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iJAN 181923

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^. i .The Great Powers and the Eastern
'« Christians ¦ >^;^i.E UNiVEBS.m'

CHRISTIANI AD LEONES'^

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ARY

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A PROTEST

BY

WILLIAM PEMBER REEVES

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And he said. What hast thou done i
The voice of thy brother's blood
Crieth unto me from the grownd.

THE ANGLO-HELLENIC LEAGUE,
53 & 54, CHANCERY LANE, W.C. 2.
¦ ¦ 1922

_ ..3X1!-..,,,. ,"

THE ANGLO -HELLENIC LEAGUE.

OFFICERS, COUNCIL AND COMMITTEE FOR 1922.

Presidents.
Sir Francis Elliot, G.C.M.G., G.CV.O,
His Excellency J. GKNX'ADit's, G.C.V.O.

Comdr. C. Bellairs, R.N,, M.P,
Mrs. Ronald Burrows.
CommandeT H, S. Cardalk.
John Dillon, M,R,C,S.
Sir Arthur Evans, D,Litt,, P.S.A,

'Vice-Presidents. G. A. Macmillan: Hon, D,Litt,
RoNAij> M'Nbiu.,- M,P,
GiLUKRT Ml RKAY, LL.D,, D,Litt„ F,B,A.
M.idainc Vknizki.os.

Chairman.
The Hon, W. Pember Kkkvks.
'Vice-Chairman.
Sir A, H. Crosfikld, Bart.

Professor A. M. Anor^adgs,
Mrs. Philip Baker.
D. J. Cassavettl
Canon W, C, Compton,
•S, Delta.
Mrs. Embiricos,
Professor Ernest Gardner,
Mrs, Lambrinudi,
Dr. A, Manuel.
L. M. Mbssinesi.
Z, G, Michalinos.
Professor J, L. Myres,

Council. A, P.M. LIS.
Miss M, Pallis,
D, P, Pbtrocochino.
Alex, Ralli,
Mrs. Pkmbkr Kii-VKs,
E. M, Rodocanachi.
Mrs. Sachs,
P. Teofani,
Mrs. Vlasto,
Sir C, WALSTt-iN.
Mrs. Watson-Taylor,
G, B, ZocHONis.

• Chairman of the Athens Executive Cornmiltee,
together with the member.s of the Executive Committee,
Executive Committee.

The Chairman.
Sir W. Ryland Adkins, K,C„ M,P,
Mrs, Ronald Burrows,
Sir A. H. Crosfield, Bart,
Lady Crosfield.
N, EUMORFOPOULOS {Hon. Sic),
G, Glasgow,
A. C. Ionides.

G, Marchktti,
J, Mavrogordato,
Lady Mkiklwohn,
T, P, O'Connor, M,P,
Mrs, W, Pkmbkr Reeves,
Harold Spender, M,A,
Sir J, J, Stavridi,
A, Zy«i)URAS {H»H, TrtOiurir,]

Office.
53/S4, Chancery Lane, W.C, 2, Telephone : Holborn 2266,
Bankers.
The London County Westminster and Parr's Bank,
36, St. James's Street, S,W, 1,

THE GREAT POWERS
AND THE
EASTERN CHRISTIANS.

CHRISTIANI AD LEONES!
U PROTEST.)
Valbntinian.' Your only virtue now is patience.
Take heed * • * * i£ you talk—
Lucina. While there is motion left me in my body
Or life to give rae voice I'll cry for Justice.
Valbntinian, -Justice will never hear you ; I am .Justice 1
Valbntinian. Act III, Scene II.
And therefore hence
Go miserable wretches to your Death. King Henry V.

On the eve of the General Election the Marquis Curzon
delivered a notable speech in the City. Touching on the Near
Eastern Question he spoke with unusual decision. His tone
was, for the most part, not more grave than was warranted in
a Foreign Secretary addressing, at a moment of some anxiety,
magnates of commerce and finance in the heart of London.
When he came to the defence of the sacrosanct semi-autonomy
of the Foreign Office gravity deepened to solemnity. One
• Emperor of Rome.

almost seemed to hBar the voice of Aaron in the Desert warn
ing off throngs of youthful Israelites over-curious about the
structure of the Ark. But in his summary and condemnation
of the Turkish policy of extirpation in Anatolia and Armenia
the Marquis was something much better than solemn : he
was impressive. He, stated a deadly truth— nothing more—
definitely and strongly, and did so in brief, plain words.
Beading it thankfully oile had but a single complaint to make.
Why, one asked, does this scathing expos6 only come now ?
Had it • been uttered three or even two years ago, and had our
Foreign Office been guided accordingly — been guided that is
by a steady purpose of ending a misrule hateful to God and
man — then a great tragedy might have been averted. At any'
rate the last and worst act of it might have been averted, for
the tragedy as a drama began centuries ago. Why wait to
denounce Turkish extirpation until the curtain has fallen on
the doom of Near Eastern Christianity from the Taurus
Eanges to the Maritza ? Where — save in Constantinople —
are the Asian Greeks, the Armenians, the Thracians? A
million or so of miserable exiles have been added to the dis
persed multitude who have fled north and west from time
to time during the last thirty years. Some 150,000 mishandled
captives may be doing slave work waiting for release, chiefly
by death. Any other remnants of the living are being steadily
expelled. Large gangs are being marched down to the sea
ports, or, herded in hunger, await shipment there. Where are
the rest ? Their bones litter the highways of Anatolia or have
been flung into Armenian pits. The Tartar conquerors of the
Middle Ages, whose bloodthirsty tradition if not their blood
the Young Turks inherit, were artists. They collected the skulls
of the myriads they slew and with them built 'tall p^rainids,
the only lasting memorial of their conquests. Kemal's
executioners, when not making away with the bodies of their
victims in some slovenly fashion, leave their skeletons to lie
2

where they will. There they whiten, witnesses that the long
struggle for Asia Minor, which Greek and Turk began when
the Seljouks burst into Armenia nearly nine centuries ago, is
over at last. Christianity and Hellenism have passed away :
anything worth calling civilization has gone with them.
Greek, spoken in Ionia since the age of Homer, became a dead
language there this autumn, and the last of the Seven Churches
of Asia has perished in fire and blood.
The Turks started to drive the Greeks out of Asia Minor in
1066, the year of the battle of Hastings. They seem likely to
finish their task about six months hence. Why, I ask again,
defer standing up to extermination until extermination has so
nearly done its work ?
I have watched British policy in the Near East keenly for
many years, and for three years have tried hard to follow
every move. I am not so unjust as to suggest that the Foreign
Office has been without sympathy or without knowledge. The
sympathy is there, without doubt, and in knowledge the Office
is, I respectfully believe, a happy blend of Metternich, Mezzo-
fanti and Macaulay. But a sympathy that is allowed to
evaporate by inaction helps only the enemy ; and a knowledge
which goes on spending itself in calculating and depicting
difficulties does not help friends. In this case it led to the
making of a series of concessions after lengthy fits of sullen
or querulous looking-on. Of course the difficulties were
very great. But, looking back for two years and a half, what
sort of a figure is cut by the efforts made by British policy to
overcome them ? We went on from weakness to weakness.
Our succession of baitings and recoilings, swayings and lurches f
our passing from the impassive to the passive ; those firm
words uttered with a shiver of apprehension, those gestures of
determination ending in a posture of humility, the friendly
smile followed by the cold shoulder — what have they all led
to — what could they have led to — except inevitable yielding
3

to tricky allies and truculent foes ? What have tact and con
cession brought about, except the abandonment of the one
cause in the Near East that was worth Humanity's while, the
rescue of the subject races ?
It may be said that I exaggerate, that it is not true that
nothing was done for the Christians. Constantinople still
stands, and a breathing-time was gained for the Thracians in
which to escape. France and England, moreover, ase burying
the hatchet. Yes, Constantinople still stands. There are
always some people left in the Near East whom the Turks
have not yet massacred. No man feels secure in Constanti
nople ; trade and finance are paralysed : 175 thousand
persons, chiefly Eastern Christians, have fled from the City
in three months. Perhaps twice that number remain.
Observers there think these had better escape while they
can. Still they are alive. Pera and Galata remain, whether
as a bonne boioche for Kemal or some wilder practitioner of
the policy of " thorough " we have yet to see. But I cannot
help wondering to what extent this respite for the Christians
there is due to solicitude by the Powers for them. How
much of it comes from the fact that in Constantinople
their safety is inextricably mixed up with that of foreign-
residents and western interests ? Spend a soldier or a
coin on fighting for Greeks and Armenians we must not.
The Turcomaniac newspapers of Paris and London tell us
that in the tallest of scare-lines. It is not business. But
capitulations and customs duties, bank loans and trade,
consuls and navigation rights, these furnish reasons for which
great nations may fight and pay. It is only a few of us who
think that Great Powers standing up in defence of commercial
privileges, but doing so only after those inconvenient Christian
multitudes have been put out of the way, provide more cause
for silence than rejoicing. As for the reconciliation of the
Allies — really, to see politicians in England and France bury-
4

ing the hatchet in Mr. Lloyd George's political grave might
have made Diogenes grin. The warning " Put not your trust
in Princes," had it been given to-day, might it not have been
enlarged by a few caustic words about allies and colleagues ?
And the Thracian Christians, whose respite was our other
achievement, what of them? Lord Curzon, we are, told, by
personal exertions obtained for them six weeks in which to
evacuate " their own country. I do not say this was not to
his credit : but — six weeks ! Think a moment ! Six weeks
for these wretched people in which to take wife and child and
flee like hunted animals from the land which had been a home
of their race for 2,500 years ! Six weeks for their country-folk
to renounce hearth and home, field and farm, garden and vine
yard, corn , and cattle — for their townsfolk to leave shop
and office, trade and profession, schools and churches — and
trek and trudge in frightened crowds to seek the bread of
charity in some province, if such there be, that Europe may
allow to remain Greek ! The Eastern Thracians went :
210,000 crossed the Maritza in three weeks. Other thousands
fled in other directions. Adrianople, wholly or largely Greek
since the Age of the Antonines, had fifty Greeks left a
fortnight ago. At such a pace can you expel a people
without a friend. Districts lie deserted, towns and villages
emptied. Nulloque domus custode tenetur
Earns et antiquis habitator in urbibus errat.
Londoners read the news and ejaculate cheerily Good
Old Turk ! ". Greeks are but Greeks. Still, they are men,
women and children. Armenians too, are human beings.
The French themselves admit that, though they say — Ces
messieurs — Id ne sent pas interessants. It is the Armenians
who begin to doubt it. One of them, a refugee from Diarbekir,
said the other day, " We think that God has forgotten us.
We Armenians are nothing. We have not the right to
live."

Western Thrace, that last poor fragment of the territory
won by Venizelos, is by latest accounts packed with helplegs
fugitives. , It has been menaced by a demand on behalf
of Bulgaria. Bulgaria wants an outlet to the Mgean;
faciUties for trade— to which she has every right— are not
enough : she wants a " corridor," and Western Thrace will
provide a very wide corridor, including, by the by, the rich
tobacco lands round Xanthi. If the whole corridor cannot
go to Bulgaria, then let it be divided or neutralized, handed
over to French or Italian police, or to the League of Nations
— anything, if only it be taken from Greece. So have argued
benevolent journals and writers, mildly-merciless' enemies of
a Greater Greece, warmly philanthropic usually to Near
Eastern races, luke-warmly philanthropic only where the
ivepuwoi happen to be 'EAAijvej. Yet assuredly, if the word goes
out among the miserable Thracians that their refuge is to be
torn from Hellas, if the Greek troops there begin to move off,
then their flight of fear will begin' again. Clutching to their
breasts their infants, their food, their ragged raiment, these
men and women will sail or ride, or plod and, stagger along
muddy roads, on a fresh pilgrimage of woe into Greek
Macedonia, already choked with sufferers. If the gift of
Dedeagatch would bring Bulgaria whole-heartedly into a
Balkan League, then let Bulgaria have the port.* But let

* From an article in the Times of November 22 last, describing
diplomatic activities at the Peace Conference at Lausanne, I extract the
following : —
" Signor Mussolini this morning had a conversation with M.
Stambuliski. He stated that he had assured the Bulgarian Prime
. Minister that Italy would support the Bulgarian claim for an outlet
on the .^gean, an,d added that arrangements had been made for an
Italian company" to obtain the contract for harbour works at
Dedeagatch should that pprt be given back to Bulgaria."
Comment on this may seem needless, and would certainly be wasted
upon the chief persons of the drama — not that I blame the Bulgarian
gentleman for his share in it. What else can those unhappy little Balkan

the main part of Western Thrace stay with Greece ; a second
exodus of despairing Thracians cannot be thought of.
The return to Greece of the ill-starred Constantine moved
the Great Powers to justified anger. Yet is it right that multi
tudes of Greek and Armenian exiles should pay for him so
fearfully? One thinks of the words of the contrite David,
But these sheep, what have they done ? "
Year after year Eastern Christianity, fallen among thieves,
has lain by the road-side, stripped and wounded. England,
America and France were to come after the Armistice as Good
Samaritans, binding up wounds, pouring in oil and wine. No
Samaritans came. Financiers monopolized the oil and the
Turks have prohibited the wine. The wounds still bleed.
The Marquis of Crewe, now our Ambassador in Paris,
lately dealt with Anatolian matters in an English review.
His article is argumentative, and of course well written.
After characterizing with frank seyerity the customary
methods of Turkish savagery. Lord Crewe goes on to make a
fierce attack upon the Greek army when in Anatolia. The
Greeks began, he says, by murdering great numbers of Turks
on landing at Smyrna. He accuses the Greeks of many
misdeeds during the guerilla warfare carried on between
them and the bandit-irregulars, whom the Turks used to
harass them ; and he denounced them as equally guilty with the
Turks of atrocities worthy of African savages. Whether it
is correct to tax the Greek troops with murdering large

nations do when they have to deal with Great Powers like Italy, and
while their lives and destinies are still in the hands of Great Powers?
One knew that this sort of thing went on in Near Eastern diplomacy, but
I do not think that I ever remember to have seen it set out quite so
nakedly. Until the Balkan nations learn to pull together, their fate will,
one imagines, continue tb be settled for reasons of State of the kind given
above. I do not wonder that some of the older Pundits of Diplomacy
think that more secrecy should be observed over diplomatic transactions.
Even so Decency would be one thing and Do Ut Des another.

numbers of Turks in Smyrna depends upon what you mean
by Targe numbers. So far as the persons killed in Smyrna
were Turks, they numbered, so I am told, seventy-six, killed
partly by Greek soldiers and partly by the town mob. About
100 of other nations were killed also. The ringleaders in the
business -v\'ere executed by the Greek authorities, and com
pensation paid to the families of victims. Lamentable and
shameful as the affair was, it lasted but a few hours.
Smyrna a week after the Greek landing was a peaceful, well-
ordered city. What was Smyrna a -week after the Kemalists
returned to it ? Lord Crewe states that the evil deeds of
the Ionian War deprived both sides of sympathy, and says
that for anyone to be either keenly pro-Greek or pro-Turkish
in the Anatolian contest is to shut one's eyes to patent facts.
I may say that I do not agree that the Greeks were equally
guilty with the Turks of such reprehensible incidents as
happened during their Anatolian occupation. The point,
however, upon which I wish to say something is the
suggestion that no one can be a keen pro-Greek without
shutting one's eyes. Lord Crewe refers to the late Anatohan
war. Others are less guarded. It is the commonest thing
in England for writers or talkers to take the line that as
between Turks and Christians, there is no black and no white,
no right and no wrong side ; one is as bad as another ; all
alike equally savage, bloodthirsty, wicked and guilty. Passing
from Lord Crewe, let me say something about this popular
and sweeping condemnation, responsible as it is for much
mischief, apathy and injustice.
Those who think thus look on Philhellenes as blind merely
because they are partisans. Is that so ? It is easy enough
for those who care little about an unpopular cause to lecture
those who care a great deal. It certainly saves time, after
glancing at the tragic welter of hates, wars, crimes, corruption,
degrading intrigues, and wild cross-charges of wickedness

which make up so much of history and controversy in the
Near East, to turn away pronouncing one side as bad as
another. Yet it is possible, after many years careful study of
Near Eastern affairs, to form opinions which are definite, but
are not the result of haste, but of hard thinking. It is pos
sible, in short, to see something more than confusion. And
if a student concludes that the balance of justice inclines
greatly to one side, he may become a partisan, but he is not
therefore blind. A student should keep his head, but he may
have a heart ; and if after contemplating the long hfe-in-
death nightmare of the Christian sufferers under Turkish mis
rule his heart is not deeply moved — moved even to partisan
ship — by the awful tragedy of their extirpation, I have nothing
.more to say. For myself I have been a Philhellene most of
my life. I have pored over every episode of the conflict
between Hellenism and the Turks from the battle of Manzikert
to the burning of Smyrna, and if I could not spare a heart
beat for Hellas in her age-long struggle with the barbarians
of Asia, I should account myself worse than blind. What I
am writing to-day may seem to many to be a tiresome whirl
of overstrained words. I take my chance of that. If I write
with heat it is because I have brooded over the tragedy of the
Near East for many years ; because, when you are tacMing
murder and diplomacy there, it is no use mincing matters ;
most of all because I am trying to plead for human sufferers
hounded by their agony into crying that God has forsaken
them. The Christians who are or have been subjects of the Turk
are not angels. They are what centuries of slavery, contempt,
deceit and ruthless cruelty have made them. They are slaves
or freedmen who have endured a tyranny arrogant, fanatical,
maddeningly incompetent : stupid, lazy and ruinous ; finally
settling down after alternations of massacre and toleration into
a deliberate policy of extirpation. That is what Turkish
9

domination has been and is. It was said of the Bourbons that
they learned nothing and forgot nothing. That is not true of
the young Turks. They learn Strategy and forget their Faith ;
they learn French and forget promises. Diplomats never
believe them unless they are threatening inischief. This is
what it has come to among Anatolia-n Christians : " Never
believe the Turks except when they promise to kill you ! "
Let us allow that Christians have wreaked vengeance here
and there. Of course they have. In the first place the
number and magnitude of their misdeeds have been petty com
pared with the colossal scale on which the Turks have looted,
burned, slaughtered, tortured. Next, anything Greeks have .
done has beeh done in war time, in days of strain and passion.
The Turks preached, planned and carried out their policy of
extirpation in Armenia, Anatolia and Thrace in times of pro
found peace. A clear sketch of the first stage of the extirpation
propaganda can be read in the pages of Sir William Eamsay's
' Impressions of Turkey." Sir William was no hot-headed
Philhellene ; he was not a politician. He was a peaceful
traveller, a learned archaeologist and Christian historian. He
spent twelve years in Western Anatolia and could speak to the
natives in their own languages. His authority as an Anato
lian traveller is acknowledged. His book was pubUshed in
1891. I say to anyone who doubts that the Turkish policy
of exterminating the Christian Minorities is forty years old,
carefully organized and systematically carried on, read Sir
William Eamsay's book. You will see the beginning of the
whole business there truthfully written by an impartial writer
whose impartiality is not assumed.
Of a truth the six of one, half-a-dozen of the other doctrine,
with its tired air of disgusted detachment, of which we get so
much nowadays in newspapers, speeches and private ' talk
about the Near East, seems but thin, unsustaining stuff for
those of us who as young men were fed on the stronger meat
10

of a very different doctrine. Not thus did LiberaUsm, at any
rate, speak in the days of my youth when the Eastern Ques
tion spht public opinion in twain, and the eloquence of Mr.
Gladstone set Scotland and England aflame. How it ran. as
I have seen fire run over long dry grass before a north-west
gale on New Zealand hill-sides ! How they glowed as they
went, those burning, indignant sentences, shocking official
apathy, stabbing the conscience of the comfortable classes,
rousing to wrath and enthusiasm even the drab serfs of
Victorian commercialism. Genius of human freedom, spirit
of human sympathy, could you but give us one hour of
the fearless old man! Paris might Usten to a friend of
Greeks and Armenians if he rose from the dead ; or would
she? One may differ from Lord Crewe but his remarks on the
Near East are serious and certainly not absurd. M. Poincar6
on the other hand must be that rare thing, a Frenchman with
no sense of the ridiculous whatever. Speaking to the French
Chamber he has just assured his hearers that neither the
Turks nor the Greeks can be charged with the conflagration of
Smyrna : its origin is veiled in mystery ! Yes, such a mystery
as the responsibility for the Massacre of St. Bartholomew or
the murder of Sir Henry Wilson 1 Does M. Poincar6 consider
the slaughter of some twelve thousand Greeks and Armenians
in the streets and houses of Smyrna equally mysterious, or that
it passes the wit of man to imagine the perpetrators of the
countless outrages on women and the wholesale plunder of the
city and suburbs ? Does he consider that the postponement
of the incendiarism till a change of wind had made the Turkish
quarter safe was also a mystery ? Or does he think the
change of wind was a miracle ? To such diplomatic
nonsense must distinguished official personages descend when
they dare not speak the truth. Puck is a hard task
master for politicians. In England he makes strong men
11

show themselves weak. In France he compels clever men to
make themselves look ridiculous.
When one thinks of the respectable English politicians who
have talked or written about the Near East and have in
fluenced or shrunk from influencing its fate ; and when one
thinks of their characteristics in relation thereto ; when one
watches departmental Grey, conceding Curzon, grammatical
Asquith, or Law, " the priest who slew the slayer," it cannot
be said that one carries away much impression of resolution
or any particular dexterity. Yet after all, their share of
responsibility for the tragedy of the Eastern Christians, how
small it is when compared with that of France I And passing
from these passive-impassive statesmen to smaller figures in
the drama, how little mischief have the minor figures in the
controversy done when compared with the same ill-doer.
What a tiny mosquito fleet seem the swarm of Turcophil
newspapers and writers who have done their best to bewilder
England while the tragedy has marched to the last act.
What at the worst have Englishmen done that can be
likened to the open-eyed misdeeds of French Policy, the Great
Cynicism ?
In touching on the story of the share of France in the
Great Betrayal of the Eastern Christians one does not need
to use emphasis. All that is required is to state plain facts
in plain words. The facts set out are a sufficient spectacle
for gods and men. When, a quarter of a century ago, the
Armenian massacres in Constantinople had roused Europe, it
seemed the last word in hardihood that the German Kaiser
should make a state journey to clasp the hand of Abdul
Hamid and bid for the friendship which nations with some
conscience had the decency to renounce. Yet after aU,
Germany was but supplanting rivals or enemies. French
Policy made France embrace Kenaal mainly in order to black
mail England. Germany tripped up competitors : French
12

Policy poignarded a friend. The more hardened Parisian news
papers make no bones about "the business. French PoUcy
betrayed the Christians in order to worry England into sup
porting an impossible poUcy on the Ehine. Only the other day
France stood out stoutly for her dignity as protector of the
Eastern Christians. A moment more and a Concession-
hunting French PoUcy befriends Christian-hunting Kemal,
makes secret compacts with him behind England's back, and
begins the process of supplying him with moral support and
military equipment. If rumour does not lie military advice,
with military intelUgence of Greek forces and dispositions were
secretly conveyed from unauthorized French sources to Angora.
Meanwhile, France from time to time professed to work with
England and blandly offered Greece her services as friendh-
mediator. French Policy did all this, the policy of the country
which had forced Greece into the war against Bulgaria and
Turkey, had joined in sending her to Smyrna, and had
made use of her army to save Constantinople from Kemal I
We are told that the Angora Pact was a financial necessity ;
that the Public Finance Committee of the French Chamber
would not find money for the defence of Cilicia, so that
Franklin Bouillon had to be sent to sell the province. He
made his bargain. Cilicia was sold for prompt delivery — ¦
arms, munitions and Christians to go with ithe estate. How
neatly it all fitted in — superfluous Armenians, business-like
Bouillon, opportunely e.rigeant public finance committee !
All that the claque needed to do was to shut their eyes to
. the fact that had France loyally backed up Greece in Anatolia
and had she made the blockade of Asia Minor effectual she
need not have had to fight for Cilicia, — there would have
been no Kemalist army to fight against.
Yet by comparison with the inert, timidly watchful
neutrality of British statesmanship, so punctiliously polite
to the foes who were insulting England to her face, and to
13

the friend who was attacking her from behind her back, the
definite wrong-doing of France and Angora seems to have in
it a strength and purpose that almost force respect. French
diplomacy and friend Kemal, ami et massacreur, knew their -
own minds. The extirpation of Christianity in Asia Minor
and Thrace may be a tragedy, but is a very considerable
achievement. And Franklin Bouillon, sent as envoy to
Massacre's Temporary Head Quarters at Angora — at least he
did his job. I have read that he disliked it and can believe it.
Als.o, this unenviable envoy, I suppose, me'rqly did what his
masters bade him do. Theirs, not his, is the distinction- of
sending him on a mission to the G.H,Q. of , Massacre to
chop Christians for Concessions in a diplomatic sale.'"
Parisian newspapers jeer at men simple-minded enough, to
care whether the Near Eastern Christians live or die. They
call their sympathy " Puerile Puritanism." They say
that it is sentimentalism, and that it does not pay. That
may be so. I have nowhere read that Christ sells Conces
sions. Yet it is my faith that the Power that makes nations
also watches their deeds, and in the end punishes their mis
deeds. " I will repa,y, saith the Lord ; " and terribly has
He repaid the long record of selfishness, deceit, greed, and
desertion by one or other Great Power that make up so much
of the story of European war and diplomacy in the Near
East. One episode in this long catalogue of wrong became
the direct cause of the Great War. Has it profited Eussia
that she instigated unfortunate Greek peasants to rise against
the Turks, and then abandoned them to massacre ? Look at
Eussia to-day. Did it profit Austria, that after backing Turks
*I have written plainly about French Policy in the LeVant because I
think it has done great evil. I believe, at the same time, that most of tlie
many millions making up the brave, kindly, patriotic French people have
had little or nothing to do with it. They have been misled by their Press
and many of their politicians and have not appreciated the effect of what
was being done. 14

against Greeks, and egging Servians on to assail Bulgaria
she seduced Bulgaria into attacking Sorvia and Greece without
warning, and finally herself invaded and ravaged Servia?
Where is Austria to-day ? What has Germany gained by
deserting Christendom to corrupt Turkey and enlist her in a
war against civilization and by afterwards doing the same
with Bulgaria ? Has it paid England to bolster up successive
'Abduls and Mahmouds, and enable them to prolong the
worst government on earth ? ' What has she got by send
ing the Greeks to Smyrna and then leaving them to be
starved out there by inches ? What is France gaining
by her betrayal of Greece and Armenia, or by the tricks
she has played England ? Go to Syria and Cilicia, go
to Smyrna- and Ionia, to Brusa and Constantinople, and
look round. Listen to the wail of the French Colony in
Constantinople. Mr. T. P. O'Connor has just said in the
House of Commons that he suspects that flesh and blood are
being sold in the Levant for pounds, francs, and lire. He
might have gone further and pointed out that the sellers are
themselves being sold. What return have they received to
balance the milUons lost in Smyrna, the ruin of Near Eastern
trade, the desolation of AnatoUa, the depopulation of Thrace,
the cost of reinforcing the Straits and Constantinople ? Have
a care, M. Poincar6 ! — the ruins of Smyrna are faUing on
French heads. You have not helped them by making " Un
coup de Chanak " rank with " Un coup de Jamac " as a term
for a foul blow. The Eastern Question is still Europe's shirt
of Nessus — she writhes, but cannot tear it off. Only Angora
laughs. Can we wonder that the staff at Massacre's head
quarters and the populace of the city where—
" Keeps Death his court ; and there the Antic sits
Scoffing"
laugh at the Europe that once called itself ^ Christendom ?
Such is the fruit of two hundred years of poUcy, not always
15

evil, but often bad enough to make the history of European
Diplomacy in the Near East a dark story of the miseries of the
weak and the baseness of the strong. Thus it has gone on :
thus it will go on, perhaps, until the Balkan nations, tired of
being used as puppets, unite to keep a check on themselves
and on exploitation by Great Powers.
On the last day of the Eeign of Terror, when Eobespierre,
his face shattered by a pistol shot, lay blood-stained and*
groaning, prostrate and bound', waiting to be borne to the
guillotine, a certain man, it is recorded, stood over him, and,
bending down, said : " Yes, Eobespierre I There is a God."
So now, looking round in Europe, remembering the war and
its gigantic calamities, and seeing on all sides exhaustion,
disappointment, grinding taxation, smouldering revolt, debt,
hunger, hate, fear, grief for the dead, a man, remembering the
cause of it all, may think of the dread reminder to the
doomed revolutionary, and say from his soul : " Yes, Christian
Nations ! There is a God."

Jonn Bale, Sons & Danielsson, Ltd., Printers, S3-91, Gt. Titchfield Street, London, W.
16

A

HISTORY OF THE
PEOPLE.
FROM 1821 TO 1921.
WILUAM MILLER.

GREEK

London ; Methuen. lM0l_,

Price .6/-.

A

SHEAF OF GREEK
SONGS.
Countess

FOLK

EVELYN MARTINENGO-CESARESCO.

Oxford ; Blackwell. 1922.

Price 5/-.

:;-'\s

THE

ANGLO-HELLENIC LEJJppll.
/'I > '-d-->
Was founded in 1913 with the^""'"*-^
following objects: —

To defend the just claims ahd>'hibndii
of Greece. - ? •

".i*/»fi

2. To remove existing prejudices-aj^id'pr^
vent future misunderstandiiigs ' bi
tween the British and Hellenic raj^i
as well as between the Hellenic, ani
other races of South-Eastern ¦Euro;f)i.
3 . To spread information concerning Greece
and stimulate interest in "Hellenic '" ^"1
matters. *">- ' ¦ ;J\i
4. To improve the social, educational, con*- \.,''$^^
mercial, and political relations of the .^^^j.^^]
two countries. ' / ' '; '^m
5. To promote travel in Greece and secure'^ ;'\S
improved facilities for it. / , i^Jr':?

Inqtciries and applications for MeiHbef0^p
should be addressed to the Secretary --^J^'i
zAnglo-Hellenic League, at the Offi^s\
the League, $31 54- Chancery Lane, 0'i&: