On such a delicate point, one cannot do better than quote the words of Suleyman Nazif Bey in a lecture delivered in honour of Pierre Loti at the University of Stambul on January 23, 1920: “When we linked our fate with that of Germany and Austria, the Kaiser’s army had already lost the first battle of the Marne. It is under such untoward and dangerous circumstances that we joined the fray. No judicious motive can be brought forward to excuse and absolve the few men who drove us lightheartedly into the conflagration of the world war. “If Kaiser Wilhelm found it possible to fool some men among us, and if these men were able to draw the nation behind them, the reason is to be found in the events of the time and in the teachings of history. Russia, who, for the last two and a half centuries has not given us a moment of respite, did not enter into the world war in order to take Alsace-Lorraine from Prussia and give it back to France. The Muscovites thought the time had come at last to carry out the dream that had perpetually haunted the Tsars ever since Peter the Great—that is to say, the conquest of Anatolia and the Straits. “It is not to Europe but to our own country that we must be held responsible for having entered into the war so foolishly, and still more for having conducted it so badly, with so much ignorance and deceit. The Ottoman nation alone has a right to call us to account—the Great Powers had paid us so little regard, nay, they had brought on us such calamities, that the shrewd Kaiser finally managed to stir up our discontent and make us lay aside all discretion and thoughtfulness by rousing the ancient legitimate hatred of the Turks. “Read the book that the former Bulgarian Premier, Guéchoff, wrote just after the Balkan war. You will see in it that the Tsar Nicholas compelled, as it were by force, the Serbs and Bulgars, who had been enemies for centuries, to conclude an alliance in order to evict us from Europe. Of course, Montenegro followed suit. France approved, then even urged them to do so; and then one of the leading figures of the times intervened to make Greece join that coalition intended to drive the Turks out of Europe. The rest is but too well known. The Bulgarian statesman who owns all this is noted for his hatred of Turkey. “Let us not forget this: so long as our victory was considered as possible, the Powers declared that the principle of the _status quo ante bellum_ should be religiously observed. As soon as we suffered a defeat, a Power declared this principle no longer held good; it was the ally of the nation that has been our enemy for two and a half centuries, and yet it was also most adverse to the crafty policy that meant to cheat us....