6-14 The Review of Reviews. 



people, for no particular reason, were conjure all things aright by a stroke of 



just as quickly reassured and restored their wand. This conception was, of 



to their usual daily routine. Such course, as incorrect in its grounds as 



thoughtlessness has at last avenged was the admiration at the beginning of 



itself, and, as a natural result, we are the reform period. I had occasion to 



confronted 'with the present universal know all about the Turkish revolution, 



astonishment and bewilderment of the awakening of Turkey to liberty 



Europe. We were not willing to recog- from its very beginning, being col- 



nise that the enforced acceptance of our laborator of the revolutionary Turkish 



dress, manners, and customs, and even paper issued in London in the year 1864, 



our institutions, could do harm to the and called Muchbir (Correspondent). I 



wholly unprepared people in the East, followed with interest the subsequent 



and especially in the Moslem East, till efforts in this direction, and I formed 



an extraordinary crisis arose and up- part, as literary author, of the editorial 



rooted everything, laid bare all wounds, staff of the organ which was issued in 



and revealed a picture of the most Paris, with Achmed Rizas as editor, 



horrible confusion. and called the Meschweret (The Council). 



This crisis began with the introduc- Later on I personally interfered when 



tion of the Constitutional era. If the I tried to redress, through my relations 



man acquainted with Turkey, and the with Sultan Abdul Hamid, the abso- 



sincere friend of the Turkish people, lutism bordering on insanity of this 



saw with regret how the West was not untalented Osmanide, which, of 



being misled by an enforced sham course, was all to no purpose. I was 



civihsation,and was accepting as genuine therefore no stranger to the movement 



its external manifestations, he could for Turkey's liberty, but I must declare 



not, after the outbreak of the military openly that the whole movement of the 



revolution and after the proclamation Turkish State and of Turkish society 



of the Constitution, be less astonished could not enthuse me, for I did not find 



when he noted the pleased surprise and in the leading factors of the movement 



applause with which Europe hailed the that seriousness, that knowledge, and 



victory of the Young Turks and the that sincere patriotism conscious of 



introduction of liberal institutions. The its aim which is absolutely necessary 



rejoicing was, indeed, greater in Europe for success. They were for the most 



than in Turkey herself, for in the West part young people, both young in 



Abdul Hamid was, not unjustly, more years and experience, who were brought 



hated than he was among his own subjects, to the front by the revolution, who 



The Young Turks were then suddenly were absolutely incompetent in the 



considered as glorious heroes of liberty \'arious branches of the Administration, 



and unselfish patriots, but at the same inexperienced in the management of 



time also as efficient statesmen who Government affairs, and who li\^ed in 



would all on a sudden modernise Turkey, the delusive opinion that they would 



its old, crippled Government and its by a turn of the hand transform the 



Asiatic conception of the world, and old Asiatic world and vivify Turkey. 



