Relieved by the Japanese War of his fear of Russia,
the Sultan is earnestly endeavouring to baffle the very weak efforts of the remaining Powers to protect his Christian subjects. In Macedonia Hilmi Pasha has informed the foreign officers commanding the reorganised gendarmerie that they are not at liberty to receive any complaints from villagers, or any one else not under their command. They are, in fact, to be drill-sergeants and nothing more. They have remonstrated, but Hilmi Pasha informs them that his orders from Constantinople are peremptory ; and the Sultan would hardly have issued such orders if he were not sure that he could defy the—probably disunited—Ambassadors. The oppression of the Macedonians will therefore continue, and will undoubtedly cause a renewal of the insurrection, which, if the Sultan is left free, will be put down in the old way by massacre. In Armenia, again, it is now stated that three • thousand Christians have been put to death ; and there is grave reason to fear that the Kurds are provoking a move- ment which will give them an excuse for driving the Armenians into the plains, where they may be dealt with at discretion. Unless Austria intervenes, there is apparently no remedy ; and Austria will not move unless Great Britain will help her, and perhaps not then until assured that Russia cannot pour an army into the Balkans. There is talk, no doubt, of an alliance between Roumania, Servia, and Bulgaria; but they are divided by jealousies which seem incurable, and by the want of a military leader whom all will obey. The situation cannot last; but it will not, we fear, be ameliorated until the misery of European Turkey has become an even greater scandal to Christendom than it is at present.
Previous page
