TURKEY AND GREECE.
IT is of very little use to speculate on the present position of the quarrel between Turkey and Greece. The Govern- ments, probably for good reasons, are strictly silent, and the newspapers are obviously misinformed. No two of them agree, and their correspondents, almost without exception, adopt a tone which shows that they are writing under the in- fluence either of wishes or of preconceived ideas. Those who prefer Lord Beaconsfield's policy represent Turkey as recalci- trant, Bulgaria as arming, Russia as intriguing. and Prince Bismarck as arranging some huge plan, under which the Hohen- zollerns are to appear as protectors of Turkey, while Austria is to seize all Turkish territory down to Salonica ! On the other hand, the writers friendly to Mr. Gladstone's policy describe the Sultan as wavering, and inclined to yield ; the Russians as interested in maintaining the European accord ; Germany as looking on slightly in disdain ; and the Greeks as confident that their only enemies will be the Mahommedan Albanians, whom they may be able to conciliate or paralyse.
All this while very little is accurately known, and it may be as well to remind our readers what that little is. The first point, and this one is officially guaranteed, is that the accord of Europe, as respects the Greek frontier and that of Monte- negro, has not been broken yet; and that the Turkish Govern- ment, in resisting on those points, would be resisting a definite European mandate. The Porte has never done this, in all its recent history, and as it is not stronger, or more fanatical, or more determined than it was, there is an antecedent impro- bability that it will do this now. It may, but if it does, it will act on motives apart from ordinary calculation, which it is worse than useless to discuss, until its action becomes so wilful or unusual as to require to be explained. The second point is, that the Sultan has every personal motive—some of the motives being of the most pressing and emergent kind—to compel the Powers to show their accord, and so convince the soldiery, the Mussulman mob of the capital, and above all the Albanian guards, that he is not yielding to any force which it is possible to resist, and above all, not yielding to the Greeks, whom the Ottomans hate with the haired alike of masters for escaped slaves, and of spendthrifts for usurious money-lenders. His authority depends on this belief, and for his authority he is jealous to mania, clinging to it not only as Sultan and head of a House with six centuries of absolute power behind it, but as possessor of the vague but vast claim to Mussulman obedience attaching to the Klialifate. And the third point is that Europe, having pronounced its mandate, must cause itqo be executed. If it does not, it abolishes the last vestige of a final political tribunal for European affairs, openly surrenders all States to the dominion of mere force, and makes it impos- sible that even after a great war there should be a permanent and, so to speak, legalised peace. Europe must execute its orders, even if it has to run the grave risks involved in the despatch of combined squadrons to protect Greece or coerce Constantinople. There is no other way out of the conclusion, if the Sultan resists, except to admit that the confusion is without remedy, that Europe is powerless, and that the Powers must struggle for the prize about to be left without an owner, by force of arms.
Under these circumstances, which all alike will admit to be true, the natural course of events would be that the Sultan should declare the decision of Europe to be ultra tires, should threaten to fight, should make every preparation for fighting, and should not desist until his people had recognised that Europe could not be divided, and that they must either yield, or defeat Europe in a Naval engagement, or await an attack on Constantinople. They do not even hope for the second contingency, and they have hitherto never risked the third alt2rnative, and therefore they will permit the first to be adopted. This is, as we believe, the Sultan's attitude, and this is the course for which the Powers, who at first hoped for a quicker result, are already beginning to prepare. Such a situation does not, so long as the Sultan controls it, necessarily involve war, and is only full of danger because the extent of his control is always an uncertain quantity. He is quite absolute in theory, but he is liable to be carried away by an outburst of popular indignation, or to be swept away by a sudden insurrection in favour of some new Sultan. A Mussulman people, and especially one so brave as the Otto- man, is always at the mercy of two latent but deep-rooted con- victions,—one, that God will sooner or later strike in for Islam, and against the Infidel—a conviction which makes all calcula- tions about means superfluous or ridiculous ; and another, that Islam is never beaten, except when its leader is in- competent. The former is natural, while Mussulmans believe their faith, and they do believe it ; and the latter, though erroneous, is justified to Ottomans by the history of centuries. Either conviction may produce a movement before which the Sultan would be powerless ; but while he reigns and is free to act, he will not, as we believe, put all to stake on so hopeless an issue as defiance to the European world. He does not want to risk the loss of Asia as well as Europe, or to quit the pleasantest residence on earth. He may, in his desire to im- press his subjects, go too far, or stand out too long, or put the torch to the magazine below him, the passionate pride of the caste which supports him ; but, voluntarily, he will do none of these things.
But he may be backed in secret by some Power ? Of course he may, as he may be backed by a secret assurance that Greece would like Candia better than Epirus ; but where is the evid- ence of that treachery ? The Czar, even if he were ready for war, could not fight for the Ottoman domination. He could not trust his own soldiers, or his own peasants, or his own priesthood, if he did. The Hapsburg cannot quarrel a outrance with the Slays, whose bayonets saved him in 1848.
Prince Bismarck is not going, for the sake of Turkey, to isolate Germany, and enable all Europe to declare that she protects barbarism against civilisation, Asia against Europe, and that, too, after he has signed a decision to the precisely contrary effect. The Western Powers are not about to put the whole world in the crucible by quarrelling among themselves about Turkey. The Power which supports the Sultan must do it openly, must do it cynically, must do it in the face of treaties and engagements, and all civilised opinion. It may be done, of course, for madness seizes great men ; but we do not believe that it will be done, or that Europe will divide, until some proposition is made for a rearrangement of territory which the Power affected could declare from the beginning to be inadmissible. The proposal to extend Greece and Montenegro is clearly not such a proposition.
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