The first test of the constitution came, of course, with the election and composition of the Parliament. The election was held quietly, in some parts of the Empire secretly even, and when the Parliament assembled at Constantinople, one began to see already the handwriting on the wall. For its composition was in no way in accordance with the distribution of population in the Empire. The Turk—and by the Turk I mean the composite Moslem race which has grown up through centuries of inter-marriage and forcible conversion—had always been the ruling race. With the establishment of a constitutional régime, the Young Turks did not mean to abdicate in favour of Moslem Arabs or Christian Greeks and Armenians. They had "arranged" the elections in such a way that they would have in the Parliament a substantial majority over any possible combination of other racial elements.
One cannot but have sympathy with the natural feeling of racial pride which is inborn in the Turks. A race of masters,—who could expect that they would be willing to surrender the privileges of centuries? But they forgot that a constitutional régime and the principles of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity must necessarily imply the yielding of their unique position in the Empire. The Turk, as a race, is composed of two elements, a ruling class of land-owners and military and civil officials, arrogant though courteous, corrupt though honest in private life, parasitical though self-respecting, and a peasant class, hopelessly ignorant, lacking in energy, initiative, ambition, aspirations, and ideals. The great bulk of the Turkish element in the Empire looked with the indifference of ignorance and the hostility of jealous regard for their unique position in the community upon the granting of a constitution. I doubt if five per cent. of the Turkish population of the Empire has ever known what a constitutional régime means, or cared whether it exists or not.
There remains the five per cent. Of these the great bulk belong either to the corrupt official class, whose subjection to the tyranny of Yildiz Kiosk had totally unfitted them for service under the new régime on which they were entering, and the land-owners, whose wealth was dependent upon the unequal privileges that the law allowed to them as Moslems, and whose interests were totally at variance with the spirit of the constitution. There are left small groups of younger army officers and of professional men, who had been educated in foreign schools or by foreign teachers in Turkey and abroad. They were, for the most part, either without the knowledge of any other métier than the army, or, if civilian, unfitted by training and experience for governmental executive and administrative work. Consequently from the very beginning, the genuine Young Turks who were honest in their idealism had to make a compact with the higher army officers and with corrupt civil officials of Abdul Hamid. When the real Young Turks controlled the Cabinet, their disasters were those of theorists and visionaries. When they yielded the control of affairs to men more experienced than they, it was simply the renewal of the tyranny of Abdul Hamid. It was because these two elements were united in the firm resolution to keep the control in the hands of Moslem Turks, that the constitutional régime in Turkey has gone from Scylla to Charybdis without ever entering port.
From the very beginning, thoughtful men pointed out that there was only one way of salvation and of liberal evolution for the Ottoman Empire. That was an honest and sincere co-operation with the Christian elements of the Empire, and with the Arabic and Albanian Moslem elements. Fanaticism and racial pride prevented the Young Turks from adopting the sole possible way of establishing the constitutional régime. From the very beginning, then, they failed, and it is their failure which has plunged Europe into the series of wars that has ended in the devastation of unhappy Belgium, so far remote from the cause and so innocent of any part in the events which brought upon her such terrible misfortunes. One could write a whole book upon the events of the first five years of constitutional government in Turkey and could show, beyond a shadow of a doubt, how from the very beginning there was no honest and loyal effort made to apply even the most rudimentary principles of constitutional government. Despotism means the subjection of a country to the will of its rulers. Constitutionalism means the subjection of the rulers to the will of the country. The Young Turks, embodied in the "Committee of Union and Progress," merely continued the despotism of Abdul Hamid. They were far worse than Abdul Hamid, however, for they were irresponsible and unskilled. One handling the helm, knowing how to steer, might have kept the ship of state afloat, all the more easily, perhaps, because the waters were so troubled. Many hands, none knowing where or how to go, steered the Ottoman Empire to inevitable shipwreck.
Although the vicissitudes of various Cabinets and Parliaments can have place in our work only so far as they have a direct bearing on foreign relations, there are six matters of internal policy which must be mentioned in order to explain how rapidly and surely the Ottoman Empire went to its destruction; the treatment of Armenians before and after the Adana massacres; the attempt to suppress the liberties of the Orthodox Church; the Cretan question, ending in the Greek boycott; the Macedonian policy; the Albanian uprisings; and the lack of co-operation and sympathy with the Arabs.
THE ARMENIANS AND THE ADANA MASSACRES
Among the various races of the Ottoman Empire, none was more overcome with joy at the proclamation of the constitutional régime than the Armenian. Scattered everywhere throughout the Empire, and in no region an element of preponderance, the Armenians had always made themselves felt in the commercial and intellectual life of Turkey far out of proportion to their numerical strength. They appreciated and understood, best of all the Christian populations, the significance of constitutional government. Honestly applied, it meant more to them than to any other element of the Empire.
In the first place, the burden of Turkish and Moslem oppression had fallen most heavily on them. It was not only the massacres of 1894 to 1896, horrible as they were, which had put the Armenians in continual fear for their lives; it was the centuries-old petty persecution, from which they believed they were now to be freed. Turkish officialdom had grown rich in extorting the last farthing from the Armenians. Only those who had seen this persecution and extortion can realize how large a part it played in the daily life of the Armenians, and how continuous and rich a source of revenue it was to the official Turk. For every little service the official expected his fat fee, always charging up to the limit his victim was able to pay. You could not carry on your business, you could not build a house, you could not enlarge or alter or repair your shop, you could not get a tax on your harvest estimated, you could not travel even from one village to another for the purpose of business or pleasure or study, without paying the officials. Very frequently between the local Turkish official and the Armenian stood a middle man who must also be paid for the purpose of carrying the fee or bribe to the official in charge. How people could have lived under such a régime and have prospered, is beyond the comprehension of the Occidental. Nothing speaks so eloquently for the business acumen of the Armenian race, as well as for devotion to the religion of its fathers.
Naturally, the Armenians expected that the constitution would bring to them a complete relief from economic repression, as well as from the terrors of massacre. They were led to believe this by the Young Turks who had so long plotted the overthrow of Abdul Hamid's despotism. During the campaign from 1890-1908, the Young Turks needed the money and the brains of Armenians in the larger centres of population where they had their foyers, and in the cities abroad where they lived in exile. It cannot be doubted that there were among the Young Turks during the period when they had to keep alive their ideals in the fire of hope, an honest intention to give the Armenians a share in the regeneration of the Ottoman Empire. But, as soon as they realized their ambitions, racial and religious fanaticism came to them with such force that they forgot the brilliant promises as well as the affectionate intercourse of the days of suffering and struggle.