to Tuna, where it halted again until the end of March, no
envoys appearing, but many marks of hostility shown. Then,
after being reinforced,—as the intention of Tibetans to oppose
its further advance had become plain,—its march was resumed.
Thrice attacked within the next few days and forced to severe
fighting, it reached Gyangtse on the 11th of April, where it
was halted again until near the end of June, in a camp
established on the plain. There Colonel Younghusband received
a communication from the Chinese Resident or Amban at Lhasa,
promising to meet him in three weeks. This was followed
immediately however by a fierce attack of the Tibetans on the
British camp. The assault was repelled, but bombardment of the
camp was opened from a neighboring fort. The Mission now
abandoned attempts to maintain its peaceful character, and
with approval of the governments behind it, both in India and
Great Britain, prepared to force its way to Lhasa and extort
fulfilment of the promises on the strength of which it had
been sent. General Macdonald, who held the military command,
brought up further reinforcements, and the expedition, now
numbering about 1000 British and 2000 native troops, after
capturing the fort at Gyangtse which had harassed it, set
forth on its march to Lhasa July 14th. It met with slight
resistance in the Karola Pass, across which a wall had been
built; but otherwise it found little but the natural obstacles
of the mountain country to overcome. Lhasa was reached, but
not entered in force, on August 3d. The Dalai Lama had left
the city, but had appointed an intelligent monk to act as
regent in his place. With him and with the Chinese Amban
Colonel Younghusband succeeded in negotiating the treaty
desired, which was signed September 7th. As soon as possible
thereafter the expedition started on its return, but suffered
severely from the cold and snows of the mountains before India
was reached. Its total death roll was 411, of which only 37
officers and men had died from battle-wounds.
By the treaty secured, the Tibetan Government was pledged to
carry out former agreements concerning the marking of
boundaries and the opening of trade at three marts; to arrange
a fixed tariff; to maintain certain roads from the frontier;
and to make no territorial, political, or commercial
concession to any foreign Power without granting similar or
equivalent concessions to Great Britain. It also undertook to
pay an indemnity for the cost of the British expedition,
pending the payment of which the Chumbi Valley should be held
by a British force.
TIBET: A. D. 1907.
Convention between Great Britain and Russia relative to Tibet.
See (in this Volume)
EUROPE: A. D. 1907 (AUGUST).
TIBET: A. D. 1910.
Chinese Authority strengthened in Tibet.
Flight of the Dalai Lama.
His formal Deposition.
The Dalai Lama, who had fled from Lhasa in 1904, on the
approach of the British expeditionary force under Colonel
Younghusband, did not return to Tibet until more than five
years later. Meantime he had visited Peking, where he was
coldly received, and seems to have wandered widely through the
Empire. During his absence the Chinese authority in Tibet had
been strengthened, and his return was followed by a
considerable reinforcement of troops to support the Ambans who
represent the Chinese Government at Lhasa. Exactly what
friction arose then has not yet been made clear; but, in
February, 1910, the Lama fled again from his capital, into
India, and on the 25th he was solemnly deposed from his sacred
office by an imperial decree.
TIEN-TSIN:
Delivered to the Chinese Viceroy.
See (in this Volume)
CHINA: A. D. 1902.
TIGER HILL.
See (in this Volume)
JAPAN: A. D. 1904 (FEBRUARY-JULY).
TILAK, BAL GANGADHAR:
His Trial and Imprisonment.
See (in this Volume)
INDIA: A. D. 1907-1908.
TIRPITZ, Admiral:
On German Navy-building.
See (in this Volume)
WAR, THE PREPARATIONS FOR: NAVAL.
TISZA MINISTRY.
See (in this Volume)
AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: A. D. 1902-1903; 1905-1906.
{649}
TITTONI MINISTRY.
See (in this Volume)
ITALY: A. D. 1905-1906.
TOBACCO FARMERS’ UNION, IN KENTUCKY:
Its Night-Riders.
See (in this Volume)
KENTUCKY: A. D. 1905-1909.
TOBACCO TRUST:
Suit of the Government against it.
Report of Commissioner of Corporations.
See (in this Volume)
COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL, &c.: UNITED STATES:
A. D. 1901-1906; 1905-1906; 1907-1909; and 1909.
TOGO, Admiral:
In the Russo-Japanese War.
See (in this Volume)
JAPAN: A. D. 1904 (FEBRUARY-JULY), and after.
TOLSTOI, COUNT LYOFF:
His Challenge to the Russian Government.
See (in this Volume)
RUSSIA: A. D. 1909.
TOMUCHENG.
See (in this Volume)
JAPAN: A. D. 1904 (JULY-SEPTEMBER).
TORONTO: A. D. 1909.
Meeting of International Council of Women.
See (in this Volume)
WOMEN, INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL OF.
TOWN-PLANNING LEGISLATION.
See (in this Volume)
SOCIAL BETTERMENT: ENGLAND; A. D. 1909.
TRADE BOARDS BILL, THE ENGLISH.
See (in this Volume)
LABOR REMUNERATION: WAGES REGULATION.
TRADE UNIONS.
Disputes.
Agreements:
See (in this Volume)
LABOR ORGANIZATION.
TRANSANDINE RAILWAY TUNNEL.
See (in this Volume)
RAILWAYS: ARGENTINE-CHILE.
_en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transandine_Railway_
TRANS-MISSOURI FREIGHT ASSOCIATION, The Case of the.
See (in this Volume)
RAILWAYS: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1890-1902.
TRANSVAAL, THE.
See (in this Volume)
SOUTH AFRICA.
TREPOFF.
See (in this Volume)
RUSSIA: A. D. 1904-1905.
TRIPLE ALLIANCE, THE: A. D. 1902.
Renewal.
The Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy,
originally negotiated in 1879, was renewed in June, 1902, for
twelve years from May, 1903.
TRIPLE ALLIANCE, THE: A. D. 1905.
Effect of the Defeat of Russia in the War with Japan.
See (in this Volume)
EUROPE: A. D. 1904-1909.
TROUBETZKOI, PRINCE S. N.
See (in this Volume)
RUSSIA: A. D. 1905-1907.
TRUSTS.
See (in this Volume)
COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL, &c.
TSAI-TSE, PRINCE: HIS MISSION ABROAD.
See (in this Volume)
CHINA: A. D. 1905-1908.
TSONTSHEFF, GENERAL:
Operations in Macedonia.
See (in this Volume)
TURKEY: A. D. 1902-1903.
TSUSHIMA, NAVAL BATTLE OF.
See (in this Volume)
JAPAN: A. D. 1904-1905 (OCTOBER-MAY).
TUBERCULOSIS, THE CRUSADE AGAINST.
See (in this Volume)
PUBLIC HEALTH.
TUNG FANG.
See (in this Volume)
CHINA: A. D. 1906.
TURBINE ENGINE.
See (in this Volume)
SCIENCE AND INVENTION, RECENT.
----------TURKEY: Start--------
TURKEY: A. D. 1901.
The Bulgarian Committee which directs Revolutionary
Operations in Macedonia.
Its Instructions to the Bands and Control of their Murders.
"The Committee which was originally formed at Sofia for the
purpose of conducting the nationalist campaign among the
Macedonians has been the dominant factor in the later
developments of the Macedonian problem, and is directly
responsible for all the periodical outbreaks which students of
Eastern politics have been accustomed to look for at the
approach of spring during the last few years. The nature of
this Society will be clearly appreciated from the following
document, which sets forth in unequivocal terms both the
Committee’s mission and the means resorted to for its
fulfilment. This document was seized on the Bulgarian
conspirators who in the spring of 1901 were arrested at
Salonica, tried, sentenced to fifteen years’ incarceration at
Rhodes, and permitted to escape a few months after. I obtained
a literal translation of it from an official source at the
time …:
"‘Each armed band to consist of Bulgarians belonging to each
particular district. Their duty is to carry out secretly the
orders given by the president of the committee. The bands are
armed with weapons furnished by the Committee. These bands are
formed by the revolutionary committees of each district or
village, and receive the military training necessary for their
purpose. These bands depend on the committees, and in their
turn distribute arms among those whom they enrol or gain over
to the cause. … The armed bands are placed under the command
of the local committees in accordance with the following
rules:
"‘To obey received instructions. By means of persuasion or
intimidation to place new recruits at the committees’
disposal. To put to death the persons indicated by the
committees. … Each band, under the command of the
revolutionary committee established in the district, to be
ready to raise the standard of revolt on being so ordered by
the local committee, which cannot act except by the order of
the president of the Sofia committee. … The bands shall also
commit political crimes: that is to say, they shall kill and
put out of the way any person who will attempt to hinder them
from attaining their ends, and shall immediately inform the
Sofia committee of the crimes committed. The instructions of
the bands must be kept quite secret, as the least indiscretion
may lead to great disaster. … "Acts of personal vengeance,
attacks on villages, and generally all kinds of unauthorised
attempts to raise a revolution are strictly forbidden, and
those who are guilty of such acts will be sentenced to death.
No murder shall be committed by the bands without a previous
decision taken by the committee, except those which are
inevitable in an accidental encounter.’
"The reports of the action of the Committee in Macedonia
during the last twelve months alone form a _dossier_
which leaves little doubt to the reader of average candour
that the regulations printed above are not allowed to remain a
dead letter, but that practice goes hand in hand with, or
rather outstrips, precept. The exploits of the Committee and
its brigands in the country may be classed under three heads:
extortion, intimidation, provocation. …
{650}
"Cases of wanton massacre, though not so numerous as the
atrocities committed with a material object in view, are not
uncommon. The victims in these cases are generally
Mohammedans. … The motive of these outrages is purely to
provoke reprisals—that is, a general massacre—and then pose as
the victims of Turkish cruelty and fanaticism, a cry which
never fails to move the nations of Europe to sympathy and
their Governments to intervention."
_G. F. Abbott,
The Macedonian Question
(Nineteenth Century, March, 1903)._
TURKEY: A. D. 1901-1902.
Abduction of Miss Ellen M. Stone, by Brigands.
The Ransom paid for her Release.
In a communication to the President of the United States,
March 24, 1908, the Secretary of State, Mr. Root, recited the
circumstances which attended the abduction by brigands, in
1901, of Miss Ellen M. Stone, an American missionary to
Turkey, as she travelled the highway from Raslog to Djumabala
in the Turkish Empire, and the necessary payment of a ransom
to her captors, to secure her release. In the judgment of Mr.
Root the Government should refund the ransom money to the
citizens from whom it was obtained by subscription at the
time, and his communication, as follows, was to that end:
"Our diplomatic and consular representatives in Turkey, in
correspondence with the Department of State, shortly after the
capture, indicated their belief that the motive therefor was
to obtain a ransom, and stated that they had requested the
Turkish officials to abstain from too close pursuit of the
brigands, lest the death of the captured might result. From
later correspondence with our representatives it appeared that
the brigands had retired to the mountains with the captive,
probably over the border into Bulgaria. The exact location of
the party during the captivity, however, is not established by
any evidence in the possession of the Department of State, nor
does it appear clearly of what government the bandits were
subjects.
"About October 1, 1901, the bandits opened negotiations for a
ransom, demanding £25,000, and transmitting a letter from Miss
Stone, asking that the sum demanded be paid and that pursuit of
the brigands by the Turkish troops be stopped. Our diplomatic
representatives were of the opinion that Miss Stone’s release
could only be obtained by the payment of the ransom, and the
State Department shared this view. Miss Stone’s friends, of
course, entered into correspondence with the Department
regarding the payment of the ransom, and were told that it
must be raised by private means.
"On October 3, 1901, the State Department wrote to the
Reverend Judson Smith, of the American Board of Commissioners
for Foreign Missions, Boston, Massachusetts, as follows: ‘It
seems imperative that the amount (of the ransom) should be
raised or pledged, so as to be available by your treasurer at
Constantinople in season to save Miss Stone. Statutory
prohibitions make it impossible for this Government to advance
the money or guarantee its payment. If paid by Miss Stone’s
friends, every effort will be made to obtain reimbursement
from whichever government may be found responsible under
international law and precedent. In the event of its proving
impossible to hold any foreign government responsible for the
capture and to secure the repayment of the money, this
Government is willing in the last resort to urge upon Congress
as strongly as possible to appropriate money to repay the
missionaries.’
"It is claimed that this assurance given by the Department in
its letter to Mr. Smith, to the effect that, as a last resort,
a recommendation would be made to Congress looking toward the
appropriation of a sum sufficient to pay the donors, was
largely instrumental in enabling Miss Stone’s friends to
secure the sum of $66,000, which was raised through public
subscription in this country by October 23, 1901, for the
purpose of effecting Miss Stone’s release. After negotiations
of considerable length, the brigands finally consented to
accept the amount raised and arrangements were made by United
States Minister Leishman for the payment of the money at a
point near Bansko, Macedonia, the Turkish authorities
consenting to withhold their troops from the vicinity of the
place in order that the negotiations might have a successful
issue. The release of the captive was not obtained so soon as
expected, but was finally reported by Minister Leishman on
February 23, 1902.
"After careful consideration of all the facts my predecessor,
Mr. Hay, decided on January 19, 1905, that it was not
advisable to attempt to hold the Turkish Government
responsible for the capture and to secure the repayment of the
money. Upon the subsequent application for reconsideration of
this decision Mr. Hay again, on April 11, 1905, reaffirmed the
judgment which he had originally expressed. Upon a further
review of the same subject I have come to the conclusion that
it is not advisable to reverse or change the conclusion which
Mr. Hay reached.
"It would seem, therefore, that the Executive Department is
bound to make good its promise to recommend to Congress that
money be appropriated to repay the ransom money, a promise
which was probably relied upon by many of those who
contributed of their private means to save the life of an
American citizen believed to be in the gravest peril.
Accordingly I have the honor to advise that Congress be
recommended to appropriate an amount sufficient to repay the
contributors."
_60th Congress 1st Session, Senate Document No. 408._
TURKEY: A. D. 1902-1903.
Conventions for Building the Bagdad Railway.
See (in this Volume)
RAILWAYS: TURKEY: A. D. 1899-1909.
TURKEY: A. D. 1902-1903.
Insurgent operations in Macedonia.
Horrible Retaliatory Atrocities.
Misery of the Macedonian Peasants.
Contradictory Reports and Views of the Situation.
Insurgent operations in Macedonia were opened in the fall of
1902 and continued the following year, and into 1904. Besides
an activity of insurgent bands and collisions with Turkish
soldiery, there were many dynamite explosions, wrecking a bank
at Salonica, blowing up a railway train, a passenger steamer,
and other outrages of that kind. Then came confused and
revolting accounts of a terrible retaliation by the Turks.
According to Dr. Dillon, the monthly reviewer of "Foreign
Politics" for _The Contemporary Review_, the substantial
facts of what occurred were these:
{651}
"The insurrection in Macedonia planned by outsiders and fixed
for last autumn [1902] proved abortive. The first shot should
have been fired in August, but the members of the
revolutionary agencies which organised the scheme quarrelled
among themselves at the Congress held during that month in
Sofia, and then split up into hostile factions. In the
committee of one of these sections, General Tsontsheff
occupied the foremost position, and he resolved on his own
initiative to stir up the Macedonians to rebellion. Now it
should be borne in mind that all these committees are composed
of so-called outsiders—that is to say, mainly Macedonian
refugees in Bulgaria, and that whether their aim be to get the
provinces annexed to Bulgaria or Servia, or to demand simple
autonomy, they meet with but little sympathy and less active
support in Macedonia itself, where there is a very intelligent
native organisation in favour of self-government. Tsontsheff
was therefore left largely to his own resources. On the 23rd
of September his adjutant, Nikoloff, crossed the frontier, but
owing to the Shipka festivities, it was not until the 15th of
October that Tsontsheff himself, who had meanwhile escaped
from prison, took the field. The scene of action was the
valley of the Struma, which a week later was wholly occupied
by the Turks, and the insurrection, which had hardly even
flashed, suddenly fizzled and went out. The natives warned by
their own committee had generally held aloof. But there were
people among them who, not content with holding back, resolved
to act in the spirit of the admonitions vouchsafed to them by
the Great Powers, and ordered the revolutionary bands to quit
the country, and when the latter refused, actually drove them
off with arms in their hands. …
"When the people had gone home the Turks came to search for
arms. The peasants denied that they possessed any, and then
the work of torture began. All who could, ran away, and, owing
to the height of the mountain passes and the enormous
snowdrifts, had to leave their wives and children behind.
Before this calamity overtook the place, the district of
Razlog had twelve hamlets and 3,665 Bulgarian houses
containing about 25,000 inmates. Of these Madame Bakhmetieff,
the American wife of the Russian minister in Sofia, counted
961 fugitives, besides some hundreds who found a refuge in the
Peshtshersky district. The entire number of able-bodied men
driven away from Razlog alone is about 1,500!
"In that loyal and well-conducted district there were fourteen
churches with twenty-two priests; of the latter eight escaped
to Bulgaria, one was killed, one arrested, and the fate of the
remainder is unknown. According to the statement of the priest
who, having made good his escape, found an asylum in the
Principality, their churches were defiled and destroyed by the
Turks. A considerable number of the remaining peasants are
said to have perished on the way over the mountains. Over
one-third, therefore, of the male population of the best
behaved district of Macedonia has been thus forced to flee the
country. …
"We have the authority of Madame Bakhmetieff—who travelled
about in the deep snow with the thermometer at 22 Celsius
below freezing point, to bring succour to the fugitives—for
saying that two priests of the villages of Oranoff and Padesh
were tortured in a manner which suggests the story of St.
Lawrence’s death. They were not exactly laid on gridirons, but
they were hung over a fire and burned with red hot irons. In
the Djumaisk District six churches were destroyed, and the
Church of St. Elias was turned into a stable, while the shrine
dedicated to the same saint in Shelesnitza was converted into
a water closet. The churches of Padesh, Troskoff and Serbinoff
were razed to the ground; the school buildings in the Djumaisk
District were used as barracks, and the teachers put in prison
or obliged to flee. The horror of the situation is
intensified, Madame Bakhmetieff says, by the fact that large
numbers of fugitives have been driven back by the Turks into
the interior southwards towards Seres, where their horrible
sufferings and their miserable end will be hidden from all who
might give them help or pity."
_E. J. Dillon,
The Reign of Terror in Macedonia
(Contemporary Review, March, 1903)._
Another view of the Macedonian situation is presented in the
following, from another of the English reviews:
"The Macedonian problem is desperate mainly because it has
been overlaid with abstractions. We talk of trouble in the
Balkans, of insurgent excesses, and Turkish atrocities,
without realising that these occasional and startling
phenomena are the product of a misery that is as constant as
it is uninteresting—and unbearable. We think of Turkish
misrule as an isolated and irrational fact, without
comprehending that it is a highly organised and quite
intelligent system, designed to promote the profit of a small
minority of officials, tax farmers, and landlords. It rests on
a substantial basis of corrupt and anti-social interest. The
political mismanagement is the least of all the evils it
produces. The reality behind the whole muddle of racial
conflicts, beyond the Chauvinism of the Balkan peoples and the
calculations of the greater Powers, is the unregarded figure
of the Macedonian peasant, harried, exploited, enslaved,
careless of national programmes, and anxious only for a day
when he may keep his warm sheepskin coat upon his back, marry
his daughter without dishonour, and eat in peace the bread of
his own unceasing labour. All our efforts might fail to bestow
upon him an ideal government—there are not the makings of a
harmonious nation in Macedonia. But politics are, after all, a
mere fraction of life. While Servia earns the contempt of the
civilised world, the Servian peasant sows in hope and reaps in
peace, keeping for winter evenings the tale of murdered
forbears and ravished ancestors. The Macedonian villager is
ignorant. But his leaders have heard of a far-off England
which twenty-five years ago flung them back under the heels of
the Turk, after Russia had won their freedom at San Stefano.
The tale runs that this same England then guaranteed them, at
Berlin, the amplest of reforms. And thereupon these simple men
will talk about their rights. It is for these they are
fighting."
_H. N. Brailsford,
The Macedonian Revolt
(Fortnightly Review, September, 1903)._
{652}
And still a third view in this which follows:
"The Turks are honestly doing their best to administer justice
indifferently. Again and again during my travels in Macedonia
I have admired the energy of Valis and Kaimakams, who hold
thankless posts with courage and determination. If the
Albanians could be kept in order and Bulgarian anarchism could
be suppressed, there would be no grievances in Macedonia
to-day. The Albanians are turbulent sportsmen, engaging as
individuals, but intolerable as neighbours. They must be made
to understand that no further nonsense will be permitted. The
Porte would be quite capable of reducing them to order if they
had not a powerful protector at hand. The Porte could also
reduce the Bulgarian conspirators if she did not fear to
arouse prejudice in Europe. The echo of former Bulgarian
‘atrocities’ (as resolute government was dubbed), paralyses
effective action. The Turks cannot punish Christian criminals
so long as Exeter Hall is on the _qui vive_ to defend
them. Give the Sultan a free hand, and the Macedonian
conspiracy may be ended in a few weeks."
_Herbert Vivian,
The Macedonian Conspiracy
(Fortnightly Review, May, 1903)._
The British Government received the following representation
of facts from its Minister to Bulgaria, Mr. Elliott, in a
despatch dated May 19, 1903.
"There are some points which appear to me to be too frequently
lost sight of in apportioning responsibilities for occurrences
in Macedonia. In the first place, the term ‘Bulgarian’ is
applied indiscriminately to subjects of the Principality and
to Macedonians of Bulgarian race, and the former are made to
bear the blame for the actions of the latter. In the same way,
it appears to be believed that the ‘Bulgarian bands’ which
make incursions into Macedonia from the territory of the
Principality are composed of Bulgarian subjects, whereas the
latter probably do not contribute more than 10 per cent, of
the number of incursionists, the remainder being all
Macedonians, of whom there are some 200,000 in the
Principality."
The same Minister wrote from Sophia on the 1st of July: "All
the reports received concur in stating that every Turkish
official, civil and military, from Hilmi Pasha downwards, look
to war as the only means of escape from a situation which is
becoming intolerable. It is obvious that in such a war both
sides would have much to lose and little material advantage to
gain; but the Turks argue that if they could administer a
crushing defeat to Bulgaria, of which they have no doubt, they
would, even if they were afterwards obliged to withdraw,
obtain some years’ peace in Macedonia, by the destruction of
what they have been taught to believe, with some justification
in the past, is the centre of disaffection, though the real
cause of it is to be sought in their own maladministration.
The Bulgarians, although believing that the conquest of
Bulgaria would not prove the easy matter that the Turks seem
to imagine, are, for the most part, under no illusions as to
their ability to hold out single-handed against the Ottoman
Empire; they are unprepared, and they have apparently been
deserted by their protectors. They are, therefore, sincere in
their desire to do everything to avoid a conflict. But it does
not rest with them to avoid it. The Macedonian agitators will
naturally do all they can to provoke a war. It is therefore of
the most urgent importance that an attempt should be made by
the Turkish Government to restore the conditions of life in
Macedonia to something like their normal state. If the
persecutions of the last few weeks continue, it will be
impossible for the Government to restrain the Macedonians
established in this country."
_Parliamentary Papers, Cd. 1875._
The condition of suffering in the region of country tormented
by this inhuman strife is indicated by such despatches as the
following, from the British Vice-Consul at Monastir, writing
September 23, 1903:
"According to the best data actually available, the number of
persons now wandering on the mountains homeless and destitute
cannot be estimated at less than 40,000, while the number of
Christians massacred may be safely put down at 3,000. Some of
my colleagues, notably the Austrian, French, and Italian
Consuls, have sent even higher figures to their embassies."
_Parliamentary Papers
(Turkey, No. 2, 1904), Cd. 1879._
TURKEY: A. D. 1903-1904.
The Mürzsteg Programme of Reforms in the Administration of
Macedonia.
During a meeting of the Emperors of Austria-Hungary and
Russia, in 1903, at Mürzsteg, in the Austrian Alps, a plan of
supervised administration in Macedonia (known since as the
Mürzsteg Programme), to be pressed on the Turkish Government,
was agreed upon by the two sovereigns and their advisers. With
the assent and support of the other Powers in Europe this was
submitted to the Porte, and was accepted in principle on the
25th of November; but it was not until the following May that
it could be said to have been brought at all into action.
Turkey "agreed
(1) to the appointment, for two years only, of Austrian and
Russian civil agents, with a limited staff of dragomans and
secretaries, to reside in the same place as the
Inspector-General, and to make tours in the interior,
accompanied by a Turkish official, to question the inhabitants
as to their grievances;
(2) to the appointment of an Italian general to reorganize the
gendarmerie;
(3) to consider the question of altering the administrative
districts so as to establish a more regular grouping of the
various nationalities;
(4) that neither race nor religion shall be a hindrance to
official employment;
(5) that an amnesty shall be granted to all persons implicated
in the insurrection, except those guilty of dynamite outrages;
and
(6) to exempt the inhabitants of destroyed villages from all
taxation for one year."
_Annual Register, 1904, page 318._
General De Giorgis, of Italy, was appointed to the command of
the gendarmerie. Hostility to the arrangements of the Mürzsteg
programme in Albania was carried to the extent of open
warfare, and a number of serious engagements between Turkish
and Albanian forces occurred. Other collisions between the
various quarreling races—Greek, Bulgarian and Servian—were not
stopped by the reorganized _gendarmerie_. Turkish action
and inaction afforded about equal occasion for Bulgarian
complaints; but in April the Bulgarian and Turkish governments
came to mutual agreements, that the former would stop the work
of revolutionary committees within her territory, and that the
latter would carry out the reforms of the Mürzsteg programme
in good faith. No effective performance of either engagement
appears to have been secured.
{653}
TURKEY: A. D. 1903-1904.
Incursions of Armenian
Revolutionists from Russia and Persia into Asiatic Turkey.
Exaggerated accounts of retaliatory Massacre.
Many bands of revolutionary Armenians who crossed the
frontiers from Russia and Persia during 1903 and 1904, making
incursions into Armenian Turkey, and bringing upon the
inhabitants there the tender mercies of Turkish troops, appear
to have been acting generally in cooperation with the
Bulgarian revolutionists in Macedonia. The consequent
barbarities were dreadful enough, no doubt, but were found to
be greatly exaggerated in the reports current at the time.
This was the conclusion of the British Ambassador to Turkey,
derived from investigations made on the ground by a consular
officer who traversed it with care. In a despatch dated August
16, 1904, the Ambassador, Sir N. O’Conor, related a
conversation on the subject that he had had with the Armenian
Patriarch, Mgr. Ormanian, as follows:
"In the course of conversation I told his Beatitude that I had
heard with deep concern the statements he had made to several
newspaper correspondents, to the effect that he believed that
between 6,000 and 9,000 persons had been massacred in the
Sasun and Talori districts during the late troubles, and that
I deeply regretted that upon my applying for precise
information which would enable me to make earnest
representations to the Grand Vizier, his Beatitude has sent me
word that he was unable to indicate the places at which these
massacres had taken place or to affirm that his reports were
based on really trustworthy information. His Beatitude replied
that he had had no means of controlling these reports, and
that he had communicated them to others as he had received
them. I said that, judging from the reports of His Majesty’s
Consul at Van, who had visited many of the districts in
question, the numbers of victims mentioned by his Beatitude
was grossly exaggerated. Captain Tyrrell was more inclined to
estimate the number at 900 than 9,000, and he had, moreover,
been unable to confirm the statements in the public press that
there had been any massacre of Armenians in the ordinary sense
of these words, although, no doubt, many innocent persons had
been killed both by the insurgents and the troops. … I did not
despair of following to the end the investigations which had
been set on foot by the Grand Vizier. If, however, his
Beatitude could now furnish me with more definite information,
I would do all in my power, in conjunction with my French and
Russian colleagues, to bring about a searching investigation
on the spot. Mgr. Ormanian replied that he was not in a
position to give me this information."
TURKEY: A. D. 1903-1905.
A "Holy War" in Arabia.
The Sheik Hamid Eddin contesting the Caliphate
with the Sultan.
"Under the obscure heading of ‘Rebellion in the Yemen,’ a
series of brief telegrams has recently appeared in the British
and American press, describing in skeleton language the
exploits of Sheik Hamid Eddin, the Sovereign of Hadramaut,
against the troops of the Turkish Sultan. Absorbed in the
contemplation of the Far-Eastern struggle, neither the writers
nor readers of the newspapers have yet found leisure to
reflect upon the meaning of the movement, which the Lord of
the Land of Frankincense is leading. … But the Government in
Constantinople, though it would fain throw dust in the eyes of
Europe, is itself painfully conscious of the menacing
character of the challenge which has gone forth from Arabia.
It is, indeed, impossible for it any longer to doubt that
Hamid Eddin, the namesake of Abdul Hamid, is contesting not
only the possession of Yemen, but also the spiritual supremacy
of Islam. A Holy War, in fact, has started in Arabia, and upon
its issue depend the fate of Mecca and the title of Caliph. …
"For several years, the propaganda proceeded on comparatively
peaceful lines. Only occasionally it was marked by collisions
with the Turkish troops. But, towards the end of 1903, the
Sheik entered the northern district of the Yemen and laid
siege to the Turkish garrison of Assyr. The engagement ended
disastrously for the Turks. … For a whole year the Turks
refrained from attempting any serious resistance to the
Arabian movement. In February of this year, however, they
succeeded in inflicting on Hamid Eddin a slight reverse, which
the authorities in Constantinople, for political reasons, at
once magnified into a disaster."
_W. F. Bullock,
The Fight for the Caliphate
(North American Review, August, 1905)._
TURKEY: A. D. 1905-1906.
Demand in Crete for Union with Greece.
Resignation of Prince George as High Commissioner.
Appointment of M. Zaimis.
See (in this Volume)
CRETE: A. D. 1905-1906.
TURKEY: A. D. 1905-1906.
Anti-British agitation in Egypt.
Encroachments on the Sinai Frontier.
The Tabah Incident.
See (in this Volume)
EGYPT: A. D. 1905-1906.
TURKEY: A. D. 1905-1908.
Continued Reign of Terror in Macedonia.
Financial Reform forced on Turkey by a Naval Demonstration.
Barbaric Warfare of Greek and Bulgarian Bands.
Efforts of Great Britain to secure further action by the Powers.
On the 17th of January, 1905, the Austro-Hungarian and Russian
Governments proposed to supplement the Mürzsteg Programme by a
measure of financial reform, which would empower the agencies
of the Imperial Ottoman Bank to "act as Treasurer and
Paymaster-General in the three vilayets of Salonika, Kossovo
and Monastir," to receive the net revenues of those vilayets,
and to "be intrusted with the issue of payments of whatever
nature and in whatever form." The Turkish Government submitted
a counter proposition, somewhat to the same purpose, on the
5th of March; and, after much discussion between the six great
Powers, of Austria-Hungary, Russia, Germany, Great Britain,
France, and Italy, they joined in a note to the Sublime Porte,
on the 8th of May, accepting the Turkish project of financial
reform, provided the Porte would consent to complete it by
adding the following:
"To supervise the execution of the financial reforms and the
application of the preceding Regulation, and to insure its
observation, the Governments will each nominate a financial
Delegate. These Delegates of the four Powers will act in
concert with the Inspector-General and the Austro-Hungarian
and Russian Civil Agents, whose functions were defined in the
Mürzsteg programme. The Commission thus formed will have all
the powers necessary for the accomplishment of its task, and
particularly for the supervision of the regular collection of
taxes, including also the tithe.
{654}
Before being finally settled, the budgets must be submitted to
the Commission, which will have the right to amend, under the
head of receipts and expenditure, any provision which may be
inconsistent with the existing laws or unsuited to the
economic and financial requirements of the country. With a
view to facilitating its task, the Commission will have the
power of nominating for each vilayet an inspector charged with
the supervision of the agents employed in the different
services of the Treasury."
The Porte declined to acquiesce in a proposal which it
declared to be "contrary to the essential principles of the
maintenance of the rights and independence of the Imperial
Government." The demand was persisted in by the six Powers,
inflexibly, and resisted as determinedly by the Sultan and his
Ministers, during more than six months of parley. By that time
the Powers had arranged for a joint naval demonstration, and
landed forces at Mytilene on the 26th of November. This
brought the Turkish Government to terms; details of the
financial reform were settled on the 16th of December, 1905,
and the international fleet was withdrawn.
Meantime conditions in the wretched country for which these
attempted reforms of government were being so deliberately and
laboriously prepared do not seem to have been much improved,
if at all. On the 4th of September, the British Ambassador,
Sir N. O’Conor, forwarded to his Government "a statistical
résumé of the despatches recording occurrences in Macedonia"
sent to him "by His Majesty’s Consuls at Salonica, Uskup, and
Monastir between the 1st of January and the 27th of August,"
giving "the number of deaths for which the various
nationalities and organizations are responsible" in those
eight months of the year. The statistics were as follows:
Christians killed by Bulgarian Komitajis [Committees], 69;
Moslems killed by Bulgarian Komitajis, 60;
Christians killed by Greek Komitajis, 211;
Moslems killed by Servian Komitajis, 12;
Christians killed by Servian Komitajis, 10:
total, 362.
Troops killed by various bands, 60;
Bulgar Komitajis killed by troops, 145;
Greek Komitajis killed by troops, 38;
Serb Komitajis, killed by troops, 83;
total 326.
Christians murdered by Moslems, 43;
Christians killed during military operations, 54;
total 97.
Throughout the next two years the monthly reports of British
consular officers and the despatches of the Ambassador at
Constantinople, as published in the British Blue Books, are
monotonous in their sickening enumeration of single murders,
wholesale massacres, destruction of villages, flights to the
mountains of starving refugees,—outrages and miseries beyond
description. On the 10th of June, 1906, the Consul-General at
Salonika wrote:
"The general state of insecurity in the disturbed areas tends
to grow worse rather than better, chiefly owing to the
increase in the numbers and activity of the Greek bands and a
slight recrudescence of Moslem crime, the most remarkable
cases of which are attributed to a band of fifteen Albanians,
who at the beginning of the month infested the forest country
north of Niausta, where they robbed and murdered with
impunity. The fact that their victims were nearly all Greeks
has given rise to the belief in Greek circles that they have
been acting in the interests of the Vlach and Bulgarian
propagandas, though, so far as I know, there is no evidence
whatever in support of this theory. The operations of Turkish
troops have been on the whole very successful as against the
small Bulgarian and Servian bands which still kept the field.
Four of the former and two of the latter were totally
destroyed, with comparatively small loss to the soldiery. It
will be seen that the loss of life by violence again amounts
to over 200 during the month. Of armed revolutionaries, about
40 Bulgarians, 19 Servians and 26 Greeks were accounted for,
at a loss to the Turkish army of 23 killed. The great majority
of the unarmed victims were Bulgarians, of whom 33 were killed
by Greek bands, 15 by soldiers or in operation by the troops,
about 15 by the Moslems, and 12 by Bulgarian Komitajis of
rival factions; while 11 Vlachs were killed by Greek bands, 14
Greeks by Albanian brigands, 1 Greek by Bulgarian Komitajis,
and 6 Mussulmans by Greek revolutionaries."
Conditions were still the same at the end of another year, and
in December, 1907, the British Government addressed a
memorandum on the subject to France and similarly to the other
Powers, reciting some of the recent facts reported by its
consular officers, and saying: "These facts and the
circumstances of the outrages committed afford striking
evidence of the manner in which the gradual extermination of
the Christian inhabitants is being tolerated in Macedonia,
where the Ottoman authorities have displayed an utter
incapacity to maintain public tranquility. It therefore
devolves upon the Powers to suggest the adoption of measures
which will put an end to such a condition of affairs, and His
Majesty’s Government earnestly hope that the French Government
will give their most serious consideration to the proposals
which they are about to put forward. … His Majesty’s
Government are profoundly convinced that the time has now
arrived when General Degiorgis and the foreign Staff Officers
should be intrusted with a full measure of executive control,
and when the force under his command should be properly
qualified for effective action by a substantial increase in
numbers and an adequate equipment."
To this communication there was no encouraging response from
any other Government; and on the 3d of March, 1908, the
British Foreign Minister, Sir Edward Grey, reopened the
subject, expressing the regret with which His Majesty’s
Government had received the replies made to their proposals.
"The situation is not beyond remedy, but it cannot be remedied
by half-measures. Were a Governor of Macedonia to be appointed
who would be given a free hand and be irremovable for a term
of years except with the consent of the Powers, and were an
adequate force of gendarmerie and European officers placed at
his disposal, His Majesty’s Government are convinced that the
country might be cleared of bands and pacified in a short
time."
{655}
The measure proposed to other Powers by the British
Government, in this communication of the 3d of March, 1908,
obtained the assent of none, but it opened a discussion of the
subject between London and St. Petersburg which brought Great
Britain and Russia together, in joint action that gave promise
of effective results. The negotiations ensuing, between the
two Governments led to the drafting of two schemes of further
reform in Macedonia, to be pressed upon the Porte. Great
Britain accepted the Russian scheme, submitted in the form of
an _aide mémoire_, dated July 2, 1908. Some inkling of
this new programme, which the European Concert of Powers was
about to be asked to support, had been given to the public by
this time, and it seems to have precipitated a revolutionary
conspiracy for the self-reformation of Turkish Government,
which had been in the process of organization for many years,
and which had now drawn near to the point of open action.
TURKEY: A. D. 1906.
A Troublesome Punctilio removed.
The United States represented at Constantinople
by an Ambassador.
"According to usage in Constantinople, an Ambassador may
obtain an audience at any time with the Sultan, and force many
items through even against the influence of both the Palace
and the Porte. But every representative lower than an
Ambassador can never appear before the Sultan except when
called for by His Gracious Majesty. This invitation can be
secured sometimes by indirect means; but when, for any reason,
the Sultan does not wish to see a Minister of any foreign
Power, the Palace officials can baffle him, if necessary, for
years. Now, the American representative is called ‘Envoy
Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary,’ and is outranked
by every Ambassador to Turkey. Hence, he lacks the
all-important privilege of approaching the Sultan uninvited."
_Americus,
Some Phases of the Issues between
the United States and Turkey
(North American Review, May, 1906)._
The obstacle to American influence with the Turkish Government
which is explained in the statement above was removed in 1906,
by raising the diplomatic representative of the United States
at Constantinople to the rank of Ambassador.
TURKEY: A. D. 1907-1909.
The Cretan Situation as dealt with by
the Four Protecting Powers.
See (in this Volume)
CRETE: A. D. 1907-1909.
TURKEY: A. D. 1908.
Building the Damascus to Mecca Railway.
See (in this Volume)
RAILWAYS: ASIATIC: A. D. 1908.
TURKEY: A. D. 1908 (March).
The Races in Macedonia.
Struggle for Political Predominance.
The Bulgarian Propaganda.
"Macedonia, although a country of numerous tribes and tongues,
has a population of which the chief ethnic elements are Serbs,
Bulgarians, and Greeks. The last-named are numerically the
most important, while the Turks are, so to say, intruders.
Between Bulgarians and Serbs, a bitter struggle has been waged
for political predominance, each party being supported more or
less effectively by its kindred in the kingdom of Servia or
the Principality of Bulgaria. Both races in Macedonia speak
almost the same language, profess the same religion, and
inter-marry, so that the need of distinguishing between them
did not arise until the Bulgarian Church, freeing itself from
the Greek Patriarch, established an exarchate. Then all the
flock of the Exarchate was deemed to consist of Bulgarians,
although in reality many were Serbs; and the vigorous
proselytising campaign carried on by agents from the
Principality was successful in gathering many thousands more
into the true fold.
"Bulgaria had luck from the outset. Before this people had
been freed from the Mohammedan yoke the Turkish Government
favoured them because it hated the Serbs, who were believed to
be trying to gather together all Slavs and to found a powerful
Slav state. After the creation of the Bulgarian Principality
the Turks continued to wink at the Bulgarian propaganda in
Macedonia, because of Stambuloff’s anti-Russian and Turcophile
policy. And in this way crowds of Macedonians were won over to
the Bulgarian Exarchate. Moreover, the Prince’s Government
warmly seconded the efforts of its agents. Money was spent
liberally and judiciously. Many Macedonians who distinguished
themselves at school were sent to finish their education at
Sofia, where the most gifted among them received high places
in the civil service or the army. In time, however, peaceful
agitation gave way to filibustering expeditions, culminated in
bloodshed, and drove the Turks to repressive measures against
the Bulgarian element in Macedonia."
_E. J. Dillon,
Foreign Affairs
(Contemporary Review, March, 1908)._
TURKEY: A. D. 1908 (July-December).
The Young Turk party and its Revolutionary organization.
Its Plans hurried by the Anglo-Russian project of a
new Macedonian Intervention.
Beginning and Rapid Spread of Revolt.
Proclamation of the Constitution of 1876.
Yielding of the Sultan.
Intense Joy in the Empire.
Election of a Parliament.
Until July 3, 1908,—the day after M. Isvolsky, Russian
Minister of Foreign Affairs, had dated (as stated above) his
_aide mémoire_ of Macedonian Reform, which he and Sir
Edward Grey were about to submit to the Powers,—the Turkish
party since famous under the name of "the Young Turks" had
attracted not much general attention, and, even in diplomatic
circles, there does not seem to have been much known of the
extraordinary work of revolutionary propagandism and
organization it had done. Its leadership, seated at Salonika,
had been in a Committee, named formerly the Committee of
Liberty, but styled in later years the Ottoman Committee of
Union and Progress. Of the rise and origin of this Young Turk
party, the following account was written some years before it
leaped into public fame, by the veteran apostle of political
liberty, Karl Blind:
"I remember its rise and origin in the sixties, when, between
1867 and 1868, a small group of Turkish exiles—namely, Zia
Bey, Ali Suavi, and Aghaia Effendi—lived in London. They
published here and in Paris an ably conducted journal, called
the _Mukhbir_ (the ‘Advertiser’), copies of which are
still in my library. That paper came out under the auspices of
Mustafa Fazil Pasha, the well-known statesman who contributed
so much to the spread of public instruction and of Liberal
ideas by sending young students and others—among them, a
distinguished poet, Kemal—to Paris and London. In the
_Mukhbir_, parliamentary institutions and all other
desirable reforms were advocated.
{666}
"In 1876, the Sofia rising at Constantinople at last brought
about the introduction of a Charter under the young Sultan,
who had just come to the throne—the present Abdul Hamid the
Second. It was a popular movement, officered by the better
educated class of Mohammedans. In a famous rescript, the
Sultan said that ‘if his sire had lived longer, a
constitutional era would have been inaugurated under him.
Providence, however, had reserved for him (the son) the task
of accomplishing this happy transformation, which is the
highest guarantee of the welfare of his subjects.’ He went on
to denounce ‘the abuses which are the result of the arbitrary
rule of one or of some individuals.’ He then enumerated the
various reforms to be accomplished by the National Assembly:
responsibility of ministers; parliamentary right of control;
independence of the courts of justice; equilibrium of the
budget.
"All races and all creeds were represented in that Parliament,
which sat during 1877-1878: Turks and Armenians, Bulgars,
Greeks, Albanese, Syrians, and Arabs; Mohammedans,
Greco-Catholics, Armenian Christians, Protestants, and Jews.
Its debates, through the whole of which I went carefully at
the time in the French text of the Constantinople press,
exhibited a remarkable degree of ability. I learnt afterwards,
from men conversant with Turkish, and who had repeatedly been
present at the sittings, that these official reports had even
considerably toned down the liveliness of the discussions.
"I need not refer to the activity of Midhat Pasha, nor go into
the many useful reforms then debated, including freedom of the
press; equality before the law; liberty in matters of public
instruction; admission of all citizens, irrespective of race
and creed, to the various public employments; an equal
imposition of taxes; free exercise of every religious cult,
and so forth. …
"How did that Assembly come to grief? When the Russian army
arrived before the gates of Constantinople [in 1878], the
Sultan, pressed close by the Czar, and being at issue with the
representatives of the people on account of the exile of
Midhat and about budget questions, suddenly _prorogued_
Parliament. Alexander the Second, the ‘Divine Figure from the
North,’ was thus freed from the danger of hearing Liberal
subjects of his own uttering the cry: ‘Let us, by way of
reward for our sacrifices in blood and money in this war, have
parliamentary government as in Turkey!’
"Prorogued the Turkish National Assembly was, let it well be
remembered—not abolished; not dissolved even. Ever since, the
Young Turkish party has called for its restoration."
_Karl Blind,
Macedonia and England’s Policy
(Nineteenth Century, November, 1903)._
When it came to be known, in the spring or early summer of
1908, that Great Britain and Russia were concerting a fresh
proposal to the Powers of more thorough going intervention in
Macedonian affairs, the Young Turk leaders are said to have
been driven to a hurried rearrangement of their own plans.
They had not expected, it seems, to be in readiness for a
decisive movement until some months or a year hence; but they
could not afford to have the Concert of Europe as well as the
despotism of the Sultan to deal with in their revolutionary
undertaking, contemplating as that did a state of government
for Turkey which outside nations would have no right or need
to be meddlesome with. Hence they hastened preparations for an
explosion of the revolt they had organized so patiently, and
its first outbreaks chanced to occur just as M. Isvolsky had
signed and dated the statement of his scheme of intervention
for communication to other Powers.
The beginnings, on the 3d of July, were in the vilayet of
Monastir, where the officers and soldiers of two battalions,
at Resna and Presba, with some officials of the district,
formed themselves openly into a "Young Turk" band, seized arms
and the military chest, and went into the mountains. Similar
movements in the Kossovo and Salonika vilayets followed
quickly. On the 7th, at the city of Monastir, General Shemsi
Pasha, when setting forth to take command of operations
against the insurgents, was shot, and the soldiers of his
escort were reported to have allowed the assassins to escape
by firing in the air. Other murders of officers who showed
activity against the rebels were soon announced. The Ottoman
Committee of Union and Progress had now issued a manifesto,
announcing that the object of their League was to secure the
restoration of the Constitution of 1876, and appealing to the
Great Powers "to show their good will towards the peoples of
Turkey by earnestly urging His Majesty, the Sultan, to yield
to the legitimate demands of his subjects, who are loyal,
though in revolt against the shameful situation of their
country." The Committee protested solemnly that the League
entertained no hostility to non-Moslems; that it would avoid
useless bloodshed, and employ "energetic methods" only in
extreme cases against the enemies of liberty.
By the 22d of the month the Sultan had become sufficiently
alarmed to dismiss his Grand Vizier, Ferid Pasha, and call
Kiamil Pasha, the former Grand Vizier, to his council again.
Kiamil exacted conditions which his master was slow in
yielding to, and he seems to have been Grand Vizier _de
facto_ for a short time before he accepted the responsible
title. Change of Ministry, however, did not check the
deepening and spreading of revolt. On the 23d of July the
Young Turks, having complete possession of the cities of
Monastir and Salonica, and of several lesser towns, made
solemn proclamation of the Constitution, with popular
demonstrations and ceremonies of prayer and speech in which
Moslems and Christians were joined. That night the Sultan held
long counsel with his Ministers, at the Palace, and before
morning the reestablishment of the suspended Constitution of
1876 was decided.
See (in this Volume)
CONSTITUTION OF TURKEY.
The morning papers of the 24th gave the decree to the public
of Constantinople and the news of it was flashed throughout
the Empire and to the ends of the earth. This was the message
that went from the Grand Vizier to Hilmi Pasha, Inspector
General at Salonika:
"In compliance with the wish expressed by the people and by
order of His Majesty the Sultan, the Constitution promulgated
on the 11th (23d) December, 1876, which had for various reasons
been withdrawn, has been again enforced. The General Assembly
(Senate and Chamber of Deputies) may assemble on the terms
prescribed by law. I beg you to convey this news to the
public."
{657}
According to all accounts of the time, the feeling evoked by
the announcement of a constitutionalized government—as soon as
the long oppressed people could be persuaded of its actuality
—was quite extraordinary, and it swept away temporarily, at
least, the enmities of religion and race to a remarkable
extent. What occurred, for example, at Beirut, in Syria, as
described by a missionary, was probably not exceptional in
that place. "Men gathered," he says, "in large groups.
Audiences and orators sprung up like mushrooms. The torrent of
eloquence that poured forth there was such as would put
Niagara to shame. There were people mingling together there
who during the past years had been bitterly antagonistic to
each other, but who now were showing their friendship in
public; Greek Orthodox and Mohammedan priests were embracing
each other; branches were cut down from the trees; rugs were
brought out from the houses; the streets were lined with
people offering their hospitality to their new-found brothers;
everywhere, even among the criminal classes, there were these
evidences of good fellowship."
_Howard S. Bliss,
Address to National Geographic Society,
December 18, 1908._
On the night of the 26th of July the Sultan received a
deputation, headed by the Sheikh-ul-Islam, who petitioned for
the removal of certain obnoxious favorites of the "Palace
camarilla," and especially for the dismissal of the notorious
Izzet Pasha, one of his secretaries, who was hated and feared
above all. Abdul Hamid refused at first; but three days later
he ordered Izzet Pasha into exile and disgraced Ismail Pasha,
his Aide-de-camp, who was said to be the chief spy of the
military schools. Izzet succeeded, a few days later, in
escaping from the country, and so, undoubtedly, saved his
life.
On the 29th of July the British Ambassador at Constantinople,
Sir G. Lowther, sent the following telegram to Sir Edward
Grey:
"The Sultan has sworn on the Koran, as Caliph, not to repeal
the Constitution, and the Sheikh-ul-Islam has officially
notified the oath, which was registered at his Department, to
the people. It religiously binds not only Abdul Hamid but also
his successors in the Caliphate to govern in accordance with
the Constitution, and becomes part of the Sheri law. This step
was demanded by the Young Turkey and Constitutional party, in
order to prevent the Constitution being put aside, as was that
of 1876." On the 31st, announcement was made in the morning
papers of Constantinople that "a Hatti Humayun which is
binding on the successors of the Sultan will be publicly read
at the Porte confirming the Constitution." Subsequently, on
sending a copy of this instrument to his Government, Sir G.
Lowther remarked that "a Hatti Humayun is the most binding
form of legislation in the Ottoman Empire." In the present
case it seems to have supplemented as well as confirmed the
original Constitution, pledging equality of freedom and of
rights to all subjects of every race and religion; supremacy
of law; inviolability of the individual domicile;
inviolability of the Post; freedom of the Press; freedom of
Education, etc., etc.
The ministers and spies of the old regime of despotism and
corruption were now proceeded against with celerity and vigor.
Some escaped, some were imprisoned, some were killed by
enraged crowds of people. The latter was the fate of Fehim
Pasha, who had been at the head of the secret police. At the
same time exiles of an opposite character were returning to
their country and meeting with excited welcomes as they came.
Kiamil Pasha took his proper place as Grand Vizier on the 7th
of August, and formed a new Cabinet, with Tewfik Pasha as
President of the Council of State and Minister of Foreign
Affairs. In announcing the composition of the Cabinet,
Ambassador Lowther remarked: "Kiamil Pasha appears very wisely
to have taken the League of Union and Progress into his
counsels in forming his Ministry, all of whom were
incorruptible opponents of the old regime, while two of them
are Christians, in accordance with the principles of the
Constitution."
While practically dominating the Imperial Government on one
hand, the ruling Committee of the League was likewise bringing
to terms the lawless Bulgarian, Greek, and other bands which
had tortured and terrorized Macedonia so long, and was
respectfully but plainly intimating its expectation that
foreign management of the gendarmerie and the finances of that
region would soon be withdrawn. Already, as early as the 25th
of July, M. Isvolsky had withdrawn, for the time being, at
least, his project of further intervention, saying that
"Russia will follow with the most sympathetic attention the
efforts of Turkey to insure the working of the new regime. She
will abstain, for her part, from all interference calculated
to complicate this task, and will exercise all her influence
in order to obviate and prevent all disturbing action on the
part of the Balkan States." Of course the British Government
was moved by the same feeling, and, as the new order in Turkey
gave more and more promise of stability, the willingness to
suspend the foreign organization of gendarmerie in the
Macedonian provinces became general among the Powers. A
collective note, accordingly, was addressed to the Sublime
Porte in September, asking if the Imperial Government had any
objection to a provisional suspension of its contract with
foreign officers, with leave of absence to them _sine
die_. The Porte promptly acquiesced and the Macedonian
intervention came to an end.
Preparations for the election of representatives in the new
Parliament became active in October, the League of Union and
Progress sending agents into the provinces to give much-needed
instructions to officials and people as to what they must do
and how. The elections were conducted under a complicated
electoral law. Excepting foreign residents, natives in foreign
service, soldiers not on furlough, bankrupts, criminals, and a
few other classes, all male tax-payers twenty-five years of
age were made "electors in the first degree." By their vote
they chose, not the parliamentary representative, but
"electors in the second degree" who would meet subsequently
and make that choice. At the preliminary elections 250 to 750
voters were entitled to one elector; 750 to 1250 to two, and
so on. The representation in Parliament was by one Deputy for
25,000 to 75,000 electors of the first degree; two for 75,000
to 125,000,—and further at that rate. Candidates for
Parliament were to be not less than thirty years of age.
{658}
According to the Constitution the chosen Deputies to
Parliament were to assemble at Constantinople on the 30th of
October, old style; but inevitable delays in the elections
postponed the meeting of Parliament until the 17th of
December, on which day it was opened by the Sultan in person,
good order prevailing in the city. In a written Speech from
the Throne, read by his First Secretary, he offered as an
explanation of the long suspension of the Constitution of
1876, that, in consequence of the difficulties encountered in
operating the parliamentary system thirty years ago, it was
thought best that "the execution of the said Constitution
should be postponed until, by the progress of instruction in
my Empire, the capacity of my people should be brought up to
the desired level." As this was now believed to have been
accomplished, he had "proclaimed the Constitution anew without
hesitation, in spite of those who hold views and opinions
opposed thereto." With marked abruptness the Sultan’s speech
was then turned to some recent occurrences which have not yet
been touched in this narrative of events. Its reference to
them was in these words: "Whilst the Ministry formed under the
Presidency of Kiamil Pasha, to whom the office of Grand Vizier
was intrusted upon this change in the system of
administration, was occupied with organizing the new
Constitutional Administration, Prince Ferdinand, Prince of
Bulgaria and Vali of the Province of Eastern Roumelia,
departing, for whatever reason, from the loyalty due to our
Empire, proclaimed the independence of Bulgaria; and
immediately after this the Government of Austria-Hungary also
announced to the Porte and to the Cabinets of the other Great
Powers that it had decided to annex to the sphere of its
dominion Bosnia and Herzegovina, which were subject to the
temporary occupation and administration of Austria in
accordance with the Treaty of Berlin. These two important
events, which are prejudicial to existing legal rights and
relations, are occurrences which have moved me to very great
regret, and our Ministers have been intrusted with the task of
taking the necessary action consequent on these encroachments
and of safeguarding (he rights of the State. In regard to this
matter, and under all circumstances, the help and support of
Parliament are desired."
The concluding words of the Sultan’s brief speech were these:
"I open the Chamber of Deputies to-day with prayers for the
happiness and prosperity of our Empire and country. I am happy
to see in my presence the Deputies of my nation. My intention
to govern our country under the Constitution is absolute and
unalterable. Please God our Chamber of Deputies will
accomplish good work for our Empire and our nation, and our
fatherland will attain to happiness of every kind. May God
make us all the objects of His divine grace!"
TURKEY: A. D. 1909.
American Mission Schools.
See (in this Volume)
EDUCATION: TURKEY AND THE NEAR EAST.
TURKEY: A. D. 1909 (January-May).
Wise Moderation of the Young Turks.
Gathering of Opposition to them.
The Counter-Revolution of April 13.
Treacherous Agency of the Sultan in it.
Quick Recovery of Power by the Young Turks.
Battle in Constantinople.
Moslem attack on Armenians in Asiatic Turkey.
Deposition of Abdul Hamid.
Mohammed V. placed on the Throne.
The declaration of Bulgarian independence and the Austrian
annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, protested against by the
Sultan in his Speech from the Throne at the opening of the new
Parliament, on the 17th of December, are recounted at some
length in another place, with notice of the prolonged
anxieties they produced in Europe at large.
See (in this Volume)
EUROPE: A. D. 1908-1909 (OCTOBER-MARCH).
In Turkey itself the feeling roused by these offensive
proceedings was overborne to a great extent by increasing
excitements in home politics at the time. The first unity of
welcome and support to the revolution, as organized by the
League of Union and Progress, was now being broken, as always
happens in such movements, by conflicts of ambition and
differences of opinion and aim. In other words, contentions of
party and faction were coming into play. The Young Turk
leaders of the League had manifestly conducted the whole
movement of revolution with extraordinary ability,
self-effacement, and restraint. The President of Robert
College, at Constantinople, Dr. C. Frank Gates, who must be
accounted a trustworthy observer of events in the Ottoman
capital, writing in _The Outlook_, November 7, 1908, of
"Turkey under the New Regime," paid this high tribute to its
chiefs:
"One of the most striking features of this movement to those
who have lived long in the country is the moderation shown by
the Young Turks. The regime which has been overthrown was
oppressive in the extreme, and all the people had suffered
terribly from it. The Turks have often said, ‘We suffer more
than the Christians.’ Many have predicted a day of terrible
retribution, when the old regime should fall into the hands of
its victims. But there have been no reprisals. Officers of the
army were killed in order to gain control of the army, a few
spies fell into the hands of the people and were killed, the
notorious Fehim Pasha was torn to pieces by the mob at
Broussa, but most of the rascals have been held for regular
trial, and the leaders of the new movement have firmly
insisted that it is no time for vengeance or for the
gratification of personal animosities; only one consideration
can be admitted, and that is the good of the country. Their
eyes are upon the future, not upon the past. This is
wonderful. If one could have expected a reign of terror
anywhere, here was the place to expect it, but it has not
come.
"The Young Turks have shown a practical wisdom in dealing with
the various parties and in solving the questions which have
arisen which commands the admiration of all. A friend who is
very well acquainted with the leaders in this movement said
the other day, ‘The most wonderful thing of all is the
committees.’ Properly speaking, there are no committees and no
tangible organization. There are men who stand behind the
present Government and practically guide and control it, but
they are content to be unknown and to work in silence. They
say, ‘It is the work of God,’ 'Do not congratulate us: thank
God.’
{659}
"The difficulties which these men have to face are enormous.
There is the difficulty of financing the Government, which is
aggravated by the fact that some of the provinces have
understood liberty as meaning freedom from taxes. Then there
is the difficulty of forming a programme for the new regime.
There have been two parties among the Young Turks, the
Committee of Union and Progress, and the Party of
Decentralization headed by Sebaheddin. … Sebaheddin has been
explaining his programme to popular audiences. His plan is to
have local assemblies in the provinces, to which shall be
relegated many of the functions which have been centralized in
Constantinople under the old regime."
The working of the new machinery of government went smoothly,
in appearance, for some weeks after this was written. On the
1st of January the Sultan gave a banquet to the Deputies of
Parliament at the Yildiz Kiosk, sitting with them at table and
speaking to them with eloquent piety and patriotism;
subsequently permitting a general kissing of his hands, which
performance of affectionate reverence was much disapproved by
some of the Turkish journals next day. A fortnight later Mr.
Hagopian, special correspondent at Constantinople of the New
York _Evening Post_, seemingly intimate in acquaintance
with the inner circles of parties, began to be sharply
critical of the Committee of Union and Progress, saying that
their "arrogant programme" "has led more enlightened Turks to
organize a new party, the Sons of Liberal Ottomans." Then he
speaks of what appears to be another party, "the association
of ‘Fedakiarans’ (Confederates), composed of all former
political exiles and prisoners who became free after the
establishment of the new regime. On the surface their aim is
said to be to assist all their unfortunate members who have
been brought to poverty, or disabled by the tortures of prison
and exile. Their membership within the last four months has
reached twenty thousand. …
"The mistake which the Young Turks committed in opposing
Kiamil Pasha, and in persecuting the Confederates," this
writer goes on to say, "has strengthened the cause of
Sabakheddin Bey and his followers. All the oppressed Christian
races, who welcomed the inauguration of a liberal government
in Turkey, were alarmed when a part of the young Turks came
forward as champions of Panislamism, and to-day they are
inclined to be in the rank and file of this new liberal
movement. The Young Turkish Parliament has shown a tendency to
be a Moslem institution."
A fortnight later Kiamil Pasha, the Grand Vizier, or Prime
Minister, as he preferred, it is said, to be called, dropped
Ali Riza Pasha, Minister of War, and Aarif Pasha, Minister of
Marine, from his Cabinet, appointing them to other posts,
which they declined; and this completed his breach with the
Committee of Union and Progress. Mr. Hagopian, in his next
letter to the _Evening Post_, averred that the Grand
Vizier had discovered a plot, organized by the Young Turks, to
dethrone the Sultan and proclaim Youssuf-Izeddin, elder son of
Abdul Aziz, the murdered former Sultan, and that he defeated
their project by the sudden change he made in the Ministries
of War and Marine. Other reporters from Constantinople to the
Press do not seem to have given credit to this explanation.
Whatever the inner facts may have been, the Young Turk
Committee proved stronger than the Grand Vizier, and they
forced his resignation on the 13th of February, by an
overwhelming vote in the Chamber of Deputies, 198 to 8, that
he "no longer possesses its confidence." He had commanded
foreign confidence more, perhaps, than any other Turkish
statesman, and his overthrow gave a serious shock for the
moment to the hopefulness with which the Turkish
constitutional experiment had come to be quite generally
regarded.
Hilmi Pasha, who had been Minister of the Interior under
Kiamil, was now called by the Sultan to be Grand Vizier, and a
new Cabinet was formed, Ali Riza Pasha resuming the portfolio
of the Ministry of War, and with it that of the Marine. The
administration was now entirely in harmony with the Committee
of Union and Progress. During the next two months there was
not much in Turkish affairs to command attention abroad. But
political hostility to the Committee of Union and Progress was
evidently increasing. The correspondent of the London
_Times_ wrote to his paper from Constantinople in March
that "one of the most perplexing and disquieting features of
the situation since the fall of the late Cabinet has been the
persistent manner in which the Committee have denied that any
extra-Parliamentary pressure was employed to effect that
change, or that, since it was accomplished,
extra-Parliamentary forces have exercised any influence on the
conduct of affairs. Had they frankly admitted that such
influences had been, and were still, brought to bear—as,
indeed, the speech of the President of the Chamber implicitly
acknowledges—but that such interference was justified by
circumstances and would continue to be exercised until the
country had safely emerged from the critical period through
which it is passing, many who are now falling away from them
would have been found to agree, and few persons capable of
forming an unbiased opinion would have ventured to declare
that their contention was altogether unreasonable and
unjustifiable. By adopting a different course they have
alienated much of the sympathy and confidence they hitherto
commanded, and given rise to suspicions, quite possibly
unfounded, as to the purity of their motives, with the result
that the country, which needs and will long continue to need
the united energies of all its ablest and most enlightened
citizens, for the tremendous task of regeneration and
reorganization, is now weakened by a fierce party struggle,
and that many competent observers regard a fresh Ministerial
crisis as an event which cannot be delayed for many weeks."
The anticipated crisis came about four weeks after this had
been written, in a form much more serious than that of a mere
Ministerial collapse. It was precipitated by excitements that
followed the murder, on the 6th of April, of a political
journalist, Hassan Fehmi Effendi, editor of the
_Serbesti_, the organ of the Liberal party. As the
murdered man had been a vigorous critic and opponent of the
Committee of Union and Progress, that organization was accused
at once of having brought about his death.
{660}
This gave the start to agitations and demonstrations that were
secretly pushed for several days, until they culminated, on
the 13th, in an outbreak of soldiers and city mobs which
reversed for a time the Young Turk revolution of the previous
July. That the crafty Abdul Hamid had more than lent his hand
to the reactionary outbreak was universally believed; but when
it had accomplished the overthrow of Hilmi Pasha and his
Ministry the Sultan did not venture to call creatures of his
own to take their place. On the contrary, he gave the office
of Grand Vizier to Tewfik Pasha, one of the most respected and
independent of the elder officials of the Empire, charging
him, in an imperial rescript, "to form a Cabinet to conform
more directly to the sacred law and to maintain the
Constitution and guard public order." These words are
indicative of the nature of the hostility to the regime of the
Young Turks which had been worked up. Formerly, as appears in
one of the quotations above from Mr. Hagopian, the Young Turks
had been accused of being "champions of Pan-Islamism," and
their Parliament of showing "a tendency to be a Moslem
institution." Latterly, Moslem orthodoxy had been appealed to
against them on the charge that they were unfaithful to "the
sacred law" (the Sheriat), and that they were making the
Constitution a mere cover for designs that boded evil to
Islam. A fair inference from the contradictoriness of the
charges brought against them is decidedly favorable to the
party of the Young Turks.
At the outset of the revolutionary riot in Constantinople a
few murders were committed and some fatal shooting at random
was done, the victims including the Minister of Justice, an
Albanian Deputy and a few officers of the riotous soldiery;
but the mob-rising, as a whole, appears to have been kept
under singular restraint. No important members of the League
of Union and Progress are reported to have been killed. Those
who were in Constantinople escaped, and their ruling Committee
was soon established in activity at Salonika again, taking
measures which resulted quickly in the recovery of more than
the power that they had seemed for the moment to have lost.
That no reaction of substantial influences at Constantinople
against constitutional and representative government was
signified by what had occurred there was made plain by an
important proclamation, issued on the 16th of April, by the
Committee of the Ulema, the Moslem Doctors of the Sacred Law.
It was addressed to the Deputies and the Nation, in these
words:
"We are informed that certain Deputies, fearing for their
lives, wish to resign, while, on the other hand, the public
fears the return of despotic rule. The Committee of the Ulema,
which has never doubted that the Constitution is in entire
conformity with sacred law, and has not forgotten the burning
of Islamic books at Gulhaneh in the days of absolutism, will
defend the Constitution, which is in conformity with the
Sheriat, to the last, aided by the army and Parliament. Its
members consider it to be a religious duty to sacrifice their
lives for this end. They and the nation preserve the
confidence of Deputies, Moslem and non-Moslem alike, save such
as have resigned, or have fled and are thereby considered to
have resigned. Deputies, therefore, are informed that
henceforth those who resign will be considered traitors. Let
them do their duty justly and honourably, and they may be sure
of the support of the nation and the spiritual aid of the
Prophet. We beg the glorious army to maintain order and
discipline, following the counsels of the Ulema, for it is
thus that the Almighty will grant salvation to the country and
happiness in this world and the next."
But Asiatic Turkey was easily made distrustful and suspicious
of a change in government which appeared to lower the
authority and dignity of the Sultan-Caliph; and news of the
seeming triumph of that sacred sovereign in what had happened
at Constantinople must have had not a little to do with the
sudden outburst, on the 15th of April, of Moslem hostility to
the Armenian Christians in parts of Asia Minor and Syria. The
fighting and massacre then begun, and which continued for many
days, was most fiercely carried on within a circle of towns at
the corner where Syria and Asia Minor touch, and where the
Gulf of Iskanderun runs far into the land. On the northern and
western side, this piece of the Turkish dominion was the
ancient province of Cilicia, which Pompey added to the empire
of Rome; in which St. Paul was born, and which received its
modern name of Adana from Haroun al Raschid, the most famous
of the Caliphs of Bagdad,—thanks to "The Arabian Nights." In
and around its three principal towns, of Adana, Mersina, and
Tarsus, the first and worst of the atrocities occurred.
The League of Union and Progress had given way for an instant,
only, to the outbreak at Constantinople, which must have taken
its leaders by surprise. But the momentary reverse was a gift
of opportunity, in fact, to prove the astonishing energy of
ability that was in this remarkable body of men. They had been
betrayed by a considerable part, at least, of the division of
the army which garrisoned Constantinople, and which is said to
have been heavily bribed with money that must have come from
the Sultan’s purse. But the Second and Third Corps of the army
in Macedonia were unshaken in fidelity to them and their
cause. It was on Tuesday, the 13th of April, that their
opponents at the capital had their triumph; on Wednesday, the
14th, the two trusted corps were under orders from Salonika to
march on Constantinople. Nine days later Mahmud Shevket Pasha,
who commanded the movement, was in full possession of the
city, with the Sultan a prisoner, and the victorious general
was about to publish the following brief report of what had
been done in the interval:
"Our Second and Third Army Corps," he wrote, "being the
nearest to Constantinople, undertook as the executive power of
the whole Ottoman nation to shed the last drop of their blood
in defence of the Constitutional _régime_. Having
therefore taken counsel together and organized a force
sufficient for the purpose, they marched to Constantinople, in
order to counteract the effects of the despotic blow recently
struck at that _régime_, to subdue and chastise the
guilty, and to take the necessary measures for the prevention
of similar attempts in the future. Leaving Salonika on
Wednesday, I arrived the following day at San Stefano and gave
orders for a general movement preparatory to entering the
capital on Friday.
{661}
The troops quartered at the Ministry of War were compelled to
surrender before they had time to defend themselves. Only the
mutinous troops at Taslikishla and other barracks in Pera
offered any resistance to the army of occupation. These
barracks were accordingly bombarded and destroyed, their
garrisons being disabled or forced to surrender. As our heroic
army began operations at night and entered the town at dawn,
and as the inhabitants remained in their houses and the shops
were closed, there were no deaths in the civil population and
no disorder took place. The losses on both sides were heavy,
but the numbers are not yet known. I pray God that the hearts
of all Ottomans may rejoice at the news of this great victory
and that it may prove the dawn of a great future for our
country."
Military observers who accompanied Shevket Pasha and his army
are said to have been profoundly impressed by the masterly
handling of the whole operation, from start to finish. His
fellow Constitutionalists were equally impressed by the
qualities that he had revealed. A Press despatch to New York,
from Constantinople, April 26, reported:
"Schefket Pasha, commander of the Constitutional army, is the
man of the hour. The leading civilian members of the Committee
of Union and Progress desire him to be grand vizier in
succession to Tewfik Pasha, and he has been assured that a
majority of Parliament would gladly support a ministry under
his leadership in succession to the Tewfik ministry, which
resigned to-day. In reply to these proposals Schefket Pasha
said that the premiership afforded such a splendid opportunity
to assist in the political development of the country that he
would have rejoiced to accept the honor had it come to him
under any other circumstances, but that he could not accept it
while still leader of the army. To do so would not accord with
his ideas of civil and political liberty of action." This
seems to have been a true exhibit of the fine spirit and
intelligent patriotism of the man, and it added much to the
hopefulness of the regenerative undertaking of the Young
Turks. Shevket is an Arab, from Bagdad, who had his training
as a soldier in Germany and had lived in Europe twelve years.
What to do with Abdul Hamid was a question over which the
Committee of Union and Progress wasted very little time. He
became their captive on the 24th. On the 26th it was known
that he would be deposed and exiled to Salonika. His falsity
in all that he had professed of a willing adoption of
constitutional government, and his treacherous engineering of
the conspiracy against it, were believed to be open to no
doubt. It was probably not easy to save him from the doom of
death which he feared: but the men of calmly tempered mind and
will who had ruled the revolution from its beginning were
still in control. On the morning of the 27th a _fetva_ or
formal decision by the Sheik-ul-Islam, authorizing the
deposition of Abdul Hamid from the Ottoman throne, was sent to
the National Assembly and read. It was in the form of a
question from that body, answered tersely by the supreme judge
of the law of Islam,—as follows:
"What becomes of an Imam [the title of the Sultan of Turkey as
head of the Orthodox faith] who has destroyed certain holy
writings, who has seized property in contravention to the
Sheri laws, who has committed cruelties in ordering the
assassination and imprisonment of exiles without any
justification under the Sheri laws, who has squandered the
public money, who, having sworn to govern according to the
Sheriat, has violated his oath, who, by gifts of money, has
provoked internecine bloodshed and civil war, and who no
longer is recognized in the provinces?" To this the
Sheik-ul-Islam replied: "He must abdicate or be deposed." At
once, by unanimous vote, the deposition of Abdul Hamid and the
succession of his younger brother, Mohammed Reschad Effendi
was pronounced by the National Assembly. The new Sultan was
proclaimed with impromptu ceremony in the afternoon, at the
Seraskierat, to which he went in the plain costume of a
Turkish gentleman. He was received by Mahmud Shevket Pasha and
his staff in the central court. The Grand Vizier, the
Sheikh-ul-Islam, Said Pasha, President of the Senate, and
Ahmed Riza, President of the Chamber, stood at the foot of the
stairs. All kissed hands, and the whole group, headed by his
Majesty, proceeded to a reserved chamber, the gallery above
the court being in the meantime crowded with Senators,
Deputies, officers, journalists, and ordinary sightseers. The
Deputies and Senators were then admitted to kiss hands, and a
prayer was recited. This ended the simple ceremony of the day;
but one of more solemnity occurred on the 10th of May, when
the Sultan received the sword of Osman—the equivalent of a
coronation—in the Mosque Ayub, which Christians are never
permitted to enter, and was conducted in an imposing
procession through the streets of the city.
Mohammed Reschad Effendi, who reigns as Mohammed V., was in
his sixty-fifth year when he came to the throne. Until the
revolution of the previous July he had been practically a
prisoner in one of the palaces on the Bosporus, surrounded by
the creatures of his jealous and suspicious brother, without
whose permission he could not leave the palace grounds.
Latterly he had enjoyed some degree of personal freedom, for
the first time in his life. An anonymous contributor to the
_London Times_, who had had an opportunity to meet him
since the revolution broke his bonds, wrote thus of the
interview:
"I had the privilege of a long conversation with Reschad when
I was in Constantinople in the autumn, on condition that the
visit should be conducted with some secrecy and should remain
secret until the return of Hamidianism was beyond the range of
possibility. I believe I was the first European whom he had
seen since the revolution of July mitigated the severity of
the reclusion enforced for 30 years by Abdul Hamid. The Heir
Apparent was still living in the Palace adjoining Dolma
Baghche, which had been his prison throughout the reign,
jealously guarded by the Sultan’s Pretorians at the entrances
from the main road, and by a gunboat moored in the Bosporus
opposite the water approach. …
"His Highness talked slowly and hesitatingly, often lowering
his voice to a whisper and casting furtive glances round the
room as if he was still haunted by the fear of spies, but he
listened eagerly while I told him of my own many journeyings
in Turkey, whose people I had known since the beginning of the
Hamidian _régime_, occasionally interrupting me with an
apposite remark, or asking for an explanation which showed
both interest and intelligence.
{662}
There was something strangely pathetic in this desire for
information about his own country, over which his Highness was
soon destined to reign. A full hour’s conversation left the
impression that, given favourable circumstances and good
advisers, the Prince was well qualified to preside over a
period of peaceful transition."
Punishment of the authors of the counter-revolution followed
quickly on the reestablishment of constitutional authority,
and it was sternly meted out. As Mr. Hagopian expressed the
feeling of the Young Turks, in his letter of April 26 to the
New York _Evening Post_, they "could not afford to be
lenient. The conspiracy of April 13," he added, "was no longer
a secret. In the last two days 15,000 soldiers and 6,000
_hodjas_ and spies had been arrested. In their possession
over half a million dollars had been found. Where had this
money come from? Who could deny any longer that Abdul Hamid
drew from his bank about ten million dollars a month ago? His
favored son, Burhaneddin Effendi, went from barrack to barrack
and distributed the money among the soldiers. Former spies,
disguised in Turkish clergymen’s garments, went among the
troops and won them over with the Sultan’s bribes. Soldiers,
when arrested, were found to have an average of one hundred
dollars; some had two hundred, three hundred, and even five
hundred. Indeed, Abdul Hamid was the head of the conspiracy,
and the massacre in Adana was instigated by his emissaries
sent from Constantinople. The old and the new Yildiz cliques
were not less responsible." By the 12th of May thirty-eight
executions had been reported, most of them by hanging in
public places. "A member of the court-martial that sentenced
these men to death explained the reason of the public hangings
by saying that Constantinople was such a city of rumor and
traditions of corruption that, had the announcement been made
that these men had been executed in private, it would not have
been believed by the masses. It was desired to impress the
people with the fact that the guilty had been punished."
TURKEY: April-December.
Outbreak of Massacre in Southeastern Asia Minor.
The first news of the outbreak of massacre in southeastern
Asia Minor came to Europe and America in a telegram from
Constantinople, dated April 15, saying: "A massacre of
Armenians is in progress to-day at Mersina, a seaport of Asia
Minor on the Mediterranean." In this report the outbreak was
ascribed to the provocation of a murder of two Moslems by an
Armenian; but nothing that appeared subsequently gave any
confirmation to this. The Sultan has been accused of having
instigated the rising, as a means of starting complications
which might check the Young Turks; but that remains unproved.
Mersina, from which the first report of massacre came, is
thirty-six miles by railway from Adana, the capital of the
vilayet of that name and an important missionary station of
several American missionary organizations. Adana was a city of
about 45,000 inhabitants, mostly Mohammedans, but with
Armenians in considerable numbers and a few Greeks. The
Christian missions included important schools. In this city
the murderous mob had begun its work on the 14th of April, a
day prior to the Mersina report, and it is found to have been
the center of the deadly outbreak throughout. The Moslem fury
was directed against the Armenians, and, though two
missionaries were among the killed, they do not appear to have
been objects of attack, but to have suffered incidentally to
the efforts they made for the protection of their Armenian
neighbors and their schools. There were Turkish troops in the
city from the beginning of the slaughter, but they did nothing
to stop it for five days. According to some accounts the vali,
or governor, kept them shut up in quarters; according to others
they took part in the massacre. The Reverend Stephen
Trowbridge, who was in Adana during these terrible days,
declared a little later: "One man is responsible for the
disorders here. This is the vali himself. He had it in his
power to suppress lawlessness and massacre, but deliberately
refrained from doing so. He said simply: ‘We are not
responsible.’ The better class of Turks in Adana," Mr.
Trowbridge continued, "the members of the Committee of Union
and Progress, are deeply grieved and saddened at these
dreadful events. Some of them are ready to join us in relief
work for the Armenians. One Bey already has opened his house
to refugees." This gives color to the belief that the outbreak
was not mere mob-madness, but captained in some way from a
higher center of Turkish authority. Such, indeed, was the firm
conviction of many who were witnesses of what occurred.
Writing on the 24th of April from Tarsus, which bore its share
of the widespread attack, another missionary said: "The
massacres all began on the same day, Wednesday, the 14th,
showing, were there no other proof, that they were inaugurated
by telegraphic orders from Adana, probably from
Constantinople. The only places where the Christians took up
arms for a short time to defend themselves were Adana, Hadjin,
and near the battle-field of Issus; at the latter place they
are still holding out. The statement by Turkish officials that
there was an Armenian insurrection, that Turks were massacred,
and houses burned by the Christians, etc., etc., are simply
abominable lies. This cannot be put too strongly. … During
fifty long hours, while battle and murder and burnings were
going on all around our school and residence in Adana, the
vali, though he had hundreds of soldiers at the Konak, sent
not one to protect us and our property."
According to a report made some months later, after
investigations under the new Turkish regime, and quoted from a
Turkish newspaper, the number killed in all parts of the
province was 20,008; 620 were Moslems, and the remaining
19,400 were non-Moslems. Of the non-Moslems killed, 418 were
Old Chaldeans, 163 Chaldeans, 210 Armenian Catholics, 655
Protestants, 99 Greeks, and the remainder Gregorian Armenians.
The same report estimated the destruction of property as
having been equal to two-thirds of the entire wealth of the
province. The appearance of Adana and of the surrounding
country after the massacres were stopped was described by one
who made the journey from Tarsus to Adana, and who wrote:
{663}
"Leaving behind us the ruins of Tarsus, and the hundreds of
weeping widows and orphans there, we came by train to Adana.
Near the city the road runs for miles through vineyards and
gardens, in former days a beautiful sight. But now it is a
waste of desolation; all the houses of the Christians are
heaps of ruins; in and around those houses more than five
hundred were slain during the three terrible days of April.
The houses of Moslems have not been injured. We noted a like
contrast as respects the numerous farms on the plain between
Tarsus and Adana. And yet the charge is made, and believed,
that the Armenians were the aggressors!
"In the once prosperous Adana, nothing but ruins; it is like
the pictures I have seen of Pompeii. The wretched survivors
wander by twos and threes around the places where once stood
their happy homes; they look more like ghosts than human
beings, these pale, dejected, barefooted widows and orphans."
On the 12th of May, after the Young Turks had recovered power
at Constantinople, the Turkish Embassy at London gave out the
following announcement: "Order and tranquillity prevail
throughout the Sanjak of Djebel-i-Bereket. Troops are arriving
gradually and are being distributed according to the
necessities of each place. The local authorities at Adana are
about to proceed at once to confiscate stolen property and to
disarm Musulmans and non-Musulmans alike. This measure will be
adopted generally in the other parts of the vilayet as soon as
the troops which are coming from the various places have
reached the positions to which they have been assigned. The
authorities are very busily engaged in finding homes for
people who are without shelter and in supplying them with
food. A Commission for that purpose has been appointed at
Adana."
A Court Martial and a Parliamentary Commission were now sent
to Adana to investigate the massacre and punish the guilty.
Their work was soon showing results. On the 24th of May a
report came from Constantinople that "Ferid Pasha has informed
a representative of the Tanin that several of the soldiers who
took part in the recent massacres in Cilicia have been
arrested. Nine persons have already been condemned to death by
the Court-martial. With regard to the responsibility for the
outbreak, the Minister said that, while he could not
definitely ascribe it to official promptings, certain
officials had failed to do their duty, among them the
Mutesarrif of Jebel Bereket, who had been imprisoned pending
an inquiry into his conduct. The reactionaries had certainly
played a part in fomenting the outbreak, but other
elements—which the Minister did not specify—had contributed
thereto."
On the 13th of July it was reported that "an Imperial Iradeh
has been issued ordering the arrest of the ex-Governors of
Adana and Djebel Bereket, the commander of the Adana garrison,
and a number of notables of Cilicia, among whom is the editor
of the Itidal, the notorious Baghdadi."
Two days later it was said that "the ex-Governors of Adana and
Djebel Bereket have been sent to Adana under a strong escort.
Some 20 leading Moslem notables of Adana who have been
arrested will be immediately brought before a Court-Martial.
The Grand Vizier has given orders for a manifesto to be
prepared by the Sheikh-ul-Islam, demonstrating by means of
texts from the Koran and the Traditions that the duty of all
good Moslems is to treat Christians with justice and to regard
them as fellow-citizens with equal rights. It is to be
distributed by the kadis, muftis, and hodjas in every town and
village of the empire, and the most learned ulema are to take
it as their text in the sermons to be preached during next
Ramazan."
July 18th the court-martial was stated to have made a report
which concluded as follows:
"‘Fifteen persons have been already hanged, 800 deserve death,
15,000 deserve hard labour for life, and 80,000 deserve minor
sentences. If it is decided to proceed with the punishment, we
will draw a cordon around the town and deal expeditiously with
the matter.’ In view, however, of the general reconciliation
between the various elements, the Court-martial recommends a
general amnesty on the occasion of the National Fête."
The 11th of August brought accounts of the publication of a
declaration by a Commission of three ministers in the Turkish
Cabinet appointed to prepare it, acquitting the Armenians of
all responsibility for the outbreak at Adana. This
declaration, drawn up after a careful examination of the
reports of the members of the Parliamentary Commission on the
massacres and approved by the Council of Ministers, ascribes
the massacre to the ignorance of the population. "In the reign
of Abdul Hamid the people had become imbued with the idea that
every Armenian was a separatist at heart, and were therefore
averse from equality with the Armenian community. They had
become in consequence the tools of religious or political
agitators. The declaration censures severely the local
officials for their failure, not only to quell the outbreak,
but to warn the Government that the situation in Cilicia was
critical."
One of the Deputies of the Parliamentary Commission which
investigated matters at Adana gave, perhaps, a more distinct
idea of the causes that worked to produce the massacres, in an
interview published during August, when he said:
"The massacre in Adana had two strong causes: reaction and
tyranny. The joy of the July demonstrations [of 1908] had
scarcely passed when, at the beginning of August, tyrannical
tendencies began to appear. The former Mufti of Bakhcheh went
hither and thither declaring that liberty and the constitution
were the work of the Christians, that the constitution was
contrary to the Sheriat. In this way he stirred up Moslems
against the Christians and the constitution. In place of the
joy which appeared among all classes during the first days of
the constitution, a spirit of revenge and enmity against
non-Moslems began to spread."
Evidently the amnesty recommended by the Court-martial in July
was not granted; for the following telegram was sent from
Constantinople on the 12th of December to the London
_Times_: "Twenty-six Moslems, who were sentenced to death
in connexion with the Adana massacres in April last, were
executed at Adana yesterday and to-day. Order was maintained,
although the population was much moved, the women relatives of
the condemned publicly manifesting their grief. One Armenian
is awaiting execution."
{664}
Nevertheless the Armenians have not been satisfied with the
punishments inflicted, and the Armenian Patriarch resigned in
September, as a mark of protest, maintaining that the real
instigators of the massacres went unpunished.
TURKEY: A. D. 1909 (May-December).
Hilmi Pasha, Grand Vizier.
Parliament opened by the new Sultan.
Constitutional Amendments on Religion and Education.
The Committee of Union and Progress.
Change of Ministry.
From the 1st to the 5th of May Tewfik Pasha was Grand Vizier,
by appointment from the new Sultan. Then, as had been
expected, Hilmi Pasha was called to his place, and remained at
the head of the Government until the last week of the year. On
the 20th of the month the Sultan in person opened the session
of Parliament, and, after a speech from the throne had been
read by the Grand Vizier, pronounced the following words: "I
have sworn to respect the Sheriat and the Constitution in its
entirety, and not to transgress for one instant from
safeguarding the national rights and interests of the country.
You must now in return take the necessary oath." The oath was
then taken by the Senators and Deputies in turn, his Majesty
watching the proceedings from the Imperial box. On the 24th
the Grand Vizier announced the programme of measures and
general policy to be undertaken by his Ministry, and received,
after debate, a vote of confidence by 190 to 5. The
reconstituted Government was now a fully organized fact.
Questions concerning the attitude of the State towards
religion and education, as it should be defined in the
Constitution, were among the earliest of high importance to be
brought before the Parliament. On the 8th of June it adopted
an amendment to the article in the Constitution of 1876
reading as follows:
See, (in this Volume)
CONSTITUTION OF TURKEY.
"Islam is the State religion.
"The State, while safeguarding this principle, guarantees the
free exercise of all cults recognized in the Empire, and
maintains the religious privileges granted to divers
communities, provided public order and morality be not
infringed."
On the subject of education the Constitution was amended to
read:
"Education is free.
"All schools are placed under the control of the Government.
The necessary measures shall be taken to assure to every
Ottoman subject a uniform system of education. There shall be
no interference with the religious education of the different
communities."
The Christian communities, especially the Greek, objected
strenuously to this, fearing that governmental control would
be found to mean the imposition of the Turkish language in all
schools, as an instrument of nationalization.
Another proposed amendment, making members of the Chamber of
Deputies eligible for the posts of Parliamentary
Under-Secretaries of State, failed to secure the requisite
two-thirds majority, and this was regarded as a defeat of the
civilian leaders of the "Young Turk" Committee of Union and
Progress, who were supposed to be desirous of holding the
posts in question, while sitting also in the Chamber.
The firm control of affairs which the Committee in question
had exercised throughout the revolutionary movement, while
keeping itself mysteriously anonymous in the background, had
been extraordinarily successful, indicative of high wisdom and
a very genuine public spirit. But the forces thus handled by
the Committee, especially in the military element of the
revolution, were growing restive, it would appear, under the
feeling of too much subordination, and gave increasing signs
of discontent with the invisibility of the wires by which they
were pulled. Without doubt, it was evidence of this which led
the Committee, at a meeting at Salonika, in October, to
resolve and announce that their organization should no longer
be a secret society, but open to public knowledge and directed
henceforth by a responsible executive. Whether the Committee
did or did not strengthen itself by thus coming into the open,
it has maintained its ascendancy and still exercises a
controlling power.
The second session of Parliament was opened by the Sultan, on
the 14th of November, with a speech of roseate contentedness
in its contemplation of Turkish affairs. Late in December a
change of Ministry occurred, in somewhat obscure connection
with a consolidation of steamer lines on the Euphrates. A
British line of steamers, known as the Lynch Line, which had
been running on that river since 1860, was being consolidated
with a Turkish line that the Turkish Government controlled,
and something in the transaction which raised an issue between
Parliament and the Grand Vizier. Hilmi Pasha, led the latter
to resign December 28. Nobody seems to have doubted, however,
that the real cause of his leaving office was in the
willingness of the Committee that he should do so. General
Mahmud Shevket, the able military leader of the Revolution,
was invited to form a Cabinet, but declined, as he is said to
have done before. The high office was then conferred on Hakki
Bey, Turkish Ambassador at Rome, and Mahmud Shevket Pasha
accepted office in his Cabinet as Minister of War.
TURKEY: A. D. 1909 (October).
Railway and Irrigation Projects in the Tigris-Euphrates Delta.
Sir William Willcocks, the British engineer who has been
engaged for some time past in surveys for the Turkish
Government, having reference to irrigation and railway
improvements for the reclamation of the great Mesopotamian
region, made a report to the Ministry of Public Works at
Constantinople in October, 1909, of which the following
account was given to the Press through Reuter’s Agency:
"Sir William Willcocks advocates the construction of a railway
from Baghdad to the Mediterranean. The proposed railway would
start from Baghdad, cross the Euphrates at Feludia, and follow
the Valley to Hit. At Hit the line would take the Euphrates
Valley and traverse the flat desert in a straight line to El
Kaim, near Abu Kemal, the northern limit of the cataracts.
From El Kaim to Der Zor, the Euphrates has no cataracts, and
the river Khabour, which joins the Euphrates at Mayadin, the
ancient Rehoboth, is, like the Euphrates, navigable during the
whole year. These parts of the Euphrates and Khabour could be
extensively developed and all their products transported to El
Kaim by boat and thence by rail. From El Kaim the railway
would proceed to Tidmor (Palmyra) and follow the old trade
route over a flat desert supplied with water. From Palmyra the
line would go either to Homs or Damascus. The total length of
the railway from Baghdad to Damascus is placed at 880
kilometres.
{665}
"The report next deals with the works of irrigation to be
undertaken at once. These consist of barrages of the Hindich
canal, dams on the Habbania and Sakhlawia, and works for the
navigation on the Tigris. The total cost of the entire works
on the Euphrates is estimated at £T1,034,000, while that of
the works on the Tigris is placed at £T1,110,480. The cost of
the works to be undertaken forthwith attains the following
figures:—
On the Euphrates, £T822,700;
on the Tigris, £T710,000;
total, £T1,532,700.
The railway could be built in two years, while the irrigation
works would take eight years to complete. To begin with, one
million hectares of land would be restored to its former
prosperity out of five million hectares which comprise the
Tigris-Euphrates delta."
----------TURKEY: End--------
TUSKEGEE INSTITUTE:
Its Twenty-fifth Anniversary.
See (in this Volume)
EDUCATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1906.
TWEEDMOUTH, LORD:
First Lord of the Admiralty.
See (in this Volume)
ENGLAND: A. D. 1905-1906.
TWO-HUNDRED-AND-THREE METRE HILL.
See (in this Volume)
JAPAN: A. D. 1904-1905 (MAY-JANUARY).
TWO POWER STANDARD, NAVAL.
See (in this Volume)
War, The PREPARATIONS for.
TURNEY, DANIEL BRAXTON:
Nominated for President of the United States.
See (in this Volume)
UNITED STATES: A. D. 1908 (APRIL-NOVEMBER).
TYRREL, Father George:
Writer of a Famous Letter on Questions of Religion.
His death.
The Reverend George Tyrrel, widely known as Father Tyrrel,
died on the 15th of July, 1909, at Storrington, Sussex,
England. He was the writer of a letter which gave a notable
impulse to the movement of thought in the Roman Catholic
Church known as "Modernism," which Pope Pius X. condemned as
heretical in his encyclical of 1907. The letter was addressed
to an English man of science (supposed to have been Professor
Mivart) who, being a Roman Catholic, found difficulty in
reconciling his scientific convictions with the tenets of his
Church. Parts of the letter obtained publication in Italy, and
led to the expulsion of Father Tyrrel from the Society of
Jesus. He then gave publication to the full text of the
letter, under the title of "A Much Abused Letter." On the
appearance of the encyclical against Modernism he criticised
it with keenness, and was virtually excommunicated from the
Church. The fact that on his death-bed, when stricken with
speechlessness, he received the sacraments of the Church, gave
rise to much controversy, as to his volition in the matter and
as to the justification of the priest who ministered to him.
Father Tyrrel had entered the Roman Church in 1879, under the
influence of the writings of Cardinal Newman.
TZE-HSI:
Dowager-Empress of China.
Her death.
See (in this Volume)
CHINA: A. D. 1908 (NOVEMBER).
U.
UGANDA:
Its habitability by Whites.
See (in this Volume)
AFRICA.
ULEMA, THE.
See (in this Volume)
TURKEY: A. D. 1909 (JANUARY-MAY).
UNDERFED SCHOOL CHILDREN.
See (in this Volume)
POVERTY, THE PROBLEMS OF.
UNEMPLOYMENT, THE PROBLEM OF.
See (in this Volume)
POVERTY, THE PROBLEMS OF.
UNIFORM STATE LAWS.
See (in this Volume)
LAW AND ITS COURTS: UNITED STATES.
UNITED DRY GOODS COMPANIES.
See (in this Volume)
COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL, &C.: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1909.
UNITED FREE CHURCH, OF SCOTLAND.
See (in this Volume)
SCOTLAND: A. D. 1904-1905.
UNITED MINE-WORKERS, OF AMERICA.
See (in this Volume)
LABOR ORGANIZATION: UNITED STATES.
UNITED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, OF SCOTLAND.
See (in this Volume)
SCOTLAND: A. D. 1904.
----------UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Start--------
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1901 (September).
The Assassination of President McKinley.
"On the sixth of September, President McKinley was shot by an
anarchist while attending the Pan-American Exposition at
Buffalo, and died in that city on the fourteenth of that
month. Of the last seven elected Presidents, he is the third
who has been murdered, and the bare recital of this fact is
sufficient to justify grave alarm among all loyal American
citizens. Moreover, the circumstances of this, the third
assassination of an American President, have a peculiarly
sinister significance. Both President Lincoln and President
Garfield were killed by assassins of types unfortunately not
uncommon in history; President Lincoln falling a victim to the
terrible passions aroused by four years of civil war, and
President Garfield to the revengeful vanity of a disappointed
office-seeker. President McKinley was killed by an utterly
depraved criminal belonging to that body of criminals who
object to all governments, good and bad alike, who are against
any form of popular liberty if it is guaranteed by even the
most just and liberal laws, and who are as hostile to the
upright exponent of a free people’s sober will as to the
tyrannical and irresponsible despot.
"It is not too much to say that at the time of President
McKinley’s death he was the most widely loved man in all the
United States; while we have never had any public man of his
position who has been so wholly free from the bitter
animosities incident to public life. His political opponents
were the first to bear the heartiest and most generous tribute
to the broad kindliness of nature, the sweetness and
gentleness of character, which so endeared him to his close
associates.
{666}
To a standard of lofty integrity in public life he united the
tender affections and home virtues which are all-important in
the make-up of national character. A gallant soldier in the
great war for the Union, he also shone as an example to all
our people because of his conduct in the most sacred and
intimate of home relations. There could be no personal hatred
of him, for he never acted with aught but consideration for
the welfare of others. No one could fail to respect him who
knew him in public or private life. The defenders of those
murderous criminals who seek to excuse their criminality by
asserting that it is exercised for political ends, inveigh
against wealth and irresponsible power. But for this
assassination even this base apology cannot be urged. …
"The blow was aimed not at this President, but at all
Presidents; at every symbol of government. President McKinley
was as emphatically the embodiment of the popular will of the
Nation expressed through the forms of law as a New England
town meeting is in similar fashion the embodiment of the
law-abiding purpose and practice of the people of the town. On
no conceivable theory could the murder of the President be
accepted as due to protest against ‘inequalities in the social
order,’ save as the murder of all the freemen engaged in a
town meeting could be accepted as a protest against that
social inequality which puts a malefactor in jail."
_Message of President Roosevelt to Congress,
December 3, 1901._
See (in this Volume)
Buffalo: A. D. 1901.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1901 (September).
Settlement of Boxer Indemnity from China.
See (in this Volume)
CHINA: A. D. 1901-1908.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1901 (December).
Communication of German Claims and Complaints against Venezuela.
The President’s Reply.
Interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine.
See (in this Volume)
VENEZUELA: A. D. 1901.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1901-1902.
The "Boom Years" in Trade and Investment of Capital.
See (in this Volume)
FINANCE AND TRADE: A. D. 1901-1909.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1901-1902.
Efforts of Secretary Hay to maintain the "Open Door"
in Manchuria.
See (in this Volume)
CHINA: A. D. 1901-1902.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1901-1902 (October-January).
The Second International Conference of American Republics.
See (in this Volume)
AMERICAN REPUBLICS.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1901-1902 (November-February).
Negotiation and Ratification of the Second Hay-Pauncefote
Treaty, relative to a Ship Canal between the Atlantic
and Pacific Oceans.
See (in this Volume)
PANAMA CANAL: A. D. 1901-1902.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1901-1903.
Urgency of President Roosevelt for more Effective Legislation
to control the Operation of so-called Trusts.
See (in this Volume)
COMBINATIONS: INDUSTRIAL, &c.:
UNITED STATES: A. D. 1901-1903.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1901-1903.
Purchase of Franchises and Property of French Panama Canal Co.
Failure of Canal Treaty with Colombia.
Secession and recognized Independence of Panama.
Treaty with the Republic of Panama.
Undertaking of the Canal.
See (in this Volume)
PANAMA CANAL.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1901-1905.
The Cabinet of President Roosevelt during his First Term.
On succeeding the murdered President McKinley, to fill the
unexpired term, President Roosevelt retained his predecessor’s
Cabinet, three members of which remained in it throughout the
term. These were John Hay, Secretary of State, Ethan Allen
Hitchcock, Secretary of the Interior, and James Wilson,
Secretary of Agriculture. Lyman J. Gage, Secretary of the
Treasury, resigned in 1902 and was succeeded by Leslie M.
Shaw. Elihu Root, Secretary of War, was succeeded by William
H. Taft in 1904. John D. Long, Secretary of the Navy, retired
in 1902, to be succeeded by William H. Moody, who went two
years later to the Department of Justice, as Attorney-General,
taking the place of Philander C. Knox, and being followed in
the Navy Department by Paul Morton. Charles E. Smith,
Postmaster-General, left the Cabinet in 1902, and his place
was taken by Henry C. Payne, who was succeeded in turn by
Robert J. Wynne in 1904. The Department of Commerce and Labor,
created in February, 1903, was filled first by George B.
Cortelyou, until 1904, then by Victor H. Metcalf.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1901-1905.
Urgency of President Roosevelt for more effective Railway Rate
Legislation.
See (in this Volume)
RAILWAYS: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1870-1908.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1901-1906.
Governmental Action against Corporate Wrongdoing.
A summary of Legislation, Litigation, and Court Decisions.
See (in this Volume)
COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1901-1906.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1901-1909.
Progress of Civil Service Reform under President Roosevelt.
See (in this Volume)
CIVIL SERVICE REFORM: UNITED STATES.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1901-1909.
The great National Movement for an organized Conservation of
Natural Resources.
See (in this Volume)
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: UNITED STATES.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1902.
Arbitration at The Hague of the Pious Fund Dispute with Mexico.
See (in this Volume)
MEXICO: A. D. 1902.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1902 (August).
Assertion to Germany of Principles involved in the Right of
Expatriation.
See (in this Volume)
NATURALIZATION.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1902 (January).
Founding of the Carnegie Institution of Washington.