World's War Events, Vol. I

by Unknown

Pan-Germanic Confederation.

Germany, on the contrary, wished an active agent to pursue an aggressive policy in her favor. If the Sick Man could get out of bed only with assistance, Germany was anxious to help him; and the Turk vastly preferred an alliance with a Power which was eager to make him well to one with Powers almost afraid to keep him alive. The Turks wished a capable government, a good army, a State deserving of independence, and were overjoyed to find Germany ready and desirous to foster this ambition. Indeed, as a member of the Pan-Germanic Confederation, the Turk must be strong enough to hold Constantinople and the Bagdad Railway in the event of a general European war, without depending upon Germany for more than assistance, supplies, and advice. Germany and Austria, menaced on both sides at home, would not be able to take the risks of sending troops to the Near East, and the Turk would have to be strong enough to keep at bay such forces as it seemed likely Russia would be able to spare from the battlefields of northern Europe.

Pan-Islam.

Germany was equally ready to have the Turk gratify his imperialist and religious ambitions. Pan-Islam would destroy the political control of England and France in northern Africa and in Egypt. It might even overturn the British Empire in India. This would be the greatest possible service any one could render Germany, and it might be one which Germany could accomplish in no other way. If the Triple Entente was the greatest foe of Pan-Islamism, Pan-Germanism should be its greatest friend. Where ambition and interest coincide, co-operation is simple.

Reorganization of Turkey.

In complete accord, therefore, the Germans and the Turks undertook the reorganization of Turkey above five years or more ago. They saw with clear vision the real truth about Turkey. With engaging candor they laid the blame for the deficiencies of Turkish government upon England and France and declared them the work of intention. Turkey, they saw, was not a nation in the European sense of the word; it was not even a single race. It was not a geographical unit by any means, but a series of districts on the whole geographically disconnected. Far from being an economic unit with a single interest vital to all its inhabitants, it produced nothing essential to the outside world which its inhabitants could depend upon exchanging for European manufactured goods.

Turkey's economic interests.

Its economic interests were potential rather than real; its trade, the result of its strategic position rather than of the interests and the capacity of its population. Normally and naturally the Turk should be a middleman, a distributor rather than a producer. He was placed in control of the continental roads between Asia and Central Europe, and was able to control the overland trade as soon as it emerged from the Caucasus or the Persian Gulf, and maintain that control until the continental highway passed into the defiles of the Balkans beyond Adrianople. Constantinople itself, controlling the narrow passage which formed the exit of the Black Sea, was in a position to foster or hinder the entire trade of southern Russia with the rest of the world. In fact, it was impossible to deny, and the Germans thoroughly well understood it, that the trade of the East with Europe and the trade of Russia with the rest of the world might pass through Turkey, but was not likely to stay there.

Turkey's important strategic position.

In this important strategic position, economically valuable to others but not to its inhabitants, had been collected a peculiar and extraordinary conglomeration of races, creeds, and interests; few of which had much in common, and all of which cherished for each other antipathies and jealousies almost as old as history. The racial problem of Turkey would be less difficult if the races were only located side by side in solid masses. With few exceptions the races interpenetrate one another to a remarkable extent and the Turk himself is numerically in the majority in comparatively few districts of Asia Minor, where the bulk of the Turkish population lives, and in scarcely any part of European Turkey. The Turks are literally overlords, a ruling class.