GERMANY AND TURKEY

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 247, 6 July 1918, Page 10

GERMANY AND TURKEY

——~$ NOT EXACTLY A UNION OF HEARTS ARE THEIR RELATIONS i STRAINED? When in tho eariy days of tho war Germany found herself i'n military n.lHanco with Turkey, German writers naturally proceeded to prove lh.it "the had bov oi Huroue"' wr.s ivallv a noble but sadly misunderstood nation. It was a case of the spider and the fly and Germany did not spare flattery to" snaro Turkey in her net. Behind the flattery, however, there might be read a note of rather anxious justification. The alliance with Turkey had to be explained and excused to the German uenple. Tho explanation, as long as it did not reach Turkey, was acceptable, for it meant nothing short of the bare-faced exploration of Turkey in tho interests of Germany. ' Every form of commercial adrantage was there for the taking. Largo plans for colonising Turkey with Germans were advocated. Tho Turkish sword was to bo sharpened for the defence of German interests. The BerlinBagdad scheme was to make Turkey the portal for German penetration of Asia, ri! short, Turkey was to be absorbed aa a State of the German Empire. The only fault in this scheme appears to have been that it did not reckon with Turkey, and recent events appear to show that Turkey has begun to realise that it stands in danger of' being swallowed up forever in the Prussian alliance, and is making practical protest against such a fate. Suad Selim Bey, the Turkish Minister at Berne, had;the courage to tell Germany in a statement published in January of this year that Turks demanded ] "the recognition of our right to be our own masters at home, politically and in ' the economic sphere. For some timo past Turkey has been trviug to assert , that right manifestly in the face of German disapproval. In 191G German pro- ' paganda in Turkey suffered a blow by ' the passage of an ordinance making the J use of the Turkish language compulsory, : not only in all public undertakings, but abo for the bookkeeping of private firms. ' This was followed by a law under which ' no foreigner could enter the country ' without making a declaration and get- ' ting a special permit, and no head of a ' business could engage a foreigner except ' by special arrangement. As no foreigners except Germans and Austrians wero ' going into Turkey, the law was ob- 1 viously aimed at Germany. Pains were ' in fact taken to explain to Germany * that she was not to look upon Turkey ' as a free field for German capitalists. ) The official Turkish "Tanin" declared in > May, 1917, that foreign capital had mere- 1 ]y worked in Turkey for its own ends. ' "We require," it continued, "that for- 1 eign capital shall not take advantage of 1 tho need in which we are placed to make ' usurious demands upon us. Alter peace ( we will decide which enterprises could 1 best be developed with indigenous capital t and which be left to foreign capital." ; . 1 Although Germany has been fiuancing i Turkey's war expenditure, it seems that : even on this point a certain amount of i dissatisfaction exists among Turks. In s an article on the change in German- t Turkish relations, W. W. Torn points t out that almost the whole of the German 1 loans have been made in paper, and that 1 ! "to borrow paper is the 6ame thing as i to borrow nothing." German bonds, he f says, are not popular* in 'Turkey. It is 1 significant that neither Germany nor t Austria has yet succeeded in getting a t commercial treaty out of Turkey, and t that the Austrian papers have lately i been complaining bitterly about the new < Turkish Customs tariff, which "lays a 1 heavy burden on our principal exports lo Turkey." The German Press, for its part, has also been complaining about the general situation. The "Deutsche Tageszeitung" in December, 1917, pointed out that Germans who do business in of with Turkey must accustom themselves to the fact that Turkey belongs to the Turks; she can no longer be regarded as a colony. According to the Constantinople correspondent to a leading German paper, the "undemanding botween . Germans and Turks is only of a moder- • ately cordial character; and though it • is certainly only a minority who complain of Germany," ttill "in the East a distrust which is difficult to banish prevents most people from expressing themselves." ,„ . , ■ There is probably reason for I"rkcys desire not to compromise herself too deeply with Germany. German-.liirkisn marine traffic is trifling compared to the English. German-Turkish exchange ot goods makes 110 impression on Turkish economics, as there is no one article for which Turkey depends on Germany. Imports from' turkey comprise nothing indispensable to Germany,'thus the investment of German capital in Turkey conflicts with »U economic laws. But on the military as well as on the economic side there is cause for Turkey's uneasiness. Germany apparently gave tho Turks a definite promise that she would turn the British out of Mesopotamia, and that promise has not been fulfilled, The reason of the German-Turkish alliance, as has been repeatedly announced in both countries, was to conquer Egypt. But things have- not turned out as' they were intended to, and Turkish war aims have had to shrink to the much more modest end of maintaining "the integrity of the Ottoman Empire." The Turks, therefore, see nothing for themselves to gain out of the war. Opinion* in Germany is evidently divided on' the subject, though the resplendent brotherhood in arms of Germany and Turkey is recognised as a foolish dream of the past. Some opr.ily blame Turkey, and doubt if she is worth helping. Turkey, on the other hand, begins to doubt if she wants Germany to win. The matter came up in the Turkish Parliament at the end of last year, when a demand was made for peace, "in spite of everything and at any price." All that Turkey seems to care about now is that Mesopotamia and Palestine should be restored to her. She has trusted .Germany to help her to secure that end, but by now even Turkey must see that Germany has her hands too full in the West to attend lo the grievances of a tool she has' used and cast aside.