The Rebirth Of Turkey 1923.pdf/160

Exported from Wikisource on September 6, 2024

the Christian imperialisms of the West had turned its tolerance to poison and since 1908 its own Christian communities had helped to keep the poison circulating in its veins. Its Christian military occupants now re-injected as much of the poison as it had succeeded in throwing out, and this in its capital, the very heart of the country.

With its Parliament prorogued and its press stifled by a military censorship, Turkish opinion was drifting leaderless into confusion. Opposition parties are apt to suffer in time of war and the late Enver Government had so thoroughly broken up its Opposition that the Damad Ferid Government no longer commanded confidence. The intrigues of three Allies, each of them cultivating Turkish support, added to the confusion. Western concession hunters and the Levantinism with which the capital stank, trailed the slime of money over the scene.

Across this unlovely landscape, the Phanar's break with the Ottoman Government fell like a thunderbolt. Rauf Bey had surrendered at Mudros to an Emperor of India purged of his Russian alliance, but it now became apparent that the Venizelist Government at Athens had succeeded to the place in the Anglo-Russian entente which Russia had vacated. Rauf had applied to Admiral Calthorpe for an Anglo-Turkish alliance, but it now appeared that no such alliance would be granted and it is easy to imagine what effect this desperate situation, if it had really come upon them, had upon the Turks in the capital. The Phanar had now become openly an enemy in Stamboul itself, the Turkish guard in the great mosque of Ayiah Sophia was

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The Rebirth Of Turkey 1923.pdf/160

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