This maiming and warping of more gifted peoples is in itself a capital
indictment of Turkish domination, but the wrong is made infinitely worse
by the outrageous methods by which it has been carried out. These methods
are justly described as a “_murderous tyranny_” in the Allies’ Response
to President Wilson’s question.
There are three stages in the history of Ottoman tyranny, and the worst
stage is the present. The Ottoman State has been a purely military State
from beginning to end. Osman, its founder, from whom the Osmanli Turks
take their name, was the hereditary chief of a wandering band of Turkish
freebooters from Central Asia, whose father was licensed by Turkish
Sultans already established in Asia Minor to carve out a principality
for himself at the expense of the neighbouring Christians, just as the
Teutonic knights carved out the principality of Prussia at the expense of
the original native population. This Ottoman dominion, which started thus
in the 13th century with a few square miles of territory in North-Western
Asia Minor, expanded during the next three hundred years till it
stretched from within a few miles of Vienna to Mecca and Baghdad. It
destroyed the Ancient Empire of Constantinople, which had preserved Greek
learning during the Middle Ages; the free Christian kingdoms of Bulgaria,
Serbia, Bosnia, Wallachia, Moldavia and Hungary; and the independent
Moslem states of Western Asia. Such a career of destructive conquest was
a disaster to civilisation, and it was only made possible by a ruthless
militarism.
The Ottoman method of conscription was to take a tribute of children
from the conquered Christians—so many children from each family every
so many years—bring them up in barracks as fanatical Moslems and train
them as professional recruits. These “Janissaries,” militarised from
their youth up and divorced from every human relation except loyalty to
their war-lord, were the most formidable soldiers in Europe, and each new
Christian land they conquered was a new field of recruitment for their
corps. The Ottoman Empire literally drained its victims’ blood, and its
history as a Vampire-State is unparalleled in the history of the world.