Why Constantinople?

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Dec 24, 1912

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 39, No. 50.

Why Constantinople?

Why the struggle for Constantinople? Why especially does Russia want it? Why are the great powers determined that she should not have it?

Because of its strategic value. If Russia possessed the little peninsula, she could so fortify the Dardanelles and the Bosporus—the narrow straits which lead from the Black Sea into the Mediterranean—that she could shut out the navies of the world, while she could within the Black Sea build an invincible fleet which could go or come at will.

She would in such case possess advantages which no other nation having dominion on the Mediterranean would or could possess.

Therefore Russia must not be permitted to hold or control Constantinople. The Turk may possess that strategic point; he has nominally held it since 1453. But now Turkey is not an independent power, and is no menace to any great power when internationally controlled. For that reason, it is maintained, solely to give the Russian bear no other free outlet for his navy save that of the frozen north on the Baltic Sea.

The founder of the Turkish, or Ottoman Empire, saw Constantinople in a dream about the year 1290. He saw all the leaves of a mighty tree—his family tree—like simitars pointing toward Constantinople. "That city, placed at the junction of two seas and two continents, seemed like a diamond set between two sapphires and two emeralds, to form the most precious stone in a ring of universal empire. Othman thought that he was in the act of placing that visioned ring on his finger when he awoke." But it was not till 1356 that permanent foothold was gained on the European side of the Hellespont.

How long will the Turk still hold it to preserve the balance of power between the rivals of Europe?