lance of Power began faintly to wonder whether the
Young Turks in their deposition of Abdul Hamid had not slain an asp and
hatched a cockatrice. Given that their aims originally were sincere, we
can but marvel at the swiftness of the corruption which in little more
than a year had begun to lead them not into paths of reform and Liberal
policy, but along the road towards which the butcher they had deposed
had pointed the way. It must have made Abdul Hamid gnaw his nails and
shake impotent hands to see those who had torn him from his throne so
soon pursuing the very policy which he invented, and to which he
nominally owed his dethronement. Strange, too, was it that his overthrow
should come from the very quarter to which he looked for security, for
it was on the army that each Sultan in turn had most relied for the
stability of his throne. But Abdul Hamid, in order, perhaps, to deal
more effectually with the subject races he wished to exterminate, had
introduced a system of foreign training for the officers of his army, a
course of Potsdam efficiency, and it was just they, on whom Sultans from
time immemorial had relied, who knocked the prop of the army away from
him. Though publicly, for the edification of Europe his deposers
professed a Liberal policy, it was not on account of Armenian massacres
that they turned him off his throne, but because of the muddle and
corruption and debility of his rule. Herein we may easily trace the hand
of Germany, no longer publicly beckoning as when Wilhelm II., just after
the first Armenian massacres, made his request of the Sultan for the
establishment in Turkey of German colonists, but working underground,
sapping and mining like a mole. For Germany, her mind already fixed on
securing Turkey as an instrument of her Eastern policy, wanted a strong
Turkey, and without doubt desired to bring an end to the disorganisation
and decay of the Empire, and create and at the same time interpenetrate
an efficient state that should be useful to her. We may take it for
granted that she, like the rest of Europe, welcomed any sign of
regeneration in the Ottoman Empire, but there was an ulterior purpose
behind that. Turkey, already grasped by the Prussian hand, must be in
that hand a weapon fit for use, a blade on which she could rely. She
strengthened the Turkish army by the introduction of Prussian
discipline, and worked on good material. Already she has realised her
ambition in this respect, and now c