Turkey in the War
E. F. BENSON, Crescent and Iron Cross. G. H. Doran Co. pp. 240 ($1.25).
GEORGE A. SCHREINER, From Berlin to Bagdad. Harper & Bro. pp. 371 ($2.00)
HENRY MORCENTHAU, Ambassador Morgenthau's Story, Doubleday, Page & Co. pp. 407 ($2.00).
N August 11, 1914, the Goeben and the Breslau en- )( tered the Dardanelles. If we may believe many who wrote 8! that time and since, the performances of these ships (transformed over night into the Turkish war- vessels Sultan Selim and Medilli) dragged Turkey into a conflict she might otherwise have avoided, and precipitated the very solution of the Near Eastern question that a century of feverish and agitated diplomacy—interspersed with murders and massacres enoush—had fajled to accamnilish.
Whether the event mentioned was quite as determining a factor as has been suggested, it is idle to speculate now. Turkey did enter the war on the side of the Teutonic powers and the three books at the head of the column, give, each in its own way some account of Turkish activities during the war. Those activities range from creditable and skilful fighting on land and sea, to indiscriminate murder and rapine, and thus form an epitome of Turkish activities since the nation first appears in recorded history.
All these books have this in common. They were written before July 18, 1918, i.e., before the great offensive of Foch that first sent the glow of coming victory into the chilled hearts of the Allied and Associated powers. When the books were written, the outcome of the war was still in the balance. Indeed, the actual preponderance of successful military accomplishment was markedly on the side of the Teutonic powers,—although neither then nor at any other time, did men of clear vision doubt the ultimate result. But at the time, in Stamboul and Berlin, Junkers and Young Turks were talking with satisfaction of the war-map, were contemplating concessions and adjustments and seemed to have reason to do so. The Balkanzug made regular trips between Berlin and Constantinople.
Mr. Benson’s book has a picturesque title, and this title represents, with savage humor, that connection between Turkey and Germany in the war, which most Americans and Europeans believe to have existed. The publishers think well of the book, and quote the London Chronicle that “if you want to know the inner history of Turkey in recent years, here is a book to read.” Mr. Benson discusses the character of old and new Turks, their conduct toward Armenians and Syrians, and in the next to the last chapter, gives his views on the proper distribution of sovereignty over the redeemed Asiatic provinces of the Turkish Empire.
The author is a professional writer of novels. He comes of a family whose joint literary output would fill a sizable shelf. He is a gentleman. One can only hope that in the next ten years, he will find means of making the world forget that he wrote this book. For Crescent and Iron Cross bears the same relation to an intelligent handling of recent Eastern history, as the yell of an undergraduate squad at a football game, bears to American educational ideals.
Mr. Benson seems to have no other qualification for
writing a book about Turkey, than a blazing and consuming rage at the hideous cruelties to which he must refer, and at the abominable men who perpetrated or permitted them. In this he has the sympathy, full and overflowing, of every honorable and humane man. But rage alone is an inadequate basis for writing a good book, and, indeed, this is not a good book, but a very bad one. It scarcely contains a phrase or an idea that has not been a commonplace in newspapers and magazines for a generation. It makes the impression of having been written by one frothing at the mouth. Surely it is of little avail to be the son of an Anglican archbishop, if a man cannot refer to his enemies without spewing venom. Even the most intense indignation can be expressed,—if it is to be expressed in words,—with dignity. Doubtless Mr, Benson believes that such frightful business as the Armenian deportations can not be pictured in colors too glaring or too thick, and that any portrayal would fall short of the reality. He may be right. But it is no recommendation of a special pleader that the excess and violence of his manner, prejudices a reader against the cause he advocates. The actual effect of Mr. Benson’s rhetoric is the very opposite of what he intends. It raises the question whether any human beings could have been so unprovokedly ferocious as the Turks he describes. We know as a matter of fact that they were. But Mr. Benson would not succeed in making us believe it. The hapless Armenians might well cry, Non defensoribus istis!
The writer is so amazingly unacquainted with Turkish affairs that he takes the outpourings of Turkicizing extremists as the avowed program of the present ruling faction. Does he really believe that the Young Turks intended to abolish Arabic even as the language of religion, or that they insisted upon a difference between their conception of Allah and that of orthodox Mohammedans? Incidentally may a Jewish reviewer remark that he is affected unpleasantly by constant sneers at a “God of Love” whose votaries shed innocent blood in his name? Sneers-like these would be in bad taste if they were uttered by a Jew. But perhaps the son and brother of priests and prelates, may with propriety indulge himself in mocking the cardinal doctrine of the Christian faith.
Mr. Benson is inclined to think that Jemal Pasha, —whose differences with Talaat and Enver were well known,—might with proper handling have become a helpful instrument for the Allies. The suggestion sounds futile now, after Allenby’s conquest of Syria. It is hard to see what elements in Jemal’s character justified it, except his restless jealousy of his associates. His conduct toward Maronites and Jews differed only in extent and not in kind from Talaat’s and Enver’s dealing with the Armenians.
Finally in the chapter mentioned before, the author takes up the question of the future of Syria. He argues at length for a French protectorate over the whole eastern coast of the Mediterranean. He specifically rejects the idea of a Jewish Palestine, on the ground that a German book regarded the colonizing of Palestine by Yiddish-speaking Jews as a means of extending German influence in the