The Balfour Declaration

Abstract

THE nineteenth century and the first decade of the twentieth witnessed the spectacle of a pack of hungry European wolves gnawing steadily at the vitals of an impoverished and a decadent Turkey. France despoiled the Turkish Empire of Algeria and Tunis; Italy, with one fell swoop, coolly appropriated Tripoli in 1912; and Great Britain occupied Egypt in 1882 and annexed it in 1914. Bulgaria, moreover, and later Serbia, Greece, and Montenegro, severed their connection with and declared their independence of the Turks. Not to be outdone by its neighbors, AustriaHungary seized Bosnia and Hercegovina only a few years before the Great War. Thus, from about 1800 to 1914, Turkey was being continually led to the slaughter and came within an ace of being sacrificed on the altar of European greed. It was only international rivalry and the ever-present jealousy that kept the Sick Man of Europe from being devoured by his voracious neighbors. Two causes were responsible for this helpless condition of Turkey, viz.: (1) its administration, which was based on the absolute authority of the Sultan, whose chief aim was to maintain it; and (2) the absence of a bond of loyalty on the part of the several disgruntled races within the empire, to their rulers.