THE "CLEAN FIGHTING TURK."

Timaru Herald, Volume CVI, Issue 16253, 27 April 1917, Page 4

THE "CLEAN FIGHTING TURK."

A distinguished authority on Oriental affairs, who has had exceptional experience ai the ways of the Turk, writes to "The Times."— Daring the present war we have heard a good deal of the good nature of thi; Turks, yet ithey have pursued the most devilish policy that even this war has seen. The Armenians have been massacred, assassinated, marched to death, starved, and exposed to ravages oi disease, until perhaps 700,000 men, women, and children have met withnntimely ends. In the Lebanon an artitioial famino lias swept away more than half the population, who died withiM sight of plenty; the Moslem Arabs of Stria have boon robbed of their nobles'D families, bullied, crimped, and taxed'to I th» last penny; the Jewish colonists have been impoverished, conscripted, and subjected to vile indignities. _ lne British prisoners of war have pensned bv ''the roadside, of hunger and thirst. Some of those who survived are known i<. have been left to die of cold in unhealthy prisons, where they are denied garments, medicine, and the ordinary necessaries of life. Nevertheless the sportsmanship and chivalry of the Tnrke is a favourite itheme of some writers. How is the par-

adnx to be explained? The pain fact is, that the Turk as-a ruler is a' merciless oppressor; as a negotiator a cunning.Byzantine; as a soldier a ton ah fighter; as a victor a remorseless bully—but when he feels he lias met liis mnltch he is chivalrous, when he is defeated lie is a rmthetie and distressed gentleman. And so he contrives that the Turk has never been in thf wrong, no one has ever convicted a Turk of n mean or cruel act. When he is bea'ton.. or near beaten, he would have "R believe that the Armenians "-ere killed bv wicked Kurds, that the lebanon famine was a disaster which was hevond the nower of man to m-ert, tbnt the British prisoners died I >f .n ni iKP <tbr-v were delicate, that the

war itself was tbe work of tbe Germans Ccurs'vs on them), and so in. When his s+"r io in the nscendn-'it the tale is pitched in a. different key. "The Armenians shall not talk of independence for 50 years," said Talaat; "the English civilains shajl be exposed -to English shells," sn'rT Enver: "I will teach the Arabs who is master," said Djerual; "one sound Turk <or every sick or wounded Englishman or Indian," said

the victors of Kut, knowing that every sick Ensrlishman nnd Indian must die if he were unexchanged. Thus we get a glimnse of tho seamy side of Turkish mentality, which is made up of the craft of Byzantium, the ruthle'ssness of the nomad of the Steppe, the cold cruelty of- the fanatic.

THE YOUNG TURK AND THE OLD. The. Turk has strewn, the' earth with ruins and has made the prettiest nursery rhymes; he has shattered civilizations both Moslem and Christian; he has coined the most witty and delightful nroverbs. He is* a thoughtful £.nd solicitous host, ■'mi easy-going master, and a mild landlord, but he is a merciless misgovernor, a feckless squanderer, and as revengeful as a camel.. Hulagu devasted Irak and Syria and laid Baghdad in ruins; ho destroyed some eight millions of peaceful people, but he wept when ho heard of his brother M.augu's death. Hulagu was a very typical Turk with a warm heart and great feeling. Thnur raged over Asia Minor and put civilization back three cen'turies, but ho was exceedingly kind to the people who survived the passage of his armies. Timnr was a true Turkish gentleman, and it'is an historical libel to sa;y that he imprisoned Bayezid in a cage; ho treated Wayezid as well as Enver has iDrcatcd General Townshend, and he exterminated the population of Asia Minor almost- as thoroughly as the Turks have exterminated the Armenians.

The good old-Turk with a rosary, a melting eye, a long white beard, a compliment on his lips, a large 'turban on bin. reverend head, a small child nestling in tho folds of his ample gown, is a picture which has bewitched many a heart. A philanthropic and gentle philosopher, you will find him contemplating vacuum in many a mosque and shrine in Asia Minor, and no one can deny that he i-i a good old Turk, charitable, benevolent, and kind; I have no doubt he "would save Armenians from pursuit; if they came his way, though !io would not go a yard to find them; he would surreptitiously convey

food to English prisoners just as ho would share his last crust with a mangy street dog, for the pious must be kind uviai to unclean things; but his benevolence is individual and isolated; he is it, sort of hermit era I.) dwelling in. a rosy audi or personal philanthropy., hi- counts for nothing, nor would live million of him count for anything. Take again the Young Turk with a German uniform, a German parade voice, and German technical education. He has been roared in a Stanibul harem ; when lit?, was four years '/id lis mama helped, him first a!o table, r.nd taught his elder sister to kiss his hand; his papa taught him that by blood alone could Christian subjects be governed, and that by diplomacy alone could the Christian Powers be set by the ears; his' German professors taught him all there was to he known ibout !>• ass-suggestion, "Weltpolitik," and high explosives. Breeding, environment, and education enmb'ne to produce a very eotnp'ete foil to the passive philanthropist <>: the shrine. This young man is the embodiment of ruthless action and inflexible tyranny. His mother taught l:ii:: that, whatever he wanted was his; his father taught him to hold whatever he cot: and his German schoolmaster tr.ught.him what he believes to be.'che universal method of getting what he wants. Moreover, the German professor reinoeulated him with some of the destructive vh'us of his plundering Tur-

aiiiaji ancestors. Yeni-Turan is the latest creed. « $ THE CREED OF YOUNG TURKEY. Its doctrine is simple. The Turks in ancient tunes devastated and conquered with complete success. Attila, Ghemgiz, Mulagu, iVLaugu, and Timur were never beaten; but ior the last 200 years the Turks have constantly been beaten. Why is this? The primitive Turks -were pure barbarians, but unfortunately the Turks of to-day have imbibed some of the rices of ithe peoples they have conquered—philosophy from Persia; i»etry, literature, and religion from the Arabs; some tincture o*f the arts from the Greeks. These are blots and blemishes on the rude purity and simplicity of iche Turanian 1 ace. who only knew destruction as their motto. True, the degenerate Turks of the 16th, 17th, find 18th centuries did not produce much, but alt least, in moments of forgetfuli:ess, they allowed others to produce; Christians built their mosques and pal•aces, Persians made it possible for Turks to express, if not understand, abstract ideas, Arabs influenced Turks with 'the thought of a Creator who was something more than a tribal mumbojumbo. \

The German professor has taught our Young Turk to purge this perilous stuff from his heart and brain and tongue. The creed of Yeni-Turan is back to the forest, back 'to the tent, back to the palaeolithic state of mind; it is the grand reaction, and so strong is the taint 6f the Turanian stock which runs through Ichat maze of cross-bred Celts, Sumerians, Hellenes, Iranians, Semites, and Caucasians which we call the Turkish people, that Yeni-Turan is a living thing which finds a responsive echo in the Turkey of to-day.

The old Turk with a turban is the negative, the young Turk with a Mauser pistol is the positive; and, contrary to all rules of philosophy, it is the evil principle which is positive, and the good, for what is it worth', which is negative.

Tho violent Young Turk reactionary is the controlling power, the old Turk quie'tist has ahout as much influence on actual events as a decaying monument, of a forgotten age. The young Turk who snubbed his mother, pulled his sister's hair, kicked the Armenian norter, cringed before his father, gobbled up the dogmas of the German professor, mastered 'the formulae of the Prussian military instructor, nnd resuscitated the dormant lusts of his savage ancestors in his he.irt, is the man who counts. The lumpish peasant conscripts of Anatolia are his tools. His dream is to reassert once more the pristine authority of the Turanian races, and to exterminntg or Turanise everything within reach.

The Anibs ar-i to be robbed of tongue and leading; the Armenians are to be

exterminated; Christianity is to lie abolished in Turkey; Islam is to he overthrown and Shamanism and Fetishism revived; the British are to be kicked out of India and Egypt; and Russia is to be paralysed by a Turanian revival

in Central Asia. Between the dream and its realisation nothing is to stand. Turkish national solidarity is main-

tained within by a terrorist secret so-

ciety, the knife, the bullet, *t;ho bribe, and the massacre; on the battle fro n't tho Turkish peasantry is sacrificed without stint or hesitation; in Afghanistan, Persia, India, and Egypt tno Young Turk hau endeavoured to cast)

his spells by fomenting sedition, espionage, assassination, and fanaticism; ] in Europe, where he has survived by intrigue and corruption through two long centuries, he does not yet despair of idle efficacy of these weapons. In England the Young Turk still hopes to maintain a certain sentimental hold on public opinion, which interested politicians and romantio travellers have seci\red for him in the. past. His spurious reputation as a clean fighter he is glad enough to keep as a war asset. In defeat he knows the noble pose, just as in massacre he knows how to shuffle responsibilty; when it is worth while he can assume 'the airs of a good fellow. He will give a truce to bury the dead just as readily as he will set fire to an Armenian prison, and spare a bandage for a wounded English prisoner left behind in a retreat just as deliberately as he will stick a knife into a pregnant Christian woman. An|V little act of kindness which costs nothing, will mitigate his difficulties, and further his war aims, ho will perform with ithe same sub-conscious purpose as he 'will commit the vilest atrocities. His success we must acknowledge; he has massacred, pillaged,, outraged; for two years and a half he has broken every convention, maltreated our prisoners, killed our wounded, held our women hostages, but he remains the "clean fighting Turk."