NOTE.—­It is to be hoped that Tekin Alp’s pamphlet, Turks and the Pan-Turkish Ideal, may soon be accessible to English readers.  The author is a Macedonian Jew who writes under the pseudonym of Tekin Alp, and his mind is such that he appears to find romance in the idea of a united Turkey purged by indiscriminate massacre from all alien elements.  But he sets forth with admirable lucidity the aims of the Nationalist party and the steps already achieved by them in their progress towards their ideal.  Already the sequestered ladies of the harem have come out of their retirement and join in the crusade, and not only do men give lectures to women, but ‘women mount the platform and address the men.’  There are corporations to advance economic organisations, boy-scout centres all over the Empire, and ‘intellectual parties’ among the guilds of merchants—­England and Russia appear as the most virulent foes of Pan-Turkism, ’the colossus of darkest barbarism joined with the colossus of a degenerate civilisation.’

In the second part of his pamphlet Tekin Alp passes on with an enthusiasm which is as sincere as it is pathetic to the vision of a tremendous Turkey, extending from Thrace on the west to the Desert of Gobi on the east.  It embraces, as his map shows, Egypt as far south as Victoria Nyanza, Arabia, Persia, the greater part of India, the littoral of the Black Sea, the plains of the Volga, the circuit of the Caspian Sea and the Aral Sea, and in the north-east nearly touches Tomsk.  All this naturally is dependent on complete German victory in the war, and, pathetically enough, Tekin Alp appears to think that his ideal Turkey will meet with the approval of Germany.  Indeed it is no wonder that his pamphlet is circulated broadcast by German propagandists, for it is precisely what Germany wants Turkey to believe.

The romance of the movement appeals also very strongly to Ziya Goek Alp, the official bard of the butchers of Constantinople.  He has written a sort of Ode to Attila, quoted by Tekin Alp, which is a fine frenzy in favour of barbarism.  This preposterous poem begins: 

’I do not read the famous deeds of my ancestors in the dead, faded, dusty leaves of the history books, but in my own veins, in my own heart.  My Attila, my Huns, those heroic figures which stand for the proud fame of my race, appear in those dry pages to our malicious and slanderous age as covered with shame and disgrace, while in reality they are no less than Alexander and Caesar,’ etc. etc.

I have been at present unable to ascertain whether it is true that the German Emperor has set it to music, under the impression that it refers to him and the German armies.  It is very popular in Prussia, which need arouse no surprise.

Crescent and Iron Cross, Chapter III

THE END OF THE ARMENIAN QUESTION