This settlement of Turkey is a logical element in the Allies’ general
aim in the War:—“_The reorganisation of Europe, guaranteed by a stable
settlement, based alike upon the principle of nationalities, on the right
which all peoples, whether small or great, have to the enjoyment of
full security and free economic development, and also upon territorial
agreements and international arrangements so framed as to guarantee land
and sea frontiers against unjust attacks._”
This aim is no invention of yesterday; it has been the aspiration of all
lovers of liberty for a century past.
“_Let the Turks_,” said Mr. Gladstone in a famous speech, “_now carry
away their abuses in the only possible manner, namely, by carrying
away themselves. Their Zaptiehs and their Mudirs, their Bimbashis and
their Yuzbashis, their Kaimakams and their Pashas, one and all, bag and
baggage, shall I hope clear out from the province they have desolated and
profaned._”
The province for which Mr. Gladstone pleaded was Bulgaria; but since
Bulgaria has been freed, the other peoples who have still remained under
the tyranny have suffered horrors infinitely worse in their extent and
their iniquity than those which in 1876 aroused the indignation of the
world.
Heinrich von Treitschke loved many things more than liberty, but the
profanation of liberty by the Turk drew from him a denunciation as
strong as Gladstone’s own. “_A near future_,” he writes, “_will, it is
to be hoped, blot out the scandal that such heathendom should ever have
established itself on European soil. What has this Turkish Empire done in
three entire centuries? It has done nothing but destroy._”
Treitschke and Gladstone, men who stood for very different ideals in
Europe, both called with one voice for liberation from the Turk; and the
Allies are struggling now to bring what they strove for to completion.