The British parliament recognized the brave work of the aviators in the following words:
"Far above the squalor and the mud, so high up in the firmament as to be invisible from the earth, they fight the eternal issues of right and wrong. Every fight is a romance, every report is an epic. They are the knighthood of this war. Without fear and without reproach, they have fought, for they have brought back the legendary days of chivalry, not merely by the daring of their exploits, but by the nobility of their spirit."
THE UNSPEAKABLE TURK
Although the great issues of the war were decided, and victory was finally won, by the fighting on the western front, the British campaigns in Palestine and in Mesopotamia were in no small way responsible for the final result. The fighting in this theater of the war was against the Turkish allies of Germany. The Turks were originally one of the Tartar tribes, dwelling in Asia, east of the Caspian Sea. Many of these tribes passed over into Europe, where they are now known as the Lapps, the Finns, the Bulgarians, and the Magyars or Hungarians. More of these Tartar tribes migrated to Asia Minor and adopted the Mohammedan religion. The Turks were one of these. They served first as hired soldiers, but were finally united by their leader, Seljuk, into a strong people called the Seljukian Turks. Their power grew rapidly and soon they captured the city of Jerusalem. They also invaded Europe and captured Constantinople, in 1453, where they have ever since been a menace to civilization.
Less than a year after William II became Emperor of Germany, the imperial yacht, the Hohenzollern, steamed through the Mediterranean into the narrow Dardanelles and, saluted by forts on both shores, passed on to Constantinople, the capital of the Moslem Kalif and the Sultan of Turkey, Abdul Hamid II.
The head of the Catholic church is called the Pope; the head of the Eastern church, the Patriarch; and the head of the Mohammedan, the Kalif. Just as Catholics, no matter of what country they are citizens, recognize the authority of the Pope in matters of religion, so Mohammedans, with few exceptions, are guided in these matters by the Kalif.
William II was accompanied by the Empress, his wife, and this was their first ceremonial visit to any of the crowned heads of Europe. Why did the German Kaiser select Abdul Hamid for this high honor?
The Germans were received with great joy. The entire city of Constantinople was decorated with the gorgeous display that only an eastern city makes. The visit was evidently greatly appreciated by the Mohammedan Kalif and the Sultan of Turkey; and his people, at his orders doubtless, made the Germans realize how proud they were at being thus honored by the Kaiser.
What attraction brought these two strange monarchs together? And why was the visit repeated nine years later in 1898? Did William II feel in 1889 that Abdul Hamid was a man after his own heart, more nearly so than any other ruler in Europe? And was he sure of it in 1898?