463) C. F. Dixon-Johnson: Letters

C. F. Dixon-Johnson

The author of 1916's "The Armenians" possessed the integrity and sense of fairness to defend the image of the badly maligned Turks in the coming years.

Letters Dixon-Johnson penned to The Times of London will be featured on this page. . . .

C. F. Dixon-Johnson was a true humanist and a rarity in his British nation, where most (at the time) regarded the Turks as less-than-human. He knew an injustice when he spotted it, and took the trouble to do something about it.

Thank you, Mr. Dixon-Johnson.


TABLE OF CONTENTS:

1) Greece and Turkey (Sept. 22, 1921)

2) Greeks and Turks (April 15, 1922)

3) Constantinople and the Turks (August 23, 1922)

4) Anatolian Refugees (Oct. 30, 1922)

5) Dominion Wines (Jan. 31, 1927)


September 22, 1921, p. 6


GREECE AND TURKEY.
----------------
TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES.

Sir,—When M. Rizo Rangabé wrote on September 15 criticizing your use of the word "retirement" it is evident that the Greek Legation in London bad not then received a copy of the official communiqué published in Athens, and dated September 13, which reported that the whole of the Greek Army had crossed and occupied the left bank of the Sakaria.

Whether the Greek command hoped to reach Angora or destroy the Kemalist Army, a more difficult task, in no way influences your conclusion that the Greeks have "definitely" failed to achieve their objective, and that the Allies In their own interest and in the interests of all concerned must agree upon some means of preventing further sacrifice of blood and treasure. Moreover, unless the
peasants are enabled within the next few months to return peacefully to their homes, prepare their soil and sow their grim, Anatolia will in the coming year be famine-stricken as Russia is to-day.

A statement made by M. Politis, late Minister for Foreign Affairs under M. Venizelos, and delegate of the Hellenic Government to the Peace Conference, in an article in the Revue Politique Internationale in 1914, discussing the condition of the Greeks under Turkish rule, refutes M. Rangabé’s explanation and makes it difficult to believe that the object of the Greek advance into the Turkish homelands was “the liberation of subject races from the intolerable Turkish domination." M. Politis’s statement was "that under no other foreign rule could their (the Greek) interests find a protection equal to that offered them by the Turks" There is no doubt [of] a certain affinity between the two races which may explain why the Cypriote Greeks are said to prefer to revert to Turkey rather than remain under British administration.

It is equally difficult when we consider the article of M. Chedo Miatovich, former Serbian Minister to the Court of St. James and to the Sublime Porte, written in the Asiatic Quarterly of October, 1913, after Serbia had achieved her aspirations with regard to Turkey, to believe that Greece is fighting as the champion "of European civilization end Christianity against Asiatic barbarism." In this article M. Miatovich frankly admitted that:—.

"Political interest made us (the Balkan nations) paint. the Turks as cruel Asiatic tyrants incapable of European civilization. An impartial history would prove that the Turks are rather Europeans than Asiatics, and that they are not cruel tyrants, but a. nation loving justice and fairness, and possessing qualities and virtues which deserve to be acknowledged and respected."

Surely, M. Rangabé knows that Mustapha Kemal Pasha was a comparatively negligible quantity, capable of menacing neither Constantinople nor the Straits, until the Greeks disregarded the authority of the Supreme Council, and by advancing far beyond the confines of the territory confided to them drove the peasantry into the Kemalist ranks.

It is only fair to recognise, when we recall how, flushed by their earlier victories, the Greeks clamoured for an advance on Constantinople that Kemal Pasha has an equal right to our sympathy for having saved Constantinople from the Greeks as the latter have for having saved Constantinople from the Kemalists.

Yours,

C. F. D!XON-JOHNSON.
Croft-on-Tees, Darlington, Sept. 20.

Apr. 15, 1922, p. 8

GREEKS AND TURKS.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES,
Sir.—In your leading article at to-day you strongly support Professor Toynbee’s proposal that the Allies should at once send control officers to obviate any attempt by the Greek forces, during their retirement, to visit their resentment on the Turkish population.

From now onwards, during the next four months, the Hellenic authorities have ample time In which to clear the country of cattle, implements, machinery, and everything worth removing. I therefore suggest that this is a further reason for the immediate appointment of control officers, whose special duty it would be to prevent any systematic spoliation of this fertile and once prosperous region.

For, unless some such measures are taken, it may happen that the resident Turks and Greeks will be left In a helpless condition, and an important British market ruined for years to come. Whether we credit or not that during the last four months the Greek authorities have sequestrated and sent to Greece 200,000 sheep and goats and 10,000 head of cattle from the vilayet of Smyrna alone, the Turkish report emphasizes what may happen unless due precautions are taken by the Allied Governments

C. F. DIXON-JOHNSON.
Croft-on-Tees, Darlington, April 6.

Aug. 23, 1922, p. 11

CONSTANTINOPLE AND THE TURKS.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES,
Sir—May I remind readers of Mr. Sheridan's letter that the critical position of the war in January, 1917, made it essential that the war aims of the Allies should appear to conform with the idealism, which had prompted President Wilson's inquiry?

They found it expedient, therefore, to fall back upon the old bag and baggage argument about the Ottoman Empire “being foreign to Western civilization” rather than disclose that their real reason for turning the Turks out of Europe was the secret treaty which had already pledged Constantinople to Russia.

The subsequent renunciation, however, of their option by the Russian Revolutionary Government entirely altered the situation for once again placing Constantinople at the disposal of the Allies.

Mr. Lloyd George wisely seized the opportunity thus given to reassure the India Moslems with regard to the future of Constantinople, Thrace and Asia Minor, as referred to by Mr. Ameer Ali. The Turks knew of and relied implicitly upon this solemn promise when they unconditionally surrendered.

C. f. DIXON-JOHNSON
Croft-on-Tees, Aug. 15

Holdwater: Some "solemn promise"..! British actions resulted in the death sentence for the Turkish nation, via the Sevres Treaty.)

Mr. Dixon-Johnson was probably referring to the original armistice agreed upon aboard the HMS Agamemnon (between Minister of Marine Hussein Rauf and British Admiral Calthorp), which guaranteed the frontiers of the defeated Ottoman state; assurances were given in writing that the integrity of Turkish borders would not change.

The "bag and baggage" reference comes from this passage, by Statesman and "Good Christian" William Gladstone, in his pamphlet, "Bulgarian Horrors and the Question of the East": "Let the Turks now carry away their abuses, in the only possible manner, namely, by carrying off themselves. Their Zaptiehs and their Mudirs, their Blmhashis and Yuzbashis, their Kaimakams and their Pashas, one and all, bag and baggage, shall, I hope, clear out from the province that they have desolated and profaned. This thorough riddance, this most blessed deliverance, is the only reparation we can make to those heaps and heaps of dead, the violated purity alike of matron and of maiden and of child; to the civilization which has been affronted and shamed; to the laws of God, or, if you like, of Allah; to the moral sense of mankind at large."

George Horton, similarly racist American consul of Izmir, wrote in his "Blight of Asia": "The Bulgarian massacres were made known by an American consular official, and denounced by Gladstone." If this is how the details of the Bulgarian matter became known, through the word of one individual biased Western consul, how unconscionable that such a damning booklet could be prepared. Another Turcophobe, William Stearns Davis, concluded (in “A Short History of the Near East”) that the Bulgarian toll was 12,000. The actual number probably did not surpass 10,000, a mortality that would be normal in any serious rebellion, and there is no mention of the quarter-million Turks/Muslims who were killed and a further half-million driven from their lands, within that very Bulgarian conflict. ("Death and Exile.")


Oct. 30, 1922, p. 6


ANATOLIAN REFUGEES.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES,

Sir,—We have continuously protested against the Near Eastern policy of the late Government. That policy is now proved to have been disastrous to all concerned. Its worst calamity has fallen upon those Greeks from Asia Minor and Thrace who have become starving refugees.

We feel that this country cannot dissociate itself from its share of the responsibility in the tragedy. The desire for economy is natural and legitimate but it is open for us to do essential rescue work, without adding to the obligations of the taxpayer. We therefore suggest that Great Britain place the balance of the loan promised to Greece in 1918, and withheld on the return of King Constantine, to the credit of the League of Nations for the purpose of relief to those thus rendered homeless. France and the United States have corresponding obligations with which, in this unprecedented disaster, they will no doubt deal.

Yours truly,
ROBERT CECIL.
EDWARD GLEICHEN, Acting Chairman of Committee.
C. F. DIXON-JOHNSON.
AUBREY HERBERT.
J. P. HEWETT.
Near arid Middle East Association, 7, St. James's-terrace, N.W.S, Oct. 27.

Dixon-Johnson: a Wine Conneisseur

DOMINION WINES.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES,
Sir,—After reading your report of Sir Joseph Cook’s address at the Cannon Street Hotel I would respectfully suggest that he and other High Commissioners of our wine-producing Dominions might approach the directorate of at least one of our principal railway companies on whose restaurant cars, it was even during the Imperial Exhibition at Wembley, impossible and is still impossible to obtain a single brand of Dominion wine.

There must be hundreds of passengers lunching and dining daily who would be glad to sample a Dominion wine sold at a cheaper price than the Continental wines, which have not the advantage of a preferential tariff and Dominion bounty. If they liked the wine they would return to it and recommend it to neighbours at table and friends at home, and this would do more to popularize Dominion wines than all the advertisements on the railway station walls. For what the public require are facilities to try them without having to go and look for them.

I am yours obediently;
C. F. DIXON-JOHNSON.
Croft-on-Tees, Darlington, Jan. 27.

(Published Jan. 31, 1927, p. 13)

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