9. TURKISH CAMPAIGNS. Me untie and Syria.— Turkish politics imlecit went a profound change after the disappear ance of Abdul Hamid II in 1909. In his re lations with Europe that monarch displayed a suppleness and tact which no statesman of his time ever managed to overcome. The Turks gained their footing by the sword, and by the sword alone could they be made to relinquish an inch of it against their will. Knowing perfectly and to a nicety the aims and rivalries of the western powers, Abdul Hamid played one against the other with consum mate skill and kept at bay the urgent and per sistent demands of Europe for reforms and the. supervision of them. At the commencement of his reign Abdul Hamid utilized England to keep Russia out of Con,tantinople and to withstand her demands at Berlin. Later on he leaned on the Triple Alliance until it began to crack, and then again he turned to Russia as ,,00n as there were signs of a dual combination between her and France. Still later he used German ex tortion against British sentiment and Russian diplomacy against German encroachment, and vice versa as occasion arose. But for years before his downfall, German infiltration had gradually undermined the uneasy autocracy which he had so laboriously built up; the lead ing lights of the ((Young Turk" party, young in their ideas rather than years, instantly taken under German patronage as soon as their revolution had been crowned with success. The next sultan, Mohammed V, became a mere figure-head. in the hands of Enver Pasha, a personal friend of the kaiser, and what may be literally' described as the "bonds" between Tur key and Germany became closer than ever. Ger many could not avert the defeat of the Turks in the Balkan War because to appear openly in the conflict would have precipitated a European war, and she was not yet ready for that. The effects uf the German penetration now became apparent. The strength of Turkey had been so weakened by that struggle that she could no longer stand alane, hence Germany controlled her army, managed her finances, railroads and even her government. Turkey was an essen tial wheel in the German machine for the real ization of a great plan. We have it on the
authority of the Greek minister in Berlin that the kaiser told him, on 4 Aug. 1914, the day Great Britain declared war on Germany, that an alliance had been concluded between Ger many, Turkey and Bulgaria. If, thereafter, Turkish officialdom entertained any misgivings about entering the war on the side of the Central Powers, such anxiety was forcibly re moved by the demonstration made in the Bos phorus on the arrival there of the Goeben and. Breslau. The German military mission in Constantinople took charge. The sultan, aa quiet, easy-going, gentlemanly old man? as United States Ambassador Morgenthau de scribed him, was entirely under the domination of Enver and Talaat Bey, and those two were pro-German to the core. The training by von der GoItz and Liman von Sanders had turned the Turicish soldier into an incomplete Ger man; that training had brought nothing more than defeat in 1912-13 against the Balkan League, and it is little to be wondered at that many Turkish officers and the more intelligent rirt4s of 401d TurksA had little relish for the adventure toward which they were heading.. The bombardment of Russian Black Sea towns (30 Oct. 1914) by the two German warships fly ing the Turkish flag led the . Allies to declare war on Turlcm 5 Nov. 1914. See TURKEY AND THE WAR ; WAR, EUROPEAN - HISTORICAL IN TRODUCTION and DIPLOMATIC HISTORY.
At the time of its entry into the war the Turkish Empire had an area of 710,000 square miles and a population of about 30,000,000. As a result of the Balkan Wars (q.v.) Turkish possessions in Europe had been reduced from 65,350 square miles to 10,&32 square miles; and the population therein from 6,130,200 to 1,890, 100. In Asia Minor Turkey had 193,540 square miles and a population of 9,090,000; in Armenia and K-urdistan, 72,000 square miles, population, 2,500,000; in Mesopotamia, 143,250 square miles, population, 1,400,000; in Syria, 114,530 square miles, population, 2,890,000; in Arabia, 170,300 square miles, population, 1,050,000.