It is hardly necessary for us to say that our
sympathies are with the Young Turks. We cannot, however, disguise from ourselves the difficulty of their task, and, short of a miracle, we should say that in the end the Old Turks will beat the Young Turks. We say this because we believe that primitive Mohammedanism has at last been thoroughly roused, is deter- mined to assert itself, and is the faith of the majority. It tolerated the revolution of last July because the oppression of Yildiz had become more than men could endure. Now that this oppression has been largely forgotten the threatened over- throw of the Sacred Law seems the greater evil. But though we fear that the Old Turks will beat the Young Turks, a pro- longed period of civil war is quite possible, nay, likely. But civil war in Turkey is almost sure to lead to foreign interven- tion. Already we read of Bulgaria mobilising, of Servia and Montenegro growing restless, of the Serbs in the Sanjak of Novi Bazar being ready to take up arms, of the movement for an independent Albania having broken out, and of the old forces of anarchy being let loose in Macedonia.
