TURKEY 1153 



Another appointment was a bold innovation. For, without regard for the displeasure 

 of the minister of Justice (the Mullah Nejmeddin) and the furious opposition of the 

 Moslem clericals in the Chamber, a French juris-consult and orientalist, 

 Departmental Count Leon Ostrorog, was asked to assist as judicial adviser in carrying out 

 reorganisa- legislative and judicial reform. The organisation of the Customs was en- 

 foreiga trusted to Mr. (afterwards Sir Richard) Crawford; Sir William Willcocks 



advisers. was to start irrigation works in Mesopotamia; and two French civil en- 

 gineers, MM. Picard and Godard, were called in to advise in the depart- 

 ment of Public Works. The energy and enlightenment of Young Turkey was extolled 

 by the whole press of Europe. France and Russia recalled the ambassadors accredited 

 to the ex-Sultan, and replaced them by MM. Bompard and Charikoff, two diplomats of 

 known Liberal sympathies. 



Yet it was not long before clouds appeared on the horizon. Albanian chiefs, such 

 as the notorious Issa Boletinatz, a partisan all along of Abdul-Hamid, and Halil Bey, 

 who took occasion later, after April i3th, to declare for the ex-Sultan, who 

 na< ^ l av i sne d pensions and favours upon them both, might be, at any rate 

 at first, a very small minority. But Albanians generally, for the very 

 reason that they had taken part in the Revolution of 1908 and in crushing the coun- 

 ter revolution of 1909, could not believe that the Young Turks meant to curtail the 

 privileges, or to be more accurate, the licence allowed to the bayukdars and their men, 

 who paid no taxes and took military service or not as they pleased. Now the Young 

 Turks proposed indeed a constitution for Turkey, but it was to be founded upon absolute 

 administrative and legislative uniformity, which meant that everyone alike must pay 

 taxes and serve in the army; it also meant (though they were less ready to put that for- 

 ward) the strict maintenance of the old Turkish hegemony; and as the principal means 

 to this end, Turkish was to be the one recognised official language. Some demonstra- 

 tions, supposed to be dangerously separatist in tendency, were made by Ismail Kemal 

 Bey and by Hima Bey at lannina and Dibra. The Albanians demanded official recogni- 

 tion for their language, and that everyone in office should be able to speak Albanian. 

 At Scutari they refused to have the census taken or to serve in the army. General 

 Djavid Pasha was sent to repress the movement, and with his artillery dispersed some 

 3,000 Albanians at Ferizovitch on the 1 7th of August; he followed this up with measures 

 of extreme rigour, and returned to Mitrovitza on September 25th, leaving a dangerous 

 ferment of rancour and revolt behind him. 



The Ottoman Greeks by no means remained indifferent during the tension produced 



by the Cretan question. From the first they had been dissatisfied because they consid- 



ered themselves insufficiently represented in parliament, and the counter 



revolution of the i3th of April 1909 was hailed with praise by their press. 



In fulfilment of a longstanding promise, the Powers withdrew their contingents from 



Crete on July 2yth. As soon as they left, the Cretans hoisted the Greek flag at Canea 



and claimed the right of sending deputies to Athens. After vehement protest from the 



Sublime Porte, the Powers again landed their contingents, and the Turkish flag was 



once more hoisted by them on the iSth of October. A boycott of Greek goods in 



Turkey followed and produced some lively irritation. 



Other events began to lessen the unanimous sympathy felt for Young Turkey in 

 England and France. To satisfy the almost fierce desire to be independent of Europe 

 which had sprung up in Turkey after the revolution, Djavid Bey, then minis- 

 troubles. *- er of Finance, when borrowing money to meet the annual deficit of the Otto- 

 man budget, decided to raise a loan quite independently of the Ottoman Pub- 

 lic Debt administration, and to ignore the preference traditionally given to the Imperial 

 Ottoman Bank. On the 6th of September the press was notified of the issue of a loan 

 in open market, specifying the conditions and revenues offered as guarantee. M. 

 Laurent, the financial adviser, thought the co-operation of the Ottoman Public Debt use- 

 ful to Turkish credit. His disapproval naturally created a prejudice against the scheme 

 among the European capitalists, the French capitalists in particular, who were repre- 



