Turkey

tur'ki, an empire in southeastern Europe and western Asia. It is called also the Ottoman Empire, from Othman, the founder of the ruling house. The Turks lay claim to Egypt and other territory in Africa. Turkey in Europe has an area of 65,350 square miles and a population of 6,130,000. The corresponding statistics for Turkey in Asia are 693,610 square miles, and a population of 16,898,700. Tripoli and other African territory, not counting Egypt, add 400,000 square miles of territory and 1,000,000 inhabitants.

BOUNDARIES. It is putting it mildly to say the boundaries of Turkey are irregular. The empire lies on both sides of the Dardanelles and the Bosporus like a pair of saddlebags hung awry, save that saddlebags have shape and the two bundles of Turkish territory have none. The chief land mass of European Turkey extends from the Adriatic to the Black Sea. It is bordered on the north by the revolted Balkan states, and is bounded in part on the south by Greece and the Aegean. Turkey in Asia includes Asia Minor, and extends in general from the Mediterranean eastward to Persia, with arms running southward along the eastern coast of the Red Sea and the western coast of the Persian Gulf respectively. Long stretches of seacoast form natural boundaries, but the landward boundaries are everywhere artificial.

SURFACE. The physical features of an empire extending from the Aegean Sea to Persia, and from the Caspian Sea to the sands of Africa, are necessarily varied. There are no stupendous mountain ranges in Turkey. The shores are bold; the interior is decidedly mountainous, with fertile plain and valley. Parallel ranges divide Turkey in Europe into Albania, Macedonia, and Thrace. The most noted peak in Asia is Mt. Ararat on the Russian border. Other mountains are the Taurus and the Lebanon ranges. The valley of the Tigris and the Euphrates is the greatest single tract of level, low land. There are several salt lakes in Asiatic Turkey, including the Dead Sea in Palestine and Lake Van in Armenia. Scutari Lake on the Montenegrin border is the largest body of water in the Balkan peninsula. The Tigris and the Euphrates are the only large rivers. The Jordan is noted in sacred geography.

MINERALS. The empire possesses untold wealth in mines little worked. The more valuable ores are silver, zinc, iron, antimony, and copper. There are supplies of emery, borax, coal, petroleum, arsenic, and mercury. The world's supply of meerschaum comes from Asia Minor. There are important sponge fisheries in the Mediterranean, mother of pearl in the Red Sea, and pearls in the Persian Gulf.

MANUFACTURES. Turkey is celebrated for the manufacture of rugs, carpets, leather, oils, and soap. Half of the entire foreign trade is carried on with England. The United States comes fourth in the list of customers.

TRANSPORTATION, ETC. During the last twenty-five years over 3,000 miles of railway have been built. Telephone and telegraph lines are being extended. American machinery is beginning to appear in harvest fields. Property and life are becoming more secure. With a decently responsible, energetic government, Turkey will take rank with the nations of western Europe.

ANIMALS. The list of wild animals and notable plants would be a large one. The lion is found in the valley of the Euphrates and the bear in the mountains of Lebanon. The wild boar, squirrel, chamois, deer, beaver, hedgehog, wolf, marten, badger, and fox still linger in European Turkey. The hyena and the jackal are found in the Asiatic vilayets. The camel is a favorite beast of burden. The horse, ox, goat, ass, and sheep are common domestic animals. The buffalo is a common beast of burden in Asia.

FLORA. The vegetation varies from the subtropical date of Mesopotamia and the coffee of Yemen to the fruits of southern Europe. There are 20,000,000 acres of neglected forests in the empire. Extensive plains bordering on Arabia in Asia are treeless and fit only for poor pasturage. The trees of the north are the oak, the ash, the beech, and the basswood. The apple, the apricot, the cherry, and the pear have their favorite valleys. There are olive and orange groves in Albania. The plum of Damascus and the Smyrna fig are noted. The walnut and the almond thrive in localities; cedars yet grow in Lebanon. The vine grows on many a hillside. The plains of Adrianople are famous for roses. The leaves of the mulberry feed the silkworm. A species of maize grows wild like a grass in warm, lowland regions. In fact, the Italians call corn the "Turkish grain."

AGRICULTURE. Though there are sterile tracts lacking rainfall, Turkey includes some of the most fertile land on the globe. Owing to poor roads and poor markets, much fertile land is unoccupied nevertheless. Agriculture carried on in a rude way is the leading occupation. Here again the peasant is obliged to hand over a share of his produce to the tax-gatherer. The chief productions are tobacco, grain, cotton, figs, nuts, almonds, grapes, olives, orchard fruits, coffee, madder, opium, and gums.

HISTORICAL. The Turks are an Asiatic people, possibly from the region west of China or around Lake Baikal. They are related distantly to the Chinese. They were converted to Mohammedanism by the Arabs and became in time masters of the Arabs and of the Mohammedan world. In 1453 they took possession of Constantinople. In the next century, under Solyman the Magnificent, they bade fair to overrun Europe, but were checked under the walls of Vienna. In consequence of the corruption and incapacity of many sultans, the power of the Turks has waned steadily. Greece revolted. The small states of the lower Danube have secured their independence one by one. Cyprus and Crete have been lost. Egypt is practically a British possession. The Turks would have been driven out of Europe before this but for the difficulty experienced by the powers in agreeing to a plan for the future. The Eastern Question, as it is called, is still an important one. In 1852 the Russian czar, Nicholas I, called the Ottoman emperor the "Sick man of the East," a fitting name.

POPULATION, ETC. The dominant element in the empire is the Turks, but they do not comprise over a fourth of the population. There are 4,000,000 Arabs alone. The Turks and Arabs are Mohammedans. They worship in over 2,000 mosques. The language of the mosque is Arabic. The interpreters of the Koran are called Mufti. The government grants nominal freedom of worship to Catholics, Greeks, Armenians, Syrians, Maronites, Protestants, and Jews. All Mohammedan males over twenty years of age are held to military service up to the age of forty. Non-Mohammedan males of all ages are taxed a dollar and a half a year in place of service. The nomad Arabs neither pay nor serve, for the simple reason that the government cannot get at them. An army of 700,000 is kept under arms. The war strength of the empire is twice that number. The Turkish soldiers are considered brave fighters.

GOVERNMENT. The empire is divided for administrative purposes into vilayets. Each is placed under a governor. The sultan is assisted by a grand vizier and a cabinet of ministers of war, navy, finance, foreign affairs, etc. High dignitaries are addressed as effendi, bey, or pasha. The rule of the sultan and his officials has been uncertain, oppressive, rapacious, and unjust. Tax gatherers are so grasping that there is little inducement to industry. A favorite form of punishment is the bastinado, or whipping the bare soles of the feet with a stick. Culprits are executed by strangling with a bowstring. Turkish atrocity and misgovernment exert a blighting effect on once smiling provinces. The "Unspeakable Turk" will neither thrive nor let anyone else thrive. The opinion in which the Turk has been held by Christendom was well expressed by Harry Pratt Judson writing twenty years ago:

The Turks are an anachronism in modern Europe. They belong in the Middle Ages, and it is a pity they are not all there. These people are aliens to the ideas of European civilization. They are aliens in race and language. They are Turanians, with no share of Aryan blood or Aryan thought. They have no inheritance in the Greek and Roman culture which has created modern life in the west. Their classic literature is in Arabic. They are Asiatic, not European.

They are aliens in religion. The Mohammedan faith has from its inception been more hostile to Christianity than has any other creed. Christian missions to-day make practically no converts from Islam. And the Turks inherit a thousand years of war against the cross.

They are aliens in social institutions. Polygamy and slavery, "twin relics of barbarism," are opposed to the instincts of advanced western life. But both thrive among the Turks. It is the Mohammedan natives who today keep alive the slave raids in the heart of Africa which Christian powers are striving to end.

They are aliens in political ideas. Government with them is, as has been said of Russia, "despotism tempered by assassination." They simply have no conception of popular sovereignty.

They are aliens in progress. The very essence of their institutions is changelessness. Their law book is the Koran--and that cannot be amended or repealed. Their attempts at reform are only on the surface--they may wear silk hats and Parisian coats, but they are Turks underneath. Napoleon said, "Scratch a Russian and you will find a Cossack under his skin." And the modern Turk, is, in fact, a medieval survival.

In short, the Turks in Europe are a horde of Asiatic adventurers encamped in the fairest lands of the continent, and holding the native races practically in slavery.

Until 1909 the government was an absolute monarchy. The ruler is known as the sultan. His will has been supreme, except that he was guided by the precepts of the Koran and the laws of his predecessors. He maintained a harem of women at Constantinople. At the death of a sultan he is succeeded ordinarily by the oldest living male born in the harem. Thus the successor may be an uncle, a brother, or a son of the dying sultan. The women of a harem come chiefly by purchase from Circassia. No regular marriage is deemed requisite. All children born in the harem have equal rights. There is no nobility. The humblest citizen of the empire is eligible to the highest office in the gift of the sultan.

In 1909 a political party known as the Young Turks forced the sultan, Abdul Hamid, to grant a constitution; 42,000 political prisoners were set free. Later, finding the sultan treacherous, they deposed him and elevated an older brother, Mohammed V, to the throne. He had been kept under surveillance, a gilded prisoner, for 33 years. Receiving a deputation from the Assembly, he said: "I am pleased to become the first constitutional sovereign. Doubtless my successor will improve upon me, but you may rely upon my doing my best. I also have suffered oppression, and can therefore enter into the feelings of my fellow sufferers." Later speaking to the reporter of the London Chronicle, he said:

Say that I have ever been the convinced and ardent supporter of the cause of enlightenment, liberty, and progress. By the help of Allah, the most high, I shall follow unswervingly the path of duty, seeking to act justly and honorably to all men, be they giaours or true believers.

My voice has been silent for thirty-three years, but the voice of true conscience has never been stilled. You ask me what I think of the situation in modern Turkey as I find it today after the political resuscitation of long years. I will tell you that tho shut up here I have contrived, feebly perhaps, to keep in touch with the march of progress of the outside world.

The few partizans who have been loyal to me through the dark days of adversity are aware that from my earliest years, while faithful to the precepts and teachings of the Koran, I have been an advocate of a constitutional charter and parliamentary institutions. From this opinion I have never deviated. I hold it today as strongly as I did when a young man, seeking to imbibe the knowledge of Western civilization and its methods.

I am a firm supporter of the policy of young Turkey, with full enjoyment of political freedom. I see nothing in it incompatible with Mohammedan sacred law.

The old sultan was required, as the price of his life, to surrender vast hoards of money. His harem was disbanded. The Young Turks announced a program of progress. They propose the abolition of polygamy, genuine religious toleration, and free education. If this program can be carried out there is prosperity ahead for Turkey and for the Turk. Already (1910) several thousand officials of the Hamidian period have been dismissed or pensioned. New governors have been appointed to many provinces. The reorganization of the ministry of finance, and the appointment of a finance commission, including a number of the European officers formerly engaged in Macedonia, promise the best results. The army has been overhauled, old Hamidian officers being sent down, even a commander being reduced to the rank of colonel. The throwing open of the army to non-Mussulmans and the appointment of several Christian governors to Mohammedan provinces are other courageous steps that go to justify the confidence with which Europe saw the recent rise of the Young Turks to power.

STATISTICS. The following statistics are the latest to be had from trustworthy sources:

See Constantinople; Damascus; Palestine; Smyrna; Armenia; Syria; Babylon; Ararat; Euphrates; Koran; Hellespont; Crimea; Rumania; Belgrade; Meerschaum; Figs; Arabia; Mecca