mustapha ii defeated by prince eugène—the peace of carlowitz—death of mustapha ii—charles xii of sweden—more turkish provinces lost—mahmoud i—gazi hassan—selim iii and the janissaries—mahmoud ii ascends the throne—ibrahim punishes the janissaries—changes in europe—the battle of navarino—von moltke and the turkish army—the steady loss of provinces—recent changes in the ottoman empire—independence of military governors—revolt of the pasha of scutari—influence of the telegraph—the reign of abdul hamid—the turks and non-islamic subjects—the young turk party—revolution and reaction—deposition of abdul hamid—western opinion of the young turks—the result of reform—the invasion of turkey by the allies—turkey at the outbreak of the war.
the power of the ottoman empire had been brought very low by the time mustapha ii, son of mohammed iv, came to the throne in 1695. this sultan was a man of greater capacity than any of his predecessors, and saw that only a return to the old ideals could bring the people back to the ways that lead to success in the field and prestige in the council of nations. he therefore issued a hatti-sherif, a manifesto of state, declaring that he would restore ancient usages, and in person lead his armies in the field. this he did with some initial success, marching from belgrade to temesvar, retaking several strong places, and defeating the austrian general, veterani, whose hiding-places were the caves which the traveller may see in the precipitous rocks that close in the danube to northward on its way through the pass of kazan to the iron gate. the campaign against austria in 1696 also brought to the sultan the victory over the duke of saxony and an{216} imperial army at temesvar. but in the following year mustapha had to meet prince eugène at zenta, and being completely out-man?uvred, suffered defeat, aggravated by the conduct of the mutinous janissaries, who thought fit to massacre their officers during the battle. by evening of september 11th, 1697, prince eugène saw his enemy in full flight, and was able to send the following message to his imperial master at vienna: “the sun seemed to linger on the horizon to gild with his last rays the victorious standards of austria.”
sultan mustapha fled from the field, where his grand vizier lay slain among thousands of his army, and never led his troops again in person. a treaty of peace for twenty-five years was signed at carlowitz, on the danube, after a vast amount of unnecessary trouble. the ambassadors of all the powers, and there were many, represented at the conference, were each so jealous of their sovereign’s dignity that the order of precedence could not be agreed upon. so a special chapel was built, and provided with so many doors that all the ambassadors could enter at the same moment. the chapel still stands on a hill-side near carlowitz, a witness to this scene of exquisite trifling.
turkey was still strong at sea, and able to check venetian aggressions, but on land ottoman power had sunk below the level of the great nations of western europe, and so began that r?le of political rather than military importance, which has characterized the status of the sublime porte ever since.
another kiüprilü grand vizier, hussein, assisted mustapha with the family aptitude for affairs, and certainly managed to improve turkey’s financial position. but the enemies of the porte were all too powerful, not only austria, but also russia, for peter the great had been waging war with energy, and had added turkish territory by the sea{217} of azof to his empire. sick at heart, mustapha ii died in 1703, shortly after his grand vizier, hussein kiüprilü.
it was perhaps owing to russian designs that the porte looked with a friendly mien towards great britain, and we find sir robert sutton establishing pleasant relations between his sovereign and achmet iii, brother of and successor to mustapha iii. in this monarch’s reign a romantic person roamed at large in europe, fought battles, lost and won, and generally conducted himself more after the manner of the condottieri of other times than of a reigning sovereign of eighteenth-century europe: charles xii of sweden was abroad, and though doing very much, effecting nothing. he drifted through russia at variance with that country’s ruler, and being defeated by peter the great at pultowa in 1709, sought refuge in the sultan’s dominions. another name well known to legend comes into history for a moment here—hetman mazeppa, who joined forces with charles xii and, being considered a traitor by the russians, met with the treatment his case required, according to their standard.
the swedish king’s stay in turkish territory did not improve the relations between the porte and russia; war was declared by the former in 1710, the method adopted being to incarcerate the tsar’s ambassador in the stronghold of yedi koulé. it is true that turkey gained some successes, defeating peter the great by the banks of the pruth, and ottoman arms won some small victories over in austria; but the decline of turkey was not arrested. prince eugène marched on belgrade, servia rose, and more and more possessions passed from the ottoman empire in europe, till by the peace of passarowitz, in servia, all hungary became free of turkey, who had also lost belgrade, semendria, several other cities, and the province of wallachia.
achmet abdicated in favour of his nephew, mahmoud i,{218} whose reign, from 1730-1754, showed a yet greater decline of turkish power and prestige. topal osman, mahmoud’s general, scored some successes over the raiding persian armies, but was defeated and killed at kerkoud, while nadir, shah of persia, was beating other turkish armies. desultory wars with austria led to no other result than that turkey was passing out of the ranks of great powers, through its inability to adapt itself to the spirit of the age, to adopt new methods in place of those which had proved useless, even harmful, in the day of trouble.
attempts were made from time to time at a new order of things. amongst the reformers was gazi hassan, the hero of the battle of shio, in 1770. a fierce sea-fight was raging, in which the turks were being worsted, when hassan brought his ship alongside the russian admiral’s and fought yard-arm to yard-arm until both vessels caught fire and went up. hassan was the last to leave his ship, and then swam ashore, badly wounded. he rose to high office in the state, and endeavoured to introduce modern improvements, to equip the army with up-to-date weapons, and to restore some sort of discipline; but the army would have none of it, and even stout-hearted hassan could not push his way through the inert mass of turkish officialdom which crowded in to stifle all efforts at reform. only the navy experienced any improvement, and that because hassan insisted on the high-pooped, heavy turkish ships being replaced by lighter, faster vessels, built on english lines. but fresh difficulties arose over the manning of these ships, as the turks declined to do anything but act as gunners, so greeks had to fill the ratings of the sailors. gazi hassan worked hard at this reform, and was surely entitled to the gratitude of his country; but such feelings existed not in those days, neither will any reformer find it in turkey of to-day. gazi hassan was unsuccessful in war, during the latter years of{219} his life, owing to the opposition offered to all his reforms, but this was not taken into consideration; it probably increased his unpopularity, till selim iii, on his accession in 1789, had to execute the old hero to appease a tumult among the populace of constantinople.
selim iii did not gain anything by his complaisance to the unruly soldiery, for by the beginning of his reign the janissaries had become quite unmanageable, at least to a weak man. their numbers had increased considerably, and stood at one hundred and fifty thousand, at least on paper, but there was sufficient reason to suppose that many figured on paper only, and that high-placed officials pocketed the pay of the non-existent members of the corps. another change which had crept into the corps was that members were not necessarily available for, or liable to, military service, so many being engaged in civil employment. they were, however, ever ready to take up arms in revolt, and proved their political power by deposing and murdering sultan achmet iii. the janissaries had lost their raison d’être, and were no more than a public nuisance at a time when all europe was seething with discontent, when old thrones were falling to the ground and new popular political institutions were teaching monarchs how a people prefers to be governed. possibly the janissaries were influenced by the spirit of revolt which informed so many peoples at this period, but i think it more likely that they acted out of selfishness only, and had no other desire than to hold the power of the state in their own hands, to their own advantage, allowing the sultan to reign as long as he did not interfere with their rule. they were far too bigoted and jealous of their privileges to have taken to the idealistic notions which possessed so many patriots of the french revolution. they deposed selim iii, and his successor reigned only a few months.{220}
then came mahmoud ii, and he was more like the sultans of the days of conquests than any of his immediate predecessors had been. the janissaries annoyed him, so he determined to get rid of them, and happily had heard of the method used by murat for soothing the turbulent madrile?os. it was time for drastic measures, because the external situation was becoming very dangerous; the greeks were in revolt, kara george had risen in servia, christians were being massacred in the ottoman dominions, and the fact was beginning to attract the notice of europe, in spite of so many other preoccupations. so mahmoud ii saw to his artillery, and instructed his master of the ordnance, ibrahim, commonly called kara gehennin, black hell, in the use he wished it put to. the janissaries were ordered out to military exercises one day, and as this did not please them, they gave the usual signal of revolt, by upsetting their camp-kettles.
mahmoud was ready for them; he unfurled the sacred standard of the prophet, called on all true believers to rally round their padishah and caliph, and left ibrahim to do the rest with his artillery. those janissaries who survived this treatment broke back to barracks, where they barricaded themselves, some six thousand. ibrahim came up with his guns and knocked the buildings down about their ears; those who did not perish here were slain by irate citizens wherever they were caught, and so a great corps, whose earliest records were those of honourable battle, perished in a day. a new army of forty thousand was then raised, clothed, armed, and disciplined, according to european models.
the old order was changing, had changed, with startling quickness all over europe, and all the known world was affected by the events that filled the times when mahmoud ii sat on the throne of constantine. when this sultan succeeded, france had already passed through the fire of{221} republican government to the glory of a military empire, had again accepted the principle of hereditary nobility while french arms were victorious over nearly all the continent of europe. a new republic had arisen out of muddle and misrule in great britain’s american colonies, and as compensation, perhaps, that country was laying the foundations of the indian empire, and paving the way to the possession of egypt, on the battlefields of the iberian peninsula.
mahmoud lived long enough to witness all these many changes. before he died, in 1839, he saw the fleets of great britain, france, and russia threatening him with punishment unless the bloodshed caused by the hellenic effort after freedom ceased at once, saw his own fleet, despite its bravery and that of his egyptian allies, destroyed at navarino, and as consequence a christian king appointed by the powers to rule over his former subjects in greece.
even turkey endeavoured to show some appreciation of the “zeit geist” by instituting reforms, and wisely began with the army, calling in for the first time german instructors. one of these, a tall young officer with fair curly hair, some forty years later planned the campaign which laid the second french empire in the dust, field-marshal count von moltke. of the turks, after the war with russia, which followed shortly on navarino, moltke said: “the splendid appearance, the beautiful arms, the reckless bravery of the old moslem horde had disappeared, yet this new army had one quality which placed it above the numerous host that in former times the porte could summon to the field—it obeyed.”
does the spirit of obedience still form one of the many good qualities of the turkish soldier? it is hard to say, for this war has given instances of the old bravery and devotion, steadiness under fire, which means discipline, obedience; but against that you have evidence of the{222} contrary, of swarms of men straying away unarmed from their posts at the front, and hiding in the purlieus of stamboul, while from asia minor come reports of whole divisions which had declined to take part in the balkan war.
in the meantime the dismemberment of the turkish empire continued. by 1811 milosh obrenovi? had forced the porte to relinquish all claims on servia, and in 1832 a bavarian prince became king of an independent greece. some thirty years later the russo-turkish war gave autonomy to bulgaria, bosnia and herzegovina were occupied by austria, these events being followed by the independence of roumania and servia as kingdoms entirely free from any turkish control. the last of turkey’s conquered provinces became free when tsar ferdinand proclaimed himself ruler of all the bulgarians. this last event synchronized with an expression of popular feeling engineered by a political association generally known as young turks.
it is a common saying that nothing changes in the east; it is also inaccurate, like most generalizations. changes came, even to turkey, through her contact with the west. change comes very slowly to such a people as are the turks, and when it does come it leaves behind more bewilderment among the bulk of the nation than is usually the case in western races. again, to the outside world the changes which have passed over the ottoman empire in recent years have seemed to come suddenly, because the effects had the appearance of precipitancy. revolt, revolutionary changes, are nothing new in the ottoman empire, but till lately have passed more or less unnoticed, probably because their effects were not particularly striking.
constantinople seen from above scutari; beyond it the sea of marmora and the distant coast where the lines of chatalja end to southward.
constantinople
seen from above scutari; beyond it the sea of marmora and the distant coast where the lines of chatalja end to southward.
such changes as have taken place occurred almost entirely in the european provinces of the ottoman empire, and may be said to have begun during the last century.{223} the european provinces of turkey always contained factors making for the disruption of the empire: subject races, alien in everything to their masters, centrifugal forces for a time controlled by military governors whose methods did not as a rule tend to bring about conciliation. the bonds that bound the provinces to the central government were none of the strongest before the days when an official’s every step was dictated to him by telegraph from the porte, and local governors acted with great independence. military pashas even made war on and concluded peace with each other, after the manner of medi?val dynasts. some went even further, as did the pasha of janina. he started life as a brigand, and made himself pasha by the simple expedient of forging his commission. this trifling misdemeanour was overlooked by the porte, as he was a strong man, and might be useful to the interests of the empire, and, moreover, if it came to the worst, could always be disowned. as it happened, ali pasha was too strong, or the central government too weak, and so he went to lengths to which no other pasha had gone before him.
ali pasha’s lifetime fell into those days when europe was big with revolution against ancient dynasties, and was tiring of time-honoured institutions. no doubt personal vanity, that strong incentive of revolutionaries, reformers, and others in search of notoriety, swayed ali pasha. he conducted a foreign policy quite independent of that pursued by the porte, entered into negotiations with napoleon or pitt, as he deemed expedient, and generally acted with complete independence. incidentally, ali pasha helped towards the dismemberment of his sovereign’s empire by favouring the greeks in their strivings after freedom; it was probably not his original intention. ali pasha very fittingly fell a victim to a conspiracy of those whom he had injured in one way or another.{224}
another pasha to raise the banner of revolt was passvan oglou of vidin, who, when the porte sought to depose him, prepared to march on constantinople, and the central government was obliged to make peace with him.
then, again, the pasha of scutari revolted, but the porte contrived to settle him and the chief of his conspiracy by a breach of turkish hospitality, by a massacre at a banquet.
the separation of egypt from the complex of military governorships which constituted the ottoman empire, was another indication that the old order was not in keeping with the spirit of the age. the destruction of the turkish fleet at navarino, and the massacre of the janissaries, by which the flower of the turkish army was lost, were further signs of the times, and prepared for changes even in turkish administration, and finally, by the emancipation of greece, that administration was deprived of some of its best brains, for since that event not even the meanest greek would accept office under the porte.
the telegraph wrought further changes; it brought the central government, restored to order by reshid pasha, into closer touch with the provinces, made greater control of officials possible, and finally robbed these of all initiative. moreover, higher officials were no longer chosen from among the local magnates, but drawn from a lower class, less likely to act independently; by this a new bureaucracy was called into being and its ineptitude caused further trouble.
in the reign of abdul hamid all the vilayets of european turkey were absolutely controlled from yildiz kiosk, and as that ruler was far above concerning himself with such trifling matters as racial distinctions among his subjects, unless they proved of value in sowing discord between the various nationalities under his sway, greeks, bulgarians, serbs, and others met with little consideration at the{225} hands of the sultan’s deputies. force majeure applied by the great powers was the only argument to which sultan abdul hamid answered, and the russo-turkish war brought about changes which we have already considered.
the great body of the turkish nation lived quite contentedly under abdul hamid. he was sultan, caliph, god’s shadow upon earth, and ordered mundane matters from heights almost as remote as the high heavens. he was the head of a theocratic power, based on militarism, and his turkish subjects were content that he should remain so. to them a ruler who declined to differentiate between dynamo and dynamite was well suited. every village provided for its own security by appointing watchmen, and education was the concern of the churches. the gendarmerie was not concerned with preventing crime or tracing criminals unless the state, not private property, were endangered.
that a state so raised, so maintained, should act as an organization for protecting and furthering the interests of its subjects, of whatever race or creed, is not to be expected, neither did the great body of the turkish nation ever wish it to assume such functions. for the turks were the dominant race, the conquerors, and to them any idea of their non-islamic, non-turk fellow-subjects as equals was inconceivable; their religion made such a state of affairs impossible. thus for the ordinary turk, as for the more enlightened ones, those in power had every interest in supporting the old order of things, for most of them must have known that once the non-turk elements were placed on a level with the sons of othman, the latter’s locus standi would have gone, seeing his ineptitude for any modern thought, his incapacity for progress. the raison d’être of the state was to perpetuate osmanli ascendancy, and to this end abdul hamid worked, and he worked well for his own people.{226} this ascendancy was jealously guarded; no christian was ever allowed executive command over moslems, and to this is due in great measure the failure of all attempted reforms in the naval and military services of the ottoman empire.
added to this is a certain distrust which the turk has of all christians, believing that a man who does not follow the law of the koran cannot be absolutely loyal to the sultan. in many instances the turk’s suspicions were justified, but it was not religious sentiment alone which separated moslem and non-moslem in the ottoman empire, for those jews who are the sultan’s subjects are well content to remain so. unlike other non-moslem subjects of the sultan, those jews, mostly refugees from spain’s and portugal’s most catholic majesties, have no outside powers to espouse their cause, nor have they any grievance, for, being isolated, the porte has no reason to fear them. it is most unlikely that the jews of saloniki, for instance, would welcome the slavs as masters, nor have the greeks, since their occupation of that town, ingratiated themselves with the children of israel.
like the jews, the turks form a religious community rather than a state in its modern conception, and these two resemble each other inasmuch as neither understands the word “fatherland” as applying to a country exclusively occupied by their co-nationals. the word “vatan,” meaning motherland, conveys no definite meaning to the turks; it had to be interpreted to them by the self-appointed leaders of thought who formed the young turk party. to those who have lived in india the word “vatan” will be familiar in the sense that it defines a man’s place of origin rather than a sentimental idea, such as the words “home,” “patria,” “heimat,” or “vaterland.”
to this inarticulate mass of moslems living contentedly under the sultan’s sway, a body of young turks brought the western conception of a state. the “spirit of the{227} east,” so strong among the turks, was disquieted by a movement which seemed to work outside the limits of the “law,” as written by the prophet. the work done by the new political power in turkey appealed strongly to the great mass of the people in western europe, to those who had no experience of the east and its mysterious ways. the reformers, after years of strenuous effort, years spent in exile, broke in upon abdul hamid’s plans for maintaining turkish ascendancy when niazi bey raised the standard of revolt in 1908, and threatened to march on constantinople with the second and third army corps. abdul hamid yielded to pressure, and ordered the election of a chamber of deputies, at the same time encouraging a counter-revolution in his capital. this movement was led by kiamil pasha, the grand vizier then (as he is again at present), against the committee of union and progress. the reformers proved too strong, and kiamil pasha was forced to resign; he was succeeded by hilmi pasha, formerly commissioner of macedonia. the acts of the committee of union and progress began to bear fruit at once, and of a nature unexpected by those enthusiasts who had only the idea of a great liberal empire under a constitutional sultan before their eyes, otherwise blind to side issues. but these side issues grew and crystallized into a segregation of the non-islamic sections of the population, who felt more than ever justified in insisting on their own respective nationality. an early disagreement arose between the committee of union and progress and the liberal union, a body called into being to represent the christian electorate. the murder of hussein fehmi, an albanian editor of the union’s official organ, provoked his compatriots among the troops in constantinople to action against the committee of union and progress; mutinous soldiers seized the parliament house and telegraph offices, while delegates from the liberal union suggested{228} entering into negotiations with the other party. in the meantime abdul hamid had pardoned the mutineers, and this gave the committee sufficient excuse for considering the revolt as reactionary; the committee were well aware that their new regime could not succeed while the sultan seemed to favour reaction. an army under mahmoud shevket marched on constantinople, invested the capital, occupied it after some fighting, and ordered the national assembly to depose abdul hamid, electing his younger brother to succeed as mohammed v.
in itself, the deposition of a sultan by a revolted section of the army was nothing new in the annals of ottoman history; it had occurred frequently, but was generally understood to have been an expression of the “will of allah.” “the will of the people” was made responsible for the effects of the last revolution, and none were more bewildered than the bulk of the turkish people themselves when this reasoning was explained to them. the effendi class, the gentry, as it were, many of them men of intelligence, were as a whole by no means enamoured of the committee of union and progress and its ways, knowing well how little the turkish people were prepared for violent reforms. the people themselves seem to have quite failed to enter into the spirit of the new era; they missed the religious note; no mention was made of allah, in fact, the professed agnosticism of some less cautious reformers led them to suggest that allah had nothing to do with the business.
then again, christians, even armenians, were to be looked upon as equals, treated as such, whereas every one knew that they had to submit, as becomes the vanquished, thus duly acknowledging the turk as their superiors. then a new word, besides the unintelligible “vatan,” was being used to describe the governing power, “constitution,” “meshrutiet,” which many took to be a new, strange name for the succeeding sultan. the election{229} of delegates did not meet with thorough approval; some considered that it raised individuals above the mass of moslems, who are all equal in the sight of the prophet, others could not understand why an assembly was necessary to voice the sultan’s “irade” (in its original meaning, intention), and, again, there were those who thought of parliament as a plaything of the sultan’s, and justified for that reason only.
in the meantime enthusiastic western nations, especially those who consider representative government the panacea for all social ills, because their own genius had evolved the system, loudly acclaimed the young turks as saviours of their country, as apostles of freedom, as heroes, and most members of the reform party gladly accepted this interpretation of their somewhat confused mentality. if you are called a hero you are very likely to believe it, even if it robs you of your proper sense of proportion. this happened to the young turks collectively. the promised reforms had never been demanded by the bulk of the turkish people, who therefore had no standpoint from which to gauge the results of reforms; they supposed that everything was to be free, amongst others, railway travelling, and i have heard of turks invading a first-class compartment, and not only declining to pay their fare, but objecting to christians riding in the same coach.
the committee of union and progress showed the inherited genius of destruction, but failed when it came to construction. western people said, “give them time,” but time brought no betterment. the old order had been ruthlessly destroyed, the fear of authority had been dispelled, and nothing was created to fill the vacant places in the mind of the people. public administration suffered, neglected because the reformers had no thought but for the maintenance of their own dignity, and this was entrusted to an esoteric militarism, to a political body whose{230} members were not publicly known, and who were therefore removed from public responsibility. the worst effects of this clandestine body politic were felt in the army, and those whose business it was to maintain the efficiency of the sultan’s forces were too much concerned with political machinations to attend to their primary duties. the disorder which resulted in all departments of public life led to an increase in the ever-present inertia of the turk when not engaged in warfare, and acted as a further hindrance to reform.
in the army the spirit of change brought from the west worked the greatest havoc. the anatolian peasant, a simple-minded, strong, enduring child, when called for service with the colours, found no more of the old officers, who were content to lead without domineering, in a single-hearted effort for the faith. in their stead he found men who assumed airs of superiority, who lived apart, and were not interested in the simple working of the soldier’s mind. these officers took as their models the men who train the german army on german lines, suitable only to the german people, and appear to have disregarded the national peculiarities of their own kin. some were even lax in matters of religious observance, and how could a war prove victorious when all due glory was not given to the god of battles? again, there were christians fighting, in the ranks only, side by side with moslems—how could this be? is not war a religious commandment, a sacred matter in which infidels can have no part? the koran says: “who dies for god’s sake receives the highest reward”; but how can a christian be so blest, as he does not follow the law of the prophet? thus bewildered the anatolian peasant marched to war, inspired by islam, obedience, resignation, against the armed manhood of nations who breathed freedom.
the porte, or the inexpert executive of the ottoman empire, had failed to realize that the balkan states had{231} been strengthened by the weakening of islam’s simple ideals, that hopes of liberty had risen high among the christian subjects of the sultan in europe, and that a formidable alliance was in being, conceived with the sole idea of ending turkish rule over european christians.
with a thoroughness of which the oriental mind is incapable, the great coup had been prepared by the balkan states. a hard-and-fast alliance which for the time overrode all political and religious differences confronted the porte, and roused it suddenly to face a desperate emergency. the kochana massacres brought matters to a head, while turkey was still engaged in apathetic war with italy. bulgaria insisted in peremptory tones on reform in macedonia, servia raised its voice over the detention of munitions of war in transit from saloniki, via üsküb, to nish; montenegro found a casus belli, and was first to pour its armed sons down from the mountains into turkey. they captured detchich on october 9th, the day after the formal declaration of war; they seized tuzi and berane, and proceeded to invest scutari. while thus engaged the porte was forced to declare war on bulgaria and servia on october 17th, and on the same day greece took a like step towards turkey. an army under the crown prince at once invaded the southern provinces of the empire.
the floods were out, and western armies, highly trained, purposeful, each individual fighter inspired by love of liberty, full of zeal for the cause he had at heart, overflowed into thrace, thessaly, and macedonia. the ottoman army had but recently been engaged in man?uvres, and these had shown many glaring defects of organization. when the allied armies marched, the turks were more unready than ever; they had even sent their reservists home. then began a scene of frantic disorder. units were hurried to the front where the commanders of brigades, divisions, army corps, impatiently awaited them. the{232} carefully arranged commands and sub-commands were entirely disregarded, and each brigadier or divisional commander seized on troops as they arrived, indiscriminately, and added them to his command. thus the war, begun in confusion, invited defeat. and defeat came swiftly, mercilessly, while the unorganized masses of ottoman troops, however bravely individuals might comport themselves, were swept away before the rising tide. everybody failed, except perhaps the long-suffering turkish soldier; ammunition reserves were not, food supplies gave out at once, and by the end of october all thessaly, all macedonia, the greater part of thrace, were no longer turkish possessions, and the sultan’s armies, broken, starved, diseased, were driven behind the lines of chatalja, the outer defences of the capital. on these lines the remnant of ottoman military power guarded the last trace of turkish dominion in europe; shivering on the wind-swept heights, ill-equipped, underfed, regardless of elementary hygiene, they awaited kismet, these ill-used, long-suffering sons of islam, while in the empire’s capital the mosques filled with sick and wounded, mingling with refugees from the former european vilayets. there were others yet in the city, or why should the war office have issued an order to the imams, the priests, to render account of officers and men of the army who are hiding in the narrow streets of their respective parishes? the police were also instructed to demand of officers they saw in the streets some document to show that they were authorized to be in the town instead of at the front.
seven short weeks and the empire carved out of europe by the sword of othman has shrivelled up before the fierce blast of war like grass before a prairie fire. and in their need and sickness the soldiers of islam turned to allah, the god of battles, and sought refuge in the mosques built to commemorate the triumphs of departed caliphs.
