1909] Queen Alexandra and Her Sister 251 



nothing to do with it, nor was it true that the Sultan had distributed 

 money to the troops to make them revolt against their officers. The 

 Sultan had given money for the foundation of a Madrasa (public 

 school) which had been handed over by the Ulema, who had received 

 it for the Madrasa, to the troops. This sounds like an excuse. What 

 probably is true is that there was a strong reactionary party at Stam- 

 boul, which appealed to the soldiers on religious grounds. Sabunji 

 declares that this feeling was so strong that it was intended to have a 

 general massacre of Christians, and that this was only prevented by 

 the rapidity of the march on Constantinople from Salonika. Had the 

 massacre taken place there would have been European intervention and 

 a partition of Turkey. He declares that there was a settled plan for 

 the partition already agreed to, according to which England was to get 

 Syria as well as Egypt ; France, Tripoli ; Italy the Albanian coast ; Aus- 

 tria, Salonika; and Germany, effective administration of the railway 

 line from Broussa to Bagdad, with ten kilometers on either side of it, 

 while Russia was to get the northern part of Asia Minor. [Compare 

 text of the secret treaties afterwards discovered at St. Petersburg and 

 published 1917.] He says, too, that there was an intrigue between 

 Izzet Pasha and the Khedive Abbas for getting Abbas acknowledged 

 Caliph, and that the English Government favoured it, intending to use 

 the Khedive as a first step towards an Arabian Caliphate under English 

 protection. This, of course, is the old idea which he (Sabunji) with 

 many others, held in 1881, as shown in my ' Future of Islam.' 



" gth June. — Chapel Street. Met Cunninghame Graham in the Park 

 and talked with him of Grey's speech at the Imperial Press Conference, 

 which will need, I think, a manifesto from some of us to the Moham- 

 medan world, for I read it as announcing a definite intention to retain 

 Egypt. ' English policy,' Grey says, ' is to keep all we have.' 



" It is a question now for the Ottoman Empire to make up its mind 

 whether in the coming conflict it is to side with England or with Ger- 

 many. On the whole an alliance with Germany would probably be the 

 lesser risk of the two, seeing how Egypt and now Persia have been 

 betrayed by England, and how India is held by us in permanent bond- 

 age, also England's power is apparently on the wane, while Germany is 

 increasing. 



" Lady Gregory came to luncheon, and we went after it to the Court 

 theatre together. She has just been for three weeks at Venice, staying 

 there with Lady Layard. She gave an amusing description of the 

 arrival one day at luncheon while there of two little ' maids of all 

 work ' rather shabbily dressed, which proved to be Queen Alexandra 

 and her sister the Empress of Russia, who had arrived together on a 

 yachting cruise, and had come to call without ceremony. The Empress, 

 Lady Gregory says, looks now much the older of the two, for the Queen 



