehcate a stage, that it is affectedby imponderables. A hardly perceptible Near Easternpressure in the Western scale at this moment might make thedesirable balance between West and Middle East impossible

This question is the special subject of this book, and isthe point of permanent historical importance in the Graeco-Turkish conflict after the close of the European War, forin this connection Greece and Turkey represent respectivelythe Near Eastern and the Middle Eastern worlds. Theother Near Eastern nationsRumans, Serbs, and Bulgarswhich have been brought by the results of the EuropeanWar into closer connection with Western civilisation, haveat the same time broken almost the last of their formerlinks with Turkey. The Treaty of Sevres, or rather theoccupation of Thrace by the Greek Army, which precededby some weeks the signing of the treaty, even removedthe common frontier between Turkey and Bulgaria. TheMoslem minorities in these three East European states areno danger to the ruling nationaUties and are not conspicu-


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28 THE WESTERN QUESTIONously ill-treated. Thus no controversy remains betweenRumania or Jugoslavia or Bulgaria and the Middle Easternworld, and their relations with the West have no bearing onthe relations between the West and the Middle East.

It is different with Greece. On the one hand, Greece isin closer touch with the West than her Near Eastern neigh-bours are. She is more permeated than they are withWestern education and more dependent economically thanany of them on trade with Western countries. In thecommercial and social capitals of Western Europe and theUnited StatesLondon, Paris, Vienna, Manchester, Liver-pool, Marseilles, Trieste, New York, Chicago, San Francisco^there are Greek colonies. Many famiHes have lived inthe West for several consecutive generations, married intoWestern famiHes, naturalised as subjects of Western states,sent their children to the best schools of their adoptedcountries, and become Englishmen, Frenchmen, Austrians,or Americans in everything except a traditional loyaltytowards their mother-country. Since there is a very wide-spread sentiment for Greece in the West, which has had itsinfluence on international politics, this loyalty of the Greeksabroad has seldom conflicted with their new allegiances . Onthe contrary, a fortunate combination of the two has giventhe wealthyand the cultivated Greeks abroad (both numerousclasses) opportunities of catching the ear of Western businessmen, Western poUticians, the Western Churches, Westernmen of letters, and, last but not least, the Western Press.

It would have mattered less if the Greeks had only usedtheir exceptional influence in the West against their NearEastern neighbours like the Bulgarians, but unfortunatelythey are not only more closely bound up than the otherNear Eastern nations with the West. Unlike them, theyare still in close relations, and in very hostile relations, withthe Turks, and the Osmanli Turkish nation, on its side,enjoys a special position in the Middle Eastern world.The Middle East finds it most natural at present to express


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THE SHADOW OF THE WEST 29its regard for Turkey through a personal symbol. It feelsloyalty to the Ottoman Sultan as Caliph of Islam, andWestern scholars have rather perversely exercised theiringenuity in criticising the Sultan's claim to the title.Certainly the claim (which only dates from a.d. 1617) isas doubtful is the Carohngians' claim to be RomanEmperors, and even if it were proved good in law, theOsmanli Turks are as remote from the Ancient MiddleEastern world as the Austrasian Franks were from AncientGreece and Rome. In fact, the title seems to have beenregarded as an antiquarian curiosity (something Uke thesword and crown of Charlemagne at Vienna) by the OttomanDynasty till it was exploited by Abdu'l-Hamid, and thenew conditions which made it worth his while to do thiswere chiefly due to the progress of Westernisation. Thespread of Western posts, telegraphs, railways, and steamershad made it possible to keep up communications betweenConstantinople and the large outlying Moslem communitiesin India, the East Indies, China, and Russia ; and theinfluence of Western nationalism, with its ingrained romanticarchaism, had set the fashion of reviving forgotten history,even when it had little real bearing on the present. TheKhilafat movement is also part of that wave of sentimentwhich moves Modern Greeks to think of themselves as thespecial heirs of Pericles or Alexander, or to overload theirlanguage with reminiscences of Thucydides and Homer.Rationally considered, it is rather a maladroit symbol forIslamic unity, since the succession to the Cahphate is thesubject of the chief controversies by which Moslems havehistorically been divided. Technically, the Ottoman claimis rejected by the Shi'i sect (which includes aU Islam inPersia and a large percentage of Moslems in Russia, Meso-potamia, and India) ; by the Imam of Sana in the Yemenand by the Sherif of Morocco. Even among the morenumerous Sunni or orthodox, the OsmanU Kldlafat is not uni-versally accepted . A puritanical aversion from the Western


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30 THE WESTERN QUESTIONtaint in modern Osmanli life alienates the Wahhabis and thefollowers of the Idrisi in Arabia and the Senusi fraternityin North Africa. Others are aUenated by conflictingnational interests or family ambitions^for instance, theHashimite Sherifs of Mecca and their Hijazi and Syriansupporters. The most extraordinary feature is that theSultan's claim is extremely awkward for the TurkishNationalists, who do not want a theocracy but some kindof Hmited representative government in the hands of theTurkish official and officer class ; and Nationalism has un-doubtedly won the allegiance of the Turkish people. Butall these criticisms of the symbol do not affect the deep andgeneral and not irrational feehng which it expresses suffici-ently well for the time being. K and when it proves in-adequate, it will doubtless be modified or discarded ; butthe feehng will continue, and this is the reality with whichwe have to reckon.The Middle Eastern world feels affection and esteem for

the Turks, and is concerned about their welfare, because theOttoman Empire combines several features which MiddleEastern opinion values. Turkey is an independent MiddleEastern state, much stronger than Persia and much morecivihsed (in the Western as well as in the Middle Easternsense) than Afghanistan. In fact, she is the only MiddleEastern state which, in a world dominated by the West andmore and more organised on Western lines, can stiU playthe part of a Great Power. It is not realised that Turkeyhas not been a Great Power, or even a completely inde-pendent Power, since a.d. 1774. The circumstance that shestill has Christian subjects and that she keeps a celebratedChristian cathedral as her principal mosque and a famousEuropean city as her capital, lends her an appearance ofdominion which is gratifymg to Middle Eastern populationsunder Western rule. Though Constantinople, Aya Sofia,and the rayah are trophies from the Near Eastern and notfrom the Western world, the Middle East, outside Turkey,


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THE SHADOW OP THE WEST 31makes no clear distinction between Frank and Rumand after all Turkey, dominated though she is by WesternPowers and forced in self-preservation to find a modusVivendi with Western civilisation, is still independent in avery important sense. She can accept some Westernelements and reject others ; choose her own way of adaptingwhat she borrows ; and take her own time. In fact, shecan work out her modus vivendi for herself, and this is justwhat is denied to Middle Eastern populations under British,French, Dutch, or Italian administration. In dependenciesof Western empires the process is guided by the rulingPower. The subject populations are more or less resignedto this ; for the Indian Moslems, in particular, the loss ofinitiative has important compensations ; and it is commonground, except among a small number of extremists, that insome form and by one or other party the modus vivendimust be found. But there is a strong feeling that, at anyrate in one leading Middle Eastern country, the problemought to be worked out independently by the people them-selves. This will not seem pedantic or far-fetched to anyone acquainted with conditions in civilised non-Westerncountries under Western government. It does not implythat Western government has been a failure or ought tobe terminated abruptly in the countries over which it hasbeen established. It does mean that the shadow of theWest chills other civilisations when it cuts them off fromthe sun altogether. Sunshine cannot be replaced byexcellent artificial light. In the eyes of other Moslems, anindependent Ottoman Empire is a precious window (it neednot be a large one) through which a few rays of naturalsunshine still reach the Middle Eastern world. ManyWestern readers who are aware of the misdoings, and onlyof the misdoings, of the Ottoman Turks and their Govern-ment, wiU feel all this fantastic. Nevertheless, Moslemsentiment about Turkey is not only genuine but reason-able. There is the possibility here of a very serious mis-


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32 THE WESTERN QUESTIONunderstanding between the Western and Middle Easternworlds.

This is the danger in the three-cornered relationshipbetween Western civilisation^ Turkey, and Greece. Greeceinterposes between the other two, and some of her nationalambitions carmot be realised without alienating them fromeach other. Such ambitions have not necessarily been moreillegitimate or pursued by more undesirable means than theordinary policies of other sovereign national states. Only, inthis case, the same evils may have disproportionately graveconsequences. Greece, who has gained much by the specialplace she holds in Western sentiment, may fairly be requiredto forego undue advantages on account of the special positionof Turkey in the Middle East ; and clearly Western states-manship cannot afford to leave Greece and Turkey in suchbad relations that each stands to gain by the other's losses.

Greece has interposed in the literal sense. In 1921,under the Allied occupation of Constantinople, an English-man keeping an appointment with an officer at the GeneralHeadquarters of the British 'Army of the Black Sea,' orcalling on an official at the Embassy, or applying for a Adsaat the British section of the Inter-Allied Passport Control,had to make his waythrough a cordon of Greek (or Armenian)door-keepers, interpreters, and clerks before he could getinto touch with one of his own countrymen. Sometimesone had difficulties, and then one wondered what happenedto Bulgars and Turks on similar errands, with the rivalnationality holding the gates, and no other avenue to theirEnglish superiors. The employment of Near Easterners asmilitary interpreters seemed a particularly hazardouspolicy. They were numerous, and wore the regular Britishuniform, with nothing to distinguish them except a green-and-white armlet.^ When off duty, it was only natural

^ The interpreters to the French and Italian forces at Constantinoplewore armlets but not uniforms. The British regulation was more generousthe foreigner in British service was treated like an English soldier butthe motive was inevitably misunderstood.


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THE SHADOW OF THE WEST 33that some of them should take advantage of their khaki topay off old scores against the former ruling race at Con-stantinople ; and on duty, whenever they had to interpretbetween an Englishman and a Bulgar or Turk, they wereunder constant temptation to misuse their opportunities.Even if they were scrupulously honest, a tone of voice, anexpression on their faces, or the mere knowledge of theirnationality in the mind of the other party, might do mischief.I came across a very pertinent case when I accompaniedthe Red Crescent Mission to the southern coasts of theMarmara.^ The British officers successively attached tothe Mission always brought with them the same Greekinterpreter. He was in a painful position. The better hedid his duty, the more he exposed the misdoings of^nothis fellow-subjects, for he was an Ottoman Greek who hadrecently taken out British naturalisation papers^but hisown nation, in the persons of the Greek troops and the localGreek population. His presence certainly did harm, andyet the British officers could not dispense with an interpreter,and presumably no qualified Englishman or Israelite couldbe found. Certainly this Karamanly Greek knew his busi-ness, and he was typical of his nation. The Greeks havetaken Western education seriously. If you visit a Greekdivisional or corps headquarters on active service, you mayfind clerks and non-commissioned officers studying a Frenchor an English grammar in their intervals off duty. EfficientGreek interpreters are abundant, Turkish or Englishinterpreters rare or unknown. The preponderance of Greekand Armenian interpreters in the British Army of Occupationat Constantinople was a result of the ordinary economiclaws of supply and demand. But it did create a real barrierbetween the British Army and members of the other localnationalities, and both Greeks and Turks regarded it as anindication of British policy. They were wrong, but themisconception has done considerable political damage.

' See itinerary in Preface.C


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34 THE WESTERN QUESTIONGreece had also interposed geographically by her acquisi-

tion of Eastern Thrace under the Treaty of Sevres. Fromthe Black Sea to the Marmara and the Aegean, an unbrokenbelt of Greek territory separated Turkey in 1921 fromevery other state in Europe. You could not telegraphfrom Constantinople or Smyrna to London or Paris withoutrunning the gauntlet of the Greek censorship, for the marinecable passes through a transmitting-station on the Greekisland of Syra, and the overland wire from Constantinoplecrosses Eastern Thrace. In the spring and summer of 1921,at any rate, the Greek military censorship was stringentlyexercised over both Press and business messages in transit.In this the Greek Government were only exercising theirlegal sovereign rights, but it is as much against the generalinterest that Greece should be invested with the right tocontrol private communications between Turkey and theWest as it is that Turkey should control the passage ofmerchant shipping through the waterway between theMediterranean and Russia. It is no answer to say thatthis was an exceptional war-measure, for Greece and Turkeymight often be at war for years together, and in peace-timethe possibilities of surreptitious censorship might be evenmore objectionable. Presumably more expensive and cir-cuitous telegraphic routes could be organised (for instance,through Varna or Constanza), but this would stUl leaveGreece astride the Oriental Railway between Constantinopleand Sofiathe only possible route for quick travellingbetween Turkey and Western Europe.But the most serious disturbance in the relations of West

and Middle East has been produced by the Greek occupationof Western Anatolia. The mischief has been out of allproportion to the extent of the territory. The area pro-visionally assigned to Greece round Smyrna under the Treatyof Sevres was small compared to the territories mandatedto Great Britain and Prance in Syria, Palestine, and Meso-potamia. The whole area carved out of the Ottoman


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THE SHADOW OF THE WEST 35Empire since 1821 to make an independent Greece is evensmaller ia comparison with the vast French and Britishdominions over Middle Eastern peoples in India, the NileBasin, and North-West Africa. It is the misfortune as wellas the fault of Greeceand the unmitigated fault of Alliedstatesmanshipthat the occupation of Smyrna has hadspecially untoward consequences, but the circumstancescould not fail to make trouble. The Greek troops were sentto Smyrna, with a mandate from the Supreme Council andunder cover of the guns of Allied warships, more than sixmonths after the armistice with Turkey. The landingtechnically camouflaged as a movement of AUied troopsfor the maintenance of orderwas probably contrary tothe letter of the armistice, for no previous local disorder hadbeen proved, and it was certainly contrary to its spirit.Within a few hours of the landing, the troops committed abad massacre in the city ; within a few days they advancedinto the interior ; and a new and devastating war of aggres-sion against Turkey began in her only unravaged provinces.In the sixteenth month of this war, the Powers gave Greecea five-years' administrative mandate in the Smyrna Zone,with the possibUity of subsequent annexation. Turkey wasthe leading state of the Middle Eastern world, Greece a NearEastern state of recent origin. She had been admittedwith generous facility into the Western concert of nations ;but the mandate now given to herto govern a mixedpopulation in which one element was of her own nationalitywould have been a difficult test, in parallel circumstances,for the most experienced Western Power. It was wantonrashness to make such an experiment at Turkey's expense ;and after the experiment had proved a failure, it showedblind prejudice and partiality on the part of WesternGovernments that they should continue to give Greecematerial and moral support in her enterprise as an apostleof their civilisation.

This policy would in any case have made bad feeling


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36 THE WESTERN QUESTIONbetween the Western and the Middle Eastern worlds, forwe had reached a phase in our relationship in which MiddleEastern peoples were^rightly or wronglyceasing totolerate the domination even of the leading Western Powers,in coimtries which they have governed, on the whole bene-ficially, for many years. This movement of revolt, whichmight have been gradual, has been formidably acceleratedby the consequences of the European War, and our relationshave now entered on a phase which is admittedly critical.In these circumstances, the statesmanship responsible afterthe armistice for the Graeco-Turkish conflict is unpardon-able. It introduced a cruel and unnecessary irritant intoa dangerous wound, at the risk of making it incurable.It is not as if our misunderstanding with the Middle Easthad been past mending. It was not, and it may still notbe, if the irritant can be removed without leaving malignantafter-effects. Conflicts between civilisations are terrible,because civilisations are the most real and fundamentalforms of human society. But just because they are ultimateforces, their differentia does not consist in externals likecolour or physique or birthplace or mother-tongue, but instates of mind ; and while the Ethiopian cannot changehis skin or the foreigner his accent, and it is difficult for thesubject of an efficient government even to forge a birth-certificate, men's minds can be turned, even at the eleventhhour, from the paths of destruction. Civilisations aredifferentiations of consciousness, and happily there arepossibilities of extensive mental adjustments between themembers of one civilisation and those of another. Theabsorption of the Near Eastern into the Western outlook,and the discovery of a modus vivendi between the outlooksof West and Middle East, are not desperate, though theyare difficult problems. But at any moment they can bemade desperate by errors of judgment on the part of a fewmen in power.


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IIWESTERN DIPLOMACY

On the 18th March 1912 I was walking through an out-of-the-way district in the east of Rrete. The landscape wasthe bare limestone mountain-side characteristic of theAegean. Villages were rare, and some of them had beensacked during the civil war of 1897 and not reoccupied.Suddenly, as the path turned the corner round a hillsidein the limestone wilderness, a Western country-house cameinto view. It was built in the Jacobean style ; the curvesand flourishes of its fa9ade were in excellent preservation ;one's own friends, or their great-grandparents, might havewalked out of the front door. But, after a few stepstowards it, the illusion of life faded. The door was halfwalled-up with loose stones to convert the ground-floor intoa sheepfold, the windows stared blindly, the cornice hadno roof above it. It was the viUa of some Venetian land-owner or official, and must have been deserted since thegreat War of Candia, two and a half centuries ago.^The empires founded by mediaeval Western states in

Near and Middle Eastern countries are a memento mori forthe modem Western Empires which are such an imposingand characteristic feature in the landscape of the contem-porary world. That Venetian colony in Krete lasted fourand a half centuries, a longer life than any British colonycan yet boast of. In Galata, where French, Enghsh, andAmerican firms now have their offices, there was once aGenoese settlement, extra-territorial and self-governing inthe manner of modern Shanghai. When this Westerncommunity had diplomatic difficulties with the Imperial

' A.D. 1644-69. 87


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38 THE WESTERN QUESTIONEast Roman Government, it used to shoot large stonesacross the Golden Horn into Constantinople from its muni-cipal catapults. It lived two centuries (a.d. 1261-1453), andplanted daughter-colonies in the Crimea and on the Don,which opened up an overland trade with Russia, India, andChina. Modern Russia has only been the principal BlackSea Power for the last 148 years. Genoa held that positionfor about fifty years longer. The Genoese Chartered Com-pany which governed the Aegean island of Khios had asromantic a career as John Company in India. The Floren-tine bankers who became Dukes of Athens anticipated theexploits of Rajah Brooke and Cecil Rhodes ; and the trans-formations of the Order of St. John in Palestine, Rhodes,and Malta suggest strange possibilities of evolution for themore recently founded Jesuit and Evangelical Missions.About the year 1400, the Near East seemed on the verge ofbecoming an annex to the constellation of miniature WesternGreat Powers in Northern Italy, and then, within a centuryor two, this exotic growth of commerce, war, administration,and diplomacy was swept away.When we look at our present ascendencies in the East

through this glass, they too appear unsubstantial, and itbecomes possible to imagine that Western manufactures,garrisons, governors, protectorates, diplomatic understand-ings and rivalries may be eliminated from the non-Westerncivilised countries of the modern world before the mentalinfluence of the West upon other civilisations has reachedits maximum, and lon

arnold j. toynbee - the western question in greece and turkey (1922)

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