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ordinate ambition, these patriots imagined that it was possible to bring about the forcible assimilation or, failing that, the suppression of nationalities which had resisted absorption through centuries. In their opinion, Turkey should do what Hungary is doing, only on a larger scale; and so there would in time arise an 'Ottoman' nation as homogeneous as the German or the French. This doctrine was the result of half-digested lessons learnt by its upholders in Western Europe during their years of exile; and they were strengthened in their belief in it by the allies whom they found among the Jews and crypto-Jews of Salonica-the centre of the revolutionary movement. These extreme doctrinaires, acting through a secret political organisation that derives its inspiration and its methods from similar associations-semi-masonic, semi-revolutionary—in Italy, and now known throughout the world as the Committee of Union and Progress,' control from their headquarters at Salonica the destinies of the Ottoman Empire.

Though the secret mechanism of the association still remains a mystery, the spirit by which it is animated became manifest immediately after the proclamation of the Constitution. The Young Turk turns out to be merely the Old Turk under a new name. During the elections to Parliament the Committee, with the local authorities, civil and military, and with the armed Turkish population at its back, had recourse to all possible forms of coercion in order to secure the return of its own nominees. Whole non-Turkish communities were arbitrarily denied a vote. Many constituencies were so split up and grouped as to give to the Turks an artificial majority. The results of the polling in many districts were annulled simply because they were unfavourable to the Committee's candidates. Ballotboxes were tampered with or destroyed. Voters were ill-treated and imprisoned or forced to refrain from voting by threats of massacre. Violence and illegality were the order of the day in every electoral area from southern Arabia to northern Albania. Thanks to these tactics, the representation of the non-Turkish elements was reduced to that minimum which was considered sufficient to prevent the Ottoman Parliament from being too obviously a Turkish assembly pure and simple,

and to enable the Young Turks to keep up in the eyes of the outside world the fiction of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. But though, by means of a skilful manipulation of the Press, they succeeded for a time in deceiving the outside world, they could not deceive their fellow-countrymen. The electoral manoeuvres of the Committee shattered at once the illusions raised by its professions, alienated from the revolutionaries the confidence of the non-Turkish races to which, in a very large measure, they owed their triumph, and demonstrated that the Ottoman Constitution of 1908, like its prototype of 1877, was a mere make-believe.

The disillusion produced by the elections was deepened by the tendency of the legislation submitted to the Parliament by a Committee-controlled Government. That legislation aimed at the Turcification of the Empire. It was proposed to make the Turkish language the vehicle of instruction in the higher schools of all the nationalities, to abolish the ecclesiastical courts which had ever since the Conquest regulated the social relations of the Christian communities, to enforce a uniform system of administration in every part of the Empire, and so to bring about the amalgamation of the various races. As was to be anticipated, all these races, irrespective of creed, ranged themselves in opposition to the Committee, and made common cause with the reactionary elements among the Turks themselves-the elements which had found their conservative instincts, religious sentiments and material interests threatened by the revolution. To these springs of hostility was added a widely-felt resentment against an occult association-which had no recognised status in the country-continuing to wield its mysterious power after the meeting of Parliament, to dictate the policy of the accredited Government at Constantinople, and to interfere with the conduct of the local authorities in the provinces, thus enjoying all the prerogatives of despotism without its responsibilities. The Committee tried to silence opposition by terrorising the Chamber, the Press, and the public through the army, the upshot being the so-called 'counter-revolution' of April 1909.

The Committee managed to weather that storm. But, if it emerged victorious from the struggle, it emerged unwiser than ever. Its victory, consolidated by the

deposition of Abdul Hamid, the execution or expulsion of many of its rivals, and the proclamation of martial law throughout the Empire, left the control of affairs entirely in the hands of the Salonica clique. A series of measures, rushed through Parliament at the point of the bayonet, replaced the Press at the mercy of the executive as absolutely as it was in the days of the autocracy, restored to the police the right to forbid public meetings, prohibited the formation of clubs on a racial basis, even for merely educational or philanthropic purposes, curtailed the internal autonomy of the Christian communities, and thrust upon the primitive districts of Arabia and Albania a rigid system of taxation, conscription and general administration utterly alien to the traditions of the inhabitants. In brief, the programme of unification and centralisation was executed without scruple, insight or fear of consequences.

The result was such as might have been foreseen. The discontent of the outraged populations, no longer allowed vent in open complaint, sought refuge in secret conspiracy. All the old national associations, which on the downfall of the autocracy had transformed themselves into constitutional clubs, reverted once more to their original character; and thus there has been created a situation the perilous nature of which is eloquently illustrated by the Arabian and Albanian rebellions. Now Arabs and Albanians, though so far apart geographically, bear a close similarity in point of development. Among both we find a large number of primitive tribes which have never been really subdued by the Turks, and a small but powerful minority of educated individuals imbued with national and intellectual aspirations. The policy of the Young Turks has exasperated both these elements by endeavouring to impose upon them a bureaucracy more oppressive than the old slack autocracy.

The Arabian and Albanian tribesmen were compelled to serve in the Imperial army, no longer as volunteers but as compulsory conscripts, to pay taxes which had usually remained in abeyance, and to give up arms which the conditions under which they live render indispensable for self-defence. On the other hand, they received none of the benefits which would have justified these sacrifices. The army into which they were pressed was employed Vol. 216.-No. 430.

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for the consolidation of a rule which, to say the least, they did not love. The money they were made to contribute was devoted to any purpose but the improvement of their own lot. And, once disarmed, they were exposed to the tender mercies of the first aggressor. Besides these practical grievances, which operated among the less advanced sections of the Arabian and Albanian races, there were other grievances which moved the wrath of their more highly civilised brethren. The national aspirations of these have for a long time found expression in an intellectual movement, the object of which is to foster Arabian and Albanian racial consciousness through a national education. The Young Turks set to work to extinguish these aspirations by forbidding education in the national tongue. Consequently, ever since the first year of the new régime, both Arabia and Albania have been the scenes of open revolt. The Arab insurrection is too distant from Europe to cause any immediate anxiety, but the kindred agitation among the Albanians is so intimately connected with European politics that a few pages may be profitably devoted to its progress.

In 1909 the northern tribes, disenchanted by the unfair treatment which, in common with the other nonTurkish elements, they had received at the elections, and further irritated by the causes already enumerated, rose up in arms; and, in spite of the large Turkish forces sent against them, they were barely suppressed. The rebellion broke out again in 1910 among the Mohammedan tribes of the north-east; and it was quelled by the savage destruction of whole villages, accompanied by other severities, which compelled many families to flee into Montenegro, and, what the proud clansmen could forgive less easily, by the public flogging of their chiefs. At the same time the national schools established by the intellectuals of the south were suppressed; and the Turkish Government endeavoured to stifle the growing sentiment of national unity among the three religious sectsMohammedans, Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians-into which the Albanian race is divided. The new rulers insisted that the first should use the Arabic, the second the Latin, and the third the Greek characters; while the leaders of the intellectual revival demanded that all Albanian children, irrespective of their religious

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persuasion, should be taught the Latin letters. refusal of the Turkish Government to grant this demand, and its persistence in enforcing the programme of disarmament and administrative centralisation, goaded the Albanians to a fresh revolt in 1911; and this time the insurrection assumed larger dimensions.

In the north its centre was among the Catholic Malissori tribes of the north-west; but the Mirdites also, another powerful Catholic clan, participated to some extent, while some of the Mohammedan clans showed signs of renewed unrest. In the south a similar outbreak occurred; and there its leaders were Mohammedan chieftains and abbots of the Bektashi monasteries. In this part of the country the insurrection took the form of a guerilla warfare, the rebels, divided into small bands, avoiding open encounters with the Imperial troops, but seeking to harass them by sudden attacks and evading retaliation by rapid retreats. In the north, however, the clans opposed a stubborn resistance, which cost the Turkish army great losses. The Turks retaliated by a barbarous destruction of the property and cattle of the rebels, and by other atrocities which once more forced the aged, the women and the children to seek refuge across the frontier in Montenegro.

The object of the Turkish operations, to judge by the methods adopted, was not only to crush the rebels, but, by a systematic devastation of their country, to render their future recovery impossible, and to populate their deserted villages by Mohammedan emigrants from Bosnia. This method of pacification, however, failed; and the Young Turks presently found themselves in a most dangerous position. On the one hand, their troops, decimated by the brave mountaineers and by cholera, began to exhibit a mutinous spirit. On the other hand, the barbarities which the Turkish army committed, and the sufferings of the refugees in Montenegro, began to stir abroad a feeling of sympathy for the Albanian cause which threatened to lead to foreign intervention. The Committee was, therefore, obliged to abandon its original intention. Instead of threatening the King of Montenegro with war for harbouring its rebellious subjects, the Porte now besought his mediation; and through it the rebels were prevailed upon to accept the

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