Turkey's importance at this stage of the war is geographical. The rugged
plateau of Anatolia, insufficiently equipped though it is with roads or
railways, is a bridge from the Middle East to one of Europe's softest
spots, the Balkans. The islands just off Turkey's southern and
southwestern coast are steppingstones for the sea road to an attack on
Greece. And in the Middle East, across the bridge and beyond the
steppingstones. Allied armies are growing. For nearly four years a policy of strict neutrality has kept the Turkish
bridge from being used by belligerents. But now Turkey, by virtue of
her geographical location, can help or hinder the Allies in their
offensive strategy—by keeping her neutrality, or by relinquishing it. Ismet Inn, President of Turkey, Skr Saracoglu, Turkey's Prime
Minister, and Numan Menemencioglu, Foreign Minister, inherited a policy
from the man who built up Turkey from the ruins of a degenerate empire.
That policy: no entanglement with foreign powers. The great Kaml
Atatrk laid it as a cornerstone of modern Turkey's international
relations. Time modified it while he still lived: to maintain Turkey's
tottering economy he had to arrange some foreign loans. War modified it
still further after Kaml Atatrk's death: caught between campaigns to
the west, north and south of her, Turkey had to find a modus vivendi
with the warring powers which entailed some commitments. But the three
men who formulate Turkey's policy have handled it brilliantly so far.
None of their commitments has bound them definitely to one side or
the other. Up to the present, their neutrality has been real. The Elastic Wall. Neutrality is not a stiff wall of defense; it is
elastic. When a neutral power holds the bridgeway between two
theaters, the elasticity increases.
Then neutrality involves giving inches at the right time to the right
power, playing one power off against another. It involves careful
analysis of every word in the lexicon of neutrality:
“friendship,” “alliance,” “benevolence”
and many more, until the lexicon is exhausted. For a nation in Turkey's
position, the last word in the lexicon, the one to be most
anxiously and searchingly scanned, is war. War has been relatively simple to avoid so far. While Germany was on the
offensive, war was always a simple issue: fight or go down in the
“New Order.” But with Allied armies standing at the gate to
Turkey's bridge, the issue has changed. The Allies hold something in
their hands that Germany never had: the prospect of complete and final
victory in Europe and reconstruction of the Continent's political
structure. That might mean the consolidation of everything the Turks
with Kaml Atatrk had fought for: a strong position in the Balkans and
the Middle East, some territorial gains which would give Turkey more
protection against the possibility of future attack.
