_Immediately on receiving official notification of the rupture of
diplomatic relations between Austria and Servia, the Turkish Grand
Vizier hastened to inform the Diplomatic Corps in Constantinople that
Turkey would remain neutral in the conflict. Explaining this official
Turkish declaration, the following editorial article appeared early in
August in the Ministerial paper, Tasfiri-Efkiar, published in
Constantinople:_
The declarations made by the Grand Vizier to the Ambassadors of the
powers, in order to reassure them as to the dispositions of Turkey, do
not constitute from a legal point of view a declaration of neutrality,
according to the stipulations of The Hague Conventions; likewise the
Austrian ultimatum to Servia, viewed in the same light, is not
tantamount to a declaration of war. In fact, The Hague Conventions
demand a formal declaration in both cases. But if the formal
declaration of Turkish neutrality cannot be made before she has
received an official notification of the existing war, it is
nevertheless true that the head of the Government, in his
conversations with the Ambassadors, has given them to understand what
the opinion of the people is here. And even without this, the efforts
of the Turkish Government, the desire, and the policy of Turkey, are
so explicit that there is no ground for doubt as to the significance
of the declarations of the Grand Vizier.
Turkey has never asked for war, as she always has worked toward
avoiding it. But we must not misunderstand the meaning of certain
terms. Neutrality does not mean indifference. The present
Austro-Servian conflict is to a supreme degree interesting to us. In
the first place, one of our erstwhile opponents is fighting against a
much stronger enemy. In the natural course of things Servia, which
till lately was expressing, in a rather open way, her solidarity as a
nation, still provoking us, and Greece will be materially weakened. In
the second place, the results of this war may surpass the limits of a
conflict between two countries, and in that case our interests will be
just as materially affected.
We must therefore keep our eyes open, as the circumstances are
momentarily changing, and do not permit us to let escape certain
advantages which we can secure by an active and rightly acting
diplomacy.
The policy of neutrality will impose on us the obligation of avoiding
to side with either of the belligerents, but the same policy will
force us to take all the necessary measures for safeguarding our
interests and our frontiers. If it be true, as reported, that the
pacificist tendencies of Turkey constitute one of the safest
guarantees of peace in the Balkans, then we must hope that on the day
when a general settlement of accounts will be made Europe will be
willing to recognize the important part played by Turkey in the
preservation of peace in the Near East, and will be eager to rectify,
if not all, at least one part of the wrongs she has caused to our
country.