MIA > Archive > Arthur Rosenberg
From International Press Correspondence, Vol. 2 No. 23, 21 March 1922, pp. 172–173.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Marxists’ Internet Archive.
Public Domain: Marxists Internet Archive (2019). You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source.
Capitalist diplomacy hoped with the ending of the world war to solve at least one problem with which it had been occupied for fully a century. This was the so-called Eastern question and what in practice meant the settlement of the fate of Turkey – the Sick Man of Europe. The Entente had thought the world war would so solve the problem that the Sick Man would be cut into pieces whereby each of the great capitalist robber-states would, like Shylock, carry off its fat pound of flesh. It was with this end in view that the so-called Sèvres peace treaty between the Entente and Turkey was drawn up and signed in 1920.
But the robber-peace has just as little disposed of the Turkish problem as the corresponding treaty of Versailles has brought tranquillity to Central Europe. In the first place the various Shylocks cannot agree upon the size of the pieces of flesh which each of them is to have and in the second place the sick man exhibits a bodily strength with which one would not easily have credited him. He has laid about him furiously and brought his oppressors considerable perplexity. When the English laid their hands on Constantinople, there arose in Asia Minor a new Turkish government, the Government of Angora with Kemal Pasha at its head, who was able to organize the resistance of the Turkish people against the Western capitalist exploiters. Kemal in these efforts found a supporter in Soviet Russia. But beyond this, however, the diplomacy of Angora understood how to play off the differences between the Entente powers in a very skilful manner. He won over France, isolated England, and today Kemal Pasha stands almost at his goal.
The Orient Conference which is now being held in Paris will put the concluding touches to the developments of the last few years. The English Foreign Minister Lord Curzon sits together with M. Poincaré with the Italian Chancellor playing a mute role, and in such wise will peace in the Near East be renewed. The French in fact have their contract with Kema Pasha in their pocket already – that much talked-of agreement which secures far-reaching concessions on Turkish territory to French capital. In return the French have ceded to the Turks the province of Cilicia besides some districts to the east. This gift by France was very magnanimous, for the French Government has thus presented something which in no way belonged her. Cilicia was much more a so-called mandate area which France administered on behalf of the League of Nations. The English simulated great moral indignation over this French breach of trust and they voiced loud cries of woe over those Armenian Christians in Cilicia who have again come under Turkish rule. But when the English press waxes morally indignant there is always a question of profit standing in the background. So is it the case this time. The English in fact fear that the control over Mesopotamia with its rich petroleum fields is threatened, so soon as the Turks establish themselves at the gateway of this valuable country. For the Mohammedans of Mesopotamia will not submit to being squeezed by English capital and they look to Kemal Pasha for liberation.
As Turkey has become the protegé of French capital, so English capital backs up Greece. As is known, however, the Greek offensive of last year in Asia Minor was utterly broken. The army of Kemal Pasha proved itself superior and the Greeks were driven back to the western coast. The workers and peasants of Greece have no desire to shed their blood in the interests of the Athens and London bankers. The powers that be in Greece are in a painful dilemma; the government crisis in Athens has become a permanent institution. The French government of course makes full use of the military and political weakness of Greece and thereby presses England to forsake her Greek protegé and so again restore “Peace” in the Near East.
The really most important points of controversy which are at present being deliberated in Paris are: first, the fate of Constantinople which is closely bound up with the question of Adrianople and the Straits; and secondly, the future of Smyrna. As has been said Constantinople is at the present time simply an English colony and the English capitalists wish to maintain this position as long as possible. For Constantinople is the key to the Black Sea. It is further the key to the southern entrance to Russia where English capital will make every effort to profit yet further from the political and economic possibilities which the possession of Constantinople confers, it is for this reason that the English make use of the slogan “the freedom of the Straits”, the Dardanelles and the Bosporus, which has to be unconditionally assured. The securing of this freedom is according to the opinion of the English capitalists best accomplished if a British garrison is quartered in Constantinople. In Constantinople itself at the present day there also sits the Sultan and a sham government nominated by him. The actual Turkish government in Angora has sent its Foreign Minister Yussuf Kemal Bey to the Paris Conference. At the same time there is also present in Paris Marshall Izzet Pasha, the so-called Minister for Foreign Affairs of the puppet government m Constantinople. The “masters” of Constantinople do, under the existing circumstances, the wisest thing that is possible for them they completely support the standpoint of Angora. The Turks demand in addition to Constantinople the return of the adjacent territory of Thrace with the important town of Adrianople as well, where at present the Greeks have quietly nestled themselves. If the Turks have their way in this respect, they will have beside the city of Constantinople itself a very important broad military bridgehead in Europe. Under the present circumstances this would be a very powerful position for France who stands behind Turkey. One can understand that the English are doing their utmost to repel Franco-Turkish encroachment here.
With regard to Smyrna, the Turks similarly demand the evacuation of this great seaport of Asia Minor by the Greeks. The English capitalists, however, desire to keep Smyrna for themselves in order not wholly to lose their influence over the commerce of Asia Minor. And here also they have a pretty sounding pretext: they must have guarantees that the Christian population of Smyrna and its neighborhood shall not come under Turkish rule. These guarantees are to consist in the setting up of a system of government for the province of Smyrna in which English businessmen shall have a free hand.
The position of the English negotiators in Paris is not a very favorable one. On account of the military failure of the Greeks and on account of the whole world situation France has all the trump cards in her hand. But in order to complete its misfortune the English government has but a few days ago experienced a slap from its own camp, which is unexampled in the history of diplomacy. The Mohammedan Indians fake an extraordinary interest tn the fate of Turkey. To them the Sultan is almost the same as the Pope is to the Catholics. The restoration and strengthening of the Western power of the Sultan is a slogan which is of extreme importance to the 50,000,000 Mohammedans of India. In this case religious demands coincide with the universal aversion to the foreign capitalist exploiters. For the Indian Mohammedan knows that this same English government that oppresses India also sets itself against Turkish independence. Now the crisis in India is approaching its highest point, and the situation of the English rulers there is becoming perilous. The Viceroy of India, Lord Reading, therefore decided a desperate stroke. He despatched a telegram to London, which demanded in the name of the Indians the giving back of Constantinople and Smyrna to Turkey, and in his anxiety over the approaching Indian insurrection, Mr. Montagu, the Secretary for India, handed over this telegram to the press without previously acquainting Lloyd George with this step. The English statesmen who are specially responsible for Indian affairs thought this the only way to defer the Indian revolution; they publicly and openly before the world voiced the demands of the Mohammedans, in order to neutralize the Indian Mohammedans.
Lloyd George was indignant over the trick which Mr. Montagu had played him. Montagu was forced to resign, but the damage is not thereby remedied. When Poincaré sits opposite Lord Curzon in Paris, the Frenchman knows full well what a load lies on the shoulders of the Englishman. If the noble Lord sets himself against the Turkish demands, there arises in the background the spectre of India. The capitalist diplomats deliberate at the green table; they formulate new treaties. The uprising of the downtrodden peoples of the East, in India as well as in Egypt, in Syria as much as in Mesopotamia, will tear these beautiful treaties into shreds.
Last updated on 27 December 2018