Cyprus-Forum.com

[Get Real!]

Georges Clemenceau on Turkey...

The following statement was made by Georges Clemenceau, the French Prime Minister during 1906..1909, and 1917..1920.

“There is no instance in Europe, Asia or Africa, where the establishment of Turkish domination over another country has not resulted in a decline of material prosperity and a decline in civilization. Wherever Turkey has emerged victorious it has brought catastrophe."



Has anything about Turkey changed today taking into consideration her latest creation the... "TRNC"?

[Nikitas]

Some in here tell us that they abolished serfdom in the lands they conquered. Which makes me wonder where we got the words Tsifliki and Rayias from. But funnily enough we do not have any words for serf from the Italian or French.

[Oracle]

Testaments on Turkey are legion:

Ambassador to Turkey, Abram Elkus, cabled the U.S. State Department in 1916 that the Young Turks were continuing an ". . . unchecked policy of extermination through starvation, exhaustion, and brutality of treatment hardly surpassed even in Turkish history."

[Nikitas]

Some in here often repeat how the Ottomans arrived and relieved the locals of Venetian serfdom. Yet the same Ottomans had no hesitation at all in carrying out mass slaughters as collective punishment as they did in Kasos, Psara, Chios, Morea, during the Greek uprising, or later in 1878 when they went at the Bulgarians with the same ferocity.

Even the English were moved by the bloodletting in Bulgaria and Gladstone made his famous "bimbachi" speech in Parliament. 1916 was more of the same. In some ways the only parallel for these acts is the intentional eradication of native Americans by the settlers and maybe that explains the close alliance between these two nations. They understand each other.

[Muzzy70]

You are such children. You lot are just the kind of people that I'd want to sit down with and solve the Cyprus 'problem' over a Turkish coffee and baklava !

[74LB]

You are such children. You lot are just the kind of people that I'd want to sit down with and solve the Cyprus 'problem' over a Turkish coffee and baklava !

Muzzy,
It's best to leave these threads alone amongst our GC compatriots - this is bait waiting for the fish to bite

[Get Real!]

You are such children. You lot are just the kind of people that I'd want to sit down with and solve the Cyprus 'problem' over a Turkish coffee and baklava !

Please explain your sentiments...

[Oracle]

With such accusations, it sounds like we have nothing to lose by posting archives of impressions of Turks ...

"The turk is so absolutely without a moral sense, so unutterably bestial in his consideration of woman, so unthinkably vile and filthy in his personal habits, and so hopelessly degraded in his relations with his fellow man that the depth of his infamy is past all human credence. The turk is not a human being. I do not call him a beast, because not one of God's dumb creatures could sink so low. The turk is a devil without a tail. And the educated, polished turk--the official who affects a knowledge of the French language and a veneering of Parisian manners--is the most unspeakable fiend of all. In proof that this assertion is based on incontestable truth I challenge denial from any unprejudiced man who has known the turk thoroughly well for a quarter of a century."

William W. Howard
1896

[CopperLine]

A couple of points : First, in the history of atrocities, massacres, and genocides those committed under Ottoman rule were by no means exceptional. This is not a defence of Ottoman violence, simply an attempt to puncture some of the historical nonsense written in this forum. If one were to compile a catalogue of the sheer numbers of people killed and/or expelled by imperial powers, or if one were to catalogue the variety of peoples/ethnies eliminated by imperial powers over the last five centuries then Britain, Russia, France, US, Spain, Germany, China, Belgium, Japan leave the Ottoman empire, and certainly the republic of Turkey in the shade.

Second, one should always be very careful of taking the term 'Turk' out of its historical context. Essentially up until the 1920s i.e, the establishment of the Republic of Turkey, the term 'Turk' as used by non-Ottomans, especially the British and French, referred to any and all Muslims. It did not typically refer to ethnic Turks nor even to Turkish speakers.

And Clemenceau ? He had, along with Lloyd Goerge, Orlando and Venizelos was determined to carve up the Ottoman empire and most certainly to forestall the creation of a new Turkish republic centred in Anatolia. He failed, but he shared the racism of the European ruling classes of the day. No surprise there then.

[Get Real!]

And Clemenceau ? He had, along with Lloyd Goerge, Orlando and Venizelos was determined to carve up the Ottoman empire and most certainly to forestall the creation of a new Turkish republic centred in Anatolia. He failed, but he shared the racism of the European ruling classes of the day. No surprise there then.

Please prove Clemenceau wrong by providing us with an example that defeats his allegation...

“There is no instance in Europe, Asia or Africa, where the establishment of Turkish domination over another country has not resulted in a decline of material prosperity and a decline in civilization. Wherever Turkey has emerged victorious it has brought catastrophe."

...otherwise we might all have to accept it as fact!