The Eastern Question Revived
So many matters of national and international interest have claimed attention of late, that not much has been said about current developments in the dominions of the sultan of Turkey, but just now the eyes of the world are once more being directed toward that quarter. The great powers of Europe, which have maintained a sort of guardianship over the Turkish government for many years, have now joined hands to compel the sultan to accept a scheme of financial reforms in practically the whole of European Turkey. The press dispatches state that the sultan regards these demands as a direct infringement of his sovereignty; in effect, as a notice to quit Europe, and that he will not yield to them. The changes which have come in recent years, the new elements of strength which are depended upon by the Turkish government, and the possibilities of the situation in case the powers insist upon their demands, are thus set forth by a London correspondent:— His [the sultan's] position has been fundamentally altered since he was coerced by Europe after the Russo-Turkish War, and more recently by being compelled to relinquish Crete. He has since attained the object of his thirty years' ambition. Thanks chiefly to the Armenian massacres, which were allowed to go unpunished by Europe, and his victory over the Greeks, he has gained control over all Islam, and has been recognized as the calipha of Mohammedans in the entire globe. The recent wonderful renaissance of pan-Islamism has for its object a holy war against infidels, and the mass of its followers believe that this is at hand. Abdul Hamid, as the head of this immense force, can not yield a fraction more of his sovereignty without resistance, and without summoning all of his faith to his assistance. This, then, is the appalling danger which the powers will incur if they resort to force in imposing their demands. A holy war would bleed Great Britain in India, and Egypt and France in Algiers and Morocco, besides bringing about a wholesale massacre of Christians in Constantinople, which has so long been threatened.4 Additional interest in the whole situation is created by the news that England is changing her traditional attitude in the matter of the preservation of the integrity of Turkey. This is the subject of a dispatch from London to the Citizen of Columbus, Ohio, published Oct. 28, 1905. This appeared under the startling heading, prominently displayed, “Turks to be Driven from Europe,” and reads as follows:— Abdul Hamid's days as a European monarch are believed to be numbered. An agitation is now being conducted in Great Britain in favor of the withdrawal of what up to now has been the keystone of England's foreign policy—the veto against the advance of the Russian empire to Constantinople. The Spectator, the great British political weekly, has joined the agitation, and it has come to be almost a rule in British politics that measures supported by the Spectator are bound sooner or later to become accomplished facts. For generations Great Britain has upheld the integrity of Turkey through a fear that if any European power seized the sultan's country, England's sea route to India via the Suez Canal would be endangered in time of war. The integrity of Turkey has been to the government of India what the Monroe doctrine is to the United States, and the sultan has relied on the necessity of England to support his throne as his only strong hold on his European possessions. Now, however, the new Anglo-Japanese alliance is a guarantee of the safety of India, and Englishmen are preparing to give up their objection to Russian occupation of Turkey. England realizes that Russia within the next few years must have warm water seaports, and if these are not obtained in Turkey, they will be on the Persian Gulf, which is too uncomfortably near India, even with the Anglo-Japanese alliance in being, for England's complete tranquillity. Another reason for the startling change in England's near Eastern policy is the fear of a strong alliance between Russia and Germany. The dearest desire of Englishmen at present is to weaken Germany, and to destroy the growing intimacy between the czar and the kaiser. Germany is now the predominant power in Constantinople, and the kaiser is very ambitious to maintain his influence in the Turkish capital, for German capital is heavily invested in Asia Minor, and Germans have come to regard Asia Minor as the place for their next colonial venture. If England withdraws her objection to the Russian flag floating over Constantinople, the only bar to the slow march on Turkey would be German ambition, and an apple of discord would thus be thrown between the czar and kaiser, which would lead to the severance of the strong ties of friendship that now bind the two monarchs together. Abdul Hamid is helpless, and can do nothing to stop the inevitable Muscovite advance into Turkey, once England's support of his rule vanishes. When that occurs, the sick man will be moved back into Asia, and Europe no more will know a prophet of Mahomet. While these two correspondents deal with different phases of the question, and do not fully agree in their views of the details of the situation, they arrive at the same conclusion—the probability that the Turk will be driven from Europe in the near future. Those who have been looking for this outcome of the Eastern question as the fulfilment of prophecy and a sign of the near coming of our Lord will watch with great interest the further development of these latest phases of this ever interesting subject. Whichever way we turn, we find the evidences multiplying on every hand to show that the great day of the Lord is near. All these considerations urge us to zeal in fulfilling our part in proclaiming the warning message quickly in every land.