DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4752#0150
140 PAST AND PRESENT
affected people, surrounded by disloyalty, in con-
stant peril from his own subjects, held on his throne
only by the diplomatists of Europe and their
mutual hatred and mistrust and the dread of each
that another may secure their coveted share of
dismembered Turkey, he reigns still, the sole
mover of Turkish policy, autocrat to a degree that
no other recent Sultan has been; and under him
Mohammedanism and Orientalism have gathered
fresh strength to defy the feeling of Europe,
strength lying in the moral power that resolute
purpose and religious fervour give against selfish
or blundering adversaries.
He gauged the situation from the first ; he saw
that the party of Reform in Turkey was hastening
on the dissolution of Ottoman rule, for a reformed
Turkey was a contradiction in terms. He saw that
Reform was inconsistent with a Sultan of the Otto-
man type, that Sultan and Khalif were united in
one person, and that, when there ceased to be a
Khalif in Constantinople, then Mohammedanism
in Europe and in Asia Minor was doomed. He
saw too that English policy was always and necess-
arily directed to secure Reform, that the dream of
English statesmen and their watchword were always
" a reformed and strong Turkey," that the Young
Turkish party of Reform was the Anglophile party,
and that its strength lay in the general belief that it
affected people, surrounded by disloyalty, in con-
stant peril from his own subjects, held on his throne
only by the diplomatists of Europe and their
mutual hatred and mistrust and the dread of each
that another may secure their coveted share of
dismembered Turkey, he reigns still, the sole
mover of Turkish policy, autocrat to a degree that
no other recent Sultan has been; and under him
Mohammedanism and Orientalism have gathered
fresh strength to defy the feeling of Europe,
strength lying in the moral power that resolute
purpose and religious fervour give against selfish
or blundering adversaries.
He gauged the situation from the first ; he saw
that the party of Reform in Turkey was hastening
on the dissolution of Ottoman rule, for a reformed
Turkey was a contradiction in terms. He saw that
Reform was inconsistent with a Sultan of the Otto-
man type, that Sultan and Khalif were united in
one person, and that, when there ceased to be a
Khalif in Constantinople, then Mohammedanism
in Europe and in Asia Minor was doomed. He
saw too that English policy was always and necess-
arily directed to secure Reform, that the dream of
English statesmen and their watchword were always
" a reformed and strong Turkey," that the Young
Turkish party of Reform was the Anglophile party,
and that its strength lay in the general belief that it