Agadir Crisis

“ A gradual process, culminating in the shock of Casablanca and Agadir, has made manifest the hopelessness of such merely negative action, if it could be called action. They have come down into the arena. ”

“ The warlike Ahamed was somewhat abashed by this reception, but he made great haste to obey the governor's decree. Mounted on camels, the party crossed the mountain trails, and then halted to consider breaking back into the desert with the captives and seeking a more auspicious market for them. Ahamed regretted that he had not sold them before he foolishly strayed into the clutches of the accursed Moorish governor of Agadir. More than likely there would be no ransom forthcoming at Mogador. ”

“ The noise, the mirth, the sudden swell of music, the pleasure-seeking crowds—all that were about him—served only to make more desolate and more oppressive by their contrast his memories of that life, once gracious, and gifted, and content with the dower of its youth, ruined by a woman, and now slaughtered here, for no avail and with no honor, by a lance-thrust in a midnight skirmish, which had been unrecorded even in the few lines of the gazette that chronicled the war news of Algeria. ”

“ This village surrendered, without firing a shot, after a promise of safety, to the bashi-bazouks, under command of Ahmed Aga, a chief of the rural police. Despite his promise, the arms once surrendered, Ahmed Aga ordered the destruction of the village and the indiscriminate slaughter of the inhabitants, about a hundred young girls being reserved to satisfy the lust of the conqueror before they too should be killed. Not a house is now standing in this lovely valley. Of the 8000 inhabitants not 2000 are known to survive. ”

“ The Christian conquest of the Agúsan Valley, begun in 1877, and the establishment of a special form of government therein in 1907, have contributed in no small measure to diminish the number of feuds and bloody reprisals that had given the Agúsan Valley its reputation as "the country of terror," and as a consequence leave little opportunity for the recognition of new warriors. Thus it is that at the present day the ancient system is fast fading away, and it is only a matter of years before the warrior chief will be a thing of the past. ”

“ Indeed it is not these greater occurrences, as the big raids and murders, which are the most serious to the Christian. It is the daily constant exactions and oppressions which are crushing the life out of them.”
A whole chapter might well be devoted to the oppression by government officials in assessing and collecting taxes. This evil is general, affecting all Turkey. ”

“ For instance, there is no actual proof of this contention in the fact that the incident of the Panther and Agadir, which so nearly precipitated the whole of Europe into war, was practically coincident with one of the worst strikes that the history of British industry can show; but there is proof that, for years past, German agitators have been teaching both British and French workmen the way to organise “in defence of their rights,” and have been advocating Syndicalism and the weapon of the general strike as a panacea for all evils to which the classes subject the masses. ”

“ In regard to the massacre of Nestorians in 1850, Layard states that after 9000 had been massacred, “1000 men, women, and children concealed themselves in a mountain fastness. Beder Khan Beg, an officer of rank in the employment of the Sultan, unable to get at them, surrounded the place, and waited until they should be compelled to yield by thirst and hunger. Then he offered to spare their lives on the surrender of their arms and property, terms ratified by an oath on the Koran. The Kurds were then admitted to the platform. ”

“ Ahmed stopped an old man.
“What has happened?” he demanded.
“The Mongols have taken Bagdad,” came the shattering reply. “They have captured the Caliph and the Princess Zobeid. They are murdering the people. They are polluting the wells. They are stabling their horses in the temples of Allah. They are crucifying the priests. They are looting and burning the ancient town!” ”

“ A few hours before this historic event, Firouz Ali, the barber of Bagdad, came within an ace of losing his life.
When it became clear that the city must soon fall to the victorious British forces, the Turkish soldiery, with a licence which their German masters could hardly have exceeded, had begun to plunder the inhabitants, among whom they were always foreigners and the agents of a corrupt despotism. They stripped the houses of everything valuable that they could carry away, and with threats, blows and actual murder extorted huge sums of money from the wealthier citizens. ”

“ Such is the Aghori. His look is that of a mad idiot. There are the insane leer, the protruding tongue, the filthy teeth. The Aghori never washes, never dresses. He takes only carrion or putrid food, and drinks foul water. In one hand he carries a human skull, in another some hideous instrument of torture and death. These are his insignia. To complete the picture of this horrible process of brutalisation, it is only to be added that the Aghori besmears himself with human ordure. He does not hold human life in the least account. Nothing is too sacred for him. ”

“ He won’t let anyone profit by a penny excepting himself, and while he tries unjustly to obtain evidence in his favor, in a suit for 60,000 tomans, he grudges to spend twenty or thirty tomans on such kind young fellows as you! By God, there is not in the whole world another wretch like him! May God punish him by utter ruin! His work is unjust, and his conduct ignoble, and he himself a skinflint and a robber.
The Soldier. How is his work unjust, my lord?
Aga-Merdan. Because he evidently wishes to deny the existence of the little seven months’ old child of Hadji-Ghafour. ”

“ And still the blaze soared up, spread up, twirled up, forked up; red-hearted, blue-tipped, yellow-frayed; and ever and anon, when the black-winged Angel of Death tossed another soul of pride and injustice into the caldron, there would come an immense shrieking and yelling, and the flames would shoot higher—ever higher.
Ahmed looked. He stared. How might he cross? There seemed no way, except to swim across these flames as across a river. And again temptation touched him. He would return. He was too weak to face this ordeal. ”

“ The fact of the matter is that Agades is not the capital of Air at all. As we have seen, the city is not the seat of [116] the central government because there is no real central government, and the King who lives there is not really King at all. Agades is only the seat of an administration set up in the first instance to deal with exterior affairs, and more especially those connected with the Southland. These affairs were in the charge of a figure-head ruler unconnected, except to a very minor degree, with the internal problems of the Tuareg tribes. ”

“ Once more Ahmed yawned; blinked his eyes sleepily.
“Thief!” exclaimed the tree. “Thief of Bagdad! Are you listening to me?” And, a little more impatiently: “Ahmed! Answer me! Are you listening?” And, still more impatiently, with a slight growl of anger that caused his bark to wriggle like the hide of an old elephant: “Are you deaf? Answer me! I demand an answer!”
Ahmed rubbed his eyes. Then he whistled to himself, softly, negligently, while the tree began to shake with rage, to stammer and stutter:
“Behold me this fool! This idiot! This half-wit! A clever man, he calls himself! ”

“ No cry of horror has risen from the hearts of civilized nations! Turkey can butcher the helpless victims of her greed and carnivorous instincts with impunity, since Christendom and Civilization are busy only with Turkish concessions, with land grabbing and money making.
“Human Bullets”! “Human Bullets”! here are human bullets of heavier rain than at the world’s grimmest siege; here are “sure death detachments” hurled to a more pitiful fate; and the civilized world does not care, for Armenian Massacres come and go, and the civilized world is getting used to them. ”

“ As I have said, I hope it is not so, and I will hope to the last, but if it is so it is time that one general shout of execration, not of men, but of deeds, one general shout of execration directed against deeds of wickedness, should rise from outraged humanity, and should force itself into the ears of the Sultan of Turkey and make him sensible, if anything can make him sensible, of the madness of such a course. ”

“ What is needed is prompt, decisive, and final action.
82And things have now arrived at such a pass that in such action lies the only hope of preventing a terrible catastrophe, which will eclipse even the massacres of Sassoun. The wheels of progress will not go backward except as they are broken. The Christians of Armenia can be exterminated, but it is too late for them to accept slavery or Islam. ”

“ This Hill—wrongly so called—was an enormous defile, cleft between towering black walls, and in the centre of it a great, seething, rock-lined caldron of flames, perhaps three miles across, fed by the pride of unjust men and fallen Angels.
Hard was the road up the defile to the stepping of Ahmed’s feet. Stronger and stronger, as he toiled upwards, his lungs heating like a hammer, the heat from the caldron,, as he approached it, sucking through the defile as through a chimney and scorching his face, grew the temptation to return, to give up this pilgrimage. ”

“ Moreover, his Highness hath promised to increase my honors and reduce my labors, and since I grow old in serving the nation this consideration pleases me and renders me content.”
“Yet you would serve a trickster—a weak, priest-ridden impostor—instead of me, your kinsman and a Prince of Raab?”
“The man you call weak,” said Agahr, composedly, “has proven himself strong. In ruling Baluchistan from the throne of Mekran he will be masterful, energetic and supreme. Within his veins flows the blood of two mighty khans whom all the nation feared—as they will come to fear him. ”

“ We met, the lover and the beloved, in grief—in madness—in despair! Oh, wonder not, that when we parted guilt should be added to the burthen of our sorrows; but the terrible consciousness of crime changed at once our natures and our deeds. Agatha’s horror of her husband increased: and, now that she was mine, I determined she should no more be his—to fly, and rob the castle for the means of sustenance. ”

“ With which cryptic threat he swaggered off, bumping his sabre tip martially against the stone pavement, while the Thief of Bagdad thumbed his nose insultingly at the infuriated merchant and turned West across the Square, toward the Bazar of the Potters.
Ahmed was pleased with himself, the sunshine, and the world at large.
Money he had! Money that would be eagerly welcomed by his pal, an old man who had first initiated him into the Honorable Guild of Bagdad Thieves and had taught him the tricks and principles of their ancient profession. ”

“ The enemy, believing that all the garrison had taken to flight, burst open the outer gate; but while he was endeavouring to force the inner door, Dilshad Agha gave orders for her [146] troops to discharge a volley of shot and arrows, which committed fearful havoc in the enemy's ranks, and pierced the eye of Sufdur Khan. The latter ran under the terrace on which the royalists stood; and the king, rolling down a heavy stone, crushed his enemy to death.
The death of Sufdur put an end to the rebellion. The insurgents, giving themselves up for lost, opened the gates of the citadel, and fled. ”

“ They escaped from Medina to Mecca, and from thence to Bassora; erected the standard of revolt; and usurped the government of Irak, or Assyria, which they had vainly solicited as the reward of their services. The mask of patriotism is allowed to cover the most glaring inconsistencies; and the enemies, perhaps the assassins, of Othman now demanded vengeance for his blood. They were accompanied in their flight by Ayesha, the widow of the prophet, who cherished, to the last hour of her life, an implacable hatred against the husband and the posterity of Fatima. ”

“ The garrison of Yefran contains some two or three hundred Turkish soldiers, as also that of Gharian, besides Arab troops. The Arabs of these districts are entirely subdued, their native courage apparently dried up and extinct. This has been done chiefly by forced emigration or extermination. The French acquired their razzia system from the Turks whom they found in possession of the government of Algiers, on the conquest of that country; but they have improved on it, for a superior intelligence imitating a bad system, will always increase its cruelty and wickedness. ”

“ The general is said to have worn on his breast an order from Constantinople, which he read to the soldiers, commanding them to cut down the Armenians root and branch, and adjuring them if they loved their Sultan and their government they would do so. A terrible massacre followed. Between five and ten thousand Christians are said to have been butchered in a most terrible manner. Some soldiers say a hundred fell to each one of them to dispose of; others wept because the Kourds did more execution than they. ”

“ Thus Russia and Poland had feared them, trampled into bloody mire beneath the feet of their small, shaggy ponies. Thus China and India and Hungary had wilted beneath their blight. Thus, time and again, they had drawn a crimson furrow across half the world. Thus, this day, Bagdad—and with Bagdad all Araby, all Islam—seemed doomed to fall under their pitiless yoke.
They marched down the broad avenue that led to the palace of the Caliph; marched clumsily—being men born and bred on horseback—but steadily. The high call of an ivory horn stabbed out ”