Page:The Rebirth Of Turkey 1923.pdf/236

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Treaty of Sevres and the new force of Turkish nationalism. The Angora delegates were received as technically members of the Constantinople delegation, but the latter delegated its leadership to Bekr Sami Bey, a huge sloping Circassian who was Foreign Minister at Angora. Bekr Sami Bey belongs to a type of leadership which is one of Turkey's peculiar assets, a type which has enjoyed a long and rich experience in diplomacy and which as a result has developed a genius for stripping away non-essentials and holding fast to essentials. There is an old and true saying to the effect that what an Englishman is at sea, what a Frenchman is on land, a Turk is in diplomacy. It is a statement which closely characterizes men of the type of Bekr Sami Bey.

The Allied Governments offered to institute an international commission for the investigation of population statistics in Eastern Thrace and Smyrna, on condition that Turkey and Greece accepted its findings and that the remainder of the Sevres Treaty stood unaltered. Bekr Sami Bey accepted the offer, subject to certain conditions in the conduct of the investigation and certain reservations as to the remainder of the Sevres Treaty. The Greek delegation would accept no alteration in the Sevres Treaty of any sort.

On March 12, the Allied Governments proposed a series of modifications in the Sevres Treaty, undertaking inter alia that "the region called the Vilayet of Smyrna would remain under Turkish sovereignty and a Greek force would remain in Smyrna town, but in the rest of the sanjak order would be maintained by a gendarmerie with Allied officers and