Russian victory of Sarikamysh. By the end of January, 1915, the Turkish
Army was back within its own frontiers, and in this quarter it has not
again advanced beyond them. But the Young Turks' irredentist ambitions
have remained in being. During their brief occupation of Northern Persia
they did their best to wipe out the Syriac element in the
population--the Nestorian Christians of Urmia. Their plan was to get rid
of all the non-Turkish peoples which separate the Turks of Anatolia from
the Turks of Baku and Azerbaijan, and this was the second motive of the
Armenian deportations, which they put in hand a month or two after their
military projects had failed.

The Turkish Irredentists propose, in fact, to gain their ends by
bloodshed and terrorism. Tekin Alp (like most Turkish publicists and
politicians since 1908) is a Macedonian[19], and is profoundly impressed
by the methods which the other nationalities there employed to the
discomfiture of the Turks themselves.

"Observers," he writes, "who, like myself, are Macedonians, and, like
myself, had ample opportunity of gaining an intimate knowledge of the
irredentist propaganda of the Bulgars, Greeks, Serbs, and Vlachs, are
able to judge the significance of this striving after a national ideal,
and how sweet and inspiring it is to go through the greatest dangers for
such a cause. This is best illustrated by a few living examples" (which
he proceeds to give)....

Macedonia is soaked in blood. Atrocities were committed here the mere
thought of which makes one's hair stand on end. Nevertheless, the
leaders of robber bands and members of the terrible irredentist
organisations were not regarded by the public as wild robbers, but as
heroes fighting for the unity of the nation.