Crescent and Iron Cross, page 29 by E.F. Benson
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hed to it, or that, should ever the time come when Germany, the conqueror of the world, would be in a position to reward her Allies with the realisation of the dreams she had induced, the string would be pulled, and up, with retchings and vomitings, would come these succulent morsels of Russia and Persia. Indeed these bright pictures flashed on to the sheet as the visions of Nationalists are but the slides in a German magic-lantern, designed to keep Turkey amused, and it was with the same object that Ernst Marré, in his Die Türken und Wir nach dem Kriege, was bidden to make other pictures ready in case Turkey grew fractious or sleepy. 'From the ruins of antiquity,' he says, when speaking of the Ottoman Empire, 'new life will spring, if we can manage to raise the treasures which time and sand have covered.' Then he remembers that he must be less Pan-Germanic for the moment, and dangles the bait again. 'In doing this,' he adds, 'we are benefiting Turkey. The Turkish state is no united whole, and it has always been very difficult to govern. Turks, Arabs, Greeks, Armenians, Kurds, cannot be welded together. This is a war of liberation for Turkey.... Only by energetic interference, and by "expelling" the obstinate Armenian element could the Ottoman Empire get rid of a Russian domination.... The non-Turkish population of the Ottoman Empire must be Ottomanised.'
There is no need for further quotations, which might be multiplied indefinitely. The Prussian programme is for the moment identical with the Turkish Nationalist programme: Turkey, in order to be kept 'in with' Germany, must be encouraged to dream of depopulated Armenia (that dream has come tragically true) and of annexations in Russia and Persia. All this fitted in with the Turkish programme: Germany had scarcely to inspire, only to encourage. That encouragement she gave, for, simultaneously she was penetrating Turkey as water penetrates a sponge, and reducing it to the position of a vassal state. To keep Turkey happy she allowed the