THE DAYS OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE NUMBERED..
The news from the Eastern Congress has, during the past week, been very significant. The powers make but little effort to conceal the fact that the time has come when the Turkish empire must fall to pieces, and the only question to settle is a satisfactory division of the spoils. The arrangement seems to be that Turkey in Europe is to be left to the adjacent powers, while England assumes control of Turkey in Asia. The following dispatch published in the Inter-Ocean, of July 9, shows that the treaty entered into between England and Turkey offers no guarantee for the integrity of the Sultan’s European possessions. “London, July 8.—A special from Berlin to the Daily Telegraph says England and Turkey have concluded a defensive treaty. England occupies Cyprus immediately, and guarantees the integrity of Asiatic Turkey. This defensive treaty does not necessarily come within the scope of the deliberations of the congress. It is an independent contract between the powers concerned. The validity of it could not be called in question except at the cost of a war. The arrangement will, however, be announced to the congress to-day. The position of Cyprus will give England absolute control over the Euphrates Valley. A line of railway, having this object in view, is to be constructed. No further Russian encroachments in this direction will be possible. So far as Asia is concerned, England and Turkey will practically form one power.” This action on the part of England at once makes Jerusalem a very important point. The following quotation from the same paper shows how the attention of the world is beginning to center at Jerusalem, and how all events are tending to make that the central point in the coming battle of the great day of the Lord:— “Certain special provisions are inserted in the treaty concerning Jerusalem and the holy places and the existing rights of the Greek and Latin churches. These are to be scrupulously preserved, but immunities and privileges of great value are to be secured to the Hebrew inhabitants of the Holy City and its adjoining precincts. The disclosure of this secret treaty puts an end to the possibility of the cession of Batoum to Russia. It throws a vivid light upon the stubborn resistance made by Earl Beaconsfield to that cession, and it explains the apparently inconsistent course of the Turkish representatives at the congress. It is not at all certain that the Russian members will be inclined to accept the treaty. It is thought probable that they will resist it strongly. On the other hand, Austria and Italy approve of it, and the Italian delegate has been heard to say that perhaps the pope would not be disinclined to exchange the Vatican for a home in Jerusalem under English protection.” In regard to these dispatches, the Inter-Ocean editorially says:— “England’s plans as to Asiatic Turkey came out in the Berlin Congress yesterday. England, under the name of an alliance with Turkey, virtually assumes control of Asia Minor. She guarantees the integrity of the possessions, and becomes an equal partner in the administration of affairs. The Sultan nominates the governors of the new provinces organized on the English plan, and the Queen approves. In other words, the real appointing power is with the Queen. This agreement is dated the 4th of June, and explains why England has been so indifferent to the claims of the smaller nations in the readjustment of affairs in Turkey in Europe. This move is really the first step toward making Asiatic Turkey a part of the British empire. This is the stake for which Beaconsfield has played, and this is England’s share of the plunder. She takes possession as an administrator, simply as a precautionary move. Stripped of Bulgaria, Roumelia, and virtually of Thessaly and Epirus, and with Austria’s hand on Bosnia, Turkey in Europe is no longer a power in European politics. Russia, Germany, Austria, and England have simply agreed as to division for the present and the course of action for the future. As no one doubts that Bosnia and Herzegovina will become Austrian, no one can doubt that Asiatic Turkey, from the Soghanly range westward, will ultimately become English. That this project was the burden of the first message Count Schouvaloff carried to the Czar has been more than hinted at. England, seeing that Turkey must go to pieces, said to Russia: ‘Settle affairs as you will in Europe, but give me a free rein in Asia.’ And before the congress met the Russo-English Turkish programme was marked out. Its successful accomplishment will demonstrate that the days of the Ottoman empire are numbered.” The Christian Union, of July 10, gives the following still more explicit statement of the present condition and significant tendency of events in the East. With only one European province left to Turkey, and the Greeks clamoring for Constantinople itself, the affairs of the Ottoman empire are fast approaching a decisive pass. “The reports of the week confirm the foreshadowed results of the Berlin Congress in our last issue. Turkey has suffered more grievously from the diplomacy of England than from the armies of Russia. All attempt to maintain her integrity has been definitely abandoned, and it is not surprising that her representatives at Berlin indignantly and passionately protest against a dismemberment far more complete than that of the Treaty of San Stefano. Austria takes Herzegovina and Bosnia, and her army of sixty thousand men is only awaiting the conclusion of the congress to march in and occupy these provinces. Montenegro and perhaps Eastern Roumelia are left nominally free, but with Antivari, the southern part of Montenegro, declared open to the Austrian navy, the freedom of that province will probably be little more than nominal. Russia saves her national pride by securing the restoration of Bessarabia, taken from her by the Allies in 1856. The problem of the Danube is solved by declaring it free to all ships except in time of war, and placing the territory on both sides under the control of Roumania, whose sovereignty is apparently guaranteed by the powers. England takes the island of Cyprus, which she will doubtless make a naval station corresponding to Gibraltar in the west and Malta in the center. Turkey is recommended to come to some agreement with Greece respecting the northern borders of the latter State, which the congress recommends shall be removed northward, so as to include, substantially, Thessaly and Epirus. This leaves only Eastern Roumelia, south of the Balkan Mountains, to Turkey; for the status of Western Roumelia is still unsettled. Indeed, Greece has laid before the congress a memorial showing that the Christian populations even along the shores of the Sea of Marmora outnumber the Mohammedan, and suggesting that Constantinople should become again a Grecian city.” “Nor are signs of the dismemberment of the Turkish power east of the Dardanelles wanting. The government of Turkey is no longer a powerful despotism, and reports from the interior assert that provincial governors obey orders from Constantinople only when they choose to do so. Egypt has long been ready to strike for independence whenever it could do so successfully. It would not be strange if Syria and Palestine should raise the standard of revolt. Substantially the Turk is driven from Europe. It would not be strange if, within a comparatively brief period, he should be driven even from Asia Minor.”