Seven hundred years ago there appeared in Anatolia a small tribe of warrior nomads from the little-known fastnesses of Central Asia. Led by the dashing hero, Ertoghrul, the little band set out, as had their relatives the Magyars, to win themselves land of their own. Not many years after their arrival these newcomers from Turkestan became converted to the faith of Islam, and from their leader of the time, whose name, Osman, was the same as that of Mohammed's companion, the third caliph, the tribe became known as Ottomans. Into the disrupted society of the time, suffering as it was from the decadence and corruption of Byzantine rule and frequent strife with the Seljuks, the entrance of the Ottoman Turks, flushed with successful conquest and inspired with religious enthusiasm by their recent conversion, proved a unifying, if somewhat fearsome, force.
In 1453, after two centuries of warfare and assimilation of the motley and diversified peoples who dwelt in the Balkan Peninsula and Western Asia Minor, the Ottomans captured Constantinople and became undisputed masters of the regions which had once been the nucleus of the proud Eastern Roman Empire. Conquest followed on conquest in brilliant succession until the climax was reached in the sixteenth century, when Selim's crushing campaigns and Suleiman's genius in palace and on battlefield exalted the Turkish Empire to a position of unparalleled magnificence, making Constantinople the fear of Christendom and the hope of Islam.
Despite the splendid organization set up by Suleiman for the organization and administration of his vast Empire, the seventeenth century found the Turkish conquerors softening under the insidious influence of Byzantium's luxurious vices, and for nearly two hundred years, with hardly a flicker of the old-time dashing brilliance to relieve the sordid gloom of a decaying dynasty, the light of the Empire waned to a point where genuine alarm was felt. The vitality which had been the heritage of the Turks from their wild nomadic life was gone. Creativity had been crushed by the weight of Islamic formalism, whose deadening hand had left religion a matter of ritual and precedent, had left law with its sanctions so deeply grounded in the past that progress was well-nigh impossible, and had made literature something Arabicized, foreign to the Turkish spirit, and limited to an exclusive, highly educated circle.
Things had reached such a pass by the latter part of the eighteenth century that even a well-intentioned sultan like Selim III, who saw that radical reforms must be instituted if Turkey's prestige was to be saved from further humiliation at the hands of her newly Westernized foes, the Russians, was unable to realize his wishes. Control of the Empire was wholly in the hands of fanatical religious leaders and the famous band of fierce and uncontrollable warriors known as the Janissaries (Yeni Cheri). These professional troops, originally recruited in large part from children of the Christian subject populations, had become so powerful as to control even the commercial life of the capital and so reactionary as to balk at any attempt to lessen their influence or modernize their methods of fighting.
It took the accession of a bold and strong-handed reformer like Mahmud II to the throne to achieve the formation of a modernized regular army which should be able to destroy the Janissaries and clear the way for the introduction of progressive innovations. After some years of failure, Mahmud, who came to the throne in 1808, succeeded in 1826 in utterly destroying the power of the Janissaries, his new regular army massacring hundreds of them through the use of modern artillery. Mahmud, who is often called the ghiaour sultan because of his tendency to adopt the customs and habits of the Western ghiaours, and his successor, Abdul-Medjid, who followed him in 1839, brought about numerous social and administrative reforms, including adoption of the fez as the national headdress to replace the turban, which symbolized conservatism, and a proclamation of new rights and equal treatment for the subject Christian populations. The Christian rights were proclaimed twice, once in 1839 and again in 1856, and were in large part attributable to the influence of Britain's great ambassador, Stratford Canning. The difficulty with the new reforms, however, lay in the fact that they were too much imposed from above and met with little co-operation from the people of Turkey. The reactionary demonstrations which greeted each attempt at Westernization at this early period showed how far the country was from being ready to throw off its oriental ways. Nevertheless the Western sympathies of the ruling house and the aristocracy of the period immediately following the 1856 proclamation, a time known as the "Tanzimat period," opened the way for a new interest in European, particularly French, literature and history, and sowed the seeds of liberal ideas which eventually produced the Young Turk movement and such reformers as Midhat Pasha of 1876, and the constitutional movement of 1908.
Reaction seemed to be again in the saddle in the reign of Abdul-Aziz. Nevertheless a group of progressive Young Turks were able to remove him and in 1876 to bring to the throne Abdul-Hamid II with promises of a constitutional rule and a new liberal régime. Despite the hopes of Midhat Pasha, who was grand vizier, Abdul-Hamid proved to be just the opposite kind of ruler from what the progressive leaders had expected and hoped for. Before many months he had suspended the Constitution and sent the Young Turk leaders into exile. Midhat was eventually done to death in his place of exile at Taif, near Mecca.
The explanation of Abdul-Hamid's behavior seems to lie in his fear of the growing influence and rapacity of the European Powers who were at that time engaged in a deadly rivalry of imperialist expansion, in which possession of Constantinople loomed as one of the greatest prizes for Russia, Britain, or whoever else was fortunate enough to fall heir to it when the long-desired demise of the Turkish Empire should take place. Abdul-Hamid, apparently motivated by fear of these Western gluttons, who were watching and seizing every opportunity to increase their influence in Turkey and be ready to bite off delectable portions, and by disgust for everything which had any connection with the hated infidels, adopted a new and desperate policy. Instead of seeking to strengthen his Empire by the adoption of new efficient methods, he turned his back definitely on the West and sought to build bulwarks against his European foes by facing toward the Orient and calling on the Moslems of the world to unite in fighting off every approach of the hated infidel. Importation of Western literature and novelties was prohibited, and a pan-Islamic movement was commenced with emphasis being placed on Abdul-Hamid's position as caliph of Islam--a position which was asserted to give him spiritual authority over all Moslems in the world. He also proved himself adroit in playing European rivalries off against each other and thus preventing any one nation from attaining too much influence in Turkish affairs.
With such a reversion to old practices, and with all liberally inclined Turks either in exile or closely watched by palace spies, the era of progress in Turkey seemed definitely to have come to an end. But there was an Achilles' heel in the form of Turkey's young army officers. Abdul-Hamid had not been so fanatical as to restore medieval methods in his army; on the contrary, he had had his military leaders trained in Western methods and had sometimes sent them to Europe for instruction in order that he might be able to fight his adversaries with their own weapons. But these young officers who had had a glimpse of the progress and ways of the West were determined that their own country should no longer remain so far behind. Secret committees were formed, of which the one at Salonika was the most important and effective, and contact was made with the exiles in Paris and elsewhere, who furnished intellectual and moral support. In 1908 the Constitutional Revolution forced Abdul-Hamid to restore the Constitution he had set aside in 1876 and to declare a new era of liberality. An attempted reactionary counter-revolution a few months later, led by fanatical Moslems and suspected to be sponsored by Abdul-Hamid's money, was promptly subdued by the army of the Young Turks and resulted only in proving the strength and popularity of the reform and in bringing about the deposition of Abdul-Hamid in favor of Mohammed V, who was a mere puppet in the hands of the new leaders.
Division of counsels among the new leaders and consequent disputes brought constitutional rule to a virtual conclusion once again in the years immediately following 1909, and power became concentrated in the hands of three strong men--Enver, Talaat, and Djemal Pashas. Seizure of outlying Turkish possessions in North Africa and Eastern Europe by enemy Powers, and the revolt and attacks of the Balkan Christian states seeking to throw off Turkish rule, caused the government to undertake a policy of Ottomanization, or Turkification, of the Empire in an effort to solidify it and prevent further defections. The chief consequence of this policy was further to embitter the remaining subject peoples whose national individualities had begun to develop, thereby bringing about further restiveness, which the World War succeeded in precipitating into successful revolutions and attainment of independence, particularly by the Arab states. Although the men in control of Turkey's destinies at this time were sympathetic toward modernization, they found their hands too full with international matters and the task of maintaining their own hold on the controls of government to achieve anything notable in the social and internal reformation of the country. Though they were not sympathetic at heart to the Moslem religion, they were not above using it where it might serve their own ends, as in the case of the proclamation of Djihad, or Holy War, against the Allied Powers in 1915. No strong measures were taken to curb the influence of superstitious and unenlightened religion over the people, though secular schools were opened here and there, and a legal code was drawn up which modified the extent of Koranic influence over the Turkish society. The close of the Young Turk or Unionist régime with Turkey's collapse after the World War found Turkey physically shattered, but socially little changed from the days of unquestioned religious supremacy under Abdul-Hamid.
After this brief historical summary which may serve as a background, we must proceed to our study of the movements and forces which in the last seventeen years have achieved infinitely more in the transformation of Turkey from a medieval, superstition-ridden country to a twentiethcentury, westward-looking nation than the efforts of wellmeaning reformers of the past hundred years.
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