Current History, A Monthly Magazine

History, A Monthly Magazine, by
New York Times

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Title: Current History, A Monthly Magazine The European War, March
1915
Author: New York Times
Release Date: February 6, 2007 [EBook #20521]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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The New York Times
CURRENT HISTORY

A MONTHLY MAGAZINE
THE EUROPEAN WAR
MARCH, 1915

Caldron of the Balkans
But little has hitherto been published in English describing from
original sources how the Balkan States, out of which the world conflict
arose, resolved, in Kipling's phrase, to "stand up and meet the war."
The following documents, taken from authoritative Balkan sources,
show for the first time the purely Balkan aspect of the great struggle.

How Turkey Went to War
By Ottoman Authorities
Immediately on receiving official notification of the rupture of
diplomatic relations between Austria and Servia, the Turkish Grand
Vizier hastened to inform the Diplomatic Corps in Constantinople that
Turkey would remain neutral in the conflict. Explaining this official
Turkish declaration, the following editorial article appeared early in
August in the Ministerial paper, Tasfiri-Efkiar, published in
Constantinople:
The declarations made by the Grand Vizier to the Ambassadors of the
powers, in order to reassure them as to the dispositions of Turkey, do
not constitute from a legal point of view a declaration of neutrality,
according to the stipulations of The Hague Conventions; likewise the
Austrian ultimatum to Servia, viewed in the same light, is not
tantamount to a declaration of war. In fact, The Hague Conventions
demand a formal declaration in both cases. But if the formal declaration
of Turkish neutrality cannot be made before she has received an official
notification of the existing war, it is nevertheless true that the head of

the Government, in his conversations with the Ambassadors, has given
them to understand what the opinion of the people is here. And even
without this, the efforts of the Turkish Government, the desire, and the
policy of Turkey, are so explicit that there is no ground for doubt as to
the significance of the declarations of the Grand Vizier.
Turkey has never asked for war, as she always has worked toward
avoiding it. But we must not misunderstand the meaning of certain
terms. Neutrality does not mean indifference. The present
Austro-Servian conflict is to a supreme degree interesting to us. In the
first place, one of our erstwhile opponents is fighting against a much
stronger enemy. In the natural course of things Servia, which till lately
was expressing, in a rather open way, her solidarity as a nation, still
provoking us, and Greece will be materially weakened. In the second
place, the results of this war may surpass the limits of a conflict
between two countries, and in that case our interests will be just as
materially affected.
We must therefore keep our eyes open, as the circumstances are
momentarily changing, and do not permit us to let escape certain
advantages which we can secure by an active and rightly acting
diplomacy.
The policy of neutrality will impose on us the obligation of avoiding to
side with either of the belligerents, but the same policy will force us to
take all the necessary measures for safeguarding our interests and our
frontiers. If it be true, as reported, that the pacificist tendencies of
Turkey constitute one of the safest guarantees of peace in the Balkans,
then we must hope that on the day when a general settlement of
accounts will be made Europe will be willing to recognize the
important part played by Turkey in the preservation of peace in the
Near East, and will be eager to rectify, if not all, at least one part of the
wrongs she has caused to our country.
TURKEY LEARNS OF THE WAR.
Turkish mobilization was still at its first stages when the European war
began on Aug. 1, 1914. The Turkish Government in particular and the

Turkish population in general were overwhelmed by the unexpected
turn of European events, and it was at the height of the crisis that
Turkey received the news of her two battleships building in British
yards being taken over by England. A correspondent of The Daily
Atlantis of New York, writing in Constantinople on Aug. 10, said:
The European war makes the Turks think that this is their golden
opportunity for turkifying the empire from the one end