scepticism enough. Nous savons is a very frequent phrase in it. If it is hard to believe,' is it easy to 'know'?

'But it is now time to take leave,' though fervent Anatolians may think that much more ought to be said and that some things have been said wrong. We saw the other day M. France spoken of as a 'serious thinker,' who was afraid of an outburst of Fascismo in France. With the latter part of this we have nothing to do save to observe that one 'ism is rather apt to provoke another. But is he exactly what one would call a serious thinker? And there again one is stopped by the imminence of the unmanageable previous question, 'What is a serious thinker?' So let this part of the subject be left to others to decide. Fortunately, it is not necessary that the world should be entirely occupied by serious thinkers, though it is as well to have a few of them, and perhaps we might have a few more without harm. Certainly M. France has thought enough, even if one sometimes wishes it took other directions, to prevent his other gifts from being spent on mere frivolities. And in themselves they are gifts really, perhaps quite, of the very first order in their several departments. There may be something academic' (one does not quite know why there should not be) both in the display and in the enjoyment as such of that style with which he was credited at the opening of this paper. But if so it produces and encourages other enjoyments in which any intelligent and even slightly educated persons can, and in which it is clear many such persons do, rejoice. There is an insinuatingness about him which one finds it difficult to parallel elsewhere. Sometimes the countenance of his work may be nimium lubricus aspici in the Arnoldian rather than the original Horatian sense of the adjective. Sometimes he would seem to be not so much a serious thinker as a mischief-maker with the serious thoughts of others. But almost always he is a Master of the Laugh; and Heaven only knows what Earth would do without Laughter.

GEORGE SAINTSBURY.

Art. 11.-TURKEY AND THE POWERS.

1. The Western Question in Greece and Turkey. By Arnold Toynbee. Constable, 1922.

2. La question turque. By Maurice Pernot. Paris: Grasset, 1922.

3. Angora Constantinople-Londres. By Berthe GeorgesGaulis. Paris: Armand Colin, 1922.

4. Greece and the Allies. By G. F. Abbott. Methuen,

1922.

5. L'Hellenisme de l'Asie Mineure. By Léon Maccas. Paris: Berger-Levrault, 1919.

6. La Grèce devant le Congrès de la Paix. Official publication of the Greek delegation. Paris, no date.

7. Les Juris et l'Europa. By Gaston Gaillard. Paris: Chapelot, 1920.

8. Fünf Jahre Türkei. By General Liman von Sanders. Berlin: August Scherl, 1919.

And other works.

THE sweeping victory of the Turkish Nationalists over the Greeks in Anatolia has resulted in the re-establishment of Ottoman domination over territories wrested from Turkey after the armistice, but inhabited by an overwhelming majority of Turks. This is the first Occasion in nearly 250 years in which Turkey has succeeded in regaining any of her lost provinces. Each successive withdrawal of the Turkish frontiers, since the siege of Vienna in 1685, has reduced the proportion of Moslems in the lost territories, but has increased it in what remained of the Empire. While there were ever fewer Turks in Serbia, Macedonia, Bulgaria, and Greece, Anatolia had become more and more the stronghold of the Turkish people. It was the attempt by the victorious Western Powers to deprive Turkey of a large part of Anatolia which led to the revival of the Turkish people, and made it what it never was before

-a nation.

The World War, following on the Balkan wars, had utterly exhausted the Turkish people, who had proved unequal to the awful strain. Their heart had never been in the struggle, and Germany, who had dragged

them into it by means of her tools, Enver and Talaat, afterwards found in the latter the most serious hindrances to the efficient conduct of operations, while the people as a whole failed to respond to the proclamation of the 'Holy War,' because their German masters were just as much Giaours as the British, French, or Italians. When on Oct. 30, 1918, the armistice with the Entente was signed, the event was acclaimed with a sigh of relief throughout the country, and the Turks were ready to accept almost any conditions which might be imposed upon them. What the peace terms were to be was, of course, not known at the time; but the Turks were convinced that they would follow the lines indicated in the armistice. Raouff Bey, one of the signatories of the armistice and now Prime Minister of the Angora Government, assured the writer that during the negotiations at Mudros the Allied representative had given him to understand that such was the case. The bases of the armistice were the freedom of the Straits and respect for the principle of nationality; the former was provided for in Art. 1, and the latter in the limits of the Allied military occupation, which was not to extend beyond the outlying non-Turkish provinces into Anatolia or Thrace, unless the interests of the Allies in the latter were menaced (Art. 7), or disorders occurred in the Armenian vilayets (Art. 24). But hardly had the armistice come into force when the Allies proceeded to occupy various districts outside the Arab provinces-Constanti nople itself, and several points in Anatolia and Thrace, although the circumstances mentioned in Art. 7 had not arisen. These occupations, however, regarded as purely temporary measures, did not arouse resentment on the part of the Turks, because they were too exhausted to protest, and the Allied authorities, at first, dealt gently with the people and did not interfere in their internal affairs. The Turks at once began to apply the other armistice clauses; demobilisation was carried out rapidly, nearly all the guns or their breech-blocks were handed over to the Allies, as well as considerable quantities of other arms and war material.

The long delay preceding the conclusion of peace. preyed on the public spirit, which was still further alarmed by the rumours which began to circulate early

an

eot

egu

of

res

is

in 1919 that what remained of Turkey might be partitioned among the Great Powers and that large areas would be handed over to the Greeks and Armenians. These rumours were chiefly the result of the information which had transpired concerning the various inter-Allied conventions concluded during the war. The Allies had, in fact, agreed that Russia was to annex Constantinople and part of Eastern Anatolia, and by the St Jean de Maurienne convention of April 1917, Italy had been promised Smyrna as well as Adalia. Russia was not a party to that convention, as she was then in the throes of revolution; and her subsequent collapse left Constantinople and the Straits zone, the most important part of Turkey, unassigned. A belief was beginning to develop in all Allied countries that it might be best to leave Constantinople and most of Anatolia to Turkey, as the solution least likely to arouse jealousy among the Powers. Hence Mr Lloyd George's speech of Jan. 5, 1918, about leaving to the Turks the rich and renowned homelands of Asia Minor with their capital Constantinople.' The United States, after their intervention in the war, claimed that no agreement, past or future, should be regarded as valid without their consent, and Britain and France, needing the support of President Wilson for the realisation of certain war aims to which they attached particular importance, wished to go to the Peace Conference as free of entanglements as possible. The British Government, therefore, declared that the 1916 and 1917 agreements regarding Anatolia had lapsed, that of St Jean de Maurienne because Russia's consent had not been forthcoming (Russia having practically ceased to exist as a great Power). This left the field open for the realisation of Greek aspirations.

benevolent neutral.

The exit of Russia from the ranks of the Entente had coincided with the entry of Greece, hitherto a nonGreek military assistance had proved useful during the Macedonian campaign, although its value was out of all proportion to the rewards now demanded. In his report to the Peace Conference M. Venizelos laid claim to the whole of Thrace, Constantinople, South Albania, the Dodecannese, and a large slice of Western Anatolia, including the great port of Smyrna. These territories all contained Greek minorities, and a

clever, unscrupulous Greek propaganda, conducted regardless of expense, tried to make out that the Greeks were everywhere in a majority; where faked statistics failed, recourse was had to ancient traditions, legends, and even inscriptions 2000 years old. There is reason to believe, however, that M. Venizelos himself had some intuition of the danger to which he was exposing his country by advancing these preposterous claims, but the insatiable appetites of the Greek chauvinists and the complacent generosity of Messrs Lloyd George, Clemenceau, and Wilson overcame the dictates of prudence. Another factor which inclined Britain and France to a favourable consideration of Greek demands was the necessity, if they were to continue their policy of dominating and keeping order in the Near East, of utilising the Greek army. These vast schemes required large forces, but the Western peoples were tired of war, and no longer anxious to embark on further expensive military adventures. The Greek army, which had suffered trifling losses in the war, appeared a convenient instrument for policing the Near East, and might be utilised-at a price. M. Venizelos was not slow to take advantage of this situation, and while he waived his claim to Constantinople for the moment, he concentrated his attention on Smyrna and Thrace. Although the great majority of the population of the Smyrna area is undoubtedly Turkish, Greek propaganda succeeded in convincing most of the Allied statesmen, especially President Wilson, that it was Greek. At the same time certain forged documents were produced purporting to prove that the Turkish authorities and population were planning a general massacre of Christians,* and made a great impression on the Conference. As a matter of fact, Moslems and Christians have lived together more peacefully in Western Anatolia than in any other part of the Near East, and, according to the Inter-Allied Commission of Inquiry into the events in Smyrna, conditions in that area had been exceptionally peaceful in the period following the armistice. The officers and diplomats of the great Powers in Turkey were almost all opposed to the cession of any part of Turkey to Greece, especially those who

These forgeries were exposed by the Inter-Allied Commission.