The Awakening of Turkey - The Turkish Revolution of 1908
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E. F. Knight. The Awakening of Turkey - The Turkish Revolution of 1908
The Awakening of Turkey - The Turkish Revolution of 1908
Table of Contents
CHAPTER I. THE TURKISH PEOPLE
CHAPTER II. ATROCITIES
CHAPTER III. EARLY REFORMERS
CHAPTER IV. THE SPREAD OF CORRUPTION
CHAPTER V. THE SPREAD OF EDUCATION
CHAPTER VI. THE RISE OF THE YOUNG TURKS
CHAPTER VII. DISCONTENT IN THE ARMY
CHAPTER VIII. THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE
CHAPTER IX. HOW THE REVOLUTION BEGAN
CHAPTER X. THE STANDARD OF REVOLT
CHAPTER XI. THE INSURRECTION IN BULGARIA
CHAPTER XII. THE PALACE AND THE GREEKS
CHAPTER XIII. A BLOODLESS VICTORY
CHAPTER XIV. THE COMMITTEE’S ULTIMATUM
CHAPTER XV. AFTER THE REVOLUTION
CHAPTER XVI. EUROPEAN ASSISTANCE
CHAPTER XVII. MUTINOUS PALACE GUARDS
CHAPTER XVIII. PREPARING FOR SELF-RULE
CHAPTER XIX. A STRONG ARMY NEEDED
CHAPTER XX. THE OPENING OF PARLIAMENT
CHAPTER XXI. THE NEW SULTAN
INDEX
Отрывок из книги
E. F. Knight
Published by Good Press, 2021
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The humane bag-and-baggage proposal would have meant the expulsion of nearly half the population of Turkey and the replacement of the Turkish by some other rule. But the Russianisation or Germanisation of the Balkan Peninsula would have been more disagreeable to the Christian population than even the domination of the Turk, while it would have been impossible to divide the country among the neighbouring states in such a way as to satisfy the inhabitants. In the peninsula are jumbled up remnants of every race and creed, not collected into separate districts, but intermingling with each other, hating each other, jealous of each other—Servians dreaming of the larger Servia, Bulgarians of the larger Bulgaria, Greeks of the larger Greece—their territorial claims, based upon race distinctions, all overlapping each other; an entanglement of rival rights and interests impossible of unravelment. Neither of these Christian races would submit to be ruled by the other. For example, there can be no doubt that a Bulgarian would rather be governed by the Moslem Turk than by the Greek. And amid all these races, more numerous than any of them taken singly, are the ruling Turks, who own the fee simple of the land by the best of titles, conquest. They are the strong race whose bearing is in strong contrast to the servility of some of the races in their midst. They are the masterly people fit to rule the others; for whatever peace fanatics may say, only people ready to fight bravely in defence of their possessions are fit to own possessions. We have not arrived at the state of civilisation when it can be otherwise. Even our humanitarians, who unknown to themselves have some of the old Adam in them, respect those who can use the sword; for whereas they sympathise with the aspirations of the plucky Bulgarians they pay little heed to the Greeks, who, though the noisiest of the claimants to Turkey’s heritage and having vast pretensions which extend to every piece of territory in Europe and Asia that ever belonged to any of the states of ancient Greece, are among the feeblest people in the world in the practice of war.
It needs a strong rule to keep the rival Christian sects of the Balkan Peninsula in order and to prevent them from cutting each other’s throats, lopping off each other’s ears, and burning each other’s priests. The Turks can provide that strong rule; and if we add to the Turks the Mussulmans of other race in the country—Albanians, Moslem Bulgarians, Circassians, and others—we have nearly half the total population united by a common religion, as the Christians certainly are not. The Young Turks may now prove that Lord Palmerston, after all, was right when he said that the rule of the Mussulman Turk was the only one that could combine the different races and sects of Turkey in one kingdom. The Turks have no ambition to recover the territory which they have lost, but they are determined to hold on to what still remains to them. With a strong Turkey, in close alliance with a federation of the Slav states to the north of her, we may yet see a quiet and contented Balkan Peninsula.
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