Chapter VII: Part 7

Whether, however, this backing represented a reasoned view of the Constitutional points involved and of the position, prerogatives, and organization of a Second Chamber in the framework of British Government, whether it implied that our people were really interested in and had deeply pondered the relative merits of the Single and Double Chamber systems, is much more doubtful. "When he was told," said the Duke of Northumberland on August 10th, "that the people of England were very anxious to abolish the House of Lords, his reply was that they did not understand the question, and did not care two brass farthings about it." That perhaps is putting it somewhat too strongly. The country within the last two years has unquestionably felt more vividly than ever before the anomaly of an hereditary Upper Chamber embedded in democratic institutions. It has been stirred by Mr. Lloyd-George's rhetoric to a mood of vague exasperation with the House of Lords and of ridicule of the order of the Peerage. It has accepted too readily the Liberal version of the central issue as a case of Peers _versus_ People. But while it was satisfied that something ought to be done, I do not believe it realizes precisely what has been accomplished in its name or the consequences that must follow from the passing of the Parliament Bill. There are no signs that it regards the abridgment of the powers of the Upper House as a great democratic victory. There are, on the contrary, manifold signs that it has been bored and bewildered by the whole struggle, and that the extraordinary lassitude with which it watched the debates was a true reflex of its real attitude.

CAPTAIN GEORGE SWINTON, L.C.C.

It has been more like a bull-fight than anything else, or perhaps the bull-baiting, almost to the death, which went on in England in days of old. For the Peerage is not quite dead, but sore stricken, robbed of its high functions, propped up and left standing to flatter the fools and the snobs, a kind of painted screen, or a cardboard fortification, armed with cannon which can not be discharged for fear they bring it down about the defenders' ears. And in the end it was all effected so simply, so easily could the bull be induced to charge. A rag was waved, first here, then there, and the dogs barked. That was all.

It is not difficult to be wise after the event. Everybody knows now that with the motley groups of growing strength arrayed against them it behooved the Peers to walk warily, to look askance at the cloaks trailed before them, to realize the danger of accepting challenges, however righteous the cause might be. But no amount of prudence could have postponed the catastrophe for any length of time, for indeed the House of Lords had become an anachronism. Everything had changed since the days when it had its origin, when its members were Peers of the King, not only in name but almost in power, princes of principalities, earls of earldoms, barons of baronies. Then they were in a way enthroned, representing all the people of the territories they dominated, the people they led in war and ruled in peace. They came together as magnates of the land, sitting in an Upper House as Lords of the shire, even as the Knights of the shire sat in the Commons. And this continued long after the feudal system had passed away, carried on not only by the force of tradition, but by a sentiment of respect and real affection; for these feelings were common enough until designing men laid themselves out to destroy them.

Many things combined to make the last phase pass quickly. It was impossible that the Peerage could long survive the Reform Bill, for it took from the great families their pocket boroughs, and so much of their influence. And there followed hard upon it the educational effect of new facilities for exchange of ideas, the railway trains, the penny post, and the halfpenny paper, together with the centralization of general opinion and all government which has resulted therefrom. But above all reasons were the loss of the qualifying ancestral lands, a link with the soil; and the ennobling of landless men. Once divorced from its influence over some countryside a peerage resting on heredity was doomed; for no one can defend a system whereby men of no exceptional ability, representative of nothing, are legislators by inheritance. Should we summon to a conclave of the nations a king who had no kingdom? But the pity of it! Not only the break with eight centuries of history--nay, more, for when had not every king his council of notables?--not only the loss of picturesqueness and sentiment and lofty mien, but the certainty, the appalling certainty, that, when an aristocracy of birth falls, it is not an aristocracy of character or intellect, but an aristocracy--save the mark--of money, which is bound to take its place.

Five short years and four rejected measures. Glance back over it all. The wild blood on both sides, and the cunning on one. The foolish comfortable words spoken in every drawing-room throughout the United Kingdom. "Yes, they are terrible: what a lot of harm they would do if they could. Thank God we have a House of Lords." Think now that this was commonplace conversation only three short years ago. And all the time the ears of the masses were being poisoned. Week after week and month after month some laughed but others toiled. The laughers, like the French nobles before the Revolution, said contemptuously, "They will not dare." Why should they not? There were men among them for whom the Ark of the Covenant had no sanctity. And then, when the combinations were complete, when those who stood out had been kicked--there can be no other word--into compliance, the blows fell quickly. A Budget was ingeniously prepared for rejection, and, the Lords falling into the trap, the storm broke, with its hurricane of abuse and misrepresentation. We had one election which was inconclusive. Then befell the death of King Edward. There was a second election, carefully engineered and prepared for, rushed upon a nation which had been denied the opportunity of hearing the other side. The Government had out-maneuvered the Opposition and muzzled them to the last moment in a Conference sworn to secrecy. It was remarkably clever and incredibly unscrupulous. They won again. They had not increased their numbers, but they had maintained their position, and this time their victory, however achieved, could not be gainsaid. For a moment there was a lull, only some vague talk of "guaranties," asserted, scoffed at and denied, for the ordinary business of the country was in arrears, and the Coronation, with all its pomp of circumstance and power, all its medieval splendor and appeal to history and sentiment, turned people's thoughts elsewhere.

And then, on the day the pageantry closed, Mr. Asquith launched his Thunderbolt. Few men living will ever learn the true story of the guaranties, suffice it that somehow he had secured them. Whatever the resistance of the Second Chamber might be, it could be overcome. At his dictation the Constitution was to fall. There was no escape; the Bill must surely pass. It rested with the Lords themselves whether they should bow their heads to the inevitable, humbly or proudly, contemptuously or savagely--characterize it as you will--or whether there should be red trouble first.

Surely never in our time has there been a situation of higher psychological interest, for never before have we seen a body of some six hundred exceptional men called on to take each his individual line upon a subject which touched him to the core. I say "individual line" and "exceptional men." Does either adjective require defending?

The Peers are not a regiment, they are still independent entities, with all the faults and virtues which this implies; free gentlemen subject to no discipline, responsible to God and their own consciences alone. At times they may combine on questions which appeal to their sense of right, their sentiment, perhaps some may say their self-interest; but this was no case for combination. Here was a sword pointed at each man's breast. What, under the circumstances, was to be his individual line of conduct?

And who will deny the word "exceptional"? To a seventh of them it must perforce be applicable, for they have been specially selected to serve in an Upper House. And to the rest, those who sit by inheritance, does it not apply even more? It is not what they have done in life. This was no question of capacity or achievement. By the accident of birth alone they had been put in a position different from other men. How shall each in his wisdom or his folly interpret that well-worn motto which still has virtue both to quicken and control, "Noblesse oblige"?

Very curious indeed was the result. It is useless to consider the preliminaries, the pronouncements, the meetings, the campaign which raged for a fortnight in the Press both by letter and leading article. It is even useless to try and discover who, if anybody, was in favor of the Bill which was the original bone of contention. Its merits and defects were hardly debated. On that fateful 10th of August the House of Lords split into three groups on quite a different point. The King's Government had seized on the King's Prerogative and uttered threats. Should they or should they not be constrained to make good their threats, and use it?

The first group said: "Yes. They have betrayed the Constitution and disgraced their position. Let their crime be brought home to them and to the world. All is lost for us except honor. Shall we lose that also? To the last gasp we will insist on our amendments."

The second group said: "No. They have indeed betrayed the Constitution and disgraced their position, but why add to this disaster the destruction of what remains to safeguard the Empire? We protest and withdraw, washing our hands of the whole business for the moment. But our time will come."

The third group said: "No. We do not desire the King's Prerogative to be used. We will prevent any need for its exercise. The Bill shall go through without it."

And, the second group abstaining, by seventeen votes the last prevailed against the first. But whether ever before a victory was won by so divided a host, or ever a measure carried by men who so profoundly disapproved of it, let those judge who read the scathing Protest, inscribed in due form in the journals of the House of Lords by one who went into that lobby, Lord Rosebery, the only living Peer who has been Prime Minister of England.

It is unnecessary to print here more than the tenth and last paragraph of this tremendous indictment. It runs--"Because the whole transaction tends to bring discredit on our country and its institutions."

How under these extraordinary circumstances did the Peerage take sides, old blood and new blood, the governing families and the so-called "backwoodsmen," they who were carving their own names, and they who relied upon the inheritance of names carved by others?

The first group, the "No-Surrender Peers," mustered 114 in the division. Two Bishops were among them, Bangor and Worcester, and a distinguished list of peers, first of their line, including Earl Roberts and Viscount Milner. When the story of our times is written it will be seen that there are few walks of life in which some one of these has not borne an honorable part.

Then at a bound we are transported to the Middle Ages. At the Coronation, when the Abbey Church of Westminster rang to the shouts, "God Save King George!" five Lords of Parliament knelt on the steps of the throne, kissed the King's cheek, and did homage, each as the chief of his rank and representing every noble of it. They are all here:--

The Duke of Norfolk, Earl Marshal and premier Peer of England, head of the great house of Howard, a name that for five centuries has held its own with highest honor.

The Marquis of Winchester, head of the Paulets, representative of the man who for three long years held Basing House for the King against all the forces which Cromwell could muster, but descended also from that earlier Marquis of Tudor creation, who, when he was asked how in those troublous times he succeeded in retaining the post of Lord High Treasurer, replied, "By being a willow and not an oak." To-day the boot is on the other leg.

The Earl of Shrewsbury, head of the Talbots, a race far famed alike in camp and field from the days of the Plantagenets.

The Viscount Falkland, representative of that noble Cavalier who fell at Newbury.

The Baron Mowbray and Segrave and Stourton, titles which carry us back almost to the days of the Great Charter.

Nor does the feudal train end there. We see also a St. Maur, Duke of Somerset, whose family has aged since in the time of Henry VIII. men scoffed at it as new; a Clinton, Duke of Newcastle; a Percy, Duke and heir of Northumberland, that name of high romance; a De Burgh, Marquis of Clanricarde; a Lindsay, Earl of Crawford, twenty-sixth Earl, and head of a house which for eight centuries has stood on the steps of thrones; a Courtenay, Earl of Devon; an Erskine, Earl of Mar, an earldom whose origin is lost in the mists of antiquity, and many another.

And if we come to later days we have the Duke of Bedford, head of the great Whig house of Russell; the Dukes of Marlborough and Westminster, heirs of capacity and good fortune; Lords Bute and Salisbury, descendants of Prime Ministers; and not only Lord Selborne, but Lords Bathurst and Coventry, Hardwicke and Rosslyn, representatives of past Lord Chancellors.

These, and others such as they, inheritors of traditions bred in their very bones, spurning the suggestion that they should purchase the uncontamination of the Peerage by the forfeiture of their principles, fought the question to the end. If they asked for a motto, surely theirs would have been, "Fais ce que dois, advienne que pourra."

And so we pass to the group who abstained, the great mass of the Peerage, too proud to wrangle where they could not win, too wise to knock their heads uselessly against a wall, too loyal not to do their utmost to spare their King. More than three hundred followed Lord Lansdowne's lead, taking for their motto, perhaps, the "Cavendo tutus" of his son-in-law. And still there was fiery blood among them, and strong men swelling with righteous indignation. There were Gay Gordons, as well as a cautious Cavendish, an Irish Beresford to quicken a Dutch Bentinck, and a Graham of Montrose as well as a Campbell of Argyll. Three Earls, Pembroke, Powis, and Carnarvon, represented the cultured family of Herbert, and, as a counterpoise to the Duke of Northumberland, we see six Peers of the doughty Douglas blood. Lord Curzon found by his side three other Curzons, and the Duke of Atholl three Murrays from the slopes of the Grampians. There were many-acred potentates, such as the Dukes of Beaufort and Hamilton and Rutland, Lord Bath, Lord Leicester, and Lord Lonsdale, and names redolent of history, a Butler, Marquis of Ormonde, a Cecil, Marquis of Exeter, the representative of Queen Elizabeth's Lord Burleigh, and a Stanley, Earl of Derby, a name which to this day stirs Lancashire blood. If it were a question of tactics, then Earl Nelson agreed with the Duke of Wellington, and they were backed by seven others whose peerages had been won in battle on land or sea in the course of the last century; while if the Law should be considered, there were nine descendants of Lord Chancellors. Coming to more recent times, there was the son of John Lawrence of the Punjab, and of Alfred Tennyson the poet, Lord St. Aldwyn and Lord Balfour of Burleigh and Lord Lister, and Lords Rothschild, Aldenham, and Revelstoke. What need to mention more?--for there were men representative of every interest in every quarter; but if we wish to close this list with two names which might seem to link together the Constitutional history of these islands, let us note that there was agreement as to action between Viscount Peel, the sole surviving ex-Speaker of the House of Commons, and Lord Wrottesley, the head of the only family which can claim as of its name and blood one of the original Knights of the Garter.

What more is there to say? As, nearly two years ago, we stood round the telegraph-boards watching the election results coming in, many of us saw that the Peerage was falling. The end has come quicker than we expected. The Empire may repent, a new Constitution may spring into being, and there may be raised again a Second Chamber destined to be far stronger than that which has passed, but it will never be the proud House of Peers far-famed in English history.

THE TURKISH-ITALIAN WAR

EUROPE SEIZES THE LAST OF NORTHERN AFRICA A.D. 1911

WILLIAM T. ELLIS

THE WAR CORRESPONDENTS

Italy, by her sudden action in seizing possession of Tripoli in September of 1911, established the authority and suzerainty of western Europe over the last unclaimed strip of territory along the African shore of the Mediterranean.

For over a thousand years the Mohammedans, as represented by either Arabs or Turks, held control of this southern half of the classic Mediterranean Sea. During the past century France, England, and Spain have been snatching this land from the helpless Turks, and Europeanizing it. Only the barren, desert stretch between Egypt and Tunis remained. It seemed almost too worthless for occupation. But a few Italian colonists had settled there, and Italy resolved to annex the land.

Few wars have ever been so obviously forced by a determined marauder upon a helpless victim. Italy wanted to show her strength, both to her own people and to assembled Europe. Hence she prepared her armies and then delivered to Turkey, the nominal suzerain of Tripoli, a sudden ultimatum. The Turks must do exactly what Italy demanded, and immediately, or Italy would seize Tripoli. The "Young Turks" offered every possible concession; but Italy, hurriedly rejecting every proposition, made the seizure she had planned.

The strife that followed had its _opéra-bouffe_ aspect in the utter helplessness of far-off Turkey, incapable of reaching the seat of war; but it had also its tragic scandal in the accusation of cruelty made against the Italian troops. It had also, in the Balkan wars and other changes which sprang more or less directly from it, a permanent effect upon the political affairs of Europe as well as upon those of Africa.

WILLIAM T. ELLIS[1]

[Footnote 1: Reprinted by permission from _Lippincott's Magazine_.]

There are conversational compensations for life in the Orient. Talk does not grow stale when there are always the latest phases of "the great game" of international politics to gossip about. Men do not discuss baseball performances in the cafés of Constantinople; but the latest story of how Von Bieberstein, the German Ambassador, bulldozed Haaki Pasha, the Grand Vizier, and sent the latter whining among his friends for sympathy, is far more piquant. The older residents among the ladies of the diplomatic corps, whose visiting list extends "beyond the curtain," have their own well-spiced tales to tell of "the great game" as it is played behind the latticed windows of the harem. It is not only in London and Berlin and Washington and Paris that wives and daughters of diplomats boost the business of their men-folk. In this mysterious, women's world of Turkey there are curious complications; as when a Young Turk, with a Paris veneer, has taken as second or third wife a European woman. One wonders which of these heavily veiled figures on the Galata Bridge, clad in hideous _ezars_, is an Englishwoman or a Frenchwoman or a Jewess.

Night and day, year in and year out, with all kinds of chessmen, and with an infinite variety of byplays, "the great game" is played in Constantinople. The fortunes of the players vary, and there are occasional--very occasional--open rumpuses; but the players and the stakes remain the same. Nobody can read the newspaper telegrams from Tripoli and Constantinople intelligently who has not some understanding of the real game that is being carried on; and in which an occasional war is only a move.

The bespectacled professor of ancient history is best qualified to trace the beginning of this game; for there is no other frontier on the face of the globe over which there has been so much fighting as over that strip of water which divides Europe from Asia, called, in its four separate parts, the Bosporus, the Sea of Marmora, the Dardanelles, and the Aegean Sea. Centuries before men began to date their calendars "A.D.," the city on the Bosporus was a prize for which nations struggled. All the old-world dominions--Greek, Macedonian, Persian, Roman--fought here; and for hundreds of years Byzantium was the capital of the Roman and Christian world. The Crusaders and the Saracens did a choice lot of fighting over this battle-ground; and it was here that the doughty warrior, Paul of Tarsus, broke into Europe, as first invader in the greatest of conquests. Along this narrow line of beautiful blue water the East menacingly confronts the West. Turkey's capital, as a sort of Mr.-Facing-Both-Ways, bestrides the water; for Scutari, in Asia, is essentially a part of Greater Constantinople. That simple geographical fact really pictures Turkey's present condition: it is rent by the struggle of the East with the West, Asia with Europe, in its own body.

"The great game" of to-day, rather than of any hoary and romantic yesterday, holds the interest of the modern man. Player Number One, even though he sits patiently in the background in seeming stolidity, is big-boned, brawny, hairy, thirsty Russia. Russia wants water, both here and in the far East. His whole being cries from parched depths for the taste of the salt waters of the Mediterranean and the China Sea. At present his ships may not pass through the Dardanelles: the jealous Powers have said so. But Russia is the most patient nation on earth; his "manifest destiny" is to sit in the ancient seat of dominion on the Bosporus. Calmly, amid all the turbulence of international politics, he awaits the prize that is assuredly his; but while he waits he plots and mines and prepares for ultimate success. A past master of secret spying, wholesale bribery, and oriental intrigue, is the nation which calls its ruler the "Little Father" on earth, second only to the Great Father in heaven. If one is curious and careful, one may learn which of the Turkish statesmen are in Russian pay.

Looming larger--apparently--than Russia amid the minarets upon the lovely Constantinople horizon is Germany, the Marooned Nation. Restless William shrewdly saw that Turkey offered him the likeliest open door for German expansion and for territorial emancipation. So he played courtier to his "good friend, Abdul Hamid," and to the Prophet Mohammed (they still preserve at Damascus the faded remains of the wreath he laid upon Saladin's tomb the day he made the speech which betrayed Europe and Christendom), and in return had his vanity enormously ministered to. His visit to Jerusalem is probably the most notable incident in the history of the Holy City since the Crusades. Moreover, he carried away the Bagdad Railway concession in his carpet-bag. By this he expects to acquire the cotton and grain fields of Mesopotamia, which he so sorely needs in his business, and also to land at the front door of India, in case he should ever have occasion to pay a call, social or otherwise, upon his dear English cousins.

True, the advent of the Turkish constitution saw Germany thrown crop and heels out of his snug place at Turkey's capital, while that comfortable old suitor, Great Britain, which had been biting his finger-nails on the doorstep, was welcomed smiling once more into the parlor. Great was the rejoicing in London when Abdul Hamid's "down-and-out" performance carried his trusted friend William along. The glee changed to grief when, within a year--so quickly does the appearance of the chess-board change in "the great game"--Great Britain was once more on the doorstep, and fickle Germany was snuggling close to Young Turkey on the divan in the dimly lighted parlor. Virtuous old Britain professed to be shocked and horrified; he occupied himself with talking scandal about young Germany, when he should have been busy trying to supplant him. Few chapters in modern diplomatic history are more surprising than the sudden downfall and restoration of Germany in Turkish favor. With reason does the Kaiser give Ambassador von Bieberstein, "the ablest diplomat in Europe," constant access to the imperial ear, regardless of foreign-office red tape. During the heyday of the Young Turk party's power, this astute old player of the game was the dominant personality in Turkey.

The disgruntled and disappointed Britons have comforted themselves with prophecy--how often have I heard them at it in the cosmopolitan cafes of Constantinople!--the burden of their melancholy lay being that some day Turkey would learn who is her real friend. That is the British way. They believe in their divine right to the earth and the high places thereof. They are annoyed and rather bewildered when they see Germany cutting in ahead of them, especially in the commerce of the Orient; any Englishman "east of Suez" can give a dozen good reasons why Germany is an incompetent upstart; but however satisfactory and soothing to the English soul this line of philosophy may be, it drives no German merchantmen from the sea and no German drummers from the land. The supineness of the British in the face of the German inroads into their ancient preserves is amazing to an American, who, as one of their own poets has said,

Turns a keen, untroubled face
Home to the instant need of things.

In this case, however, the proverbial luck of the British has been with them. The steady decline of their historic prestige in the near East was suddenly arrested by Italy's declaration of war. For more than a generation Turkey has been the pampered _enfant terrible_ of international politics, violating the conventions and proprieties with impunity; feeling safe amid the jealousies of the players of "the great game." Every important nation has a bill of grievances to settle with Turkey; America's claim, for instance, includes the death of two native-born American citizens, Rogers and Maurer, slain in the Adana massacre, under the constitution. Nobody has been punished for this crime, because, forsooth, it happened in Turkey. Italy made a pretext of a cluster of these grievances, and startled the world by her claims upon Tripoli, accompanied by an ultimatum. Turkey tried to temporize. Pressed, she turned to Germany with a "Now earn your wages. Get me out of this scrape, and call off your ally."

And Germany could not. With the taste of Morocco dirt still on his tongue, the Kaiser had to take another unpalatable mouthful in Constantinople. His boasted power, upon which the Turks had banked so heavily, and for the sake of which they had borne so much humiliation, proved unequal to the demand. He could not help his friend the Sultan. Italy would have none of his mediation; for reasons that will hereinafter appear.

Then came Britain's vindication. The Turks turned to this historic and preeminent friend for succor. The Turkish cabinet cabled frantically to Great Britain to intercede for them; the people in mass-meeting in ancient St. Sophia's echoed the same appeal. For grim humor, the spectacle has scarcely an equal in modern history. Besought and entreated, the British, who no doubt approved of Italy's move from the first, declined to pull Turco-German chestnuts out of the fire. "Ask Cousin William to help you," was the ironical implication of their attitude. Well did Britain know that if the situation were saved, the Germans would somehow manage to get the credit of it. And if the worst should come, Great Britain could probably meet it with Christian fortitude! For in that eventuality the Bagdad Railway concession would be nullified, and Britain would undoubtedly take over all of the Arabian Peninsula, which is logically hers, in the light of her Persian Gulf and Red Sea claims. The break-up of Turkey would settle the Egyptian question, make easy the British acquisition of southern Persia, and put all the holy places of Islam under the strong hand of the British power, where they would be no longer powder-magazines to worry the dreams of Christendom. Far-sighted moves are necessary in "the great game."

Small wonder that Germany became furious; and that the Berlin newspapers burst out in denunciations of Italy's wicked and piratical land-grabbing--a morsel of rhetoric following so hard upon the heels of the Morocco episode that it gave joy to all who delight in hearing the pot rail at the kettle. "The great game" is not without its humors. But the sardonic joke of the business lies deeper than all this. The Kaiser had openly coquetted with the Sultan upon the policy of substituting Turkey for Italy in the Triple Alliance. Turkey has a potentially great army: the one thing the Turk can do well is to fight. With a suspicious eye upon Neighbor Russia, the Kaiser figured it out that Turkey would be more useful to him than Italy, especially since the Abyssinian episode had so seriously discredited the latter. Then, of a sudden, with a poetic justice that is delicious, Italy turns around and humiliates the nation that was to take its place The whole comic situation resembles nothing more nearly than a supposedly defunct spouse rising from his death-bed to thrash the expectant second husband of his wife.

Here "the great game" digresses in another direction, that takes no account of Turkey. Of course, it was more than a self-respecting desire to avenge affronts that led Italy to declare war against Turkey; and also more than a hunger for the territory of Tripoli. Italy needed to solidify her national sentiment at home, in the face of growing socialism and clever clericalism. Even more did she need to show the world that she is still a first-class power. There has been a disposition of late years to leave her out of the international reckoning. Now, at one skilful jump, she is back in the game--and on better terms than ever with the Vatican, for she will look well to all the numerous Latin missions in the Turkish Empire, and especially in Palestine. These once were France's special care, and are yet, to a degree; but France is out of favor with the Church, and steadily declining from her former place in the Levant, although French continues to be the "_lingua franca"_ of merchandising, of polite society, and of diplomacy, in the Near East.

Let nobody think that this is lugging religion by the ears into "the great game." Religion, even more than national or racial consciousness, is one of the principal players. In America politicians try to steer clear of religion; although even here a cherry cocktail mixed with Methodism has been known to cost a man the possible nomination for the Presidency. In the Levant, however, religion _is_ politics. The ambitions and policies of Germany, Russia, and Britain are less potent factors in the ultimate and inevitable dissolution of Turkey than the deep-seated resolution of some tens of millions of people to see the cross once more planted upon St. Sophia's. Ask anybody in Greece or the Balkans or European Russia what "the great idea" is, and you will get for an answer, "The return of the cross to St. Sophia's." Backward and even benighted Christians these Eastern churchmen may be, but they hold a few fundamental ideas pretty fast, and are readier to fight for them than their occidental brethren.

The world may as well accept, as the principal issue of "the great game" that centers about Constantinople, the fact that the war begun twelve hundred years ago by the dusky Arabian camel-driver is still on. This Turco-Italian scrape is only one little skirmish in it.

* * * * *

The outbreak of war between Italy and Turkey came as a surprize to the great majority of the European public, and even in Italy until the last moment few believed that the crisis would come to a head so soon. Those who had closely followed the course of political opinion in the country during the past year, however, saw that a change had come over the public spirit of Italy, and that a new attitude toward questions of foreign policy was being adopted. It may be of interest in the present circumstances to examine the causes and the course of this development.

Since the completion of Italian unity with the fall of the Temporal Power in 1870, the Italian people had devoted all its energies to internal affairs, for everything had to be created--roads, railways, ports, improved agriculture, industry, schools, scientific institutions, the public services, were either totally lacking or quite inadequate to the needs of a great modern nation. Above all, the finances of the State, shattered by the wars of independence and by bad administration, had to be placed on a sound footing. Consequently, foreign affairs attracted but slight public interest. Such a state of things was at that time inevitable owing to the precarious situation at home, but it proved a most unfortunate necessity, as it was during this very period that the great no-man's-lands of Asia and Africa were being partitioned among the other nations, and vast uncultivated, undeveloped, and thinly populated territories annexed by various European Powers, and converted into important colonial empires offering splendid outlets for trade and emigration. Italy had appeared last in this field, when nearly all the best lands had been annexed and when conquests could not be attempted, even in the still available regions, without large, well-organized armed forces and a determined, intelligent, and well-informed public opinion to back them up. In Italy neither was to be found. The country was too poor to launch forth into colonial and foreign politics with any chance of success, and the people were too untraveled and too little acquainted with the development of other countries to pay much attention to events outside Italy, or, at all events, outside Europe.

In the meanwhile, considerable progress in the economic and social conditions of the Italian people had been achieved, and by grinding economy and incredible sacrifices the finances were being restored. There came a moment, however, when the need for colonial expansion began to be felt. As a sop to public opinion, which had been exasperated by the French occupation of Tunis, the Italian Government decided in 1885 to occupy Massowah and the surrounding territories on the Red Sea coast. But that country was not suited to Italian colonization, and Italy was not yet ready to develop a purely trading colony at so great a distance from the homeland. A long series of errors were committed, relieved at times by the heroism and devotion of the army fighting against huge odds in an inhospitable and unknown land, culminating in the disaster of Adowa in 1896. What wrought the greatest injury to Italian prestige was not so much the defeat in itself as the fact that it was allowed to remain unavenged. There was a fresh Italian army on the scene under an admirable leader, General Baldissera, who enjoyed the full confidence of his men, and it was clear that the Abyssinian forces could not hold together much longer. The Premier, however, Signor Crispi, a man of unquestioned ability, but who lived in advance of his time, before the nation was ready to follow him in his Imperial policy, was overwhelmed by a storm of indignation, and his successor, Marchese di Rudini, terrified by the riots promoted by unscrupulous Socialist and Anarchist agitators as a protest against the African campaign, concluded a disastrous peace with the enemy.

In the meanwhile, Italian Socialism, which had found a suitable field for action in the unsatisfactory condition of the working class, had evolved a theory of government which, although common to some extent to the Socialists of other countries, was nowhere carried to such lengths as in Italy. Socialism in theory has everywhere adopted an attitude of hostility to militarism, imperialism, and patriotism, and professes to be internationalist and pacificist, and regards class hatred and civil disorders as the only moral and praiseworthy forms of warfare. But in countries where the masses have reached a certain degree of political education such views, if carried to their logical conclusion, are sure to be rejected by the majority, and even the Socialist leaders realize that Nationalism is a vital force which has to be reckoned with, and that a sane Imperialism and efficient military policy are as necessary in the interests of the masses as in those of the classes. In Italy, on the other hand, where even the bourgeoisie took but a lukewarm interest in the wider questions of world policy, the Socialist leaders conducted an avowedly anti-patriotic propaganda against every form of national sentiment, against the very existence of Italy as a nation, and they achieved considerable success. By representing patriotism and the army as the causes of low wages, and war and colonial Imperialism as the result of purely capitalist intrigues because it is only the capitalists who profit by such adventures, they met with wide-spread acceptance among a large part of the working classes.

Thus a general feeling got possession of the Italian people that war was played out, and that even if it were to occur Italy was sure to be defeated by any other Power, that nothing must be done to provoke the resentment of the foreigner, that the only form of expansion to be encouraged was emigration to foreign lands, and even the export trade which was growing so rapidly was looked upon askance by the Socialists as a mere capitalist instrument. This attitude, which was certainly not conducive to a healthy public spirit, was reflected in the conduct of the Government, which felt that it would not be backed by the nation if it gave signs of energy. The result was that Italy found her interests blocked at every turn by other nations which were not imbued with such "humanitarian" theories, and that she was subjected to countless humiliations on the part of Governments who were convinced that under no provocation would Italy show resentment.

Gradually and imperceptibly a change came over public feeling, and the necessity for a sane and vigorous patriotism began to be dimly realized. One of the earliest symptoms of this new attitude was the publication, in 1903, of Federigo Garlanda's _La terza Italia_; the book professed to be written by a friendly American observer and critic of Italian affairs, and the author regards the absence of militant patriotism as the chief cause of Italy's weakness in comparison with other nations. Mario Morasso, in his volume, _L'Imperialismo nel Secolo XX,_ published in 1905, opened fire on the still predominant Socialistic internationalism and sentimental humanitarianism, and extolled the policy of conquest and expansion adopted by Great Britain, Germany, France, and the United States as a means of strengthening the fiber of the national character.

In December, 1910, a congress of Italian Nationalists was held in Florence, and at that gathering, which was attended by several hundred persons, including numerous well-known names, many aspects of Italian national life were examined and discussed. The various speakers impressed on their hearers the importance of Nationalism as the basis for all political thought and action. The weakness of the country, the contempt which other nations felt for Italy, the unsatisfactory state both of home and foreign politics, and the poverty of a large part of the population, were all traced to the absence of a sane and vigorous patriotism. The strengthening of the army and navy, the development of a military spirit among the people, a radical change of direction in the conduct of the nation's foreign policy, and the ending of the present attitude of subservience to all other Powers, great or small, were regarded as the first _desiderata_ of the country. The Turks, too, who since the revolution of 1908 had become particularly truculent toward the Italians, especially in Tripoli, also came in for rough treatment, and various speakers demanded that the Government should secure adequate protection for Italian citizens and trade in the Ottoman Empire, and that a watch should be kept on Tripoli lest others seized it before the moment for Italian occupation arrived. Signor Corradini insisted that there were worse things for a nation than war, and that the occasional necessity for resort to the "dread arbitrament" must be boldly faced by any nation worthy of the name.

The congress proved a success, and the ideas expressed in it which had been "in the air" for some time were accepted by a considerable number of people. The Nationalist Association was founded then and there and soon gathered numerous adherents; a new weekly paper, _L'Idea Nazionale_, commenced publication on March 1, 1911 (the anniversary of Adowa), and rapidly became an important organ of public opinion, while several dailies and reviews adopted Nationalist principles or viewed them with sympathy. Italian Nationalism has no resemblance to the parties of the same name in France, Ireland, or elsewhere; indeed, it is not really a party at all, for it gathers in Liberals, Conservatives, Radicals, Clericals, Socialists even, provided they accept the patriotic idea and are anxious to see their country raised to a higher place in the congress of nations even at the cost of some sacrifice.

Italy, according to Professor Sighele _(Il Nazionalismo ed i Partiti politici_ p. 80 sq.), must be Imperialist in order to prevent the closing up of all the openings whence the nation receives its oxygen, and to prevent the Adriatic from becoming more and more an Austrian lake, to prevent even the Mediterranean from being closed around us like a camp guarded by hostile sentinels, and to provide a field of activity for our emigrants wherein they will enjoy that protection which they now lack, and which only a bold foreign policy, a thorough preparation for war, and a clear Imperialist attitude on the part of the rulers of the State can give them.

For some time the Government continued to appear impervious to the Nationalist spirit and professed to regard the movement as a schoolboy's game. But it could not long remain indifferent to so wide-spread a feeling. Italy's relations with Turkey were rapidly approaching a crisis. The new Ottoman régime, while it was proving no better than the old in the matter of corruption, inefficiency, and persecution of the subject-races, had one new feature--an outburst of rabid chauvinism and of hatred for all foreigners, but especially for Italians, whom the Young Turks regarded as the weakest of nations. Never had Italian prestige fallen so low in the Levant as at this period, and the Italian Government did nothing to retrieve the situation. In Tripoli, above all, where Italy's reversionary interest had been sanctioned by agreements with England and France, the position of Italian citizens and firms was rendered well-nigh intolerable. Turkish persecution reached such a point that two Italians, the monk, Father Giustino, and the merchant, Gastone Terreni, were assassinated at the instigation and with the complicity of the authorities, without any redress being obtained.

The Nationalists since the beginning of their propaganda had agitated for a firmer attitude toward Turkey, insisting on the opening up of Tripoli to Italian enterprise. Italy was being hemmed in on all sides by France in Algeria and Tunisia, and by England in Egypt; Tripolitaine alone remained as a possible outlet for her eventual expansion. The Turkish Government did nothing for the development of that province, but it was determined that no one else should do anything for it, and thwarted the efforts of every Italian enterprise, the Banco di Roma alone succeeding by ceaseless activity and untiring patience in creating important undertakings in the African vilayet.

Had events pursued their normal course Italy would probably have been content to develop her commercial interests in Tripolitaine to the advantage of its inhabitants as well as of her own, waiting for the time when in due course the country should fall to her share. But the persistent hostility of the Turkish authorities was bringing matters to a head, and while the Italian Government apparently refused to regard the state of affairs as serious, the Nationalists continued to demand the assertion of Italy's interests in Tripoli. The Press gradually adopted their point of view, the _Idea Nazionale_ published Corradini's vivid letters from Tripoli, and even Ministerial organs like the _Tribuna_ of Rome and the _Stampa_ of Turin, following the lead of their correspondents who visited Tripolitaine during the past spring and summer and wrote of its resources and possibilities with enthusiasm, were soon converted. If any nation has a right to colonies it is Italy with her rapidly increasing population, her small territory, and her streams of emigrants. Still the Government, from fear of international complications and of alienating its Socialist supporters, who, of course, opposed all idea of territorial expansion, refused to do anything. Then the Franco-German Morocco bombshell burst, and Agadir made the Italian people realize that the question of Tripoli called for immediate solution. The whole of the rest of Mediterranean Africa was about to be partitioned among the Powers, and Tripoli would certainly not be left untouched if Italy failed to make good her claims; Germany, it is believed, had cast her eyes on it, and already her commercial agents and prospectors were on the spot. The demands for an occupation by Italy were insistent; all classes were calling on the Government to act, and in Genoa there were even angry mutterings of revolt. The nation realized that it was a case of now or never, and every one felt that the folly of Tunis must not be repeated.

At the same time the Turks, convinced that Italy would never fight, continued in their overbearing attitude, and placed increasing obstacles in the way of Italian enterprise in all parts of the Empire while ostentatiously favoring other foreign undertakings. Incidents such as the abduction of an Italian girl and her forcible conversion to Islam and marriage to a Turk, and the attacks on Italian vessels in the Red Sea, added fuel to the flame, and public opinion became more and more excited. The Premier at last saw that the country was practically unanimous on the question of Tripoli, and although personally averse to all adventures in the field of foreign affairs which interfered with his political action at home, he realized that unless he faced the situation boldly his prestige was gone. On the 20th of September the expedition to Tripoli was decided. Hastily and secretly military preparations were made, and the Note concerning the sending of Turkish reinforcements or arms to Tripoli was issued. Then followed the ultimatum, and finally the declaration of war. The Socialist leaders, who saw in this awakening of a national conscience and of a militant Imperialist spirit a serious menace to their own predominance, were in a state of frenzy, and they attempted to organize a general strike as a protest against the Government. But the movement fizzled out miserably, and only an insignificant number of workmen struck.

On the other hand, the declaration of war was greeted by an outburst of popular enthusiasm such as no one believed possible in the Italy of to-day. The departure or passage of the troops on their way to Tripoli gave occasion for scenes of the most intense patriotic excitement, and the sight of some two hundred thousand people in the streets of Rome at one A.M. on October 7th, cheering the march past of the 82d infantry regiment, is one not easily forgotten. The heart of the whole nation was in the enterprise. Even many prominent Socialists, casting the shackles of party fealty to the winds, declared themselves in favor of the Government's African policy and accepted the occupation of Tripoli as a necessity for the country, while the Clericals were even more enthusiastic. But there was hardly a trace of anti-Turkish feeling; it was simply that the people, rejoiced at having awakened from the long nightmare of political apathy and international servility, had thrown off the grinding and degrading yoke of Socialist tyranny, and risen to a dawn of higher ideals of national dignity. Italy had at last asserted herself. The extraordinary efficiency, speed, and secrecy with which the expedition was organized, shipped across the Mediterranean, and landed in Africa, the discipline, _moral_, and gallantry which both soldiers and sailors displayed, were a revelation to everybody and gave the Italians new confidence in their military forces, and made them feel that they could hold up their heads before all the world unashamed. A new Italy was born--the Italy of the Italian nation. In the words of Mameli's immortal hymn, which has been revived as the war-song of the Nationalists,

"Fratelli d'Italia, l'Italia s'è desta,
Dell' elmo di Scipio s'è cinta la testa."

The actual operations of the war were too one-sided to be interesting from the military viewpoint. Turkey had no navy which could compete for a moment with that of Italy. Hence the Turks could dispatch no troops whatever to Tripoli, and its defense devolved solely upon the native Arab inhabitants. These wild tribes were brave and warlike and fanatically Mohammedan in their opposition to the Christian invaders. But they were wholly without training in modern modes of warfare and without modern weapons. Their frenzied rushes and antiquated guns were helpless in the face of quick-firing artillery.

The Italians demonstrated their ability to handle their own forces, to transport troops, land them and provision them with speed and skill. That was about all the struggle established. On October 3d the city of Tripoli, the only important Tripolitan harbor, was bombarded. Two days later the soldiers landed and took possession of it. For a month following, there were minor engagements with the Arabs of the neighborhood, night attacks upon the Italians, rumors that they lost their heads and shot down scores of unarmed and unresisting natives. Then on November 5th Italy proclaimed that she had conquered and annexed Tripoli.

The only remaining difficulty was to get the Turkish Government to give its formal assent to this new regime, which it had been unable to resist. Here, however, the Italians encountered a difficulty. They had promised the rest of Europe that they would not complicate the European Turkish problem by attacking Turkey anywhere except in Africa. In Africa they had now done their worst, and so the Turkish Government, with true Mohammedan serenity, defied them to do more. Turkey absolutely refused to acknowledge the Italian claim to Tripolitan suzerainty. True, she could not fight, but neither would she utter any words of surrender. Let the Italians do what they pleased in Tripoli. Turkey still continued in her addresses to her own people to call herself its lord.

This course satisfied the ignorant Mohammedans of Constantinople, who knew little of what was really happening; and so it enabled the Young Turk party to retain control of the political situation at home. The dissatisfaction of Italy, however, increased, until she withdrew her earlier pledge to Europe and set her navy to the task of seizing one after another the Turkish islands lying in the eastern Mediterranean, After some months of this leisurely appropriation of helpless territories, the Turks yielded the point at issue. In October of 1912 they signed a treaty of peace with Italy granting her entire possession of Tripoli. By this time the Turks had become involved in their far more deadly struggle with the united Balkan States; and the Government was able to offer this new strife to its subjects as its excuse for yielding to the Italians. Turkey, though she still holds a nominal authority over Egypt, ceased to have any real power over any part of Africa. She retained only a European and Asiatic empire.

WOMAN SUFFRAGE

THE MOVEMENT COMES TO THE FRONT BY ITS TRIUMPH IN CALIFORNIA A.D. 1911

IDA HUSTED HARPER JANE ADDAMS DAVID LLOYD-GEORGE ISRAEL ZANGWILL ELBERT HUBBARD

When future generations look for an exact event to mark the triumphal turning-point in the progress of the woman-suffrage movement, they will probably select the election which took place in the great American State of California in October, 1911. Other States had given women votes before, but they were smaller communities, where the movement could still be regarded as an eccentricity, a mere whimsicality. When, however, California in 1911 granted full suffrage to her women, almost half a million in number, the movement became obviously important. The vote of California might well turn the scale in a Presidential election. Moreover, other States followed California's example. Woman suffrage soon dominated the West, and began its progress eastward. The shrewd Lincoln said that no government could continue to exist half slave and half free; and the axiom is equally true of a divided suffrage. There can be little question that woman suffrage will ultimately be adopted throughout the Eastern States, not because of force, but through the ever-increasing pressure of political expediency.