File 757/1909 'Persian Gulf:- Turkey and Turkish aggression (Occupation of Zakhnuniyeh Island. Attitude in piracy cases. Mudirs at Zubara, Odaid and Wakra) British Relations with Turkey in Persian Gulf' [‎179v] (363/495)

as regards the vindication of its “ national ” rights. It is not swayed by sentiment,
bnt has adopted the doctrine of “ Real-Politik,” and not unnaturally believes that Young
Turkey has to play a prominent, if not the principal, part in the Asiatic revival, and
work in sympathy with cognate forces in Persia, Egypt, and India.
In its internal form the committee appears to be a Judseo-Turkish dual alliance,
the Turks supplying a splendid military material and the Jews the brain, enterprise,
money (e.g., Djavid Bey’s recent loan in Paris),fand a strong press influence in Europe;
while, as shown by Sionist literature since the revolution, the Jewish world seems to
have now turned its eyes towards Mesopotamia as the land best suited to Jewish
colonisation and the ultimate formation of a Jewish autonomous State. The Jews, who
now seem to inspire and control the inside machinery of the State, and are bent on the
economic and industrial capture of Young Turkey, appear determined that no important
enterprise shall be started in Mesopotamia without their participation, if not control,
and it is perhaps significant that the attacks on Sir William Willcocks have been led
by a Jew in a Jewish organ here, and the opposition to the Lynch scheme in Turkish
circles was mainly the work of Sassoon Effendi, the Jewish deputy for Bagdad. The
Jews, in order to maintain their position of influence in Young Turkey circles, have to
play up to, if not encourage, Turkish “nationalist” tendencies, and the two elements
make a distinctly strong combination which has to be reckoned with, especially by
those interested in Mesopotamia. It must, moreover, not be forgotten that the present
form of constitutionalism in Turkey is not one which the masses have risen up and
demanded, but is rather a form which a freethinking oligarchy have imposed on the
> masses at the point of the bayonet. This minority, who are also in a sense anti-clerical,
have felt the necessity of replacing the old theocratic conception of the deeply religious
Mussulman by a new Pan-Islamic and Pan-Asiatic creed. Again the purely Turkish
element, inspired by its past traditions of conquest and its martial superiority, naturally
arrogates to itself the role of protector of other Asiatic and Islamic peoples. The result
I is a strong anti-Russian current, as, in their phraseology, Russia “has usurped and
oppresses ” Asiatic Mussulmans, and a similar, if less strong anti-British current, owing
to our position in India, Aden, Egypt, the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. , and especially owing to the
Anglo-Russian entente regarding Persia and Afghanistan. Thus the natural corollary
of this perfervid Asiatic-cum-Islamic sentiment is a community of interest between
Russia and England, more particularly in Persia, while France, owdng to her position
in Tunis, Algiers, and Morocco also, though in a lesser degree, comes in for a share of
Young Turkey’s resentment.
Had Turkey’s “ constitutionalism ” been an approximation to real liberal and
popular institutions, allowing a certain amount of free play to the different elements, she
would, like Austria, have formed internally a natural equipoise of races, and would
have felt no necessity to adopt a chauvinistic attitude in her foreign politics—an attitude
which is, so to speak, potentially aggressive.
The Turkish masses put up with thirty odd years of the despotism of \ildiz, and
especially the severer form which obtained during the second half, he., since the
Armenian massacres, practically without a murmur, and there is no reason why they
should not similarly endure for a considerable period the more go-a-head despotism of
the committee. But should the position of the latter be shaken owing to an explosion
of internal disaffection or external shock, or a combination of both, we should almost
certainly see a repetition of the pro-British demonstrations of 1908, somewhat embar
rassing as they were.
We must, however, take facts as they are, and, as far as Mesopotamia is concerned,
1 Young Turkey’s policy is to spare neither energy nor money to create a strong military
force in those regions, to disarm the refractory tribes and bring them under effective
control, and, in a word, to impress the Arabs and show them that the Turk is master
against all comers, native or foreign. It must, too, be remembered that the present
military Governor-General of Bagdad’s semi-viceregal powers run from Hekkiari in the
north to Mohammerah and to El Katr in the Arabian peninsula, and the Turks have a
natural desire and pretension to pose as the protectors of the weaker Asiatic Mussulman
state in Persia.
The committee has been compared to a steam-roller, which, in a semi-republican
manner, is determined to level all privileges, starting vdth those of the palace. It has
done so in Albania and Roumelia, and is now busy in Syria. It also, somewhat logically,
feels a desire to apply the same levelling process to the privileged or predominant
position of foreigners, e.g. t of the British in Mesopotamia and the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. . Had
they proceeded slowly and gradually their policy would have been more successful and
encountered less objection and resistance. But what appears to natives and foreigners
as undue haste and abruptness of method seems to be the prevailing characteristics of- *