That truce with Russia was the Anglo-Russian Treaty of 1907 which enabled King Edward to meet the Czar at Reval in 1908 to conclude the Anglo-Russian entente against Germany. Under the terms of this historic Treaty, Russia abandoned Afghanistan to the Government of India, and Persia was divided into three “zones of influence,” the northern half of the country to Russia, most of the arid southern half a neutral zone, and a small triangle in south-east Persia to the Government of India, a triangle which was drawn to include all of Persia’s open seaboard from Bunder Abbas to Baluchistan, including Chahbar, Gwatter Bay and any other potential ports which Russian surveyors might have staked out. This division of the country was accompanied by mutual Russian and British engagements “to respect the integrity and independence of Persia,” a clause which gives us quite the correct imperialist touch.
The purpose of the two signatories in drawing this historic Treaty was “to settle by mutual agreement different questions concerning the interests of their States on the Continent of Asia,” and this they did with conspicuous success. They began by breaking Persia. They continued by breaking the Ottoman Empire and the Caliphate of Islam. They have finished by breaking Christendom.
Possibly in the new humility and the broader tolerance in which Christendom will one day emerge from its present collapse, we shall all be the better for it.
V
THE YOUNG TURKISH REVOLUTION
“ON THE MORNING OF JULY 23, 1908”—THE OLD TURKISH COUNTER-REVOLUTION AND ITS DEFEAT—HOW ISLAM AND THE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITIES NULLIFIED THE YOUNG TURKISH PROGRAM—KEMAL’S BREAK WITH ENVER AND HIS RETIREMENT FROM POLITICS—THE BALKAN WARS AND NATIONALISM.
Three months after King Edward’s visit to Reval in the spring of 1908, the frightened Young Turks launched their revolution with Niazi Bey’s mutiny at Resna, fifteen miles from Monastir. On the morning of July 23, 1908, the house walls of Monastir were placarded with mottoes in Turkish—“Death or Liberty,” “The Nation and Liberty,” “Freedom and the Constitution.” Enver Bey proclaimed the Constitution at Salonica. Telegrams from Salonica invited the Sultan to choose between the Constitution and war. The officers of his Army were Young Turks to a man. Even the reliable Anatolian regiments refused to march against the rebels. Abdul Hamid surrendered. Parliamentary government with free and equal suffrage for all the races of the Empire, was proclaimed from the Throne. Abdul’s exiles came trooping home to find Moslem hojas and Orthodox clergy embracing each other and shouting for the Padishah. The magic of that Western word “Constitution” blended all the Empire in a transport of joy. The Young Turks were swept into the Government on a wave of rejoicing.
