In the cities and in the countryside all seemed to be going well with the cause of the Young Turks; but foreigners who observed this harmonious opening of the new régime and this extraordinary fraternisation of men of different races and creeds hitherto irreconcilable asked themselves how long this reign of universal friendship could last, and whether this falling into each other’s arms of Turks, Armenians, Bulgarians, and others was due to any sentiment more deep and permanent than the joyous intoxication caused by this unaccustomed wine of liberty. Like other Englishmen in Turkey at that time, I came to the conclusion that the Young Turks were quite sincere; that they were honestly desirous to have done with internal strife, to give equality to all the elements of the population, and to live in peace and friendship with their non-Moslem fellow-countrymen. The Armenians and Jews have proved their sincerity by cooperating loyally with the Young Turks throughout the parliamentary elections and since. Of the Macedonian Christians the bulk had become weary of bloodshed and the internecine conflict that had brought nothing but suffering and ruin to the population; and there was no insincerity about the friendly relationship that sprang up between the sturdy Bulgarian leaders of fighting bands and their former foes, the Turkish officers, for they respected each other. The civil warfare in Macedonia had been deliberately fomented by the machinations of the Palace gang, to whom the doctrine of divide et impera was ideal statesmanship, and to the intrigues of Bulgaria, Servia, and Greece. There is no reason why, if left alone, these peoples might not dwell together in peace. A short time since a mollah, addressing the people, said, “Before the reign of Abdul Hamid the Moslem and Christian mothers used to nurse each other’s children.” But will these Macedonian peoples be left alone by Palace agents of reaction, by those Great Powers whose interests are opposed to the creation of a strong and independent Turkey, and by the greedy little neighbouring states?
It is, of course, too much to hope that constitutional government has put a sudden end to the religious and racial strife in Macedonia. The Greeks in the country have already demonstrated the illusiveness of such an expectation. The Greeks, like the others, welcomed the Constitution and fraternised with their Ottoman fellow-countrymen. Carried away by the enthusiasm of the moment they may have been sincere in their protestations of brotherhood, but one suspects that the mental reservations were at the back of their brains all the while. If one misjudges them in this, then their own actions and the utterances of their press belie them. In the hour of national jubilation they supplied the one discordant note. One of the first uses that they made of the freedom which the Young Turks had won for them was to boycott and insult the Bulgarians in Salonica, and the news came that the Greek clergymen in the interior were once more persecuting the Bulgarian exarchists, and had drawn up prescription lists of the leading Bulgarians with a view to getting them assassinated. The Greek element of the population, as might be expected, was the first to express dissatisfaction with the policy and administration of the Young Turks. The intolerant and often mischievously active Greek Patriarchate in Constantinople, which denied the Bulgarians the use of their own language, supported the Greeks in clamouring for much more than was their due. Their idea of Ottoman citizenship, so far as themselves were concerned, was to avoid all the obligations of that citizenship, while enjoying all the rights conferred by it and retaining all their special privileges intact. They seemed to think that the government of Turkey should be in their hands. During the elections it was they alone who provoked rioting and at Smyrna they created a dangerous disturbance with their armed mobs.
CHAPTER XVI
EUROPEAN ASSISTANCE
DURING the four months’ interregnum between the granting of the Constitution and the opening of Parliament, the Committee of Union and Progress was the undisputed ruler of Turkey. It dictated to the monarch what his decrees should be, it moved armies, it removed and appointed ministers, governors of provinces, and other high officials. These untried young men who formed the Committee, while introducing a new order of things and protecting their country against the numerous dangers that threatened to destroy the newly gained liberty, displayed a wisdom, tact, moderation, shrewdness, and foresight that were astonishing to foreign observers. They maintained order with firmness, greatly assisted in this by the dignified self-control and patriotism of the people themselves. Though they and thousands of others had suffered much from the cruelty and rapacity of the Despotism and its parasites, they displayed no vindictiveness; they punished only the most guilty of these; removed only those who showed by their actions that they were a source of danger to the Constitution; and they frankly forgave the others. The relations of Turkey with foreign Powers were directed by them with a tactful and resourceful statesmanship. Their mistakes were remarkably few.
From the beginning they showed their fitness to rule. The avowed object of the Young Turks had been to depose the Sultan, and when they offered him the alternative of acceptance of the Constitution or abdication, they had little expectation that he would submit to their conditions. But when the astute Sultan did submit in a very graceful manner, protesting that he was a believer in a constitutional form of government, and posing as if he and not the revolutionary party had brought the boon of liberty to his subjects, the Young Turks showed their statesmanship by as graciously accepting the situation, and became once more the loyal subjects of a constitutional monarch, whose cleverness and diplomatic experience, if he would now use them rightly, might be of great service to his country and his people. The Sultan is the Commander of the Faithful to millions of Mussulmans, and had the Committee attempted to depose him at that critical time a long civil war might have resulted. So Abdul Hamid was left on the throne of Othman, nominally ruling, to outward seeming popular with the people, who cheered him enthusiastically whenever he appeared in public. But the Young Turks had not forgotten how Abdul Hamid, in 1878, destroyed the Constitution which he had sworn to uphold, so that power behind the throne, the Committee of Union and Progress, remained ever watchful, as the strong guardian of the people’s liberties.
I will now briefly sum up the results of the Committee’s energetic action during the few weeks immediately following the proclamation of the Constitution. In the first place it had to make itself as strong as possible so as to combat the reactionary intrigues that were working for the restoration of the Despotism. It therefore set itself to establish its hold on the army, to obtain the sanction of the Moslem religion, and to complete the pacification of Macedonia. It took the precaution of removing from the Second and Third Army Corps all officers suspected of reactionary views, and concentrated the bulk of the troops loyal to the Constitution at Adrianople, within striking distance of the capital, where, at any rate, a considerable portion of the First Army Corps and the Sultan’s Prætorian Guard only needed the word from the Palace to become the instrument of the reactionaries. Later on the Committee was able to obtain the removal of most of the battalions of the Imperial Guard from Constantinople and to replace them with troops from Salonica, thus securing the Committee’s domination in the capital.
CHATEAU OF ASIA