work was published in
1915, and, appearing as it did after the beginning of the European War,
it is but natural to find in it an expression not only of the
Nationalist aims for Turkey, but of the Prussian aims for Turkey, or, to
speak more correctly, of the dream which Prussia has induced in a
hypnotised Turkey. It sets forth in fact the bait which Prussia has
dangled in front of Turkey, the hunger for which has inspired the
projected future which is here sketched out; and significantly enough
this book has been spread broadcast over Turkey by the agency of German
propagandists. The Ottomanisation of the Empire, the vision of its
further extension, free from all consideration of subject peoples, was
exactly the lure which was most likely to keep the Turks staunch to
their Prussian masters. It will be noticed that there is no suggestion
of the Turks recovering their lost provinces and kingdoms in Europe,
Greece, Bulgaria, Rumania, Servia, and the rest, for it would never do
to let Fox Ferdinand awake from _his_ hypnotic sleep of a sort of
Czardom over the Balkans, or cease to dangle dreams, that included even
Constantinople before the shifty eye of King Constantine So, before
Turkey was spread the prospect of appropriating Russian and Persian
spoils: Prussia had already given the lost Turkish kingdoms in Europe
elsewhere, but would there not be a dismembered Russian Empire to
dispose of? The Crimea, the province of Kazan, the province of
Trans-Caucasia: all these might be held before Turkey's nose, as a dog
has a piece of meat held up before it to make it beg. Then there was the
province of Adarbaijan: certainly Turkey might be permitted to promise
herself that, without incurring the jealousy of Austria or Bulgaria.
Greedily Turkey took the bait. She gulped it down whole, and never
considered that there was a string attached to it, or that, should ever
the time come when Germany, the conqueror of the world, would be in a
position to reward her Allies with the realisation of the dreams she had
induced, the string would be pulled, and up, with retchings and
vomitings, would come these succulent morsels of Russia and Persia.
Indeed these bright pictures flashed on to the sheet as the visions of
Nationalists are but the slides in a German magic-lantern, designed to
keep Turkey amused, and it was with the same object that Ernst Marre, in
his _Die Tuerken und Wir nach dem Kriege_, was bidden to make other
pictures ready in case