remarked that as the Turkish delegation had acquiesced in the demand for the maintenance of the Greek population at Constantinople, the proposals made would tend to react unfavourably on Turkish interests, since they would condemn several hundred thousand Turks to acute distress and expulsion from Greek territory. The pity, generosity and tolerance of the Turks always recoiled upon them to their disadvantage. The surprise of the Turkish delegation had been still greater when M. Veniselos took the liberty to speak of the Armenians. He had doubtless lost sight of the fact that the Greek occupation of Asia Minor had been a new cause of suffering and misfortune for the poor Armenians. That unhappy people had been forcibly conscripted and incorporated in the ranks of the Greek army. The leading Armenians in Europe had eagerly besought the Greek Government not to compromise their compatriots in this way. No attention was paid to these warnings. The Armenians were sent to the front and forced to fire on the Turks. After the rout endless devastation was done, and the Greek authorities started a propaganda of falsehood with a view to putting the blame for these crimes on the Armenians. Finally, the Greeks dragged the Armenians away with them when they left Asia. It was therefore obvious that the last Government in the world which should dare to express in public its pity for the fate of the Armenians was the very Government which had been the direct cause of their misfortunes. The intervention of M. Veniselos in this matter surpassed Ismet Pasha's comprehension. The Turkish delegation desired that the question should be approached from a much broader point of view; they wished it to be known that there were over a million Turks without food or shelter in countries in which neither Europe nor America took nor was willing to take any interest. Truly humane feeling required that the situation and the existing distress should be viewed together as a single whole. In reply to the remarks of M. Spalaikovitch, Ismet Pasha said that he had only referred to the Serbia of former times in his statement in order to demonstrate the part played by foreign Powers in the Balkans and the pernicious results of foreign intervention. The Turks had nothing but respect and esteem for national sentiment, and Ismet Pasha was inclined to regard it as one of the essential factors in the life of peoples. The minorities still remaining in Turkey could live there on the same footing as the Turks. But it was inadmissible and inconceivable that each minority should claim to dismember Turkey in order to have a separate territory granted to itself. The purpose of the observations which he had just made was only to reply to the statements of the Greek and Serb-Croat-Slovene delegations. He reserved for the next meeting his detailed reply to those of Lord Curzon. LORD CURZON understood Ismet Pasha to say that he had prepared his previous speech before he had had an opportunity of reading or studying the proposals put before the conference by himself. It had been a source of great gratification to him to see that the fairness and sincerity of his proposals had been recognised by every other speaker, not only by the French and Italian delegates, but also by those of the United States of America, Greece and the Serb-CroatSlovene State. He hoped that Ismet Pasha would do the conference the favour of making a serious study of these proposals in the course of that evening, and deliver his considered reply at 11 o'clock on the following morning. (The commission rose at 7:20 P.M.) ANNEX TO No. 16. Statement read by Ismet Pasha. AN equitable solution of the question of the minorities in Turkey could not be found without a short recapitulation being made, in the first place, of the history of the Ottoman Empire from the point of view of the treatment which has been given to elements differing from the ruling nation in religion and culture. This objective examination will clearly reveal the very old-established policy followed in regard to minorities; it will demonstrate the circumstances in which they have prospered and the conditions in which their rights and even their very existence were menaced. It is obvious that an elimination of the factors which have created obstacles in the free enjoyment of their rights and the encouragement and devolopment of those factors which have made their prosperity is the best solution that can be envisaged. In the history of the Ottoman Empire the question of the minorities dates especially from the day of the capture of Constantinople by the Turks. Historians are unanimous in stating that Mahomet the Conqueror granted the greatest religious and administrative liberty to the non-Mussulman communities in the conquered towns. "After the capture of Constantinople," writes a French publicist, "the free exercise of their worship was guaranteed to the adherents of the various religions." By order of the Sultan a new Patriarch was elected, George Scholarius, to whom Mahomet II said when crowning him with the tiara: "Be Patriarch and may heaven protect thee! In any event rely on my friendship and enjoy all the privileges which your predecessors possessed." Mahomet had nominated as Armenian Patriarch Der Ovaghim with the most extensive power over all his co-religionists. Mr. Philip Marshall Brown, professor of international law at the University of Princeton, referring to the liberal policy of Mahomet II in his work, entitled, " Foreigners in Turkey, their legal status," writes as follows: "His idea was extremely simple. He aimed at allowing the Greeks, so far as it was practically possible, the free enjoyment of their own customs and laws under the responsible control of their own Patriarch, who should serve as intermediary or Ambassador in relation to the sublime Porte. 66 * Ed. Noguères, "Arménie," p. 86. Within the three days which followed his triumphal entry into the capital, Mahomet invited the fanatical monk Scholarius to occupy the Patriarchal throne. The Sultan himself was present in state at the investiture of the new Patriarch, on whom he conferred in his capacity of spiritual successor of the Greek emperors the obsolete title of Millet Bachi (Head of the Nation). At the same time he granted to the Patriarch and his successors an almost unlimited jurisdiction over Greek nationals. Unfortunately Mahomet's original berat confirming these extraordinary privileges has disappeared. Several successive Sultans, however, implicitly reaffirmed it, and, save for certain curtailments which were inevitable in the course of four centuries and more, these exceptional powers continue to be exercised by the Greek Patriarch, as also by the heads of other religious communities who received the same concessions later . . . The essential fact is that the Turks in the midst of a great triumph spontaneously and generously recognised the right of the conquered to govern themselves, after their own laws and customs, in matters held sacred by the Mussulmans as well as in matters which were not of vital importance to the State. It is therefore evident that this tolerant policy was not at all in antagonism with the spirit or the letter of Islam. fact it was in complete harmony with Mussulman jurisprudence and strikingly refutes the universal reputation for intolerance so unjustly attributed to the Turks." In It is this striking tolerance which caused Voltaire to say: "Let us leave our small sphere and examine the rest of the globe. The Grand Turk peacefully governs twenty peoples of different religions; 200,000 Greeks dwell in security at Constantinople. . . Turkish annals make no mention of any revolt raised by any of these religions. Go to Judea, Persia, Tartary and you will there see the same tolerance and the same tranquillity. . . . Under Selim and under the other Sultans, especially Suleyman, the Turks have taught Christians moderation in war and mildness in victory.' The witness of history therefore shows incontestably that the rights of minorities, which it is sought to assure in the 20th Century under the guarantee of the League of Nations, were spontaneously accorded to the non-Mussulman elements of the Ottoman Empire. In spite, however, of the preservation of the rights of minorities, the cordial relations between the Mussulmans on the one hand and the different non-Mussulman communities on the other have undergone successive changes, especially since the beginning of the 18th Century; the good understanding which had existed up to then began to give place to a mutual distrust and the unhappy events which resulted from it caused much suffering to the majority as well as to the minorities. These occurrences had their origin in the first place in foreign * Michelet, "Histoire de France," chapter "Soleiman sauve la France instigations which aimed at working for the downfall of a great empire which the incessant attacks of malevolent neighbours had already appreciably weakened. It is known that Peter the Great had long resolved upon the programme which his successors were to act upon in regard to Turkey. "Approach," he said "as close as possible to Constantinople and India; he who reigns there will be the real sovereign of the world. Therefore stir up continuous wars now against the Turks, now against Persia, establish dockyards on the Black Sea in order gradually to obtain the mastery of that sea. Interest the house of Austria in expelling the Turk from Europe and neutralise their jealousy at the time of the conquest of Constantinople either by provoking a war for them with the old European States or by giving them a part of the conquest which will be taken from them later." Intervention in the name of the Christian religion furnished Tsarist Russia with one of the best pretexts for "stirring up continuous wars against the Turk." This pretext, which was destined to play one of the most important rôles in the future relations of the two empires, found its basis in the Treaty of Kutchuk Kaïnardja, concluded in 1774 between Abdul Hamid I and Catherine II. The right of protection over the vassal principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, which Russia obtained in virtue of this treaty, provided her henceforward with a plea for claiming to assume the rôle of protector of all the Orthodox Greek populations in the Ottoman Empire. "Community of race with the majority of Christians in the Balkans. community of religion with all, the right recognised by treaty, gave to Russia a moral prestige, a position of official protection which she long used in her ambitious designs on the Straits." The very liberality of the Ottoman Empire towards its nonMussulman subjects was thus turned against it. "The Christians, enemies of the Ottoman State, remained organised in national communities ready for revolt; they were officially protected by a great European State hostile to the Empire which was not restrained by international law."*"The interpretation which the Tsar (Alexander) gave to the Treaty of Kainardja encouraged him to push his claims further and to pose as mediator between the Ottomans and the entire mass of their Christian subjects. He had, he believed, a mission to protect these latter and in case of need to deliver them."+ All the insurrections which took place in the Balkans at different times in the 19th century were kindled by Tsarist Russia. Without going back to the first attempts made by the Russians to incite insurrections in Turkey, and without now dwelling on the activities of Orloff, the favourite of Catherine II, aimed at urging the Greeks of the Morea to revolt, activities which cost so many innocent lives among the Mussulman and Christian populations, * Ch. Seignobos, "Histoire politique de l'Europe contemporaine," p. 589. Lavisse and Rambaud, "L'Histoire générale," vol. X, p. 167. notably in the massacre of Misistra* and the reprisals which it provoked, it would serve to begin with the Greek insurrection of 1821. were It is a notorious fact that the leaders of the Hellenic propaganda and also the secret society known as "Hetairia ton philicon particularly befriended by Russia. This society had for its object the establishment of "armed union not only between all Greeks, but all Christians in the Ottoman Empire to secure the triumph of the Cross over the Crescent."t "The Phanariot princes were loaded with his (Alexander I) favours. The old Hospodar of Wallachia, Constantin Ypsilanti, had taken refuge in Russia. Two of his sons, Alexander and Demetrius, who were to give the signal for the Greek revolution in 1821, were his aides de camp. Capo d'Istria, a native of Corfu, devoted like them to the emancipation of his country, was at the time his favourite Minister. "The Tsar had not prevented this statesman accepting the presidency of the Philomuses Society,'‡ a society which, as opposed to the Hetaerea, concealed its political designs under a purely literary programme."§ "Moreover, he had permitted the Hetaerea to establish its headquarters in Russian territory, and it was from Odessa that, under the friendly eye of his police, the Greek Skouphos, the founder of this association, sent his orders to his first assistants."|| "Alexander feigned to ignore the existence of this association, which had representatives even among his entourage. But he knew all about it and favoured it to such an extent that, at the end of 1816, Skouphos had been able, unperturbed, to move the seat of his operations to Moscow." To bring into bold relief the complicity of the Russian Empire in the Greek revolution, we could not do better than quote the following passage of M. Débidour :: "It could not be doubted that the Tsar and his Minister, Capo d'Istria, were the prime movers of the insurrection which occurred at this very moment throughout the whole Balkan Peninsula. It was remembered that Russia had kept up for five years an open quarrel with the Porte in regard to certain doubtful or contested stipulations in the Treaty of Bucharest. It was not overlooked that the Greek Hetaerea had in the last few years formidably developed in Russia; this fact was compared with the journey which Capo d'Istria had made to the Ionian Islands in 1819 and the troubles "In the Morea, the Mavromichalis and Bemakis advised the Russians to take Coron in order to assure a stronghold for the insurrection. The parties concerned did not even await this first operation. All the Greek States took fire at once. Psaros organised the Spartan legions. Reinforced by some hundreds of Russians under the orders of Barkof, they marched on Misistra (Sparta). Everywhere the terrified Turks fled crying, They are not Greeks, but Muscovites.' When the Russians could not restrain their fierce allies of Maïna, excesses were committed; at Misistra, the town was pillaged, some inhabitants massacred and children thrown down from the top of minarets..." (Lavisse and Rambaud, vol. VII, p. 493. Lavisse and Rambaud, vol. X, p. 166. H |