Menaced Turkey.

New York Times 100 years ago today, July 21, 1912:
Army Chiefs Plot to Overthrow Secret Committee Which Has Ruled Country.
PARLIAMENT SERVILE TOOL
Italy's Attack on Dardanelles Perhaps Designed to Bring Turks' Crisis to a Head.
By Marconi Transatlantic Wireless Telegraph to The New Times Times.
    LONDON, July 20.— An element of comedy mingles in the contradictory reports regarding the Italian torpedo boat attack in the Dardanelles Friday and the suggestion, which came from Rome as well as Constantinople, that the real object desired was to cause the straits to be closed again, and thus provoke interference by the other powers. If, as the Turks state, this was Italy's aim, the Sublime Porte has thus far not fallen into the trap, for the latest Constantinople report says that the closing of the Dardanelles is improbable unless the Italians attack again.
    The view, which is generally taken here is that there is no need to seek for any deeper motive for the Italian attack than a desire to make a possible coup by catching the Turkish Warships napping and take advantage of the Ministerial interregnum in Constantinople, thus causing the confusion in Ottoman councils to be worse confounded.
    Recent events in Turkey are regarded as incidents in the most momentous crisis since the fall of Abdul Hamid, and as marking the downfall of the Committee of Union and Progress, which has been the real power behind the throne of his successor. The committee will meet its fate, according to the view prevalent here, at the hands of the army by which it attained power.
    "Turkey is not merely undergoing a ministerial crisis. Everything," in the words of the correspondent of The Observer, "is at stake. The day of judgment has dawned for the secret committee, and the ill-starred nation, whom the committee misrepresented, must now expiate the sins of others.
    "What will be the final outcome of the present imbroglio nobody can foretell, but the story of how the crisis arose is a narrative of the ideas, sentiments, and political action of the army. The army gave Turkey the secret committee, and the army is now bent on taking it away again.
    "Before the fall of Abdul Harnid secrecy was a necessity for all those who planned his deposition. Violent methods also were recognized as in certain cases lawful, but after the revolution neither secrecy nor violence had any further justification. None the less they were both retained by the committee at Saloaica, which wielded political power without responsibility. The Cabinet, which was its executor and parliament, was obedient to the Cabinet.
    "The army, of course, withdrew from the political scene, but it kept as its representative and man of confidence its trusty commander, Mahmoud Shefket Pasha, who had quelled the counter-revolution, and from that day Mahmoud Shefket has filled the post of War Minister in every Cabinet, sharing the responsibility for acts, the consequences of which in some cases have been sinister.
"For example, a few months before the war with Italy the Government took away some of the troops from the African provinces, as if war with Italy were an impossibility. That was a serious offense in the eyes of the army, and there were others hardly less grievous. The defection of officers in Monastir was regarded as the result of the committee's ill-advised action.
    "In fact the entire policy of the committee, even if judged only by its fruits, has proved a failure. Discontent is rife at home. Some nationalities are up in arms against the Government; others are waiting for the opportunity to follow their example.
    "The opposition, rigorously excluded from the Legislature, has become downright seditious.
    "Money is scarce, Germany has grown cold and almost harsh. England, disillusioned by the violent and arbitrary misrule of the committee, holds aloof, and Turkey is isolated at home and abroad.
    "The chiefs of the army have grasped the fact that something must be done to save the State from ruin, but there is no one to do it.
    "Turkey has now no parliamentary opposition. The political opposition has been intimidated. All power is in the hands of the committee; consequently, either Turkey must be left to her fate or else the army must interfere once more. There is no third course.
    "For a long time past the officers, who feel strongly on this subject, have been turning over in their minds various ways and means of remedying the evil. They, would fain have the Grand Vizier resign and have the energetic old administrator, Kiamil Pasha, appointed in his stead, but the ambitious Said Pasha was in no mood to lay down the Vizierate and make way for his rival, and the officers shrank from compelling, him by the employment of drastic methods in the face of a foreign enemy. So they possessed their souls in patience, but now at last their patience was exhausted.
    "They resolved to act, and this is how they went to work: From all parts of the empire letters were dispatched by the corps of officers to the War Minister, as the representative of the army, calling upon him to resign. Similar communications were forwarded to the Grand Vizier and to Ministers Talaat and Kjavid Beys, summoning them also to quit the Cabinet.
    "These manifestos were, of course, unsigned, but there was no doubt in the minds of any one that they were genuine and voiced the sentiments of the army. The Ministers, however, pleading their anonymity, declined to take notice of them.
    "Then came a shower of threatening letters, warning the obnoxious members of the Cabinet that unless they withdrew of their own accord drastic means for removing them would be employed.
    "Upon this the Cabinet, hoping to dissipate the danger by a partial concession, induced the War Minister to send in his resignation. But they forgot to provide a successor for him until he had gone, and the outbreak of the crisis was bruited abroad. By that time the number of eminent officers, willing to step into his shoes, had dwindled down to one, and that one was away, separated from Constantinople by a month's travel. So the Ministerial crisis became a Cabinet crisis, and the whole country grew feverish.
    "Patriotic Turks hunger and thirst after a man of light and leading, whom they can follow blindly in these trying times. They deeply regret that the kind-hearted, well-intentioned occupant of the throne lacks these saving qualities.
    "The heir apparent is a personage. His individuality stands out in sharp relief, for he is endowed with gifts of a high order, but it is not he who can save the country,
    "I have heard the belief expressed by distinguished officers," concludes The Observer's correspondent, "that Prince Vahid Eddin, who is third in line in the succession of heirs, would, if he were Sultan and Caliph, materially contribute to ward off the dangers that menace the realm and realize their hopes."