The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-05-24

success was assured and that the perpet- ual menace to Turkey from Russia might i be averted by a timely alliance With
 Germany and Austria. Egypt. moreover,
 might be recovered for the empire. India
 and other Moslem countries. represented
 as grooming under Christian rule. might
 be kindled into flame of infinite possi-
 bilities for the Calphate of constanti-
 nople. Turkey would emerge from the
 war the one great power of the east. even as Germany would be the one great
 power of the west. There were among
 the governing class of Turkey men
 thoughtful enough to reflect that even if
 Germany were victorious there was no
 certainty of any advantage to the Ottoman
 empire. The German method of overcom-
 ing such scruples was characteristicaly direct and forceful During the first three
 weeks of October e4.0ooooO sterling in bull lion was secretly imported into Constan-
 tinople and consigned to the German ann
 bassador. After the arrival of the
 "Goeben" and the "Breslau' the armed
 forces of the state practically passed out of the control of the Sultan and his min isters. The Turkish war office became
 a branch of the German general staff. and the Turkish admiralty was the battle cruisers ward room. The end of it all
 was that in October armed bedouins were
 sent on a raid into the Sinaitic peninsula with'the Suez canal as their objective, and
 on the same day Turkish ships made an
 attack upon Odessa.
 As the Ottoman empire totters to it's fall. the amazing fatuity of every calculation
 made by the Potsdam board of war be- comes more apparent. They thought that with the assistance of the Turkish army England could be driven out of the Nile
 delta, or that, at any rate. the hands of the English could be kept so full in that quarter that they would have but little energy to spare for the Yser and the Mouse, and would be unable to bring either Australian or Indian troops to
 northern Europe. They exaggerated the
 military efficiency of the Turks, just as they underestimated the military capac- | ity of the British. That an Anglo-Indian
 or an Anglo Egyptian force could make a formidable resistance to the Ottoman troops, led and organized by Prussian of | ficers, they did not believe. They ex- pected to pass eo,o00 or 5000 Turks across
 the Sinaitic desert. and they did not con ceive that the British war office would be able to concentrate in Egypt an army suf- ficient either in numbers or quality to cope with this invasion. They hoped.
 and here probably came the bitterest dis appointment of all, that the defenders of the Suez canal would be struck in the
 back by those whom they were protect I ing. Nothing of all this has happened, and what is actually about to take place.
 is the very reverse of what Germany planned for. Here. as elsewhere, the irony of Germany's fate is to be found in
 the fact that her deep laid schemes to de-
 stroy or weaken her rivals seems destined to end only in increasing their strength.
 It appears to- be reasonably certain that
 the war will leave the Slav peoples more
 firmly planted than ever before throughout
 all the territory from which Germany de-
 sired to exclude them, and it looks as if Germany's challenge to Englands sea
 power and world power will leave the British empire stronger than ever