TURKEY DRIVEN BACK FOR CENTURIES.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3144, 20 November 1922, Page 7

TURKEY DRIVEN BACK FOR CENTURIES.

The history of Turkey has been one of partition for many generations past. Through the centuries! she has in Europe been slowly driven back until now all she has left of her once' vast European territory is Constantinople' and a small area of surrounding country. Even that district isi in Allied occupation.

Until the opening of the last decade her lands ran from the Black Sea to the Adriatic. Adriauople, Monastir, Salonika, and Janina were all subject to Serbs, Greeks', and Montenegrins enand 1 in October of that year war began. In thel early days Crete threw over Turkish sovereignty and elected to become part of Greece. In May, 1913, the Avar ended, and under the terms of the Treaty of London, signed and agreed to by the belligerent Powers!, Turkey lost all her between Enos on the JBlack Sea and Midia in the iEgean Sea. The State of Albania, came into being, and the Allies quarrelled l happily about the rest. Serbia, and Rouimania attacked Bulgaria in -June, 1913, and in the upshot Turkey regained Adriauople under the Treaty of Bukarest (August 10, 1913). She had already lost Tripoli in Africa to Italy in the previous year (Treaty of Lausanne. October 18, li>l2). Nothing further happened until 1914, when, carefully nursed by Germany, she joined the Central Powers and declared war on the Allies separately and in order. This action later proved to be fatal. The Avar ended with Turkey in a state of complete collapse. In the Treaty of Sevres, signed on August 10, 1920, she lost all her European possessions except the land east of an undulating line drawn from Bivuk Here, on the Black Sea, to Kalikatria, on the Sea of Marmora. No part of this line is further than 50 miles from Constantinople. In Asia Smyrna went to Greece for five years, its subsequent future to be decided by plebiscite. Armenia, the Hejaz, Syria, Palestine, and Mesopotamia all became independent, the last three subject to mandatories' for some years. Kurdistant became practically independent, and Castollorizo and the Dodecanese went to Italy. The nominal sovereignty of' Turkey over Egypt and Cyprus was ended bv British proclamation in 1914 and 1915. A large area encircling the Straits was created into a zone under international control, exercised through a specially appointed committee. \t is natural that this dissipation of Turkish territory did not please the more progressive of the Turks, and the Nationalst Party made preparatons to guore the terms of the treaty. Mustapha, Kemal Pasha, a soldier of distinction, who had fought well in Gallipoli, wont into Asia Minor, and assembled a party of' Nationalist notables, who determined to resist hv force anv attempt on the part of the Allies to separate Smyrna, and Thrace from Turkey. The first Provisional Government sat at Erzerum, and with alacrity the greater part of Asia Minor accepted Kemal Pasha's leadership.' The oycial Government and Parliament at Constantinople became powerless. The Greeks were landed in Asia under Allied tutelage, and for a space were victorious against Kemal's Turks, whoso headquarters were now at Angora. Kemal, not despairing, turned to Russia, for aid, and 1 received in consequence considerable supplies of munitions. In February and March, 1921, a conference' was assembled in London, at which the Allies, the Greeks, and both Turkish parties were repreesnted. At this l meeting the Treaty of Sevres was modified in various ways. Constantinople was to be evacuated by the Allies, Smyrna v. as to i be granted autonomy under Turkish sovereignty, but with a Christian governor, and Turkey was to be allowed a larger army than that specified at Sevres. The Greeks rejected terms absolutely, and heavy fighting began between their troops in Asia and Kemal's Nationalists. A further complication was added by the signing, at. Angora on October 20, 1921. of a Franco-Turkish agreement by M. Franklin-Bouillon, on behalf of France and Youssouf Kemal Bey, Minister of Foreign Affairs to the Angora Government. In this a friendly arrangement was made in/cgard to the French occupation of Syria. The later' activities' of Kemal Pasha and the defeat of the Greeks arc common knowledge.

Herr Hugo. Stinnes is not the richest man in Germany, as is generally supposed. The honor belongs to the veteran Hon" August Thysson, the famous Bhino'land coal and iron king,, beside whom Herr Stinnes is a comparatively poor man. Herr Thy ssen has lost more money in business than Herr Stinnes has ever made, and the Thy ssen fortune is many times larger than that of Stinnes. Herr Stinnes', a post-war industrial, endeavors fo have a hand in many businesses, ami they are not all paying concerns. His motor-car and newspaper companies arc run at i heavy loss. Thyssen, the ante-war industrial, sticks to the business be has been in all his life, and does not waste his energy and capital in running concerns the management of which he must leave to other people. The majority of the stories about Stinnes aire —stories, and other industrials, such as Herr Peter Kloeeknor and Herr Krupp, are rapidly overtaking him in the race for great possessions.