in Europe. The success of Serbia so menaced
Germano-Austrian plans for the penetration of the Balkans, that the
Central Powers were bound to woo Turkey even more lavishly than before,
and to seek alliance where they had been content with influence. In a
strong Turkey resided all their hope of saving from the Slavs the way to
the Mediterranean. They had kept this policy in view for more than twenty
years, and in a hundred ways, by introduction of Germans into the military
organization, promotion of German financial enterprise, pushing of German
commerce, pressure on behalf of German concessions which would entail
provincial influence (for example, the construction of a transcontinental
railway in Asia), those powers had been manifesting their interest in
Turkey with ever-increasing solicitude. Now they must attach her to
themselves with hoops of steel and, with her help, as soon as might be,
try to recast the Balkan situation.

The experience of the recent war and the prospect in the future made
continuance and accentuation of military government in the Ottoman Empire
inevitable. The Committee, which had made its way back to power by violent
methods, now suppressed its own Constitution almost as completely as Abdul
Hamid had suppressed Midhat's parliament. Re-organization of the military
personnel, accumulation of war material, strengthening of defences,
provision of arsenals, dockyards, and ships, together with devices for
obtaining money to pay for all these things, make Ottoman history for the
years 1912-14. The bond with Germany was drawn lighter. More German
instructors were invited, more German engineers commissioned, more
munitions of war paid for in French gold. By 1914 it had become so evident
that the Osmanlis must array themselves with Austro-Germany in any
European war, that one wonders why a moment's credit was ever given to
their protestations of neutrality when that war came at last in August
1914. Turkey then needed other three months to complete her first line of
defences and mobilize. These were allowed to her, and in the late autumn
she entered the field against Great Britain, France, and Russia, armed
with German guns, led by German officers, and fed with German gold.

9

_The Future_

Turkey's situation, therefore, in general terms has become this. With the
dissolution of the Concert of Europe the Ottoman Empire has lost what had
been for a century its chief security for continued existence.