Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1919-11-23

area, to still further considerable
curtailment of French claims Nor is
thlS all, for eastward, in territories
once Russian, dwell the main mass of
surviving Armenians. and an American
protectorate there would clash with
Russia should Russia ever regain unity.
and with the Gergians and other native
races. who also lay claim to the old Rus
sian lands. which contain the great oil
districts about Batum. one of the prizes
of the economic world
But the Syrian or more exactly the
Arab and Armenian phases only are
Two of the complications. Even more
sharply than the British and French
have clashed between the Mediter-
ranean and the Euphrates. the 1tai-
along the Aegean coast. Italy has
landed troops at Adalia and occupied
the seacoaSt. She claims. also the
right to seize Smyrna. the great port
of Asia Minor, but the Greeks. backed
by the Paris conference. provoked
fighting with the Turks. who are still
to be reckoned with.
Claims to Asia Minor.
Meantime the Italians continue to
hold the islands of Rhodes and the
Dodecanese, which are purely Greek
in population. but were taken by the
Italians in the Libyan war and as
signed permanently to them in their
treaty of London bargain with the
trance into the world war. Now the
Greeks have certain undeniable claims
in Asia Minor. From the dawn of his
tory the west coast has been Hellenic
and it was Athenian protection of
these Greek cities in Asia which pro-
yoked the Persian invasion.
AS for the Italians. they have no
claim based upon race or language.
and only .shadowy historical claims
flowing from temporary Venetian oc-
cupation of certain of the Aegean
Islands. Yet, even if a division could
be made of the sea coast between
the Greeks. who have rights, and the
Italians, who have, Anglo-French con-
sent and military strength, there
would remain the question of the him
terland, where some 100000 Turks
constitute the bulk of the population
and retain measurable capacity for
fighting their enemies, II not for gov
erning themselves.
A separation of the Arab provinces
from the Osmanli would be relative
ly easy. Syria and Anato1ia have
been more often separate than united
in history. but to parcel the sea front
of Anatolia between the Greek and
the Italian. mutually hostile, would
mean nothing more than licensing a
new war in which the Turks would
infallibly resist Italian and Greek
invasion of the hinterland to the
death and the Greeks and the Ital-
ians would inevitably come to blows
themselves, since the Italians have
deliberately adopted the role Of op-
pressor of the Greeks in Europe, in
the Aegean Islands and on the coast
of Asia Minor.
Conflict With Varied Aspirations.
Nor is it less certain if the United
States should undertake the mandate
for Armenia, that in addition to con-
f1ict with French. Russian and not
impossibly British aspirations, we
should find ourselves called upon to
protect the Armenian remnant from
the Turks and Kurds. who today. as
result of the massacres. constitute an
actual majority in the whole of
Turkish Armenia.
There remains the question Of Con-
stantinople. 1t is possible to sepa-
rate the city. from all political asso-
citation with any European OF Asiatic
state, to transform it into a free city;
and to include within it's frontiers on
the lines of the old District of Column
bia, the shores of the Bosporus, the
Dardanelles and the Sea of Marmora.
Given decent government the city
could be made one of the most beauti-
full in the world, and there are those
who regret that the conference of
Paris did not make the town the cap
ital of the league of nations, and thus
an international town.
But for such considerable task the
Continued on Seventeenth Page.)