THE H.B. TRIBUNE. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 1922. TURK AND GREEK IN ANATOLIA.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XII, Issue 230, 11 September 1922, Page 4

THE H.B. TRIBUNE. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 1922. TURK AND GREEK IN ANATOLIA.

Our latest messages indicate very clearly that the Greeks who set out some two years or so ago to smash the rule of the Turkish National Government in western Asia Minor, and who only a few weeks ago were talking of seizing Constantinople, have now , suffered a final and disastrous defeat at the hands of Mustapha Kemal. It is impossible for the mlonger to attempt any denial of this, and only by throwing themselves upon the consideration of the Western Allies, whbse advice they have hitherto disregarded, do they find any chance of avoiding complete surrender. As a preliminary step towards thus saving themselves they have handed Smyrna over to the control of the Consuls of the Allied nations, who, in turn, are endeavouring to make arrangements with the Nationalist leaders for the peaceful occupation of the city. Indeed, the latest message announces its actual surrender, but on what terms is not stated. Thus ends the ill-timed and ill-conducted adventure whiich, it cannot but be thought, was largely prompted by the overweening ambition of King Constantine to lay at one stroke the foundation for restoring to Greece the old glories of the Byzantine Empire. Thus, too, will the Western Powers be compelled to turn their attention to a definite solution of the many and complicated problems of the Near East, from which it has been diverted by those presented to them in the shape of economic conditions in Central Europe. One of the gravest anxieties that will be felt with regard to the present situation must rjecessarily arise from fears as to the treatment which the Kemalists will now mete out to the Christian populations of what is to be regarded as reconquered territory. Their case was, in all conscience, bad enough before, but the possibilities are now even worse, for it is to be feared that but little trust can be put in the statement made that Kemal Pasha has forbidden his troops, upon pain of death, to “harm the Christians,’’ of whom, it has to be remembered, a very large proportion are Greeks or of Greek extraction, and there are something more than mere misgivings as to the methods which the Greeks have themselves adopted towards the Mussulman members of the population wherever they have succeeded in securing the upper hand.

On this point of Turkish cruelties exercised upon Christian subjects a notable book has been written and just published by Professor Arnold Toynbee, a review of which appears in a Literary Supplement of the “Times” just received. In this book what will be to most of us quite a new light is thrown upon the evolution of the attitude of the Turks towards Christian peoples under their rule. As a matter of fact, he traces it as having, to a very appreciable extent, had its origin in the manner in which Christian victors have treated Turkish vanquished in days long past, and even in those that are not so very long past. As the reviewer puts it, “Professor Toynbee shat: ters illusions as did the proverbial bull the crockery in the chinashop,” demolishing Western self-

satisfaction based on the theory that the Christian peoples in contact with the Mohammedan can do no wrong. He points out that from the time of the Crusaders but scant mercy has been shown by Christian conquerors to Turkish peoples that have fallen into their hands, and mentions particularly the compete destruction and rooting out of the big Moorish element in Spain. These, although old stories, are not forgotten by the Turks, and, furthermore, Professor Toynbee has to confess that even in more modern times in Anatolia the West has shown the East, no very good example, the result being seen in the hlfa<ckened villages and mutilated corpses of the recent war of extermination. Professor Toynbee attributes the outbursts of Moslem atrocities executed upon Christian subjects as the outcome of failure that attended an adoption of the European plan of denationalising conquered peoples. The Turk set about Ottomanising his conquests just as the Prussians, for instance, set about Prussianising theirs, but with no such success. When things went wrong in this respect the Turk decided that, as his Christian subjects —whom, in any event, he regarded as mere “rayahs,” serfs to be fed and nurtured more or less as useful beasts of burden—were not Ottomanising properly, and were threatening danger to his realm he was quite justified in resorting to the old Christian methods of disposing of the menace. This naturally aroused the nationalism of those outside Turkey whose kinsmen were threatened inside. The free Greeks of the Kingdom—Yunanistan as the Turk calls it —proclaimed a crusade to rescue the Orthodox of Anatolia and, in course of time, persuaded the Western Powers to let them land in Smyrna. Landed there, the author declares, they behaved like earlier Crusaders; and their mac sacres reinflamed the Turk. The invaders had been taught to suppose that the province they were to liberate was entirely inhabited by Orthodox. That it was not so was plainly a mistake, which some of them tried to remedy by removing intrusive Moslems. The Turks replied by removing rayahs, who would, if the territory were to be occupied by Greeks, be compulsorily enrolled to serve in the Greek Army. A Western precaution —but carried out in the Eastern manner. Atrocity was followed by reprisal, reprisal by counter-atrocity ; and an impasse has been reached out of which Professor Toynbee sees no immediate exit; nor has diplomacy as yet devised any sort of alternative treatment of a malady, which, as being of slow growth and now very malignant, hardly admits of a speedy cure.