THE SULTAN'S SITUATION by Springfield Republican

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jun 17, 1903

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 29, No. 24.

THE SULTAN'S SITUATION.

By Springfield Republican

Not much sympathy is expressed in Christendom for the ruler known, in Mr. Gladstone's phrase, as "Abdul the damned." Yet Abdul, whether damned or not, is in a position such as no ruler would covet. His mixed population of Mohammedans and Christians in European Turkey makes an insoluble mass. Reforms demanded for the Christians, and literally forced upon the sultan by Russia and Turkey, inflame his Mohammedan subjects to revolt. The Albanians are a people honestly devoted, on account of religion, to the Turkish government, and it must be extremely repugnant to the Ottoman regime to impose on them obnoxious laws in order to placate the Macedonian Christians, who never will be content until they break away entirely from the Turkish yoke. Yet, while the situation has elements that seem destined to destroy the Turkish Empire in Europe sooner or later, the undoubted determination of Russia and Austria to postpone the final debacle, if possible, operates as a fire-extinguisher upon inflammable materials in the Balkans. The role of the sultan, however, is not a happy one, in any event. No other European ruler has so difficult a post to fill as Abdul Hamid these spring days.—Springfield Republican.