Already in August, 1916, certificates of Ottoman nationality had been granted to Serbians resident in the Empire who were willing to become Ottoman subjects, and their “willingness” was intensified by hints that incidents akin to the Armenian massacres might possibly occur among other alien people. They had to sign a declaration that they would not revert to their former nationality, and thus no doubt many Serbs passed into the Turkish army. Further enrolments were desirable, and in March, 1917, all Greeks living in Anatolia were forcibly proselytised, their property was confiscated, and they were made liable to military service. Unfortunately all were not available, for of those who were removed from the villages where they lived to military centres ten per cent, died on the forced marches from hunger and exposure. That was annoying for the German recruiting agents, but it suited well enough the Pan-Turkish ideal of exterminating foreign nationalities. When trouble or discontent occurred among the troops it was firmly dealt with, as, for instance, when in November, 1916, there were considerable desertions from the 49th Division. On that occasion the order was given to fire on them, and many were killed and wounded. The officer who gave the order was commended by the Prussian authorities for his firmness. Should such an incident occur again, it will no doubt be dealt with with no less firmness, for in April, 1917, Mackensen was put in supreme command of all troops in Asia Minor. Simultaneously in Berlin Prince Zia-ed-Din, the Turkish Sultan’s heir, presented a sword of honour to the Sultan William II. Probably he gave him good news of the progress of the German harbour works begun in the winter at Stamboul, and himself learned that the railway bridge which the Turks proposed to build over the Bosphorus was not to be proceeded with, for the German high command had superseded that scheme by their own idea of making a tunnel under the Bosphorus instead, which would be safer from aircraft.
Such up to date, though in brief outline, is the history of the progress of the Prussian octopus in Turkish military and naval matters. In October, 1914, just before Turkey came into the war, she had been mobilising for three months, while Enver Pasha continued successfully convincing our Ambassador in Constantinople of his sincere and unshakable friendship for England, and had 800,000 men under arms. Already, of course, German influence was strong in the army, which now was thoroughly trained in German methods, but that army might still be called a Turkish army. Nowadays by no stretch of language can it be called Turkish except in so far that all Turkish efficient manhood is enlisted in it, for there is no branch or department of it over which the Prussian octopus has not thrown its paralysing tentacles and affixed its immovable suckers. Army and navy alike, its wireless stations, its submarines, its aircraft, are all directly controlled from Berlin, and, as we have seen, the generalissimo of the forces is Mackensen, who is absolutely the Hindenburg of the East. But thorough as is the control of Berlin over Constantinople in military and naval matters, it is not one whit more thorough than her control in all other matters of national life. Never before has Germany been very successful in her colonisations; but if complete domination – the sucking of a country till it is a mere rind of itself, and yet at the same time full to bursting of Prussian ichor – may be taken as Germany’s equivalent of colonisation, then indeed we must be forced to recognise her success. And it was all done in the name and for the sake of the Pan-Turkish ideal! Even now Prussian Pecksniffs like Herr Ernst Marre, whose pamphlet, “Turks and Germans after the War,” was published in 1916, continue to insist that Germany is nobly devoting herself to the well-being of Turkey. “In doing this,” he exclaims in that illuminating document, “we are benefiting Turkey… This is a war of liberation for Turkey,” though omitting to say from whom Turkey is being liberated. Perhaps the Armenians. Occasionally, it is true, he forgets that, and naively remarks, “Turkey is a very difficult country to govern. But after the war Turkey will be very important as a transit country.” But then he remembers again and says, “We wish to give besides taking, and we should often like to give more than we can hope to give.” Let us look into this, and see the manner in which Germany expresses her yearning to impoverish herself for the sake of Turkey.
All this reorganisation of the Turkish army was of course a very expensive affair and required skilful financing, and it was necessary to get the whole of Turkey’s exchequer arrangements into German hands. A series of financial regulations was promulgated. The finance minister during 1916 was still Turkish, but the official immediately under him was German. He was authorised to deposit with the Controllers of the Ottoman National Debt German Imperial Bills of £T30,000,000 and to issue German paper money to the like amount. This arrangement ensures the circulation of the German notes, which are redeemable by Turkey in gold two years after the declaration of peace. Gold is declared to be the standard currency, and no creditor is obliged to accept in payment of a debt more than 300 piastres in silver or fifty in nickel. And since there is no gold in currency (for it has been all called in, and penalties of death have been authorised for hoarders) it follows that this and other issues of German paper will filter right through the Empire. At the same time a German expert, Dr. Kautz, was appointed to start banks throughout Turkey in order to free the peasants from the Turkish village usurer, and in consequence enslave them to the German banks. Similarly a German was put at the head of the Ottoman Agricultural Bank. These new branches worked very well, but it is pleasant to think that one such was started by the Deutsche Bank at Bagdad in October, 1916, which now has its shutters up. Before this, as we learn from the Oesterreichischer Volkswirt (June, 1916), Germany had issued other gold notes, in payment for gold from Turkey, which is retainable in Berlin till six months after the end of the war. (It is reasonable to wonder whether it will not be retained rather longer than that.) These gold notes were accepted willingly at first by the public, but the increase in their number (by the second issue) has caused them to be viewed with justifiable suspicion, and the depreciation in them continues. But the Turkish public has no redress except by hoarding gold, which is a penal offence. That these arrangements have not particularly helped Turkish credit may be gathered from the fact that the Turkish gold £I, nominally 100 piastres, is now worth 280 piastres.
Again, the Deutsche Orientbank has made many extensions, and is already financing cotton and wool trade for after the war. The establishment of this provoked much applause in German financial circles, who find it to be an instance of the “far-reaching and powerful Germano-Austrian unity, which replaces the disunion of Turkish finance.” This is profoundly true, especially if we omit the word “Austrian,” inserted for diplomatic reasons. Again we find Germany advancing £3,000,000 of German paper to the Turkish Government in January, 1917 for the payment of supplies they have received from Krupp’s works and (vaguely) for interest to the German financial minister. This too, we may conjecture, is to be redeemed after the war in gold.
In March of this year we find in the report of the Ottoman Bank a German loan of £1,000,000 for the purchase of agricultural implements by Turkey, and this is guaranteed by house-taxes. In all up to that month, as was announced in the Chamber of Deputies at Constantinople, Germany had advanced to Turkey the sum of £142,000,000, entirely, it would seem, in German paper, to be repaid at various dates in gold. The grip, in fact, is a strangle-hold, all for Turkey’s good, as no doubt will prove the “New Conventions” announced by Zimmermann in May, 1917, to take the place of the abolished Capitulations, “which left Turkey at the mercy of predatory Powers who looked for the disruption of the Ottoman Empire.” Herr Zimmermann does not look for that: he looks for its absorption. And sees it.
The industrial development of Turkey by this benevolent and disinterested Power has been equally thorough and far-reaching, though Germany here has had a certain amount of competition by Hungary to contend against, for Hungary considered that Germany was trespassing on her sphere of interest. But she has been able to make no appreciable headway against her more acute partner, and her application for a monopoly of sugar-production was not favourably received, for Germany already had taken the beet industry well in hand. In Asia Minor the acreage of cultivation early in 1917 had fallen more than 50 per cent, from that under crops before the war, but owing to the importation of machinery from the Central Powers, backed up by a compulsory Agricultural Service law, which has just been passed, it is hoped that the acreage will be increased this year by something like 30 per cent. The yield per acre also will be greatly increased this year, for Germany has, though needing artificial manure badly herself, sent large quantities into Turkey, where they will be more profitably employed. She has no fear about securing the produce. This augmented yield will, it is true, not be adequate to supply the needs of Turkey, who for the last two years has suffered from very acute food shortage, which in certain districts has amounted to famine and wholesale starvation of the poorer classes. But it is unlikely that their needs will be considered at all, for Germany’s needs (she the fairy godmother of the Pan-Turk ideal) must obviously have the first call on such provisions as are obtainable. Thus, though in February, 1917, there was a daily shortage in Smyrna of 700 sacks of flour, and the Arab and Greek population was starving, no flour at all was allowed to be imported into Smyrna. But simultaneously Germany was making huge purchases of fish, meat, and flour in Constantinople (paid for in German paper), including 100,000 sheep. Yet such was the villainous selfishness of the famine-stricken folk at Adrianople that when the trains containing these supplies were passing through a mob held them up and sold the contents to the inhabitants. That, however, was an isolated instance, and in any case a law was passed in October, 1916, appointing a military commission to control all supplies. It enacts that troops shall be supplied first, and specially ordains that the requirements of German troops come under this head. (Private firms have been expressly prohibited from purchasing these augmented wheat supplies, but special permission was given in 1915 to German and Austro-Hungarian societies to buy.) A few months later we find that there are a hundred deaths daily in Constantinople from starvation and 200 in Smyrna, where there is a complete shortage of oil. But oil is still being sent to Germany, and during 1916 five hundred reservoirs of oil were sent there, each containing up to 15,000 kilogrammes. But Kultur must be supplied first, else Kultur would grow lean, and the Turkish God of Love will look after the Smyrniotes. It is no wonder that he blockade of Germany does not produce the desired result a little quicker, for food is already pouring in from Turkey, and when the artificial manures have produced their early harvest the stream will become a torrent.