Nelson Evening Mail. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 31 1915. GERMANY IN TURKEY.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLVIII, Issue XLVIII, 31 March 1915, Page 4

Nelson Evening Mail. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 31 1915. GERMANY IN TURKEY.

r I HOW Turkey was driven into "war try. the ruthless compulsion put upon her by German agents and a small group of Turkish adventurers with strong German sympathies, is now a familiar story. It has been told with circumstance and detail in a White Book issued by the British Government, but the astounding proceedings of the period covered by the White 800k —that is to say, of the three months from the beginning of August to the end of October of last year—were, in fact, no more than the final stage of a. prolonged and cunningly devised German plot. The history of this plot is told at length'by Sir Valentine Chirol in the "Quarterly Review." He shows con-i ciusively that though the match was. set to the train dn those three critical months | the train itself had been carefully laid by Germany for many years' past, and that the' Kaiser himself was primarily responsible for the laying of it. Bis-1 marck sought only to ensure for Germany the position Which Great Britain | had abandoned on the fall of the Beacons- j field Government in 1880 as the disinterested friend of Turkey, but he was well aware that the part he wished to play at 'Constantinople cojild only be played safely and successfully if it were generally recognised that Germany had no territorial ambitions in the Near' East. William 11., however, lacked Bismarck's restraint, and quite early in his reign began to form plane for German aggran-., disement in the Near East. Within a vear of his accession he decided, against Bismarck's advice, to pay a state visit to Constantinople. Sultan Adbul Hamid had by then done much to revive the influence of the Kaliphate in the Moslem j world outside his own dominions, and had also made the Sultanate once more a dominant force sin Turkey itself.! "What exactly passed between Adbul Hamid and William 11. during that visithas never yet been, told," remarks Sir Valentine Chirol, "but host and guest parted mutually pleased with each other. The old Chancellor did not approve of i,he visit before the Emperor set out. Ke approved of it still less when the Emperor returned full of the vision® he had seen on the Bosphoru*. . - . 'For William 11. Constantinople was already the bridge over which Germany. was to j pass out of Europe into Asia, and enter j upon a vast field of splendid venture, j In the following year Bismarck "was disS missed, and the Emperor was- free to steer his own course." He gave up the Bismarckian poHcy of holding the balance between. Austria, Rtissia, and the Balkans, and looked to Austrian ascendancy there as an essential element in the great scheme for the creation of "a German wedge reaching from Hamburg to the Persian Gulf." In order to bring Turkey permanently within the orbit of Germany's world policy the Kaiser set himself "to peg out Germany's claims in the domain of commerce, industry, and finance.' Turkey was overrun by German manufacturers; German engineers, and German capitalists. German trade increased by leaps and bounds. Heavily subsidised German shipping companies established line® of steamers to the Levant and the Black Sea German banks began to operate on a large scale at and in Asia Minor a German cable company was formed to bring Germany into independent telegraphic communication with' Turkey .; and later on, when wireless telegraphy began to take practical form, the Germans were first in the field with concessions for wireless lines between Constantinople and Syria, and between the Turkish islands in the Mediterranean and the mainland. German schools, German scientific expeditions, German missions contributed to the diffusion of German "kultuiy' while the German control of the Turkish military administration steadily grew in strength. Germany obtained a concession on most advantageous terms for the construction ol' the Baghdad railway. Tu 1898 the Emperor paid his second state visit to Constantinople, and extended it to embrace the Holy Land in his journey. It was then that he proclaimed himself the Protector., not only of Turkey, but of the whole Mohammedan world. There was clearly.

a pact between him and Abdul Hamid. In return for the concessions and commercial support which lie received from the Sultan he- stood between that potentate. and the European Powers whenever' those Powers began to demand internal reforms and better treatment of Christians within the Ottoman Empire. It was with German connivance, and probably at German instigation, that Abdul Hamid in 1906 sought to get a footing; in the Sinaitic Peninsula and shift the Turkish frontier close up to the Suez Canal. For nearly 20 years the pact between William 11. and Abdul Hamid held good, but the impunity which it assured to the Sultan brought about his downfall, for, trusting j to it, he tried to extend to European j Turkey the methods which he had successfully employed in Asiatic Turkey. Then came the rebellion of 1908, which temporarily destroyed German influence at Constantinople; but Germany already had so strong a grip upon the country that she soon regained her political dominance by winning over to her side the corrupt ,politicians of the Young Turk Committee of Union and Progress. "In proportion as the committee, drifting down the evil plane, forfeited the sympathy of the Western Powers, it naturally fell back," says Sir Valentine Chirol, ■ "into the arms of Germany, who, as in Abdul Hamid's days, was willing to ask no questions, so long as she obtained full value from the de facto rulers of Turkey in return for her political support." The committee's Germanophile tendency survived the Turkish reverses of the Balkan, Avars, and in Enver Pasha, who made himself master of the committee after the assassination, of Nazim Pasha, Germany found, when, the crisis came, a willing tool.