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PRESENTED BY The Author roy APGA Diviston...sd.c\unmed wt ' — —— } } (fm e — Sechton..2: 2s. = wes mere oe apt tes) F; aby f VK Pode Web iL Be unk AN : AL es ante a Whe IMPERIALISM AND NATIONALISM ae eee a Mab at KIRBY PAGE ' a ve PsP ria r* vs Ee \ ah ita’, 1 a imae ¥ ih . : as di ave "a } ¢ wee ree g ty Vat b ' regu . i ‘ J IMPERIALISM AND NATIONALISM A STUDY OF CONFLICT IN THE NEAR EAST AND OF THE TERRITORIAL AND ECONOMIC EXPANSION OF THE UNITED STATES BY / / KIRBY PAGE Author of ‘War; Its Causes, Consequences and Cure,” Co-author of “The Abolition of War,” Editor of “Christianity and Economic Problems.” NEW Gap YORK GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1925, BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY IMPERIALISM AND NATIONALISM —_— Cc — PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA FOREWORD Every person who desires to see war banished from the earth is under obligation to understand the real nature and actual consequences of imperialism and nationalism. To- gether they constitute an exceedingly grave danger to inter- national peace. The full flower of European imperialism is visible throughout the Near East. In this region may also be seen the fruits of unrestrained nationalism. An examina- tion of the record of events in Turkey and the Balkans during the past century reveals the fact that the inevitable harvest of greedy imperialism and excessive nationalism is suspicion, hatred, violence and bloodshed. In the following pages we have attempted to outline the most important historic events of the Near East. Some un- derstanding of the history of this region is essential if we are to reach intelligent decisions concerning the emergencies which are constantly arising to threaten the peace of the world. The whole situation is so complex and full of uncer- tainty, prejudice and passion that no writer can be sure that he is free from bias and error. The present writer does not claim to be an authority on Turkish and Balkan affairs. The very brief visit which he recently made to that region has been valuable chiefly as a means of intensifying his interest and of giving him certain very vivid impressions. He has, however, spent a considerable amount of time in familiarizing himself with a portion of the literature in this realm. It is highly important that citizens of the United States should recognize the elements of grave danger in American imperialism and nationalism. The territorial and economic expansion of the United States has taken place so gradually that its significance has not been recognized by most people. The dangers inherent in a continuation of certain of our foreign policies has likewise escaped attention. Even a super- 1 The term Near East is an indefinite one and various writers do not agree as to its limits. In this discussion we are concerned primarily with Turkey proper and the Balkan nations which were formerly a part of the Turkish Empire—Rou- mat Jugo-Slavia, Bulgaria and Greece—with incidental references to Egypt and alestine, Vv ae FOREWORD ficial examination of the trend of events, however, makes it clear that in our contacts with other nations we are drifteng into a situation which is full of menace for world peace. In the last two chapters we have endeavored to record cer- tain facts concerning our expansion which need to be kept in mind as we attempt to evaluate the merits and defects of our present foreign policy. The purpose of this discussion is three-fold: to furnish a background for the interpretation of current events in the Near East; to call attention to the calamitous record of Euro- pean imperialism and nationalism; to present evidence of the dangerous trend of certain phases of the foreign policy of the United States. To list all the books to which the writer is indebted in preparation of this manuscript would require much more space than is available; his primary obligations are acknowl- edged in footnotes. He desires to express his hearty thanks to the following persons who have read the manuscript and offered many valuable suggestions: J. L. Barton, President of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Mis- sions; Samuel Guy Inman, Committee on Cooperation in Latin America; Sherwood Eddy, National Council, Y. M. C. A.;S. M. Calvert, Federal Council of Churches; William Adams Brown, Union Theological Seminary; Harold A. Hatch; Ralph Harlow, formerly a missionary in Turkey. It is hardly necessary to say, however, that the writer alone is responsible for statements contained herein. KirBy Pace. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE TPEMPERTALISMIIN THE NEAR ICAST en veer hele. ee, 2 NATIONALISM IN THE NEAR East ... . 23 SILVELIGIONVIN THE) NEAR: WAST es way i re Od, 4 THE TERRITORIAL AND EcoNoMIC EXPAN- SION OF THE UNITED STATES ..... . 54 5 WHat SHALL THE UNITED States Do ABOUT IMPERIALISM AND NATIONALISM? . 8] ) if AE bi Wud ak fo) fe SNA SEES eat A ) h ed ' ‘ ‘oe Ba eis a db a 4 ae 7 fi y ; q iat ht, vee ») | IMPERIALISM AND NATIONALISM +A Tei UL is ca a Sea Y Vi, i yy, af ay Wy Sem ik Wie eWPa a). ind pat uy ChAS }- ts NAN: y ems) PAu ay het) | ¥ ‘a af in ' vo ‘ Tm 4%) \¢ 7" ¢ oY # Cuapter I IMPERIALISM IN THE NEAR EAST Imperialism is the policy or practice whereby a nation gains control of foreign territory and foreign peoples. This domination may be political or economic in its nature. For many centuries the primary effort of nations was to gain political control of additional territory. During the last half century, however, the effort to secure economic advantages in foreign lands has been the dominant phase of imperialism. The rapid progress of industrialism in Europe and America is primarily responsible for economic imperialism. Industrial nations are not self-sufficient. They require raw materials from other lands. They must export goods to customers out- side their own borders. They must find foreign fields for profitable investment of surplus capital. Imperialism, therefore, includes the following practices: political control of territory; political control of strategic waterways, straits and canals; spheres of influence, economic concessions of minerals and raw materials; economic control of railways and other means of transportation and communi- cation; supervision and protection of investments. Powerful armies and navies are necessary adjuncts to these policies and practices. Moreover, military alliances between groups of nations are inevitable under such circumstances. Thus imperialism and militarism are inseparable. During the past two hundred years vast areas of Asia, Africa and the islands of the sea have passed under the politi- cal and economic domination of European powers. This expansion has been a major cause of friction between the nations and has resulted’ in numerous wars. The Near East has been the scene of one of the most bitter phases of the struggle between the imperialistic powers of Europe for con- trol of the earth. The great natural resources of this area, combined with its strategic location in relation to the control of the trade routes to the Far East, have made it an exceed- ingly valuable prize. 7 8 IMPERIALISM AND NATIONALISM The fact that Turkey, for several centuries ruler of most of this area, had been steadily declining in power and had come to be known as “the sick man of Europe,” furnished the Western nations with an opportunity which they were not slow to grasp. The Turks have always been excellent fighters but have usually proved to be poor administrators. Their record is filled with inefficiency, corruption and violence. The Turks, like many other conquering peoples, have always been more eager to collect taxes from the vanquished and to live on the labor of others than to administer justice and protect the rights of the oppressed. Concerning the situa- tion in Macedonia, where conditions were not greatly dif- ferent from those prevailing in other Turkish provinces, Professor J. A. R. Marriott of Oxford, an acknowledged authority in this realm, says: “There is, indeed, a painful monotony in the tale of Turkish misgovernment. Here, as elsewhere, the toiling peasantry were subject to a cross fire of exactions, and extortions, and persecutions. They suffered at the hands of the Moslems because they were Christians; they were exposed to the lawless depredations of the brig- ands, frequently of Albanian race, by whom the country was infested; they had to meet the demands, both regular and irregular, of Moslem beys and official tax-farmers; they could obtain no redress in the courts of law; life, property, honour were all at the mercy of the ruling creed.” 1 Pro- fessor Albert Bushnell Hart, of Harvard University, in a very extreme statement, refers to the Turks as “a barbarous people whose government is oppression, whose tax system is plunder, and whose idea of war is torture, fire and blood.” ? So long as the conquered peoples would acknowledge the sovereignty of the Sultan and pay taxes as assessed, the Turks were generally tolerant and allowed a considerable degree of autonomy and self-government. Conquered peoples were usually asked to become Mohammedans and were offered all the privileges of this status. If they refused, they were obliged to pay a special head-tax, and were allowed freely to practice their own religion. Those who refused to become Mohammedans or to pay the special taxes were put to the sword. There is general agreement that the Turks were usually tolerant of the religion of subject peoples. The government of Christians was entrusted to the heads of their own religion. The Christian patriarchs were given civil duties as well as religious functions. Herbert Adams 1 The Eastern Question, p. 415. 2The Forum, Dec. 1924, p. 735. IMPERIALISM IN THE NEAR EAST 9 Gibbons says the Turks “were the first nation in modern history to lay down the principle of religious freedom as the corner-stone in the building up of their nation.” + Clair Price says: “Non-Moslems have been given far more tolerant treatment under the Caliph than religious dis- senters had sometimes been given under Christian rule.” ? “In their wars of conquest,” says E. Alexander Powell, “the Moslems exhibited a degree of toleration which puts many Christian nations to shame.’ On the other hand, the Turks have always been quick to stamp out with the utmost ferocity and cruelty any attempt at rebellion. Their history, like the history of many other nations, is filled with the record of terrible atrocities. Fol- lowing the Morea uprising in 1821 the patriarch of the Greek Orthodox Church and the Archbishops of Adrianople, Salon- ica and Tirnovo were hanged. For three days their bodies hung outside the episcopal palace and were then cut down and thrown into the Bosporus. Many thousands of Chris- tians were slaughtered. In 1876 some Bulgarian Christians defied the Turkish offi- cials and put one hundred of them to death. The Turkish army retaliated by annihilating whole towns and villages. Not less than 12,000 Christians were massacred with extreme brutality. In the years 1894-1896 approximately 100,000 Armenians were butchered by the Turks. In April, 1909, 30,000 Christians perished at the hands of the Turks at Adana and other places in Asia Minor. During 1915 and 1916 occurred the most terrible of all the massacres, when approximately a million Armenians were murdered or were deported and lost their lives as a result of hunger and ex- posure. In September, 1922, the city of Smyrna was de- stroyed, with an appalling loss of lives. The incompetency of the Turkish Administration and the repeated massacres of subject peoples gave the Western nations a welcome excuse for intervention and served as a cloak to hide their imperialistic designs. There is little evi- dence to show that the diplomatists of Europe were moti- vated by a genuine desire to render disinterested service to the oppressed peoples under the Turkish yoke. There is, how- ever, a vast mass of evidence to indicate that these diplomatists frequently used the weaknesses and cruelties of the Turkish 1 Quoted in The Eastern Question, p. 77. 2 The Rebirth of Turkey, p. 27. % The Struggle for Power in Moslem Asia, p 48. 4¥For a full account of this tragedy see Feayin Hale Bierstadt, The Great Betrayal, Chapter II. 10 IMPERIALISM AND NATIONALISM Government as a means of arousing their own people and thus gaining support for their imperialistic ambitions in the Near East. Not one of the major powers of Europe has fol- lowed a consistent policy against Turkish misgovernment and cruelty. On occasions they have raised loud voices of protest against atrocities; but at other times, when it best served their own interests, they have remained silent or condoned these excesses. They have frequently incited minorities to rebellion and then left them to their fate. On numerous occa- sions various Western Powers have formed alliances with Turkey, and not infrequently they have fought with the Turks against other European nations. They have given little concrete evidence of a genuine desire to protect helpless minorities. On the other hand, in pursuit of imperialistic designs they have followed policies and engaged in practices which made inevitable the sacrifice of multitudes of helpless people. Let us examine this record more in detail. France was the first great Western Power to establish friendly relations with Turkey. Early in the sixteenth cen- tury Francis I entered into an alliance with Suleiman the Magnificent “and presently the Christian world was treated to the edifying spectacle of a Christian town, Nice, being sacked by the united French and Turkish forces.” + Among the ambassadors which Francis and his successors sent to the court of the Sultan were abbes and bishops. In 1583 the first English Ambassador was received at the Turkish Court. In 1587 Queen Elizabeth solicited the Sultan’s cooperation “against that idolater, the King of Spain, who, relying on the help of the Pope and all idolatrous princes, designs to crush the Queen of England, and then to turn his whole power to the destruction of the Sultan and make himself uni- versal monarch.” 2 From the outset of his reign (1682-1725), Peter the Great of Russia was determined to gain access to the Black Sea. During this period France, deeply jealous of Russia’s influence in the Near East, openly sided with Turkey and ren- dered very able assistance. Indeed, it was to France that “the Ottoman Empire owed the new lease of life which it obtained in 1739.” During the reign of Catherine the Great, Austria, becoming alarmed at the rapid advance of Russia, signed a secret treaty with Turkey and agreed to march to the assistance of the Sultan if the Russians crossed the Danube. In 1787 Turkey declared war against Russia and 1 Abbott, Turkey, Greece and the Great Powers, p. 17. 3 Tbid., p. 77. IMPERIALISM IN THE NEAR EAST 11 Austria retaliated by a counter declaration of war against Turkey. Gustvaus III of Sweden entered the fray by march- ing against St. Petersburg. This Swedish intervention proved to be the deciding factor and probably saved the Ottoman Empire from immediate annihilation. Prior to this period England had not manifested any great jealousy toward the expansion of Russia. Indeed, she looked upon Russia as a possible ally against France. 1773 the elder. Pitt wrote: “I am quite a Russ; I trust the Ottoman will pull down the House of Bourbon in his fall.”” But about 1790 British sentiment began to change and England soon became the most formidable barrier to Russian progress in the Near East. During the Napoleonic period occurred one of the most peculiar alignments in the whole history of Europe: Great Britain, Russia, Turkey, Prussia, Naples and Portugal, all against France. The effects of the French revolution are to be seen in all the councils of European statesmen throughout the half cen- tury which followed. Everywhere the existing authorities were afraid of revolt and constantly took counsel with each other as to ways of preventing such catastrophes. In 1821 an insurrectionary movement in Moldavia, now a part of Roumania, unfurled the flag of Greek independence from Turkey. This was followed by a more serious uprising against the Turks in Morea, a peninsula of Southern Greece. Russia sought to take advantage of the situation by aggres- sive action against Turkey. The Austrian rulers, however, were desperately afraid of revolutionary movements and would not offer any support to the Greeks. France and Prussia were in no mood for further war, especially in aid of revolutionists. England was divided in sentiment. Lord Byron led a strong movement in favor of Greek independ- ence. The British Government, however, endeavored to maintain strict neutrality. Finally the Great Powers felt obliged to mediate. In the meantime the Turks fired upon British and French vessels in the Bay of Navarino. Without waiting for diplomatic advice from home, the French and British admirals ordered return fire and before night the entire Turco-Egyptian fleet had been destroyed. The news of this battle was received with consternation by the rulers of Europe. England was so determined to preserve the integrity of th Ottoman Empire that on January 29, 1828, the King felt impelled to “lament deeply that this conflict 12 IMPERIALISM AND NATIONALISM should have occurred with the naval forces of an ancient ally” and expressed “a confident hope that this untoward event will not be followed by further hostilities.” + In 1832 the Sultan found himself so seriously menaced by the approaching army of Ibrahim of Egypt that he appealed to the Great Powers. Czar Nicholas promptly offered his assistance to his traditional enemy. In February, 1833, a powerful Russian squadron sailed into the Bosporus and anchored at Constantinople. This was followed by the appearance of a second and a third Russian squadron. Rus- sian engineers proceeded to strengthen the defences of the Bosporus and the Dardanelles. A treaty was entered into which “placed the Ottoman Empire under the military pro- tectorship of Russia.” England and France protested against the proposed violation of the neutrality of the straits. Met- ternich of Austria interposed with mediation and Russia agreed to refrain from enforcing the rights conferred by the treaty. In July, 1840, Russia, Prussia, Austria and Great Britain signed a treaty with the Sultan, in which, among other provisions, they agreed to defend Constantinople and to guarantee the integrity of the Ottoman Empire. Ever since the days of Peter the Great, Russia had set before herself two supreme objectives: the domination of the Bosporus and the Dardanelles, with the consequent con- trol of Constantinople; and the protection of the Christian minorities urider the sovereignty of the Sultan. The second of these objectives was constantly used as a means of advanc- ing the first. Napoleon had demanded and received certain rights on behalf of Latin monks in Turkey. France had been supported by other Roman Catholic countries. These con- cessions aroused bitter resentment in Russia. Czar Nicholas demanded their recession, and in March, 1853, sent Prince Menschikoff to obtain full satisfaction at Constantinople. He demanded from the Sultan a virtual acknowledgment of the Czar’s protectorate over all orthodox subjects of the Porte. This demand appeared to the British Government to be outrageous and inadvisable. The Czar was most eager to remain on friendly terms with England and in the spring of 1853 had a series of interviews with the British Am- bassador at St. Petersburg. During these interviews the Czar made the following comment: ‘Turkey is in a critical state. We have on our hands a sick man—a very sick man: it will be, I tell you frankly, a great misfortune if, one of 1 Marriott, The Eastern Question, p. 221. IMPERIALISM IN THE NEAR EAST 13 these days, he should slip away from us before all necessary arrangements were made.” Russia was willing to abandon temporarily the hope of occupying Constantinople. Serbia, Bulgaria and the principalities were to be independent states under Russian protection. England could have Egypt and Crete. But on one point the Czar was insistent: “I will never permit,” he said, “an attempt at the reconstruction of a Byzantine Empire, or such an extension of Greece as would render her a powerful State: still less will I permit the break- ing up of Turkey into little Republican asylums for the Kos- suths and Mazzinis and other revolutionists of Europe; rather than submit to any of these arrangements I would go to war, and as long as I have a man or a musket left would carry it on.”? England was aghast at these proposals and refused to be a party to any scheme looking toward the partition of Turkey. Although Menschikoff obtained concessions from the Sul- tan, the latter refused the outright protectorship of Christians claimed by Russia. In this refusal the Sultan was strongly supported by the British Ambassador. The entire staff of the Russian Embassy then left Constantinople. A large Russian army was mobilized in Bessarabia and in July occupied the principalities. The Czar was confident that Austria and Prussia would side with him. In this hope he was disap- pointed. The combined fleets of France and England were moved in defence of Turkey. Russia continued her effort to extort from the Sultan a right of protection over the Christians. She thought she could secure it by bluffing or by force. The other great powers intervened and the famous Crimean War began. In this conflict Great Britain and France were active allies of Turkey against Russia, while Austria and Prussia gave Turkey diplomatic assistance. The war lasted from March 27, 1854, to March 30, 1856, and resulted in terrible losses of life, enormous destruction and heavy financial costs. Historians are generally agreed that the Crimean War was one of the great blunders or crimes of history. Sir Robert Morier expressed the opinion of many when he described it as “the only perfectly useless modern war that has been waged.” Lord Salisbury later said that “England put her money on the wrong horse.” One significant result of the war was to give Turkey a new lease on life. Russia was publicly humiliated and checked in her advance upon 1Ibid., pp. 257, 258. 14 IMPERIALISM AND NATIONALISM Constantinople. The successive efforts of Russia to gain Constantinople have been summarized in these words: “To reach her goal, Russia resorted to endless intrigue, formed diplomatic combinations galore, and waged nine wars.” } A new epoch in Near Eastern affairs began in 1889 when the German Emperor William II visited Constantinople. This visit was significant as evidence of the new concern of Germany with Near Eastern affairs. Germany was very late in achieving her unity and when she appeared on the scenes after 18/1 most of the valuable colonial prizes had already been seized. In 1886 a great German scholar wrote: “The East is the only territory in the world which has not passed under the control of one of the ambitious nations of the globe. Yet it offers the most magnificent field for colonization, and if Germany does not allow this opportu- nity to escape her, if she seizes this domain before the Cos- sacks lay hands upon it, she will secure the best share in the partition of the earth.” The Kaiser, therefore, turned his eyes to the Near East. This attitude was in marked contrast to the old policy of Bismarck, who once declared: “I never take the trouble even to open the mail bag from Constanti- nople. ... The whole of the Balkans is not worth the bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier.” At the time of the Kaiser’s visit, Abdul Hamid was Sultan of Turkey. Without doubt Abdul Hamid was one of the most cruel rulers who has ever reigned. He deliberately butchered many thousands of his Christian subjects. Yet the Kaiser was so eager to gain the support of Turkey that he said publicly while in Damacus: “May the Sultan and the three hundred million Mussulmans scattered over the earth be assured that the German Emperor will always be their friend, One of the fruits of the Kaiser’s visit was the granting of a concession of the port of Haidar-Pasha to the “German Company of Anatolian Railways.” This concession was ex- ceedingly significant because of its bearing upon the proposed Berlin-to-Bagdad railway. Around the question of the con- struction and control of this railway was waged one of the most bitter diplomatic battles of the century. It is difficult to exaggerate the serious effects of the strained relations between the Great Powers which resulted from this contro- 1B. E. Schmitt, England and Germany, p. 255. *G. P. Gooch, History of Modern Europe, p. 262. IMPERIALISM IN THE NEAR EAST 15 versy. Certainly it was one of the major causes of the World War. The region traversed by the Bagdad Railway is one of the most important in the world, because of the access it affords to vast stores of minerals, other raw materials, and agricul- tural products; and because of its strategic value from a political and military point of view. Therefore, all the major powers of Europe were vitally concerned over its control. Their economic backwardness and huge public debt pre- vented the Turks from building the railway themselves. As far back as 1872 an eminent German railway engineer by the name of Wilhelm von Pressel had been employed as one of the Sultan’s technical advisers and had helped to develop plans for railways in Turkey. On March 18, 1902, Abdul Hamid definitely awarded the Bagdad Railway Con- cession to a German company, the Anatolian Railway Com- pany. These concessions were to run for ninety-nine years. Commenting upon the significance of the proposal, Professor Earle says: “The Bagdad Railway, as thus projected, was one of the really great enterprises of an era of dazzling rail- way construction. Here was a transcontinental line stretching some twenty-five hundred miles from Constantinople, on the Bosporus, to Basra, on the Shatt-el-Arab—a project greater in magnitude than the Santa Fé line from Chicago to Los Angeles or the Union Pacific Railway from Omaha to San Francisco. It was a promise of the rejuvenation of three of the most important parts of the Ottoman Empire, eastern Anatolia, northern Syria, and Mesopotamia.” + From the beginning Russia sought to prevent Germany from obtaining this valuable concession. French sentiment was divided. The French patriots were opposed to the ad- vance of Germany, while French financiers with large invest- ments in Turkey thought the construction of the proposed railway would be a good thing. The French Government gave tacit cooperation and French money was invested in the German company. In the beginning Great Britain was favorable to the German proposals. Anything to block Rus- sia! Later, however, British sentiment changed. The increas- ing commercial rivalry between Germany and England made the British Government hesitate concerning the acceptance of Germany’s offer to make the Bagdad Railway an inter- national undertaking, financed and controlled by several powers. British shipping interests finally prevailed and 1E,. M, Earle, Turkey, The Great Powers and the Bagdad Railway, p. 75. 16 IMPERIALISM AND NATIONALISM Balfour rejected the German offer. “As events turned out,” says Professor Earle, “the failure of the Balfour Govern- ment to effect the internationalization of the Bagdad Rail- way was a colossal blunder. If the proposed agreement of 1903 had been consummated, the entente of 1904 between France and England would have taken control of the enter- prise out of the hands of the Germans, who would have pos- sessed, with their Turkish collaborators, only fourteen of the thirty votes in the Board of Directors.” * During the next ten years a furious diplomatic battle raged around this question. Throughout the whole controversy little concern was shown for the welfare of Turkey by the Western powers. They were not concerned about Turkey’s need of railways; they were entirely pre-occupied with their own interests in the undertaking. Lord Curzon once remarked that he “would not hesitate to indict as a traitor to his coun- try any British minister who would consent to a foreign Power establishing a station on the Persian Gulf.” ? In 1910 the Kaiser and the Czar reached an agreement on the following points: (1) Germany recognized the Rus- sian sphere of interest in Northern Persia; (2) Russia with- drew her objections to the German share in the Bagdad Rail- way; (3) Russia was free to obtain railway concessions in Persia. A Constantinople daily made the following pertinent comment concerning this agreement: “There is no mention of us” in this important treaty; “as if we had no connection with that line, and we were not masters of Bagdad and Basra and the ports of the Persian Gulf.” It later developed that the French and British foreign offices had given their con- sent before this agreement between Russia and Germany had been signed. During the next three years great progress was made in unravelling the diplomatic tangle around this problem. On February 15, 1914, France and Germany signed a secret agreement containing the following provisions: (1) Northern Anatolia was regarded as a sphere of French influ- ence; (2) Syria was also recognized as a French sphere of influence; (3) the regions traversed by the Anatolian and Bagdad Railways were defined as a German sphere of influ- ence. This agreement was signed not only by high officials of the two Governments but also by prominent financial con- cerns of both countries. “No longer are treaties negotiated by diplomatists alone, but by diplomatists and bankers!’ In 1913 an important Anglo-Turkish agreement was signed. 1 Ibid., p. 188. 9 Ibid., p. 212. 8 Ibid., p. 249. IMPERIALISM IN THE NEAR EAST 17 On June 15, 1914, only a few days before the outbreak of the World War, an Anglo-German agreement had been incorporated in a draft treaty and was ready for formal ratifi- cation when the storm broke. “On the eve of the Great War,” says Professor Earle, “the Bagdad Railway contro- versy had been all but settled.” + On October 31, 1914, Turkey entered the war on the side of Germany. On March 20, 1915, Russia and Great Britain signed a secret agreement in which Great Britain consented to the Russian annexation of Constantinople and the Straits ; and in return Russia agreed to maintain a benevolent atti- tude toward British claims elsewhere and to recognize the so-called neutral zone in Persia as within the British sphere of influence.? On April 26, 1915, Great Britain, France, Russia and Italy signed the secret Treaty of London. By the terms of this treaty Italy was to receive the Trentino, the Southern Tyrol, Trieste, the country of Gorizia and Gradisca, Istria, Northern Dalmatia, numerous islands, additions to her colonial terri- tory in Africa, and not least important, a prospective share in the partition of Asiatic Turkey.’ In the spring of 1916 Great Britain, France and Russia signed a secret agreement whereby Great Britain was to obtain Southern Mesopotamia, with Bagdad and two ports in Syria; France was to obtain Syria, the Adana vilayet and Western Kurdistan; Russia was to secure Trebizond, Erzerum, Bitlis, Van, and territory in Southern Kurdistan.* On April 26, 1916, France and Russia signed the secret Sazonov-Paléologue Treaty, by which Russia was awarded full control over the vilayets of Trebizond, Erzerum, Bitlis and Van—an area larger than the State of New York; and by which France was to receive adequate compensation in the region to the south and southwest of the Russian acquisitions.° On May 9, 1916, the famous Sykes-Picot Treaty was signed between Great Britain and France. France was to receive the Syrian coast from Tyre to Alexandretta, the prov- ince of Cilicia, and southern Armenia. In addition France was to have a zone of influence embracing the provinces of 1 Ibid., p. 244. ; 2F, Seymour Cocks, The Secret Treaties, p. 15. This book contains an excel- lent summary of the various secret treaties entered into by the Allies during the war. See also Ray Stannard Baker’s Woodrow Wilson and World Settlement, Vol. 1, pp. 23-81. 8 Cocks, The Secret Treaties, p. 27. 4Tbid., p. 43. : & Earle, Turkey, the Great Powers and the Bagdad Railway, p. 293. 18 IMPERIALISM AND NATIONALISM Aleppo, Damascus, Deir and Mosul. Great Britain was to obtain complete control over lower Mesopotamia from Tekrit to the Persian Gulf and from the Arabian border to the Persian frontier.? In April, 1917, the so-called St. Jean de Maurienne Agree- ment was reached between France, Great Britain and Italy, by which Italy was granted complete possession of almost the entire southern half of Anatolia—including the cities of Smyrna, Konia and Adalia, together with an extensive “zone of influence” northeast of Smyrna.’ “In the case of Turkey,” says Mr. Ray Stannard Baker, “the secret conversations did not stop with the entry of America into the war, they did not stop even after the acceptance of the Fourteen Points as the basis of peace with their provisions concerning open diplomacy and the agreement (in Point XII) regarding the disposal of Turkey. They were even continued secretly between Great Britain and France after the Peace Conference began to sit!’ 3 As soon as the Allies were victorious in the war they set about the task of taking possession of the various spoils. Italian troops occupied Adalia and vicinity. French armies replaced the British forces in Syria and Cilicia. Great Britain began the conquest of Mesopotamia and Kurdistan. By the Treaty of Versailles, all German rights in the Bagdad Railway and other economic enterprises in the Near East were abrogated. The Treaty of Sevres, August 10, 1920, carried this process a step further and left hardly a trace of German influence in the Near East. Furthermore, this treaty gave the Allies a strangle-hold upon the economic life of Turkey. The Capitulations—special privileges and immuni- ties which foreigners in Turkey had long enjoyed—were re- established and extended. An Interallied Financial Commis- sion was added to the old Ottoman Public Debt Administra- tion and exercised financial control over the Turkish budget and had the right to veto any proposed concessions. “In con- trol of its domestic affairs the new Turkey was tied hand and foot. Here, indeed, was a Carthaginian peace! And all of this was done’’—according to the words of the Allied Tripartite Agreement of August 10, 1920—“in order ‘to help Turkey, to develop her resources, and to avoid the inter- national rivalries which have obstructed these objects in the past! Fd ” 1Jbid., pp. 293, 294. 2 Thid., 295. 8 Woodrow Wilson and the World Settlement, EL. Lp 362,63; * Earle, Turkey, the Great Powers and the Bagdad Railway, p. 303. IMPERIALISM IN THE NEAR EAST 19 The ink was hardly dry upon the Treaty of Sevres before it began to be broken. The Turkish Nationalists never had any intention of observing it. They bitterly resented the Greek occupation of Smyrna in May, 1919. Under the lead- ership of Mustapha Kemal Pasha, a Grand National As- sembly was formed at Angora in April, 1920. Then fol- lowed a series of successful military campaigns. In the spring of 1921 separate treaties were signed with Russia, Italy and France, providing for the evacuation of certain Turkish territories, Then came the fatal blunder by the Greeks, the debacle of the Greek armies, the return of Smyrna and portions of Thrace to Turkey, the abolition of the Sultanate, the proclamation of the Turkish republic, and the entry of the Turkish army into Constantinople. The dramatic recovery of the Turks was due in large part to the paralysis of the Western Powers, caused by di- visions in their own ranks. Professor Arnold Toynbee has summarized the facts of the situation in the following words: “The first phase after the European War may be described somewhat as follows: France was backing Poland vigorously, and Hungary tentatively, against Germany and Russia; and she was backing Turkey tentatively against Russia and vig- orously against Greece because Greece had been backed by Great Britain. Great Britain was backing Greece against Turkey, because an aggrandised Greece dependent on British support would save Great Britain the trouble of herself im- posing her Eastern peace-terms. Italy was backing Turkey against Greece as payment on account for prospective eco- nomic concessions in Anatolia; and Russia was backing Tur- key against Greece to deter her from purchasing the backing of any of the Western Powers who were Russia’s enemies.” + The overturn of the Treaty of Sevres necessitated the calling of the first Lausanne Conference, on November 20, 1922, Within a few hours, the old rivalry of the Western Powers for the dominant position in the Near East broke out again. The conference finally went on the rocks be- cause the Allies insisted upon economic, financial, and ju- dicial clauses which the Turks would not accept. Ismet Pasha, head of the Turkish delegation, said: “The treaty would strangle Turkey economically. I refuse to accept eco- nomic slavery for my country.” The second Lausanne Conference assembled on April ex 1923. A month later it was announced that a syndicate of 1 The Western Question in Greece and Turkey, p. 42. 20 IMPERIALISM AND NATIONALISM British banks had purchased from the Swiss holders of Ger- man securities a controlling interest in the Anatalian and Bagdad Railway Companies. Thus, after twenty years of diplomatic conflict, Britain secured the prize which she had so long coveted. SUMMARY There can be no doubt that the domination of the back- ward parts of the earth by the imperialistic nations of the West has borne much good fruit. In many places disease and pestilence have been greatly reduced, famine practically abolished, education extended and superstition uprooted, an- archy and violence replaced by orderly government and due process of law, with the consequent increase in security of life and property. Moreover, the opening up of vast stores of raw materials has added enormously to the comfort and wellbeing of multitudes of people in all lands. One en- thusiastic advocate says: “Imperialism is the greatest power in the world today, for it combines with the force and inspira- tion of national needs and ideals a code of international conduct, aiming at the spread of law and the maintenance of peace.” + On the other hand, imperialism has been a major cause of war and has left its trail of blood in many parts of the earth. This phase of the record of Western imperialism in the Near East has been summarized by Professor Earle in these words: “European governments were not content to interfere in the affairs of the Ottoman Empire. They sought to de- stroy it. Their zeal in this latter respect was limited only by their jealousies as to who should become the heir of the Sick Man. Russia encouraged the Balkan and Transcau- casian peoples to resist Turkish domination; France acquired control of Tunis and built up a sphere of interest in Syria; Great Britain occupied Egypt; Italy cast longing glances at Tripoli and finally seized it; Greece fomented insurrection in Crete. Germany and Austria-Hungary sought to bring all of Turkey into the economic and political orbit of Central Europe. The Powers rendered lip-service to the sovereignty and the territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire, but they never allowed their solemn professions to interfere with their imperial practices. At best Turkish sovereignty was a polite fiction—it was always a fiction, if not always polite.” ? 1 Sir Edward Grigg, The Greatest Experiment in History, p. 171. 2 Turkey, the Great Powers and the Bagdad Railway, pp. 11, IMPERIALISM IN THE NEAR EAST 21 In the House of Commons, on March 18, 1914, Sir Mark Sykes said: “The Turkish Government, I know, have been accused of being corrupt. I venture to submit that it has not been for want of encouragement from Europeans that the Turks have been corrupt. The sinister—I think it is not going too far to use that word—effect of European financiers on Turkey has had more to do with the misgovernment than any Turk, young or old.” In this connection Mr. G. F. Abbott says: “The annals of European diplomacy in Turkey reek with bakshish. There is not one Western representative of any nationality or epoch who has not left on record his faith in this homeopathic treatment.” + Concerning the imperialistic struggle between the Great Powers, Mr. E. Alexander Powell says: “The story of that conflict forms a narrative of intrigue, trickery, selfishness, deceit, greed and hypocrisy, which has few parallels in his- tory. ... At the close of 1918 it seemed that the lessons taught by the Great War were so appalling that even the case-hardened diplomatists would give heed to them. Yet, before the soil has had time to settle on five million graves, the world once more finds itself caught up in the same mad merry-go-round of imperialism, intrigue, secret diplomacy, and all that follows in their train. Nothing is really changed. The old, bad methods which brought such disaster to the world have not been abandoned. The sleek diplomatists of Downing Street and the Quai d’Orsay and the Consulta are pursuing the same policies which obtained in the days of Talleyrand and Metternich, of Disraeli and Bismarck. They still cling tenaciously to the theory that it is the God-given right of the white man to impose his will on the black, the yellow and the brown; to achieve their ends they trade whole populations, heedless of their rights and desires, as callously as though they were so many herds of cattle; they are pre- pared, if need be, to send whole armies down to slaughter.” ? Professor Philip Marshall Brown, of Princeton Univer- sity, says: “The Powers. of Europe, in their pursuit of im- perialistic ends, had been blind to the needs and the rights of the peoples of the Near East. They had even stooped to use these peoples as pawns in the larger game of Balance of Power.” ? In 1920 Viscount Bryce said: “The Eastern Question has been for a century or more the standing diffi- culty of European diplomacy. It would have been settled 1 Turkey, Greece and the Great Powers, p. 4. 2The Struggle for Power in Moslem Asia, pp. 14, 15. * These Eventful Years, Vol. 2, pp. 148, 149. 22 IMPERIALISM AND NATIONALISM many years ago but for the jealousies of Russia, France, Britain, and latterly, of Germany also.” Professor Mears, of Leland Standford University, declares that “the diplomacy of the Great Powers should be held largely responsible for the present condition of the Armenians.” * After a recent visit to the Near East, Professor John Dewey of Columbia University said: “A deeper and fuller acquaintance with the sufferings of all these peoples brings with it a revulsion. One becomes disgusted with the whole affair of guilt. Pity for all populations, majority and minority alike, engulfs all other sentiments—except that of indignation against the foreign powers which have so unremittingly and so cruelly utilized the woes of their puppets for their own ends.” Such is the record of imperialism in the Near East. 1 Quoted in Modern Turkey, edited by Eliot Grinnell Mears, p. 15, This is peobauly the er comprehensive and up-to-date book on Turkey now available. id., Pp. ; %The New Republic November 12, 1924, p. 268. CHapter 2 NATIONALISM IN THE NEAR EAST Nationalism is a sentiment. It is subjective. It is not produced by any one cause. It has many sources. Some of the factors which produce nationalism are: race, language, geography, religion, culture, history and tradition, common economic interests. In some cases many of these elements are combined, while in other cases most of them are lack- ing. Russia is a nation composed of forty-eight races, the United States has many more. Switzerland has three offi- cial languages. Many Canadians of Quebec speak French, but the Basques and Bretons of France do not. Few na- tions possess natural geographical boundaries and most of them are composed of peoples with various religious beliefs. Only a few nations are bound together by a common culture; most of them contain highly educated persons and illiterates, rich and poor, urban and rural communities. Frequently farmers and workers have more in common with similar groups across the frontier than with consumers and em- ployers in their own cities. “Nationality,” says Israel Zangwill, “is a state of mind corresponding to a political fact.” In the words of Pro- fessor G. P. Gooch, “nationalism is the self-consciousness of a nation.” Professor Alfred E. Zimmern says: “Na- tionality, like religion, is subjective; psychological; a condi- tion of mind; a spiritual possession; a way of feeling, think- ing and living.” Still another definition has been given by Ramsay Muir: “A body of people who feel themselves to be naturally linked together by certain affinities which are so strong and real for them that they can live happily to- gether, are dissatisfied when disunited, and cannot tolerate subjection to peoples who do not share these ties.” In one sense nationalism is a very ancient sentiment; in another sense it is the creation of the nineteenth century. From one angle it is merely a development of the gre- 23 24 IMPERIALISM AND NATIONALISM gariousness and “consciousness of kind” which led to the formation of the tribe and the early city-state. But as a consciously expressed doctrine, nationalism is very recent. “It may safely be said that before the period of the French Revolution no statesman, and no political thinker, had ever enunciated such a doctrine, or would have admitted its validity if it had been propounded to him.’1 An eminent historian has expressed the same idea in the words: “While patriotism is as old as human association and has gradually widened its sphere from the clan and the tribe to the city and the state, nationalism as an operative principle and an articulate creed only made its appearance among the more complicated intellectual processes of the modern world. The august conception of the unity of Christendom under the joint sway of Emperor and Pope was almost as unfavorable to national differentiation as had been the universalism of the Roman Empire; and though the latter centuries of the Mid- dle Ages witnessed the steady growth of national conscious- ness and the high-souled patriotism of Joan of Arc, it was not until the political and religious system of medieval Europe went down before the combined assaults of the Renaissance and the Reformation that the sovereign state emerged as the dominant type of political organization. In the fulness of time the doctrine of nationalism issued from the volcanic fires of the French Revolution, carrying its virile message of emancipation and defiance to the uttermost parts of the earth, and filling the Nineteenth Century with the insistent clamour of its demands.” ? Between 1820 and 1878 seven new nations took shape in Europe: Germany, Italy, Belgium, Greece, Serbia, Roumania and Bulgaria. It will be noticed that four of these are Balkan nations. In no part of the world has the ferment of nationalism been more manifest in recent years than in the Near East. For many centuries the Turks dominated this whole region. In 1683 the Turks for the second time failed in their siege of Vienna. At that period they were masters of the whole of Southeastern Europe, including parts of Austria, Hungary, Poland, Southern Russia, and the territory occupied by the modern nations of Roumania, Jugo-Slavia, Bulgaria, Albania and Greece. Turkish losses of territory since 1699 are shown in the following table: ? 1 Ramsay Muir, Nationalism and Internationalisn 37 2G. P. Gooch, Nationalism, p, 5 tine ®W. S. Davis, A Short History of the Near East, p. 395. NATIONALISM IN THE NEAR EAST 25, Pangary ios. sa 1699 Lost to Austria. Crimea, South Russia, etc) sae sa. 1774 Virtual expulsion of Turks; 1784, annex- ation by Russia. PRVDUeee cay sere s 1808 Virtual autonomy under Mehemet Ali; 1882, British occupation; 1914, repudia- tion of Turkish suzerainty, 1922, es- tablishment of “Kingdom of Egypt.” SIELDIATS Pec Soudus 1815 Partial autonomy; 1829, complete auton- omy; 1878, independence. Roumania ....... 1829 Turkish protectorate becomes nominal; 1878, independence. (Bessarabia non- Turkish since 1812.) Oy oss PRP ee a en 1829 Independence; 1882, 1913, 1920, additional Turkish lands annexed. Caucasus Lands... 1829 and 1878, ceded in part to Russia. DUP Stie gars ne wad 1878 Weak protectorate; 1885, Eastern Rou- melia added; 1908 independence. Bosnine tsa eek t eel. 1878 Under Austrian control; 1908, annexed by Austria. POVAIS as a hwy hae § 1878 Ceded to Britain. PT PPO oa hice ota a 1912 Surrendered to Italy. Jats? Tole Sean tia 1913. Cut adrift from Turkey. INL ECRILON LAY. wc e leg 1913. Divided between Serbia, Greece and Bulgaria BLT ACen ee iuiits en ae 1913 Lost in part to Bulgaria (later to Greece) fEgean Islands aft CAEL cao ee 1913 Lost to Greece PATADLS bee i aces 1918 Seceded as “Kingdom of Arabia.” Palestine. 3.23. 65%. 1918 Occupied by Britain, for “Zionists.” Mesopotamia ..... 1918 Occupied by Britain and Arabian in- surgents Gallipoli Peninsula 1920 Occupied by Allied Western Powers PSVEIG WO yasmin ls ee 1920 Occupied by France. Leaving after the World War to the successors of Mohammed II, Selim the Grim, and Solyman the Magnificent the remaining pos- session of Anatolia, plus the city of Constantinople with Eastern Thrace. The revolutionary movements and the rise of nationalism were a major cause of Turkish atrocities during the last fifty years. “The primary motive,” says Professor Marriott, “which animated Abdul Hamid was beyond all question not fanaticism but fear. Greeks, Roumanians, Serbians, and Bulgarians; one after another they had asserted their in- dependence, and the Ottoman Empire was reduced to a mere shadow of its former self. That these events had caused unrest among the Armenians, even though Armenia was not like Roumania or Bulgaria, a geographical entity, it would be idle to deny. Abdul Hamid was terrified.” 4 During the two Balkan Wars in 1912 and 1913, the various 1The Eastern Question, p. 397. 26 IMPERIALISM AND NATIONALISM Balkan countries were guilty of many excesses. So outra- geous was the conduct of the different armies, Greece, Serbia and Roumania against Bulgaria that at the end of the second war the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace ap- pointed a special commission of distinguished neutrals to investigate the causes and conduct of the conflict. This commission issued a 413 page report,! from which the fol- lowing sentences are quoted: “‘Folk-songs, history and oral tradition in the Balkans uniformly speak of war as a process which includes rape, pillage, devastation and massacre. Populations were massacred en masse. Systematically and in cold blood, the Greeks burned one hundred and sixty Bulgarian villages and destroyed at least 16,000 Bulgarian homes. A young woman at Haskova stated that she had seen the Greeks sprinkle her husband and some other men with petrol and then burn them. . . . Widespread and almost universal maltreatment of women and girls by the soldiers of the three nations has left behind moral con- sequences which cannot be estimated.” 2 Among the atroci- ties which were committed by some or all of the armies were: eyes were gouged out, ears and nose were cut off, bones were crushed, men were disemboweled, others were roasted to death. At the outbreak of the World War all the Balkan nations had achieved independence from Turkey, except for scattered populations in Eastern Thrace. Several millions of Balkan peoples, however, were still under the domination of Rus- sia, Austria and Hungary, notably in Bessarabia, Tran- sylvania, Bosnia, Croatia, and Slovenia. The World War resulted in drastic changes in national boundaries in the Near East. The size of Roumania was doubled by the addi- tion of Bessarabia, Transylvania, Bukovina and part of the Banat. Jugo-Slavia was formed by uniting Serbia, Monte- negro, Croatia, Slovenia, and part of the Banat. Greece was awarded Thrace. Bulgaria lost territory to Jugo- Slavia and to Greece. The war and the territorial changes have greatly inten- sified the sentiment of nationalism everywhere in the Bal- kans. There has been a marked revival of interest in the history, culture and language of the various nations. Patri- otism has never been more intense than in the post-war Sea Extreme emphasis upon nationalism usually leads Papert of the International Commission to Inquire Into the Causes and Con- Yee of the Balkan Wars. 2 Ibid., pp. 106, 108, 151, 267. NATIONALISM IN THE NEAR EAST 27 to governmental excesses. There have been conspicuous il- lustrations of this fact since the war. Roumania was not satisfied with her enormous gains from the war. In 1919 Roumanian troops invaded Hungary and for several months occupied Budapest. During their stay they did great damage and when they evacuated the city they carried with them grain, fodder, cattle, 1,151 locomo- tives, 40,950 railway carriages, all the post-office motor cars from Budapest, 4,000 telephone installations from the Buda- pest Central exchange, the telephones and typewriting ma- chines from the Government offices and schools, beds and bed linen from hotels and prisons, scientific apparatus from the schools, machinery from factories.? At various times from 1919 to 1921 Serbian (Jugo-Slav) troops invaded Albania, “taking possession of about one- sixth of that country’s area.” On April 29, 1921, the Al- banian Government addressed a protest to the League of Nations, in which it maintained that “140 villages had been destroyed and 6,603 houses burned, 238 Albanians had been butchered, 200 shot, and 300 burned alive, including some women and children; also that considerable property had been confiscated. More than 40,000 Albanians, it was stated, had been obliged to evacuate the devastated region.”? At the end of 1924 there was further trouble between Jugo- Slavia and Albania, and an appeal was made to the League of Nations by Albania. Greece was another victorious nation which has committed grave excesses since the Armistice. As the price for aban- doning neutrality and entering the war, the Allies had prom- ised Greece substantial territorial acquisitions in Asia Minor. Venizelos, the Greek leader during this period, had dreams of uniting all Greek-speaking peoples under one rule and of reviving the ancient glories of Greece. The Greek delegates at the Peace Conference made strenuous efforts to secure the annexation of Northern Epirus, Thrace, Smyrna and a large portion of the western littoral of Asia Minor and the Dodecanese islands. It will be recalled that at the Peace Conference, the Allies authorized Greece to occupy Smyrna, in Asia Minor, and that at the San Remo Con- ference in 1920 she was given a mandate in Smyrna and Eastern Thrace. The Greeks were not satisfied. While the Treaty of Sevres was being negotiated they launched an 1 Encyclopedia Britannica, Vol. 31, 417. 2 Frances Kellor, Security Against ee Vol. I, p. 184, 28 IMPERIALISM AND NATIONALISM offensive against Brusa. In August, 1921, they made an un- successful effort to reach Angora. In July, 1922, they trans- ferred 40,000 troops from Asia Minor to Thrace and de- manded of the Allied Powers permission to occupy Con- stantinople. Within a few weeks Turkish Nationalists under Mustapha Kemal Pasha attacked and utterly routed the Greek troops in Asia Minor. On September 9th Smyrna was burned, with an appalling loss of life. In November the Greek Government arrested and tried for high treason a number of their former officials, including three former Premiers, two former ministers and a General. On the 28th of the month they were found guilty and shot. During the period the Greek troops were in Asia Minor they were frequently guilty of atrocities. Professor Arnold J. Toynbee says: “Within a few hours of the landing, the troops committed a bad massacre in the city; within a few days they advanced into the interior; and a new and devas- tating war of aggression against Turkey began in her only unravaged provinces. During the early summer of 1921, I was for some weeks in intimate contact with Greek soldiers and civilians then engaged in atrocities upon Turkish peasants, and with the survivors of their victims whom the Ottoman Red Crescent was attempting to rescue. My strongest im- pression during this horrible experience was of something inhuman both in the bloodthirstiness of the hunters and in the terror of the hunted.” + The victorious Balkan nations were not only insatiable in their desire for additional territory, they were often guilty of oppressing the minority groups—that is, persons with a different language and culture—within their borders. The number and location of these minority groups under foreign control in Europe are indicated in the following table: Crer ination ya Pi dlc tye due COUR ace eran 7,594,000 Maivars sy (Timotrisns ii). 2 eee ey es 2,803,000 Bulparigne Oe S52 cts Lage onl dade eee «e- 1,339,000 Ji olievS lin “ltaleit, us eeuoece ae 480,000 Ruthenes (in Czecho-Slovakia) ......... 432,000 Ruthenes (in East Galacia) ..2.......2. 3,700,000 Ruthenes’)(in”’ Roumania) 9700352240... ,000 Poles (in Czecho-Slovakia) .....%...... 167,000 Total number of Racial Minorities in Europe 16,815,000? 1A, J. Toynbee, The Western Question in Greece and Turkey, pp. 35, 262. 2 See Noel Buxton and T. P. Conwil-Evans, Oppressed Peoples and the League of Nations, p. 82, NATIONALISM IN THE NEAR EAST 29 The chief minority groups in the Balkan States are now Germans, Hungarians and Bulgarians. They are divided as follows: 1+ HUNGARIAN MINORITIES RECON ells aie cA aruba i Lene Hn Drag et tg 1,485,000 MEARE SVE crocs uchilats emia cle den 1,200,000 ROUTAN PYG Chee Sl gale cua aed 285,000 RT IRE NUVI 21 sth aie 5's ws oplgei apie wlohe eral lata aeaee 829,000 MER VAT HAM Te iets Uinta Rice Mane Nee aM 573,000 CTeRTaS te RN ice ta tae aang te Ogg Whale 256,000 ATEN COCTIR SOV ARIAL lore cole Liaw bac 4 occ alete ny geeeaued 1,030,000 VE ROCGRT MME ar ye gi sht. Makin ais tncl sta cioeins § cleat 3,344,000 Population.ot Hurigary (1921). 600. ioc cakecaee 7,840,000 BULGARIAN MINORITIES DCE eCStEAR TInt eine eink wetted tints wet thei oni al 339,000 RYU rT eCCOy GC LOTACE i.e Merial Glee ora kis clea e eee eat 300,000 EIVRN MEAS Ia VAAG NPG lad Gin eig ute altar aa ala leg Mra hialhla ® aba 700,000 * 1,339,000 POMEAliomr OL DUISATIA TRIGEL is cell aoe sicle's's he 4,500,000 Racial minorities in the various Balkan states have usually been subjected to great oppression. Since the Armistice this oppression has not ceased. Numerous illustrations are given by Noel Buxton and Conwil-Evans in their book “Oppressed Peoples and the League of Nations.” They say: “Those Macedonians who resisted the assimiliating methods of the Serbs were hunted down by the troops and shot at sight. Fugitives were offered a free pardon, if they gave them- selves up, but this declaration was hedged round with an alarming number of conditions and reservations. Failure to surrender oneself was visited upon the fugitive, his fam- ily and the village in which he lived; the ‘rebel’ would be pursued by the gendarmerie and killed, his family deported and the whole village evacuated should any attempt have been made to shelter or feed him. . . . The record of Greece is as bad as that of Serbia. The non-Greek populations of Greek Macedonia have suffered equally with those of Thrace. . . . Bulgarian schools, churches and other insti- tutions in Thrace were closed, and Bulgarian teachers, priests, doctors and lawyers expelled. A system of arbitrary arrest prevailed, and severe penalties were imposed often for 1]bid., pp. 80, 81. 30 IMPERIALISM AND NATIONALISM charges that were false and fantastic. Bulgarians were forcibly conscripted into the Greek army and sent to the Asia Minor front.” } The Magyar minorities in Transylvania have likewise been oppressed and subjected to grave injustices by the Rouman- ians. “My experience of the working of the Agrarian re- form,” says a writer in a recent issue of the Fortnightly Re- view, “has amply confirmed the view that the Roumanians, in order to expropriate Hungarian landlords and force them to evacuate the country, are openly disregarding every clause of the Peace Treaty that is calculated to protect minority interests.” ? The persecution and massacres of Armenians and Greeks by the Turks is too well known to require elab- oration at this point. ‘“‘As regards minorities,” says Pro- fessor Toynbee, “it is notorious that in the Near East (if not all the world over) they invariably need protection against the dominant nationality in the state to which they belong.” 3 It was this reason that the Treaty of Lausanne arranged for the compulsory exchange of populations between Greeks and Turks. Since January 1, 1924, more than 400,000 Mos- lems have been torn from their homes in Macedonia and shipped to Anatolia; while during this period more than 100,000 Greeks have been moved from Asia Minor to Greece. Previously several hundred thousand Armenians and Greeks had fled from their homes in Turkey. During the two Bal- kan wars “more than 500,000 Turks were driven pell-mell from their Macedonian and Thracian homes in terror of the victorious armies of the Balkan allies.” This compulsory migration has caused incalculable suffering and misery. The magnitude of the problem has almost overwhelmed both Greece and Turkey. The Near East relief has rendered heroic and effective service to the refugees, but the re- sources available have been pitifully inadequate to meet the appalling conditions which have prevailed. “That so cruel and perilous an experiment,” says Professor Earle, “must be undertaken in the twentieth century is more than a vivid illustration of religious bigotry and callous indifference to human happiness. It is a challenge to our whole system of statecraft, built upon the vicious principle of unimpaired national sovereignty. It should compel attention to the ques- 1 pp. 89-91. 2 Francis Maxwell, Fortnightly Review, July, 1924, p. 113. 3 Foreign Affairs, Sept. 15, 1923, p. 91. NATIONALISM IN THE NEAR EAST 31 tion whether man was created for nationality or nationality for man.” TURKISH NATIONALISM Nationalism of an extreme variety is to be found at the present time in Turkey. The Young Turks’ movement dur- ing the first decade of this century greatly stimulated patri- otic sentiment. This movement was launched by a group of politicians and patriots, most of whom had studied in the university of Western Europe. It had as its objective the securing of parliamentary government and the transforma- tion of Turkey into a modern progressive state. In 1908 they gained sufficient strength to compel the Sultan to re- store the Constitution of 1876 and to inaugurate parliament- ary government. In 1909 Abdul Hamid was deposed. ‘The patriotic efforts of the young Turks to “Ottomanize” their country led them to suppress free speech, to standardize education, and to repress anti-Ottoman agitation. Their severity was one cause of the First Balkan War in 1912. While the Young Turks’ movement stimulated devotion to country, the present nationalistic movement is due primarily to the excesses of the Allied Powers after the Armistice. The weakness of the Constantinople Government compelled the acceptance of the harsh terms of the Treaty of Sevres. But by this time the Government at Constantinople did not represent Turkey and had very little power. Real power was then in the hands of Mustapha Kemal Pasha and the Na- tionalist Party. Kemal was an army officer who had taken part in the revolution of 1909 which overthrew the Sultan. During the World War he commanded a division at Gallipoli and became a national hero. After the Armistice he was one of the leaders of the Nationalist movement. The occu- pation of Smyrna by the Greeks in May, 1919, had an elec- tric effect upon the Turkish people. Everywhere they were aroused to fury and began flocking to Kemal’s banner. The situation was intensified when the Constantinople Govern- ment declared Kemal to be an outlaw and sent a body of troops to arrest him. These troops deserted to Kemal. In September, 1919, the Nationalists elected a standing council of twelve members to sit continuously at Angora, an interior town. On October 5th the Sultan called a general election. 1 Asia Magazine, January 1925, p, 49. 32 IMPERIALISM AND NATIONALISM The result was an overwhelming victory for the Nationalists. On January 28, 1920, the Parliament adopted “The Turkish National Pact.” On April 11th the British authorities in Constantinople suppressed the Turkish Parliament, arresting and deporting to Malta some forty deputies and a hundred other persons known to be in sympathy with the Nationalist movement. On April 23, 1920, a new parliament, under the title of the Grand National Assembly opened the first session at Angora, with Mustapha Kemal as President. On June 17th it adopted a Constitution. So powerful did this move- ment become that the Treaty of Sevres was scrapped. The first Lausanne Conference broke up because the Turks were strong enough to resist the divided Allies. The second Lausanne Conference resulted in an overwhelming victory for the Turks. To understand the full significance of the Turkish triumph it is necessary to examine three documents: The Treaty of Sevres, The National Pact and the Treaty of Lausanne. The Treaty of Sevres was signed by the Constantinople Government on August 10, 1920. Its chief provisions are as follows: The Sultan retains Constantinople but with dis- tinct limitation of sovereignty; the Straits are neutralized and demilitarized; Greece is given a protectorate of Smyrna and Hinterland; Greece also receives Thrace and five islands; Armenia, Syria, Mesopotamia and Palestine and the Hejaz are declared to be independent states; Italy receives Rhodes and several other islands; the British protectorate over Egypt and the British annexation of Cypress are con- firmed; the size of the Turkish army is limited to 50,000 men; the Capitulations are re-established. In striking contrast to this treaty, is the National Pact or Declaration of Independence of the Angora Government. The pact contains six articles, the most important of which reads: “Our highest and most vital principle is to have en- tire independence, with which, as in the case of all other countries, we shall be able to develop ourselves both socially and economically. We are opposed to all restrictions which are but obstacles to our political, judicial, and economic development. The terms of the payment of our debts, which will certainly be settled, must not be contrary to the spirit of this principle.” 1 On July 24, 1923, the Treaty of Lausanne was signed and 1 Herbert Adams Gibbons, Europe Since 1918, p. 448. NATIONALISM IN THE NEAR EAST 33 has since been ratified by the Powers concerned.! This treaty represents a great triumph for the Turks and includes prac- tically all the demands contained in the National Pact. Con- stantinople goes back to Turkey and all foreign troops are to be withdrawn. The Turkish boundary in Europe is re- stored to that existing in 1914, with a few minor changes. Turkey renounces all rights to Syria, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Arabia, Palestine and a number of islands. The Bosporus and Dardanelles are to remain open to warships and mer- chant ships of all nations. A demilitarized zone is es- tablished on either side of the straits and in Thrace. No provision is made for an independent Armenia. Greeks in Turkey, outside of Constantinople, and Turks in Greece are to be exchanged. The Capitulations are entirely demol- ished. This means that foreigners in Turkey no longer have a privileged status but must now live under Turkish laws and be subject to Turkish courts. Foreign legal ad- visers are to be appointed, but they are to have only ad- visory powers. The treaty recognizes Turkey as a sover- eign nation, and as such is entitled to equality of treatment from other nations. The present Government is decidedly nationalistic and anti-foreign. It is determined that Turkey shall be free from all outside interference—political, eco- nomic, educational, religious. Whether or not the Nationalists will succeed with their program cannot be foretold. They are certainly confronted with gigantic obstacles. It remains to be seen whether or not the Turks can successfully manage their own economic and financial affairs. Hitherto they have confined them- selves primarily to such professions as the army, civil serv- ice, law, medicine, and agriculture, and for the most part have left trade, banking and industry to the Greeks and Armenians. The Turks have the reputation of being poor business men and inefficient administrators. Certainly they are, on the whole, lacking in experience in these realms. Not only are they now attempting to get along without the help of the millions of Greeks and Armenians who have been killed or transported, they are likewise driving out Amer- ican and European business men, by drastic tariff regulations, 1 See the New York Times Current History Magazine, October, 1923, for the complete text of the Lausanne Treaty. The Turco-American Treaty, which is now before the United States Senate, should not be confused with the Lausanne Treaty, although its contents are very similar, During his recent visit to Con- stantinople the writer did not find a single person—missionary, business man or official—who believed that we should refuse to ratify this treaty. For the text of the Turco-American Treaty see Edgar W. Turlington, The American Treaty of Lausanne, published by the World Peace Foundation, 40 Mt. Vernon St., Boston. 34 IMPERIALISM AND NATIONALISM frequent interference by petty officials, heavy taxation and the frequent failure to administer justice in the Turkish courts, which are now the only courts available. Foreign trade is now at a very low ebb and practically no foreign capital is being invested in Turkey. The economic and financial crisis, after twelve years of continuous war, would have been serious in any case. It has been greatly ag- gravated and intensified by extreme nationalism. Moreover, the Government must contend with the an- cient tradition and practice of corruption in office. For many centuries most Turkish officials have lived by graft and dishonesty. The present Government undoubtedly contains at least a few men of proved integrity and devotion, but the number of such men is wholly inadequate. The rank and file of Turkish people are ignorant peasants, utterly lacking in experience with democratic government. Long experience has demonstrated that popular government requires a foun- dation of moral character if it is to endure. Turkey sadly needs a greater number of men of high character. The fact that the Koran sanctions plurality of marriage and allows concubinage, has tended to degrade womanhood, and to spread immorality. Sexual vice is widespread and is doing its deadly work. The physical consequences alone are tragic.1 The effects upon character are even worse. Truly the obstacles confronting the Government are stupendous. There are, however, several favorable factors in the pres- ent situation. The most important of these is the will to succeed which is everywhere being manifested. The Turks are determined to run their own affairs and are putting forth unusual efforts toward this end. The fact that the Govern- ment, by the abolition of the Caliphate, has abandoned the policy of Pan-Islamism and imperialism, makes it possible to concentrate upon domestic affairs. Then, too, the present population is more homeogeneous, as a result of massacres and deportations. Many of the causes of friction have thus been eliminated. Not the least important factor is the changed status of Turkish women. During the last two decades there have been profound changes in the position and out- look of women in Turkey. They are rapidly assuming po- 1 “Tn one generation the Moslem population of Anatolia has declined by no less than 30 per cent, a truly appalling figure. The reason for this grave state of affairs is connected, not so much with combat warfare, but with the frightful inroads made upon the national physique by venereal diseases, the propagation of which was enormously intensified by the application of conscription . . . The provinces of Castamouni, Sivas, and Konia are especially affected by the venereal scourge, and in certain districts the entire population, male and female, adult and juvenile, is infected.” (Fortnightly Review, March 1, 1924, p. 457.) NATIONALISM IN THE NEAR EAST 35 sitions of influence in public life. There is the further fa- vorable fact that the peoples of Western Europe have had enough of war for the present and probably will not in the near future tolerate further armed conflicts by their Gov- ernments in pursuit of imperialistic designs. Thus Turkey probably has gained a breathing-spell in which to set her house in order. What she will do with this opportunity re- mains to be seen.} SUMMARY Thus we see that everywhere in the Near East nationalism is one of the most powerful factors with which we must reckon. It is exceedingly difficult to draw up an accurate balance sheet which will show credit and debit side of na- tionalism. It has certainly been a chief means of arousing a patriotic devotion in the various nations and has led to political liberty, not only for the Balkan states but for the peoples of Turkey as well. “The instinct of Nationality,” says Professor J. Holland Rose, “has endowed the European peoples and Japan (perhaps soon we shall add China) with a vitality and force which resembles, say, the incoming of steam-power into industry. What previously had been mi- nutely sub-divided and inert became united, vigorous, aggres- sive.” * In one of the publications of the Carnegie Endow- ment for International Peace we find these words: “Wher- ever and whenever in the Balkans national feeling became conscious, then, and to that extent, does civilization begin.’ 3 On the other hand, the evil fruits of nationalism are every- where manifest. In the name of patriotism acts of ag- gression have been justified, other peoples oppressed, sus- picion and hatred engendered, artificial economic barriers created and wars waged. Professor H. Morse Stephens, in his Presidential address before the American Historical As- sociation, says: “Just as a fervent belief in Christianity, based upon history and dogmatic theology, led to a belief in the righteousness of slaying Mohammedans in the period of the Crusades; just as a fervent belief in Catholicism or Lutheranism or Calvinism, based upon history and dogmatic theology, was held to justify religious persecution and the religious wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in 1 For favorable accounts of Turkish nationalism see E. Alexander Powell, The Struggle for Power in Moslem Asia; and Clair Price, The Rebirth of Turkey. ? Nationality in Modern History, p. 155. 8 Nationalism and War in the Near East, p. 31. 36 IMPERIALISM AND NATIONALISM Europe; just as a fervent belief in different political theories led, in part at least, to the civil wars in England in the seventeenth century and in the United States of America in the nineteenth century; so a fervent belief in the doctrine of nationality has led to enmity between nations in the nine- teeth century. . . . National patriotism became the national creed. It filtered through the entire educational system of modern states. . . . Hymns of hate are the inevitable out- come of national patriotism based upon national histories. Family blood-feuds, the vendettas of the Corsicans and the Kentucky mountaineers, are considered proofs of a backward civilization, but national hatreds are encouraged as manifes- tations of national patriotism. ... The historian is in- fluenced by the prevailing spirit of his age, and he feeds the spirit of national intolerance today as his predecessors fed the flames of religious intolerance in days gone by. Woe unto us! if we cannot see, written in blood, in the dying civilization of Europe, the dreadful result of exaggerated nationalism as set forth in the patriotic histories of some of the most eloquent historians of the nineteenth century.” + 1 American Historical Review, Vol. 21 pp, 227, 228, 236. Craptrer 3 RELIGION IN THE NEAR EAST Imperialism and nationalism in the Near East cannot pos- sibly be fully understood apart from a knowledge of the main outlines of the religions of that region. The rigid separation between church and state, concerning which we Americans have such strong convictions, was not to be found in the Near East until very recently, and even now it is far from being the general practice. Throughout the centuries religion and politics have been closely interwoven. Since Christianity is far older than Islam, we shall begin with a short historic account of the rise and development of the Christian Church in the Near East. The conver- sion of the Roman Emperor Constantine in 312 marked the beginning of a new epoch for Christianity. Hitherto the Christians had frequently been cruelly persecuted and many thousands had been sent to martyrs’ graves. Now Chris- tianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, the capital of which had been transferred to Constantinople. The conduct of Constantine following his conversion was such as to cast doubts upon the reality and permanence of his religious experience. The historian Gibbon says he degen- erated into “a cruel and dissolute monarch, corrupted by his fortune.” In 326, because of jealousy or fear, he condemned his eldest son, Crispus, to death, “either by the hand of the executioner or by the more gentle operation of poison.” Shortly thereafter Constantine accused his wife Fausta, to whom he had been married for twenty years, of unfaith- fulness and had her “suffocated by the steam of a bath, which, for that purpose, had been. heated to an extraordinary de- gree.” 1 Professor Adeney describes the four stages of Constantine’s attitude toward the church as “sympathy, jus- tice, patronage, and control.”* In a very short time the Church became subservient to the State and remained so for many centuries. ‘The Eastern Church, from the days of 1 Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. 2, p. 142. 2 Walter F. Adeney, The Greek and Eastern Churches, p. 35. 37 38 IMPERIALISM AND NATIONALISM Constantine onwards, lived under the shadow of an imperial palace. That we may take to be an epitome of its history.” + This fact is emphasized by another prominent historian, W. M. Ramsay: “The Orthodox Church in the East cast in its lot with the Roman Empire. It did not long attempt to stand on a higher level than the State and the people. It has not been an educating and elevating and purifying power. It has been content, on the whole, in spite of some notable and honourable exceptions, to accept the world as it was, and it has been too easily satisfied with mere allegiance and apparent loyalty to the State among all its adherents. It was the faithful ally of the emperors. . . . We see then, what a power among men the Orthodox Church has been and still is—not a lovable power, not a beneficent power, but stern, unchanging, not exactly hostile to, but certainly careless of, literature and art and civilization, sufficient in itself, self-contained and self-centered.” Within a very short time the Church was rent and torn by bitter theological controversies. Concerning the Chris- tians of the fourth and fifth centuries Gibbon says: “The principle of discord was alive in their bosom, and they were more solicitous to explore the nature, than to practice the laws, of their founder.” Their conflicts soon reached a degree of bitterness which seems incredible to modern peo- ple. Concerning the Monophysite controversy, Professor Adeney says: “Here was a fine point of theology, so diffi- cult to determine that only an expert could state it correctly, and yet it divided cities into furious factions with howling mobs and fatal riots.” ? In 380, eighty men who had come as a deputation to a council at Constantinople were sent out to sea and there burned to death. At Alexandria the Arians stirred up a mob which invaded the Church of St. Thomas; “a young man in woman’s clothing danced on the altar, an- other young man sat naked in the bishop’s chair, from which he openly preached immorality to a crowd that roared with laughter at what they took to be a fine joke; virgins of the Church were stripped, scourged, violated. In fact, the recent Bulgarian and Armenian horrors were anticipated by the Alexandrian atrocities committed in the name of Christian theology.” 4 The Emperor Constantinus issued an edict to the effect that those persons who refused to take communion from the 1Jbid., p. 31, 2 Luke the Physician, pp. 145, 149. % Adeney, p. 104. 4Ibid., p. 67. RELIGION IN THE NEAR EAST 39 hands of Arian bishops should have their mouths “held open by a wooden engine while the consecrated bread was forced down their throat; the breasts of tender virgins were either burnt with red-hot egg-shells, or inhumanly compressed between sharp and heavy boards.” + In 390 by an edict of Theodosius pagan worship was forbidden and the act of sacrificing animals before an inanimate idol was pronounced high treason and was punishable by death.? A General Council of the Church was called in 449 te settle the Nestorian controversy. This Council was ac- companied by most disgraceful scenes. “If any one ven- tured to open his mouth in favour of ‘two natures,’ he was immediately shouted down with cries of ‘Nestorian!’ ‘Tear him asunder!’ ‘Burn him alive!’ ‘As he divides, so let him be divided!’ ‘Drive out, burn, tear, cut asunder, massacre all who hold two natures!’”* At the instigation of Cyril of Alexandria, an extraordinarily talented young woman, Hypatia, was accused of heresy and “in the holy season of Lent, torn from her chariot, stripped naked, dragged to the church, and inhumanly butchered by the hands of Peter the reader and a troop of savage and merci- less fanatics: her flesh was scraped from her bones with sharp oyster-shells, and her quivering limbs were delivered to the flames.” * In 449 the Patriarch of Alexandria, so sorely “reviled, and buffetted, and kicked, and trampled” his brother Patriarch of Constantinople that the latter died of his wounds.® In 530 as a result of theological controver- sies, “respectable citizens, noble matrons, and consecrated virgins were stripped naked and raised in the air by pul- leys, with a weight suspended at their feet. In this painful attitude their naked bodies were torn with scourges, or burnt with red-hot plates of iron. The amputation of the ears, the nose, the tongue, and the right hand was afflicted by the Arians.” ® The historian Ammianus was of the opinion that “the enmity of the Christians towards each other surpassed the fury of savage beasts against man.” 7 The Church, which had started as a simple brotherhood of believers, gradually took shape as a formal organization, and by the fourth century had developed an elaborate hierarchy. The worship of images and relics was firmly established by the end of the sixth century. This tendency 1 Gibbon, Vol. 2, p. 315. 3 Tbid., Vol., 3, p. 135. 3 Adeney, p. 98. 4 Gibbon, Vol. 5, p. 15. 5 Ibid., Vol. 5, p. 27. 8 Tbid., Vol. 4, p. 31. 7 Ibid., Vol. 2, p. 319. 40 IMPERIALISM AND NATIONALISM was accompanied by an increasing elaboration of rites and ceremonies. Moreover, by this time the volume of immorality was so great that Chrysostom publicly condemned from the pulpit “the domestic females of the Clergy of Constantinople, who, under the name of servants or sisters, afforded a perpetual occasion either of sin or of scandal.” 1 In speaking of the Patriarch of Alexandria in 451, Gibbon says that witnesses proved that “the alms of the Church were lavished on the female dancers, that his palace and even his bath was open to the prostitutes of Alexandria, and that the famous Pan- sophia, or Irene, was publicly entertained as the concubine of the patriarch.” 2 In the fourth century the monastic movement, as a means of escape from worldly corruption, arose in the East, a century earlier than in the West. It soon took a very ex- treme form. Large numbers of men and women fled from the cities, living in solitude in huts, in caves or in the desert; castigating themselves with an amazing extravagance of self- torture. Hilarion of Syria lived for forty-eight years on a dreary sand beach near Gaza.? Simon the Stylite lived for a summer buried up to his neck in a garden; then in a dark cave with a spiked girdle round his waist; then he built a pillar forty cubits above the earth and upon a railed plat- form he lived for thirty years!* ‘Macarius punished him- self for killing a gnat in a moment of irritation by retiring to the Scetic marshes, and there spending six months in a state of nudity among the insects, till on his return he was only recognized by his voice, his skin being like an ele- phant’s hide.” ® Pior, an Egyptian monk, allowed his sister to see him, but he kept his eyes closed throughout the visit.® This combination of corruption and extreme asceticism de- stroyed the vitality of the Church, although in every age there were notable examples of great piety, sacrificial devotion, and profound learning within her ranks. THE RISE OF ISLAM At the hour when the Eastern Church had degenerated into a rigid ecclesiasticism with an elaborate ritual, devoted to the cause of Empire, and when multitudes of Christians were seeking redemption and salvation by penance and self- 1 Gibbon, Vol. 3, p. 304. 2Jbid., Vol. 5, p. 30. 8 Tbid., Vol hE 4 Adeney, Doka5e 5 Ibid., p. 157. 6 Gibbon, Void High Bi RELIGION IN THE NEAR EAST 41 mutilation in solitary places, there was born in the city of Mecca in Arabia a child who was destined to change the whole history of the Near East. Mohammed was born in 570. He was a child of pov- erty, although it seems that his grandfather was a man of some means. At the age of twenty-five, he married a rich widow, who proved to be a devoted wife and wise coun- selor. When he was forty he had a remarkable religious experience which utterly changed his whole life. He soon gathered a few followers about him and in 622 was com- pelled to flee from Mecca. He gained recruits in Medina and was able to repulse his former townsmen. After a controversy with a Jewish colony near at hand he fell upon them, slaying nine hundred men and enslaving the women and children. “Thereafter,” says H. G. Wells, “his power extended, there were battles, treacheries, massacres; but on the whole he prevailed, until he was master of all Arabia; and when he was master of all Arabia in 632, at the age of sixty-two, he died.”? During his lifetime he fought in person in nine battles or sieges and fifty enterprises of war were achieved in ten years by himself and his lieutenants.? Mohammed had most of the virtues and defects of the people of his day. He was a man of great imaginative power, with passionate devotion to his religion and with unbounded courage. One of his distinguished followers has recently referred to him as “the grandest of figures upon whom the light of history has ever shone.” * On the other hand, as Mr. Wells points out, “he was diplomatic, treach- erous, ruthless, or compromising as the occasion required and as any other Arab king might have been in his place; and there was singularly little spirituality in his kingship.” # After the death of his first wife when he was fifty he mar- ried several other wives and kept a number of concubines. He married Ayesha when she was only nine years of age. At the end of a battle with some Jews he looked over the captive women and selected one Safiyya, whose husband having been captured was then executed. “Because he, too, founded a great religion, there are those who write of this evidently lustful and rather shifty leader as though he were a man to put beside Jesus of Nazareth or Gautama or Mani. But it is surely manifest that he was a being of a 1 The Outline of History, p. 324 (English one-volume edition). 2 Gibbon, Vol. 5, p. 257. *%Justice Ameer Ali, The Spirit of Islam, p. 51. 4 Outline of History, p. 324. 42 IMPERIALISM AND NATIONALISM commoner clay; he was vain, egotistical, tyrannous, and a self-deceiver.” + What was the nature of the religion which he founded? “There is but one God and Mohammed is his Prophet” is the heart of Islam. All power is in the hands of Allah and the life and future of every man is preordained. A distinguished Mohammedan scholar writes in this connec- tion: “The Koran proclaims and repeatedly proclaims that the Future is fixed and determinate, settled and inevitable; that, in fact, the future is duly mapped out and permanently engraved on certain tablets in heaven called ‘Preserved Tables.’ Mohammed believed in the resurrection and final judgment. Heaven is pictured in most vivid imagery. “Feasting in the most gorgeous and delicious variety, the most costly and brilliant garments, odors, and music of the most ravishing nature, and above all, the enjoyment of the black-eyed daughters of Paradise, are held out as a reward to the commonest inhabitant of Paradise, who will always remain in the full vigor of youth and manhood.” Islam demands five chief duties: confession, prayer, alms- giving, fasting and pilgrimage. Five times each day the de- vout Mohammedan must turn toward Mecca and prostrate himself in prayer. The giving of alms is a legal duty. During the month of Ramadan he is commanded to ab- stain from food and other indulgences during the day, al- though at night he may go to any excess. Once at least in a lifetime he must make the pilgrimage to Mecca. Islam has a number of prohibitory laws. The drinking of wine is rigorously forbidden, as are also all games of chance. Usury is strictly forbidden. The revulsion against idolatry was so strong that stringent laws were passed relating to images and pictures. One of the most important phases of Islam is its attitude toward women. Islam is distinctly a man’s religion. The Koran sanctions the taking of four wives and allows co- habitation with any number of concubines. Moreover, di- vorce is exceedingly easy. Any man who merely dislikes his wife may divorce her by simply saying, “Thou art di- vorced,” or “I divorce thee.” The significance and menace of this provision has been emphasized by a leading Moham- medan writer in these words: ‘‘The sexual freedom, conceded 1 Tbid., p. 324. 2A. S. N. Wadia, The Message of Mohammed, p. 49. 3 The New International Encyclopedia, Vol. 16, p. 80. RELIGION IN THE NEAR EAST 43 and legalized by it, is indeed such as to make Islam in all truth ‘the Easy Way.’” + Apostasy from Islam and the embracing of another re- ligion is supposed to be punished by the death of the of- fender. The Koran enjoins believers to make war against infidels. And yet the Koran is not consistent on this point, for elsewhere it says: “Defend yourself against your ene- mies; but attack them not first; God hateth the aggressor.” ” In another place it is recorded: “What, wilt thou force men to believe when belief can come only from Allah. Let there be, therefore, no compulsion in religion.” * And again: “O people of the book! Be not ye troubled for the Unbelievers: verily, they who believe, and the Jews, and the Sabeites, | and the Christians—whosoever of them believeth in God, and in the Last Day, and doth what is right, on them shall come no fear, neither shall they be put to grief.”* And still further: “Be not grieved about the infidels, nor be troubled at their devices: but follow thou the Way of thy Lord with wisdom and with kindly warning, and dispute with the in- fidels in the kindliest manner.” ® That Islam represented a marked advance over the idolatry of Arabia in the days of Mohammed is recognized by all authorities. The Arabs of that day were a hard, tough race of men who knew little mercy and little compassion. Blood-feuds were common and were handed down from generation to generation. In the temple in Mecca there were 360 idols. Caravans carried on a regular trade in wines, strong drink and slave-girls. Gambling was a serious vice. Islam has done much to decrease idolatry and supersti- tion; it has removed some of the worst abuses of polygamy; it has done much to remove racial and class barriers between its followers; every Moslem is a brother of every other Moslem; it has tended to increase moderation and kindness in the treatment of slaves and dumb animals; during long periods of its history it has shown greater tolerance toward other religions than it has received from Christians or than that manifested to each other by the various factions of Christendom. “In the general estimate of Mohammedanism it should not be forgotten what Islam has done for the cause of humanity and more particularly the share it had in the development of science and art in Europe. Broadly speaking, the Mohammedans may be said to have been the DAS. NN. sence The Message of Mohammed, eA 2 Sura IT. 190. 8 Sura tT. aay. 4 Sura V. 72, red 5 Sura XVI. 126-128, AA IMPERIALISM AND NATIONALISM teachers of barbarous Europe from the ninth to the thir- teenth century.” + Mr. Wells is of the opinion that Islam “created a society more free from widespread cruelty and social oppression than any society had ever been in the world before.” The West is much better acquainted with the faults and crimes of Mohammedans than with their virtues. When compared with a corrupted form of Christianity, Islam at its best has much to commend it. But when it is compared with the religion of Jesus, its shortcomings are conspicuous and notorious. While Allah is the only God, he is not the righteous, loving, personal Father revealed by Jesus; the founder of Islam had such gross lapses in moral character that he cannot safely be taken as an ideal and example; the Koran, which is a rigid and unchanging law for Moham- medans, legalizes slavery and polygamy, and therefore de- grades womanhood and childhood; it appeals to the sensual by its sanctions and by its conceptions of heaven; it sanc- tions the use of violence in a “holy war” against non- Moslems; its fatalistic elements tend to make its followers irresponsible and thereby helps to wreck moral character. THE CONFLICT BETWEEN ISLAM AND CHRISTIANITY After the death of Mohammed the armies of Islam achieved many notable and spectacular victories. Within eleven years they were masters of Persia, Syria and Egypt. Within thirty years of the founder’s death they had reached the Atlantic. The Straits of Gibraltar were then crossed and Spain was entered. Exactly one hundred years after the Prophet’s death the victory of Charles Martel at Tours saved France and Europe from being overrun with Mos- lems. Spain remained in their possession for many cen- turies. As late as 1311 there were 200,000 Mohammedans in Granada alone, only 500 of whom were of Arab descent. Rome was partially sacked in 846 and Southern Italy was occupied until the eleventh century. They also advanced eastward through Turkestan and in 755 reached China proper. Cyprus was captured in 648 and Rhodes in 653. Moslem armies swept over Asia Minor, and Constantinople was twice besieged, in 668 and 716. In the eleventh and 1 New International Encyclopedia, Vol. 16, p. 83. 2 Outline of History, p. 325. RELIGION IN THE NEAR EAST AS thirteenth centuries the Turks from Central Asia became the fighting hosts of Islam. The movement spread northward through Russia and Siberia, westward through Asia Minor to Constantinople and the Danube, eastward to India and the East Indies. Constantinople fell in 1453 and the Turk- ish armies rolled over Southeastern Europe. In 1529 and in 1683 they were at the gates of Vienna. THE CRUSADES During all these years Moslems and Christians were en- gaged in intermittent or constant warfare. The most notable series of encounters centered around the recovery of the Holy Land. The seven principal Crusades lasted for nearly two hundred years, beginning in 1096. In exhorting his fol- lowers to take up the sword against the Moslems, Pope Urban II, at the Council of Claremont, in November, 1095, said: “Tf you must have blood, bathe your hands in the blood of the infidels. I speak to you with harshness, because my min- istry obliges me to do so: Soldiers of hell, become soldiers of the living God.” + During the siege of Antioch in 1098 the Crusades were subjected to manifold dangers from Saracens and from na- ture. Large numbers starved to death. Many more suc- cumbed to moral temptations and incredible licentiousness prevailed. “Seldom,” says Gibbon, “does the history of pro- fane war display such scenes of intemperance and prostitution as were exhibited under the walls of Antioch. . . . An arch- deacon of royal birth was slain by the Turks as he reposed in an orchard, playing at dice with a Syrian concubine.” ? When he was troubled with Syrian spies, Bohemond, one of the Crusaders’ leaders, “commanded that several Turks, whom he held in close confinement, should be executed, and then ordering a great fire to be lighted, he had them spitted and roasted, as flesh prepared for the supper of himself and his troops, and warned other spies they should receive the same treatment.” 3 On July 15, 1099, the Crusaders gained temporary con- trol of Jerusalem. They then engaged in one of the most atrocious massacres of history. “Neither age nor sex could mollify their implacable rage: they indulged themselves three days in a promiscuous massacre; and the infection of the 1jJ. F. gic ta Sp Etec of the Crusades, Vol. I, p. 51. 2 Gibhon, Vol, 6, sj. F. Michaud, History of the Crusades, Vol. 1, p. 137. 46 iMPERIALISM AND NATIONALISM dead bodies produced an epidemic disease. Seventy thousand Moslems were put to the sword.” + One of the leaders of the Crusade boasted that “in Solomon’s Porch and in his temple our men rode in the blood of the Saracens up to the knees of their horses.” * After the terrible slaughter ,“at night- fall, sobbing for excess of joy, the Crusaders came at last to the Church of the Sepulchre, and here put their blood- stained hands together in prayer. So, on that day of July, the First Crusade came to an end.” 3 | As a result of the Great Schism in 1054, the Greek Church and the Roman Church were exceedingly hostile toward each other. This hostility was revealed again and again during the crusades. Upon the elevation of Andronicus in Con- stantinople, ‘the Latins were slaughtered in their houses and in the streets; their quarter was reduced to ashes; the Clergy were burnt in their churches, and the sick in their hospitals; and some estimate may be formed of the slain from the clem- ency which sold above four thousand Christians in perpetual slavery to the Turks. The priests and monks were the loud- est and most active in the destruction of the schismatics; and they chanted a thanksgiving to the Lord when the head of a Roman Cardinal, the pope’s legate, was severed from his body, fastened to the tail of a dog, and dragged, with savage mockery, through the city.” 4 In 1204 the tables were turned and the Greeks were the victims. The Fourth Crusade was diverted from the attack upon the Saracens and turned against Christian Constanti- nople. The city was captured, looted and burned. “The churches were profaned by the licentiousness and party zeal of the Latins. Their tables, on which they gamed and feasted, were covered with the pictures of Christ and the saints; and they trampled under foot the most venerable objects of Christian worship. ie dis vb ealn sti hens Lie eimai ep ileal SAO 2,015,079,000 REAIA | hial'as Baidu eyes cat caawarta te rater en ies 236,726,000 Tog Cena 4) apap aR Re AME A ER Be a 5 190,013,000 RTPROCE LT. OE ee cae ean eee eee iene 16,500,000 RGUimiatie + th 7s rey pe shen tte ale hela cae 15,507,000 $10,982,346,000 In addition to these amounts $878,664,000 was advanced by the United States to the various countries for relief and reconstruction, making a grand total of $11,861,010,000.8 In addition to these government loans, an immense amount of American capital has been invested abroad. Whereas the 1See The Nation, October 31, 1923, p. 479; and October 24, 1923, p. 452. 2S. G. Inman, Atlantic Monthly, July, 1924, p. 109. ® Harvey E. Fisk, The Inter-Ally Debts, p. 349. ECONOMIC EXPANSION OF UNITED STATES 79 amount of American foreign investments in 1913 was only one billion dollars, in 1924 this amount had risen to eight billion dollars... During the single year of 1924 United States citizens invested $1,268,438,394 in foreign securities.” Foreign capital flotations now comprise approximately 20 per cent of our total national investments each year.* On a single day recently sixty different kinds of foreign bonds were traded in on the New York Stock Exchange. United States investments in Latin America are very heavy. The amount loaned to governments and municipalities alone ex- ceeds $529,000,000 since the war.* Herbert Hoover says that the total of American industrial and commercial invest- ments in Latin America is “now estimated at considerably more than $3,000,000,000 as compared with about $1,000,- 000,000 in 1912. American capital now plays a dominant part in the development of the basic industries in Latin America, such as meat packing in the River Plate, petroleum in Mexico, Colombia and Peru and sugar and tobacco in Cuba. 7.5 It seems certain that the volume of American foreign investments will continue to increase rapidly. The fact that about half of the total gold supply of the world is now in the United States will undoubtedly increase foreign investment.® The plentifulness of American capital has reduced interest rates to a very low figure, which fact is another powerful incentive to foreign investments. Since the Armistice American concessionaire hunters have been busy in various parts of the earth. Probably the best known of these enterprises was the so-called Chester con- cession in Turkey, which conveyed the right of exploitation of natural resources valued at ten billion dollars, but which has since been cancelled because of default in fulfilling con- ditions. The Financial Chronicle recently reported that an American firm, W. A. Harriman & Co., had secured a con- cession from the Soviet Government for 2,750,000 tons of manganese ore from the fields in the Georgian republic. If 1 Current History Magazine, December, 1924. 2 Current History Magazine, March, 1925, Section on World Finance. 8 Literary Digest, December 6, 1924, p. 80. 4 Financial Chronicle, November 3, 1923. 5 The Annalist, January 5, 1925, p. 13. ®“Due largely to our favorable trade balances, recent years have witnessed an unparalleled flow of gold toward our shores, the total accumulation here having exceeded $4,500,000,000 on August 1 of this year, as compared with less than $3,000,000,000 three years ago. Ten years ago (July 1, 1914) the total stock of gold coin and bullion in the United States was $1,890,000,000— only 40 per cent of the total today—yet this was _ sufficient to support our cur- rency and credit structure.’—John E, Barber, Financial Chronicle, November 29, 1924, p. 2492, 80 IMPERIALISM AND NATIONALISM the terms of this agreement are completed the Soviet will receive about $38,000,000.1 Early in 1924 an announcement was made to the effect that the Sinclair Oil Company had acquired an important oil concession in Persia. In connection with the problem of oil supplies, Herbert Hoover said: “Un- less our nationals reinforce and increase their holdings abroad, we shall be dependent upon other nations for the supply of this vital commodity within a measurable number of years. The truth of the matter is that other countries have con- served their oil at the expense of our own. We must go into foreign fields and in a big way.’* Efforts are now being made by American manufacturers to secure access to an adequate supply of crude rubber.® There is every indi- cation that within the next decades an enormous sum of American capital will be invested in foreign lands in the effort to control large quantities of essential raw materials. Thus it is inevitable that henceforth the United States will be involved in the economic and financial affairs of the whole world. 1 Financial Chronicle, October 18, 1924, p. 1802. 2 Quoted in the New Republic, August 00; 1924, p. 355. ® See Foreign Affairs, June 15, 1924, pp. 613 ff. CuaprTer 5 WHAT SHALL THE UNITED STATES DO ABOUT IMPERIALISM AND NATIONALISM? The extreme danger of European imperialism and national- ism to world peace is increasingly recognized in the United States. But only a limited number of her citizens yet realize that American imperialism and nationalism are regarded with serious apprehension in other parts of the world, especially in Latin America. At the time the Monroe Doctrine was proclaimed in 1823 it was received favorably in most quarters in the new hemisphere. In his message President Monroe set forth three propositions: First, European nations shall not be allowed to acquire further colonies or territories in the new world; second, European nations shall not be permitted to extend their political systems to any part of the Americas; third, the United States shall not interfere with existing colo- nies. Interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine so far as it relates to the first two phases has not been changed mate- rially since its enunciation. There has, however, been a steadily increasing tendency to interpret the Monroe Doc- trine as imposing the right and duty to intervene in the affairs of the nations of Central America and the Caribbean when- ever they fail to preserve order or to protect American lives and property. Such interventions have been frequent occur- rences, as we have already seen. The policy of the United States in this regard was clearly stated by President Roose- velt in his message to Congress of December, 1904: “Chronic wrongdoing, or an impotence which results in a general loos- ening of the ties of civilized society, may in America as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation, and in the Western Hemisphere, the adherence of the United States to the Monroe Doctrine may force the United States, however, reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrong- doing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power.” In 1895 Secretary Olney said: “The United States is practically sovereign on this continent, and its fiat is law $1 82 IMPERIALISM AND NATIONALISM upon the subjects to which it confines its interposition.” 1 When Mr. Taft was a member of the Roosevelt Cabinet in 1906 he said: “The frontiers of the United States virtually extend to Tierra del Fuego.”? In commenting upon the remark of President Cleveland, “we are sovereign on this con- tinent,” Champ Clark, Speaker of the House of Representa- tives, said: “And we are.”’? In 1912 the Senate passed the Lodge resolution which declared that “the United States could not see without grave concern the possession” of any harbor in the American continents “by any corporation or association” related to a foreign government. Assistance from the United States military and naval forces and diplomatic support from the State Department have enabled citizens of the United States to gain enormous power in the lands to the south of us, as we have already noted. That the steady territorial and economic expansion of the United States has seriously alarmed other nations is evident from the great mass of protests which have arisen in many countries. In a large volume written by a noted international lawyer of Chile, and published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 360 pages are devoted to comments by various distinguished men concerning the policy of the United States in Latin America.4 Many of these comments are highly favorable to the record of the United States. On the other hand, many of them are exceed- ingly critical. Professor Carlos Pereyra of Mexico, former member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague, says: “Some recent North American critics of the Monroe Doctrine state that it constitutes an anachronism, an antiquity now obsolete. I think on the contrary, that the Monroe Doc- trine is a living reality; a myth which serves as a cloak to the following natural fact ; the ambitions of a powerful people who pretend to exercise their hegemony over a group of weak peoples, giving to their domination the insincere appear- ances of unselfishness and benevolence.” > Marcial Martinez, a Chilean writer and diplomat, thinks that “this new policy deserves no other name than that of imperialism or hegemony. I shall call it from now on Napoleonism.”® A former Presi- dent of the Argentine Republic warns against “the new doc- trines of intervention which condense the cloud in which the 1 House Documents, 54th Cong., 1st sess., I, No. 1, pt. 1, p. 558. 2 Quoted by Hiram Bingham, The Montroe Doctrine, DavOls 2 Quoted by Alejandro Alvarez, The Monroe Doctrine, p. 386. 4 Alejandro DEVAL The Monroe Doctrine, 1924, 573 pages. SJiid.; p. 312. 6 Ibid., p. 301. WHAT SHALL THE UNITED STATES DO? — 83 rays of imperialism are hidden.” + An eminent Argentine lawyer and a grandson of a former president of that country, says: “The doctrine is dangerous because it is North Ameri- can imperialism hidden under a principle of international law.” ? In a book to which Raymond Poincaré wrote an introduction, F. Garcia Calderon says: “Everywhere the Americans of the north are feared. . . . It excites or sup- presses revolutions; it fulfills a high vocation of culture. It uses or abuses a privilege which cannot be gainsaid.” ? Pro- fessor Charles Sarolea, of the University of Edinburgh, after a tour in Brazil, wrote: “They consider the Monroe Doctrine as a disguised form of imperialism. They look with sus- picion at every move in Panama or Mexico.” * Professor Bingham quotes “one of the most conservative writers of Latin America” as saying: “The Doctrine of Monroe is the shield and buckler of United States aggression; it is a sword suspended by a hair over the Latin continent.” ® It may be helpful for us to know also how we are regarded in certain quarters in Europe. The following quotation is taken from an ultra-conservative French Journal: “In Latin America the United States is trying to reduce her neighbors to economic fiefs, through the agencies of trusts, financial control, loans, and political intervention. . . . It makes little difference whether Democrats or Republicans are in power in Washington. For they do not represent two parties, but two plutocracies.... For the American Govern- ment now rests upon a monarchy of gold and aristocracy of finance. It is the prototype of that quantitative civilization that is striving to erect a new form of feudalism in the mod- ern world.” ® A British journal recently ran an article on “The American Empire,” in which it said concerning our occupation of Haiti: “The facts disclosed were of an appall- ing character. They made, indeed, a record of frightfulness on the part of American marines—burnings and shootings, hanging and torture—so hideous that the good American public might well be excused for finding it incredible. Even today a minority only of Americans have realized that the officers of the United States Marine Corps have created for America a memory which has not been excelled among the records of imperial atrocity in our time.” 4 1[bid., p. 354. 2New York Times, October 13, 1920. 8 Latin America, p. 298. . 4 Quoted by Thomas, p. 385. 5 The Monroe Doctrine, pp. 72, 73. 6 Pierre Arthuys, in LaRevue Universelle, January 15, 1923; reprinted in the Living Age, March 10, 1923, pp. 571, 576. 7™The New Statesman, July 1, 1922, p. 351. 84: IMPERIALISM AND NATIONALISM In his Atlantic Monthly article, Dr. Inman says: “We are piling up hatreds, suspicions, records for exploitation and destruction of sovereignty in Latin America, such as have never failed in all history to react in war, suffering, and defeat of high moral and spiritual ideals. . . . It is impos- sible for anyone who has not come into close contact with these countries to realize how completely their governments are held in the hollow of the hand of the State Department at Washington.” } After an exhaustive survey of the evidence an American professor exclaimed: “O Monroe Doctrine, what mistakes, not to say crimes, are committed in thy name!” It is cer- tainly high time that American citizens should awaken to the seriousness of the situation. The foreign policy of the United States is of enormous significance to the peace of the world. And yet very few citizens are informed as to what is going on in the State Department. Professor Shepherd, of Colum- bia University, says in this connection: “Supposedly inde- pendent republics have had their independence diminished or destroyed, their affairs taken over and their inhabitants and property made subject to officials acting under the orders of the President of the United States—all without the slightest constitutional warrant—and yet who among us seems notice- ably to care?” * Professor Powers explains the attitude of America by saying: “It would be unwarranted to attribute to Americans in this period of national expansion, a definite policy of deliberate and unlimited expansion. They have had no such: policy, indeed, no consistent and persistent policy whatever, and they have consistently and sincerely condemned such a policy on the part of others. But they have had, like other peoples, what the outside world quite naturally construes as such a policy, a permanent instinct of self assertion which acts automatically in all situations. They don’t want the earth—far from it. But whenever circum- stances have directed their attention toward some concrete portion of it, it has looked good to them, and they have cast about successfully for reasons why they should possess it. They have wanted it, and if possible, have taken it, from impulse, and then have justified the taking by arguments developed later.” 4 The world is now tragically aware of the catastrophic 1July, 1924, pp. 107, 110. 2 David Y. Thomas, One Hundred Years of the Monroe Doctrine, p. 274. 8 Wm. R. Shepherd, in Mexico and the Caribbean, p. 192, italics mine. America Among the Nations, pp. 68, 69 Fi f WHAT SHALL THE UNITED STATES DO? _ 85 consequences of aggressive drifting on the part of European peoples during the decades prior to 1914. Bold indeed are the outlines of the handwriting on the wall that gives warning of a yet more terrible fate for future generations if the citi- zens of the United States remain much longer blissfully unconscious of the consequences of imperialism backed by unrestricted nationalism, blind and deaf to the approaching storm of resentment and hatred against American aggression, acquiescent and inactive as the danger becomes more immi- nent and acute. WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE? 1. The present imterpretation of the Monroe Doctrine should be broadened so as to make the various nations of the Americas jointly responsible for its enforcement. That is to say, the United States should no longer presume to act as guardian of the other nations of this hemisphere. If action is needed to prevent European countries from aggression, such action should come from a group of American nations or from an international agency, rather than from a single unit. Much of the resentment against the United States could be overcome if the Latin American countries were regarded as equal partners in the cooperative task of pre- serving the territorial or financial integrity of any nation that may be menaced. Such an interpretation would also help to safeguard Latin America against any possible aggression on the part of the United States. Such a precautionary measure is absolutely essential to the maintenance of cordial relations with the lands to the south of our borders. “The very thought,” says Professor Bingham, “that we, proud in the consciousness of our own self-righteousness, sit here with a smile on our faces and a big stick in our hands, ready to chastise any of the American republics that do not behave, fairly makes their blood boil.” * It is exceedingly important that the United States should give adequate evidence to indi- cate that such a policy will not be followed in the future. The true policy for the United States was enunciated by President Wilson in his message of December 7, 1915, when he pointed out that conditions have changed since the days of Monroe and said that on the part of the United States there 1 For a strong defence of the present foreign policy of the United States see a pamphlet by Otto H. Kahn, The Myth of American Imperialism, published by the Committee of American Business Men, 15 Park Row, New York. 2 Hiram Bingham, The Monroe Doctrine: an Obsolete Shibboleth, p. 64. 86 IMPERIALISM AND NATIONALISM was now “no claim of guardianship or thought of wards, but, instead, a full and honorable association as of partners between ourselves and our neighbors, in the interest of all America, north and south... . All the governments of America stand, so far as we are concerned, upon a footing of genuine equality and unquestioned independence.” 2. The practice of sending Unsted States military and naval forces into another country for the purpose of pro- tecting American lives, property and investments should be abandoned forthwith. In succeeding paragraphs substitutes for such intervention will be discussed. Just here it is impor- tant to emphasize the supreme danger of continuing the pres- ent practice. If the United States is justified in following this procedure then other nations possess a similar right. The exercise of this right means the perpetuation of the deadly system of imperialism which has already wrought such tre- mendous destruction. Consider for a moment what the con- tinuance of such a policy would mean for the United States. American citizens are now investing their capital in every country on the globe and American merchants and conces- sionaire-seekers are to be found everywhere. Henceforth unstable government and disorders almost anywhere in the world will jeopardize American lives and property. Foreign trade and foreign investments are sure to increase rapidly during the coming decades. It is well known that merchants and traders in other lands often take undue risks because of confidence in receiving their government’s support. For the Government of the United States to assume responsibility for safeguarding the property of her citizens throughout the world is a huge undertaking and one fraught with immense danger to international peace and goodwill. If the flag and marines are to follow the dollar then we may surely look forward to an era of increased hostility and vio- lence. The continuance of such a policy is certain to bring us into serious conflict with other nations and will make inevitable the perpetuation of imperialism and militarism. There are two doctrines in international law which deal with this problem. An Argentinian publicist set forth an idea which has come to be known as the Calvo Doctrine, the substance of which is this: A foreign government is not justified in employing armed forces or diplomatic measures in enforcing private financial claims based upon contract or the result of civil war, insurrection or mob violence. The Drago Doctrine, enunciated by a Foreign Minister of the WHAT SHALL THE UNITED STATES DO? = 87 Argentine Republic, has a narrower scope.' It relates to public debts to citizens of a foreign country, as follows: The public debt should not occasion armed intervention nor even the actual occupation of the territory of American nations by a European Power. In the famous letter in which this doctrine was advocated, Dr. Drago said: “The collection of loans by military means implies the occupation of territory so as to enforce payment: and the occupation of territory implies the suppression or subordination of the local government of the territory thus occupied.’”’* This doctrine was strongly endorsed by President Roosevelt in his message of Decem- ber 5, 1905. In his instructions to the delegates of the United States to the Third Pan American Conference, Secretary Root said: “It has long been the established policy of the United States not to use its armed forces for the collection of ordinary contract debts due to its citizens by other gov- ernments.” While he was Assistant Secretary of State in 1907, John W. Foster said in this connection: “We ought to protect our citizens against torts, injuries, and injustices done them, but when they voluntarily go into a country and make contracts, it is not our duty to follow them with the army and navy of the United States.’ General Horace Porter, a delegate of the United States, was the chief influ- ence in securing the adoption of the Porter Proposition by the Second Peace Conference at The Hague, the substance of which was the agreement “‘not to have recourse to armed force for the recovery of contract debts claimed from the government of one country by the government of another country as being due to its nationals,” except in cases of refusal to submit to arbitration or failure to abide by the award. It will be noticed that is not a complete acceptance of the Drago Doctrine. It is, however, a move in the right direction and should be supplemented by further agreements incorporating the essentials of the Calvo Doctrine as well. In reply to the question, what is the -emedy for the present imperialistic practice, Professor Hobson, a distinguished English economist, says: “only one—an absolute repudiation of the right of British subjects to call upon their Govern- ment to protect their persons or property from injuries or dangers incurred on their private initiative.” * 1¥For a full discussion of the Calvo and Drago Doctrines see an article by Professor Amos S. Hershey, The American Journal of International Law, January 1, 1907, pp. 26-45. 2Pan American Magazine, July, 1921, p. 89. 8 American Society of International Law Proceedings, 1907, p. 147. 4Imperialism, p. 381. 88 IMPERIALISM AND NATIONALISM A resolution has recently been introduced in the United States Senate which would direct all departments of the United States Government to refrain from “directly or indi- rectly engaging the responsibility of the Government of the United States, or otherwise on its behalf, to supervise the fulfillment of financial arrangements between citizens of the United States and sovereign foreign governments or political subdivisions thereof, whether or not recognized de jure or de facto by the United States Government, or in any manner whatsoever giving official recognition to any arrangement which may commit the Government of the United States to any form of military intervention in order to compel the observance of alleged obligations of sovereign or subordinate authority, or of any corporations or individuals, or to deal with any such arrangement except to secure the settlement of claims of the United States or of United States citizens through the ordinary channels of law provided therefor in the respective foreign jurisdictions, or through duly author- ized and accepted arbitration agencies.” In connection with a dispute with the Spanish Government due to injuries to Spanish citizens in the New Orleans riots in 1851, Daniel Webster, who was Secretary of State at that time, said that foreigners are merely “entitled to such pro- tection as is afforded to our own citizens” and that Spanish subjects “have certainly no cause of complaint, if they are protected by the same law and the same administration of law as natural born citizens of this country.” + Numerous claims have since been made by foreign governments because of damages suffered as a result of mob violence in the United States. “In the majority of these cases,” says Professor Hershey, “the United States Government has refused to admit liability in principle, but has granted compensation as a matter of grace and favor, or from a sense of magnanimity, sympathy, benevolence or policy.” ? If this is sound reason- ing why does it not apply also to citizens of the United States in other lands? 3. The United States should enthusiastically cooperate wsth other nattons in seeking to create and strengthen effective international agencies through whtch disputes may be settled without resort to violence. It should be kept constantly in mind that as contacts between nations increase and economic rivalry becomes more intense the probability of international friction is multiplied many fold. All the great nations are 2 Quoted by Hershey, p. 33. 2Tbid., p. 34. WHAT SHALL THE UNITED STATES DO? 89 becoming more and more industrialized. Industrial nations require access to raw materials in other lands, access to for- eign markets in which to sell their surplus goods, and access to fields beyond their own borders where surplus capital may be invested. Just at the time when enormous quantities of raw materials are required, the nations find themselves con- fronted with a growing scarcity of essential raw products. This combination makes inevitable an intensified rivalry be- tween nations for control of available supplies. In this connection, witness the increased tension between Great Britain and the United States over the question of oil. More- over, the interdependence of the various parts of the earth is becoming more pronounced. Nations have long since discovered that they cannot safely allow business and commerce within their own borders to go unregulated and have created social machinery to regu- late “unfair competition” and other abuses. The Sherman Anti-Trust Law, the Federal Trade Commission and the Interstate Commerce Commission are illustrations in point. The monopoly of essential products within a country is now universally recognized to be a grave danger to public wel- fare. “In the international domain, on the other hand,” says Professor Borchard, of Yale University, “unfair competition flourishes among the great powers in a fashion that sooner or later must lead to conflict. No statutory code declares it to be unfair; for the attempt to monopolize the economic resources of backward nations by the creation of spheres of influence, mandates, protectorates or colonies, the effort to control markets, trade routes, cables and coaling stations, and by tariff barriers to obtain preferential treatment, dis- criminate against competitors or stimulate home industry— ‘all these are deemed worthy manifestations of state activity looking to national strength and prosperity.” + International commerce and international finance desperately need regula- tion at the present time and appropriate international bodies for this purpose should quickly be created. The whole ques- tion of the distribution of the raw materials of the earth deserves serious and immediate attention by international conferences, as does also the extraordinarily vital question of tariffs. If further wars are to be averted the nations must also devise non-violent means of protecting property and in- vestments of aliens within the various countries where stable government is lacking. Indeed the whole question of the 1 Mexico and the Caribbean, edited by Blakeslee, p. 168. 90 IMPERIALISM AND NATIONALISM relation of the more advanced nations to backward peoples should be the subject of continuous discussion in international gatherings, until a policy can be outlined which will provide adequate safeguards both for the vital interests of the oack- ward peoples and for the lives and property of foreigners. The essential nature of the modern world makes it impera- tive that effective agencies of international justice be created without delay. A beginning has already been made in the World Court and the League of Nations. The Economic Section of the League has had only limited success thus far because it has not been allowed to deal with the more fundamental economic problems which are threatening the peace of the world. But this section is capable of infinite expansion and might easily become an exceedingly effective agency if the various nations were willing to extend its jurisdiction and to enlarge its powers. The Mandates Section of the League has made a real beginning in working out an advanced policy for dealing with backward peoples. The mandates have probably been abused at times but this plan represents a marked advance over the old system of exploitation. The economic phases of imperialism are so complex and so deep rooted that a complete solution of the various problems will require years of continuous endeavor and much forbearance and patience on the part of all who are involved. Cooperative action by the various nations is essen- tial to progress in this effort. And that leads to our fourth point. 4. The United States should lead the way in proclaiming a new conception of nationalism. The old theory of the abso- lute sovereignty of the nation needs to be abandoned. It should be supplanted by a new conception of the rights and interests of groups of nations as being transcendant above the interests of any single nation. That is to say, we need to carry one step higher a process which has long been operating. There was a time when strong individuals were sovereign. They acted as they pleased and acknowledged no law above their own desires. There was a long period when cities were sovereign. There was a day when states were sovereign. The principle of sovereignty makes impossible adequate pro- cesses of government between sovereign entities. Absolute sovereignty means lawlessness. International anarchy will continue so long as each nation proceeds on this basis. Inter- national peace depends upon the creation of effective proc- esses of justice between nations. The creation of these WHAT SHALL THE UNITED STATES DO? 91 agencies is delayed by the theory of absolute national sov- ereignty. The price of peace and justice is the willingness of nations voluntarily to surrender that portion of their sov- ereignty which stands in the way of creating effective agencies of international justice. For a powerful nation like the United States to insist upon absolute sovereignty and to play a lone hand is to obstruct the path that leads away from international anarchy. For if we insist upon being a law unto ourselves we make it easier for other nations to do likewise. So urgent is the need for a new conception of nationalism and a new willingness to abide by decisions of international agencies of justice that it would be nothing short of a calamity for the world if the United States should insist upon going her own way without regard to international agencies. Happily there is every reason to be- lieve that the United States will not attempt to live in “splendid isolation” but will assume her full share of respon- sibility in cooperative world undertakings. This process should be hastened because of the complexity and urgency of the world situation. The imperative need for international government and the tremendous power possessed by the United States seem to the writer to be conclusive reasons why the United States should join the World Court and the League of Nations without further delay. The foreign policy of the United States in these next dec- ades may prove to be the deciding factor in determining whether or not militant nationalism, greedy imperialism and international anarchy are to lead the nations on to further wars, or whether an era of international peace and justice shall be ushered in by outlawing war as a crime and by creat- ing effective social machinery through which a new concep- tion of nationalism may find expression. If America is to follow an idealistic and constructive foreign policy a very much larger number of her citizens must become informed as to the real nature and consequences of imperialism. “Why,” says an English authority in this realm, “does Im- perialism escape general recognition for the narrow, sordid thing it is? Each nation, as it watches from outside the Imperialism of its neighbors, is not deceived; the selfish interests of political and commercial classes are seen plainly paramount in the direction of policy. So every other Euro- pean nation recognizes the true outlines of British Im- perialism and charges us with hypocrisy in feigning blindness, 92 IMPERIALISM AND NATIONALISM This charge is false; no nation sees its own shortcomings. . . . All the purer and more elevated adjuncts of Imperial- ism are kept to the fore by religious and philanthropic agencies; patriotism appeals to the general lust of power within a people by suggestions of nobler uses, adapting the forms of self-sacrifice to cover domination and the love of ad- venture. . . . It is precisely in this falsification of the real import of motives that the gravest vice and the most signal peril of Imperialism reside. .. . Imperialism has been floated on a sea of vague, shifty, well-sounding phrases which are seldom tested by close contact with fact. ... It is the be- setting sin of all successful States, and its penaltv is unalter- able in the order of nature.” Two courses are now open to the United States. She may travel the road of aggressive nationalism and greedy imperial- ism that leads to hostility and war, or she may proceed in the direction of international cooperation through effective agencies of justice. National violence and international gov- ernment are the alternatives. Upon the choice made by the United States in these coming years depends in large measure the prospects for permanent peace and justice throughout the earth, 1J. A. Hobson, Imperialism, pp. 207, 209, 390. DATE DUE i} GAYLORD PRINTEDINU,S.A. | HM f Speer Library a study 0 / ary- | MUI 1s Imperialism and nationalism; =z e>) ap) co LO WN © © © N a © oe - Princeton Theological Semin JC359 ieestesseypeni nan sstsnesupsee’s pasedtess cass : t + peasnest " Treertt bth epee etettet , ‘OLn RAR DstH asad EF aR iaows Pas wabeadang anaed’ hasan: Sauesuae qaees ane anecaan Fak apen . avany SEUSS sit; “f Hote sat peppees nes pass an an cy kamanee! eedanciese: HOSEN PRASHIN Aw ELH TENOeE ADRES scaripsatsestesene