Evening Post THURSDAY, OCTOBER 10, 1912.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 88, 10 October 1912, Page 6

Evening Post THURSDAY, OCTOBER 10, 1912.

THE TURK AND HtS FOES — m The saying that it is always the unexpected that happens is supposed to have a special application to the incalculable changes .of international politics in the Balkans, but the rule haß been broken at last. The war that for months pact has appeared probable, and for the last few days "inevitable,* has i-ome. Montenegro has taken the first formal atep by declaring war on King Nicholas's birthday, but neither the Turk nor anybody else can be said to have been taken unawares. More than a week has passed since the armies of Turkey atid the four States most directly concerned in her misrule have been mobilised. In such circumstances a chance shot or the blunder of an outpost might have precipitated hostilities at any time, and the wonder perhaps is that there has been a week's delay and a formal declaration of war. It is the smallest of the Balkan States that has now, taken the initiative. The total population of Montenegro is only a quarter of a million, and estimates of her military strength range from 30,000 to 50,000. For bo tiny a State to wage an offensive war against the Turkish Empire, with its nominal war strength of 1,000,000, would be out of the question, but Montenegro, of course, relies upon the co-operation of Bulgaria, Servia, and Greece, whose combined fighting strength is large enough to make the conflict appear on paper by no means an uneven one. The deep-seated origin of the trouble is indicated by the terms of the declaration of war. It states that the Government of Montenegro has exhausted all amicable means of settling its numerous misunderstandings and conflicts with the Porte and that Montenegrin arms must now secure " the recognition of the people and of their brethren in the Ottoman Empire which has been ignored for centuries." The troubles of Montenegro and of the other Balkan States do not date from yesterday, but from the capture of Constantinople by the Turks more than four cenfcuries ago. Both on that occasion and often since the Turk has proved himself an excellent soldier, but for persistent misgovernment he has had no rival in Europe. It is the fruit of centuries of this misgovernment without intermission that now threatens Europe with the largest war that the world has ever seen. It must have surprised and shocked Imperialists and humanitarians alike to. find that in the attempt to bring pressure to bear upon Turkey and the Balkan States to keep the peace Great Britain, instead of taking the lead that her national traditions and sympathies would have led one to expect, has been a laggard. In such a case the responsibility of the laggard is a very serious one, for unanimity among the Powers web a necessary condition of interference, and, therefore, their pace could not be faster than the pace of the slowest. The Collective Note has now been settled and forwarded, but the grave responsibility of delaying it until either the very day of the declaration of war, or at the Very best, a day earlier, must rest upon' the representatives of Great Britain. Why have they incurred such a responsibility? The British attitude was explained very clearly by Sir Edward Grey last year, when, without any formal declaration, a state of war prevailed for some weeks along Turkey's Montenegrin frontier in connection with the revolt of the Maliasori. Though the operations were disgraced by the usual hor- | rors of guerrilla and even Tegular warfare in those regions, the British Government declined to take the initiative even in the attempt to limit the area of disturbance. "It must be remembered," said Sir Edward Grey, "that intervention would mean tbe destruction of the new regime in Turkey and the hopes founded upon ft, and would mean that Europe had made up its mind that Turkey was going to relapse into the Same • state in which it had been under the old regime." Fifteen months ago there may still have been good grounds for the hopes inspired by the peaceful revolution which ! the Young Turks had brought about three years before. But many things have happened since then to show that the Young Turk is but a Turk after all. Evidence has steadily accumulated to prove that he is little better qualified to govern a Christian population than Abdul Hamid himself. Horrors of the same appalling character as those with which Gladstone made Europe ring in I 1576 have been perpetrated wholesale in Macedonia and on the frontiers of the Balkan States by Turkish regulars and under a reform Government. That they have often provoked reprisals of a not entirely Christian character, and that the initiative has not always been on one side, is not to be denied. But for the statesman as distinguished from the moralist the question is not so much who is the greater sinner, but how the horrors can be stopped. We see no ground for hoping that they can ever be stopped or the peace of Europe can ever be secured against a constantly recurring danger except by the method to which Britain has at last given her reluctant assent. The Young Turk, like the old one!, will do the right thing to his* Christian subjects and neighbours when he is compelled to do so, but not before. It is satisfactory to find in the joint Note of the Powers the assurance' " that if war breaks our the Powers will not allow any modification in the territorial status quo in the Balkan Peninsula." The difficulty which the Powers will find in enforcing this stipulation on themseivaa ia the ' real crux o( the position.

Turkey and the Balkan States can do nothing against a united Europe, but a united Europe may soon come to loggerheads under the temptation that a state of war will offer to Austria, Russia, and Italy to peg out desirable claims for themselves in and around the Balkans. We trust that no faith in the capacity of^ the Turkish physician to heal himself will prevent Great Britaih from standing in whole-heartedly with the other Powers in an effort to avert one of the most colossal calamities with which humanity was ever threatened.