Meanwhile Greece and Bulgaria, on the question of territory, declared war on each other, and this caused the Second Balkan War. The Rumanians, with the purpose of annexing the Dobruja, also marched on Bulgaria. This moment was seized as opportune by the Turkish army to march on Adrianople, and on Sept. 29, 1913, it was recaptured. A treaty of peace was signed with Bul garia in Constantinople by which Adrianople passed to Turkey. On November 13, 1913, peace was concluded with Greece by which she was given Crete and the rest of the Aegean islands, ex cept Tenedos and Imbros and the Dodecanese islands, which lat ter were under Italian occupation. On March 14, 1914, peace was signed with Serbia. The net result of the series of treaties con tracted with the Balkan States, was the loss to Turkey of all her possessions to the west of the Maritza river.
Mahmoud Shevket Pasha's cabinet then attempted a general settlement of all the differences with England and France. Hakki Pasha, ex-grand vizier, was sent to London to come to an under standing over the Persian gulf controversy, and to negotiate for the modification of the financial capitulations; Djavid Bey, the ex-minister of finance, was sent to France to settle the railway questions, to modify the financial capitulations, and to raise a loan. But during these negotiations the opposition (the Entente Liberale) murdered Mahmoud Shevket Pasha and the Young Turks passed repressive measures against the opposition. A new cabinet was formed under Said Halim Pasha. A military mission was brought from Germany under General Liman von Sanders, who was also appointed commander of the army corps in Con stantinople. The navy was under Admiral Limpus. A detailed programme of reform for the eastern vilayets was prepared. As the Powers refused to provide experts, inspectors were engaged from Sweden ; the Ministry of the Interior, however, employed British inspectors.
The policy of the Young Turks had begun by being a policy of "Ottomanism," which aimed at uniting all the racial and re ligious elements of the empire. The risings in Macedonia had proved that the nationalism of each element, encouraged by out side Powers, could not be assimilated by such a weak State as Tur key. Turkey through the Balkan War lost her Albanian, Bulgarian, Serbian and most of her Greek subjects, and the Arabs, incited by France, also manifested separatist tendencies, although to give the right to use Arabic officially in the courts in Arabia was the only decentralizing measure the Young Turks had taken. The failure of Ottomanism was followed by the revival of Abdul-Hamid's Pan-Islamist policy, a decision encouraged by the sympathy which the Indian and the Egyptian Muslims had shown during the disasters of the Italian and Balkan Wars. It was this Pan Islamism which later led the Young Turks to proclaim jihad (holy war) in the hope of influencing the Muslim combatants in the Allied Armies, during the World War. This revival was led by Enver Pasha, opposed by a larger group which adhered to pure nationalism, led by Keuk-Alp Zia, the poet and philosopher, who was helping the cultural-nationalist institutions called the "Turk Yurds," and the "Turk Ojaks" (opened 1912). The influence of Turkish refugees from Russia caused the nationalism of the Union and Progress Party to take a Pan-Turanist form.
The disagreement between England and Germany over the Bagh dad railway and that between France and Germany over their respective railway spheres, were settled by two agreements signed respectively in June between England and Germany and in Feb. 1914, between France and Germany.
The World War.—In 1913 Enver Pasha, formerly Enver Bey, became minister of war. His policy was to give the high com mands in the army to younger men ; the military organization con tinued to be under the German mission. There were secret nego
tiations between Germany and Turkey known only to the grand vizier, Talaat Bey and to Enver Pasha. A secret alliance was signed on August 2, 1914, when war was breaking out between. Germany and Austria on one side, and England, France and Rus sia on the other. Turkey declared her neutrality but mobilised at the same time. There were war and anti-war factions in the Party. The anti-war faction tried to come to an understanding with the Allies, declaring that Turkey would remain neutral if the financial capitulations were modified and a loan granted. Djavid Bey, the minister of finance, was at the head of the anti-war fac tion. The Allies made no promises, but they demanded the dis missal of the German commanders and the expulsion of the crews of two German warships which had taken refuge in the Darda nelles. The British Government commandeered the two Turkish dreadnoughts which were then being constructed in England with the money raised by popular subscription, an act which caused general surprise and disappointment. And when Germany offered the dreadnoughts "Breslau" and "Goeben" to the Turkish navy the anti-war faction was weakened. The war faction argued that Turkey had lost by her political isolation since the Crimean War, that she should join Germany who was fighting against the heredi tary enemy of Turkey, tsarist Russia, and that should she become victorious, she might become free from the capitulations and even regain some of her lost territories. On Sept. 8, 1914, Turkey de clared the capitulations abolished, which raised protests from all the Powers, including her ally, Germany. When the two German warships, which had become units of the Turkish navy though still under German command, attacked Russian ships and ports in the Black sea, Russia declared war, and England and France did the same. Turkey thus found herself at war with the Allies on the Egyptian, Mesopotamian and Caucasian frontiers as well as at the Dardanelles (see MESOPOTAMIA, OPERATIONS IN ; PALES TINE, OPERATIONS IN ; and DARDANELLES CAMPAIGN). The Dar danelles were successfully defended by Turkey, but the Russians took Trebizond, Erzerum and Erzinjan and marched towards Sivas ; while Turkey failed in her attack on the Suez canal. As Turkey had mobilised to her utmost limit it became almost impos sible to sustain the army; the civil population suffered privation hitherto unknown ; martial law was proclaimed everywhere. The Communist Revolution led Turkey and her Allies to conclude a Peace Treaty with Bolshevik Russia at Brest-Litovsk, March 3, 1918, by which all her lost territory was restored to her ; even those districts which she had ceded to Russia in 1877. But the Arab nationalists, supported by England, drove out the Turks from Hejaz, except from Medina. The British army occupied Syria. On Oct. 3o, 1918, an armistice was signed at Mudros, on the British warship "Agamemnon," between Admiral Calthorpe and Rauf Bey, the Turkish minister of marine. Although the armistice aimed at ending the World War, it did not end yet for Turkey; she had to fight for four years more actually against Greece though virtually against the Allies themselves. In 1917 Mohammed V. had died and his brother Mohammed VI., known as Vahideddine, had ascended the throne. During the war secu larization in education and other departments had taken place. The university had been extended and its principal chairs were occupied by German professors. The Sheria courts were taken from the Sheik-ul-Islam and given to the Ministry of Justice. A "family law" issued in 1916, reformed marriage and divorce regu lations. Women, who already had equal education with men, now filled public posts, and the university opened its doors to them.