The Passing of the Turkish Empire in Europe. B. Granville Baker
great movement Russia looms, apparently slow to move; but the Slav temperament may be roused to dangerous frenzy, and signs are not wanting that the troubles of their southern kinsmen may cause a popular upheaval, forcing the Government into action. Meanwhile Russia is deliberately organizing her vast resources.
Does it not seem as if the struggle between the Balkan Kingdoms and the Porte were but the prelude, but a vanguard action, to clear the Turk out of Europe, and so make room for the titanic conflict impending between the Slav and Teuton peoples? When they meet, what then? Consider the enormous highly organized strength available among the possible combatants—Germany’s millions, Austria’s vast resources! Are those who live on the flanks of the impending movement prepared to hold their own? Outside the ring surrounding Slavs and Teutons, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, France, Italy are the confines of a vast Empire.
When last the Teuton nations moved so many centuries ago a world-wide Empire fell in ruins, an Empire glutted with wealth yet teeming with a pauper population in its capital, luxurious, unnerved, disdaining any service to their country, unconscious of any obligations in return for the privileges of citizenship. So Rome fell before the Teuton.
Again the Teuton is stirring. Germany is daily perfecting an already formidable navy, for flank defence first, then for further enterprise; Austria has recently greatly added to the budget for naval and military purposes, and the road to Saloniki is no longer closed by Turkey; Italy with her considerable naval power is allied to Germany and Austria.
What is Great Britain, the vast Empire encircling the moving forces from west to east, doing towards her own safety? When the nations of Europe were well aware of the trouble which has now reached its climax in the Balkan Peninsula, and were beginning to take at least diplomatic action, Great Britain was having holidays and could not be disturbed. So our naval force in the Mediterranean has been weakened to guard against the German’s left flank protection and the coast of Egypt is left insufficiently protected.
While the Balkan Kingdoms were mobilizing the armies which have since swept triumphant over Thrace, Macedonia, Thessaly, armies composed of the whole manhood of each nation, not of hired soldiers, Great Britain was collecting troops for Cambridgeshire manœuvres, with much self-laudation, and the assistance of the Territorial force, got together a number about equal to Montenegro’s first levy for the war with Turkey; and Montenegro is about half the size of Wales and sparsely populated. Servia, a country hitherto denied a voice in the great Committee of European States, at once mobilized troops exceeding in number the expeditionary force with which Great Britain proposes to take part in an armed conflict of the Great Powers, and moreover that small kingdom proved itself capable of even greater effort and produced as many fighting men as Moltke required to vanquish France.
The Allies acted sharply and decisively. Seven weeks after the declaration of war the Sultan’s troops were forced to retire behind the lines of Chatalja, the outer defences of Constantinople. Constantinople was the seat of Cæsar from the middle of the fourth century until Mohammed the Conqueror made it the capital of his Empire in 1453. From here Ottoman armies marched to victory; Bulgars, Greeks, Serbs were conquered, enslaved, their national identity swamped by the rising tide of Moslems as it flowed on over the plains of Hungary even up to the bastions of Vienna, that bulwark of the Western world.
From Stamboul, where I write, successive Sultans directed the policy of Turkey as their power waned. Here plans were devised, intrigues inaugurated to check the forces that threatened Ottoman supremacy. Here the Sultan in his palace heard of fresh troubles in his Empire, of defeats on the field of battle and in the council chamber. Here between the deep calm of the Orient and the restless striving of the West successive wearers of the sword of Othman must have marked the signs of the times and wondered how disaster might be averted.
But disaster came, a swift retribution for years of indolence. As I write this the sound of firing is borne on the westerly wind into the City of Constantine, Tsarigrad, Stamboul.
I was mightily drawn to revisit this ancient city now in these days of darkness, so I hurried out overland, crossing Germany, Poland, Roumania, till I landed on the banks of the Golden Horn. When I had passed I noted a feeling of deep anxiety, to account for which the present troubles of Turkey are insufficient; there seemed to me an undercurrent of unrest such as perchance preceded the “Völkerwanderung” of some fifteen centuries ago. I came here to record as best I can the doings of these days in Constantinople, the capital of a vanishing Empire, and while I went about the city, revisiting places I have seen bathed in summer sunshine, now gloomy under a lowering sky, as I noted the many signs of “Sturm und Drang,” I was filled with grave forebodings; here where a mighty Empire is tottering to its fall under pressure of the vanguard of a “Völkerwanderung” I pondered whether another world-wide Empire were as secure as that of the Ottoman was till recently supposed to be.
B. G. B.
Constantinople
The Passing of the
Turkish Empire in Europe
CHAPTER I
The high road to the East—Roumania and the Carpathian Mountains—Thracians and Dacians, and how the latter had dealings with Emperor Trajan—The Roumanians, their origin, story, and present condition—The “Tsigani”—Tales of Hunyadi Janos, Knjes Lazar, Michael the Brave, and others—The story of Ghika the cats’-meat man—Roumania and the Balkan conflict—A morning in the Carpathian forests—Bucharest—The Roumanian Army.
IT was with strangely mingled feelings that I left London one Saturday evening, left the capital of one great Empire supposed to rest on firm foundations, considered strong in the council of nations, to visit the heart of yet another Empire once considered mighty and of weighty influence in Europe, now tottering to its fall with alarming rapidity, under the staggering blows of four small peoples, young and purposeful, unspoilt by wealth and power.
The lights of Dover gleamed steadily in a black sky, the dark waters gave back broken reflections from a brilliantly lit liner making her stately way down Channel, as the throbbing turbines carried our little ship towards the East. A grey morning rose over the Dutch landscape, shrouded trees reflected heavily in the sullen waters of dykes and canals. A grey sky hung heavily over the teeming life of industrial Westphalia, and broke into heavy drops of rain over the wide plains of Hanover, and poured in torrents into the well-lit streets of Berlin, the “Ville Lumière” of Europe since Paris relinquished the splendour of an Imperial Court.
From Berlin my road turned to south-east, past prosperous cities such as Frankfort-on-the-Oder, Breslau, towards that corner of Europe where three Empires meet on what was once part of the picturesque Kingdom of Poland, long since forced into the realm of things forgotten by those three Powers that meet here. It is a gloomy country, black and ungainly in its tense industrial existence.
As it were, subconsciously, I felt like one hurrying to the death-bed of a friend; strange, for I have no reason to consider the Turk my friend. Indeed, though I like the individual Turks I have met, I cannot summon up a really friendly feeling for a Power which has deliberately mis-governed its varied subjects, has times out of number countenanced, even encouraged, acts the remembrance of which makes the heart sick. Yet in spite of reasoning, that feeling of hurrying to the death-bed of a friend never left me, but it had in it something of the antagonism which, as psychologists declare, is an ingredient of the love of a man for a woman. No doubt pity was mingled with this feeling, pity for a mighty race of conquerors now humbled to the