The Crisis in the Near East

Karl Radek

The Winding-Up of the Versailles Treaty

The winding-up of the Sevres Treaty is being effected in the Near East in military form, amid the thunder of cannon. It had set in even fore any of its fundamental provisions were translated into practice. The Versailles Treaty concerned Turkey in so far only as it deprived Germany of everything she had achieved there in the course of many years through capitalist penetration, – the Bagdad railway and all her capital invested in Turkish enterprises. The solution of the Turkish question was the object of the Sevres Treaty, which the Allies finally drafted in 1920. This Treaty realised the traditional programme of English liberalism to drive out the Turk bag and baggage from the European continent and to destroy Turkey as a factor in international politics – the programme of Mr. Gladstone. On the European continent Turkey lost everything which the Peace with Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria in 1912 had left her. Turkey lost, likewise, all regions in which the Turkey formed a minority. The Sevres Treaty created an independent Armenia, which needed Alexandrette as an outlet to the sea; Turkey was deprived of Syria, Mesopotamia, and Arabia. On the Mediterranean coast she had to give up to Greece the Smyrna region which stretches far into the land. In the south, France obtained Cilicia; the Adabien region was assigned to Italy. In addition to all those losses, Constantinople and the Straits were to remain in the possession of the League of Nations, that is, the Allies. The Sevres Treaty was not ratified by Turkey. The remnants of the scattered officer corps, led by Kemal Pasha, refused to acknowledge it. Kema Pasha, after his flight from Constantinople, went about organising the defence of the country against the Allies, so that even the mock Government of the Sultan, though completely in the hands of the Allies, was compelled, in the face of such development of things, to reject the Sevres Treaty.

As to the question regarding the distribution of forces at the partition of Turkey, it is not difficult to see that the overwhelming influence and the most important positions fell to Great Britain. To be sure, the French, in possession of Syria, could threaten the Suez Canal, the main artery of British Imperialism, but they are themselves dependent on British Imperialism, for, owing to the fact that USA has not ratified the Versailles Peace and has retired from Europe, the safety of the Versailles Treaty depends on the support which Great Britain would lend to France. Besides this, France is also economically, completely dependent on Great Britain, since the decision on the question of German Reparations depends likewise on Great Britain. For this reason no great importance can be attached to the menace of the Suez Canal by the French from their Syrian positions, the whole question has a rather theoretical character, all the more so, as the British Mediterranean fleet is far superior to the French naval forces, moreover, Great Britain could at any time throw a sufficient number of Indian troops to Mesopotamia. The British, in addition to their having obtained political control of Turkey, have likewise laid hands on her economic resources.

In spite of the fact that a secret treaty existed since 1916 between Great Britain and France, by virtue of which the oil region of Mossul was assigned to France, she ceded it in 1920 at San Remo to Great Britain. Oil, which prior to the war, was mainly a commercial article, has become, since the introduction of the Diesel motors, the main propelling power of the war navies. Also the airship and motor car industry depends on oil. Those two branches of industry obtained during the world war such an importance that Lord Curzon at the London celebration of the armistice with Germany coined the historic saying, “Oil waves bore us towards victory”. The Mossul oil was the last link in the chain of British oil possessions on the Persian Golf. The occupation of Mossul represents one of the most striking successes of Great Britain in the war. By the San Remo Treaty, which transferred the Mossul Oil to Great Britain, the latter is bound to supply to France 25 per cent of the output at current prices. Great Britain achieved this triumph not only in consequence of the above mentioned dependent position of France, but also by means of military pressure. Great Britain mobilised against her French ally the forces of King Faisul, who, armed by Britain, began to make things hot for the French in Syria. It was only the readiness of France to submit to the oil domination of Britain that the latter called off King Faisul. The submissiveness of France could not but aggravate her dependence, for deprived of oil resources, she can only carry on war with the consent of Great Britain, unless she succeeds in getting the assistance of the other oil Power, that is, USA.

British policy of economic control of the Near East had another trump-card, – namely, the old connections of British capitalism with the Greeks. Greece possesses in the Near East a relatively strong commercial capital. While the capitalist production of Greece is still in a backward state, she has got for centuries a considerable merchant marine and commercial connections which outstrip by far those of the Armenian merchants. At an early period, British commercial capital penetrated, through Greek channels, into Asia Minor. This was the economic basis of British Philhellenism. The handing over of Smyrna to the Greeks meant practically its annexation by British commercial capital.

However, the Allies at Sevres miscalculated the whole situation. Although the main cadre, on which Kemal Pasha relied in the rising of 1919, came from the old organisation of the Young Turks, he could not fight under their banner, for the Young Turkish Party is discredited, partly in consequence of the defeat in the war, partly through having turned during the war into a clique of army purveyors and profiteers, who, while they could not yet be called a capitalist party, exhibited all the vices of capitalism. Kemal Pasha, while keeping aloof from them as a Party, could not help seeing that they were the only organised force which Turkey had for her defence. These elements have come, before all, from a section of professional soldiers, typifying the landless gentry who lost caste, then from the old bureaucracy who descended partly from the same class, partly from the popular masses. In old Turkey it was possible for energetic men of the lower strata of society to enter the ruling oligarchy. (It may suffice to mention Talaat Pasha, who, as the son of a railway worker, rose, through his energy and talent from a telegraph operator to the office of a Grand Vizier.) Also in the army there were many higher officers who had come from the ranks of the people. These conditions made it possible for the decaying upper class to renew the oligarchy and to recruit fresh energies for the reorganisation of the State. These are the forces employed by Kemal Pasha, with such effect, in his work of organisation of the defence of his country. In view of the fact that Turkey had been undergoing a long series of wars since 1909 and that the peasantry has been well-nigh ruined, the success of Kemal Pasha appears to be quite marvellous, but it is, nonetheless, comprehensible if we recall to our mind the long past of the Turkish people, its rule for centuries over South-Eastern Europe, and its warlike traditions. These traditions are found most pronouncedly among the Anatolian peasants, who are distinguished by their strong attachment to their country and their unfailing readiness to defend it. In addition to this it may be remarked that the Turkish people regard this defence as a struggle against enslavement of the Islamic East by the Christian Occident.

In 1920, there began in Turkey a lively activity with a view to the organisation of her military forces. At the same time the Turks were on the look-out for allies in the coming struggle. As far back as 1919, when Soviet Russia was separated from Turkey by the Denikin front, the troops in Transcaucasia and Grusia as well as by the fronts of Mustapha and the Dashnaks, the Kemal Government and Turkish refugees sought to come into touch with Soviet Russia. This attempt testifies to their far-seeing statesmanship, which is all the more to be valued, as it was undertaken at a time when Denikin stood before Orel and Yudenitsh before Petrograd. In September 1919 pourparlers began between the representatives of Turkey and Soviet Russia at Berlin. Although the Denikin front was then still unshaken, Soviet Russia succeeded in getting into direct communication with Turkey and to start negotiations concerning a common struggle against the Allies. These negotiations resulted in the Treaty of April 1921. Soviet Russia, had, of course, no illusions as to the social views of the Angora Government. She was quite aware that that Government was neither a working class nor peasant Government, nor even a bourgeois-national Government which might undertake a political revolution. She knew that it was a Government of an officer section supported by bureaucracy. On the other hand, Soviet Russia knew that the war has nowhere touched the popular masses, without producing profound changes, and these must also have taken place in Turkey. The devastation of agricultural land which has not only ruined the peasantry, but also the very influential old landowning strata, is bound to set on foot a movement for agrarian reform, the essence of which would be less directed towards a new distribution of lands than to the abolition of the old taxation system with its mediaeval remnants, to the participation of the peasantry in political life. The future of the country depends on those democratic elements who have sprung from the masses, on the elementary teachers, young officers and educated peasants. When Soviet Russia renounced the Eastern policy of Tsarism, she was conscious of the fact that she was laying the foundation of a future alliance of the two nations. It was likewise clear to her that the present leaders of Turkey will often attempt to turn to those who would offer them most, that is the capitalist great Powers. Still, while there are among the clique of bureaucrats and military many mercenary elements, it is safe to say that the popular masses will not be a party to such a fraud, since any transaction with the Allies would be effected at the expense of the people. Soviet Russia, though quite aware of the possible diplomatic oscillations of the various Turkish cliques, thinks it nevertheless her duty to support, in the interest of the world revolution, the struggle of Turkey for national independence, for the victory of the world revolution depends also on the active sympathy of the peasant masses of the Near and Far East, who are to-day the victims of world imperialism.

When Kemal raised the banner of revolt, the Allies looked upon him as a robber chief. Even in the spring of this year, the British Government declined to receive the representatives of Kemal Pasha and to talk to them. At the beginning of August, Mr. Lloyd George delivered a speech in the House of Commons on British policy in the Near East, which was an echo of the ideas of Mr. Gladstone. However, the forces of British imperialism did not prove equal to the situation. France, which had renounced her Mossul oil claims and had given way to Great Britain in the Near East, soon discovered that the British Government failed to lend her that support in European affairs which she though to have a right to expect. Great Britain, guided by her commercial interests, desired to spare Germany as a market for British industrial products. Having deprived Germany of all her naval and military power as well as of her merchant marine and colonies, Great Britain suddenly felt compassion for her and began to see that France, intoxicated with victory, was taking outrageous liberties with Germany. For the purpose of preventing France establishing a hegemony over the European continent, Great Britain needed up to a certain degree the revival of German political power. Hence the ambiguous position of Britain towards the Versailles Treaty. On the one hand, British politicians defended theoretically the text of that Treaty, while on the other, they checked France in her attempts, or protested against her measures, to bring effective pressure to bear upon Germany and to make her fulfil the conditions laid down in that Treaty. This attitude procured for Great Britain among the Germans the reputation of a defender of the rights of the weak, or the halo of an angel of peace. But when France noticed the gradual withering away of the Versailles Treaty, she sought for means which would allow her to exert some pressure upon Great Britain, or to get a trump-card which she could at the proper occasion play out against Great Britain.

As soon as France got convinced that Kemal, with the assistance of Soviet Russia, was able to defend his country, she began to parley with him. M. Franklin-Bouillon went as French representative to Angora and signed an agreement with Turkey, in pursuance of which France withdrew her troops from Cilicia and handed over their arms to Kemal. France is supplying arms to Turkey. Moreover, according to British assertion Franklin-Bouillon’s Treaty with Turkey contains secret clauses which bind France not to put any obstacles in the way of Turkey’s attempt to reconquer Mossul from the British. After France came Italy which, menaced by the rise of Greece as a Mediterranean Power, has come to an agreement with Turkey. Thanks to this favourable position, that is, to the alliance with the first revolutionary great Power, Soviet Russia, on the one hand, and the agreement with France and Italy, on the other, Turkey has gained so much strength that the Allies, on their own initiative, convened in March a. c. a conference to Paris with a view to revising the Sevres Treaty and to propose Turkey’s re-occupation of Constantinople and, subject certain stipulations, also of Smyrna. Turkey rejected this proposal whereupon Greece prepared another attack. Abundantly supplied with British arms, the initial offensive was exceedingly successful and the Greek troops nearly reached Angora, while the Turkish troops retreated to the interior of the country. With great efforts the Turks just succeeded in saving their army. The Greeks then began to prepare the second attack, but now Fate turned against them. The Turkish army took the initiative, passed to the offensive which resulted in the complete discomfiture of the Greeks.

The military victory of Turkey confronted her at once with the cardinal question of her existence as a great Power. Greece, the vassal of Great Britain, was thoroughly beaten, but Britain herself was not. The question as to whether Kemal Pasha would force the Dardanelles in order to advance to Thrace, had two aspects, – a military and a political one. Was Kemal at the present moment in a position to carry on a new war against Great Britain? From the military and technical point of view, a conquest of the Straits offered no insuperable difficulties. The British forces on the Asiatic coast of the Dardanelles were few (altogether about 8,000 men) and they were surrounded at Chanak by Turkish troops. There is no doubt that if Turkey had desired to open hostilities against Great Britain, Kemal would have made the British troops prisoners or pushed them into the sea. Fighting and manoeuvring of the British Fleet in the Straits is no easy matter. From the experience of the world war we know that it is, altogether dangerous for a fleet to be exposed to coastal artillery. Turkey possesses also a considerable number of French and Italian aeroplanes which would make it possible for her to harass the British fleet from the air. But all considerations of that kind solved the question only in so far as it concerned military and technical matters. Turkey appears to have considered this question not only from the point of view of the immediate present, but from that of future developments. She argued, if Great Britain is not able to fight now, British imperialism will undoubtedly after a certain lapse of time start war operations with forces far superior to ours. It is true that certain Liberals protested against Mr. Lloyd George’s policy of war threats, as it was expressed in the dispatch of September 16, instructing General Harrington to present to Turkey an ultimatum. Those Liberals are however no real power to lean upon. It is further true that the British working class as well as the middle class are tired of war, so that if it came to a referendum vote, Mr. Lloyd George’s war policy would be rejected. Lloyd George is however a great democrat only in speech; has he not spent in the first few days of the crisis 200 million gold roubles for war preparations, without consulting Parliament? The spiritual leader of the Menshevik Labour Party, Mr. Ramsay Macdonald, melting into tears, writes in the first number of the “New Leader” that, if Lenin dissolved the Constituent Assembly, Lloyd George was more polite by simply regarding the British Parliament as non-existent. If however Great Britain would go to war, the British bourgeoisie, confronted with such a fact, would of course stand by the Government, not only because of the great national interests at stake, but because its class consciousness is so well developed that it subordinates its Parliamentary Party game to its class and national interests.

Romance is woven round the long and checkered history of the struggle for the Straits. Although since the opening of the Suez Canal which deprived Constantinople of its character as the commercial center of South-Western Asia, the Straits have lost much of their importance, they are still of enormous consequence in the formation of the future relations of Great Britain to Russia and Turkey. Great Britain can carry on no land war against Russia, but the latter as the neighbour of India can threaten Great Britain. Russia is a neighbour of Britain in India, which is separated from her by the thin Afghan wall. Russia is also a neighbour of Britain in Persia, whither she can more easily throw her armies than Britain could. In case of a conflict between Russia and Britain in Middle Asia, Russia’s communications are protected by an absolutely safe hinterland, – a fact which is of very great importance in war operations, while Britain must take into account the nationalist-revolutionary movement of the popular masses in India and Persia and may even have to fight against two fronts. From these considerations it may be inferred that Great Britain in a war with Russia would rely most on her naval power, in which she is of course far superior to Russia. The problem of the Straits consists, as far as Great Britain is concerned, in the question whether Great Britain could hold Turkey under a perpetual menace of war. Those who control the Straits, possess also the most effective means of exerting pressure on the future Turkey. Great Britain has not yet made peace with Turkey. Great Britain knows what she wants Turkey to grant her, and she knows, too, that she will not easily get it. She is not even inclined to renounce her demands concerning the Capitulations and financial control. Turkey, which even prior to the war was strongly opposed to those demands and immediately after the declaration of war abolished the Capitulations, will now, filled with enthusiasm and self-esteem as she is in consequence of her victorious war with Greece, be all the less be ready to acquiesce in the regime of Capitulations. Also the demand for financial control over Turkey as compensation for granting her a loan, will meet with stubborn resistance. Turkey possesses sufficiently rich resources which can procure for her a loan, without ceding financial control. She possesses, in the first place, oil, the enormous importance of which was revealed during the world war. And even if Britain controlled the Straits, she would only be secure in her possession, if the Turkish army be reduced to a minimum. The experience of the world war has shown that the British fleet cannot fight with any decisive effect against land forces. Aviation bases, even if situated in the interior of a country, are a strong defensive means against it. Turkey at the peace negotiations, must be prepared for the British demand for a considerable reduction of the Turkish forces. This demand is for Great Britain not only important in connection with the Straits. Armenia, which Britain intended to turn into her vassal and advance guard of her interests in Mesopotamia, is at present partly in the hands of Soviet, partly of Turkey. Great Britain can hold Mesopotamia only through the Persian Gulf where, despite the British bribery work, the tribes are Anti-British The demand for the reduction of the Turkish army means thus diminution of the perils that threaten British oil.

The control of the Straits by Britain is of importance not only when dealing with Russia and Turkey, but likewise with France and the USA. When France in 1920, in pursuance of the San Remo Treaty ceded her oil rights to Britain, it was the USA which organised a hostile campaign against it. The oil output of USA amounts to about 70 per cent of the world’s output; on the other hand, the America consumption of oil surpasses that of all countries in the world taken together. The growth of the American motor car industry and the many possibilities of utilising the Diesel motor have the effect of enormously increasing the oil consumption. The Washington Government does not pursue momentary interests, but looks far ahead into the future. After the San Remo Treaty, it had its oil wells inquired into, and the experts declared that USA will find her oil wells exhausted in seventeen years. The British Government which goes hand in hand with the Royal Dutch-Shell, has acquired the oil of Mossul, the oil at Persia, and secured, besides, through the Shell, the oil output in the French colonies. Moreover, the agreement with Royal-Dutch-Shell gave Great Britain the monopoly of the oil of the Dutch islands, the rich oil regions of Dshantis. This caused the alarm cry of the Washington Government that the oil of the whole earth is falling into British hands and makes Britain the master of the oil markets. The Washington Government has opened the fight against the menace of the British oil monopoly. Up to now, this fight has proceeded in a diplomatic manner, in which USA tried by various means to put pressure on Great Britain and to induce her to grant to Americans the possibility of producing oil in the British, Dutch and French Colonies. As no British-American agreement has yet been reached and as the victory of Kemal Pasha threatens the San Remo Treaty, there is occasion for USA and France to raise the whole oil problem afresh. It is evident that the result of these negotiations will essentially depend on the ability of the British naval guns to keep Constantinople in check.

The tangled skein in the Near East is not yet unravelled. Hitherto it has defied all attempts at straightening it either by the pen of the diplomat or by the sword of the soldier.

The solution of the Near East problem is being delayed. The crisis will assume a chronic character. First, because it is accompanied by a covert, underhand struggle of the Allies against one another; while they feign friendship and unity, they are engaged in bitter feuds with one another. Secondly, because a solution of that problem demands consideration for Soviet interests. During the whole course of this crisis, Russia abstained from all sabre rattling, all threats with taking military measures for the protection of her interests in the Straits. She could assume a calm attitude and limit her defence to diplomatic means, since the logic of things speaks in her favour. All agreements concerning this question entered into without Soviet Russia being a party to them, offer her the opportunity to raise afresh the disputed question, when she thinks fit and is in a position to do so effectively. At a moment when the European and Asiatic crisis becomes acute, she will re-open these questions in a categoric manner. While unprofessional opinion, formed by a superficial study of the lessons of the world war is undoubtedly wrong in asserting that the big ships have lost their fighting value, yet there is no doubt that in so limited a field of operations as the Black Sea the submersible and the aeroplane are of decisive importance. Russia, despite her poverty, is quite able to provide herself with those means of defence. As in matters of electrification, the young countries have in this respect also an advantage over the older ones. Countries, in which steam locomotion has absorbed large investments, do not easily adopt electrification of railways, for such a measure would mean the destruction of large masses of old capital. On the other hand, countries with undeveloped steam locomotion, can easily adopt electrification, since there are hardly any vested interests to offer resistance. The same consideration applies to countries which have spent billions on Dreadnoughts: they are reluctant to give up old notions and to start building submersibles and aeroplanes as their principal means of defence. They cannot make up their minds to scrap their monster ships. Hence the resistance of Great Britain to extensive building programmes of submersibles and airfleets. In the matter of flying she has lost her championship to France and tries now to check France in her building of submersible fleets. All young capitalist countries, though poor, are quite able to turn their attention to submersibles and airfleets. Soviet Russia, is at the present moment not in a position to say that she is laying the foundation of a new fleet. But she may assert something different, something which anybody can appreciate who has not yet forgotten the lessons of the war, – namely, that Russia can lay, politically, the foundation of such a fleet. Casting a retrospective glance at the history of the Russian fleet, we may say that the Russian warships, though not having constituted an airfleet, yet hung in the air, for they were merely the toys of Tsarism. All the infinite efforts directed towards the extension of the Russian fleet after the Russo-Japanese war, were unable to evoke any enthusiasm among the masses of the Russian people. While in Great Britain even a miner, spending his days in the bowels of the earth, is actually proud of “his” fleet, people in Russia took no interest whatever in the naval business. This is easily comprehensible when we recall to our mind the fact that, for instance, the peasant of the district of Pensa knew no more about the Baku oil than the peasant of Tambow or the Ukraine knew of Turkestan cotton. The civil war and the economic ruin have given the Russian peasant lessons in the commercial, geography of his country and he knows now that the loss of Baku, the foundation of his oil industry, or the loss of Turkestan, the basis of his textile industry, would be tantamount to an enslavement of his country by the capitalist Powers. The proletarian revolution inspired the worker and peasant of Russia with a sense of citizenship which he had utterly lacked in Tsarist times. The proletarian revolution, in defending the country for five years, in breaking to pieces the garotting iron ring which the enemies had been fastening round the neck of Russia, taught the people that the revolution is their sword which guards their future and will always defend them. The right to think so springs from the consciousness that the struggle of Soviet Russia for increasing and strengthening her international influence is not a struggle for national aggrandisement, but a struggle for maintaining the first proletarian State, born out of a victorious revolution, and on whose plenitude of power depends the acceleration of the emancipating movement of all other lands, the emancipation of mankind. The fact that the Communist Voting Federation, the organisation of the growing generation, whose task it is to accomplish the work of the October revolution, to direct the struggle for reconstruction and to promote the development of Russia, has been appointed chief of the Fleet, proves that Soviet Russia entrusts the people with the opening up of her resources, which she needs, not only for bridling the interventionist appetites of the Imperialist Powers, but to nip in the bud any attempt to decide, without Russia or against the interests of Russia, the vital questions of the future development of Russia.

The confidence that the logic of things is favourable to the further development of Soviet Russia, moreover, the growing class consciousness of her masses inspire us with the conviction that any decision arrived at in the Near Eastern question against the Russian interests, will be ultimately revised by Russia. The Near Eastern crisis may, after the lapse of a few months, end with some compromise, but, at bottom, it will for years to come remain unsolved and will form the starting point of a new development of the self-consciousness of the masses of the Near East. When the Turkish peasant catching sight of a new gun, cries out “Moscow”, he cannot help feeling that the Russian people, his enemy of a few years ago, has now hastened to his assistance in the fight for freedom. This is a good omen. It lays the foundation of a future alliance with the Turkish masses and the Russian labouring and peasant masses. If the mannikins of the Menshevist International tell us that Turkey will sell Soviet Russia, that we shall be the dupes of the Turks, then we calmly reply that we do not entrust ourselves to this or that nationalist clique, but to the stream of history which unites the labouring masses of all countries against the perils threatening them from international Imperialism.

Whatever may be the result of the Near Eastern crisis, one thing is quite patent: the Sevres Treaty has been smashed by Turkish canon. The popular masses of the Near East, who in the eyes of the Allies are not only a quantité négligeable, but simply the scum of the earth, have been set in motion against no less a thing than the Versailles Treaty. They are at present beginning to play their part. Among the diplomats who think to be able to control the course of history through clever formulae and secret conferences, there is disunity. Great Britain has experienced one of her deepest humiliations in her long history, when after the defeat of her Greek vassal, she durst not come in shining armour to his assistance, and after having pronounced a sentence of death upon Turkey, had now to flatter her and even to offer her a place in the League of Nations. This fact is the irrefutable proof of the break-up of the Sevres Treaty. Popular masses on a low level of civilisation can only be kept in subjection as long as there is unity among the slaveholders, but not when these come to loggerheads. As soon as the slaves perceive that the oppressors are trembling, they begin to rebel. The East of to-day which sees Great Britain trembling, is no more the East of the days of the Sevres Treaty. The Turkish victory finds an echo in India and the whole Islamic world. This echo is the best proof that we have to do with an important episode in the growth of the world revolution, with a success of the world revolution, though the organisers of the victory are far from being revolutionary in the modern sense of the term. When in 1905, Tsarist Russia was beaten by young Japanese Imperialism, an exultation caught hold of the various sections of the yellow race, who were regarded as a sort of human manure, but who desired to be regarded as a part of mankind. Their exultation sprang from the fact that the victory of military, semi-feudal and capitalist Japan over the Tsarist Government was a victory of the yellow man over the white “superman”. This victory was the starting point of the revolutionary movement in China, where, after the victory of the Japanese, a 300 million population said, “I shall likewise be victorious”. It gave a new impetus to the revolutionary movement of India, when over 300 million people are striving for freedom. From that victory sprang the revolutionary surge, the waves of which are rolling forth and before they reach the shore, are increased and strengthened by the rising waves behind them. The same effect will follow the Turkish victory. As proletarian revolutionists, who have steered their ship on the stormy seas of revolution and who are seeing to-day that the Oriental peasant masses who joined the struggle against Imperialism are being swept into the same current, we hail with joy and gratification the victory of the Turks.