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Updated: May 18, 2025
"I say that we give patient aid to groups of persons who do not believe in our ideas, who are even opposed to us on some points. In this way, the Soviet Government supports Kemal in Turkey. Never for one moment do we forget that the movement headed by Kemal is not a communist movement. We know it.
With 200,000 soldiers holding down the Arabs, and plenty of trouble elsewhere, neither France nor Britain had the troops to crush Mustapha Kemal a job which the French staff estimated would take 300,000 men. One weapon, however, they still possessed Greece. In return for large territorial concessions, Premier Venizelos offered to bring the Turks to reason.
As for Mustapha Kemal, his comment on the Sèvres Treaty was: "I will fight to the end of the world." The Allies were thus in a decidedly embarrassing situation, especially since "The Allies" now meant only England and France. Italy was out of the game. As Nitti had warned at San Remo, she would "not send a single soldier nor pay a single lira."
Everywhere it has been the same story. In Asia Minor, Mustapha Kemal has arrested Bolshevist propaganda agents, while Turkish and Russian troops have more than once clashed on the disputed Caucasus frontiers.
Had it done so, I believe the Powers would have been obliged to recognize the Albanian question, and much future war might have been spared. But, unfortunately, the South believed in Ismail Kemal, and he worked on which ever side paid him.
I have here extracts from the verbatim reports of the first session of the Turkish people's Government at Angora. Kemal himself says that 'the Caliph's person is sacred and inviolable. The movement headed by Kemal wants to rescue the Caliph's 'sacred' person from the hands of the foe. That is the Turkish Nationalist's point of view. But is it a communist point of view? No.
Wrangel's war material, his guns and machine-guns and ammunition, were given mostly to the Georgians, who promptly lost it to the Bolsheviks or sold it to Kemal. The Greeks certainly complain that the Kemalist army, after being almost devoid of artillery, suddenly became possessed of it in a mysterious way, and shelled them with French shells.
Among the Tartar-Turkomans, long leavened by Pan-Turanian propaganda, Mustapha Kemal found enthusiastic adherents; and his efforts were supported by a third ally Bolshevik Russia. Bolshevik policy, which, as we have already stated, was seeking to stir up trouble against the Western Powers throughout the East, had watched Kemal's rise with great satisfaction.
For every sensible man knew that the whole business was a roaring farce; knew that the "friendly" government, from Sultan to meanest clerk, was as nationalist as Mustapha Kemal himself; knew that the real Turkish capital was not Constantinople but Angora, and that the Allies' power was measured by the range of their guns.
In negotiating with Mustapha Kemal, France undoubtedly hopes to get him to throw over the Arabs. But this is scarcely thinkable. The whole trend of events betokens an increasing solidarity of the Near Eastern peoples against Western political control. A most remarkable portent in this direction is the Pan-Islamic conference held at Sivas early in 1921.
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