The Daily News. SATURDAY, MARCH 6, 1915. WHO RULE TURKEY?

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 229, 6 March 1915, Page 4

The Daily News. SATURDAY, MARCH 6, 1915. WHO RULE TURKEY?

It is the habit of the moment to regard Turkey as being ruled, more or less directly, by Germans, but this view involves rather too violent a straining of the facts to be acceptable, says the Auckland Star, though it is strictly accurate to say that the men who do rule the country are under German influence, possibly in the German pay. Beyond the names of these men the British reader knows nothing of the government of Turkey, and probably cares as little as he knows, but personalities are often of high importance in view of the influence that tlicy exercise on politics. This is certainly the case in Turkey. When the Sultan declared a Holy War Moslems all over the world questioned his title to do so, particularly in vie v of the fart that he had intimately associated himself with Christians and proposed to aid a Christian nation. Theiv was a time when the proclamation of a Holy War from Constantinople would have stirred the whole world of Islam, but that was when the direction of Moslem affairs was in the hands of Moslems. Probably the most effective retort to the Sultan's proclamation came from India—at any rate it was first published there—in the shape of an examination of the antecedents of the men aiound the Sultan, the men, that is, who inspired the proclamation. Foremost among them is Enver Bey. It would be expected that the man responsible for Turkish military policy at this crisis would be a Turk, but Ln\er, we are told, is of Polish origin. His colleague at the Ministry of Marine, the man whose noble Ottoman soul ivas so exasperated by t.lie pollution of Egyptian soil through the presence of British troops, is Djemal Bey. And Diemal Bey, according to this authority, is a man of gipsy bloorf, the grandson of a hangman. The Minister of the Interior, Talaat Bey, is similarly of gipsy origin. These are the three .men in real control of the government f Turkey, and not one is a pure Turk When the inquiry is extended to the holders of minor posts, the storv ef Turkish degradation unfolds itself amazingly. The Turkish army is under

the thumb of the Committed o. Ollieers, which exercises its power by means of secret court-martiaia. . The President ot this body is Colonel Rcm/.i Bey, a "Jlunluvli" or pervert. ITe belongs to a seix of Spanish Jews formerly established at Salonica. Nominally they liave e.:ibraccd Islam, but their rt»s->: ti. for vi'e assumed religion is shown by attendance at a mosque once i u the year, wlh'e notoriously they practise their own rii.es in private. The most prominent officer 011 the stall' of the army proper is Ismail Ilakki Bey, another of the gipsies. The German control of the army ij exercised, of course, by Marshal Liman von Sunders, successor to Marshal von der Gcltx. Von der Coltz was the organiser of the army which failed so badly in the Balkan war, and it is stated that six. thousand of the Turkish officers passed under his tuition in the fifteen years of his supervision. Von der Golty, is now back in Turkey. Tin: civil power of the country is iu the hands of the Committee of Union and Progress, the most prominent member of which is one Emmanuele Carasso, a Jew of doubtful antecedents. He is probably one of the same, clan as Remzi Bey, a Spaniard, but for reasons of his own he posed an an Italian. When the Italian war occurred lie donned the Fez and became, a good Turk. It was lie who founded the Grand Orient Lodge at Saloniea, out of which the Committee of Union and Progress sprang, and it wis lie who handed to Abdul Hamid the note announcing the deposition. Two eminent colleagues of his are Fehti Coy, a Bulgarian, and Batzaria ElTendi, a Christian. This is the miscellaneous assortment of adventurers that has the destiny of Turkey in its hands, and when we read the story Ave have less difficulty in understanding the amazing series of blundering intrigues leading 011 to th_ i downfall of the Turkish Empire.