_Aspects of Algeria_. By Mrs. Devereux Roy. London: Dent
and Son. 10s. 6d.]

XIV

THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE[81]

_"The Spectator," June 14, 1913_

Although proverbial philosophy warns us never to prophesy unless we
know, experience has shown that political prophets have often made
singularly correct forecasts of the future. Lord Chesterfield, and at a
much earlier period Marshal Vauban, foretold the French Revolution,
whilst the impending ruin of the Ottoman Empire has formed the theme of
numerous prophecies made by close observers of contemporaneous events
from the days of Horace Walpole downwards. "It is of no use," Napoleon
wrote to the Directory, "to try to maintain the Turkish Empire; we shall
witness its fall in our time." During the War of Greek Independence the
Duke of Wellington believed that the end of Turkey was at hand. Where
the prophets have for the most part failed is not so much in making a
mistaken estimate of the effects likely to be produced by the causes
which they saw were acting on the body politic, as in not allowing
sufficient time for the operation of those causes. Political evolution
in its early stages is generally very slow. It is only after long
internal travail that it moves with vertiginous rapidity. De Tocqueville
cast a remarkably accurate horoscope of the course which would be run by
the Second Empire, but it took some seventeen years to bring about
results which he thought would be accomplished in a much shorter period.
It has been reserved for the present generation to witness the
fulfilment of prophecy in the case of European Turkey. The blindness
displayed by Turkish statesmen to the lessons taught by history, their
complete sterility in the domain of political thought, and their
inability to adapt themselves and the institutions of their country to
the growing requirements of the age, might almost lead an historical
student to suppose that they were bent on committing political suicide.
The combined diplomatists of Europe, Lord Salisbury sorrowfully remarked
in 1877, "all tried to save Turkey," but she scorned salvation and
persisted in a course of action which could lead to but one result. That
result has now been attained. The dismemberment of European Turkey,
begun so long ago as the Peace of Karlovitz in 1699, is now almost
complete. "Modern history," Lord Acton said, "begins under the stress of
the Ottoman conquest." Whatever troubles the future may have in store,
Europe