Turkey

Mr. President and Gentlemen,

I thank you all indeed for your kind sympathy in inviting me to address you. I want to tell you in a few words the difference between your country and ours. That difference is this: In your country the Christians eat turkey, in our country the Turks eat the Christians. (Laughter) I know Turkey because I was born there. By birth I am a Turk, by education I am an American, as I have studied in the American Mission Schools before I came to finish my education at Columbia University.

And now, in order that you may follow me intelligently; I desire to explain in a few words just exactly what the Balkan States are and where they are situated. These little Balkan States which are now making war upon Turkey are situated in the Balkan Peninsula between the Danube on the north and the Xgean Sea on the south. The land of the Balkan Peninsula is fertile, the climate is perfect, the country is the most beautiful on God's green earth. Yet the nations are sad and are filled with tears and have been so for more than 600 years; the Greeks in the south, Montenegro in the west, the Servians in the north-west, and Bulgaria in the east. At the beginning of the fourteenth century the Turks came from the Central part of Asia and swept into Europe, driving before them every race and every nation until they conquered the whole south-east and eastern part of Europe and ruled it for the past six centuries. The Turks once ruled over the land which now we call Hungary, Greece, Bulgaria, Servia, Montenegro.

Now, Turkey is not so bad as the average person thinks. The Turks have been separated from the whole civilized world for the last 600 years. There were no schools, no colleges, no education of any worth, and this kept the lower classes of the Turks behind the other civilized nations of Europe. And more than that, the policy of the European powers was to keep Turkey exactly where it is. They never gave the Turk a chance to grow and nearly crushed him to death. I know you are all British here and I am sure you are proud of it. I am a Turk and I want to bring before you some facts which you will never blame me for. I want to say that this was the policy of the European powers and especially England, since it is of great importance to her to have a weak nation on the Mediterranean shore. First, because the European powers or England realized that, if Turkey was a strong power standing on the Mediterranean shore, it meant death to European commerce in the Orient. And, on the other hand, if Turkey was divided Constantinople would go to Russia and Russia with Constantinople in her hand will go ahead, build a magnificent fleet, make the Mediterranean a Russian lake and threaten Egypt, Cyprus, the Suez Canal, Persia, the Persian Gulf and, above all, India. And because of those two reasons the English statesmen-and I praise them for that, because that is the best thing for the British policy-have been trying to keep the Turk exactly where he is. Disraeli and other statesmen would never permit Turkey to be divided up, and if it had not been for England, Turkey would have been divided long ago. I have to thank you and say that we owe our existence nowadays to the British Empire and to the British statesmen.

Now, let me speak of the present war. This war is one of the most terrible wars that the Turks have ever faced, and it is the first war, for centuries, in which the Mohammedans have been defeated by the Christians. Did you ever think of that? For Goo years the Mohammedans have never had a defeat like this defeat by a Christian nation. In the Crimean war they were defeated for ,a time by Russia; then all the other European powers came and helped Turkey to defeat Russia. I am glad, because this war will open the eyes of the Turks and show them that for 550 years they have been on the wrong track. This war will show the Turks that though they once ruled this land yet because of their ignorance and fanatical ideas they have lost all this beautiful land in Europe. Now, that the time has come when they will have to go back to Asia, they are beginning to realize that. You have seen how the Turks tried to keep Adrianople because Adrianople was the first capital for the Turks before they took Constantinople; and they were unable to take Constantinople until they captured Adrianople. They realize nowadays that Adrianople is the first step towards Constantinople, and that when Adrianople is taken, Constantinople every moment is in great danger. And that is a very serious position for the Turks nowadays.

Now, let me tell you the causes of this war. There are hundreds of causes for this war but I will mention, as my time is short, four. The first cause of this war is the disregard of the Treaty of Berlin by the European powers. For 600 years those Christians in the Balkan States have been suffering under the Turkish rule. Their wives and daughters have been attacked, their villages destroyed every now and then, and their children taken as slaves. And they have been appealing to Christian Europe to save them and Europe, because of its selfish ambitions, could not settle their problem. At last the conditions reached so very bad a degree that they called for the interference of the European powers, and all the European powers came into a conference that was held in the City of Berlin in the year 1876. The result of the conference was the Treaty which is known as the Treaty of Berlin. In that Treaty the European powers agreed to keep and maintain the individual existence of all the Balkan States under the protection of Turkey. But that Treaty was not kept at all. A few years ago Austria, with the consent of Germany, tore up the Treaty of Berlin by annexing two of those Balkan States, namely, Bosnia and Herzegovina. There were six states in number but because of that seizure you hear nowadays of only four states. And when the other little four Balkan States saw that that Treaty which guaranteed their individual existence was not going to be regarded any more, they became frightened and thought that Russia might do tomorrow what Austria had done or that Austria might help herself at another time to more of their territory. They were under the protection of Turkey; but poor Turkey, because of its ignorance, was persecuting them instead of protecting them. The only thing then to be done was to unite, and so these little powers united together and started preparing for this war. They intended to wait until the spring of 1914, but Italy having declared war upon Turkey, it gave them their chance to declare their own war.

The second cause of this war is the promises that Turkey was giving but never redeeming. For six centuries the policy of the Turkish government was to give its Christian subjects all kinds of promises but never to redeem any of them. Suppose one of those promises which the government gave to the Christians is violated by a Mohammedan. Then the Christian has to carry his case to a Mohammedan court where the judge is a Turk and where a Christian cannot be justified. So those promises were absolutely of no value.

The third cause of this war is the difference in religion. I do not mean to say that this war is a religious war. Not at all! But I mean to say that religion is playing a very important part in this war. This war differs from all kinds of wars in modern history; it is not a nation against another nation; it is not one country against another country. It is one class of people under a government trying to fight that government and to get rid of it. And that which makes it worse is that these people are Christians while the government itself is a Mohammedan government. If it were not for this difference in religion, these people in the Balkan States would never fight Turkey and would never ask for their liberty, even if they were suffering under Turkish rule. Because, believe me, there are millions and millions of Mohammedans in the central parts of Asia who are suffering ten times as much as the people in the Balkan States. They never complain, simply because they prefer to suffer under Mohammedan rule. It is from this point of view that religion enters into this war. Go to the Bulgarian government or to the Turkish Cabinet and ask them, and they will tell you that this war is a political, economic war. But go to the people who are in war against each other; go to the thousands of the Bulgarian army and ask them about this war and you will find that the Bulgarian is fighting with such a religious zeal not the Turk as a Turk, but the Turk as a Mohammedan who has persecuted him and massacred his people for the last six centuries; or go to the other side and ask the poor Turks about this war and they will tell you the same. You will find that they are fighting, in the name of their religion and their prophet, the Bulgarian not as a Bulgarian but as a Christian.

My brethren, I am not going into details about the Bulgarian, but I want to tell you a few words about the Turkish army. It would be difficult for you to believe that 80 percent of the Turkish army does not know with whom they are fighting; does not know what they are fighting for. They were forced by arms to leave their farms and villages and houses and wives and children and go and fight. When they asked with whom they were to fight they were told: "You are to fight the enemies of your religion, you are to fight the unbelievers." And so these people went to fight without having any true idea as to what the war is about. A letter I received gave me a clear idea that thousands of these people in Asia and other places never heard about the Turkish defeats at all. They do hear about the Turkish victories, and many of them are under a strong impression that Turkey has been victorious in this war and that the people in the Balkan States have been defeated. These poor soldiers, all of them, or at least 80 percent of them, are anxious to leave the battle-field and go back to their wives and to their children and farms which have been neglected since they left.

I will mention the fourth cause of this war. It is education. Turkey is unprogressive, while those people in the Balkan States are starting to be progressive. What is the real cause of that? It is education. When the American missions were sent in from the United States, they went to Turkey and opened schools in every town and in every village in the Turkish Empire. To begin with, the Turks refused to send their young men and young women to these schools. But these people in the Balkan States, who were Christians by name only, who do not know anything about Christianity except something which the priests used to teach them, these people started sending their young men and women to these schools. These young men went to these schools and studied to become men of character and principle and ideals. After studying Christianity from its practical side rather than from its theoretical side, after understanding what the world is and what religion is and what civilization is, these young men went back to their countries, to Belgrade, Sophia, and other' cities and taught their own people equality, liberty, fraternity, brotherhood, and Christianity. (Applause)

And this is one of the real and strongest causes of this war. It was religious education that was undermining all the superstitions of these people and preparing them to be a nation; for the minute these people became educated, they started to realize that a nation cannot live as a slave to the other nations in the twentieth century. They started preparing to fight for their liberty. Although I am a Turkish citizen, I am in great sympathy with these people simply because that I believe they are fighting for their liberty, and because I believe that a nation that fights for its liberty is a nation that is worthy of it. (Applause)

Before I leave this topic I want to mention a few causes why the Turkish army was defeated. I want to mention to you that I give a lecture illustrated with 150 beautiful coloured slides, but without my pictures I am like a soldier without his sword; I have time, however, to say something as to why the army was defeated. There are many causes and I am going to mention some.

First, western civilization. In the past the Turkish soldier used to believe in fate. He used to go to the battle-field and say: "Here, if it is written for me to die this day there is no cause on earth or heaven why I should not die. If it is not written for me to die I will not die even if I go and fight amongst the enemy." And so they used to go forward and rush and fight like men without caring whether they died or lived. That is in the past. Now, western civilization has come and changed the ideas of these people and the Turkish soldier is starting to use his common sense. He now says, "If I go forward I will be killed." (Laughter)

The second cause of this defeat is the new method of drilling the Turkish army. These people never had any method of drilling at all. Every man used to fight in a natural way, as simply as it can be. But the Turkish government became afraid of Russia. Russia was coming down from the north and Turkey knows the great army of Russia. She looked to Europe, and she found the Germans to be the best teachers, and so she called a German General to drill her army. And now, let us see what was the result of that with these poor Turks. The result was this. The thousands of poor ignorant men in the army were unable to understand the German methods and German tactics, and they forgot their old way of fighting and so were defeated.

Of course there are other causes. The country was coming out of a war with Italy; a section of the country was not prepared for war at all; and there was a serious division in the Turkish Cabinet amongst the Turks themselves. There are two parties in the Turkish Empire; one is called the Liberal Party and the other the Young Turks. These Young Turks are young men educated specially in Germany and France. You ask me why these Young Turks are educated in Germany. I will give you the reason. If you had been in Turkey ten years ago, everything was English. If you wanted to buy a handkerchief or collar or shoe or any article in the streets of Constantinople or any other place, it was English; it came from English factories: Nowadays, to your great surprise, anything you want to buy is German; it comes from German factories. On everything you will find on the back a memorandum stating, "Made in Germany." Why is this? While the Turks were being drilled by Germans, there was not a chance for any one to be promoted and take high office unless he knew German. This forced the young Turks to go into German schools and study in German military schools, and so it came about that all of them know German. This has opened the whole of Turkey for Germany, and for German merchants, etc. The great idea of the Emperor of Germany, his dream of the future is this: The German Emperor has seen for years thousands and tens of thousands of German people going to the United States and becoming Americans, to Canada and becoming Canadians, and he wants a place where the Germans can go and remain Germans loyal to the Mother country. His ideal was Asia Minor-a beautiful and rich land which will yields three crops a year. He demanded the concession of constructing a railroad from Alexandria on the Mediterranean shore through the central parts of Asia Minor to the Persian Gulf. Of course England and France and Russia did their best to prevent that concession being given to the Germans but they did not succeed. The Germans are building this railroad, and what does it mean in the future? Look at the policy of the Germans. Their policy is to weaken the Turk financially, because that will give them further influence in Mesopotamia in Asia Minor, where thousands of Germans are emigrating in great numbers every day. Anybody who wants to be employed there on the railway or to get a high salary must know German. I know many young Turks who went to Germany one year specially to study German and to get nice offices on this railroad. It is a very interesting subject if I had time to tell you about it was speaking about the parties, the Young Turks and the Liberals. The Liberals, all of them, are old men. The youngest one among them is older than the oldest one among you. These people are from the time when Turkey was in the control of Disraeli, when Turkey was under the control of British statesmen. They are still loyal to England. But the Young Turks--I was one of the Party, a member of the Committee have a thousand members, and all of them are young men like myself, and they are all of them Germans in spirit because all of them are German by education. They like the German methods, etc., and they are under the control of the Germans because every one has a friend in the German Cabinet or German army. Indeed, with the rise and fall of those two parties, England and Germany rule supreme in the heart and the capital of the Sultan. The Young Turks have good intentions; every one of them wants to do good by his country. But the trouble is that they went to Prance and studied theoretical things; they studied the philosophy of Rousseau and Robespierre and their minds are filled with beautiful theories. They controlled the government but they were unable to put these theories into practice. They want to do well, but they don't know how and they don't want to leave any other body to do it. (Laughter)

I want to mention that the whole trouble in this thing are these priests. These priests want the people to follow them blindly. They want to rule the people despotically, and they understand that, if the people are educated and enlightened, they cannot rule them. They cannot keep the people down except by standing between them and the Christians, because the Christians through the efforts of the Missions have become enlightened. The Mohammedans are not. Last autumn when thousands were suffering every day from cholera, smallpox, etc., the priests went to their Mosque and said to the people: "All these troubles your prophets sent to you because you permitted the unbeliever or Christians to live among you." Then they start these massacres, and the poor people, believe me, do not know what they are doing at all, but if they were educated and understood what they were doing, they would never do it. If you hear about massacres up there, it is the result of ignorance and narrow-mindedness only. Indeed if it was not for the presence of European battleships in the Golden Horn, not a Christian would remain alive. That is a fact. There is this sentence in the Mohammedan: "The true believer; you meet the unbeliever, kill him." You come to the common Mohammedan and ask him who is the unbeliever and he will tell you it is the Christian. Lord Cromer in his book on Modern Egypt said, while he was discussing this same sentence, "I am sure the Prophet Mohammed, when he wrote this sentence, did not mean by the unbeliever the Christians; he meant the heathen who were still living around the borders of the desert at that time." The priests of the present when they came to interpret the Holy Book,-it is written in a most difficult language--when they came to interpret this sentence looked around but did not find the heathen, nothing except the Christians. The Young Mohammedan is under the strongest impression that the Christian is a heathen man, that he does not believe in God. They know only what their fathers and parents have told them, and their parents are ignorant.

Now, as to the harem. I speak about the low class of people who are strictly Mohammedan, and I will give you their idea. The Mohammedan religion permits every man to have as many wives as he can afford to keep. Their religion teaches them, that if they can afford to keep but one wife, to take but one; if they can afford to keep more, well go and do it. (Laughter) And the cost of living is so cheap that every man can afford to keep at least half a dozen of them. The ex-Sultan of Turkey used to have one thousand wives; I am saying that, relying on the statement which is in the Encyclopedia Britannica. That is the best authority we can find, and if you open at the word "harem" you will find the ex-Sultan used to have more than a thousand wives. I will not go into details, but will speak now about the social life in Turkey.

The Mohammedan social life is corrupt indeed, and we cannot blame them much for it. First of all, the Mohammedan young man who wants to get married is not permitted to see the face of his would-be wife. He must marry her on the recommendation of his mother or sister or somebody who saw her. And what is the result? The man will go and marry that woman for better or worse without seeing her, without studying her character, absolutely without seeing her. And then if that girl, after he marries her, does not suit, well it does not matter much, he will go and get another one. And then he will go on taking one after another until the right one comes. (Laughter) And when they get so many wives, it is a very bad thing because the family is separated. In Turkey among the Mohammedans there is not what we call the family life. The sultans, who have a number of wives, can afford them, and they give every wife an apartment, and these wives have everything money can buy, and their clothes come from Paris and Berlin. But leave these rich individuals and come to the poor class; they are so ignorant that they go and marry many wives. The man may have a house of six rooms yet go and marry six and seven wives; then he has to give every wife a room in that house. The wives quarrel and fight and there is no real- family life.

I have to thank you and I don't know how, so I will keep silent, and you will know what my silence means.