Edward Benson - Deutschland Über Allah

It is interesting to see how Germany adapted the Pan-Turkish ideal to her own ends, and by a triumphant vindication of Germany’s methods the best account of this Pan-Turkish ideal is to be found in a publication of 1915 by Tekin Alp, which was written as German propaganda and by Germany disseminated broadcast over the Turkish Empire. The movement was organised by Kemal Bey in 1909 as a branch committee of the Union and Progress Party at Constantinople, and its headquarters were in Salonica, where the deposed Abdul Hamid was subsequently confined. Another branch, under Zia Bey, worked at Constantinople. Kemal Bey collected a group of young and ardent writers, who exploited the idea of a restoration of a national and universal Turkey which should unite all Turkish elements, and, as was hinted even then, extirpate the other nationalities, such as the Armenians, which were a menace, or might conceivably be a menace, to complete Turkish autocracy. The young writers were supplemented by a group called Yeni Hayat, or the “Young Life,” who worked for the restoration of national traditions. Certain opposition was met with, but this was overcome, and at once Kemal Bey and his assistants had the Koran translated into Turkish, and the prayers for the Khalif – in Arabic no longer, but in Turkish – were distributed throughout the Empire. Knowing full well that, apart from language, the religious bond of Islam was one of the strongest uniting forces, if not actually the strongest, at their disposal, they proclaimed that the true faith was the Turkish and not the Arab version. With a stupendous audacity they claimed this difference between the two, namely, that the Arab conception of Allah was the God of Vengeance, the Turkish conception the God of Love. The Turkish language and the Turkish Allah, God of Love, in whose name the Armenians were tortured and massacred, were the two wings on which Turkey was to soar. Auxiliary soaring societies were organised, among them a Turkish Ojagha with similar aims, and no fewer than sixteen branches of it were founded throughout the Empire. There were also a Turkish Guiji or gymnastic club and an Izji or boy scouts’ club. A union of merchants worked for the same object in districts where hitherto trade had been in the hands of Greeks and Armenians, and signs appeared on their shops that only Turkish labour was employed. Religious funds also were used for similar economic restoration.

Turkey then was to be for the Turks, and so was a great deal more than Turkey. They claimed that of the 10,000,000 population of Persia one-third were Turks, while the province Azerbaijan – the richest, most active and enlightened district of Persia – was entirely Turkish. Similarly they regarded the country south of the Caucasus as Turkish, since Turks formed 50 to 80 per cent. of its population. Kasan, in fact, was Turkish, and if the Turks in the plain of the Volga, in the Crimea, and in the Caucasus were welded into Turkey, a nation of between forty and fifty million would be formed – Osmanlis all of them.

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