The second policy—that of enrolling Christians in the army—was recorded, back in the days of the first attempt at the emancipation of Christians, the Tanzimat of 1839, as a measure which would ameliorate their lot and bring about equality. The idea was splendid, but its application was impracticable. Ottoman Christians are so wholly incompatible, from their social and educational background, with Ottoman Moslems, that they cannot be placed in the army, in mixed regiments, without incurring humiliation, degradation, and persecution of the most cruel sort.

The only way in which Christians could be called to serve in the Ottoman army would have been the formation, at first, of separate regiments, where the soldiers would enjoy immunity from persecution. When this reform was made, there should have been also a provision from the very first, that the ranks of officers be recruited from the Christian elements in the Empire, in proportion to their numerical strength. But with both Christians and Jews, obligatory army service was used from the beginning—it is still used today—as a means of extorting money from those who could pay, and terrorizing and reducing to slavery those who could not raise the forty pounds required for exemption. Even if there were no religious fanaticism, even if it were not necessary for Christians of intelligence to serve in an army wholly officered by Moslems, the terrible and criminal conditions of service which they were called upon to suffer would have justified the Christians in adopting every possible measure to avoid military service.

Throughout the Empire, intelligent Christians who could not purchase their freedom from this obligation preferred exile to military service. From 1909 to 1914, Turkey has lost hundreds of thousands of its best young blood.

The result in Macedonia of the coming of the muhadjirs and the taking of Christians for the army, was that the Macedonians abandoned their advocacy of autonomy, under the suzerainty of the Sultan, and looked to the Balkan States for freedom from Turkish rule.

THE ALBANIAN UPRISINGS

Albania was never fully conquered by the Osmanlis. Like the Montenegrins, the Albanians were always able to resist the extension of Turkish authority in their mountains. Not only did the nature of the country favour them, but their proximity to the Adriatic, and their ability to call at will for Italian and Austrian help, made it advisable for the Supreme Porte to compromise with them. Many Albanians, including principally, as in Bosnia, the landowning families, were converted to Mohammedanism, and attached themselves to the fortunes of Turkey. Without ever giving up their local independence, these renegade Albanians became the most loyal and efficient supporters of Ottoman authority outside of Albania.

Turkey has gained much from the Albanians. Her higher classes, endowed with extreme intelligence and physical activity, have been the most valuable civil and military officials that the Government has ever enjoyed. Because they were Moslems, they were able to take high positions in the army and government service. It is one of the most remarkable facts of Ottoman history that the great majority of the really great statesmen and soldiers of the Empire, if not of Christian ancestry, have been, and still are, Albanians. In strengthening the Turkish domination in the European provinces, after the period of decline set in, the Albanians have been indispensable. Their emigration from their mountains into Epirus, Old Servia, the valley of the Vardar, and the coast towns of Macedonia checked for a long time the conspiracies and rebellions of the Christian elements.

The Sultans of Turkey and their counsellors have always recognized the value of the Albanians. In return for their great services to the Empire, they were allowed to retain their local privileges. This meant independence, in reality, rather than autonomy. They gave what taxes they pleased, or none. Military service was rendered upon their own terms. Christian Albanians, as well as Moslem, have preferred Ottoman sovereignty to any other. They have never thought of independence, because this would have brought them responsibilities and dangers from which, under the fetish of "the integrity of the Ottoman Empire," they were free. So they resisted every effort of Italian, Austrian, Slav, and Greek to weaken their allegiance to the Sultan. Turkey also allowed them to remain under the mediæval conditions in which they lived back in the fourteenth century. They wanted neither railways, roads, nor ports. Among all the subjects of the Sultan, the Albanians were best satisfied with the absolute lack of progress under Moslem rule. These are the reasons why the majority of Albanians want to return once more to the fold of Turkey.

The Young Turks were no more felicitous in their treatment of the Albanians than of the Greeks and Armenians. Without any consideration of the peculiar problems involved, they decided immediately, tackling every problem at once, that Albania must be civilized and that Ottoman sovereignty must work there in exactly the same way as in any other part of the Empire. Albanians must render military service, and submit to being sent wherever the authorities at Constantinople decided. Local independence must cease. Taxes must be paid regularly. When the Albanians resisted, as they did immediately, an army was sent to pacify the country.

One cannot but sympathize with the principle laid down by the Minister of the Interior at Constantinople, that the central authority must be recognized and that the only way to stamp out the Albanian anarchy was to disarm the population. But the Young Turks knew no other way of doing this than by force. They did not realize that anarchy and lawlessness disappear only with education and economic progress. Instead of starting to "civilize" the Albanians by establishing schools and opening up the country with railways, they sent rapid-firing guns. In the summer of 1909, the rebellion was stamped out with ruthless cruelty by the burning of villages, the destruction of crops, and the seizing of cattle. Such measures were a very poor argument for the Albanian to induce him to comply with the disarmament decree. Under ordinary circumstances an Albanian would rather lose his leg than his gun. Under these circumstances, he preferred risking his life to giving up what he considered his only means of defence.