Turkey Betrayed.

New York Times 100 years ago today, December 18, 1912:
Not Liberation, but Expansion, the Object of Balkan Allies.
To the Editor of The New York Times:
    Much has been said for and against Turkey in your valuable paper by readers of The Times. Certain truths have been evaded lor reasons not apparent. Yet it must be said for Turkey that she has always striven to obtain the good-will of her constituency by appointing to office and rank the leading men of the various races, but failed, since these men made no attempt to reconcile their native countryman to the existing regime. Their failure was due in turn to the constant agitation by envious foreign countries, who fostered through their agencies the belief that autonomy was waiting for them, and that such liberation had the indorsement of the Christian world. In view of such conditions the Turkish Government was not possessed with many civic enterprises, but turned her country into a garrison, ever ready to protect its possessions, won with the blood of its progenitors.
    The allied countries for the past fifty years have shed much blood in Macedonia wrangling with each other for the leadership in the liberation of Macedonia, and Albania. But zeal has outrun reason and the truth of their mission, "aggrandizement," is very apparent, though masquerading under cover of "Christian liberators." And when the Turkish Empire was beginning to emerge from its political torpor and emancipation was in view, the allies, knowing that the Turkish Government would be able to carry out its full programme of general improvement and create a sentiment in its favor, hastened to strike at her immediately after its revolution and war with Italy; particularly after its militia was withdrawn from Albania, striking before any negotiations could be made.
    The present war proves so far a loss to Turkey, not because its military prowess has waned, as evinced by the loss of 12,000 men to Bulgaria, but, because it faithfully trusted in European treaties promising protection for Turkey against further division. If this war was in the spirit of justice and not selfishness, many voices of eloquence would have been raised in behalf of the allies. But the world has learned to recognize the pretense with which wars of annexation are now framed. And more so when base methods are employed by calling this war a crusade and exciting religious prejudice, a precedent not conforming with the spirit of our enlightened times.
                                  I. STERN.
    Secretary the Ottoman Red Crescent Society in America.
    New York, Dec. 14, 1912.