and capable of Eastern expansion, there remains one,
Italy, whose rights to partake in this Turkish partition
we have not yet considered. In the shifting kaleidoscope
of national war-politics, it seems at the moment of
writing by no means impossible that Greece, having
at length got rid of a treacherous and unstable Reuben
of a monarch, may redeem her pledge to Serbia, in which
case, no doubt, she too would state the terms of her
desired and legitimate expansion. But these would
more reasonably be concerned with the redistribution
of the Balkan Peninsula, which does not come within
the scope of this book, and we may prophesy without
fear of invoking the Nemesis that so closely dogs
the heels of seers, that Italy will legitimately claim
(or perhaps has already claimed) the protectorate of
this valuable littoral. Certain it is that, when
peace returns, the large population of Greeks and
Italians once resident (and soon again to be) on these
coasts, must be given the liberty and security which
they will never enjoy so long as they remain in Turkish
hands, and the hands that have earned the right to
be protecting Power are assuredly Italian. Along
the south coast a line including the Taurus range would
seem to suggest a natural frontier inland from Adana
on the east to the south-west corner of Asia Minor,
and from there a similar strip would pass up the coast
as far as, and inclusive of, Smyrna. That at least
Italy has every right to expect, and there seems no
great fear that among the International Councils there
will arise a dissentient voice. The inland boundary
on the west coast is the difficult section of this
delimitation, and into the details of that it would
be both rash and inexpedient to enter.
II
We pass, then, to the second avowed object of the
Allies, namely, the expulsion from Europe of the Ottoman
rule, which has proved itself so radically alien to
Western civilisation. This must be taken to include
not only the expulsion of the Turkish control from
Thrace and Constantinople, but from the eastern side
as well of the Bosporus, the Sea of Marmora, and the
Dardanelles. At no future time must Turkey be
in a position to command even partially a single yard
of that momentous channel through which alone our
Allies, Russia and Rumania, have access to the Mediterranean.
Though this was not formally stated in the Allies’
reply to President Wilson, it is clearly part and parcel
of the object in view, for while the Ottoman Empire
retains the smallest control on either side of either
of the Straits, she is so far able to interfere in
European concerns, in which she must never more have
a hand. The east shore, then, of the Straits
and the Sea of Marmora, as well as the west, must
be under the control of a Power, or a group of Powers,
not alien to Western civilisation. Germany and
her allies therefore, no less than Turkey, must be
excluded from the guardianship of the Straits.