Driving the Turk From Europe by W. W. P.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Feb 15, 1912

Driving the Turk From Europe

By W. W. P.

Other topics, such as the spectacular celebrations attending the return from Rome of the new cardinals, the McNamara trial with its startling conclusion, the titanic struggle between labor and capital, the numerous investigations, and not least the several-cornered contest for the presidential nomination, have crowded into the background the Turk-Italian war, and we have heard comparatively little of late concerning the progress of hostilities between these two nations. The significance of this latest effort to take from Turkey even a somewhat obscure portion of its territory, has been noted by a Polish writer in the Warsaw Tygodnik Illustrowany (Illustrated Weekly). According to his interpretation, the present war is simply another development in the “Eastern question,” and is one more step toward the expulsion of the Turks from Europe. We quote from his article as printed in the February issue of the American Review of Reviews:—

The attack of Italy on Turkey is an indirect but most recent stage of the contest for Stamboul. We know how long this struggle has lasted—from the very moment when the Turks installed themselves on the magnificent “key” promontory of Europe, after they had routed and obliterated from the face of the earth the mighty power of the Byzantine Cæsars. At first the European powers, even with their united forces, were afraid to drive the Turks back to Asia; later they harassed and pressed them from time to time. But the Turks held their ground stoutly. Even after the blow dealt to the “infidel” power by Sobieski at Vienna, there was charmed away only the menace of a Turkish inundation of central and eastern Europe. The testament—legendary or genuine—of Peter the Great; the

Turkish wars of Catherine II; the seizure by Russia of the Crimea; the checking at Sebastopol of the march of Russia upon Stamboul; the bloody contests of relatively fresh date in Shipka Pass and at Plevna; the halting anew of Russia at the gates of Constantinople; the assent of the powers to the breaking from Turkey, at first of Greece, then of Servia and Bulgaria, and finally of Bosnia and Herzegovina; the dire troubles of the powers with the seething of Albania and Macedonia, as the game is already beginning to be almost the last, or the next to the last shred of Turkish land on the continent of Europe,—all this constitutes an uninterrupted series of slow drivings of the Turk beyond the Bosporus, to the Arabian deserts whence he came, whence years ago he invaded the territories of the Christian, Aryan peoples of Europe.

What to-day constitutes the kernel and essence of the Eastern question, is: Who is to seize Stamboul after the Turks have been driven out of their capital? Russia? Austria? England? Germany? There is no lack of claimants. Albania and Macedonia are, most evidently, being reserved by Austria for herself. When? The day and hour can not be set; at all events, only after the final driving out of Turkish dominion from Europe. And—after the precipitation of the crescent from the Sublime Porte?—Obviously. In that case, however, why should not the capital at Vienna be wound up and removed to Constantinople? But how is Russia to abandon her historic mission, the political injunctions of Peter the Great and Catherine II,—Russia, who “has shed her blood for the liberation of the Balkan Slavonians from the Turkish yoke”? What would become—in every case—of the worshipful “political equilibrium” in Europe, which has been guarded like the apple of the eye for so many years? The principle of legitimacy counts no more: that has somehow been mislaid, and, forsooth, gone out of fashion. But—equilibrium! equilibrium! Certainly, the Vienna, Paris, and Berlin congresses did not build their “eternal” works on the basis of equilibrium in order suddenly to permit a more adventurous and clever conqueror to rove at large. . . . The liquidation of the Eastern question had been deferred, put off to the future,—and this frequently with much pains and trouble. The maintaining at any cost of the status quo—precious for “the peace of Europe”—on the Balkan Peninsula had become a diplomatic tradition. And, lo! we have the sudden roar of the Italian guns at Prevesa. Who knows whether it has not given the signal for the starting of the general and final liquidation of a business so “ripe” that with this liquidation even Metternich himself would not have been able to delay any longer?

While it is not yet altogether clear what direct bearing this attack of Italy upon Turkey may have upon the final solution of the Eastern question, yet it is of interest to note that a writer in a paper printed so near the Turkish capital should see so much in this struggle, and should foresee so plainly that the Ottoman power will finally be compelled to abandon all its European territory.

W. W. P.