(The New York Times Current History)
1922

By Rear Admiral Colby M. Chester
United States Navy, Retired

Rear Admiral Chester, who has been interested in Turkish affairs for over twenty years, returned in July from Constantinople, where he went to ascertain whether conditions would be suitable in the near future for renewing work on the Chester Project (described
in Current History, March, 1922). Rear Admiral Chester is one of America’s most experienced naval veterans. He was graduated from Annapolis in 1863, and served in the Civil War. He was one of Theodore Roosevelt’s closest friends, and for years has been an observer of world affairs.—Editor.

The Turks depicted by an American observer as a moral, religious, tolerant, scrupulously honest race—The Armenian massacres discounted, and the deportations represented as an act of beneficence

What is the truth about Turkey? This question is asked daily. I went to Turkey to ascertain the actual conditions there, and I have been bombarded with such questions since my return. 
Following are some of my answers:

There are no prejudices against Christians in Turkey, let alone killings of Christians. Massacres of the past were enormously exaggerated by prejudiced writers and speakers.

The harem has vanished out of Turkey, and there are fewer men with plural wives than there are married men with mistresses in the United States.

There is more honesty to the square inch in Turkey than there is to the square yard in most other countries of the world.

Turkey joined the Germans with reluctance. After the United States became belligerent she would have joined the Allies if she could.

In the first place, the wrong impression of the Turks was spread because their religious belief is different from ours. That and that alone lay at the bottom of the prejudice of America (and much 
of Europe) against the Turk. The main questions to be asked about a religion are: Are its avowed followers faithful to it? Does it restrain those who are faithful to it from doing evil to their fellow men? I am no theologian, but this I can say about the Turk: He is loyal to his faith to a degree generally unknown among devotees of other religions. His standards of honesty are higher than those of men in many other portions of the world.

The Turk is an absolutely faithful husband. This is an interesting point. In the so-called advanced countries we frequently learn of cases where men who are allowed one wife each by law and by 
religion have in fact several upon the side. If the divorce news in the daily press is to be relied upon a large proportion of the men in the United States and England who can afford it have additional companions. In Turkey the reverse is true; all men by religion and by law are allowed four wives, almost none in fact have more than one. One situation is the immorality of morality; the other is the morality of immorality. Men of good position in Turkey would hide their heads in shame and retire from fellowship with their kind if in their hearts they knew such things were true of them as continually are printed with regard to domestic scandals in the American and British 
press, in the French press and Italian press, about men of standing and position in those “enlightened” countries.

Today in Turkey any man who actually has more than one wife is scorned. To the Turk family life and the family relationship are very sacred. It is noteworthy that Turks invariably spend their evening hours at home. There is not a hint of what in Europe and America is called “night life” among Turkish men, young or old, of the better classes.

There is much night life and much vice in Constantinople. Constantinople is in the hands of the Allies. The vice is that of Northern Europe transplanted, and its patrons are the sailors and the soldiers, the travelers and business men who have gone to Turkey to maintain control or to do business. I am glad to have the opportunity of saying this: in Turkey every man, by law and by 
religion, must adequately support and treat with kindness and faithful respect whomsoever he may marry, and, moreover, this he does.

Collecting the Indemnity 

My observations of Turkey and the Turks have been made with every opportunity to achieve accuracy and with a background of experience. In 1896 John Hay, then our distinguished American Secretary of State, cabled Lloyd Griscom, Charge d’Affairs in Constantinople, that the Turks must pay £20,000, then about $100,000, indemnity for alleged attacks on missionaries and American church property. Griscom wanted a battleship to come, believing that if one appeared he might collect. I was then in command of the first American battleship ever sent into these waters. When the great American battleship appeared at the Golden Horn, a Kemal Pasha (not the present head of the Government of Angora, although the names are identical), was in charge, and he was very much upset. It had not been generally understood that such vast monsters grew in the United States. Its teeth looked bad to him. Kemal Pasha wired to the Sublime Porte that an American battleship, the biggest in the world, with bare teeth, was calling.

Thereupon the Russians (who had ships there and were covetous of Turkey’s riches) offered to go in and “stop” the Americans, The Germans, intensely jealous of the Russians, thus advised the Sublime Porte: “Keep the Russians out at all costs. Pay the Americans the nasty little indemnity they want, and get rid of them.”

“How much do I owe you?” asked the Sublime Porte of Mr. Griscom.

“Twenty thousand pounds, or about a hundred thousand dollars,” Griscom answered.

“Oh, not as much as that!”

“Yes; just that.”

Finally we settled for £19,000, and since then I have been interested in and a constant student of the Turks. The more I have known of them the better I have liked them.

The Real Turk

Incidentally, as showing the real character of the Turk, it should be said of the so-called Christian massacres, which have been so exploited in this country, that no atrocities worthy of note were committed in Constantinople in 1896. In the western provinces of the empire, largely controlled by Albanian troops, noted for their bloodthirsty instincts, of which the ruling dynasty took full advantage in carrying out its diabolical policy, there were atrocious acts committed. Also in the east, the then wild nomadic tribes of the mountains, known as Kurds, did not show special kindness toward their inveterate foes, the Armenians, when ordered by Abdul Hamid to attack them. The Armenians were hated alike by Kurds, Christian Georgians and Moslem Azerbaijanians, because of their grasping propensities—their tendency to live by the sweat of their neighbors’ brows. The charge that they were maltreated was well founded. But the “Constantinople Guard,” made up mostly of the Osmanli, refused to carry out the Sultan’s atrocious edicts, and their General openly defied his Majesty to unleash his sleuth hounds in the capital of the nation. One of the most pitiful sights ever witnessed was, I think, that of this noble soldier, white haired and emaciated, when he was released from captivity by the Young Turks in 1908 and brought back to Constantinople, which he had successfully defended twelve years before against the barbarous intentions of his chief. Entering the beautiful Bosporus in a special ship assigned for his accommodation, this gallant soldier was received by hundreds of thousands of Musulmans, many of them in tears.

To be sure, the 1896 program for the extermination of the Armenians was not the last attempt of Abdul Hamid, who, by the way, according to the Duke of Argyle and other British subjects, was too long sustained in power by Great Britain to carry out his nefarious policies; for when he was on his political deathbed the Sultan resorted to another campaign of murder in order to show the European powers that only by releasing him and restoring him to power could the natural tendency of his subjects for brutality be overcome. In spite of the watchful guard that surrounded him, he managed to instigate riots in the eastern provinces, and the so-called Adana massacre of 1909 was one of the results. That affair, however, was in no sense a massacre as the term is known to international law, for the Armenians (always in the majority in cities of Asia Minor, according to present-day accounts), fully armed, arose in their might and drove the Moslems from Adana, killing more of them than they lost by their own casualties. This fact was certified to before the Director of the Board of Foreign Missions in Boston, in my presence, by a woman missionary whose son had been accidentally killed in the fight. In spite of this admission, however, the Hymn of Hate, tuned to the key of the Adana massacres, is still being sung to Sunday school children in America.

That was the last fitful act of an unconstitutional monarch in Turkey in the way of maltreating the Armenians. Abdul Hamid was immediately deposed for this intended cruelty by edict of the Shiek-ul-lslam, supported by an overwhelming majority of the Turks. Wondrous to relate, however, on the very day that he was shorn of his power for evil, there were received in Constantinople copies of The London Times containing a protest, signed by the British Ambassador at the Porte, against the Sultan’s deposition. 

Since 1909 Turkey has been practically at war, due to machinations of the powers that be in Europe, and heinous offenses committed against any body in Turkey have been “war atrocities,” such as are common to all belligerents. 

The Chester Concessions

Admiral Chester, center, in 1901

Since that episode I have visited Turkey a number of times. In the course of these visits, including the journey just completed, I studied the land from end to end. My recent stay at Constantinople was in connection with the enterprise now internationally known as the “Chester Project.” This includes the construction of 1,200 miles of railroad in Turkey, to extend from Alexandretta Bay to the Persian border, and the development and operation of oil fields estimated to be capable of producing more than a billion barrels of crude petroleum. The Chester claims are the oldest in the Mesopotamian field, by a number of years antedating those of the British and the Germans, which have been so generally acclaimed as marvelously rich. These claims accrued to the Chesters as a result of our pioneer activities in seeking to induce American industries to extend their activities to the rich Turkish field. As a result of my belief in Turkey growing, from a knowledge built during many years’ experience, the group with which I am associated was offered large concessions.

In 1911 the Turkish National Assembly voted for the construction of the railway I have mentioned the concession including mineral and oil privileges extending twenty kilometers on both sides of the right of way. These include the great oil fields both of Mesopotamia and of Mosul. This road we shall build when conditions warrant. They have not warranted as yet, and the oil fields occupy our principal attention.

The outbreak of the Italian Turkish war at first prevented the beginning of our railroad-building operations. After this war ended, a succession of other conflicts, including the World War, made it necessary to postpone repeatedly the starting of our work. Finally, through my son, Commander Arthur Chester, who has been for some years in Constantinople as the representative of the United States Shipping Board, Mustapha Kemal Pasha, chief of the Government of Anatolia, which is nominally independent of Turkey proper and has its capital at Angora, renewed to me his invitation to start the great constructive enterprise.

I took my family with me when I went over to review the situation, for we who know the facts have no worries about the safety of the traveler in Turkey. There are many sections of the world much closer to New York where a tourist runs a greater risk. The children of my son go to school at the American College in Constantinople, where, although allied control is responsible for some disorder, owing to the large changing population of foreign seamen and adventurers (not to forget adventuresses), life among the Turks is calm and practically free from law-breaking. Even with the sometimes drunken sailors of the allied ships, often on shore and carousing in the dives promoted mostly by shrewd Russian refugees, there is no more disorder than in New York.

Returning, I feel that I have come from the most wonderful country in the world, the country which offers the greatest opportunities to the American business man. The Turks need almost everything which America can wish to sell to them, and they are the best of people to deal with. The Turkish business man never violates his word. If he is buying from you and declares that he will pay upon a certain date, you will get your money on that day; if he is selling to you and declares his goods to be of a certain quality, then they are of that quality.

The Turk, contrary to the general impression, is a tolerant man, not only willing but extremely anxious that others should do as they please in religion, as in other things. Naturally, however, he
does not wish to have his own habits of religion or of daily life interfered with by outsiders. My religion differs from the Turk’s, but I respect his great fidelity to his, and, no matter what may be declared to the contrary, he respects my own fidelity to mine and that of others to the faith they may espouse.

The Turk Maligned

The Turk has been and is the most misrepresented person in the world. I know some of the falsehoods which have been and are being circulated in America They amaze me.

I was in Constantinople in 1911 when the first election was held. The Turks made a festival of it, and wagons, in every one of which were a certain number of pretty little girls in white, were driven
around to take the ballots. On these wagons rode also the Christian missionaries who were there. In the meantime the people of America and European countries were being fed with tales of anti-Christian riots in Constantinople. These were supposed to be even then in progress. Learning of this, I was disgusted with the anti-Turkish propagandists.

I know that what I say will be astonishing to most Americans. I myself should be astonished by such reports if I knew nothing about Turkey except such things as I have read in newspapers published in America and Europe, and inspired — although the newspapers have not understood this — by the enemies of Turkey. One reason why these misrepresentations persist is that Turkey never has felt it worth while to organize any agency to state her case abroad.

There have been riots, now and then, when local Turks have felt that their rights have been outraged by outsiders. It seems to me that once or twice I have read something about riots in America in circumstances of like sort, although of differing detail. Speaking generally, the Turks are far more patient than Americans would be.

Armenian massacres by the Turks have been almost entirely unknown since constitutional government was proclaimed in 1908; or, at least since the head of the Young Turk Party caused twenty Ottoman officers to be put to death for permitting acts of cruelty against the Armenians in 1915. (Holdwater: additional insight on punished Turks.)

The worst “outrage” perpetrated by the Turks on the Armenians occurred in 1915. The wholesale deportations of that period were brought about by Turkish fear that the procedure of this alien population, if left to continue without interruption, would get the agitators into real trouble; the Turks wished no such episode, though, naturally, they disliked Armenian interference with Turkey’s operation of her own affairs, political, religious and domestic. So the Armenians were moved from the inhospitable regions where they were not welcome and could not actually prosper, to the most delightful and fertile part of Syria.

Those from the mountains were taken into Mesopotamia, where the climate is as benign as in Florida and California, whither New York millionaires journey every year for health and recreation. All this was done at great expense of money and effort, and the general outside report was that all, or at least many, had been murdered.

It seems almost a pity to upset the good old myth of Turkish viciousness and terribleness, but in the interest of accuracy I find myself constrained to do so, although it makes me feel a bit like one who is compelled to tell a child that Jack the Giant Killer really found no monstrous men to slay.

In due course of time the deportees, entirely unmassacred and fat and prosperous, returned (if they wished so to do), and an English prisoner of war who was in one of the vacated towns after it had been repopulated told me that he found it filled with these astonishing living ghosts.

Another thing which I would wish to say is that the Turks have been a great restraining influence upon the spread of Bolshevism. The Bolsheviki tried to win Kemal Pasha, and for a time declared that they had done so, but eventually he was read out of the Third International because he had declared in favor of the old forms of government. He has done everything he could to keep the Bolsheviki and all their works out of Anatolia.

The relations between Kemal in Anatolia and the Sublime Porte in Turkey, although the two are administratively separated, are friendly and co-operative. The two groups of Turks are playing a strategic game, and doing it with skill. They let the Greeks dash their heads against stone walls.

Today, although there are many ways in which falsehood can be circulated about Turkey, there is no way that I know of, save through the “word of mouth” of a few men who, like myself, have gone to Turkey and therefore know the facts, of getting the truth out of Turkey. The Turks ever have been curiously indifferent with regard to what the outside world has thought of them, or else have been unable to discover how to tell their story. Turkey’s enemies are unwilling that the actual truth should become generally known. They don’t want any outsider to go into Anatolia, and few get there. I didn’t get up there, but I hope to on some future trip. My son has been there.

It is an interesting experiment which Kemal Pasha is working out there. He is a Turkish George Washington, and it is no irreverence to the Father of Our Country to make this comparison. Kemal Pasha is a great man.

The situation as it stands in Turkey, especially in regard to Kemal and his relationships with Turkey proper, is merely the result of the determination on the part of Turks that they want no more of government by European political and commercial intrigue.

America’s Opportunity

I wish I could express the eagerness with which Turkey and Kemal are both looking toward America, hoping that some friendly move of business men (for their own profit) may be made from here. All that is asked is a square deal, business done in such a way that the Turk in its transaction need not risk his birthright. I have heard it said a hundred times in Turkey, and by men who count:

“The Americans are the only powerful people in the world who are not seeking a political advantage to the detriment of Turkey. We have had many bitter years of exploitation by the Europeans. We want Americans to come here. We want to do business with them.”

The Turk has but one real qualification as a business man—his invariable honesty. In general, a Turk would rather starve in one of the Government services than make money in business. It is this which explains why the Turks not only have allowed but have invited outside business men of the more industrious races to come and run their commercial enterprises and their banks. Thus the large Greek and Armenian populations in Turkey are accounted for. They control nearly every branch of Turkish public works and nearly every industrial establishment.

The Turks have some strange notions—strange to us, I mean. Before the war they would not accept interest from European banks in which they kept accounts. “No,” they declared; “you take
our money on deposit and preserve it safely for us, returning it to us upon our order. It is a great service to us. We ought to pay you for this service. We cannot accept the interest you offer!” This is but one sample of the Turk’s entirely non-commercial attitude of mind. Although I have been much in Turkey I never have met a crooked Turk. But I have met many Turkish subjects of various alien bloods who would take anything not looked upon or nailed down, irrespective of its rightful ownership.

Out of Turkey, if it would, the United States could make a splendid customer. I have said that she needs everything. I am a sailor and could not compile a list of things which she would wish to buy from us, but almost any comprehensive list of articles fitted to such a climate as she has would do. I know that she needs farm implements and American canned goods. But, more than these, she needs railways, telegraphs and telephones and electric installations generally. For these, if we supply them, we shall need to furnish not only the material but the skill in building. If Americans ever go there they will have no need to worry with regard to the rigid honesty of their Turkish customers.

The Turks are not only honest, but they are pathetically independent. I know one man—Hallil Bey—who wished to get his daughter into the American school, but, although he was of prominence in the Government he had no money. This appealed to me, and I went to the school and got a scholarship for the young girl. So far, so good. But when I came to think out just how I could offer it to Hallil Bey without an injury to his pride or without incurring suspicion of my motives, I found myself quite helpless. I was arranging for concessions. It was impossible to offer him the scholarship without some one saying that it was a bribe. I never found the way. The scholarship never has been offered, and the girl has grown up without the coveted education. In such things the Turk is infinitely punctilious.

 

ATA-USA/Spring 1984

 

In the interest of fairness, I'd like to present excerpts from these articles... found in Armenian web sites... along with my own thoughts.  

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Albert Mackenzie, "Recently connected with relief work in Turkey," begins his Sept. 6, 1922 piece with:

 "The author's contention that 'Turkey joined the Germans with reluctance' is, if true, the most singular truth in captivity. Turkey's armies were trained, officered and equipped by Germany before the war started. The Goeben and the Breslau, German cruisers, were bought by Turkey."

WHAT! Everyone knows the only reason why The Ottoman Empire cast its lot with the Central Powers was because there were a series of British moves that drove the Turks away... most specifically, a ship that was paid with the pennies of the peasant folk that Great Britain reneged on delivering once the war broke out. Germany sensed its opportunity and gave (not sold — the Turks didn't have money) the Goeben and the Breslau as an inducement for the Turks to join their side. It was all a sham, since the German navy operated these ships, anyway.

Even professional Turcophobe Ambassador Morgenthau reports (in his ghostwritten "Ambassador Morgenthau's Story") that the Ottoman Empire was VERY hesitant to become Germany's partner in war. Hoo-boy, Albert Mackenzie..! Albert Mackenzie, of (probably) the Near East Relief ("Recently connected with relief work in Turkey"), which already gives away his bias.! The Near East Relief, the most successful charitable organization in American history, having raised from 110 to 130 million 1910s and 1920s dollars, had a vested interest in making the Turks look like monsters... so that they could succeed in raising money from their sympathetic Christian brethren.

The Turks are parasites; they have never built a city, their language is a hybrid of other tongues, the paucity of their literature is beyond discussion. Turks never make mechanical or scientific inventions. The Great Mosque of St. Sofia in Constantinople is a rebuilt Byzantine Church, and the greatest monument of her construction, aside from mosques, anywhere in the empire is Roumeli Hissar on the Bosporus. The Turks fight with foreign guns and ammunition; an Austrian firm used to make their fezzes, an Austrian today runs the establishment which supplies uniforms to the army. They make no automobiles, battleships, and airplanes - not even telephone and telegraph sets where there are such. Before 1915 the Christians were, generally speaking, the economic and intellectual developers of Turkey. It is that very thing which let loose the massacres. The Turk was in despair; brains he had not, but might he had. 

Do you get the funny feeling Mr. Mackenzie just doesn't like Turks very much? Well, as long as he's not BIASED...

Interestingly, Ambassador Morgenthau says in his phony book that one effect of the foreign capitulations on the decaying empire was to FORCE the Turks to buy their goods from outside... in other words, the capitulations were a way for the Europeans to lay a little economic extortion. So the Turks are damned if they do, or don't. A cursorily-collected trickle of what the "parasites" have introduced to civilization may be found here.

In regard to the Turk as a husband, I will simply relate an incident in the American Hospital in Harput, where I was stationed seven months as a relief worker in 1921-22. A Turk brought his shrouded wife one day to the American Hospital and asked if there was any way of curing her of sterility. He was informed that, if he consented to let her undergo an operation, the woman would in all likelihood be able to bear him children. Fine! When could it be done? He was then told that the operation would cost him four golds, or about $16. Up went his arms in despair and indignation. "What, pay four golds to operate on her, when I can get another wife for a medjidie!" (40 cents). And off he stalked, out of the hospital. But Admiral Chester writes: "In Turkey every man by law and by religion must adequately support and treat with kindness and faithful respect whomsoever he may marry, and, moreover, this he does." 

This is very low. If one decrees a race is made entirely of devils or angels, that's called being "a racist." Admiral Chester was writing about the general character of Turkish men, that he obviously based on the numerous examples he had come across. Naturally, there will be plenty of individual examples that will prove him wrong. It's called being HUMAN. From how this author sounds, he is among those many who regard Turks as less-than-human ... so citing individual examples of Turkish wrongdoing should prove his case well enough.

The author then cites the plight of Greek refugees and the heartlessness of Turkish officials.... and examples of how Turks had cheated him, to counter Admiral Chester's assertion of Turkish honesty.

I find another glaring point in the Admiral's description of the Armenian deportations. "So the Armenians," he says, "were moved from the inhospitable regions where they were not welcome, and could not actually prosper, to the most delightful and fertile part of Syria. Those from the mountains were taken into Mesopotamia, where the climate is as benign as in Florida and California, whither New York millionaires journey every year for health and recreation, All this was done at great expense of money and effort." How beautiful to contemplate! Does Colby M. Chester know that the world knows - and knows that he knows - that some 800.000 Armenians perished in those deportations? Even the Turkish newspapers themselves estimated that they had cleared the land of 800,000 "giaours." 

Wow. What's the point of talking about how many Armenians died, anymore? We have Andrew Mackenzie to tell us the actual number. Thank you, Mr. Mackenzie, for finally solving this hotly-disputed issue!

It took courage for Admiral Chester to counter this wholly-established, firmly entrenched view.

     I did not interpret the Admiral to have said there weren't deaths and massacres during the "deportations." (Deportation means banishment, outside one's own country; the Armenians were transported to elsewhere in the country, which means they were being resettled.) What the Admiral was trying to counter was the idea that the entire Armenian population was RAVISHED! Obviously, there were some that didn't have it so badly... otherwise there could have been no survivors, if the extreme horror stories being fed to the press were all true. 

In regard to the "benign" climate of the country in the Summer of 1915, I shall quote from Viscount Bryce's "The Treatment of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire." 

Well, at least Mr. Mackenzie chose a source that was totally objective in the matter of the Armenians... The famed Turcophobe, Lord Bryce himself! He goes on to relate a horrifying tale of inhumanity under the scorching summer sun. "This extract is a memorandum by a foreign resident in Turkey... Obviously the source of this testimony coming as it does from a neutral resident, is above reproach." Oh, yeah! All foreign residents were most certainly clear of any kind of prejudice, against the Turks. Kind of like a foreign resident by the name of... Albert Mackenzie.

"To satisfy myself of its correctness I elicited the story from an Armenian lad in Turkey, who had been in this deportation." That must have been like finding a needle in a haystack. The horror story concludes with only 185 survivors making it to Aleppo out of the original 18,000! Given what the story had them suffer through, not many of the 185 could have lasted very long. And even if that Armenian lad were truly found, what was he doing along the way of his horrifying ordeal... counting heads, to come up with these figures?

The author then moves on to give us his "positive" conclusion that "225,000 Greeks -- men, women and children -- have met death in Eastern Asia Minor since May, 1921," based on "the facts presented By Mr. Venizelos (Oh, THAT's objective) before the Council of Ten of Dec. 30,1918," and the author's own research.

Albert Mackenzie ends his article with:

No one gets rich laying the Turkish crimes before the world. Rather, one gets into a certain type of disrepute with those whose commercial aims would be best served by smothering such news. The greatest obstacle to imprinting the story of the Turkish massacres on our minds is its inconceivableness. It is almost beyond contemplation. After each outrage on the Armenians and Greeks, the American public is electrified with horror, and being a homage public it will -- if dollars and cents do not stuff its ears and blindfold it -- ultimately mete out justice where the vanishing peoples cry in supplication. 

Albert Mackenzie was actually worried about his reputation getting tarnished by "those whose commercial aims would be best served by smothering such news"? It would take a LOT of "dollars and cents" to undo the years of anti-Turkish propaganda. If anything, the lone American who lent his voice against the firmly established hatred, based on hearsay and prejudice, ran the risk of being ostracized. I'll have more to say on the character assassination of Admiral Chester at the end of the next anti-Chester article... clearly, what Mackenzie is accusing the admiral of being is a man who lies, motivated by the protection of his pocketbook.