Crescent and Iron Cross | Page 9

a Liberal programme of reformation, one that earned them at
the moment the sympathy of civilised Europe (including Germany),
and the Balance of Power very mistakenly and prematurely heaved a
sigh of relief. For upwards of a century it had maintained in
Constantinople the corrupt and bloody autocracy of the Sultans, fearing
the European quarrels that would attend the dismemberment of that
charnel-house of decay known as the Ottoman Empire, and now (just
for the moment) it seemed as if a sudden rally had come to the Sick
Man, and he showed signs of returning animation and wholesome
vitality. The policy of the Powers, after a century of failure, looked as if
it was justifying itself, and they were full of congratulations towards
Turkey and each other. But never, in the whole century of their
pusillanimous cacklings, had they made a greater mistake.
Whether the Young Turks ever meant well or not, whether there was or
was not a grain of sincerity in this profession of their policy, is a
disputed question. There are those who say that originally they were
prompted by patriotic and high-minded aims, when they proclaimed
their object of 'Organisation,' and of reform. But all are agreed that it
matters very little what their original aims were, so speedily did their
Liberal intentions narrow down to an Ottomanisation such as Adbul
Hamid had aimed at, but had been unable to accomplish before his evil
sceptre ceased to sway the destinies of his kingdom. In any case this
programme earned its authors the sympathy of Europe, and probably
this, and no more than this, prompted it. They wished to establish
themselves, unquestioned and undisturbed, and did so; and I do not
think we shall be far wrong if we take the original Young Turk
programme about as seriously as we took the parody of a Parliament
with which Abdul Hamid opened (as with a blessing) his atrocious
reign. The very next year (1909) they permitted (if they did not arrange)
the Armenian massacres at Adana, and the Balance of Power began
faintly to wonder whether the Young Turks in their deposition of Abdul
Hamid had not slain an asp and hatched a cockatrice. Given that their
aims originally were sincere, we can but marvel at the swiftness of the

corruption which in little more than a year had begun to lead them not
into paths of reform and Liberal policy, but along the road towards
which the butcher they had deposed had pointed the way. It must have
made Abdul Hamid gnaw his nails and shake impotent hands to see
those who had torn him from his throne so soon pursuing the very
policy which he invented, and to which he nominally owed his
dethronement. Strange, too, was it that his overthrow should come from
the very quarter to which he looked for security, for it was on the army
that each Sultan in turn had most relied for the stability of his throne.
But Abdul Hamid, in order, perhaps, to deal more effectually with the
subject races he wished to exterminate, had introduced a system of
foreign training for the officers of his army, a course of Potsdam
efficiency, and it was just they, on whom Sultans from time
immemorial had relied, who knocked the prop of the army away from
him. Though publicly, for the edification of Europe his deposers
professed a Liberal policy, it was not on account of Armenian
massacres that they turned him off his throne, but because of the
muddle and corruption and debility of his rule. Herein we may easily
trace the hand of Germany, no longer publicly beckoning as when
Wilhelm II., just after the first Armenian massacres, made his request
of the Sultan for the establishment in Turkey of German colonists, but
working underground, sapping and mining like a mole. For Germany,
her mind already fixed on securing Turkey as an instrument of her
Eastern policy, wanted a strong Turkey, and without doubt desired to
bring an end to the disorganisation and decay of the Empire, and create
and at the same time interpenetrate an efficient state that should be
useful to her. We may take it for granted that she, like the rest of
Europe, welcomed any sign of regeneration in the Ottoman Empire, but
there was an ulterior purpose behind that. Turkey, already grasped by
the Prussian hand, must be in that hand a weapon fit for use, a blade on
which she could rely. She strengthened the Turkish army by the
introduction of Prussian discipline, and worked on good material.
Already she has realised her ambition in this respect, and now controls
the material which she then worked on.
The troubled years of the Balkan wars which followed this false dawn,
coupled with the loss of