p. 10 | PERCY T. MAGAN by PERCY T. MAGAN

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jul 8, 1909

PERCY T. MAGAN

By PERCY T. MAGAN

The Turkish Revolution — No. 1

PERCY T. MAGAN

An Unexpected Event

THE month of July would seem to be fated for revolutions. On the fourth, the people of the United States celebrate the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The fourteenth is the great national holiday in the republic of France, when young and old take part in gladsome pageant and parade, in commemoration of the fall of the hated Bastile. To the revolutionary calendar of this month there was last year added another birthday of liberty—the twenty-third, when Sultan Abdul Hamid of Turkey drained to the dregs the cup of bitterness, and proclaimed the restoration of Mithat Pasha's constitution.

It is said on good authority that Abdul spent the previous night in unceasing telegraphic communication with the German emperor, hoping that at the eleventh hour the Wilhelmstrasse would lend him substantial support for the perpetuation of his absolutism. In the small hours of the morning, however, fresh despatches from many parts of his dominions convinced this past master in crafty statesmanship that the disaffection was general, and resistance useless. Then, and not till then, with the advice and consent of his “great and good friend” in Berlin, did he yield to the inevitable.

The most extraordinary thing in connection with the Turkish revolution was the suddenness and unexpectedness with which it came. For fully one hundred years the world has been watching for the dissolution of the Turkish empire.

On Jan. 9, 1853, the Archduchess Helen gave a party in her palace at St. Petersburg. There Czar Nicholas I met Sir G. Hamilton Seymour, the British minister, whom he drew aside, entering into conversation with him relative to the future of Turkey, and the arrangements which it might be necessary to make regarding it. Few conversations have enjoyed a greater degree of fame than this one. As long as the Ottoman empire shall stand, so long will there cling to it the name of “the sick man.” And that name was to that conversation born. “We have on our hands,” said the czar, “a sick man—a very sick man. It will be a great misfortune if one of these days he should slip away from us before the necessary arrangements have been made.”—'History of Our Own Times,' Justin McCarthy, Vol. I, chap. 25, par. 10.

But Turkey—the sick man—has not slipped away. Many argue that he has not only recovered from his sickness, but that he has become rejuvenated. On the face of it, this would almost appear to be so; for who would ever have dreamed during the early months of 1907 that by midsummer the empire of the sultan would receive a constitution?

“Yesterday Turkey was ruled by a medieval despotism. The sultan was emperor and pope, the head of the state and the head of the church. The law of the prophet contained in the Koran and in the Multeka was the law of the land. To-day Turkey is a free, modern democracy, ruled by the great principles which were enunciated by the French philosophers of the eighteenth century. The words liberty, equality, fraternity, are on everybody's lips, and they may be seen emblazoned in the towns and villages all over Turkey. The people are rejoicing. Happiness and harmony have taken the place of strife. The races, nationalities, religions, and sects which were at war are fraternizing. The sultan is ruler only in name. . . . Never in the world's history has there been so complete and so rapid a revolution, or one so bloodless. Youthful enthusiasts have hastened to tell us that the decrepit Turkey which we knew so well has disappeared forever, and that a rejuvenated and progressive Turkish empire is being created, which will be an empire indeed.”—'The Future of Turkey,' J. Ellis Barker, in the London Fortnightly Review, October, 1908.

It is difficult to discover how there could occur a much more totally unlooked-for event in the history of the world than the Turkish revolution. Of literature, both lay and official, on the “Turkish question,” there is literally heaps. “There have been blue books, yellow books, green books, and other books, an unending succession of volumes in all colors of the spectrum. Not a single word can apparently be found in these compilations which could be taken as foreshadowing the possibility of what has occurred. No ambassador warned his government. Baron Marschall, in Constantinople, is one of the ablest and most experienced figures in the diplomatic service of any nation. But it is clear that the Wilhelmstrasse was as much surprised as the foreign office of any other nation. There were consuls everywhere, but they gave no hint. All the most important journals in Europe have correspondents in Constantinople, and in the Balkans. Many of them are men of long experience and keen observation. Even they did not foresee what was coming, though to follow political events and tendencies is the chief part of their profession. It need not be said that earnest tourists who produced large volumes after a six-weeks' tour, were quite certain that they had missed nothing, though no syllable to suggest the possibility of a Turkish revolution will be found in their pages. One specimen production of this order, published in the last two years, and written from the point of view of the Macedonian Committee, describes the Young Turkish Movement, in a casual sentence, as ‘ineffective and innocuous.’”—The Turkish Revolution, Viator, London Fortnightly Review, September, 1908.

Even the brilliant and able Sir Charles Elliott, who is one of the most keen observers of events Turkish, failed utterly to estimate the spirit which gave birth to the revolution. Hear him, in his latest and most admirable work:—

“Of all those Liberals and Young Turks, there is not one who, when the time for talking is over, and the time for action comes, will not submit to his [the sultan's] will. Though much has been talked and written about revolution by the so-called Liberal party, nothing has ever been done. . . .

“One can not help wondering why the Turks themselves let so strange a government continue. The majority of them are, in their own way, honest, patriotic, God-fearing men; some of them are intelligent and energetic. Why will they not reform? One answer is that no changes seem to make the Turkish

government any better. Perhaps the greatest reform ever introduced into Turkey was the abolition of the janizaries. Yet it has not altered the general character of the administration, and probably no change which would alter it would be acceptable to the Turkish people. Many, particularly of the younger men, profess to be anxious for ‘reforms,’ and are commonly known as Young Turks, or la jeune Turquie. Their ideal is some form of constitutional government, such as the parliament of 1877; but I do not know that any section of them are sufficiently definite, or practical in their organization to have any detailed program. They and their literature are the objects of the special suspicion and severity of the Ottoman government, and a Christian rising creates less alarm than a conspiracy among Ottoman schoolboys.”—'Turkey in Europe,' by Sir Charles Elliott, pages 112, 152, 153.

But leave foreign observers and critics out of the count. It would seem as if the Bulgars, Greeks, Serbs, and Rumanians, whose contributions to the bibliography of the “Eastern question” have been almost countless, would have been able to give us some hint as to what was coming. But they failed as completely as the foreign ambassadors at Constantinople and the consuls at Salonika. Evidently they did not apprehend the slightest possibility of so stupendous and mighty a revolution.

Again: it looks strange that Sultan Abdul Hamid himself was not better informed of what was taking place in his empire. He possessed a most numerous corps of spies. A terrible system of espionage was in unceasing operation all over his dominions. His secret emissaries were everywhere; in the public offices, in homes and in harems, in bathhouses and on the street, in bedrooms and in kitchens, these fawning satellites were ever ready to report.

And to the art and science of espionage and surveillance Abdul Hamid had devoted the strongest powers of his intellect. In that realm he justly considered himself without a peer. He had used his private fortune for the organization of this terrible piece of machinery. “Through it no father could trust his sons, nor a master his servants, for Abdul Hamid had proved that there was no one above suspicion or beyond temptation.”

And all of this conspired in making people timid in the matter of inaugurating new movements of any kind. It produced a feeling of constraint. It engendered a constant terror. The hearts of men and women were impregnated with fear and horror. Many men had disappeared. Their kinsmen could only vaguely guess what had become of them. The cold waters of the Bosporus undoubtedly have closed over many. Perhaps the word oubliette sums up their fate better than any other.

And yet in spite of all this, the work of revolution went on. It went on and on, till millions of people were party to it, and no man gave away the secret till, when the morning of the event dawned, the sultan and the camarilla were taken completely by surprise.

The preceding political facts have deeply impressed one thought upon the cabinets and chancelleries of the world; viz., the utter “inability of human intelligence to predict what a day may bring forth.” One noted writer tersely states the case, when he says: “There never could have been a stranger instance of the fallacy of judging present affairs too much by past experience, and of the matchless absurdity of prophecy in politics.”—The Fortnightly Review, London, September, 1908; Art., “Turkish Revolution,” by Viator.

The importance of the impression which these things have made upon the minds of statesmen can not be overestimated. Noel Buxton, the chairman of the Balkan Commission, tells us that “no one is entitled, since the revolution of the twenty-third of July, to speak of more than facts. . . . The world is watching a new phenomenon.”

But while men feel that they are powerless longer to prophesy relative to the “Eastern question,” there is One who sitteth in the circle of the heavens, who is able to prophesy as to the ultimate outcome of the “Turkish question.” And that One has prophesied and has written it all down in his Book. To that Book statesmen, as well as men of low degree, must turn, if they would understand. The study of those divine pages makes clear the otherwise dark phenomenon of the suddenness of the Turkish revolution. Four brief chapters in the Bible not only light up with brilliant revelation the events of the recent past, but they illuminate the shadowy path of the future of the “Turkish question.”

Madison, Tenn.