The Great Events by Famous Historians [Volumes 1-14]

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.

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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.