erous treatment by the Entente Powers. But if she possessed inferior soldiers, she possessed an incomparable statesman. In the Peace Conference at Versailles and Sèvres Venizelos' pen and tongue were mightier than Paraskevopoulos' (or even Foch's) sword. The dream of Empire materialized to an amazing extent. Greece was granted Thrace, the Dodecanese Islands and the Smyrna district; her population was doubled, reaching eight million souls; she controlled well nigh 2000 miles of coast line. She swelled herself out into an Empire. In her pride she vaunted herself, was puffed up. And like the frog in the fable she puffed herself up too high.

Internal and external pressure produced the rupture of Greek Imperialism and upset the unstable equilibrium of the Near East. Three sets of circumstances may be distinguished; firstly, the Greek attempt to expand too far in Asia Minor; secondly, the dismissal of Venizelos. and the recall of King Constantine; and thirdly, the growth of the Turkish National Movement and its impact upon the Allied settlement.

Whilst the hard-fought war was proceeding, the Entente Powers were driven to the making of lavish not to say reckless promises in order to gain and keep allies, Russia, Italy, Greece, the Jews, the Arabs, and others. By the time of the Armistice some of these promissory notes had been cancelled by reason of changed aspects of affairs, for example the promise of Constantinople to Russia in 1915 was wiped out on Russia's colouring herself Bolshevik red. But other obligations had somehow to be met. In an Allied agreement of April, 1917, at St. Jean de Maurienne, Italy had been promised certain territories on the Asia Minor littoral including Smyrna. But other Entente Powers, particularly France holding Cilicia, disliked the idea of Italy in Smyrna. When therefore in April, 1919, Italy's delegation temporarily withdrew from Peace Conference on the Fiume issue, it returned next month to find that Italian claims in this region had been set aside. Whether indeed Italy projected an armed 'coup d'état' to seize the disputed area is somewhat uncertain. But at all events the Supreme Council hurriedly empowered Greece to rush in and take the mandate for Smyrna. This action was adopted in direct contravention of the advice given by all experts on the

spot and (if reports may be believed) of the military arguments of Foch and Sir Henry Wilson. On May 15, 1919, Greek troops disembarked at Smyrna. The Greek community greeted their compatriots vociferously, but in all other quarters an ominous silence reigned. This feeling of hostility deepened when the Greeks at the very outset ran amuck amongst the Turkish population, arresting, robbing, and even murdering whole batches of Turks from high officials to schoolboys. An Inter-Allied commission of enquiry into the outrages is said to have condemned the action of the Greeks as 'in keeping with Oriental tradition at its worst'. Truly one inclines to believe that in the matter of atrocities there is little to choose between Greeks, Turks, Bulgars, Armenians and the rest in those Near Eastern parts. In short, the sanguinary occupation of Smyrna and its environs was the first step in the decline of the Greek Empire.

The second stage in the decline of Greece was reached when in the elections of November, 1920, the virtual Dictator, Venizelos, was hurled from power and after a plebiscite, consequent on the death of King Alexander by the bite of a monkey, Constantine was recalled to the throne of Greece. The Greeks have been veritably the basest ingrates to their leaders, from the time of Miltiades and Themistocles to Venizelos. After dominating the Near Eastern horizon during the Balkan Wars of 1912-13, Venizelos was forced from office, his friends punished and his life endangered. After he had gained the most favourable concessions for his country in the World War, Greece once again turned round upon him, expelled him and his colleagues, and even went to the length of seeking his very life. It is true that the policy of Venizelos in Asia Minor was continued by Constantine. But the difficulties of the imbroglio were increased tenfold by the change of government. It is true there was a prophecy current to the effect that as it was a Constantine (the Eleventh, 'Paleologus') who lost the Byzantine Empire in 1453, it would be a Constantine who would regain it. The inflamed imaginations of the people saw in King Constantine the Twelfth the restorer of ancient glories and splendour. But this was mere wind of words, poor substitutes for the sound Allied sympathy and Venizelean

inspiration which had provided the solid structural foundation of Greek power and strength.

The Greeks had rejected their 'Man of Destiny'. Meanwhile their Turkish foes had found theirs in the person of Mustapha Kemal Pasha, the leader of the Nationalist Movement. Kemal is a very youthful man to have become the 'Sword of Islam' and the 'Buckler of the Ottoman Empire'. It is only some forty-two years ago since he was born in Salonika. The place of his birth in this European city may serve to throw some light on his present ambitions for the revival of Turkish power in Europe. Perhaps also it may help to explain his mentality, his European breadth of outlook, his accessibility to progressive ideas. For Mustapha Kemal is no blind reactionary. Whilst a cadet at the Military Academy he was advanced enough to join the 'Society of Liberty' and take an active part in the propaganda of those liberal reforming views which were anathema to the Sultan Abdul Hamid. His advocacy entailed the gravest risks, and although he escaped the death penalty he had to suffer confinement and subsequently banishment. Even after his party, 'the Young Turks', came into power in 1908, Kemal was brave enough to strike out an independent line, although it involved him in bitter opposition to the leaders, Enver Bey and others; he denounced for example the degeneration of the new régime into the old illiberalism and into subservience to Germany. In the Balkan War, Mustapha Kemal found opportunity of revealing his military prowess, notably in the recapture of Adrianople. But the Great War set the hall-mark of efficiency upon his skill, when in the course of the Gallipoli campaign he was mainly responsible for the frustration of the herculean British attempt to break through from Suvla Bay during the critical month of August, 1915. It should be noted that Kemal was never a bitter enemy of England's in those days. Evidence is forthcoming that at least as late as 1917 he strongly advocated an accommodation and peace with Britain, and deprecated Enver's Germanophile views. On account of these unpopular views, his services were not widely used, till in 1918 he was put in command of the Yilderim (Lightning) Group of Armies on the Palestine Front. But the lightning

flash came from the opposing quarter before he was ready, and he found his forces utterly shattered by Allenby's dazzling conquering army. After the Armistice he was employed at the Turkish War Office.

Demonstrations of protest against the Allied treatment of Turkey had taken place, but it was not till the Greek occupation of Smyrna in May, 1919, that the movement on behalf of outraged Turkish nationalism really began. Leaving Constantinople for the Asia Minor homelands in order to prosecute a campaign of active resistance, Kemal from centres at Erzerum, Sivas, and Angora organized Nationalist congresses and mobilized Nationalist military forces. If a proportion of his soldiers were regenerated brigands, on the other hand some of the finest and most enlightened men in Turkey flocked to his standard. Amongst these Bekir Samy Bey certainly deserves mention, because rather than share in the cruel deportation of Armenians at the outset of the war he had resigned his office of Vali of Aleppo. In the Nationalist army excellent discipline was maintained: an Allied official observer was greatly impressed by the efficient preservation of law and order and by the simplicity of the life and habits of Kemal. Most ingenious and laborious efforts were made to repair the dismantled guns and utilize the misfit ammunition remaining to them. For indeed although the Turks had made a sincere effort to carry out the Disarmament clauses of the Mudros Armistice before the decision about Smyrna; after that momentous event not a single cartridge was returned to the Allies. Christian subjects of the Angora government were treated with remarkable consideration. Indeed the old religious divisions seem to be breaking down and Moslems and Christians are approximating towards union on the strength of the new nationalism.

In November, 1919, a general election was held in Turkey and the new Parliament, found to be overwhelmingly Nationalist in sentiment, proceeded on January 28th, 1920, to adopt the celebrated Nationalist Pact. In this important programme of policy the Nationalists specified the districts to which they could justly lay claim, namely, their Anatolian homelands, Armenia, Kurdistan including the oil-bearing areas of Mosul,

Eastern Thrace up to the River Maritza inclusive of Adrianople, a plebiscite decision in Western Thrace, and above all the Smyrna district. Religious and racial minorities under Turkish rule were to be accorded similar treatment to that experienced by Turkish minorities beyond the home borders. The 'Capitulations', with their system of special extra-territorial laws and taxation for foreign merchants in Turkish cities, were to be abolished. The Freedom of the Straits finally was conceded contingent on the principle that the 'security of Constantinople, the seat of the Ottoman Caliphate and Government, must be placed beyond reach of any infringement'. Subsequent history is largely a commentary on the Turkish Nationalist Pact.

Events moved quickly in the first half of 1920. Disturbances arose on the French Cilician frontier. Some provocation seems to have been given by Armenian soldiers under the French troops. In consequence Allied forces formally occupied Constantinople on March 16, arrested and deported many leaders to Malta, and forced the Sultan to dissolve the Parliament. The Kemalist Committee countered this move by another election throughout Asia Minor. In April, 1920, the Parliament met in Angora, and this 'Grand National Assembly of Turkey' proceeded to form a fully constituted provisional government with Mustapha Kemal as President. The Sultan at Constantinople, Mahomet VI, was simply ignored as being under Allied control and duress. The Allies began to realize that it was high time to tackle the Near East problem. The Supreme Council met at San Remo in April, and their decisions were framed into the Treaty of Sèvres of August, 1920. Although the Sultan's government at Constantinople signed the Treaty, the Nationalists promptly refused to ratify it. The Allies countered by empowering Greece to execute the terms in Asia Minor and indeed to advance beyond the Smyrna zone. The Greeks marched against the Kemalists, met with initial successes only to receive a check later. At this juncture Venizelos was driven from office, as already indicated, with the result that the Greeks lost Allied sympathy. America, indeed, which had agreed with the policy of allocating Smyrna to the Greeks (as is evidenced by a Senate Resolu