As regards foreign affairs, on September 5, Russia joined in the declaration that none of the Governments of the Triple Entente would conclude peace separately; and on October 24 Russia declared to Italy that she would order the liberation of all Austrian prisoners of Italian nationality, provided that the Italian Government would undertake to keep them in Italy during the war, but Italy replied that she could not give such an undertaking, as "every Italian or foreigner arriving on Italian territory, not having been guilty of any crime, was free, and his liberty could not be restrained in any way," upon which Russia withdrew the condition attached to the offer.

II. TURKEY AND THE MINOR STATES OF EASTERN EUROPE.

While war was raging in Central and Western Europe, all the States of the Near East except Serbia and Montenegro, and afterwards Turkey, remained neutral, though they mobilised their forces so as to be ready in case of need.

The most important event in Turkey at the beginning of the year was the appointment as War Minister of Enver Bey, the hero of the Young Turkish Revolution of 1908 (A.R., 1908, pp. 323-7). As a former military attaché at Berlin, he had long been in intimate relations with German military circles, and his influence in strengthening the ties between the German and Turkish Governments soon made itself felt. On January 8 an Imperial Iradeh was issued confirming the appointment of the Inspectors-General of the four Armies and the Commander of the thirteen Army Corps into which the Ottoman Army was to be divided, and among the former was the German General, Liman von Sanders (Liman Pasha), who was also appointed Commander of the First Army Corps. Over 160 superior Army officers were at the same time placed on the retired list. Enver Pasha (he obtained this title on his appointment in the place of that of Bey) was also appointed chief of the General Staff, with a German officer as one of his assistants.

The matters dealt with by the Powers in connexion with the Balkan Wars which had remained unsettled at the end of the previous year (A.R., 1913, pp. 356-7) were the proposed Armenian reforms, the question of the Ægean Islands, and the formation of the new State of Albania. As regards the first of these, the Russian charge d'affaires at Constantinople arrived at a complete agreement in February with the Grand Vizier on the subject. The Armenian community in Turkey was to be represented in the Ottoman Parliament by seventy deputies to be designated by the Armenian Patriarch, and the general inspection and supervision of the judicial and administrative officials in the two sections into which the six Eastern Anatolian vilayets were to be divided was to be confided to two foreign Inspectors-General, to be appointed by the Powers from the subjects of minor European States. Christians and Mohammedans were to be equally represented in the provincial councils of Bitlis and Van, and in proportion to the numbers of each religion in the other councils, but as regards appointments to the public service there were to be as many Christians, if possible, as Mohammedans. The Ægean question, on the other hand, nearly led to a war between Turkey and Greece. In reply to a collective European Note on the subject presented to the Grand Vizier on February 14, the Porte, knowing that the Powers had failed to obtain unanimity for the enforcement of their decisions, stated that it was indispensable for Turkey to possess not only the islands in the neighbourhood of the Dardanelles, but also those which, like Chios and Mytilene, "form an integral part of the Asiatic possessions of the Empire." While accepting, it added, the restitution by Greece of Imbros, Tenedos, and Castellorizzo, the Ottoman Government "will endeavour to secure its just and legitimate demands." Greece, on the other hand, agreed to comply with the decision of the Powers, but demanded a rectification of the proposed Albanian frontier near Argyrokastro (A.R., 1913, p. 357) on ethnological grounds, and offered in exchange a strip of coast line and a grant to Albania of 100,000l. Further, as the islands to be retained by Greece were not to be fortified, the Greek Government proposed that guarantees should be required by the Powers of Turkey against her attacking them, expressing its readiness to give similar guarantees on its part, and also to prevent contraband trade between the islands and the Continent, adding that it would protect the Mohammedans in the islands to be ceded to Greece if the Porte would give a similar undertaking as to the Christians in the islands left to Turkey. The Powers of the Triple Alliance then guaranteed equality of religion and speech in the whole of Albania and the proposed rectification of the frontier, except as regards Koritza, which was to remain Albanian, as soon as the Greek troops should evacuate the portion of Epirus which had been assigned to Albania. The period, however, fixed for the evacuation (A.R., 1913, p. 357) was allowed to pass, and a Greek Note to the Powers of the Triple Alliance, who had insisted on such evacuation, suggested in April that it should be postponed pending the acceptance by Turkey of the proposals of the Powers as to the Ægean Islands. To this the Powers replied on April 24, insisting on an immediate evacuation, and on May 14 the Sultan, in opening the Turkish Parliament, referred to the efforts the Porte was making for a pacific solution of the Ægean question "in conformity with the essential interests of the Ottoman Empire."

Meanwhile great indignation was expressed at Athens on learning that the Turks were subjecting the Greeks in Thrace and at Smyrna to systematic persecution in order to bring about their emigration. In reply to a Greek Note on the subject the Porte stated on June 18 that the troubles in Asia Minor and elsewhere had been caused by the arrival of 250,000 emigrants from Macedonia, and that the Government was taking steps to restore tranquillity in the disturbed districts, implying that the condition of the Greek subjects of the Sultan is a question of internal politics in which Greece has no right to interfere. Prompt steps were, however, taken to punish excesses committed against the Greek populations; sentences of from three to five years' imprisonment were passed on forty-seven Mohammedans found guilty of pillaging Greek houses, and the whole of the Smyrna district was placed under martial law. The disorders were to a great extent caused by the policy adopted by the Turkish Government of quartering Mohammedan immigrants in Greek villages, apparently with the object of interposing a barrier between the islands and the adjoining districts on the Continent in the shape of a solid mass of Mohammedan inhabitants all along the coast, thereby effectively checking the Pan-Hellenic propaganda which had been going on for many years among the Greeks in Turkey (A.R., 1913, p. 354).

Although Turkey had declared at the beginning of the war that she would be neutral, when Enver Pasha became Minister for War preparations were at once made for her taking military and naval action against the Allies. Liman Pasha was appointed commander-in-chief of the Turkish Army on August 27, the German cruisers Goeben and Breslau (p. [183]) were added to the Turkish Navy and entered the Black Sea on October 20, with their German officers and crews, though the Russian and British ambassadors had stated to the Porte that they did not regard the sale of these two vessels as valid, and that the Allies would attack them the next time they came out. Meanwhile, on September 9, the Porte announced to the Powers that the judicial and financial Capitulations, under which each Christian nation was allowed to govern its own subjects within the Ottoman dominions, would be abolished from October 1. The Ambassadors of all the Powers, including Germany, protested against this step, which became practically nugatory when Turkey entered into the war. As regards the measures taken for common action with Germany, the Grand Vizier and most of the other Ministers, though resenting the retention by the British Government of the Ottoman warships building in England,[20] were opposed to them, but had to yield to Enver Pasha, who had the whole Turkish Army at his back, and had adopted the view promulgated by German agents that the only way to save Constantinople and the Turkish Empire from being seized by Russia and her allies would be to enter into an alliance with Germany. Large numbers of German officers, soldiers, and sailors were imported from Germany to serve in the Turkish Fleet, the forts of the Dardanelles, and the Turkish Army, and German merchant vessels served as bases of communication and auxiliaries to the Turkish ships of war. The officers of the German military mission organised military preparations in Syria for an attack on Egypt, and the Syrian towns were full of German officers provided with large sums of money for suborning the local chiefs.

The Ottoman military action began, after a protest against the watch kept by British warships at the mouth of the Dardanelles to prevent the Goeben and Breslau from escaping, and against the British navigation of the Shatt-el-Arab, by an incursion on October 28 into the Sinai Peninsula of an armed body of 2,000 Bedouins whose objective was the Suez Canal; and on the same day the Turkish Fleet bombarded Odessa, Theodosia, and Novorossyisk, Russian unfortified harbours in the Black Sea. No reply having been given to the protest of the ambassadors of the Allies against this outrage, they demanded their passports and left Constantinople on November 1. The Dardanelles forts were bombarded by a combined British and French squadron on November 3, and the fort and troops at Akaba in the Red Sea were shelled by H.M.S. Minerva, upon which the town was evacuated and a landing party destroyed the fort, the barracks, the post office, and the stores. On November 5 "a state of war" was declared to exist between Great Britain and Turkey and the former annexed Cyprus (p. [226]). On November 13 Turkey responded by a declaration of war against Great Britain, alleging that the bombardment of the Russian ports in the Black Sea had taken place because the Russian Fleet had tried to lay mines outside the Bosphorus and committed other hostile acts against Turkey. A British and Indian force also made its way up the Shatt-el-Arab to Basra (Nov. 8-22; p. 245). On November 18 another naval encounter took place in the Black Sea, in which the Russian Fleet engaged the Goeben and the Breslau off Yalta, compelling them to retire, and inflicting severe injuries on the Goeben.

The failure of the Turkish invasion in the Caucasus (p. [348]) caused much friction between the Turkish and the German officers, the latter having preferred the plan of an invasion of Egypt. On December 30 the Sultan of Turkey deprived Hussein Kamel, the new Sultan of Egypt, of all his decorations for rebellion against Turkey. The attempt to start a Holy War in Egypt and other Mahommedan countries proved an utter failure, as it was disregarded by the Mohammedans outside the Ottoman Empire.

Among the minor incidents which occurred in Turkey during the year was the death of "Kutchuk" Said Pasha, who was seven times Grand Vizier (post, Obit.), and the trial by court-martial in April of Colonel Aziz Ali, a distinguished Egyptian officer who had gained popularity and renown among the Mohammedans by his leadership of the Arab resistance to the Italians in Cyrenaica, on charges of having caused loss of life among his troops in Tripoli, of having provoked the enmity of the Senussi, and of having appropriated public funds to his personal needs, and his condemnation to death in consequence of the pressure put upon the members of the Court by his enemies in the Young Turkish party. The news had caused great perturbation and distress in Egypt, where Aziz Ali was well known and highly esteemed, and he was finally pardoned by the Sultan. Another court-martial, which was not influenced by party motives, showed considerable activity in dealing with offences committed by Mohammedans against public morality and the State religion. It ordered the expulsion from Constantinople of fifty Turkish women found guilty of practising or abetting clandestine prostitution, and steps were also taken against "white slave" traffickers, two Turkish women having been found guilty of selling their daughters to Egyptian houses of ill-fame.