Finance.—The total revenue in 1918 1919 was 33,965,698 Turkish pounds, and the expenditure was 51,762,761 Turkish pounds. By the Treaty of Peace with Turkey, it was provided that Turkish finances shall be controlled by a Finance Commission composed of representatives from Great Britain, France, and Italy. The total debt of Turkey on Aug. 31, 1919, was 465,673,338 Turkish pounds.
Army.—In August, 1914, the army consisted of 39 divisions, with a strength of about 150,000 men. During the war it was expanded to 70 divisions, and at the time of the armistice, nearly 2,700,000 men had been recruited. The strength during the war was approximately 650,000. By the Treaty of Peace, Tur key lost possession of all her fortresses in Europe and Asia. The defenses of the Dardanelles and Bosporus were demol ished, and Great Britain, France, and Italy reserved the right to maintain naval, military, and air forces in the Straits. The armed forces were reduced to a maximum of 50,000 men, and com pulsory service was abolished.
Navy.—By the terms of the Treaty of Peace, the Turkish navy was abolished, except for certain vessels retained for police and fishery duties. There are few vessels of real value.
Religion and Education.—The estab lished state religion is Mohammedan. The Sultan is the supreme head. The chief ecclesiastical official is the Sheikh ul-Islam. His duties are judicial and legal, rather than spiritual. In Asiatic Turkey the Mohammedans form the great majority of the population. Elemen tary education is nominally compulsory for all children of both sexes. The state school is under the direct control of the Minister of Public Instruction. Schools of various kinds in the empire number about 40,000 and contain about 1,500,000 pupils. There are training schools for teachers, but the general level of effi ciency in the schools is low. There are a large number of foreign schools con ducted by French, English, and Ameri can missionaries. The University of Constantinople was reorganized in 1918. There are a number of state schools, in cluding the Imperial Art School and a theological seminary.
Government.—Turkey, prior to the World War, was nominally a constitu tional monarchy, but in reality was an absolute monarchy. The formal consti tution was adopted in 1876, which pro vided for a Parliament and other fea tures of constitutional government. Under Abdul-Hamid II., however, this constitution became a dead letter. In 1908, the prevailing discontent, especially in the army, compelled the Sultan to issue an Imperial decree for a convoca tion of a new Parliament and a constitu tional government was restored on July 23, 1908. Following the armistice in 1918, Turkey was practically under con trol of the Allied Powers, especially Great Britain, although the Sultan had nominal rule.
History.—The earliest notice of the Turks, or Turcomans, in history is about the year 800, when, issuing from various parts of Turkestan, they obtained posses sion of a part of Armenia, called from them Turcomania. They afterward ex tended their conquests over the adjacent parts of Asia, Africa, and Europe, oc cupying Syria, Egypt, and eventually the territory that remained to the Greek empire. In 1453 Constantinople was taken by Mohammed II., and became the capital of the empire. The Morea and the islands were afterward overrun, with parts of Hungary, the Crimea, and the shores of the Black Sea. They next took the whole of the country now form ing Turkey in Asia, the Hezja in Egypt, and the regencies of Tripoli, Tunis, and Algiers. From the accession of Moham med IV. in 1648, the Turkish empire began rapidly to decline, the vice and profligacy of the harem and seraglio being reflected in every branch of the state. The shelter given to Charles XII. of Sweden, in 1711, led to the first war with Russia, which must have ended in the ruin of that empire but for the cupidity of the grand-vizier, who ac cepted a bribe to allow Peter the Great and his army to escape.
From that time till 1774 the war with Russia was frequently renewed, and, by the peace of the latter year, a large ex tent of territory and the Black Sea were ceded by the Porte to Russia. In the campaign of 1787 the Turks were still more unfortunate, and, though in 1789, under Selim III., they retook Belgrade, they were elsewhere defeated. In 1807 the Emperor Alexander declared war against the Porte, and in the campaign advanced his frontier to the Pruth by the conquest of Bessarabia; the next severe loss the Turks sustained was from the revolt of the Greeks and the sub sequent independence of their country. In 1854 war was once more declared against Turkey by Russia, when Eng land, France, and Sardinia joined the Porte to enable the Sultan to resist the threatened invasion of his dominions; the burning of the Turkish fleet off Sinope, the campaign on the Danube, the battles of Alma, Inkerman, Balak lava, and the bombardment and capture of Sebastopol, were some of the results of the two years' war with Russia; Tur key, for the first time in nearly a cen tury, sheathing the sword without the loss of a foot of territory. Subsequently, Turkey engaged in a war with the Mon tenegrins, who sought to cast off her yoke; and, later, was concerned in sup pressing revolutionary tendencies in the Danubian principalities. In 1875, an insurrection broke out in Herzegovina, and in October, Turkey declared her partial insolvency.