and that in spite of everything that has happened, it is still boldly asserted in Germany that

The Emperor has, as a ruler of the German Empire, merely done his duty during the War, as other kings and emperors have done their duty when their countries were attacked in such a despicable manner Germany was by the Entente in the year 1914.5

as

'Change of heart'? Never! As the German was in the beginning, he is now and ever shall be, war without end.

F. G. STONE.

• Comment in the Pan-German Tägliche Rundschau of July 7 on Prince Eitel Friedrich's telegram to King George, offering himself and his brothers for trial in lieu of the ex-Kaiser,

THE TURKS, CARDINAL NEWMAN, AND THE COUNCIL OF TEN1

AMONG the historic State papers which lie in heaps about the Conference of Paris, we may single out for instant significance and praise the reply made to Damad Ferid Pasha, the Turkish Grand Vizier, whose appeal to the Council of Ten representing the Allied Powers is dated June 17, 1919. By then the Empire of the Grand Turk, as our fathers admiringly called him, was but a name. The British, French, Greeks, Italians, held its various provinces; and Constantinople had seen, almost without emotion, our bluejackets roaming idly over its rough causeways, the least arrogant of conquerors, although likely to be masters in effect for many a month to come of the Eastern Roman Empire, now rescued after four hundred and sixty-five years from Ottoman rule. Damad Ferid Pasha was Vizier of a vanished realm; he spoke on behalf of a Sultan Lackland, of a people whom revolution had left helpless and bewildered, of a Sublime Porte beaten flat to the ground. But he clung to the old devices of diplomacy, saying the thing that was not with an innocent air, throwing the guilt of the War, which he dared not deny, upon the Committee of Union and Progress,' the German Kaiser, the Admiral in command of the Goeben, anywhere except on the blameless Turks. He would never allow that 'fanaticism' had prompted massacre; 'it would be more equitable,' he wrote, 'to judge the Ottoman nation by its long history as a whole, than by a single period that shows it in a most unfavourable light.' What, then, was his petition? Quite a simple one; in language dear to Chanceries, the status quo ante bellum. Restore his Empire to the Sultan, just as it stood before the fatal day of All Hallows, November 1, 1914, which beheld a war admitted now to have been a crime no less than a blunder opened against Turkey's oldest friends, France and England. Let the Allies withdraw

1 Consult, besides J. H. N.'s Lectures on the Turks in their Relation to Europe, D. Urquhart, The Spirit of the East; Sir M. Sykes, Dar-ul-Islam, and The Caliph's Last Heritage; Sir E. Pears, The Destruction of the Greek Empire, and Forty Years at Constantinople; Lord Morley, Life of Gladstone; Monypenny, Life of Disraeli, vol. i. ; and Disraeli's Tancred; Sir W. Muir, The Caliphate; T. P. Hughes, Dictionary of Islam.

their forces, leaving as a farewell token so much of Thrace, 'north and west of Adrianople,' as might protect Stamboul from assault by wicked Bulgarians. To parcel out the Ottoman Empire would upset the balance of the East'; it would irritate and provoke three hundred millions of Moslems. Henceforth, said the Vizier, he and his fellow-Turks would devote themselves to an intensive economic and intellectual culture,' in the hope of winning their way into the League of Nations.

This language, perhaps because they had heard it before, did not persuade the Council of Ten. M. Clemenceau remarked pleasantly of the Turkish delegates, among whom none but Moslems and Osmanli appeared, 'Ils viennent en vainqueurs.' The answer they received was pretty well a universal negative; but in expanding it sentence by sentence the Allies have put on record a judgment which, if it annihilates the Turkish apology, casts a reflected and tell-tale ray upon the story of Western conduct in the past, so far as concerns what Lord Morley describes as that shifting, intractable, and interwoven tangle of conflicting interests, rival peoples, and antagonistic faiths, veiled under the easy name of the Eastern Question.' We may accept his summing up of it, the presence of the Ottoman Turks in Europe, their possession of Constantinople, and their sovereignty, as Mahometan masters over Christian races.' French policy from the period of Francis the First, interrupted only by the personal adventure of Bonaparte in Egypt; and British from the end of the eighteenth century till Mr. Gladstone's last years of power (but with moments of hesitation) had maintained this anomalous and anarchic state of things under the pretext of defending the 'integrity and independence' of the Ottoman Empire. Now the Council of Ten roundly affirm that the Turk has no capacity to rule over alien races. The experiment has been tried too long and too often for there to be the least doubt.' Turkish rule in Europe, Asia, and Africa has always been followed by a diminution in material prosperity, a fall in the level of culture, and its withdrawal by the beneficent reverse. Neither among Christians nor among Moslems has the Turk done other than destroy whereever he has conquered. Never has he shown himself able to develop in peace what he has won by war.' The Council cannot grant that the maintenance of the Turkish Empire is necessary for the religious equilibrium of the world.' Quite otherwise, security as touching religion has increased wherever the Allies rule instead of the Turks; and to thinking Moslems the modern history of the Government enthroned at Constantinople can be no source of pleasure or pride.' At last, the duty of determining what shall become of the various populations set free from the Sultan's yoke is laid upon the Allies, who will act in accordance

with the 'wishes and permanent interests of those populations.' The startling' yet impressive' change to an intensive economic and intellectual culture,' announced by Damad Ferid Pasha, will certainly have the Council's blessing.

To abbreviate the Grand Vizier's plea for As you were' was not easy; but the severe criticism which it called out deserves. to be studied in every line. The accuracy of that rejoinder may be seen from books of history accessible to us all; its appearance was not only opportune but imperative; and if we could make sure that the Council of Ten would lay their own lessons to heart, the public which takes an interest, political, religious, or simply humanitarian, in the Turkish Empire and its settlement, would be relieved of a grave anxiety. The Ten preach to admiration; how will they proceed to act? Their arguments point to one definite conclusion, yet they do not draw it so much as in outline. Certainly the key-word 'Constantinople' is dropped in a reflection which (if logic and mere ethics governed the decisions of statesmen) should have power, like the fabled magic carpet in the Arabian story, to transport Mohammed the Fifth across the Bosporus to Brusa, where his great ancestors lie buried. Will it work this long-delayed miracle? The Pasha cries out against what he calls the eternal covetousness' of Russia hankering after Stamboul. But like the Ottoman Empire itself Russia is on a dissecting table; and still Europe inquires more pointedly than ever how the omnipotent Allies mean to deal with Sancta Sophia, in whose venerable name the tragic knot of East and West is bound up. If the reply given by the Council of Ten has any value, it amounts to a solemn declaration that the status quo ante bellum shall not be restored. Never again, it seems to say, shall the Turk rule over an alien race. By one stroke of a scimitar it divides from the Sultan's tyranny Greeks and Armenians, Syrians, Jews, and Arabs, with every minor population dwelling in his former domain. It pledges the League of Nations to act in view of their wishes and permanent interests,' not in obedience to Yildiz Kiosk, nor determining the fate of Asiatic millions by gossip in the bazaars of India, or the susceptibilities of a few Mohammedan scholars which may find an echo in London clubs. Least of all, surely, will it dance to the piping of a 'Pan-Islamic League,' or sell its voice to 'international finance.' Old things have passed away. The Grand Turk will get back only so much power and territory as the Entente choose to bestow upon him. Leaving America for the present aside, and not yet taking Italy into account, we cannot but feel convinced that the two Great Powers which went partners sixty-five years ago in the Crimean War hold the future of Turkey in the hollow of their hands. Where is the force to withstand them? Great

Britain will decide; France will assent; and the new era will begin.

At such a time, as the letter of the Ten admits, we have to ask ourselves who are the Ottoman Turks, what part have they played in the world's history, and how have they stood in relation to the true ideals of government? For whatever they have been in the past that they will be in days to come. These are the considerations which ought to shape our judgment, and not the transient humours of other Moslems at a distance, who neither know nor care about Asia Minor, Palestine, or even Stamboul, except as legendary names. Why did the Paris Council retract, in the words I have quoted, all that our Western Governments maintained at so great a loss of blood and treasure, concerning the integrity and independence' of the Osmanli possessions in three Continents? They go so far as to exclaim against the Pasha's appealing to 'the religious sentiment of men who never felt the Turkish yoke or have forgotten how heavily it weighs on those who are compelled to bear it.' When we contrast sentiments like these with a policy of which the Crimean War was the direct outcome, we cannot refrain from wondering if their sequel should, nevertheless, be as lenient to the Turk as were the Treaties of Paris in 1856 and of Berlin in 1878. That the war in Crimea was an unhappy blunder politicians of every shade have granted. It is a truth which stares us in the face on many a page of Kinglake's monumental work, despite his admiration of Sir Stratford Canning. The final judgment, which to-day stands out for our guidance, we owe to an Oxford leader who was not a politician and who would have modestly declined the title of historian-to John Henry Newman, whose Lectures on the History of the Turks in their relation to Europe, given at Liverpool during October, 1853, are classic in form, comprehensive in outlook, and bear the test of time. If the famous Cardinal were still among us he might point to the letter of the Ten as his complete vindication. He refuted, without knowing them, Disraeli's sinister views, which were destined to create a false position for England at the Congress of Berlin, and to lead by their unfortunate consequences to the Great War itself. And he justified by anticipation Gladstone's vehement demand for the exit of the Turks, 'bag and baggage,' from the regions they misgoverned, which was the one true conclusion of the whole matter and, be it early or late, is after the present collapse inevitable.

Though not an Oriental scholar, and a traveller only to the shores of Greece, where he touched in 1832 during his Mediterranean voyage, Newman had all the learning he needed for his task, besides the rarer quality of genius that perceives laws in events, and can trace out in history the development of ideas.