IJS 6 TURKEY 



the oath of allegiance to the king of the Hellenes taken in the Cretan Assembly, the 

 attempt to expel Mahommedan non-juring Cretan deputies, and the election of M. 

 Venizelos as Cretan representative to the Hellenic Chamber in August. 



One of many sources of trouble in Macedonia was the struggle between the adherents 

 of the Oecumenical Patriarch and the Bulgarian Exarch for possession of church build- 

 ings. 1 To put an end to the disputes, the Ottoman Parliament voted a law, styled the 

 Church Law, enacting that, if part of the population of a given place owed 

 obedience to the Greek Patriarch and part to the Bulgarian Exarch, the 

 Macedonian party which represented more than two-thirds of the Christian population 

 was to have possession of the existing church, the state undertaking to 

 build another for the minority. When the Government tried to carry this 

 out in practice, the Oecumenical Patriarch claimed that it was a breach of his privileges, 

 and proceeded to call a meeting denominated the " Phanar National Assembly." The 

 Government prohibited the meeting. The Patriarch took no notice and issued a sum- 

 mons to the delegates. On September i4th the Government had them arrested and 

 imprisoned. The outcome of these rough and ready methods and abrupt collisions was 

 not only the final estrangement of Ottoman Greeks and Bulgars from the Young Turkish 

 regime, but the reconciliation of Bulgars and Greeks, a remarkable fact with far-reaching 

 results. On the isth of November Bulgarian delegates waited on the Patriarch; early 

 in December Greek delegates went to the Bulgarian Exarch; and from that time forth 

 a close understanding succeeded to a traditional rivalry. 



The discontent, which found no outlet but the press while the Chamber was not 

 sitting, broke out in violent interpellations as soon as the Ottoman Parliament met. 

 All through December 1910 and part of January 1911, Hakki Pasha had to 

 Growth weather a series of storms. Albanian, Bulgar and Greek deputies spoke at 

 position'in length, one after another, pouring out facts and dates of misdeeds commit- 

 partiameat. ted by Government agents during the disarmament. Hakki Pasha, refut- 

 ing nothing, kept on promising that justice should be done wherever proof 

 of abuses was forthcoming. Turkish deputies also mounted the tribune. The Govern- 

 ment, suspecting a plot during the summer, had arrested certain politicians. Lutfi 

 Fikri, an opposition deputy, accused prison officials of torturing the prisoners to make 

 them confess. He produced blood-stained cudgels and finger-nails said to have been 

 extracted from victims, and demanded a commission of enquiry (Jan. 2, 1911) which 

 Hakki Pasha refused. The grand vizier obtained a vote of confidence, meanwhile, by 

 a device of parliamentary procedure adopted by the Young Turkish party of Union and 

 Progress. The party used to meet privately before a debate, to decide whether or no 

 there was need to support the Cabinet, no matter what might be said afterwards in 

 public. Parliamentary discipline carried out with lack of tact and discretion did not .a 

 little to discredit the party of Union and Progress, an impression gaining ground that 

 purely party considerations overruled all claims of equity and humanity. 



So the circle of discontent went on widening, and the task of the Government grew 

 harder and harder. Difficulties followed in the Arab provinces. The Government had 

 been obliged in August 1910 to send an expedition against the Druses. In 

 iaAmb*a. December the Druses rose again; so did the Karak Arabs in Palestine, aided 

 by Bedouins. 'They rose against the census and conscription. Govern- 

 ment servants were killed. Disturbances were reported at Irak. News of a rising came 

 in January 1911 from two provinces, Yemen, where the Imam Yahya, of the Zeidi 

 1 See E. B. xx, 333 et seq. Joachim III, the Oecumenical Patriarch here referred to (b. 

 !?34). died on November 26, 1912. In 1878 he became Oecumenical Patriarch, but owing to 

 differences with the Porte as to the trial of ecclesiastics by the secular power he resigned in 

 1884, and lived in retirement at various monasteries until 1901, when he was restored to the 

 Patriarchate. There followed a severe struggle in Macedonia against the Bulgarian Ex- 

 archate, which he was not strong enough to keep in bounds. He also came into collision with 

 the Holy Synod owing to his tendency to relax the rigour of church practices. Regarded by 

 the extreme church party as too progressive, and by the younger laity as too conservative 

 in his Macedonian policy, he was still respected as head of the Ottoman Greeks and defender 

 of their interests against the Turkish Government. 



