within the frontiers of the Empire, that the Allied Governments, in their answer to President Wilson, stated that among their aims as belligerents, was the ’liberation of the peoples who now lie beneath the murderous tyranny of the Turks.’  There is defined their irreducible demand:  never again, after peace returns, will the Turk be allowed to control the destinies of races not his own.  Too long already—­and to their disgrace be it spoken—­have the civilised and Christian nations of Europe tolerated at their very doors a tyranny that has steadily grown more murderous and more monstrous, because they feared the upset of the Balance of Power.  Now at least such Powers as value national honour, and regard a national promise as something more than a gabble of ink on a scrap of paper, have resolved that they will suffer the tyranny of the Turk over his alien subject peoples to continue no longer.  It is the least they can do (and unhappily the most) to redeem the century-long neglect of their duty.  Even now, as we shall see in a subsequent chapter, the direst peril threatens those other peoples who at present groan under Turkish rule, and we can but pray that the end of the war will come before Arabs or Greeks or Jews suffer the same fate as has exterminated the Armenians.  Too often have we been too late; we must only hope that another item will not have to be added to that miserable list, and that, when the day of reckoning comes, no half-hearted and pusillanimous policy will stay our hands from the complete execution of that to which we stand pledged.  The Balance of Power has gone the way of other rickety makeshifts, but there must be no makeshift in our dealings with the Turk, no compromise and no delay.  What shall be done with those who planned and executed the greatest massacres known to history matters little; let them be hanged as high as Haman, and have done with them.  But what does matter is that at no future time must it be in the power of a Government that has never been other than barbaric and butcherous, to do again as it has done before.

NOTE ON JEMAL THE GREAT

Jemal the Great has very obligingly done what I suggested we might expect him to do, and has kicked against the German control of the Syrian army.  General von Falkenhayn was sent to take supreme command, and on June 28th of this year Jemal the Great refused to receive orders from him.  In consequence General von Falkenhayn refused responsibility for any offensive movement there if Jemal remained in command.

This promised well for trouble between Turks and Germans, but we must not, I am afraid, build very high hopes on it, for Germany has dealt with the situation in a masterly manner.  Jemal was already Minister of Marine as well as commander of the Syrian army, so the Emperor asked him to pay another visit to Berlin, and he has been visiting Krupp’s works and German naval yards, and we shall find probably that in the future his activities will be marine rather than military, and that von Falkenhayn will have a free hand in Syria.