704 



REVIEW OF REVIEWS. 



iseptember 1, 191!. 



the State. The better to assure this he 

 would have the capital of the Ottoman 

 Empire removed from Constantinople to 

 Aleppo or Damascus as a matter of 

 political strategy to arrest the centrifu- 

 gal action that is threatening it with dis- 

 ruption. 



As regards the question of completing 

 the armaments : — 



It has been announced that a contract has 

 be«n entered into with the Krupps for a 

 supply of guns and other war material valuer! 

 at £800,000, and the now battleship built 

 in England is ready for delivery on the last 

 payment being made. 



But it is not on the material plane 

 that the chief difficulties of any Turkish 

 reorganisation will be found. The 

 trouble is one of long creation, and can 

 be easily traced to the ineradicable spirit 

 of " Byzantinism " that pervades the 

 atmosphere of Constantinople, and that 

 will in time be as fatal to their succes- 

 sors as it has been to the Turks them- 

 selves, and was to those before them. 

 It was probably with the conviction of 

 this in his mind that Marshal von der 

 Goltz urges the radical step of removing 

 the capital of the Ottoman Empire as 

 far as possible from Constantinople, 

 and the cutting loose from all the in- 

 fluences of the genius loci ; the shifting 

 it from the extremity of the empire to 

 somewhere nearer its centre of gravity, 

 and to where it may become a link of 

 union between the Turk and the Arab, 

 without which the empire must go to 

 pieces. 



Such action, however, is not of a kind 

 to be taken without a full consideration 

 of the circumstances and its ultimate 

 consequences. The presumption is that 

 the German Field Marshal's object is to 

 strenghten and transform the Ottoman 

 Empire into a modern state. On the 

 other hand, there is the certainty that 

 there are powerful influences opposed 

 to this plan, especially if it is based on 

 a continuance of the union of the tem- 

 poral Sultanate and the spiritual Cali- 

 phate in the person of the Ottoman 

 sovereign. 



A strong Turkish or Ottoman State occu- 

 pying one of the most important political 

 and military strategical regions on the 

 globe, with its ruler exercising at the same 

 time the supreme spiritual influence over 



hundreds of millions of co-religionists subject 

 to other governments in neighbouring 

 countries, would constitute a situation al- 

 most unparalleled in history. 



A scheme was recently propounded in 

 the London Times for the reorganisa- 

 tion of Anatolia, but it had the defect 

 from the Ottoman imperial and central- 

 ising point of view that it practically 

 treated that part of Turkey as separate in 

 its interests from Mesopotamia and 

 Arabia, omitting also Palestine ; nor 

 did it appear to contemplate a change of 

 the Ottoman capital. 



The general trend of the policy indicated 

 in the schemo in question would be t<> break 

 up Asiatic Turkey into thrtv, or even four, 

 parts, with varying interests, still governed 

 from a point at the far north-western ex- 

 tremity of the empire, subject to the cor- 

 rosive influences and aggressive polici«'S of 

 the Halkan States and Jiussia. Tliose parts 

 woukl be Anatolia, Mesopotamia, Arabia, 

 and Palestine. 



With regard to the last, a letter from 

 Jaffa, written in May, spoke of a move- 

 ment on foot for the acquisition by a 

 great Jewish organisation of a large area 

 of territory on the Syrian-Egyptian 

 frontier to add to Palestine, and of its 

 failure because of the opposuion of the 

 Eg\j)tian Government. 



The other areas included in the plan of 

 this organisation are in the north, and (Mim- 

 prise the districts of Dama.M'us, H<ims, 

 Hamali, Aleppo. Antioc-h, and Aintab. con- 

 taining, with Palestine proper, an area of 

 about eif^hty thousand s(juare miles fit for 

 colonisation. To this it is proposed to add 

 the eastern half of the island of Cyprus, 

 just definitely acquire<l by Great Hritain, 

 after thirty-five years of occupation. 



Such a subdivision of Asiatic Turkey 

 as here outlined would seem to be incom- 

 patible with the underlying principle of 

 the \'on der Goltz proposition, and 

 would clash with the evident intentions 

 of the German grouj) which has obtained 

 the concession for the construction of 

 a great port at Alexandretta with the 

 docks, warehouses and other require- 

 ments of a railwa\- terminal, drawing to 

 itself the commerce of the Euphrates 

 valley and Southern Anatolia. 



The inclusion of Aleppo and Damascus in 

 a territory specifically distinct from the rest 

 of the empire would disqualify either of 

 them from becoming its capital. 



One of the two projects, therefore, 

 must give way to the other, and the 

 probability is that when the change of 



