NOTES ON INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS FROM SEPTEMBER 5 TO SEPTEMBER 25
Prepared by Allan Westcott, Professor, U.S. Naval Academy
NEAR EAST
Results of Turkish Victory.—Following the capture of Afiun Karahissar in August, the Turkish forces in Asia Minor advanced steadily and by a series of victories in the first week of September, forced the surrender of Smyrna and the evacuation of Greek troops from Asia Minor. The Turkish forces entered Smyrna on September 9. On September 11 a fire swept the city, leaving at least 200,000 Christian refugees. Many Christians were deported to the interior.
British Propose Allied Action.—On September 12 the British Government proposed to the French and Italian Governments concerted action to assure the defense of Constantinople and the neutral zone of the straits. The British Atlantic fleet was despatched to the Mediterranean and a call for aid was sent to British Dominions.
Although the Entente Commission at Constantinople warned the Kemalist representative as to the serious effect of an invasion of the neutral zone, the French and Italian forces were withdrawn from the eastern side of the Dardanelles, only the British remaining. In France, the Turkish victory was regarded as favorable to French aims, and a passive attitude was advocated.
On September 19 it was reported that the French Government had received from Mustapha Kemal a promise not to enter the neutral zone upon the understanding that Turkey should receive Eastern Thrace up to the Maritza river, including Adrianople.
Joint Note to Turks.—After much discussion the Allied Governments on September 23, reached agreement and dispatched a joint note to Mustapha Kemal, as follows:
The three Allied Governments ask the Government of the National Grand Assembly to be good enough to let them know if it is disposed to send without delay representatives with full powers to a meeting to be held at Venice or elsewhere and to which will be invited also, with the representatives of Turkey, plenipotentiaries of Great Britain, France, Italy, Japan, Rumania, Jugoslavia and Greece.
This meeting will take place as soon as necessary arrangements are made by the Governments concerned. The object of this meeting will be to negotiate and consolidate a final treaty of peace between Turkey, Greece and the Allied Powers.
The three Governments take this opportunity to declare that they view with favor the desire of Turkey to recover Thrace as far as the River Maritza and including Adrianople.
On condition that the Angora Government does not send armies during the peace negotiations into zones, the provisional neutrality of which has been proclaimed by the Allied Governments, the three Governments will willingly support at the conference attribution of these frontiers to Turkey, it being understood that steps will be taken in common agreement in the treaty to safeguard the interests of Turkey and her neighbors, to demilitarize, with a view to the maintenance of peace in certain zones to be fixed; to obtain peaceful and orderly re-establishment of Turkey's authority, and finally to assume effectively under the League of Nations maintenance of the freedom of the Dardanelles, the Sea of Marmora and the Bosphorus, as well as protection of religious and racial minorities.
For the rest, the three Allied Governments will willingly support the admission of Turkey to the League of Nations. They are in agreement in reaffirming their assurance, given in March last, that they will withdraw their troops from Constantinople as soon as the treaty of peace has entered into force.
The three Allied Governments will use their influence to procure before the opening of the conference the retirement of the Greek forces to a line to be fixed by the allied Generals in agreement with the Greek and Turkish military authorities.
In return for this intervention the Government of Angora will undertake not to send troops, either before or during the peace conference, into the zones of neutrality which have been previously declared and not to cross the Straits or the Sea of Marmora. In order to fix the abovementioned line, a meeting might immediately take place between Kemal Pasha and the Allied Generals at Mudania.
The Allied Governments are convinced that their appeal will be listened to and that they will be able to collaborate with the Turkish Government and their allies to establish peace, for which the whole civilized world is longing.
(Signed) POINCARE.
CURZON.
SFORZA.
Turkish Reply.—While negotiations were proceeding, Turkish forces entered and entrenched within the neutral zone. It was reported that the Turkish reply to the Allied invitation would be acceptance on condition that military movements be permitted during the Conference, and that Russia, Persia, and Bulgaria be allowed to take part. In case this reply was satisfactory the preliminary armistice conference to arrange for the cessation of hostilities between Greeks and Turkish Nationalists would be held at Mudania, on the Sea of Marmora, on or about October 2.
Abdication of Constantine.—As a result of revolt in the army and navy and popular hostility following the defeats in Asia Minor, King Constantine of Greece abdicated on September 27, in favor of his son, Crown Prince George.
GERMANY
Army Occupation Expenses.—Two articles in the September, Fortnightly Review, one by Dr. E.J. Dillon, quote from German sources extraordinary figures regarding the expenses of Allied forces in the occupied territory. According to these figures, there were on January 1, 1921, 131,000 men in the occupying armies. The Rhineland High Commission has expanded from 4 to 1,300 officials, who have expended money lavishly for personal accommodations. According to British figures Germany up to February, 1922, had paid £46,000,000 reparation to Great Britain, and the cost of the British Army of Occupation has been £53,000,000.
Settlement with Belgium.—On September i, the Allied Reparation Commission gave Germany the privilege of suspending reparation payments upon conclusion of an agreement with Belgium for acceptance of six-month bonds in lieu of the 270,000,000 gold marks, due by priority to that nation. Germany at first proposed to the Belgian Government payments extending over eighteen months, and latter declared its inability to fulfill Belgium's demand for a deposit of 100,000,000 marks in gold in some foreign bank as security. The Belgian conditions were finally met by the deposit of German gold or securities abroad in a location not revealed as collateral for a guarantee of the bonds by the Bank of England.
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Restoration Agreement.—On September 5 it was announced that Hugo Stinnes, the German industrial magnate, had concluded a private agreement with French co-operation societies for the supply of thirteen billion francs' worth of German building materials for the restoration of French devastated regions, the cost to be credited to Germany's reparation account, with six per cent profit to Stinnes.
LEAGUE OF NATIONS
Meeting of Assembly.—The Third Assembly of the League of Nations met at Geneva on September 4. Augustin Edwards, head of the Chilean delegation, was elected president. The Peruvian delegation was not present and Bolivia formally withdrew on September 10. Special committees were appointed to consider the problem of financial aid for Austria, the Cecil plan for disarmament, and other problems on the agenda. The Assembly later adopted the Council's proposal that the number of small states represented in the Council be increased from four to six. This in future will give the small states a majority, but the four great powers in the council are protected by the rule requiring unanimity on all important questions. The action was taken as a result of agitation against the domination of the Council by the Allied powers. Proposed changes in Article X of the League covenant were shelved until next year.
Cecil Disarmament Plan Adopted.—Geneva, Sept. 13.—The Disarmament Committee of the Assembly, on which all members of the League of Nations are represented, adopted today a resolution embodying Lord Robert Cecil's plan for a series of protective treaties. The resolution instructs the Permanent Disarmament Commission to prepare in consultation with the Governments a treaty on the lines laid down by Lord Cecil and asks that the Governments give formal adhesion before the next session of the Assembly in September, 1923.
Chief interest in the plan centers in a European peace compact, Europe being the continent most in need of peace. The British, French and Italian Governments have gotten behind the Cecil plan and are pushing it. First England favored it, and France has swung well into line.
Today's motion provided for the drafting of a treaty by the commission alone, its submission to the Governments, and a request that these give a yes or no reply to the next assembly. M. de Jouvenal, France, argued that the proper step was to consult the most important Governments in drafting the treaty, so that when finished their adhesion would be assured. This plan was adopted.
Lord Cecil is Chairman of the Permanent Disarmament Commission and will direct the drawing up of the treaty. The action of the committee today is sure to be approved formally by the Assembly. It is intended to have the treaty submitted to all the Parliaments before next September. If England, France, Italy, Spain and Czechoslovakia can agree on the terms the treaty will have important promises.—New York Times, 14 September, 1922.
FAR EAST
Japanese Policy.—Writing in the September Contemporary Review on the Far East, Mr. H.K. Norton speaks as follows of the results of the Washington Conference:
Those Chinese and Russians who have struggled directly against the advance of Japanese arms and who are most distrustful of Japan's methods point to the agreement upon the limitation of naval armaments as a sinister victory for Japanese militarism. Their contention is that Japan has secured by this agreement a naval ratio which she could not hope to maintain under competitive conditions. While this ratio deprives her of the power to take the offensive against America, and thus relieves America of all fear of danger to her Pacific Coast, it is equally effective in depriving America of the power to take action against Japan in Asian waters. As pacifist theory this is wholly commendable. But in the eyes of Koreans, Russians, and Chinese, who are in various stages of suppression by Japanese arms, it appears little short of a catastrophe. It means to them that Japanese militarism is to have a free hand on the continent of Asia, and that the one friend to whom they have hitherto looked for assistance had rendered herself powerless to help them. The only ray of light they can see now is the possibility of Great Britain and America joining together to restrain Japan, a ray which does not do much to dispel the gloom of their despair.
Of the situation in Shantung he remarks that the Japanese are to all appearances carrying out in good faith the agreement to turn over the railway to China, yet have demanded the $30,000,000 paid by Germany plus $168,000,000 for Japanese improvements. This sum is prohibitive, though Japan has intimated a decrease if China proves herself "sincere," in other words grants satisfactory concessions elsewhere.
In Southern Manchuria the twenty-five-year lease of the Liaotung peninsula and the railway to Mukden, which Japan took over from Russia, will expire next year. China refuses to recognize the validity of the ninety-nine-year extension extorted as one of the Twenty-one Demands. The administration of the railway through the rest of Manchuria is also an unsettled problem. At present it is under an Inter-Allied Board, with five Russians and six Chinese as directors.
Russo-Japanese Parley Ended.—According to a press despatch of September 25, the conference between Japan, the Chita Government of the Far Eastern Republic, and representatives of the Moscow Government was broken off by Japan. Japan entered the conference to secure a trade agreement with the Chita Government, and consented only unwillingly to the inclusion of Moscow representatives headed by Joffe. The latter bent their efforts toward securing Japanese recognition, and, upon failure to gain this, finally demanded that Japan set a date for the evacuation of Northern Sakhalien. This Japan refused to do.
Japanese Control of Pacific Islands.—Of Japan's Government of its mandate islands, an interesting account is given in an article entitled "The Mandates in the Pacific," in the new American quarterly review Foreign Affairs. The article is written by Prof. George H. Blakeslee, American specialist in Pacific problems at the Washington Conference. An extract follows:
From October, 1914, when Japanese forces first occupied these islands, they remained under the control of the Japanese Navy Department until April 1, 1922, when a purely civil South Seas Government came into operation, which is responsible directly to the Imperial Cabinet. The Japanese undertook the administration of the islands with commendable earnestness and energy. Experts and high officials visited the archipelagos in large numbers in the early months; the native chiefs were taken on visits to Japan; roads were built, additional cocoanut trees planted, navigation buoys placed, surveys made; a regular subsidized steamship service to the islands was established; and trade and commerce with Japan were furthered. Due to wartime regulations, the government was able to give Japanese a virtual monopoly of trade and commerce. The Germans were all sent away, other foreign traders discouraged, commerce in general restricted to Japanese ships, and all foreigners forbidden to enter or leave the islands without special permission, usually difficult or impossible to obtain. Under these conditions Japanese commercial companies established themselves in the islands and invested considerable capital, and the number of Japanese increased from 83, before the war, to 3,671 in 1920.
In military and naval matters the Japanese have completely lived up to the provisions of the Mandate. They have built no fortifications, established no naval bases, and have not trained the natives for military purposes. But, as they have a right to do, they have established radio stations, at least eight of them, four being powerful enough to communicate with Japan, have begun experiments with aeroplane flights, and are maintaining a small police force numbering less than a hundred.
The most striking feature of the Japanese administration is the establishment of elementary schools. The Germans had no government schools, leaving the education of the natives entirely to American and German missions; but the Japanese Government, with much the same spirit which actuated the American Administration in the Philippines, is extending elementary schools as rapidly as possible and requiring the attendance, wherever the schools are available, of all children from 8 to 15 years of age. Wherever government schools have been established, the school authorities have refused to allow native children of school age to attend the mission schools.
The Japanese administration as a whole has been energetic, progressive —as is shown by their schools and by their care for the health of the natives—and in general fairly efficient. On the other hand, there has been over-administration, a too careful supervision of details, too many officials, occasional annoyances and injustice due to petty naval officials, and an attempt to hustle the simple natives too fast.
As to American rights and interests, the Japanese, the past few years at least, have been placing no obstacles in the way of the evangelistic work of the American missions. The regulation, however, forbidding native children between 8 and 15 to attend the mission schools would appear to be in violation of the new treaty regarding the Mandate, although they may reasonably insist upon proper educational standards in these schools and upon instruction in Japanese. With the inauguration of the new civil government, this regulation, as well as those which have practically closed the islands to American trade and commerce, will naturally be modified.