The episode, strictly historical, is of a certain importance, for it shows the date at which Wilhelm II. thought that the time had come for Germans to colonise Turkey.  The peaceful penetration (which now amounts to perforation) was even then pretty far advanced.  But Abdul Hamid seems to have seen the significance of the request, and for some little while after that German influence had a certain set-back in Turkey.  The date of this marks an era, and Germany, ‘deep patient Germany,’ set to work again, in no way discouraged, to set her cancer-nippers in the cancer that already had begun to eat the live tissues round it.

Crescent and Iron Cross, Chapter II

THE THEORY OF THE NEW TURKS

In the year 1908 a military group in Constantinople, styling itself the ‘Young Turk’ party, seized and deposed Abdul Hamid, and shut him up at Salonika, there to spend the remainder of his infamous days.  They put forth a Liberal programme of reformation, one that earned them at the moment the sympathy of civilised Europe (including Germany), and the Balance of Power very mistakenly and prematurely heaved a sigh of relief.  For upwards of a century it had maintained in Constantinople the corrupt and bloody autocracy of the Sultans, fearing the European quarrels that would attend the dismemberment of that charnel-house of decay known as the Ottoman Empire, and now (just for the moment) it seemed as if a sudden rally had come to the Sick Man, and he showed signs of returning animation and wholesome vitality.  The policy of the Powers, after a century of failure, looked as if it was justifying itself, and they were full of congratulations towards Turkey and each other.  But never, in the whole century of their pusillanimous cacklings, had they made a greater mistake.

Whether the Young Turks ever meant well or not, whether there was or was not a grain of sincerity in this profession of their policy, is a disputed question.  There are those who say that originally they were prompted by patriotic and high-minded aims, when they proclaimed their object of ‘Organisation,’ and of reform.  But all are agreed that it matters very little what their original aims were, so speedily did their Liberal intentions narrow down to an Ottomanisation such as Adbul Hamid had aimed at, but had been unable to accomplish before his evil sceptre ceased to sway the destinies of his kingdom.  In any case this programme earned its authors the sympathy of Europe, and probably this, and no more than this, prompted it.  They wished to establish themselves, unquestioned and undisturbed, and did so; and I do not think we shall be far wrong if we take the original Young Turk programme about as seriously as we took the parody of a Parliament with which Abdul Hamid opened (as with a blessing) his atrocious reign.  The very next year (1909) they permitted (if they did not arrange) the Armenian massacres at Adana, and the Balance of