THE YOUNG TURK 
61 
them, and we should help them to work 
out their natural destiny for which we 
have already helped lay the foundation. 
Sir William Ramsay has said : "Con- 
stantinople is the center about which the 
world's history revolves. It is the bridge 
that binds the East to the West, the old 
to the new civilization, which must be 
brought into harmony before the culmi- 
nation of all civilization can appear, 
bringing 'Peace on earth and good- will 
toward men.' " 
Sir William also says, in derogation of 
his own people : "The heated struggle 
between the English and Germans for 
influence in Constantinople has much im- 
peded the establishment of peace and 
order in Turkey." Nothing truer has 
been said of the "near eastern question." 
the; young TURKS HAVE accomplishe:d 
MUCH 
We have been told that the Young 
Turks have made a failure of constitu- 
tional government. Let us see how these 
abused people have acquitted themselves 
during the past three and one-half years, 
since the formation of democratic gov- 
ernment in Turkey, as compared with 
the work of other nations. 
A brief summary of the events occur- 
ring in this eventful epoch is necessary 
for a full understanding of the subject. 
The storm of 1908 came so unex- 
pectedly upon the political horizon of 
Europe that the powers were stunned 
for the moment. The sudden change of 
policy in the Turkish Empire, however, 
was too good an opportunity not to be 
taken advantage of, and on October 3, 
1908, Austria-Hungary announced her 
annexation of the Turkish provinces, 
Bosnia and Herzegovina. This aggres- 
sive measure, being in absolute contra- 
vention of the Treaty of Berlin, made in 
1878, at the end of the Russo-Turkish 
War, by the united powers of Europe, 
was the entering wedge for the despolia- 
tion of the Turkish Empire, which had 
long been threatened. 
A mild protest was made to this act, 
as being a stab to the very heart of uni- 
versal peace measures, in which the 
world at large was interested : but, as the 
leading protesting powers had been guilty 
of practically the same offense in times 
past, the effort to stay the act was with- 
out cohesion or force ; and, as Austria- 
Hungary held the nine points of the law 
in her possession of the territory, over 
which that country had been granted 
suzerain powers under the Treaty of 
Berlin, and having, through an alliance 
with Germany, her great army at her 
back, the political conscience of the dis- 
gruntled parties was quickly healed by 
the bare hope of something good out 
of the wreckage coming to them. 
Bulgaria now declared, and secured, 
her independence from Turkish rule, 
and thus the Empire was shorn of 
another considerable portion of its Euro- 
pean territory. The Young Turks pro- 
tested against this arbitrary move on the 
part of their now grown-up son, but the 
threatening attitude of the powers, coup- 
led with a hope that this sacrifice would 
enable them to bind the remaining states 
of the Empire into a more cohesive union, 
led them to peaceably accept this decla- 
ration of Bulgaria's independence. 
Russia, foreseeing no end to the carv- 
ing of Turkey for other interests, 'thus 
begun, put in a claim for some of the 
spoils, which might have been hers but 
for the action of the "disinterested" 
powers in signing the Peace of Berlin. 
Greece then claimed the island of 
Crete, over which she had been granted 
and held suzerain powers for 30 years, 
on the identical ground put forward by 
Austria - Hungary upon taking Bosnia 
and Herzegovina. 
The Young Turks now rose up in 
their might and vowed that Turkey 
would fight to the death any further at- 
tempt to despoil her of territory, and so 
strongly was this threat, which was 
practically an ultimatum, backed by the 
sentiment of the whole Moslem race, that 
England, fearing for the peace of Eu- 
rope, used her influence to postpone ac- 
tion on the claims of Russia and Greece. 
She practically promised, however, that 
their claim should be favorably consid- 
ered at an opportune time in the near 
future. 
This stopped for a while aggressive 
measures against Turkish territory and 
permitted the Young Turk party to take 
