It was to end it that the Young Turks entered the war on Germany’s side;
for foreign control automatically breaks down if one Great Power, and
still more if a group of two Powers, stands out of the Concert, renounces
responsibility for the policy of the Turkish government towards the
subject peoples and the economic highways which it holds in its power,
and supports that government effectively in repudiating all claim to
intervention on the part of the other Powers concerned. But this was the
bargain struck between Germany and the Young Turks when Turkey attacked
the Allies, without provocation, in October, 1914. The Young Turks placed
all their economic and military resources at Germany’s disposal. Turkish
troops (including of course the due percentage of conscripts from the
subject peoples), are fighting Germany’s battles on the Riga, Halicz and
Dobrudja fronts. The vast undeveloped economic resources of the Empire
are, in the event of victory, to be thrown open to German exploitation
when peace returns. These are concessions which Turkey has always
jealously refrained from making to any other Power; and the price Germany
has paid for them is the guarantee of just one thing—that the Young Turks
shall have a free hand to repudiate all external control and to carry
through their policy of “Ottomanisation” to a finish.