Vain illusion, as Osmanli imperialists know! It is their empire that would fall away as a garment so soon as the Near East realized that they no longer ruled in the Imperial City. Enver Pasha and the Committee were amply justified in straining the resources of the Ottoman Empire to cracking-point, not merely to retain Constantinople but also to recover Adrianople and a territory in Europe large enough to bulk as Roum. Nothing that happened in that war made so greatly for the continuation of the old order in Asiatic Turkey as the reoccupation of Adrianople. The one occasion on which Europeans in Syria had reason to expect a general explosion was when premature rumours of the entry of the Bulgarian army into Stambul gained currency for a few hours. That explosion, had the news proved true or not been contradicted in time, would have been a panic-stricken, ungovernable impulse of anarchy—of men conscious that an old world had passed away and ignorant what conceivable new world could come to be.
But the perilous moment passed, to be succeeded by general diffusion of a belief that the inevitable catastrophe was only postponed. In the breathing-time allowed, Arabs, Kurds, and Armenians discussed and planned together revolt from the moribund Osmanli, and, separately, the mutual massacre and plundering of one another. Arab national organizations and nationalist journals sprang to life at Beirut and elsewhere. The revival of Arab empire was talked of, and names of possible capitals and kings were bandied about. One Arab province, the Hasa, actually broke away. Then men began to say that the Bulgarians would not advance beyond Chataldja: the Balkan States were at war among themselves: finally, Adrianople had been re-occupied. And all was as in the beginning. Budding life withered in the Arab movement, and the Near East settled down once more in the persistent shadow of Roum.
Such is the first element in Osmanli prestige, doomed to disappear the moment that the Ottoman state relinquishes Europe. Meanwhile there it is for what it is worth; and it is actually worth a tradition of submission, natural and honourable, to a race of superior destiny, which is instinctive in some millions of savage simple hearts.
What of the second element? The religious prestige of the Ottoman power as the repository of caliphial authority and trustee for Islam in the Holy Land of Arabia, is an asset almost impossible to estimate. Would a death struggle of the Osmanlis in Europe rouse the Sunni world? Would the Moslems of India, Afghanistan, Turkestan, China, and Malaya take up arms for the Ottoman sultan as caliph? Nothing but the event will prove that they would. Jehad, or Holy War, is an obsolescent weapon difficult and dangerous for Young Turks to wield: difficult because their own Islamic sincerity is suspect and they are taking the field now as clients of giaur peoples; dangerous because the Ottoman nation itself includes numerous Christian elements, indispensable to its economy.
Undoubtedly, however, the Ottoman sultanate can count on its religious prestige appealing widely, overriding counteracting sentiments, and, if it rouses to action, rousing the most dangerous temper of all. It is futile to ignore the caliph because he is not of the Koreish, and owes his dignity to a sixteenth-century transfer. These facts are either unknown or not borne in mind by half the Sunnites on whom he might call, and weigh far less with the other half than his hereditary dominion over the Holy Cities, sanctioned by the prescription of nearly four centuries.
One thing can be foretold with certainty. The religious prestige of an Ottoman sultan, who had definitely lost control of the Holy Places, would cease as quickly and utterly as the secular prestige of one who had evacuated Constantinople: and since the loss of the latter would probably precipitate an Arab revolt, and cut off the Hejaz, the religious element in Ottoman prestige may be said to depend on Constantinople as much as the secular. All the more reason why the Committee of Union and Progress should not have accepted that well-meant advice of European publicists! A successful revolt of the Arab-speaking provinces would indeed sound the death-knell of the Ottoman Empire. No other event would be so immediately and surely catastrophic.
The third element in Osmanli prestige, inherent qualities of the Osmanli ‘Turk’ himself, will be admitted by every one who knows him and his history. To say that he has the ‘will to power’ is not, however, to say that he has an aptitude for government. He wishes to govern others; his will to do so imposes itself on peoples who have not the same will; they give way to him and he governs them indifferently, though often better than they can govern themselves. For example, bad as, according to our standards, Turkish government is, native Arab government, when not in tutelage to Europeans, has generally proved itself worse, when tried in the Ottoman area in modern times. Where it is of a purely Bedawi barbaric type, as in the emirates of central Arabia, it does well enough; but if the population be contaminated ever so little with non-Arab elements, practices, or ideas, Arab administration seems incapable of producing effective government. It has had chances in the Holy Cities at intervals, and for longer periods in the Yemen. But a European, long resident in the latter country, who has groaned under Turkish administration, where it has always been most oppressive, bore witness that the rule of the native Imam only served to replace oppressive government by oppressive anarchy.
As for the Osmanli’s courage as a fighting man, that has often been exemplified, and never better than in the Gallipoli peninsula. It is admitted. The European and Anatolian Osmanlis yield little one to the other in this virtue; but the palm, if awarded at all, must be given to the levies from northern and central Asia Minor.