PERCY T. MAGAN by PERCY T. MAGAN

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Aug 5, 1909

PERCY T. MAGAN

By PERCY T. MAGAN

The Turkish Revolution—No. 5

PERCY T. MAGAN

A Triangular Question

For more than half a century the Seventh-day Adventist people have maintained that the Scriptures plainly teach that in the last days the Ottoman empire in Europe will come to an end, and that following this there will be world-wide war—“a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation, even to that same time.” And we have further declared that according to the Word of God this universal war would terminate in the battle of Armageddon, the end of the world, and the coming of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amid all the ebb and flow of international events affecting

the disorganization or the integrity of the Turkish empire, this people have unwaveringly and unfalteringly warned all men that the empire of Turkey would, in the language of Holy Writ, “be dried up,”—that is, would come to an end,—and that this is one of the great signs of the coming of the Son of man.

And now that the Turkish question has become the question of the hour, now while it is the subject under discussion in all the cabinets and chancelleries of Europe, and the theme of diplomatic and political treatises in the great dailies and the magazines, should not every Seventh-day Adventist be awake to the situation, and as never before make manifest the deep and hidden meaning of all these things?

The question before us now is, What is the relation of the Young Turk movement—the Turkish revolution of July 23, 1908, and the present revolution in Turkey—to the general question of the coming to an end of the Turkish empire?

This brings us to a study of some fundamental, international facts. The near Eastern question is a triangular one. At the top of this triangle is the Russian government at St. Petersburg. At one angle of the base is Constantinople and the Sublime Porte, and at the other the British Foreign Office in Downing Street, London.

Between these three powers, for the past two centuries in particular, a three-cornered struggle has been going on. Turkey has been fighting to maintain her position in Constantinople. Russia has been fighting to put Turkey out of Constantinople, and gain that long-coveted position for herself. England, while caring little for the Turk, per se, has fought to hold him in Constantinople for the purpose of keeping Russia out.

Ten times—in other words an average of once in every twenty years—during the past two centuries, has Russia been in deadly combat with Turkey. In the majority of these wars she has been the aggressor, “and seven of them she has fought single-handed.” See Monroe, “Turkey and the Turks,” page 302.

The questions at once arise: Why is Russia so often at war with Turkey? Why does the Muscovite government so earnestly desire to possess Constantinople? Is Russia the national and eternal enemy of Turkey? The fundamental principles which dictate Russian policy will answer these questions.

A glance at the map of Europe will shed some light on this subject. In all Europe there are approximately 3,861,156 square miles. Of this number 2,123,626 square miles belong to Russia. Only 1,739,067 belong to all the other nations of the European continent put together. These figures will give some idea of the tremendous size of Russia, as compared with any other European power.

But now look at another set of figures: The entire coast line of Europe approximates 21,177 miles. Of this, Russia owns only 5,550 miles, while the other powers own 15,627 miles. Thus although Russia is greatly superior to all the others combined in point of territory, she is greatly inferior to them in point of coast line.

To be sure, the seas which lave the Russian shores are many. On the north is the Arctic Ocean, which by the vast reaches of the White Sea penetrates deep into the country. Half of Russia’s coast line is on these two bodies of water. But they are navigable during only a few months of the year,—from June to September. At the best they are practically useless for naval purposes in time of war. Next comes the Baltic Sea, with the gulfs of Bothnia, Finland, and Livonia. But the Baltic, also, in its two most northern gulfs is frequently frozen. Armies have crossed upon its ice with all their heavy ordnance and stores, and navigation is stopped from November to April.

Russia has a war fleet in the Baltic. The freezing of the waters of this sea, however, make dependence upon this naval arm a doubtful quantity. Besides this, the Baltic is full of treacherous shallows; the passage through the narrow channels which separate the Danish islands is at all times difficult and dangerous for ships of large draft, and if the Danish islands should be seized in time of war by a third power,—a comparatively easy undertaking,—Russia would find her northern squadrons bottled up and useless.

The Caspian Sea also washes Russian shores. But it can not be seriously considered at all from an international standpoint. Besides, it is also often frozen, especially in its northern half, which includes Astrakhan, its most flourishing port. There is also the Sea of Azof; but this in places is little better than a marsh.

Lastly comes the Black Sea. Russia first planted herself on its shores in 1696, when Peter the Great captured Azof. But to that most famous empress of Russia, Catherine II, must be credited the scheme to make the Black Sea a Russian lake. “She resolved that the possessions of the sultans should become the heritage of the czars; and, as an expression of her faith in Russian destiny, she christened a grandchild Constantine, and had a gate at Moscow, that opened toward Turkey, named ‘The Way to Constantinople.’”—Id., page 303. Had not death interfered and removed this ambitious woman, she would undoubtedly have accomplished her aim. Her son Paul was almost as much of a woman as his mother was of a man, and did not find it to his taste to press the battle against the Osmanlis.

But the scheme of the audacious Catherine is just as much a part of the Russ program to-day as it was in the time of its conception. Russia is now firmly established on the shores of the Black Sea. Here she has fine warm-water ports. Why, then, is she not content? Why should she be so determined to drive the Ottoman power from off the Bosporus and out of Constantinople?

At this juncture the conformation of the map of Europe must be borne in mind. The Black Sea, with the exception of one little outlet at its south-western extremity, is a vast land-locked lake. That one small channel is the Bosporus, or the Strait of Constantinople, as it is more properly termed. Russia and Turkey between them surround the entire Black Sea with their territory. Consequently, if the straits of the Bosporus be closed, Russia is literally locked into the Black Sea.

A narrow channel is this Bosporus—approximately seventeen miles in length, and in places scarce half a mile in width. Its waters are deep, however, so that ships of war can steam close in-shore on either side. In its course it passes between the city of Constantinople and its Asiatic suburb of Scutari.

The Bosporus in turn opens into the tiny Sea of Marmora, out of which the way westward is through the Dardanelles. The Dardanelles is the only passage into the archipelago, and thence into the Mediterranean. Like the Bosporus, the Dardanelles is very narrow and very deep.

A glance at the map will reveal the fact that the status of these straits is of the greatest moment to both Russia and Turkey. If these straits be closed against naval vessels, the Ottoman capital is secure from assault by sea. This gives the Turk a tremendous advantage in the defense of his European stronghold. On the other hand, if these straits be closed to ships of war, the Russian fleet in the Black Sea is debarred from the waters of the Mediterranean and from all the oceans of earth.

Now this very “closed” condition is the status of the Dardanelles and the Bosporus. Almost from the horizon of Turkish history have the Dardanelles and the Bosporus, being such narrow channels, flanked on either bank by Turkish territory, been regarded in a different light from “high seas.” For centuries the sultans have claimed the right to exclude foreign men-of-war from both the straits. This status is a part of the international law of Europe, and the subject of a host of treaties.

The Treaty of 1809, between Great Britain and Turkey, confirmed by engagement “the ancient rule of the Ottoman empire” forbidding vessels of war at all times to enter the Canal of Constantinople. The Treaty of Unkiar-Skellessi, between Russia and Turkey, contained a secret clause, binding the Porte to close the Dardanelles against all war-vessels. Later, when the great powers combined to regulate Turkish affairs, the famous Treaty of London, made July 13, 1841, provided that even in times of peace no foreign ship of war should be admitted into the straits of the Bosporus and the Dardanelles. The Treaty of Paris, in 1856, which settled up matters at the close of the Crimean War, still further affirmed this doctrine. And the same was still further provided for in the Treaty of Berlin, in 1878.

By all of these treaties the Black Sea fleet of Russia has literally been made a Black Sea fleet. It is prohibited from operating elsewhere than in the Euxine. It can not reach the Mediterranean Sea,

or contend with the fleets of other powers in the Atlantic or the Pacific.

Viewed from this standpoint, the position of Russia is intolerable. As long as it shall continue, her supremacy in eastern Europe will count for little. Consequently, considered from this angle of vision alone, it is the most natural thing in the world that Russian ambition should tend toward the ultimate possession of Constantinople.

In all her attempts to gain control or possession of Constantinople, England has been Russia’s consistent and constant enemy. England, Russia, and Turkey resemble one another in one respect—they are all Asiatic as well as European powers. But Turkey could never prove a menace to British interests in the Orient. She is too decrepit and decadent. On the other hand, there has seemed to be something akin to a natural antagonism between England and Russia in the East. From the days when the Northern Bear first lifted his shaggy strength onto the horizon of Europe, England has feared for her Indian empire. And the Indian empire is one of the fairest jewels in the British crown. Then there were ever stories of Russian intrigue in Afghanistan, and in the region of the Persian Gulf. These apprehensions and alarms may not have been just or reasonable, but they certainly counted for a great deal in determining the attitude of England toward Turkey and Russia. It was in great measure out of these alarms that there grew up among certain statesmen and classes in England the conviction that the maintenance of the integrity of the Turkish empire was part of the natural duty of England. Sharply defined, the condition of things was this: “Russia, by reason of her sympathy of religion or race with Turkey’s Christian populations, was brought into chronic antagonism with Turkey; England, by reason of her Asiatic possessions, was kept in just the same state of antagonism to Russia.”—Justin McCarthy, “History of Our Own Times,” Vol. I, chap. 25.

Consequently England sought to shut up Russia in the Black Sea, knowing full well that, divested of the power of the sea, Russia could never prove herself an antagonist of the first magnitude to British designs and interests in the Orient. This policy upon the part of England began in the days of William Pitt, who in 1791 called upon the Commons to furnish the sinews of war for the purpose of rescuing Turkey from the clutches of the Empress Catherine. See Stanhope, “Life of Pitt,” Vol. II, chap. 25. And from that hour down to the summer of 1907 that policy was a part of the platform of every British ministry without respect to party.

Madison, Tenn.