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Our Historical Archive
San Francisco Call Bulletin
September 26, 1922. This article is reprinted below.
Disclaimer: All newspaper articles are reprinted exactly as they appeared in the newspaper regardless of misspellings, grammar,
errors, or omissions.
Editorial - The Turk in Europe
THE more the European situation is studied the more evident it becomes the idea of peace without victory was something of a mistake. If
there had been the certainty of all nations subscribing to a plan for permanent peace, almost any stage might have sufficed for an
armistice, but there was no such certainty and the armistice was therefore premature. It became no more than a temporary cessation of
hostilities. The enemy was not forced to realize that he was beaten. On the contrary he was left with the hope of recovery and even with
the hope of ultimate victory when the allied strength, so powerful in war, was to prove so weak in peace. The allied armies might have been
invincible, but the allied statesmen would become vunerable, because in peace they were no longer allied.
The war to end war ended without ending anything because it ended to soon. With human nature as it is constituted a decisive victory is the
only means of producing the conviction of defeat.
That conviction was not produced in the mind of the Central Powers. Austria is the one Central Power that believes it was beaten, and that
largely because of the consciousness that if was so sadly duped by Germany. In Germany there is no conviction of defeat. Bulgaria is as
willing as ever to fight the moment one of her neighbors is attacked by a larger power, while Turkey is already rejoicing in the fact that
the allies are treating her as an equal and actually offering concessions that seemed unthinkable even so recently as a year ago.
If there was one hope that seemed more certain than another during the closing days of the war it was that Turkey would be driven out of
Europe and kept out. That caldron of so many conflicts was to be removed beyond further menace.
Instead the Turks are to be permitted to return, and since the reason for that permission is the substantial military victory over the Greeks
and not the result of peaceful deliberation, it is almost certain that Turkey will proceed to rebuild her military machine in spite of any
restrictions that the allies may seek to impose. If she has won so much by the sword, why may she not hope to win even more by the same means?
In granting to Turkey what seems rightfully to belong to Greece the allies are setting up another Alsace-Lorraine in the Near East. That Grecian
greed was responsible for the Grecian disaster does not affect the seriousness of the situation. Thrace will continue a sore spot in the mind of
the Greeks and from time to time there will be attempts to regain what was lost by an unfortunate blunder.
All that the allies can plead in extenuation of what appears to be a fatal mistake is that they could neither restrain nor help the Greeks. But
that will not save Europe from further wars if the Turk plants his feet firmly in Thrace. The offered compromise is merely a plan for deferring
the hour of reckoning with Turkey, and the Turk never rests.
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