31 OCTOBER 1914, Page 1

NEWS OF THE WEEK.

THE most important event of the past week is the entrance of Turkey into the war, announced in the newspapers of Friday. For some time the Committee of Union and Progress, the gang of desperate and intriguing adventurers who control the Porte, have been doing their best by various unfriendly acts to provoke Russia and Britain into a declaration of war. Having failed in this, and probably also being warned that a peace party of considerable dimen- sions was growing up in Constantinople, they decided to force war by active hostilities, and on Thursday sent their ships to bombard peaceful Russian towns on the Black Sea coast. On Thursday morning the Breslau' appeared off Theodosia and the Hamidieh ' off Novorossiisk, while the afternoon papers of Friday reported further acts of naval aggression.