'File F/1 Criminal Intelligence, Circular Memoranda: Pan-Islamism' [‎20r] (39/68)

No. P.-4851, dated India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors. , London, the 23rd November 1916.
From— Sib F. A. Hietzel, K .C.B., Secretary, Political Department, India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors.
London,
To—The Foreig-n Secretary to the Government of India in the Foreign and Political
Department.
The enclosed notes put together information collected from many sources
and not available in any one document,
which Mr. Chamberlain thinks that the
Viceroy may find; it useful to com
municate to those officers who have the
handling of Moslem questions. As regards
Turkish intrigues in India, you, of course, have much better information than
we have. But the other notes furnish material which may be serviceable in
conversation with Indian Moslems who do not perhaps realise the essentially
non-Islamic character of the Committee of Union and Progress, and ths
enprmities which it has perpetrated, under German guidance, during the war.
We shall be glad to have copies of the notes when printed.
I JP
Introduction.
6^ German influence in Turkey.
German Agents and their misdeedt.
The crneltie* of Jemal Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. .
jg*- Turkish intrigaps among Indian Mahammadang.
j Kotes on Freemasonrj in Turkey.
cj
#
INTRODUCTION.
The following memorandum has been prepared under the supervision of
ihe India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors. by request of the Prime Minister. Its purpose is to give, if
possible, an inner view of the intellectual and political forces which are
predominant in the Ottoman Empire.
There has been a traditional friendship or sympathy for the Turkish
Empire in the minds of many Englishmen in the past, and this sympathy still
survives and tends to foster many misconceptions in regard to the existing
state of affairs in the Ottoman Empire. 0
In the first place, we must distinguish between the people and the Govern
ment. The Ottoman people have qualities which get them a certain amount
of credit; they are dignified, hospitable to strangers, courageous soldiers,
moderately kind to animals, hard working, fond of children, manly in appear
ance and honest in trade. On the other hand, they are cruel to subject races,
backward, jealous and slow witted. Eurther, it is a signal peculiarity of the
Ottoman race to be abjectly submissive in the face of Government orders.
This fault is often mistaken for discipline, but at root it is undoubtedly want
of moral courage, arising from an unhappy combination of Moslem fatalism,
Byzantine submissiveness to the power that is, and the unreasoning collective*
obedience of the Turkish Horde. Once Ottoman Turks fall under an alien
Government as they have done in Greece, Bulgaria and the Caucasus, they
become completely resigned to their fate, show no desire to re-assert them
selves, and are as submissive to a Christian Government as they were to
their own. This submissiveness or automatic response to orders is strongly
insisted upon, because it banishes any hope of the Turkish peasantry or people
ever rebelling against or even influencing the Government of the Ottoman
Empire. Whoever is supreme at Constantinople is master throughout Turkish-
speaking Turkey, and supremacy at Constantinople is in the hands of those
who can control the secret police and the garrison. Some stress is laid on this
particular point, because it is necessary to make it quite clear that the qualities
which cause Turks to be attractive to English travellers and writers have no
influence on the political situation whatever.
A second factor in the situation is the centralization of all political power
ill Constantinople. The Imperial traditions and geographical situation of the
city have saved the Ottoman Empire from one fertile source of dismemberment,
and that is the oriental tendency for provincial governors to become founders of
Jocal independent dynasties. The destruction of the local feudal nobility in
%
•v
J
i i
V
*
a
1
* * 1 /