secure. This is the Mediterranean coastline to the south and west of
Asia Minor, the towns of which have been so extensively peopled and made
prosperous by Greeks and Italians. Similarly among those of our European
Allies who are desirous and capable of Eastern expansion, there remains
one, Italy, whose rights to partake in this Turkish partition we have
not yet considered. In the shifting kaleidoscope of national
war-politics, it seems at the moment of writing by no means impossible
that Greece, having at length got rid of a treacherous and unstable
Reuben of a monarch, may redeem her pledge to Serbia, in which case, no
doubt, she too would state the terms of her desired and legitimate
expansion. But these would more reasonably be concerned with the
redistribution of the Balkan Peninsula, which does not come within the
scope of this book, and we may prophesy without fear of invoking the
Nemesis that so closely dogs the heels of seers, that Italy will
legitimately claim (or perhaps has already claimed) the protectorate of
this valuable littoral. Certain it is that, when peace returns, the
large population of Greeks and Italians once resident (and soon again to
be) on these coasts, must be given the liberty and security which they
will never enjoy so long as they remain in Turkish hands, and the hands
that have earned the right to be protecting Power are assuredly Italian.
Along the south coast a line including the Taurus range would seem to
suggest a natural frontier inland from Adana on the east to the
south-west corner of Asia Minor, and from there a similar strip would
pass up the coast as far as, and inclusive of, Smyrna. That at least
Italy has every right to expect, and there seems no great fear that
among the International Councils there will arise a dissentient voice.
The inland boundary on the west coast is the difficult section of this
delimitation, and into the details of that it would be both rash and
inexpedient to enter.

II

We pass, then, to the second avowed object of the Allies, namely, the
expulsion from Europe of the Ottoman rule, which has proved itself so
radically alien to Western civilisation. This must be taken to include
not only the expulsion of the Turkish control from Thrace and
Constantinople, but from the eastern side as well of the Bosporus, the
Sea of Marmora, and the Dardanelles. At no future time must Turkey be in
a position to command even partially a single yard of that momentous