TUESDAY, OCTOBER 12, 1915. THE SICK MAN'S VISION

Evening Post, Volume XC, Issue 88, 12 October 1915, Page 6

The dramatic turn of affairs in the Balkans has of course produced a great effect in Constantinople. About a month ago we were assured that the Turk could not possibly hold out beyond the end of September, unless relief came from his friends in Berlin. Now that the relief is on its way the effect upon the Sick Man is magical. Not merely is he able to sit up and take nourishment, but he is even strong enough to talk as. tall as the bravest of the German fire-eaters. "Bulgaria," says the President of the Turkish Chamber, "is opening a new chapter of history." On that point we must all agree with him. . It was 'to the fiery eloquence of Gladstone and the armies of Russia that Bulgaria owed her deliverance in 1878 from the yoke of the Turkish tyrant which had lain upon her with, a cruel weight for five long centuries. Again, under Russian auspices the national aspirations of Bulgaria, which had been substantially gratified by the Treaty of San Stefano, were completely realised in 1909 by a declaration of independence which swept away the semblance of Turkish suzerainty and won the recognition of the European Powers. Three years later Bulgaria joined with Servia, Greece, and Montenegro to wrest further territory and rescue more of their respective nationals from the Turk in a war of which the subsequent quarrels of the allies, fomented by German and Austrian diplomacy, deprived the victors, and especially Bulgaria, of a large part of the fruits. Now, after the passing of another three years, Bulgaria is reversing the policy which had completely governed her existence, not merely through five centuries of blood and tears, but also during the more hopeful struggles of the last generation. She^is going to war against the Powers that delivered her from -bondage in order to prop up the tyranny of her hereditary foe. Nothing that has happened to the Turk since the Kaiser first took him in hand can have given him a more ecstatic pleasure. At tlia very Ink moment.*

reprieve has come from a quarter whence he had 'the least right to expect it. No wonder that the Sick Man is able to sit up and talk. "The most important result of the war," says Halid Bey, "will be that from the North Sea to the Indian Ocean a mighty group would be created which would for ever maintain itself against British selfishness, French revanche, Russian ambition, and Italian treachery." This is indeed a glorious vision that is cheering the spirit of the interesting invalid at Stamboul. In the glorious days of Suleiman the Magnificent the Turkish Empire extended all the way from the neighbourhood of the frontiers of Germany to the Persian Gulf. The whole of the Euphrates Valley belonged to him, and the greater part of Northern Africa. But it is a more splendid vision still that is now captivating the imagination of the Porte. It is limited only by the North Sea on the one side and the Indian Ooean on the other. This spacious domain is, of course, not to be the perquisite of the Turk alone. The new Triple Alliance, in which he has taken the place of the treacherous Italian, is to be the joint proprietor; or,' if room is to be found for a Bulgaria extended to embrace the whole of Macedonia and touch the iEgean, it may even be a Quadruple Alliance. But we must not dismiss this vision as the mere creation of the disordered fancy of an invalid who has just made a runaway knock at death's door. For years a similar ideal has been the waking dream of a targe proportion of the German people, and ifc has probably been rarely absent from the Kaiser's restless mind since he first came to the. throne. Constantinople and the Bagdad railway have represented to his imagination the wedge which would serve the double purpose of splitting the British Empire and opening the way for the expansion of German dominion and commerce in the East. The Suez Canal and Egypt have been mentioned in the cablegrams of the last few days as the next objectives of German strategy when it has assured the safety of Constantinople. "We need liberty of the seas, which was the real cause of war between England and Germany," said the professors and intellectuals in the annexationist manifesto published two months ago. " To obtain it wo must have Egypt, the connecting link between British Africa and British Asia— Egypt, which, with Australia', makes the Indian Ooean an English Sea, which joins up all the British colonies with the Mother Country; which, as Bismarck said, is the neck of the British Empire. That is where England must be shaken. The Suez Canal route will then be free, and Turkey will regain her ancient right." The opening of a Balkan campaign by a Power with this pretty little scheme in view should bring the war more closely home to Australasia than ever.