Evening Post. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 1918. THE PASSING OF ASINISTER DESPOT

Evening Post, Volume XCV, Issue 41, 16 February 1918, Page 6

Evening Post. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 1918. THE PASSING OF ASINISTER DESPOT

In a cartoon entitled "Shadow Tangles •f History" Sir F. O. Gould has depicted two of the striking ironies of the war. "I made Russia the enemy of France," says the shade of Napoleon, "and now they are /allies !"■ "I prevented Russia from going to Constantinople," says the shade, of Beaconsfield, "and now Britain Russia to get there!" Britain has certainly no reason to be ashamed of her recent efforts to get Russia, to I Constantinople—efforts which but for the defection of Russia herself would assuredly have succeeded. But the memory of Britain's previous efforts in the opposite direction supplies no. ground for complacency. The fact that a common danger from an aggressive military despotism which sought. to make the whole world its province brought Britain and Russia into this war as allies implies no necessary censure on the resistance offered forty years ago to the aggressive designs of Russia herself. But an event which has occurred during the present week revives the memory of some of the features of that struggle which are far from pleasant. "Unwept, unhonoured, and unsung."—almost, indeed, unnoticed—Abdul Hamid has gone to his grave. Until his deposition nine years ago he had been one of the worst of rulers in a. nation which by its genius for misrule has been an unmitigated curse to Europe ever since it acquired a European settlement. It was on behalf of this odious, • cunning, and cruel tyrant, and in order to perpetuate the abominations of Turkish despotism in Europe, that Britain nearly went to war with Russia in 1878. Though Abdul Hamid had then been only two years on the throne, the time was quite long enough to enable him to give a taste of his quality. An insurrection which had broken out in Bulgaria was sup- [ pressed by Bashi-Bazouks • and other irregular troops, and an orgy of murder and outrage followed which startled Europe. In England Disraeli, who was then Prime Minister, distinguished himself by the coolness with which he resisted the popular demand for. inter- | ference. He refused to be influenced by what he called "coffee-house babble," and Punch depicted him. sitting in an armchair while the work of murder and mutilation proceeded busily in the back--ground, and saying : "Bulgarian atrocities! I can't find them in the official reports!" Gladstone emerged from his retirement to rouse tEe conscience of the people in a wonderful campaign, whioh helped to Icjll what had then become the Beaconsfield Government at the next general election, but in the meantime Abdul Hamid had accomplished much. Relying evidently upon the ultimate support of Great Britain, he stubbornly resisted the demands of the European Powers for reforms and guarantees, and Russia, carried out her threat and went to war. It was when the victorious Russian armies were almost within sight of Constantinople, and, there' was no Turkish force to stop tfiem, that Beaconsfield delivered the characteristic coup which showed that solid foundation was not lacking for the hopes which had inspired the pigheadednesa of the Sultan. The Mediterranean Fleet was ordered to pass the Dardanelles and go up ,to Constantinople. At the Dardanelles it was actually stopped arid sent back, to Besika Bay, but the patriotism of the hour, which had forgotten the Bulgarian atrocities under the pressure of the Russian peril, would have been glad.to--see -the-original -order's carried out.

It was then that; the -word,. "Jingo" was added to- the vocabulary,- of' politics.

-' We don't want to fight, But, by Jingo, if we do, .We've got tho ships, we've got the-men, WeVe got the money too " — nwas ,the refrain of a music-hall ditty, in . which the audiences were accustomed to j join with enthusiasm. But British ships were not then put to the -use desired by ■music-hall patriotism. The British fleet i and British diplomacy kept Russia I . .out. of Constantinople without going ' to war, and Abdul Hamid stayed -where he was. He continued to act as J ; ja.thonv-ia the.side of Russia, and it was j f jnot long bofore he performed much the 1 -Biime function for Britain also. The. fact .ithat the International Congress which ■ idealt with ,l*i the problems opened by ! -the Rnxsso-Turkish war met at-Berlin Ts said to havo given him the idea that Berlin was the real centre of European ; power. Bismarck's commanding person^ ality may perhaps have "done more to foster the idea than this geograplu'cal accident, and after the masterful young , .ruler who gent Bismarck to the right- . :abaut- hacl;.begun -tei* develop; bis^Orientßli

dreams, Abdul can have been left in ho doubt as to the true political centre of Europe and the universe. The Kaiser paid his dramatic visit to the, Sultan in 1898, and the concession for the Bagdad railway, which was to give him a land route to the Persian Gulf and India, was signed in the following year. Longbefore this the policy of peaceful penetration had given the Germans a great power at the Yildiz Kiosk. Though the promises of reform which he was incessantly making both to the European Powers and to his own subjects weighed but lightly on his conscience, Abdul Hamid was glad to get the help of the German organising genius for his own purposes, but whether that genius or his own timid, jealous, suspicious, arict crafty character contributed the more to the building up of what was then the most perfect spy system in Europe is more than we can say. Largely by this means Abdul was also able to establish the most completely concentrated personal autocracy in Europe,' but it ultimately became so' odious both to the Turks themselves as well as Russia and the Western Powers that even the German prop could not hold it up, Abdul Hamid was deposed in 1909 by the Young Turks, who, in the name of democracy, called upon' the people to enjoy the blessings, of the constitution which he had repeatedly promised.

It may have afforded some satisfaction to the deposed tyrant' in his retirement to find that his subjects^soon found the Young Turks to be at least as bad as the old one. They are not craftier or crueller than he^—that would be impossible; under German tutelage they have become more successful and therefore more oppressive in their methods of "turkification." Abdul Hamid, says Sir Edwin Pears, "had degraded Turkey, possibly he had destroyed her." If the new regime has rendered the destruction certain, it is only by following faithfully in his steps. In that remarkable artiole on "Turkey—a Past and a Future," which appeared in the Round Table in June, the questions, "What is Turkey? What common factor accounts for the name? What has stained this coat of many colours to one political hue ?" were answered as follows :—

" The answer is simple: Blood. Turkey, the Ottoman State, is not a unity, climatic, geographical, racial, or economic; it is a pretension, enforced by bloodshed and violence wherever and whenever the Osroanli Government has power. But the Osmanlis are passing. at this moment, as other military Empires in Western Asia have passed before."

Yes; the Osmanlis' are passing, but whether they will pass right out, or merely pass, into the service ol an equally unscrupulous and far more powerful tyranny, depends upon the issue of the present war.